Marrying a Mafia Princess
WD February Flash Fiction Challenge — Day 23
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This is my Day Eighteen entry to the Writer’s Digest February Flash Fiction Challenge. The prompt is to write about a whispered conversation.
Lorenzo Lombardi lives on a five-acre estate just outside Jersey City, his wealth obvious by the size of the lot in an area where land goes by the square foot, not by the acre. A tall stone and brick wall surrounds the property, too high for anyone to look over. Even from the wrought-iron gate, you can only see the gate house. The tree-lined, blacktop driveway winds round a bend and whatever lies beyond is out of sight. Not many have had the opportunity to pass through those gates, but I have.
Today the number of people who have entered this private abode has increased by a magnitude, for at this very moment, 250 guests are milling about the grounds, or are seated at tables set up beneath a large event tent. Today is Sofia’s wedding, and she is, as she says, a mafia princess.
Of course, I’ve always taken that a one of those expression people use. Don’t they say that about every Italian girl? It’s just a cute saying, something you laugh at. I certainly did. I knew my fiancé was spoiled rotten, but she turned out fine., but with this caveat — anything Sofia wants, Sofia gets. Her father will be impossible to follow. Somehow, I am determined to do my best.
We’d met at Princeton and for me it was love at first sight. That was nothing new for Sofia, it happened to her all the time, only she was always the object, not the one falling.
She told me once that she’d only ever truly loved like that once before, and he died in a tragic car wreck at the end of their senior year of high school. Since then she’d kept her heart locked away, that is, until she met me. And while for me love was instantaneous, for her it was more of a slow thaw.
I am nothing, if not persistent. Once my heart settled on Sofia, I was unswerving in my attention and devotion. It took an entire month just to get her to go out for coffee. And another two weeks to make that meal together.
That happened during our third year at Princeton. By the end of our fourth, with graduation looming on the horizon, and our future together unsure, I popped the question. I knew the likelihood of us being able to maintain meaningful contact once she returned to the gilded world from which she’d come was almost zero. I didn’t want to risk losing her. I was ready to seal the deal.
To her credit, she said yes to my bumbling proposal. We had a joyous evening of celebration, which led to an even more wonderful night on more intimate terms. But when morning came, the harsh light of reality dawned, was well.
Sofia sat up in bed and proclaimed, “It’s not going to work, my parents will never agree!”
Here’s a shocker, in our nearly two years together, I had never met Sofia’s parents. I felt I knew them fairly well from the stories she’d told me of her childhood, the many pictures scattered around her room, and the overheard conversations, when she talked to them on the phone. At the same time, I knew almost nothing about them.
Her father had a ton of money, and Sofia was always rather vague about what it was he actually did for a living. What I’ve gathered is that he is primarily an investor in land and businesses. Whatever it was he does, he does it well. Forbes has included him in the top 500 wealthiest people in the U.S. for three years in a row. Talk is that he is in ascendance, his fortunes on the rise. The articles have been just as vague as Sofia about the source of his wealth. Some speculated family money — his father had done well, as did his wife’s family — many declared it was investments that had paid off. Regardless, Lorenzo Lombardi is a very wealthy man.
Sofia’s mother is a socialite, according to reports, a Vassar girl from Georgia. Her family relocated to Georgia from New York after World War 2, and so she is a Southern belle with Yankee roots. She loves holding social events, but not at their estate. That has always been private.
Just as a point of comparison, I am not a wealthy man, and neither is my family. My father owns his own business, a small chain of bakeries in two cities. I think he has about four, maybe five stores now. My mother is an executive secretary for a legal firm. Her father might have been a carpenter or construction guy a long time ago, but he injured his back so badly, he jas lived off disability for decades, while my grandmother had made lunches for the school district. I never knew my father’s parents. He’d been raised in an orphanage, and once he came of age, he left and never looked back.
There was no wealth in my family tree — none that I was aware of, anyway.
So that is the sum total of all my knowledge about Sofia’s family up to that point. But I wanted to marry the girl, not her family. Right?
I have never been so wrong.
“Why wouldn’t they agree? We’ll both be done with college, at least for now, and I have two really good job prospects for my accounting degree. I even have some money saved up. I admit it’s not much, but if we both work, we’ll sock money away by the fistfuls.”
“No, it’s not that. My mom will be torn. Her first issue will be that you’re not Italian. That’s always an issue. Then you’re not Catholic. That, in itself is a deal breaker for her. And for my dad, well. it’s more complicated. I’m not sure he’s going to think he can trust you.”
“What?” I asked in disbelief. “What do you mean trust me? Trust me with what? With his baby girl? I don’t understand! I’ve never been in trouble before, I mean, not really. I’ve always had top grades. I was an Eagle Scout, for God’s sake! I may not be the most religious person in the world, but I can try, if it’s that important.”
“No, it’s not religion, at least, not for my dad, but, of course, if it matters enough to mom, it’ll matter enough to him.
“The problem is exactly what you said, you’ve never been in trouble. As far as anyone knows, you’re squeaky clean. And for my dad, that’s a problem.”
“You’re confusing me here, Sofia. Your father wants you to marry a criminal? Who in their right mind would want that for his daughter?”
“Not a criminal, just someone who has a darker side. He doesn’t trust people if there’s nothing he can hold over them.
“That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes, it does, it sounds frightening. What did you say your father does for a living again? The mafia?” I suggested jokingly.
Sofia froze in place, a startled look on her face.
“I’m just kidding, Sofia! I don’t actually think your dad is in the mafia. That would be ridiculous.!”
“Would it?” she said.
“Wouldn’t it?” I asked.
“Not if it were true.”
It was my turn to freeze in place, a startled look on my face.
“Would it be so bad, if it were true?” she asked.
A thousand thoughts ran through my head all at once, each one clamoring for attention. So when she said she was a mafia princess, she really meant it? And was that the reason no one could quite pin down what it was Mr. Lombardi did for a living?
It was all starting to make sense.
“Come on, Stephen! I mean, you do love me, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do. I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if I didn’t love you. But the mafia? Really…? Does he kill people, you know, cement galoshes, bodies buried in the city landfill, and all that?
“I don’t know. I never think about it. I mean, he’s my father, and I love him. He’s the only dad I have and he loves me and has always treated me great. Whatever he does, he keeps it to himself. I don’t even think my mother knows everything. He tries really hard to keep us insulated.”
“Then how can you be sure, you know, that he’s in the mafia?”
“Stephen! I’m not stupid. I read books and watch movies. I don’t live under a rock. I’m fairly smart and I can put two and two together.
“My dad is always surrounded by rough looking men, some of them really rough looking, you know, prison types. And there’s always important people coming to see him. They always look nervous, and act like they’d rather be anywhere else but there with my father.
“And from time to time, he has gatherings, and I see the faces of the folks that show up to these things. Some of them are infamous, like wanted by the FBI.
“I’ve done my research,” she finished.
“Have you ever just asked him?”
She looked horrified, “God, no! Why would I do that? One thing I’ve always understood. I think I learned it from my mother, everything is on a need to know basis. When I need to know, I’ll know. Until then, I don’t want to know.”
“So, what would I have to do for your father to trust me? Rob a bank?” I asked, playfully.
“It wouldn’t hurt, as long as you didn’t get caught. My father despises bunglers.”
“So, if he doesn’t trust people without a record, but he also despises people who get caught, isn’t that a Catch 22? I mean, you can’t be both.”
“That’s not true. If you get caught because someone turns you in, it’s not your fault, is it? That doesn’t make you a bungler. But if you get caught because of your failure to execute a thing correctly, then you are, in fact, a bungler.”
“Are you sure you aren’t in his organization yourself? You sound like the PR person, or at least Human Resources.”
She laughed. “I listen well, especially when people don’t think I can hear them. Girls are often overlooked, and whispered conversations are not as private as some people may think.”
“So, why don’t you just introduce me to your parents and let me take my chances? If your father balks, I simply ask him, man to man, what it is I need to do or be to marry his daughter.”
“That sounds absolutely crazy, and I’m not sure I could do that, but if that’s what you want, it’s just crazy enough, it might work.”
“So, it’s agreed…?”
“Agreed! I’ll introduce you to them at graduation and we’ll let them in on our plans. Let the pieces fall where they may.”
We shook hands to seal the deal, then snuggled on the bed for another fifteen minutes before facing the rest of the day.
We had a date with destiny. Graduation was one month away. What would life be like after that?
I had no idea. Absolutely none.
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