“But he’s happy now, right? I mean, he seems like he’s a good dad.” Which is a straight-up lie. Vince seems like he’s a good serial killer, but not a good father.
“Oh, he loves his boy.” Charlie says it quietly like she’s trying to convince herself and sips her drink, but she doesn’t elaborate.
“What about Vince’s parents?” I ask as I watch the slight night breeze push the pool water in tiny lapping waves. “Were they happy about Emilio?”
“They only knew him for a little while,” Charlie says, twirling some hair around a finger and letting it go. “He was four months old when they died. Actually, that vacation we went on was the first time I was apart from Emilio since the day he was born and it was so hard for me. But everyone insisted it would be good, you know, to get a little break from the night feedings even though he was starting to sleep more and more by then.”
“Do you think Vince’s dad would’ve been a good grandfather?” I sip my wine to try to make it seem like I’m being much more casual than I actually am.
Her lips pull down into a strange grimace, and I realize she seems terrified. “God, no,” she says softly. “No, not at all. I wanted to keep that man far from my baby.”
“Why?” I ask, confused and elated by her response. I don’t fully get why she’s so terrified of Benvolio Manzini, but clearly her relationship with him was complicated and strained at best—and every time I mention him, I feel like I get a little more insight into what happened to him. Even if Charlie doesn’t know anything, it seems pretty clear that people hated the asshole and maybe it’s better he’s dead.
“I grew up with difficult men,” she says quietly, not looking at me, staring off into the distance like she’s remembering some bad things. “Very hard men. Not very kind people. But Benvolio was worse than all of them combined and I know this sounds bad, I know it’s really, really terrible, but Grace, I’m not sad he burned.” She looks at me with wide eyes and her face is all drained of color, and I can see the pure, utter terror deep down in her body. “I’m not sad he’s dead at all.”
My heart’s racing and I open my mouth to ask her to explain, to ask her why she wouldn’t care that the grandfather of her child is dead and buried—
“Grace!”
But someone calls my name and I jump basically ten feet into the air.
Vincent walks toward me with a big smile on his face. Calvino is gone and I don’t know where, and I’m alone with these two people and I suddenly feel more trapped than I ever have been in my life.
“Hey, honey,” Charlie says vaguely and looks up at her husband with that strained smile she gets whenever he comes near.
“I was hoping I could borrow Grace for a second,” Vince says, still grinning like he’s got the look stapled to his skull. “Do you mind?”
“Go on ahead,” Charlie says, and I note that he’s not asking me, not at all. He expects me to get up and obey his summons.
And hell, I do it, because he’s scary as hell and because Calvino’s nowhere in sight so there’s nothing else for me to do but go along with whatever’s happening. There’s nobody here to protect me.
Vince walks with me away from the pool and the remnants of our meal and steers me into the shadow of the porch overhang. He sips his whiskey, leans against a support beam, and keeps on smiling that skeletal grin. I feel a horrible shiver run down my spine like worms are crawling beneath my skin.
“I wanted to tell you about a dream I’ve been having,” he says like that’s the most natural and normal thing in the world. “Do you want to hear it?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I say, shifting from side to side. I glance at the house and pray for Calvino to come rescue me, but the night’s silent and Charlie’s still down by the pool, well outside of earshot. I wonder if she’d come even if I screamed right now.
Vincent doesn’t move. He stares at me, grinning and grinning, and speaks in a slow, low tone that forces me to lean closer to hear.
“In my dream, I wake up on the couch in the back room of Calvino’s club. In my dream, I was getting a private dance from a couple girls one second, and the next you’re there, and your hand is in my pocket. You look at me and I look at you but that’s all I can remember, because the next thing I know I’m waking up covered in sweat with the worst hangover of my life.” He laughs then, sharp and shrill, and I laugh with him because my heart’s racing and I’m so scared I think I might keel over and pass out at any second. “That’s a wild dream, isn’t it, Gracie?”