Catherinelle by Diane Portman-Ray

 

1

 

When the bell rang announcing the end of the last period, all my classmates jumped out of their seats, despite Mrs. Morrison trying to say something about next week’s assignment. I felt bad seeing her ignored by twenty-five bratty adolescents with their noses up in the air, but she had to know what she signed up for when she decided to teach here. I liked the AP History class, but the mouse-like creature that was teaching it was not cut out for this. St. Joseph Academy was the most exclusive prep school in the state of New York – mostly because there weren’t a lot of people who could afford the tuition – but so were the students. Snobs, pompous, pretentious, you name it, and it could be found here. Predictable, of course, considering they were kids of officials, powerful business men and public figures. But not me, I wasn’t connected with any of that, but since half their daddies were on my brother’s payroll, I was fitting in just fine.

When people think about private school, they imagine classical music in the halls and a bunch of over achieving kids who will all secure a spot in an Ivy League college, and for the most part that was true, but it was also a no man’s land. You couldn’t send a student to detention for missing class or speaking during a course when they paid thousands of dollars to be there in the first place. I’ve always taken school seriously – I was valedictorian of my class since middle school – but this was my senior year, and I was planning to make the most of it before graduation because this pompous school was my window to the real world, a world outside mi famiglia.

I was walking down the tall hall, watching the sculpted gothic columns with my notebooks in my arms and the Prada bag my mom gifted to me a few weeks ago hanging on my shoulder when Miriam Wilson, the heiress of the luxury chain Wilson’s Resort and Spa, came next to me and bumped me with her shoulder. She and I, we weren’t enemies, but we weren’t friends either. We would sit together at lunch and sometimes grab a coffee afterschool to talk boys and magazines; we bumped into each other a couple of times at New York Fashion Week where both of us were present for the past couple of years, but that was it.

These people, they didn’t mean that much to me. I would not miss high school or my class mates after graduation, but I would miss the moments of running wild, sneaking away from class to catch a movie with no guards, or going to some party I wasn’t supposed to.

“Ugh, girl, I’m so jealous of your hair. I wish I could pull crazy colors like you do.”

The icy blond hair that was cut in a stylish way a little over my shoulders and cotton candy pink that was covering my tips had attracted compliments ever since I got it. It was chic, and I had Julio Gomez, from my cousin’s hair salon, to thank for it. He always made me look so pretty.

“Shut up, Miriam, you look perfect. What’s up?”

“Jason used his dad’s connection to get us into the Romano Sky Bar tonight. A terrace on the thirtieth floor in the middle of Manhattan, view over Bryant Park and the Empire State, and, most important, no ID check. You and me will drink our body weight in martinis tonight.” She was so excited, but I bit my tongue rather than tell her there was no drinking age in my family. Jason was the son of the president of New York City’s Chamber of Commerce, so it wasn’t surprising that he could get by with a few things here and there. “Just make sure you don’t dress like a child, ok? We need to look like sophisticated ladies.”

“Babe, I don’t know. I have to read The Color Purple for my lit class.”

“Cat, I swear to God, you’re the most boring rich girl I know.” Ah, if only she knew what living my life meant. “Just so you know, Nate will be there.”

Miriam elbowed me and smiled like a feline.

Nate McGregor, the star quarterback and boytoy millionaire. His parents owned some big transatlantic commerce company with their headquarters in Dublin, and because they were always out of the country, Nate was the ‘guy with the crib’. His house was always empty, so he threw all the good after parties. He was a pretty boy with dirty blonde hair that just discovered the gym a year ago and hadn’t left it ever since. I was not crazy about him, but I couldn’t deny that I liked the attention of the most popular guy in school. He fit right into my plan.

“I’m not making any promises, Mir, but I’ll call you later, ok?”

“Do me a favor and dodge that bodyguard of yours, ok? He’s hot and all, but he intimidates Jason, and that’s not good for his ego.”

I looked to the parking lot where Hugo was waiting in his brand new 4.6 HSE armored Range Rover and laughed under my breath. Undoubtedly, he was intimidating Jason. He could eat Jason for breakfast, bones and all.

“I’ll see what I can do about it.”

I wasn’t crazy enough to go through that much trouble for Miriam; she wasn’t all that fun to be around, and I’d seen her drunk before. Alcohol made her bitchy and inquisitive. The last time she started bombing me with questions about my family and what exactly it was that they were doing. I hated when that happened. They knew; the whole city knew, but sometimes my ‘friends’ felt the need to get specific.

“At least try, Catherinelle.”

“I will.”

With that, I left Miriam behind and walked to the car, throwing my bag in the back seat and jumping in the front next to Hugo, who was listening to some heavy west coast hip hop with his eyes closed and his head leaning back on the headrest. He completely ignored my presence, and I just sat there looking at him. I had gotten used to all the weird things he did.

Hugo Mustafa was a six-foot three mountain man. He had been around my family since before I was born, and I had never seen his parents, but I imagined his father to be the leader of a motorcycle club and his mother a sasquatch; that was the only combination that could justify him.

Hugo was a shredded man – I was surrounded by fit, good looking people, but he was the only one I knew with defined muscles on his neck. All the weight lifting was paying off for Hugo and so did the six-mile run he did every day. Those thighs? That ass? If he wasn’t my brother’s best friend and a known assassin, maybe I’d look twice. Ok, I admit it, maybe I did look once in a while. He was the sole essence of the word man: tall, dark, and rugged to the core in the most literal sense. He’d had one scar across his nose since he was sixteen and someone broke it with the buttstock of an AK-47 and one that crossed his lower lip that appeared the last time he was released from Ryker’s. All of that was reflected on his trashed soul.

The grey sweatpants and black tank top left his muscular arms and big chest to view, and I traced his tattoos with my eyes. They always intrigued me. Both his sleeves were made out of words, names, and passages from prayers, and on his chest, he had the words Sanctus Dominus written in a large font with dramatic letters. There was something thundering behind them, but I never had the guts to ask.

After a couple minutes, I got bored of watching and punched his shoulder, knowing very well it wouldn’t hurt him.

“Hey, big guy, are we going to stay here all afternoon?”

His stormy grey eyes snapped open, and he swallowed me whole with his enkindled gaze. I had gotten used to having Hugo around, even if I didn’t like it. There was no point in trying to reason with Gino about it so I learned to accept it, but no matter how much time we spent together, there were moments like this when I would look into his eyes and get dizzy. There was an intensity in his eyes, like he was holding thunderstorms captive behind his lids, that would make me catch my breath every time.

“Hello, princess. How was your day?”

He turned the car key in the dashboard, and the engine roared as he backed out of the parking lot. The car matched Hugo: fast, dangerous and massive.

“Do you ask because you care?”

“No,” he simply answered.

Hugo wasn’t a talker, that was for sure, and it pissed me off. Everyone knew who he was – the Albanian Monster – and what he did, but I never got through to him. We were raised under the same roof, and for the past few months he had been around me every day, but he insisted on keeping everything to himself, and I wasn’t used to not getting my way. I wanted to find the crack in his thick concrete walls.

“You know, Hugo, maybe you could start making an effort when you pick me up from school. You look like you’re going to a craps championship in the Bronx.”

He growled like a dog in the pound, irritated by my remark. This was the only kind of reaction I was able to get out of Hugo.

“Big words, coming from you, princess.”

And that’s how the game between us started every time. I was striking, and he was lashing back, and every time we got into a verbal match, I felt a little thrill in my gut because, other than my brother, Hugo was the only man who had the balls to fight with me. I might be five-six and a hundred and twenty-five pounds, including my ass, that was hanging quite heavy, but I had a big name, and that was enough to scare a lot of people.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You have a headband for a skirt, Cat. You look like a stripper dressed as a school girl.”

My black and red plaid skirt was exactly as long as it had to be, and my wool cardigan and high boots were covering most of my legs anyways, but I didn’t expect him to know anything about fashion.

“I’m going to tell Gino what you said about strippers.” And my brother wouldn’t appreciate it since he was about to marry one.

No one cared that Muse used to be a stripper, and if they did, they didn’t have the courage to utter a word while Gino still walked on this earth. He would cut out their tongues and hang them in the fish market to dry. Don Nucci didn’t take an offence to his wife very lightly. They weren’t married yet; the wedding was pushed back to the summer because Muse needed time to nourish her broken heart. A couple of months ago, she lost her brother to a bullet, and we all took that hit pretty hard.

Enzo was…he was an awesome guy. He taught me how to throw a football. Every time I saw a game on tv, my heart squeezed painfully remembering him. He was a few months younger than me when he passed, a kid that was cheated by life. The memories brought a bitter taste to my mind.

“Why the long face, princess?”

“Hmm? Nothing, I was just thinking about something. I need you to take me to 5th Ave. I need to do some shopping.”

“No can do. Gino has something to talk to you about, and Muse expects you home for lunch.”

Fuck, he knows I can’t say no to Muse.

“Fine. Are you staying for lunch?”

“No. Business.” One-word sentences were Hugo’s trademark, and I fucking hated it.

“Ugh, fine, but I might need a dress tonight, so I’ll call you back to drive me.”

“I’ll be at the Night Club on Broadway; you can call there. What do you need a dress for?”

“None of your business.”

“You’re not going anywhere if your brother doesn’t approve.”

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, looking away, but I was smiling inside. I liked the little Tom and Jerry game we had. I needed someone to challenge me, and boy, was he the man for it. But in the end, he wouldn’t be able to forget the one rule that dominated my life: A Nucci always gets what they want.

Hugo cut into traffic with one hand on the wheel and his tattooed elbow out on his window, in spite of the fact that it was December, and the air was frozen like a sheet of glass over the city. But inside the car, the heat was blasting so I didn’t complain.

No one spoke another word until he rolled down the street in Brooklyn where my brother lived and parked the car right in front of the gate. I loved this place; it was my childhood home. When I was little, I used to run up and down the stairs with my dad chasing me for a tickle, or I would sit by the door for hours waiting for Gino to come home from school or dad to come home from wherever he was. I was daddy’s girl growing up. I knew he was a fucked-up man, even for our world. He was too reckless for his own good, and even though Gino never talked about it, I knew what daddy did. No one could stop the whispers. My father died in disgrace because he sold girls, and that broke my heart every day because when he was alive, he loved me. I know he did. And I loved the fake image he had in daylight, when truly he was a monster at night.

When mom decided to move out of the city, to Great Neck, in a house right on the water, I told Gino I was not ready to leave the house, and he arranged an entire apartment for me on the floor we both used to have bedrooms on when we were growing up.

I turned to look at Hugo over my shoulder.

“It wouldn’t kill you to be nice to me once in a while.”

He growled almost like it was a reflex to anything I said. I knew he just wanted me to go so he could go back to running around town, putting the fear of God into people, but I was tired of being pushed away by one of my own.

“What are you talking about?” The annoyance vibrated through his words.

“I’m not happy Gino put you on my case either, ok? And I was fine with you treating me like I have the plague when I’d only see you once a week when you came to drop Gino’s share from the clubs or at some family party making out with a whore in a dark corner. Now it feels personal.”

I didn’t know what shifted inside me, but it did. I wanted to just serve him another sharp line, make him frustrated because it was part of the game I got used to playing with him the past couple of months, but instead, as crazy as it was, I was starting to feel hurt. Utterly hurt. I had never done anything to Hugo, but it didn’t stop him from pushing me away, and the worst part was I was the only one. Yeah, he was a taciturn bull, talking more with his eyes than with his mouth, but I saw him with my brother, when he relaxed and let that frown he had on his face smooth out. Every time he drove me to my mom’s house, he would kiss her on the cheek before making his way back to the city, and when our family gathered, he made time to play with my younger cousins, pretending to chase them around, so I knew he was capable of human fucking interaction.

“What’s with the extra bitchiness today, Cat?” Without thinking I stretched my hand over the console and punched him in the shoulder hoping he felt something. “The fuck?”

“Go to hell, Mustafa.” He looked at me like I was crazy, and to be fair, I couldn’t make sense of the way I was acting myself. “Forgive me for trying to actually have a conversation with you. I’m done.” I opened the car door and stepped out, turning only to gather my things from the back seat. “Treat me how you want, but next time, remember that I’m still your boss’s sister.”

I smashed the door so hard, the car shook behind me, and I walked to the house with powerful strides, I might have even left prints of my high heels in the pavement, and didn’t stop until I was in the foyer. I let my head fall back on the closed door and took a deep breath. I didn’t know where that anger had started or why, but it was like a tsunami, and now that the waters were settling, I was left struck with confusion.

Hugo’s lack of interest in my life had been bugging me for years, but I always thought it was because even if our lives were irreversibly intertwined, our points of contact were few and far between. I got why he wasn’t the first to RSVP to my unicorn themed tea parties when I was six years old or why he didn’t show up when I started high school and had a proper mafia pomp. In all fairness, when I started high school, he was in jail waiting for his court date. But now things were different; he was my shadow from the moment I woke up to the time I put my head on the pillow. All I was asking for was some basic emotion.

I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders, crossing the entry to the main elevator and hitting the button for the third floor. Hugo said Muse was waiting for me, and this floor was dedicated to common rooms, including the kitchen, dining room, home cinema, living room and a place where Gino went to box sometimes.

The elevator made the bing sound, and the doors slid open. The smell was the first thing that got to me, and only then did I realize I was famished – or maybe I wasn’t, but the aroma would make a fasting monk ready to sit down and enjoy the meal. A symphonic voice was serenading the room, and I recognized it instantly; it was Montserrat Caballe and her magistral interpretation of Mio Bambino Caro at the Munich National Opera House. Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi was Gino’s favorite opera, and when Caballe had that stunning performance back in 1990, my brother took me to Germany, and we watched it live.

I followed the sound to the kitchen and found my brother and his Muse dancing slowly around the kitchen isle. From their impermeable bubble of love, they didn’t notice my presence so I stopped and watched them for a second. Her hand was over his chest, and his was covering it. My brother’s other hand was wrapped around her waist, sealing their bodies together. I liked to see my brother like that, his face pure jubilation and his steps light, because it was a rare sight.

What most people didn’t understand was that we weren’t just a crime family. We were mob royalty. The Nucci family had a chunk of everything the city had to offer. When the world was thinking about my kin or my brother, they thought of drugs, nightclubs, maybe a restaurant or two, and illegal poker games, but they were blind to the rest. Yeah, there were restaurants and clubs and a few open lines for cocaine to flow in and out of New York, but my family’s hand stretched way beyond that. Their farmer’s markets, their tailoring shops, factories, hair salons, barber shops, bodegas? The buildings where the sharks were making big stacks of money with their Harvard law degrees? The car shops and laundromats? All part of the Nucci capital, and all the cash was coming to Gino before he would split it with the family, his soldiers and his associates. That was an enormous power but also a dangerous responsibility. He was literally Damocles with the deadly sword hovering ubiquitously over his head. All of that faded when he was with Muse.

The song came to an end, and they melted into a kiss that grew deeper and deeper until I felt the need to clear my throat and let them know I was there.

“Am I interrupting?” I asked with a malicious smile on my face.

“What took you so long to get home?” Gino asked.

“It’s half past three, Gino. There was traffic.”

I dismissed him and gave Muse a warm hug.

“Hungry, Cat?”

“Yes! Something smells amazing. What is it?”

“Baked ziti, your favorite.”

We all sat together around the twelve seat round table, bathed in the milky December light that was entering through the large windows, and she served us the food. Most of the food I had when I was in the city during the week was prepared by Flora Maria who was one of the maids in the house responsible for the kitchen and doubled as a home chef, or I would go out to eat, but I loved when Muse was cooking. It wasn’t about the food per se, but she had a warm way of serving it. It made me feel taken care of.

No one talked much during the meal, just a few lines here and there, but the rest of the time, we were surrounded in a comfortable silence. Just like a family.

“Gino, your dog told me you have something to talk about,” I said after licking the last trace of ziti from my plate.

“Hugo?”

“Yep.” The thorn in my side.

“You two aren’t on good terms again?” His brow crooked in annoyance.

“Not exactly.”

“I suggest you kiss and make up because he’s moving in for a few days.”

Excuse me, what? Why would Hugo come to live here? He had his own fucking place.

“Why?!” I threw my hands up, exasperated.

My house was the last place I wanted Hugo to look at me with a frown on his face and a growl on his lips.

“Because Muse and I are leaving for a trip.”

“Uh,” I pinched Muse over the table, “is he taking you on a romantic getaway?”

“Yes, even if I insisted we don’t need another one. He should be busier than he actually is.”

“Where?” I was excited even if I wasn’t invited.

“Muse and I will sail in the Mediterranean for a week or two. We’re flying to Catania tonight, and we’re embarking three days from now.”

“And why does Hugo need to move in? I was home alone before, Gino. I don’t need the extra security. The small army you have up and down the street is enough.”

“I won’t have any service, Cat, or any way to get in contact with you. I’m leaving Roman in charge of my business here and Hugo in charge of you.” I had never heard a more horrible sentence. “Or you could go stay with mom for two weeks.”

That wasn’t an option. I wasn’t about to miss two full weeks of my senior year, and coming from Great Neck every morning would mean waking up at four in the morning.

“Can’t you make Vito stay with me? Or Ignazio? I like Ignazio.”

“I don’t need him to be your friend, Cat. I want someone here who can keep you in line.”

I rolled my eyes. I broke my curfew a few times, ran from my guards on a few occasions to grab a cocktail with my school friends or smoke a joint with the football team. I didn’t do it often, but it was all part of the normal high school experience.

“Oh, my God, Gino, don’t make me live with him too.”

“Catherinelle, stop acting like a spoiled kid. Hugo will be here, end of story, and if you start acting like an adult, maybe he’ll treat you like one.”

“Ginooo…” I cried. “He just called me a bitch.”

His mouth opened and then closed again, giving himself a moment to think.

“I’ll talk to him, and it will never happen again, but it doesn’t change anything. Hugo will be staying with you for the next two weeks.”

Fuck. It.