Chapter 7: Uncle Rino

Rino Vaccaro came up the drive at half past midnight with one leather bag and his arms already open.

"Look at this," he said. "Look at my nephew, dripping on the marble."

Ciro hugged him with a towel around his waist.

It was a real hug. Long, both arms, a slap on the back.

Then Rino turned to me.

"And you," he said. "The girl from the floor. Sweetheart, I know you. Gold sequins, gold heart."

"Trixie," I said.

"I know, sweetheart. I tipped you once."

"In hundred-dollar chips. You asked if I had a boyfriend."

He laughed, big and warm, the laugh that made every waitress on the floor feel safe.

"I'm sixty-one," he said. "I ask everybody."

He kissed both my cheeks. He smelled like cigars and the airplane.

Lexie came down the stairs in a lilac robe with Cillian a step behind her.

Rino's smile stayed exactly the same.

His eyes didn't.

"The Whalen boy," he said. "In my nephew's house. And his little friend."

"Lexie," Lexie said.

"Lexie. Like the car."

"That's a Lexus."

"Is it?" He patted her arm. "You'd know better than me, sweetheart. Your people always know the cars."

Lexie looked at his hand on her sleeve until he took it back.

The next morning Rino sat on the terrace in a silk shirt open at the collar, eating figs.

Ciro had gone to Nice with Cillian to see a man about the scooter.

Lexie was asleep.

I came out with my sparkling water, and Rino patted the chair next to him.

"Sit with an old man."

I sat.

He peeled a fig with a little silver knife.

The sun hit his wrist, and I saw the watch.

Rose gold. Patek Philippe. A perpetual calendar, with the moon phase in a little blue window.

That watch was new this year.

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