I enjoy her spirit, and the way she battles me feeds my need to be challenged. Maybe I’ve become addicted to our intense tug-of-wars. What if I stripped that away, and now it’s lost for good? My wife has confounded me at every turn, and at this point I have no idea how to act, what to say or do.
The French doors behind me open and Armani strolls onto the balcony.
“Figured you’d be out here,” he says.
I give him a once-over, noticing he’s dressed unusually casually even for his day off. Following in the footsteps of our late father, we both take off the second Monday of every month. It was a concession he made to our mother early on in their marriage, a promise he made (and kept) to ensure that at least one day a month revolved around her and not his work.
Not that “day off” means the same thing to me or Armani that it did to Dad. Case in point: my brother has a tablet in one hand, and the outline of his cell phone presses against his pocket. Even though he’s in Dockers and a checked button-down—hell, he even left the top few buttons undone—I know he’ll be working all day. Albeit from the comfort of a recliner or with a bottle of wine uncorked in front of him, but still. He’s a workaholic. Both of us are.
Marco is the only Bellanti who was ever born without an iron work ethic, and to be honest, sometimes I envy him.
“This better be good,” I say to Armani, making a big show of slurping my coffee. “It’s my day off.”
He knows I’m joking. “What the hell is a day off?” he jokes back.
“Talk to me.”
He flips the case to the tablet open. My gut tenses, as if sensing bad news.
“So I was looking into the sales records again—”
I frown. “Is this about the inventory fuckup?”
“Yeah. Funny story. See, I went into the stockroom to check out the labels on the crates of the Elite Reserve cabs. Know what’s crazy? They were the right labels.”
My frown deepens. “How’s that possible? They rang up wrong.”
Armani nods. “That they did. Seemed to me a little more detective work was called for.”
“Spit it out, man.” I’m rapidly losing patience.
My brother starts pacing, talking with his hands, drawing his story out just to push my buttons. Because that’s what brothers are for. “So I ask myself, ‘If the labels are correct, how can they be scanning at the wrong price?’ That’s not a labeling issue. That’s asoftwareissue.”
I’m starting to pick up what he’s putting down. “Okay. Sure. But the program doesn’t make edits by itself. Someone would’ve had to go in and change the barcode assignment in the program…”
“Exactly! It’s the only way you could scan the right label and get the wrong price. Someone edited the inventory field so thatthatbarcode would come up as a thirty-five-dollar item.” He turns at the end of the balcony and paces back toward me. “So I looked up the timestamp on the sales receipts and pinpointed the timeframe when the change took place.”
I grab the tablet out of his hand. “Show me.”
Leaning over, he taps the screen, navigating to the inventory management module. A few more taps and I can see the dates when all the product labels were scanned in.
“Frankie scanned in the labels here. See? Correct vintage, correct price. Two days of sales corroborate that the wines in question were labeled correctly.” He pegs me with a stare. “Interestingly enough, the next person to log into the software wasJessica. And the activity log shows she was the only person who signed in that day.”
Taking the tablet from my brother, I go through the evidence page by page. The trail is there, clear to see. The Elite Reserve price dropped on the same day that Jessica had her hands in the software, and no one has logged in since—until Armani did today.
“Jessica did this. She was responsible,” I growl. “Not Francesca.”
I go silent, battling my inner rage. Armani takes the tablet back and slowly closes the case, not taking his eyes off me.
“What?” I snap, nearly throwing my coffee mug over the balcony just so I can hear it smash on the ground below.
He rolls his eyes. “That feeling you’re having right now? It’s called shame. I saw the look on your face when you went to talk to Francesca last night—you need to make it right with her. She’s better than you deserve.”
“Get the fuck off my balcony.”
Armani smiles, backing away with his hands up. “It’ll be my balcony when you die childless and alone, brother.”
I’m not going to dignify that with a response. “Goodbye, Armani.”
