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But can I leave my father outside just like that?
I feel myself getting up even before the answer can filter into my head.
He was about to leave when I opened the door and the look on his face is none other than disapproval.
“Hi Dad,” I say and he sighs.
“Can I come in?” he asks, not even bothering with pleasantries.
I swing the door wider and he steps in. He looks about the place which looks close to being ready, then he returns his gaze to me.
“Where do I even begin?” he asks.
“What do you mean? I got the place. I did it.”
“How?” he throws back, but he already knows the answer to that.
“Salvatore invested.” That’s the best way that I can say it, but he knows it for a lie too.
“Mimi, I’m not stupid. I’m not fucking stupid and I really hoped you wouldn’t be either. Those guys don’t just invest. I can’t stand that you work at The Dark Odyssey, I hate that I know what that place is. But you have to do this too? This is more than just working for them.”
“Dad, I came to you and you said no. You made me feel like shit. Like nothing. You more than have the money to invest in me and you said no.”
“So you thought you’d spread your legs for the Giordanos to get what you want?” His nostrils flare and his eyes blaze.
My lips part. He’s never spoken to me like that before and if he wasn’t my father I would have slapped him by now.
“How could you say that to me?” I fume.
“Oh, so it’s not true? Really Mimi, tell me you aren’t sleeping with Salvatore and then I might think it really is an investment.”
I’m stunned and stumped because what am I supposed to say to him? What the hell am I supposed to tell him. It’s true. If I were to pick the situation apart it would be true. Salvatore made me an offer and I’m sleeping with him.
My silence is enough and he looks disappointed and worried all at the same time.
“Mimi… Jesus Christ girl. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. You never do. You follow them blindly. You followhimblindly and it’s dangerous. How I wish you would stop, but you just keep going deeper and deeper.”
“It’s not like that Dad. He cares about me.”
He shakes his head. “Sweetheart, you barely understand men, let alone men like that. Men like me. Once you’re in the mob you’re in for life. It means danger and I never wanted that for you. I tried to send you away to school and you stayed here. I tried so hard to get you away from the lot of them and now you’re involved. Three million Mimi. You are priceless. Priceless and precious to me and I wish to fuck you didn’t sign your body away to a criminal.”
“It’s not like that Dad,” I say again sounding like a broken record.
“It is Mimi. It’s exactly that. I’ve worked for the Giordanos for over forty years. So I know it’s exactly that. Like father like sons from one to the next. It’s all danger and distrust. They lie and they cheat. You can trust them as far as you can throw them, ” he points out. “Your mother hated our world, hated me, hated me so much she didn’t value her life. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to be with a man you can’t trust because he can’t tell you his secrets oranything. I didn’t want you to be with a man who is the essence of danger, let alone holding this building over your head so he can use you.”
“Dad…” my voice trails off. There’s no point repeating the same mantra.
“I don’t approve, Mimi. I don’t approve of any of it.” He shakes his head and my breath stills.
He walks away from me, continuing out the door. I stare until I can’t see him anymore.
Numbness fills me at the thought of Mom and all he said. Everything.
Numbness and sadness.
That conversation there was filled with a lot and part of me doesn’t want to accept that there were some elements of truth to what he said.
There was though.
