Robin Kaye - Romeo, Romeo

Copyright 2008 by Robin Kaye

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kaye, Robin.

Romeo, Romeo / Robin Kaye.

p. cm.

1.Italian AmericansFiction. 2. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3611.A917R66 2008

813.6dc22

2008022497
Printed and bound in the United States of America OPM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my grandparents, Anna Maria
and Antonio Orlando

ROSALIE RONALDI MADE A SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE FROM THE insane asylum. Okay, so it wasnt a real insane asylum; it was her parents's Bay Ridge home. But most days, it could pass for the Sicilian version of Bellevue. She pulled on her coat as the storm door snicked closed behind her, took a deep breath of cold early January air, and ran for the solace of her car.

Sitting through a typical Italian Sunday dinner at Chez, Ronaldi was always a lesson in self-control. Today it had become a lesson in avoidancemarriage avoidance.

For the life of her, Rosalie couldnt figure out why her mother would push a daughter she supposedly loved down the aisle. It wasnt as if the institution had brought Maria Ronaldi any happiness. Just the opposite.

Whenever Rosalie made decisions, she measured the odds and studied the statistical evidencesomething at which shed always excelled. With the divorce rate at 53 percent, if you added the number of unhappy marriages that wouldnt end in divorce because of religious beliefs or sheer stubbornness, which she estimated was running at about 46 percent, only 1 percent of all marriages could be considered happy. A person would have to be crazy to take a calculated risk with a 99 percent failure rate.

Rosalie was many things, but crazy wasnt one of them. As a child, shed made the decision never to marry, and nothing in her experience since had done anything but cement her resolve. Of course, if she said that, shed be breaking the eleventh commandment: thou shalt marry a nice Catholic boy (preferably Italian) and have babiesor go straight to hell.

Rosalie climbed into her VW Beetle and headed toward her Park Slope apartment. Turning onto the Prospect Expressway, she heard a funny thumping noise. Never a good sign. She pulled over to find her tire was as flat as matzo, and after a marathon Italian dinner, the waistband of her pants was so tight that if she took a deep breath, shed pop a button. God only knew what would happen when she bent down to change the tire.

Rosalie opened the trunk, expecting to see her spare tire. It was supposed to be right there, but all she saw was a big hole.

Great! Just what she needed. She stared into the trunk, turned to kick the flat tire, and called her brother the nicest name she could think of that fit him. Asshole.

Stronzo! She should have known better than to give him a hundred and sixty bucks to replace her spare tire. Shed told him to buy a full-sized spare, and he hadnt even gotten her one of those donuts. He's proprio un stronzo della prima categoria .

She had no problem calling Rich the world's biggest asshole in Italian. After all, God excused cursing if done in a second language. He gave bonus points for cursing in a third. Rosalie had a feeling shed be brushing up on her Spanish.

Dominick Romeo stood in the state-of-the-art garage of his flagship dealership, the largest car dealership in all of New York. Hed built it from nothing but brains and hard work. He owned a chain of dealerships that covered most of the East Coast, but hed be damned if he could figure out what was wrong with his Viper.

Nick checked the clock next to his private hydraulic lift and decided to call it a night. He was the only one unlucky enough to be there at five oclock on a Sunday evening. Anyone with the sense God gave a flea was at home digesting a traditional Italian supper, but not him. His car had chosen today to act up. He slammed the hood and cringed as the noise echoed through his aching head. Wiping grime from his hands, Nick contemplated one of the world's great mysteries: why man had ever combined computers and the internal combustion engine.

The weekend had started badly and gone downhill from there. On Friday, the offer hed made to acquire the one car dealership hed coveted since he was a boy had been rejected. Then on Saturday night, instead of being considerate about his loss, his girlfriend Tonya started making noises about marriage, leaving him no choice but to break things off. That led to tears on her part, more than half a bottle of Jack on his, and a screaming hangover Sunday morning.

The very morning he was awakened at six oclock by his mother's phone call reminding him it was his turn to take Nana to church. Experiencing Mass with Nana while hungover made him wonder whether Jesus really died for our sinsor because dying was less painful than listening to Nana sing. That morning, Nick had been tempted to give the cross a try himself. His broken-down Viper was the icing on the cake. Hed heard trouble came in threes. He must have gotten a double dose, because he was up to five at last count, which meant he had one more to look forward to.

Nick put a socket wrench away and switched off the lights. At least he knew hed find a cold beer and a warm bed at home. But unless he wanted to drive a wrecker, hed have to search the key box and move the cars blocking the entrance of the dealership to take a demo.

Nothing brought out the neighbors faster than parking a wrecker in front of his Park Slope brownstone. The dirty looks didnt bother himat least not enough to spend half an hour searching for keys and moving cars. Hell, hed lived in the same house since his birth thirty-one years earlier, back when Park Slope had almost as bad a rep as Bedford Stuy. If he wanted to park a garbage truck in front of his house, it was no one's business but his.

Nick wore his coveralls so he wouldnt get his clothes dirty sitting on the greasy bench seat of the wrecker and took off for home. He was almost there when he came across a disabled vehicle on the shoulder. A woman was kicking the shit out of a flat tire, paying no attention to the cars and trucks careening by at high speeds.