Zaccaro

closed and step onto the sidewalk.
“Oh, no you don’t.” My mother is out of the car and closing the door in an instant.
Though this is totally the wrong moment, she sways onto the curb, hips flowing from left to right. This woman is off her fucking meds, and not because she went from wanting to die—and I mean begging, praying, crying for her heart to stop after Milo died—to using her sexy looks as a form of manipulation.
Hands up, shoulders tensed, the words slip out of my mouth, “Mom, are you taking your medication?”
Caught off guard, Lolita licks her lips. She glances back, and I do too. Tony isn’t as domineering or invasive as the others. He’s allowing us to have our tensed little chat.
“So you aren’t taking your meds? And he doesn’t know!” I place my hands on my hips. Her embarrassment about being bipolar doesn’t trump over my embarrassment for her latest, crazed episode.
Lolita holds up a tensed finger, pointing it at me. She only reprimands me when I’m so fucking right that it hurts. “You are my daughter, Reese, I am not yours. No, I am not taking any sort of medication, there is nothing wrong with me, meaning there’s nothing to tell Ton…”
I chuckle. “Mom, you’re so cute, too cute for your own good. Bat those long eyelashes, purse those plumped up lips and the old man with the bushy eyebrows gives you the keys to his throne.”
Her eyes narrow. “Why can’t I be happy? You never allow me to be happy!”
The words stun me. Do I have the only mother in the universe who puts her happiness over her child’s? Jamie always told me so.
His aunt owned a beauty salon off Slauson, when my mother was between husbands and couldn’t afford her favorite salon in Beverly Hills, she’d go to his aunt’s place. And I’d be elated as a child, unless his aunt didn’t have to babysit. At the age of thirteen, with a freshly tapered afro to boot, Jamie’s blunt ass leaned his chin against the broom and said, “I do believe that woman loves herself more than she loves you.”
And I don’t think he declared as much due to hatred of my mom. Lolita’s nose always crinkled as he brought her a fresh towel or a glass of tea. She’d said he was a confused little girl. But he’d always been nice to me up until that point. The next few times my mom had to save money on her hair, I stayed home alone.
“Yes, Mom, your happiness makes me happy,” I nod my head. It’s true. Honestly, after this evening I won’t be able to fall asleep and not worry over financial instability. Not at all. And she knows full well why I suffer from night terrors.
Her plumped lips kneed together. “Then act like it.”
“How about this,” I say, for a moment I bite my lip. Do I really want to grow a pair for the sake of myself and my mother? “If you love Tony enough to tell him about Milo, then I’ll believe you’re truly happy. I’ll be truly happy.”
My heart is settled for the moment. If Lolita Dunham is dumb enough, or in love enough to tell Tony about my father, then I’ll be happy. But she won’t. She had ample opportunity with a few of the others. Actually, I suppose all of the others, because none of them had any connections to law enforcement. They’d probably shit bricks at the Bennincasa infamous name, but Tony Zaccaro? Telling him will terminate her cash flow.
“Humph, maybe I will tell Tony about… him,” Lolita says, incapable of uttering my dad’s name. She almost ruined it for me, the many times she’d overdose on medication and scream his name to the high heavens as if he went up instead of down to the pits of hell. Then one day, she was unable to let Milo’s name float past those ever-puckered lips. With that, she saunters back to the car.
I stand at the curb, lips set in a line. Behind me, the lights to Flour are off. There’s a quirky painting on the window of a flour sack like what one would see at flour mills in the 1950s. The sack is lying on its side, with a plume of the white powder puffed up around it. The words “FLOUR SHOPPE” are in a curlicued blue-silver font.
The car doesn’t dash off. The driver’s side door opens, and Tony stands. He leans his elbows onto the hood of the car, with a friendly smile, he says, “Please, Reese, I’d prefer that you step inside and lock the door before we pull off. You’re much too beautiful and important for us to leave you outside, it’s almost eleven p.m.”
Tony’s polite gesture would prickle my instincts regarding any underlying intentions, yet I’ve met his son first. There’s no reason to be kind besides the fact that he’s also a gentleman. I nod and walk away.
My head dips so fast that my chin pierces my chest, before I become alert once more. Forcing my eyes closed and rapidly open, I stifle a nod. The purple, knit blanket surrounding me is pushed to the side. Dressed only in a Captain America pajama shirt that falls mid-thigh, I stand up from the suede couch in my living room. The empty bottle of Asti Spumante clatters on the wood floor, rolls underneath the coffee table, clanking and coming to a stop against the wrought-iron leg. Damn, I am a weakling, and the sweet, sparkling wine didn’t do the trick. Wish Jamie were here, he’d bring the good, hard stuff. The type of alcohol that would force me into a dreamless sleep.
I reach down to grab the remote. The flat-screen TV before me has gone black from inactivity. With the press of a button, the light illuminates the room, and an infomercial comes on. The voice is so loud that it does the trick, I’m awake, perhaps for a