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"Well, just like Goldilocks… I found a bed to sleep in and the rest is history."
She throws back her beautiful head and laughs, shaking her hair so that it falls around her shoulders. "We need to talk, honey, and now that we're here nobody else is going to hear us, right?" She leans close and says in a loud whisper, "Sergio Montavio sent for me to see you. Have you met him?"
Met him? Uh. You could say that.
I laugh. How do I tell her I'm half in love with him?
“I have. He's… uh, my boss."
"Your boss," she repeats, as if she can't believe what I'm saying. Wait until she finds the rest out. "Okay, so when do you get off of work? Because I need to talk with you."
I smile at her. “I just started." I look at the time. "Maybe you can grab a potato peeler and help me?”
Quinn hops up on a stool, grabs a potato, and then awkwardly tries to stroke a potato peeler against it. "Okay, so my mom's version of cooking was microwaving fries. Let's just say I'm not super good at this and maybe you can help me."
I look at Quinn and I look at the potato in her hand and I try to think of some delicate way to tell her that she has no idea what she's doing.
"So can I show you how to use this?"
"Maybe if you have like a regular potato peeler instead of this industrial thing." I don't have the heart to tell her that itisthe regular potato peeler, and the industrial one is gathering dust under the sink. I like to do things by hand.
I show her how to hold the potato. I show her how to curl her fingers away so that she doesn't slice one while she's peeling. I show her until the peels are curling and tendrils fall into a bowl. "Good job, Quinn. I think I should ask them to hire you."
"You're very sweet, but that would be an absolutely terrible idea. Believe you me, you do not want me in the kitchen. No. And now you can tell me what's going on."
So while we peel enough potatoes to feed an army, I tell her everything.
I tell her how I got here, the job Sergio gave me, how much he’s paying me and what I'm going to do with the money. I tell her about the car accident and my fears that Sergio would be gone. I tell her that I'm interested in him, and I don't know what it means, that I'm afraid of everything this club has to offer, but I also want to leave the past behind me. And God, does it feel good to have a friend. I like Marialena and I like Rosa. But Marialena is only visiting the club and will return home eventually, and Rosa is a little distant and quiet and harder to connect with. The guys… I don't know if it's me or them or if Sergio has told them to stay away from me, but they all keep their distance and barely talk to me.
There's just something “other” about me that keeps me separated. When I left, I had a feeling it was going to be like this. I didn't really think about it because my only goal was to leave. Now that I have, I feel the pain of missing so much that I left behind. Yes, I left a terrible marriage and abuse, and I left under the assumption that I would find a better place for my sister and me. But I also left the familiarity of home, and I left my sister there.
"Okay, so let's go back to the part about you telling me that Sergio Montavio is your boss."
"Do you know him, too?"
"Honey. Know him? Of course I do." She looks over her shoulder as if the walls have ears and she's afraid that Sergio is going to overhear her. "He's kind of… how do you say it. Scary hot. Notorious?" She talks in a lowered voice, almost like a whisper. "Eden, do you what a gangster is?”
Gangster. I feel my eyes widen. I cover my mouth. "You mean like organized crime?"
"Uh yeah, babe. That's exactly what I mean. Like the Godfather? Goodfellas? Only, Sergio is hotter and richer and obviously has much better taste in women."
Has much better taste in women.
I guess that's a compliment.
Although I don't know everything I need to know about this, I do know that Sergio isn't the type of person to hurt me like my husband did…
Actually, do I know anything at all?
Re-focusing on the overflowing bowl and the mounds of peels in front of me, I realize that we have peeled the entire twenty-pound bag of potatoes.
Quinn settles back on her stool. "I heard you snuck into the club last night."
For a secret private club, word sure gets around pretty quickly.
I grin at her. "I did," I say. "Quinn, I like it here."
Aunt Flo saunters in wearing nothing but what looks like a tiny little leopard-skin zip-up dress… if you could call it a dress. If I reached out and pulled the end of that zipper down, I don't think she'd have anything on underneath. And she probably wouldn't even bat an eyelash.
