Chapter 6: The Peace Dinner

The Table met in the back room of Casa Lucchesi, under a painting of the Bay of Naples.

Five old men sat around a round table with their coffee cups.

They looked at me.

Carmine stood behind the empty chair next to his and pulled it out for me.

"Leona Ferrara," he said. "My wife by Christmas, if she'll have me."

"The napkin girl," said the oldest of them, a man with ears like cabbage leaves. "Your boy's girl."

"Not his anymore."

"She heard Vince in the cellar," Carmine said. "Tell them, Leona."

I told them.

I said it in four lines, flat.

The old man sniffed.

"And you'll swear to this on your mother's grave?"

"I'll swear on my father's wrench set," I said. "He was a mechanic. He didn't lie either."

Somebody snorted into his coffee.

The oldest man looked at Carmine for a long time.

"We'll hear it from the boy at the vote," he said. "Friday you dine with Orsini. Behave, Carmine. It's peace."

"I always behave."

"You've never behaved in your life," said the old man, and nearly smiled.

On Friday at seven I stood on the front step of the Orsini house in Elmwood Park.

I wore a green silk dress I had bought for a wedding I never went to.

It was cut low at the neckline and close through the hips.

I had decided in the car that I did not care who looked.

Carmine looked.

He stood beside me in a black suit and a black tie.

He had been looking since I came down the stairs.

"Say it," I told him.

"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," Carmine said.

"I'm about to sit through four courses pretending I'm not thinking about what's under that dress."

"Keep your hands to yourself."

"Never," he said, and opened the door.

The Orsini dining room had a long table under a chandelier, thick carpet, and a smell of roasted veal.

Ottavio sat at the head with his cane hooked on his chair.

Vince and Serafina sat side by side, close together.

She wore cream silk, he wore a stiff new suit, and her hand rested on his thigh.

Vince's eyes met mine and slid away.

A dozen Orsini men and their wives sat along the table.

They all watched to see what would happen when the old girlfriend sat down across from the new fiancée.

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