Vanni: A Prequel (Groupie Book 4) Page 6

  I only know one song, because it was all I had the patience to learn. I set my half-empty glass of booze to the side as I stumble clumsily through Chopsticks. Every missed note resounds in the tiny living room. I growl under my breath in muted frustration before I try it again.

  I play the stupid song for two hours straight, until I can get through it without missing any notes. When I glance up at the music rack, I notice that the book of Christmas songs sits right on top. Likely she had been using that to teach her students. I open the book and skim through. “Silent Night”? No way. “O Holy Night”? Never, never again. Finally I settle on “Away in a Manger.” I study the notes on the page, trying my damnest to remember Aunt Susan’s lessons. “Open space–FACE,” I could hear her say. “Every line: Every Good Boy Does Fine.”

  I search every working brain cell to figure out which key goes to which note, and stumble through the first few bars of the song. If I get frustrated, I stop, wind the metronome, and let it calm me down, just like Aunt Susan told me to.

  By the end of the night, I finally teach myself one song.

  Then, and only then, do I stumble in a drunken stupor back to the sofa, where I am forced to sleep after destroying my bedroom.

  The snow finally arrives the day after Christmas, bringing with it my girlfriend and my best buddy, who don’t care a whit about my Do Not Disturb sign in the window. Lori and Tony bang on the door until I pull it open, nursing a serious hangover for the first time in my life.

  Lori steps right into my arms, holding me tight as she sobs against my chest.

  There are tears in Tony’s eyes as he reaches for a random but powerful hug as well. Fortunately I’ve exhausted most of my tears by this point. I’m numb. It is a welcome relief.

  Their condolences go in one ear and out the other as we all walk into the living room, where unopened presents still sit under the twinkling, festive tree.

  It’s the only thing that brings light into my darkened home.

  They say nothing as they watch me fill yet another glass. I haven’t eaten in days. My stomach growls loud enough for all to hear, but I know anything solid I shove down my gullet will come right back up again.

  Unlike everyone else, Lori and Tony don’t say much. Lori sits next to me on the couch, her soft hand against my back and her head on my shoulder. Tony sits in Susan’s chair, absently tracing the dainty doilies on either arm. We all miss her. We all share her loss. We don’t talk about Christmas, or family, or music. We all sit and silently reflect.

  Finally Tony heads into the kitchen to retrieve two more glasses. He pours a drink for both Lori and himself, before holding up the glass. “To Susan,” he says, with a catch in his throat. Lori softly sobs as she drinks. Tears I didn’t know I had left to shed spring instantly to my eyes, but I don’t let them fall.

  I can’t.

  If I start crying, I don’t think I’ll ever stop. And that’s not the image of a man I ever want to display for Lori. She deserves a true man, one who can cowboy the fuck up whenever shit goes down. My aunt didn’t raise me to be weak.

  To honor her, I’d never be weak again.

  Night falls without us saying much of anything. They break into the grief buffet, with Lori preparing some of the dishes so we could have some semblance of dinner. She brings me a plate but I don’t touch it. Her hand lingers on my shoulder. “You need to eat, baby,” she says.

  All I hear is Susan’s voice. I shake my head. “I’m not hungry,” I croak at last.

  It’s near ten by the time she says, “Have you made any arrangements?”

  I shake my head. “I can’t think about that right now.”

  “Now is the time to think about that,” she corrects gently. “I think it will help.”

  I glare at her. “How can anything help?”

  She appears contrite and confused. She’s handling wet dynamite and she knows it. “Do you know where… where they took her?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. I had been so self-absorbed I have no idea. It makes me feel even more like a shit. Aunt Susan has one last errand for me on this earth, and that is to put her away with all the love and respect she deserves.

  “I don’t know where to start,” I confess at last.

  Lori nods. “I’m here,” she promises. “I’ll help you.”

  Finally I let her take me into her arms.

  Tony leaves around midnight. By then, Lori has discovered what I did to my room. She brings blankets down to the living room so we can sleep together on the couch. As I cuddle her warm body next to mine, I stare at the blinking lights on the Christmas tree. Christmas used to be my favorite holiday, though I can’t even tell you why. When I was a kid, I had only one wish each and every year. I wrote Santa every August like clockwork, figuring he’d need a little time to pull off the Christmas miracle I was seeking. I wanted my Dad to come home. “Bring him home by the 21st,” I’d request in every letter my mother would help me write. “That way I can see him for my birthday too!”

  It dawns on me how difficult that must have been for her. She was the parent who stayed behind, and yet all I could think about was the selfish asshole that left us.

  I guess the rotted apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

  Each and every Christmas was a disappointment, despite how hard she tried to make it nice for me. Our resources were so limited, my name usually ended up on a tree in a mall somewhere, so good Samaritans could patch up all the holes with presents that would miraculously appear under my tree.

  For a kid, a present with your name on it means you’re in the club. Somebody loves you.

  How hard it must have been for Mama. She probably had just as many dreams and plans as I did. But life made a habit of kicking her in the teeth.

  That all changed when we moved in with Aunt Susan, who gave us the home we’d always wanted.

  Now I am an orphan in every sense of the word. Just days ago I was planning for this grand future, and now I didn’t even know where I’ll be living when 2004 gives way to 2005.

  Fortunately Lori, though undeniably saddened by my aunt’s death, isn’t burdened by the same crushing sorrow that I am. The next day, she calls Father Genovese first thing. As it turns out, Aunt Susan had all her arrangements in place. Even in death, she is looking out for all of us, trying to ease our burdens and make our lives a little better.

  Lori then calls the mortuary where my aunt’s body has been delivered. She schedules an appointment to finalize the funeral arrangements, and to bring in the clothes in which we wanted Susan buried. She asks me if I have a preference. I shake my head. “Blue,” is all I can offer.

  We both love the color blue.

  Lori puts together an outfit, one of Susan’s nicest blue dresses, with a lace overlay. She wore it for my high school graduation, which at the time warranted a special celebration. I was a problem kid, so that diploma was a victory not only for me, but for those who whipped me into shape. Tops on that list? My Aunt Susan. It was her accomplishment every bit as it was mine.

  After I dress to go with Lori to the mortuary, I pause only briefly to pull a couple of gifts out from under the tree. I bought them for Susan. I want her to have them, and this is my last chance to give them to her.

  The mortuary isn’t that far from the house, so we brave the snow and the cold to walk the mile or so it takes to get there. I clasp Lori’s hand in mine, but we say very little on our journey. I say even less as we approach the modest brick building housing the funeral home.

  Funeral home. What a depressing fucking name for a building. The décor inside isn’t much better. It looks like an actual home, which is supposed to be comforting, but it’s not. I know behind several closed doors are caskets filled with corpses. The sickly sterile stench, mixed with an obnoxious combination of fresh flowers, nearly chokes me. I can’t fathom what my aunt is even doing in a place like this.

  The director, Bob or Frank or Johnny or fuck-all, greets us, shakes our hands, and speaks in hushed,
sympathetic tones. It’s almost as if everyone is afraid to speak too loudly for fear of actually waking the dead. It lends itself to this whole charade, that the bodies in this wretched place were actually sleeping guests, rather than human remains.

  Remains, I think with a sinking gut. That’s all that’s left of any of us, eventually.

  He leads us to his office, where his assistant takes the clothes from Lori. He tells us what arrangements my aunt had prepared in advance. While they talk about the wake and the funeral service, I stare at the crucifix hanging behind the funeral director’s desk.

  It’s all meaningless to me now.

  Lori steps up to the plate like a champ. She loves Susan almost as much as I do, and her faith is equally important. Thanks to Lori, I know my aunt will have the respectful sendoff she wanted. As we walk back to the house, I hold Lori close to me. I’ve never needed her more, and that scares me.

  It reassures me how strongly she hugs back.

  When the guests come, she’s the one who manages everything. I sit in Susan’s chair and itch for another drink, but I won’t tarnish Aunt Susan’s memory amongst her closest friends by turning into a profanity-spewing drunk for everyone to see.

  Instead I sit quietly, and nod through all the stories from all the people who, in their fruitless attempt to make me feel better, pull my nerves to the breaking point. How little it comforts me to hear that Aunt Susan is likely teaching Jesus to play piano in heaven now, when her piano sits silent across the room. When her bedroom is locked tight like a tomb, or her kitchen isn’t full of the delicious aroma of her cooking, and each and every thing I see or hear is a reminder of her loss.

  God could have anyone in all of time and space that he wanted, from Beethoven to Liberace. Susan was all I had, and it fucking hurts that she’s gone.

  Lori shoos all our guests away by eight o’clock that night. I start drinking and do not stop until I pass out in Susan’s recliner.

  We hold the vigil on the 28th of December, and her funeral on the 29th. Both our brownstone and the parish itself are filled to overflowing.

  Fortunately, for the wake, I’m allowed to drink all I want. It makes it easier to stomach all the eulogies given as each sad guest extols Susan Faustino’s many virtues to the grieving crowd. My nerves are dead by the time we make it to the funeral. I barely even crumble as I spot the golden eighth note around her neck as I pass by the casket to offer my final respects.

  Her color has been artificially restored, so she looks like an old woman sleeping within the satin interior of a cozy box. She doesn’t look like Susan, though. Her dress barely fits over her shrunken body, and her eyes look as if they have been sewn shut, and they probably have been.

  There is no twinkle to be found, no smile to remember. She is, simply, gone.

  It makes my job as pallbearer much easier.

  I don’t have to volunteer for this job. Plenty of good strong men are willing to do it for me, including Tony, who shows up with his entire family for the ceremony.

  But honestly it is the last thing I could do for my aunt, and I want to do it.

  I carry her to her final resting place, where I stand, stoic as a statue, as she’s lowered into the ground.

  With every fiber of my being I want to throw myself on the casket, to pull her out of that cramped little box and keep her with me always. But these are her wishes, and I will abide, even if it kills me.

  As each hour passes, I pray that it does.

  “My beautiful boy,” I can almost hear her whisper. My chin trembles but I do not cry. I’ve thrown my fits in private, but I won’t do it here. Aunt Susan had spent more than a decade making me a man. By God I was going to act like one.

  That night, all the mourners are finally gone as the macabre ritual completes. I still get screaming drunk, and this time I pull Lori to me, the first time in days. Her body is soft and warm and alive underneath me. I sink into her and it’s like piercing the fog that has surrounded me for days. I say nothing. I’m afraid to say anything. Fucking her on my aunt’s sofa in the middle of her living room, despite the watchful eyes from family portraits or even Jesus himself, from where he is impaled silently and forever on the cross, separates me further from that good Catholic boy Susan had raised me to be.

  It’s a damn shame I have given up on being a rock star.

  That’s where bad boys like me belong.

  CHAPTER FIVE:

  The days leading up to Susan’s funeral had flown by in such a haze I could barely distinguish them. The days afterwards, while we are all trying to put the pieces back together again, drag minute by excruciating minute. That New Year’s Eve is smack dab in the middle only serves to make it weirder. For such a festive holiday, I know I’ll never look at it the same way again. I spend the end of 2004 on my aunt’s couch alone, simply because Lori had to work.

  Of course I’m not entirely alone. I have several bottles of booze to keep me company.

  I pass out before the ball drops.

  Santino had paid his respects at the funeral, where he offered me a week off, which I gladly take. I still don’t want to face life yet, not with everything up in the air. It’s kind of like picking up the pieces after a bomb detonates. I don’t know where to start.

  “How do you eat an elephant?” I hear the echo of Susan’s voice asking me, something she had said in all those times I got so frustrated with music and homework and chores. “One piece at a time.”

  The first order of business is actual business. At nine o’clock the first Monday of 2005, I sit across from my aunt’s attorney, Donald Meir, in his Brooklyn office. Like everyone else in my aunt’s life, her lawyer is from the neighborhood, someone she had known for years and obviously trusted implicitly.

  I am not quite as convinced. I’m sure that he is about to toss me out of the only home I’ve ever known, and where I’ll go from there is anyone’s guess. What he says instead blows my mind. My mouth falls open, as does Lori’s, who has come along with me. “What do you mean, it’s mine?”

  Donald links his fingers on top of the open folder in front of him. “She willed the house to you, Giovanni. You are her last living relative. Most of her estate is split between you and her parish, with you retaining most items of any value. That includes the house, some stock, along with her modest life insurance policy.”

  He goes on, but I stop listening after ‘the house’. “I don’t understand. You’re not asking me to leave?” The news is so unexpected I think I’m in shock.

  Donald chuckles. “No, of course not. Your aunt owned the property free and clear. Aside from property taxes, you don’t have a monthly mortgage or rent. In fact,” he adds as he pulls a piece of paper from the stack. “You have an income from her other investments.”

  He slides the graph my way. A single number is circled. My eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

  Donald shrugs. “Granted it’s not enough to live on. What is, these days? But it’ll help keep you afloat.”

  I stare at him. I barely blink. What he called ‘not enough to live on,’ was more than my salary at Cynzia’s easy. I could take time off if I wanted. I could pursue music–

  No, I think suddenly. No, I can’t.

  “And of course if you ever need additional income, you can always sell the brownstone. In today’s market, it could pull in a tidy little profit, especially now that the entire area is being renovated. You could sell it like that,” he says as he snaps his fingers.

  “No,” I say at once. “I’m not selling the brownstone.”

  That house has been in my family since the day it was built. I’ll never sell it. No matter what.

  “Fine,” Donald says with a raised hand. “Just know there are options. Should I call the church and schedule a pickup for all the belongings bequeathed to them in her will?”

  “As soon as possible,” I find myself saying. I feel guilty how relieved I am that most of her things will be given away. Sure, it’s charitable for the church, but deep down I hop
e that, with her things gone, I won’t feel as haunted every single night by every single shadow looming near her now dark, quiet room. “Tomorrow works for me. Noon, maybe?”

  He nods as he makes a note of it on the folder. “I’ll let them know. I guess that’s it, then. Unless you have any questions.”

  Since he has already blown my mind, I honestly can’t think of a single one. I shake my head as I rise from the chair.

  Donald rises also, taking a long, slender envelope from the file folder. I know it holds a check. My knees nearly buckle under me when I see the number $38,492 under the Pay the Amount Of section.

  “That’s her $50,000 life insurance policy less the cost of her final expenses. Again, I know it’s a modest amount. For the record I always advised her to get more.”

  More? I’m stunned there is even this.

  I remain stunned all the way back out to the street, where we head back on foot towards the house.

  My house.

  Lori threads her arm through mine. There’s a skip in her step that wasn’t there before. “Can you believe it?” she finally says. “We should go somewhere to celebrate.”

  “We’re not going out to eat,” I decide at once, annoyed she’d even suggest such a thing. “We wouldn’t even have this money if she were alive.” My voice softens. I’m still so, so angry, but it’s useless to yell at anybody. “I’d rather have her here.”

  “Vanni,” Lori admonishes. “Your great-aunt was a seventy-one-year-old woman. What did you think? That she’d live forever?”

  I narrow my eyes as I glare at her. “Yes,” I say. She can judge me all she wants but my aunt was not old. She was not feeble. She had complete control of her senses and relative mobility. She also had more life in the tip of her pinky than most have in their entire bodies. The world has lost its color with her passing. Why can’t Lori see that?

  She broaches the next topic very carefully. “I suppose now you have the freedom to pursue your music.”