The Beginning (The Life 1)

“What did you just say?”

“Yeah, I know, I felt pretty much the same way listening to that shit. She said things like that happens a lot.”

“What about the dad? Where’s he in all this?”

“According to Ella, the wife has him convinced that Gia is just clumsy. She said Gia used to act up when she first started working there, which is understandable since she’d just lost her mother at a young age, and her dad got remarried in less than a year and moved the woman and her kid in, pushing Gia to the side, her words.”

“What else did she say?”

“Just some other stuff about the way they treat her. Oh, she said things changed to how they are now about five years ago. Gia had kept a bottle of her mom’s perfume hidden somewhere in her room, and the stepmother found it and threw it away.”

“Ella said Gia cried for weeks if not months because she could no longer remember her mother’s scent. After that, she just kind of withdrew. She stopped going to dance class and gymnastics and any other afterschool shit she was into before.”

“That’s all I got. Oh, and the thing about Victoria turning all Gia’s childhood friends against her by lying about her. The rest we know, sort of.”

“Yo, Gabe, you breathing? Nah-nah-nah, get that look out your eyes, bruh. I didn’t tell you this to make you go apeshit. You just beat the douche like a week ago, you need to chill for at least six months, or unc is gonna lose his shit. I’m only telling you this, so you know. Besides, Aunt Sophie looks like she’s on it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how she is. Once she got through with the poor child this and how sad that she got that look in her eye that your sisters get when they’re about to demolish somebody. So, you know, maybe you better figure out what’s going on with you and Gianna because I think the women in your family plan to adopt her.” I wouldn’t be surprised.

“Let’s go eat.”

“If you go down there with your face looking like that, as skittish as she is right now, she’d probably bolt.”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

“Never mind, what do you plan to do?”

“What did I teach you about Sun Tzu?”

“Ah, shit, no. You’re not about to go Tony Montana on these people, are you? Because I gotta tell you, our town is too small for that shit.”

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

“Coulda fooled me. Didn’t you just bash somebody’s face in like a week ago?”

“There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“It means the douche was going to be a thorn in my side for way longer than I have time for, so I went with the thunderbolt approach.”

“Never mind, you know my dad is more into that crap than me. All this talk made me hungry; let’s go eat. Oh, by the way, you didn’t hear anything from me.”

“Of course.” I’m glad he told me because there’s no way I could’ve asked Sheila without her questioning my interest. I can’t even ask Gia about the hair-pulling thing because then she’d know that I put a listening device in her bag. At least I’ll be able to hear her if she needs me.

“So, tell me, how do you plan to subdue them?” Like I’m telling him. It was always my plan anyway to focus on building her up instead of tearing them down; that will come later.

GABRIEL

Dinner that night was more boisterous than the one before, with Sheila in the mix. The conversation centered around either the upcoming weekend trip or what Sheila had planned, the non-X-rated version for which I was grateful. I’d walked in on her regaling Ma with her exploits maybe once or twice before learning my lesson.

She toned it down to partying with her friends in the city and doing some shopping instead of debauchery and mayhem. There was lots of laughter and familial ribaldry; no one was left out. I realized something that I’d taken for granted for years, the ease with which both Sheila and Lance fit in with the rest of us.

There is no real difference in the way Pop treats Sheila compared to Ma and the twins or any other female in the family. At the dinner table, she’s not an employee, not that she is at any other time. She wasn’t even a friend, she’s family, and the reason I was paying attention to all this is because of Gianna’s reaction to the scene.

She looked, almost amazed. Last night she was too tense, I guess, to notice or to even pick her head up, or maybe it took a more colorful character like Sheila to bring it to the surface. I knew from the expression on her face as she looked around at everyone that she didn’t have this at home, and it broke my heart.