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DONNIE OPENED THE FRONT door, gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and rushed back into the kitchen. I was left to make conversation with his son Davison, who was sprawled on the sofa. Davison Gonsalves was just as I remembered him. Take Donnie’s muscular build and strong features, and slap on a dimwitted smirk, a sprinkling of acne, and a mess of ill-advised tattoos.
He had acquired some new ones since I’d last seen him. In addition to the disgusting giant centipedes crawling up his arms, a freshly-inked trio of intertwined blue and red cobras now wound around his neck and up to his cheek like a gorgon mutton chop. He wore gold hoop pirate earrings and a thick gold rope necklace, because apparently the vermin-themed ink covering his entire upper body wasn’t eye-catching enough.
Fortunately for Davison, he would never have to worry about making a good impression in a job interview. As Donnie’s only child, he was heir apparent to the madly popular Donnie’s Drive-Inn. I supposed now I was marrying Donnie I could try to seize control of Donnie’s Drive-Inn as if I were a soap-opera villain, but I wasn’t particularly interested in running a fast-food franchise. Let Davison have it. As much as I might complain about my job, I actually enjoyed teaching. And I certainly preferred it to trying to run a restaurant.
“Eh Aunty.” Davison didn’t stand up to greet me; he simply raised his brimming glass of wine in my direction.
“Davison, what are you drinking? You’re not twenty-one yet.”
Whose voice was coming out of my mouth? I sounded exactly like my mother.
“It’s fine, Molly,” Donnie called from the kitchen. “In Italy, everyone drinks wine at the dinner table. Even the children. You know that.”
“Sure,” I said.
Donnie came into the living room, wiping his hands on a dishtowel.
“It’s a healthier approach to drinking. The Mediterranean countries have a very low rate of alcoholism. You okay?”
Donnie slung the towel over his shoulder and took my hands in his. Normally he would give me a hug, but he probably wanted to show some restraint in front of his son.
“Yes. I’m fine. Thank you. Honey—” I glanced at Davison, who had been Honey’s former classmate and might have recognized her name. “I’m acquainted with the person you sent. She seems like a good choice. Thank you.”
“She is good. Greg told me she—”
Something sizzled loudly in the kitchen and Donnie dropped my hands to rush back. We’d have to talk about my legal troubles later.
Davison tipped his head back and drained his glass, his snake tattoo undulating as he gulped. Then he stood slowly, lurched in my direction and caught me in a hug. He was squeezing much tighter than necessary, probably trying to keep his balance.
“Sorry about your loss, Aunty,” he slurred into my ear, before releasing me and flopping back down on the couch. “Things is official now, ah? Eh, I like see your ring.”
“We haven’t picked out rings yet.” I looked around for a place to sit, but Davison was positioned sideways, his feet up on Donnie’s Ettore Sottsass sofa. He was, as usual, taking up as much room as possible. I settled for one of the koa wood chairs. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the couch.
“I want to take another look at Fujioka’s selection,” I said. “It would be nice to support a local merchant. Even if it means getting our wedding rings at Fujioka’s Music and Party Supply.”
Fujioka’s Music and Party Supply was the only surviving local vendor that sold fine jewelry. I hadn’t seen anything on offer I really liked. Fujioka’s less-expensive sets looked sad and cheap. The pricier offerings included diamond-encrusted horseshoes, chandelier-like clusters of different-sized gems, and “contemporary” designs with stones set on long prongs like alien eye-stalks.
“Nah, you can’t choose the ring yourself.” Davison pushed himself up to a sitting position, knees spread so wide he still took up most of the couch. “Dad’s gotta pick something an’ surprise you, all romantic kine, like that thing on TV. Girls like romantic stuff an’ li’dat.”
“I’m not a big fan of surprises, Davison.”
“Eh, Dad says I’m gonna be best man at you guys’ wedding.”
“Case in point. I mean, that’s lovely.”
“Gotta start working on my speech already. I could talk about when I was taking your class. Cause it’s when I met you, yeah?”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with something very nice.”
I was unable to quash the suspicion that Davison would just end up pulling something off the Internet the night before the wedding. My first encounter with Davison Gonsalves—before I really knew his father—was when he had copied a classmate’s paper word for word and handed it in as his own. My dean at the time didn’t want to chase away paying customers with accusations of cheating, however well-founded, so I had been forced to give Davison a do-over.
Incidentally, the topic of the paper was “Integrity.”
“Oh, and never said congratulations, but,” Davison said. “Congratulations, ah?”
“Thanks.”
I didn’t bother to correct Davison on the matter of congratulating the bride (something etiquette manuals warn against, lest one imply the woman was the pursuer, Heaven forfend). This prohibition seemed antiquated to me, although Emma Nakamura supported it, on the grounds that married men have been shown to live longer, healthier lives than single men. Married women, on the other hand, died sooner than their unmarried counterparts.
“It’s how come they give you the diamond,” Emma had explained. “To make up for all those years of life they’re gonna suck outta you.”
Donnie emerged from the kitchen balancing a platter of linguine con vongole, and we all headed to the table.
“So what I call you now, Aunty?” Davison asked me as we seated ourselves for dinner. “When I met you, was ‘Professor’, yeah? Then was ‘Aunty’ when you hooked up wit’ my dad. I can call you ‘Mommy’ now?”
“‘Professor’ works for me.”
“Can he call you Molly?” Donnie suggested.
“I guess.”
Davison grabbed the bottle of Sangiovese from the center of the table and started to refill his glass.
“It hasn’t had time to breathe,” Donnie chided him.
“No worries.” Davison poured up to the brim. “I give ‘em mouth-to-mouth.”
I watched the purple wine splash over the top of Davison’s glass and soak into Donnie’s white tablecloth.
“So now you’ve had some time to think about it,” Donnie asked, “have you changed your mind about the house?”
“What house?” Davison asked.