Fools Paradise Read online

  She only hoped the Mortons would be as hung over as her cousins.

  Goomba got up late and ate a monster breakfast, keeping her running back and forth with the coffeecup and fresh waffles for over an hour. “Got to be fueled up for the big day,” he said when she gave him a look along with his six waffle. “How about some eggs, angelina? Sunny side up with the next waffle.”

  So of course she was still cooking breakfast when the useless boys staggered out of bed at eleven, which meant mixing up a whole new batch of waffle batter and two more pots of coffee.

  “Don’t worry, angelina, we’ll pitch in,” Goomba assured her.

  “Coffee,” Vince said, holding out his cup while he scarfed waffle.

  Daisy snorted.

  She had just four hours to get the tiramisu made. That was her biggest worry. The ladyfingers would take two hours. Then it was just a matter of throwing stuff together and refrigerating it.

  She put a big frozen lasagne on the countertop to thaw for lunch.

  In theory, some of Tony’s ex-wives and Vince’s ex and a couple of Mikey Ray’s girlfriends were bringing food, and if Tony’s ex Valerie came she’d have serious help. But that wasn’t until one o’clock.

  She didn’t feel she could count on the Morton women chipping in with covered dishes.

  By eleven-thirty the ladyfingers were cooling on the table and Wesley was guarding them while she filled the large spaghetti pot with beer batter for the smelt.

  At noon, she put the lasagne in the oven.

  At one o’clock the men rolled in from tapping and sampling the beer kegs and she had to break off to put the lasagne and some fresh garlic bread in the dining room and rescue the ladyfingers from predators. Then it was a sweaty hour of assembling tiramisu while she ferried coffee to the men in the dining room, got the dessert in the freezer for the first half hour, ran up and downstairs with six loads of laundry, put Wesley to work with the vac, and kept the bread machine fed.

  At noon Goomba came in, looking indignant. “Some people don’t seem to know that an invitation for three means three o’clock.”

  “What?” Daisy looked up from slathering garlic butter on eight more loaves of fresh bread. “Oh, no.” All they needed was a pre-party fight between Goomba and some Mortons. I can’t police him and cook! she thought, panicking.

  “Like I can’t throw a party for my own granddaughter!”

  Behind him, someone big and blond loomed in the kitchen door.

  “I thought you might like some help,” Bobbyjay said.

  “We’re doin’ fine!” Wesley snapped.

  Daisy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Bobbyjay looked around the disaster-area kitchen with mild curiosity. At the sight of his big bland face, a lump formed in her throat.

  “You’re bossing the job,” he said. “Where you want me?”

  “Goomba?” Daisy said helplessly.

  Her grandfather looked at her fiancé with loathing. “Work with the women,” he said inexcusably.

  Daisy squeezed Wesley’s arm with a buttery hand. “I really don’t think I can trust Bobbyjay with the laundry. Would you bring the last load up to my bedroom and sort it, buddy?”

  Wesley glowered at Bobbyjay and hunched a shoulder at his grandfather. “Gladly.” He vanished into the basement.

  Goomba went out, letting the door bang behind him.

  Daisy burst into tears.

  “Hey,” Bobbyjay said and patted her shoulder.

  She threw herself on his chest. “I can’t c-cry now. I have f-fifty people coming at three and I don’t have any of the n-napkins ironed.”

  He put his chin on her head and stopped an attack of hiccups in their tracks. “I thought we were having a fish fry. You don’t use, like, napery at a fish fry.”

  “Tell Goomba,” she sniffed. “He’s determined to do this like it’s the wedding already.”

  “Nah, he’s just needling ya,” Bobbyjay said easily, and she burst into sobs again because she hadn’t allowed herself to think of it like that before.

  “I could kill him,” she said, gulping. “He sent the guys to the liquor store and back twice with new kegs because he thought the ones they brought were stale. I’ve cooked two meals for them today. We were going to order from Mocogni’s for antepasto and now he wants me to make it from scratch, and we don’t have enough flatware, and—” the hiccups caught hold at last.

  “Hey, hey. No big.” It was funny how dumb words from a dumb guy could make so much sense. She let him pat her on the back. “Has it occurred to you that you can do this with, like, plastic forks and paper napkins?”

  Daisy sucked in her breath. “No way. Goomba wants to impress your relatives.”

  “You mean he wants to get in their faces. And pay you back at the same time. What do you say I go buy a gross of picnicware and you let the napkin ironing slide?”

  She caught her breath. “He’ll never forgive me!”

  “Tell him you had me ironing the napkins and I burnt holes in ’em.”

  She laughed. “You couldn’t!”

  “Want me to show you?” he offered. “I suck at ironing. Think it through. You kill yourself ironing napkins. My bozos show up and they’re all, like, what’s with the formal dining touches? It’s a fish fry. They’ll have a horse laugh. That want your grandfather wants?”

  She wiped her eyes on his tee shirt. “You’re the devil, aren’t you? Okay you talked me into it. Only you don’t have to buy anything. We have all the plastic stuff in the basement.”

  “Great. Wesley’ll show me where it is. I’ll bring it out to the back yard and take the heat.”

  That stopped her laugh. “What will you say?”

  “I’ll say, Daisy decided she din’t have time to do the napkins, on account of I told her my uncle’s ex-wife is bringing deviled eggs and she was afraid she’d get showed up, so she’s makin’, uh....”

  Daisy’s face fell. “I don’t have time to cook anything more!” she wailed.

  “What you got in the freezer? Anything special?”

  In awe, she said, “You really are the devil. I’ve been saving some cannoli for a rainy day. Goomba loves ’em. He won’t yell if you tell him I’m making that.”

  To her surprise Bobbyjay leaned over and smooched her on the lips. “We’re a team, babe.” He dashed down the basement stairs before she could speak.

  Wesley grumbled for the next two hours, but she didn’t care. Bobbyjay really was useful. With Vince blundering around the kitchen trying to get his own snack, and Tony making dark remarks about disloyalty, and a steady stream of ex-Ditorelli ex-wives trying to bring covered dishes into the kitchen instead of putting them on picnic tables in the back yard, every time she caught sight of Bobbyjay’s mild countenance, the tight place eased in her chest and she thought maybe they’d get through the day without bloodshed. Or at least without the hostess collapsing.

  Bobbyjay realized that Marty Dit was getting his revenge for the napkin scam when he ordered the engaged couple to man the fryers. Daisy had found time to do her hair and her makeup, oh well, but she still looked great, sloe-eyed and flushed, like jail bait in a big chef’s apron. Apparently Marty Dit made a habit of frying smelt. He had four of those turkey fryer things that Bobby Junior had used to set fire to his own eyebrows two years ago Thanksgiving. Daisy dipped smelt into the batter, shook them off, and laid the dipped fish on the rack, and Bobbyjay slid them into the hot oil and scooped them out onto newspaper.

  Every single male Morton made a remark about how the smelt weren’t fresh, but frozen.

  Every single time, Marty Dit responded with a big smile. “These fish are a gift from God. They brought me a new grandson-in-law.”

  Only Bobbert sniggered.

  The rest of Bobbyjay’s relations gave the old man a suspicious look and retired back to their side of the shade under the big tarp.

  As a social function, it was a bit slow.

  Bobbyjay would live to laugh at that thou
ght. Eventually.

  The Ditorelli two-flat was situated on a double lot. This allowed room for a ping pong table on the lawn. Bobbyjay could see the marks where a volleyball net would be set up, later in the summer. He shuddered to think what trouble the two families could get into over a volleyball game. Two of Mikey Ray’s ex-girlfriends challenged two of Rob the Snob’s teenage step-sons to a ping-pong tournament. Bobbyjay, trying to keep his elbows out of the Frymax thirty feet away, reflected that those four were probably far enough from the eye of the smelt-Targa hurricane to play safely on their own.

  He should have been watching his own cousins.

  Tommy and Jack Yu and Liz Ryback biked in. Everybody went out front to look at their machines.

  That was when Bobbert started in on the old man.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It started in the driveway, over Jack Yu’s bike. Marty had to use every scrap of his self control not to smack that little punk, Bobbert Morton.

  “You still got that old Targa, Marty?” the punk said, as if he had a right to refer to a capo by his first name.

  Marty bristled inside. He had been waiting for the bastardos to mention the Targa for hours. The fact that not a whisper of his car’s fate had hit the street yet was proof that Bobby Senior was involved.

  Marty turned slowly, buying time. “She’s in the shop.”

  “’Samatter with it?” Bobby Junior said, shooting his nephew a smirk.

  “That’s a gorgeous car,” Tommy Monforti put in. “What year is it?”

  “Seventy-seven,” Marty said to Tommy, blessing him for a peacemaker.

  “I would never have a car with a moon roof,” Rob the Snob Morton said. “Sure as shit, rain gets in.”

  Marty clenched his teeth. Think of your granddaughter’s happiness. “The leather was getting cracked. I’m getting red leather. Not so dirt-prone as white.”

  “Yeah, wet leather smells like hell. You don’t ever get that clean again,” Bobbert said.

  You little shit. I’ll fix you.

  “Yeah, wet leather is a bitch,” Jack Yu said.

  Marty put his fists in his pockets and squeezed.

  “Yo, did I miss the food?”

  Marty spun around.

  Badger Kenack ambled up, his eyes flicking from one to another of the men standing around Jack’s bike. “I see you drafted Bobbyjay for fry duty. ’Samatter, wouldn’t Tommy help?”

  “I offered,” Tommy said. He would help anybody do anything. Ordinarily, Marty would have exploited Tommy in a heartbeat.

  “No, no,” Marty said, laying an arm over Tommy’s shoulders. “Bobbyjay insisted. He’s very loyal...to my granddaughter.” There. That ought to raise a few hackles.

  Bobby Junior rose to the bait first. “What are you saying?”

  With an exaggerated look of innocence Marty turned to him. Puppy. I kicked your ass when you were twenty and I can kick it again. “Why, he’s been working here all afternoon. He even helped Daisy with the fish, the night they were caught.”

  Bobby Junior scowled, and Marty felt a glow.

  “He’s dumb but he ain’t disloyal,” Bobby Junior growled, playing into Marty’s hands.

  “Oh, he isn’t dumb. And I’m sure Bobbyjay would never do something stupid out of loyalty...to my granddaughter.”

  Bobby Junior went purple. Over his shoulder Marty spotted the old fucker, Bobby Senior, Bobby the first, the instigator, the bastardo, coming out of the house wiping his hands on his jeans.

  Watch while I get your dumbass son to take a swing at me in my own back yard, Marty thought. “Good thing she’s smarter than he is, huh?” he said. “She’ll keep him on the straight and narrow. They can move in here after the honeymoon—that flophouse where he lives won’t do for my Daisy. These two loafers of mine are ready to get their own place anyway.”

  Vince said, “Hey!”

  Tony looked up with an expression of shock on his phiz.

  Marty glanced over at Bobby Senior and was annoyed to see that he was whispering to Bobbyjay.

  “You foxy old sonofabitch,” Bobby Junior said. Here it comes. I hope Badger has the sense to let him throw the punch. I can’t send the fucker to jail on an almost-assault.

  Bobbyjay looked up, startled, and Marty could swear he saw a dozen thoughts cross that big dumb face at once.

  Marty looked back at Bobby Junior. No point in getting his face messed up if he could dodge and take it on the shoulder instead. But Bobby Junior was goggling at Bobbyjay, his jaw at half-cock.

  Every guy around Jack Yu’s bike was goggling.

  Marty turned back.

  Bobbyjay Morton was locked in a clinch with his granddaughter, holding her so tightly that Marty’s blood pressure shot up to at least 150. While they all watched, dumbfounded, Daisy rubbed Bobbyjay’s back all over and Bobbyjay pulled the hairpins out of Daisy’s hair until it fluffed out over his arms.

  The kiss went on and on. Marty couldn’t breathe. That’s my baby you’re mauling! He was just about to throw something when he noticed the look on Bobby Junior’s face.

  Bobby Junior looked about to have a coronary.

  Rob the Snob’s mouth hung open.

  Bobbert Morton looked outraged, and his brother Raybob punched his arm, saying, “Fuckin’ A, look at that.”

  But Bobby Senior was the icing on the cake. Bobby Senior stood two feet away from the kissing couple with his eyes bugged out, his cup of beer spilling unnoticed onto his shoes, and a gathering darkness on his brow that Marty hadn’t seen there since 1980, when he, Marty, had soaked a roll of carpet remnant in kerosene, tucked it under Bobby Senior’s car, and tossed a match.

  “Ain’t love wonderful?” Marty croaked.

  Daisy couldn’t breathe. Bobbyjay’s arms crossed her back so far that he was copping a feel on the opposite tit with each hand. He bent her backward and squeezed her up against his broad chest until she squeaked into his mouth.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped when he finally gave her some air.

  “My relatives are baiting your grandfather. He don’t look to be takin’ it so good. Don’t look! Just kinda glimpse at him.”

  She flashed a glance past Bobbyjay’s thewy shoulder. “Goomba’s smiling,” she said gloomily.

  “So do sharks. My dad was about to poke him in the snoot.”

  Daisy risked another peek. “God, you’re right, they’re all furious.”

  “So, like, let’s give them some distraction.” Bobbyjay pecked her on the ear. She looked back at him and he lunged for her mouth again.

  Oh, okay, she thought, Anything to keep the peace. She stopped thinking after that. Bobbyjay swung her back and forth. He slow-danced her away from the fish fryers. She was dimly aware, as she wrestled with his tongue, of passing human shapes as still as statues.

  My whole family is watching. Poor Wesley. Goomba must be stroking out. And Tony. Damn his black soul, she thought piously and let herself fall upward into Bobbyjay’s tightening embrace. God, Bobbyjay could kiss. The thought that all those guys were watching sent a shiver down into her parts, made her want to wrap her legs around Bobbyjay until she found something to rub against.

  After a long giddy moment Bobbyjay raised his mouth. “Don’t you have any, like, bushes or anything?” He massaged her tits shamelessly.

  “Patio door,” she gasped. When I get you down cellar I am going to give you such a talking to.

  Bobbyjay grunted into her mouth and they stumbled through the patio door. He drew the blinds across the glass with one hand.

  She hauled off to slap him and he stopped her easily with two fingers. “Wait.” He twiddled the venetian blinds shut. “Okay, now you can hit me.”

  Daisy let him have it on the arm. After all, it was a pretty good kiss. “Are you insane? What did you think you were doing?”

  “Distracting them. Now they won’t think about fighting for wondering what we’re doing down here.”

  “Wait a minute! We can’t stay here! We have thirty p
eople in the back yard!”

  “Half of whom want to kill the other half.” Bobbyjay turned on the TV.

  “Half of whom? Fancy talk.”

  “Don’t you start.” He collapsed onto the crappy old sofa. He looked darned good in his beer-batter-streaked tee shirt and jeans. Daisy tried to stay annoyed with him and couldn’t.

  She kicked his sneaker and he moved over. “I usually love giving parties,” she said, dumping herself next to him.

  “This ain’t a party, this is the fuckin’ Middle East peace talks. Minus the peace.”

  She let her head lean back and, sure enough, his arm was back there behind her. “Mmm.” Warm arm. “I smell like fish.”

  “Me too.”

  “Again.”

  “Yeah,” Bobbyjay said. “Does it occur to you, this makes twice my family has blind-sided your grandfather and twice he’s got you and me stinking like smelt?”

  She rolled her head against his arm to look at him with surprise. “That’s true.” She thought. “He is smarter than most of your guys.”

  “He’s smarter than most of the fuckin’ Local. It don’t make him popular.”

  “I think brains are kind of like, you know, a touch of polio or something,” she said. “It makes you different. And people look at you funny.”

  “They’ll find a cure for polio someday,” Bobbyjay said darkly.

  “So are you smart or what?” Daisy said, startled at the bitterness in his voice. “You put on the dope for Goomba, and I saw you do it with that Pete Packard guy, too. Like you think you can blend in with the dopes.”

  “It’s blend in or die. Look at Bobby Senior. He’s a lot smarter than he looks, but he’s got the sense to hide it. The Local don’t re-elect him every three years for acting like he’s better’n everybody else.”

  Daisy eyed him curiously. “Well, he’s better at faking dumb than you are. I mean, who cares if you’re smart? You’re not running for office.”