Deal with the Devil (2 page)

You can tell from Cecile’s face that she used to be a beautiful woman. But too much booze, drugs and bad men have turned her into something hard-edged and used up. And she's got a conniving and vicious streak that leaves even me a little cold.

When I push her away, Cecile immediately turns and falls into the arms of a rat-faced man. I hadn’t noticed him sitting in the corner of the room. His face looks like a wad of bread dough that’s been roughly kneaded into shape. The patched jean jacket with no sleeves he wears marks him as a member of some local MC.

Trust Cecile to end up with a scumbag. He probably doubles as her current dealer. Might as well get all your fixes in one place.

She continues to burble some version of 
I just can’t believe it
 into the man’s shoulder. I slip past them to Vito’s bedside.

His face is pale and drawn, like everything underneath of the skin has been sucked out. I've spent more than my fair share of time around death and dying. But sitting here makes me more uncomfortable than almost anything else I can imagine.

I don’t like feeling hopeless.

Vito’s eyelashes start to flutter and I lean closer. In the next moment, he opens eyes that are hazy and pain-filled. Recognition slowly grows in them. Before I can speak, he lurches forward to grab my arm with a grip that’s stronger than seems possible.

He groans words that I can’t understand. It's even harder to hear him when machines start to beep wildly around us. Vito whispers in my ear, his voice husky and heavy with effort. I’m expecting work instructions or a request about business.

But what he says is about something else entirely.

He falls back to the bed, eyes closed and face too still. The nurse rushes in before I can get anything else out of him and pushes me aside, screaming about a “code blue.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that what I just heard is a last request.

“
C
’mon
, Mara! You can’t miss out on the last big party before winter break.”

Lynn yells at me from the inside of my closet as she tosses one unworthy outfit out onto the floor after another. I shouldn’t even be calling it 
my 
closet. Most of the stuff inside of it is hers, which is why she’s in my room in the first place.

I have a tendency to wear a pretty standard uniform of skinny jeans and t-shirts every day. But Lynn’s constantly changing tastes in fashion require a large amount of overflow space.

“I have to study,” I say for probably the hundredth time. “You wouldn’t have fun with me anyway. I’m too stressed about this Partial Differential Equations exam.”

“Oh, please.” She pokes out a head covered in a mop of short blonde hair. “You spend too much time worrying, little Miss 4.0. I don’t think a few less hours of studying are gonna make a difference. You have this in the bag and you know it.”

I roll my eyes, used to her good-natured ribbing. “I didn’t keep the 4.0 for this long by blowing off studying for finals.”

“Why do your stupid finals always go to the very end of the week, anyway? I’ve been done since yesterday.”

“Well, we can’t all major in Exercise Physiology.”

She points her finger at me. “Exercise Physiology is the legitimate study of human form and movement. It’s very important.”

I laugh. “And the fact that all your classes are made up of guys from the football team is totally beside the point.”

“Totally.”

“How about you take up my exam schedule with the faculty in the School of Engineering? I’m too busy studying.”

Lynn sighs and disappears into the closet again. “You make me sad for the future of our generation.”

“Ditto,” I sweetly reply.

Lynn and I have been best friends and roommates since we roomed together in the dorms during freshman year. I’ve never met anyone quite like the bouncy girl from Wisconsin. She grew up on a commercial dairy farm with five brothers and treats me like the sister she’s always wanted.

Not that I have many friends back in Jersey to compare her to.

“You better not be this boring when we get to Aspen,” Lynn shouts. She can’t keep the laughter out of her voice even as she threatens me. “Or I’ll push you off the ski lift.”

Lynn’s family have been nice enough to invite me on their yearly Christmas trip to Aspen over winter break. She doesn’t know anything about my family. But she’s aware of how much I hate going back home to ask her parents if she can bring me along.

One of my favorite things about Lynn is her ability to avoid asking uncomfortable questions. She says that’s just how people are in the Midwest.

So I know where I’m headed after graduation.

I’m sure she’s under the impression that I hate my family, and I don’t. But I do hate some of the things they do and I hate the person that I have to be when I go back there.

Lynn’s never asked why I don’t keep photos of my family making cheerful poses in frames on my desk the way that she does. Or why I never hang out the window (the only way to get reception in the old dorm building) to spend hours chatting with people back home. As far as she knows, I was birthed fully formed in the campus clinic and took my first breath in a Physics class.

It’s only halfway through junior year but every passing day brings me one step closer to full independence. I can’t afford to mess around with parties or the boys, who think they’re men, running around campus. Because if school doesn’t work out then I’m going right back to the hive of dysfunction that I call a family.

So I have to keep a focus on my grades that definitely borders on an obsession. Because I refuse to contemplate what might happen if I don’t. That’s why I spent all those weekends handing out plates at the homeless shelter. And why I became president of five different clubs in high school and lettered in two sports. All so I could be exactly the kind of student that a school like Cornell wants. I’m not going to throw it all away now.

I reach for the Bluetooth speaker on the desk and crank up the volume. It’s one of Lynn’s pre-gaming playlists full of dance remixes and female empowerment pop ballads. Not my favorite, but right now I just need the noise to drown out my own thoughts.

Replace the top-40’s with mindless heavy metal and I could be back in middle school. I always used music to drown out the sound of my mom screaming at whatever deadbeat she was currently shacking up with. I’d learned early how to concentrate through outrageous amounts of noise.

Lynn bounces out of the closet, dressed in a sparkly top and skinny jeans. She looks exactly like a carefree college student going out after finals should look — young, beautiful and carefree.

“You could just come for one drink,” Lynn says, lowering her voice like hypnotist. “It’s just one. You know you want to.”

“I really can’t, girl. I promise I’ll be there next time.”

She shakes her mascara wand at me. “You really look like you could use a drink.”

A drink sounds amazing. I plan to become well acquainted with the bottle of Jack Daniels rolling around in the top drawer of my desk as soon as Lynn leaves. I don’t need to get dressed up and be groped by random dudes to drink.

Of course, Lynn doesn’t know that I had my first taste of alcohol while sitting on my grandfather’s knee in the VIP section of a night club when I was seven.

Booze is one of the few things left that brings me any peace these days.

“Stop trying to tempt me.” I turn to the next page in my textbook, pretending to be engrossed. “It’s not going to work.”

Lynn’s reflection in the mirror pouts at me as she swipes a second coat on her lashes. “At least meet me for breakfast in the morning. A bunch of us are going to the Carriage House.”

“Maybe, I’ll let you know.”

She only tries to cajole me into going out for a few more minutes before accepting defeat.

“Whatever, loser,” she shouts before the door swings shut behind her. “Don’t have too much fun here all by yourself.”

I turn off the speaker and silence descends around me. It’s barely dusk. Through my window, the setting sun sends streaks of red and gold across the sky but the building is almost completely empty. A lot of people are already headed back home for the break and most of the one’s sticking around are going out for the night.

Luckily, being alone has never bothered me. That might just be because I’ve had so much practice.

The cell phone on the coffee table vibrates angrily, startling me as it rocks against the glass. I turn it over to check the caller ID and a New Jersey area code glows on the screen.

Dread settles over me like a cold blanket. Nobody from back home ever calls me and that’s the way that I like it. My family stays out of my business and I stay the hell out of theirs.

“Hello?”

Interference crackles on the other end, either from their bad reception or mine. But there’s no answer.

“Hello?!” I say again, voice terse.

“Mara?”

I almost set the phone down again, but resist the urge. “Hi, Mom.”

“Mara, are you there? Can you hear me, baby?”

With a sigh, I lever myself up and move toward the window. “I’m here, Mom. What do you need?”

My mother never calls me at school. I get the impression that she sort of forgets that I exist when I’m not around. All the times that she’d stay out all night and I’d have to walk down the street to one of my friends’ houses if I wanted to eat dinner is proof of how little of her attention she saves for me.

“ —it’s just so awful.”

“I didn’t hear you. What’s awful?”

“I just can’t believe that it happened so quickly. One minute everything is fine and the next he’s just gone—"

The feeling of dread never really left but now it’s in my throat and trying to choke the life from me. “Mom, stop. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Don’t you hear me? Papa is dead!”

Icy fingers wrap around my heart. “You’re lying.”

“
How dare you talk to me like that. I’m your goddamn mother.”

I won’t give her the satisfaction of hearing me breakdown. “What happened?”

“Your Uncle Mickey says that he passed out at the club and they had to take him to the hospital. He was in and out for a few hours but then he stopped breathing and they couldn’t get him back. Doctors say it was a heart attack.”

Heart attack. 
The words hit me like a shot to my own chest. It takes a moment for the meaning of what she’s saying to sink in.

“Wait, you were with him at the hospital for hours?” I can feel the edge of anger penetrating the numbness that has settled over me. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

“Oh, don’t start on this with me right now. My father is dead, Amaranth. And all you can do is think of stuff to criticize me about.”

Amaranth
. The stupid name my mother gave me that she knows I hate. She only uses it when she wants to piss me off.

My mother has always been a selfish bitch. I can’t expect that to change just because of a world-shattering tragedy. Of course it wouldn’t occur to her that I’d want to know if my grandfather was on his deathbed. She’d never consider that maybe I would have wanted the chance to say goodbye to the only person who’s ever really been there for me.

Her sobs crackle over the line, harsh and plaintive.

“Yeah okay, Mom. I’m sorry.”

The evil voice inside my head tells me that I shouldn’t be apologizing. I should be detailing all of the ways she’s spent the entire twenty-one years of my life letting me down.

“You have to come home for the funeral. It’s tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! Mom, I have a final tomorrow.”

“It’s your grandfather’s funeral. Your professors will understand.”

Right. Because emailing my professor at nine o’clock at night with the excuse that my grandfather’s funeral is the next day won’t seem at all suspicious.

“It’s just that you could have told me earlier, like when you first made the arrangements. Can’t you reschedule it for the weekend.”

“I can’t believe this is even a discussion. Papa would be so disappointed in how you’re acting.”

“I doubt he’d want me to fail my classes for his funeral.”

“You’re always so cold. I can barely stand it.”

Cold. Logical. Unemotional. I’ve been hearing those words my entire life, especially when I don’t act exactly the way she wants me to. That’s why I like engineering so much. Nobody ever asks how I’m 
feeling 
about anything
.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll figure something out.”

I hang up without waiting for her to reply.

The bottle of liquor in my desk beckons me, making me yearn for the sharp burn and warm surrender into oblivion.

Tonight, I’ll drink myself to sleep. Because tomorrow I’m going home.

* * *

M
y grandpa
and I have a complicated relationship.

Had 
a relationship, I guess. The thought sends spikes of cold through my heart. I wait for the tears to slide down my cheeks because I can feel them burning behind my eyes. But those eyes remain dry, just like they’ve been since I got the news.

He’s the one who paid my tuition at Cornell, all four years in full. Mostly as a way to get me away from my mother, I think. I’ve always wanted to go to school out-of-state. Not that the six-hour train ride from Newark to Ithaca is much. But it keeps my mother from sniffing after me looking for a place to crash or score.

I’ve spent more than my fair share of nights dragging her off the kitchen floor. Or making sure she stayed rolled on her side, so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit as she slept.

Papa was something else entirely. He was a giant of a man with a personality to match. He wore gold rings on the fingers of both hands and smoked long cigars like it was going out of style. I could ask him for anything — clothes, a new computer, a car for my sixteenth birthday — and he’d give it to me.

I just had to ignore the fact that he made his money in organized crime.

The man I call Papa is also Don Vito Matarazzo, head of the Matarazzo Crime Family. He probably owned half of New Jersey and you didn’t get to the top by playing nice. I know his reputation, even if he kept me away from the worst of it.

He thought I didn’t know what he did for the longest time. Like the internet wasn’t a thing we I had access to, or something. I would have to be an idiot not to notice that nobody else’s grandpa drove around with a personal driver in a Cadillac with blacked out windows. Or kept a roll of hundred dollar bills in the pocket of his suit jacket that he used instead of a credit card or check. Or was always surrounded by shady guys in black suits with obvious bulges under their jackets in the shape of a gun. As if a run-of-the-mill family man would own a string of nightclubs and topless bars.

I’m a lot of things, but not an idiot.

He treated his capos like adopted sons, or my “uncles” as he liked to call them. That's probably to make up for the disappointment that is his only legitimate offspring.