Chapter 5: A Dollar a Year

Nobody moved.

The four ladies under the dryers looked at Mauro over their magazines.

The one on the end had rollers the size of soup cans.

"I've got twenty minutes left on this set," she said. "I'm not walking down Passyunk with wet hair for you, Mauro Sabatino. I knew your grandmother."

Annette folded her arms.

"You heard her. They're processing."

Mauro looked at the four of them.

He could clear the Delaware waterfront with a phone call.

He couldn't clear four old ladies out of a salon on a Sunday.

He turned back to me.

"You went to a priest."

"I did."

"You told a priest what goes on in my house."

"Nothing goes on in your house," I said. "That's what I told him."

The lady with the soup cans made a little noise and turned a page.

Mauro put both hands flat on Annette's counter, on either side of the slacks I was hemming.

He was close enough that I could see where he'd cut himself shaving.

"Do you know what they said to me on the church steps?"

"I was there."

"My own men."

"Your own men laughed at me at your own table," I said. "Three years ago. You laughed with them. You said my father taught me that one."

His jaw moved.

He didn't say anything.

"So now you know what it sounds like from the other side," I said. "That's all. It's just a sound."

Behind him the dryers hummed.

Annette had stopped pretending to sweep.

"Stop this," Mauro said, quieter. "Come home. You'll have your room, your car, your card. In a month nobody remembers."

"No."

"Giada."

"You keep saying my name like it's going to work."

He straightened up and pushed his hair off his forehead.

"Then what do you want? Tell me a number. I'll write it."

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