AFTER SUPPER, BELLA SAT in the front porch swing defiantly painting her toenails. Concetta’s carnival crown still sparkled on her head, and Dino sat across from her smoking a pungent cigar while his goon leaned against the snazzy Cadillac reading a dog-eared copy of Sense and Sensibility.
“You’re quite a cook,” Dino said, puffing. “Dat lasagna Bolognese was the best I ever ate.”
“You should taste my meatballs,” Bella said, capping her polish.
“If you was to make me meatballs as good as dat lasagna, I’d hand you the world on a gold plate.”
Bella eyed the young capo. “Why do you wanna marry my sister? She can’t cook worth a lick.”
Dino took a considered hit off his cigar. “I need a sensible wife. One who won’t cause me no trouble.”
A clucking ruckus sounded from the henhouse out back.
“What are you gonna do about Rodeo Joe?”
“That phony cowboy doesn’t love Concetta.”
“Do you?”
The young gangster took another considered hit off his stogie. “I don’t believe in love.”
This intrigued Bella. “Oh yeah? What do you believe in?”
“Loyalty. What do you believe in?”
“Meatballs.”
“I hope I get to taste yours someday.”
Bella took in the young kingpin’s plucked eyebrows, the polished nails, the hair slicked back with perfumed pomade. “I’m never gettin’ married,” she said. “I don’t believe in love either.”
Dino chuckled. “If you don’t get married, what are you gonna do with your life?”
Before Bella could tell him she was gonna be famous, before she could tell him she was gonna fly all the way to the Glasgow-grinning moon and grab the brass ring, Tony and Luigi popped up on the other side of the porch next to Manny’s rosebushes. Between them toggled a disheveled Concetta, hair frazzled, her chicken-shit-stained dress a bit of a mess. The fake cowboy was MIA.
“Hey, can we get a ride in your snazzy car now?” Luigi asked.
As the auto’s engine growled around the factory grounds, Bella settled back into the porch swing. She closed her eyes and drifted away to a fairy-tale land full of colorful carnival rides, to ocean waves curling under a cobalt sky, to a young strongman lifting her high, to a moon with the Glasgow-grinning face of Steeplechase, to a brass ring dangling just out of reach, until the pop of a tobacco tin brought her back to reality, to Rodeo Joe leaning against the porch rail, fingering a healthy pinch of chaw into his cheek. “Howdy,” he said with a shit-eating grin.
“You were in the henhouse messin’ around with my sister.”
He picked a piece of straw off one of his sleeves and flicked a clod of mud off a boot. “That’s none of your business, sweetie.”
“It’s a good thing my papa’s in the factory guardhouse. If he knew what you were up to with his precious Connie, he’d shoot your balls off.”
“I’m not afraid of your papa.”
“You’re full of shit. I can smell it from here.”
The cartoon cowboy spit a stream of tobacco juice into Manny’s roses. Then he strode across the porch with the bravado of a young gunslinger, grabbed Bella by her wrists, and yanked her up. He didn’t smell like chicken shit. He smelled like the promise of something delicious.
For a thrilling moment Bella thought she was going get her first real kiss. Instead, Joe brought her fingers up to his nose and took a long, deep sniff.
“You know what I smell?” he asked her. “I smell you’re nothin’ but a silly little virgin who’s dyin’ for me to take her into that nasty old coop and pop her juicy cherry too.”
Bella yanked her hand out of his and smacked him hard across his face. Then she smacked him again and ran into the house.
“Hey!” Joe called after her. “Hey, I’m sorry!”
Upstairs, in the girls’ room, Bella wiped the tears from her eyes and sniffed her fingers. Then she pulled the crown off her head and hurled it across the room. Then she undressed, slipped her nightgown on, crawled into bed next to a snoring Lulu, and sniffed her sleeping sister’s fingers. Then she settled in and waited for Concetta to arrive so she could sniff her fingers too.