Chapter 6: My Signature

I stared at my own name until the letters stopped.

It was a good forgery.

The loop on the L. The little flag I put on the final g.

Whoever did it had seen me sign things many times.

Birthday cards. Leases. Restaurant checks.

"Did you sign this?" Tommaso asked quietly.

"No."

"Do you know what L. Dorrington Wine Company is?"

"No."

Pina took the invoice out of my hand and folded it into her bra.

"Now it's evidence," she said. "Nobody's taking it off me."

Tommaso drove us both home.

Pina lived in Bensonhurst, so he dropped her first.

At her curb she leaned back in through the van window and pinched my cheek hard.

"Tomorrow you come to my house for sauce. Both of you."

"Tomorrow's Sunday at my grandmother's," I said.

"So I'll bring the sauce to your grandmother's." She slapped the roof and walked off.

Tommaso watched her go.

"She's going to like your grandmother," he said.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

At eight the next morning he was at my door with two coffees and a manila envelope.

He looked like he hadn't slept.

He looked at the roses in my bathtub and didn't ask.

My apartment was one room and a kitchen.

My drawing table took up half of it.

It was covered in pencil sketches of a girl and a fox, for the book I was supposed to be finishing.

He stood in front of it a long time with his coffee.

"The fox looks like your grandmother," he said.

"Don't tell her."

"I'm going to tell her today."

He opened the envelope on my bed, because there was nowhere else.

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