Cold Fury (6 page)

My dad finished telling my mom about the disturbing conversation with a sigh, and she patted his shoulder. I moved silently away from the living room, more than a little troubled by what I’d overheard. My parents themselves had taught me that listening quietly was the best way to gather information, and although I didn’t like what I’d learned, I realized that it was important. So, as the days passed, I took other covert opportunities to eavesdrop on them, listening to my dad explain sadly to my mom how he and Uncle Buddy continued to work side by side every day like usual, except now their conversation was pure business. There was no more teasing, no more joking, and gone was the shorthand conversation that brothers share—phrases that meant something to them but were meaningless to others, punch lines that cracked them up based on a collective memory, small Italian phrases and silly little sound effects. Now they went about their day like two pastry-making robots, one tall and thin, the other small and thick, snapping questions and spitting answers.

Soon, Uncle Buddy stopped coming by our house on Balmoral Avenue.

Even after he married Greta he always found time to swoop to the curb in his convertible, slam the door, and hustle into the house wearing a big smile.

After his confrontation with my dad, that old red car was not seen in the neighborhood again.

For me, it wasn’t Uncle Buddy’s absence at home that hurt as much as it was from Windy City. At the time, Willy was helping me fine-tune my left hook, which, if thrown correctly, landed just outside the other fighter’s field of vision, so it’s almost impossible to defend against. According to Willy it had been my dad’s signature move, one that my uncle, an impatient, brawling boxer, never saw coming. As I worked with Willy, I kept an eye on the door, hoping to see Uncle Buddy smiling up at me as I circled the ring to find my rhythm, but he was never there. One afternoon as I listlessly poked at the heavy bag, lost in thought, Willy stopped its lazy swing and asked where my head had been lately. I couldn’t hold back—I was sad and angry at the same time—and I told him how Uncle Buddy’s stupid marriage had ruined the relationship between him and my dad, and by extension the whole family. When I was done I had tears in my eyes. Willy had to unlace my gloves and free my hands so I could wipe at them.

“Sara Jane,” he said as he pulled the strings loose, “it might seem simple to blame Buddy’s wife. But I’ve known your dad and uncle a long time, and the real problem is between the two of them.”

“What problem?” I said, blowing my nose.

“A rivalry problem. Now, in boxing, a rivalry can be a good thing. It keeps the competition sharp and lively, as long as both sides participate. But when one side ignores the rivalry altogether, well, that’s a problem. The guy being ignored realizes the other one doesn’t consider him a worthy opponent, and he gets angry and insulted.”

I was quiet, thinking about my dad and Uncle Buddy, what I knew about them as boxers, bakers, and brothers. “My dad refused to participate?”

Willy nodded. “Twenty some years ago, when Buddy was helping your dad train for the championship bout, I leaned on these ropes and watched something I never forgot. Your dad was sparring—practicing, moving, stretching—but Buddy was
fighting
.”

“But . . . my dad thought Buddy was his friend. His best friend.”

“But Buddy thought—and still seems to think—that your dad is his opponent.”

The idea of my dad and Uncle Buddy as opponents, or worse, enemies, was ridiculous. It was impossible to believe that my uncle would cut ties with all of us over who owned more or less of the bakery. Thinking about it made my chest ache, like I was going to cry again. I sighed and said, “I guess it’s none of my business.”

“On the contrary,” Willy said. “It’s your responsibility to figure out what this business is all about.”

“Why me?”

“Because . . . they’re your people. You only got one dad and one uncle.”

“I can hear my dad now if I try to discuss Uncle Buddy . . . ‘It’s nothing for a fifteen-year-old kid to worry about.’ My dad’s not a big one for sharing info.”

“You’re gonna be sixteen soon. That’s no kid,” Willy said. “My opinion? You have a right to know what’s going on.”

I shook my head. “I’d better stay out of it.”

Willy leaned in closely and raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? In a situation like this? In a family like yours?”

The way he looked at me and the phrase he used—“in a family like yours”—sent a tingle marching down my spine like a line of cold ants. Even now I’m unsure if he knew something I didn’t, or suspected something that was true, or maybe just meant in a family as (formerly) close as ours. As I look back on it, all I know for sure is that I wanted to blame someone other than Uncle Buddy. I cleared my throat and returned to the subject of Greta—her pushiness and creepiness and general habit of being everywhere all the time. Before I could finish, he raised a hand and said, “I don’t know what you should
do
, but I know what you should
know
—

She surely is poison,

but ol’ Greta don’t mean squat.

This is about what one man wants,

and the other man’s
got.”

Without saying a word, I rose and went to the heavy bag.

With only tape covering my knuckles, I threw a left hook, surprising the leather with a loud, sharp
pop!

I threw another and another, trying to beat back Willy’s words, scared that they might be true.

5

A MELTING GLACIER
is one thing—it meanders, trudges, and settles, taking its time—but lightning is impulsive. Despite its pinpoint precision, it’s a crazed and maniacal event—an instant flash followed by a thunderous
ka-boom!
with the deadly power to remove something that was there only seconds earlier. There’s no way to prevent it. If you’re unlucky enough to be unprepared, there’s nowhere to hide.

As my sixteenth birthday approached, I was in a very “un-” phase.

Unlucky and unprepared for the loss of someone I loved with my whole heart.

But also unmotivated and unattached in ways that made going to school not only a drudge, but also depressing.

My unmotivated issue was centered on the Classic Movie Club, which I’d formed at Fep Prep in order to seem more “well-rounded” (total membership including me is two, the other member being Doug Stuffins; more on him later) and which the school was threatening to cancel unless I drummed up the required third member. Frankly, I just didn’t have the enthusiasm to beg kids to join who weren’t interested in the first place. Each time I approached someone to talk about it and saw a flash of confusion in his or her eyes as to who I even was, I’d give up before I started. My unattached issue was even more of a downer—Fep Prep’s annual spring dance (theme: “It’s Spring, Yo”) was also a little over a month away, falling (depressingly) on my birthday. In my case, unattached translated into unhappily, undeniably dateless.

I was so obsessed with all of those “uns” one day after school that I failed to notice how dark green and angry the clouds were growing as I walked home from the train station. It was pouring by the time I reached Balmoral Avenue, the rain falling in such thick sheets that at first I didn’t notice the convertible parked in front of our house.

My heart leapt a little when I spotted it.

Uncle Buddy was back!

I ran up the steps and pulled at the door but it was stuck, and as I yanked harder, a bolt of lightning cut the air and struck a tree in our front yard.

There was no thunder, just a jarring
crack
, like a truck rolling over walnuts, and then a split-peeling sound as a branch fell to the ground with its leaves sizzled and gone.

When I turned around, my dad was standing in the open door looking at me instead of the tree.

He laid a hand on my wet shoulder and said, “Sara Jane, come inside. Grandpa Enzo died today.”

I walked into the living room with my shoes squeaking on marble, pushing strands of dripping hair from my face, my dad following slowly behind. Uncle Buddy and Greta sat on a small love seat. My uncle’s face was pale while Greta’s too-red lips twisted in a way that made her look sour and inconvenienced. My mom held Lou against her on the leather couch; when she looked up, I saw that she had been crying. Grief had already begun to fill my lungs like bronchitis; seeing the room crowded with despair and anger only made it harder to breathe. Through the fog in my head, all I could think to ask was “Where’s Grandma?”

“Lying down, sweetheart,” my mother said, reaching for me. “Come here.”

I did, and burrowed into her shoulder weeping. She explained in a soft voice how Grandpa Enzo had a heart attack while making a
buccellato
, the circular, sugary cake given by godparents to their godchild’s family on the baby’s christening day. Someone on Taylor Street was always asking Grandpa to be their kid’s godfather and he usually agreed with a warm smile. He had just taken the cake out of the Vulcan before he died, flipping it out of the hot pan that bore our family initial. The distinctive baked
R
was probably the last thing that he saw.

No one said anything until Greta sighed impatiently. When I looked up, she was on her feet.

“Decisions
have
to be made,” she said, pacing the room like a four-star general.

“He just died a couple of hours ago,” my dad murmured, lowering into the nearest chair and massaging his forehead.

“Nevertheless,” Greta continued, “after an unexpected death, who gets what and how much has to be hammered out immediately!”

“Greta . . . ,” Uncle Buddy said in a low voice, staring at his hands.

“Greta
nothing
, Benito! If you don’t stake your position
this instant
, you’ll get the short end of the stick, as usual!” she cried, waving her arms wildly. Her elbow bumped a shelf and everyone but Greta saw Frank Sinatra tip and fall into the air.

Uncle Buddy leaped to his feet, arms extended, and caught the statue head like a football, just inches before it shattered on the ground. He sheepishly handed it to my dad and they looked at each other for the first time since I got home. My dad paused, then turned and put it back on the shelf, where the bust continued to stare at the room. It was the tackiest thing we owned—a white plaster Frank Sinatra head with a garland of leaves in its hair, like Julius Caesar, and eyes tinted blue. Although my mom hated it on an artistic level, she insisted that it never move from its honored place on the shelf.

The bust suddenly took on the significance of people I loved who were dead.

It had been a gift to my parents from my nanny.

She gave it to them as a good-bye gift, only days before she died.

Lucretia Zanzara—Elzy, as we called her (for her initials, L.Z.)—was petite, tough as nails, and always perfectly dressed in a retro-mod sixties style, complete with jet-black beehive hairdo and cat’s-eye glasses. She was an organizational Einstein who ran our household from breakfast to bedtime with a gentle iron fist. Elzy knew someone who could do anything at any hour, from delivering a perfectly crispy
pizza margherita
at eight a.m. to fixing a refrigerator at midnight, to scoring a badly desired Tickle Me Elmo for three-year-old me the day before Christmas. Her contacts were limitless, ability to get things done, genius, and devotion to my family, seemingly inexhaustible.

Elzy had come to our family via the bakery. Long before I was born, Grandpa Enzo employed her father, Bobo Zanzara, as a baker or pie maker or something. Grandpa and Bobo worked closely until, according to my dad, Bobo took a vacation and never came back. When I asked my dad what kind of vacation lasted forever, he smirked and said, “The federally funded kind,” and nothing else. If I asked for more details, he shrugged and changed the subject. Later, Elzy’s older brother came to work for my grandpa at the bakery, too. Elzy always referred to him as “Poor Kevin,” before shaking her head and
tsk-tsk
ing
.
Apparently, Poor Kevin had been a lethal combination of knucklehead and hothead. There had been an incident at the bakery, but again, no one ever explained exactly what had happened. If my dad or Uncle Buddy began to discuss it, Elzy would hold up a hand with perfectly polished nails and say, “The past is the past. Poor Kevin made a mistake. Only the strong survive.” Her voice was solemn in an Italian way that made further words on the subject indulgent and unnecessary.

Elzy had two unmistakable characteristics. One was her voice—a nasal combination of West Side Chicago and a lion suffering from strep throat—and the other was an undying love for Frank Sinatra. Her gargle-growl took on a terrifying tenor when she sang “Fly Me to the Moon” or “Witchcraft,” making dogs howl up and down Balmoral Avenue. The more the cancer spread and the sicker she got, the less she sang. After a final visit to her doctor, Elzy knew that she was going to die. It was right before Lou was born that she gave my parents the Sinatra bust, touched my mom’s belly tenderly, and told them that Frank would watch over them when she was gone.

He has sat on the shelf in the same spot ever since.

I was thinking of them both, Grandpa Enzo and Elzy, hoping they died happy, and it was only the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard tone of Greta’s rant that brought me back.

She had her fists on her hips and was wagging her head from side to side, speaking her piece about “unfair to Buddy” this and “our share of the pie” that.

When she paused to take a breath, my father said, “Calm down, Greta. Buddy knows full well that he’s going to get half the business.”

“Yeah?” she said, crossing her arms and arching an eyebrow. “
Which
business?”

Then it was my mom’s turn on her feet. I was surprised at how fast she crossed the room, right into Greta’s face. In a tone that was quiet but full of nails, she said, “We don’t discuss
that
business in front of the children. Not in
this
family.”