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Chapter Sixty-Three

LUNA

Carmine and I stayed up texting until six in the morning.

He told me about his record collection. I explained Spotify.

Then he surprised me with a story about sitting in on a recording session with Frank Sinatra in Milan. Carmine held a baby Nancy Sinatra in his arms. Turns out, she was a Strega. A weak one, but she had the blood.

I told him about the time Richie got drunk and drove into the desert looking for a shortcut.

He emptied the revolver we kept under the seat, shooting at small animals in the dark.

He didn’t even know how to build a fire to cook the gophers he missed.

I found him before he died of dehydration.

He blamed me for hiding the Advil in the glovebox and stocking the survival kit with a Clif bar flavor he didn’t like.

Carmine told me about tape recorders, changing television stations, and how cocaine made blood taste bitter, but marijuana was kind of nice.

He described how movies were listed in the newspaper.

I linked him to Fandango, which caused more trouble than it was worth, since he tapped it and got out of the app where I was tech-splaining and it took him ten minutes to get back.

My eyes got heavy imagining his voice describing how you’d take pictures, remove the cartridge of film, bring it to a little house in a parking lot, and then I woke up four hours later with the sun in my face and the last question on my mind.

Do you show up in pictures?

Brushing my teeth, I decide that, with everything going on, getting eight hours’ sleep is an achievement. I head down to the kitchen for breakfast-slash-lunch-slash-whatever.

“Lunagirl.” Mom hugs me as soon as I get there. “Did you eat? I’d fix you a plate, but that Alex person would have a lot to say.”

“I would say more than ‘a lot.’” Alex appears out of nowhere in a crisp white apron and cream shirt that offsets their dark brown skin. “Good afternoon, Luna. Coffee?”

“Sure.” I lean over a basket at the center of the island and undress it, unfolding the corners of a cloth napkin. Muffins. Alex pours cream into a mug.

“There you are.” Serafina stands in the doorway in a new chunky red cardigan that’s falling off one shoulder. One finger holds her place in a book. “You missed breakfast.”

Alex slides the coffee in my direction and pulls a set of tongs from a hidden drawer. “Blueberry or chocolate chip?”

The food in Italy was fantastic, but I miss the choice between either fruit or candy in a handheld cake.

“Chocolate chip.”

They put it on a plate. I snap off a piece of the top. Somehow, it’s still warm, which makes it super mouth-melty, sticky, and crisp at the edge. It’s the best thing I ever ate. I swallow and crack off another piece.

“You knocked on my door,” Serafina says.

“You were sleeping.”

“Not after you knocked.”

Alex has an eyebrow raised, waiting for me to say what they know is true.

“I saw Carmine.” I brush crumbs off my fingertips. “I had to go out since he can’t come in. You have the terrace access. So, anyway, no big. I went through the living room.”

“Did he take you to his coffin?”

“Shut up,” I grumble around a mouthful of muffin.

“He took another dip in the trough,” Serafina murmurs.

“I don’t have a choice!” I immediately regret that.

It’s not fair. It’s borderline malicious.

Yeah, I’m in thrall, but that’s an excuse.

Carmine’s not compelling me to fuck him in a gondola on Central Park Lake.

He could, but if I didn’t want to, he wouldn’t touch me.

To pretend I’m putting up any kind of resistance is pure rationalization.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re being a real bitch, but you’re right.”

“No, I’m not right,” she says. “And I’m being an asshole. Stop apologizing. I’m not being nice and I hate it.”

Serafina sniffs hard and looks away as if that will keep me from noticing the slick of tears building in her eyes. Mom gets up and joins Alex by the sink—cleaning up to leave the two of us alone.

“Take it back,” she says. “The apology. Take it back.”

Admitting she’s right again defeats the purpose of what she’s trying to do and does nothing to enforce my agency over my own regret.

“I’m not sorry, and fuck you.” I eat the last bite of muffin top, then brush the crumbs off my fingers. She plops down on the chair closest to me.

Reading people’s emotions means knowing when they’re weaving a story to distract from a real problem. It also means knowing that just tearing through the net of confusion only traps them in it.

“Fuck me, because I’m jealous that you went out.

” She waves at the window, but doesn’t go to it.

“And I can’t. Because, one: They’re out there, day and night.

They don’t seem horrible, and it’s not like I have anywhere else to go.

It’s the idea that I’m some kind of hairy moon-monster, but also?

The fucking nerve of all of them to stand there. ”

“Especially the hot one.” Mom passes the doorway, drying her hands. “Little rugged for me, but cute.”

“Which one is hot?” I leap to the window.

“I think Orlando Lugano is the hot one,” Alex calls out.

“Is that him?” I point at a man sitting on a bench in front of the park wall. I can’t see his face from here. Could be Orlando. Could be Pedro Pascal. “He’s the hot one?”

“Stop calling him that.” She picks up my muffin plate as if she’s been mad at it the whole time. “I just saw my Domenico murdered five days ago.”

She stomps into the kitchen, drops the plate into the sink and leans into it as if she’s going to puke. I step in her direction, but Mom gives me a “back off” look.

Alex pours a glass of water from the fridge pitcher and puts it where Serafina can reach it.

“No one else is hot, okay?” Serafina says.

“Okay. Understood.”

Serafina drinks the whole glass of water and slaps it down empty.

“I saw what that monster did to Domenico with my own eyes.” Her chest and shoulders hitch and she’s failing to hold back tears. “Laro took his vocal cords first so he couldn’t scream.” She puts the heels of her hands to her eyes. “He broke every bone from the outside in. He made me tell him…”

Alex presses a steaming hot, damp towel into my hands, then squeezes my shoulder and walks out—job done.

When Serafina takes away her hands, I hold up the towel, and she lets me cover her face with it as she sobs.

“He tortured my Domenico until I told him everything.” She sniffs and takes away the towel.

“He promised to stop. Promised he’d just kill him when I said it all, but there was always more to tell…

until he scented you. He left me there with him.

I loved him. That stupid thick-headed man.

He was mine and…” She works hard to control her sobs.

“If I leave here, it’s leaving him. Things will happen.

I’ll forget him. That’s why I can’t even go outside.

It makes no sense but it’s true. If I go out, it’s like forgetting him. ”

Growing up, my mother never met an emotion she couldn’t ignore, but that’s changed. She waves to me, pressing Serafina toward the living room and says, “Get her on the couch.”