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The boss’s daughter doesn’t smile and she barely talks. Narancia’s counted maybe two sentences since they’d all gotten on the yacht and set out for the mainland: I’m tired and I don’t get seasick. She’d been quiet when they’d gone back down to the docks, quiet when she’d come aboard between Mista and Fugo, and quiet when Bucciarati had shepherded her into the cabin. It’s not like Narancia doesn’t get it—not like he’s the chattiest around strangers himself—but there’s something different about her silence that he can’t quite put his finger on, like it’s slowly, sadly eating itself whole.
Bucciarati wants her to have the cabin to herself, so the rest of them are hanging around above deck: Giorno’s talking quietly to Bucciarati by the stern, Abbacchio’s at the helm, and Narancia’s been napping on and off at the prow for the past hour, listening to Mista and Fugo play briscola in the warm spring afternoon. The air smells salty and the water is calm. Bucciarati’s made capo. Their mission for the boss has, so far, gone off without a hitch. No problems.
Except—
Except every time he closes his eyes, he just sees the boss’s daughter’s face: how it seems to carry burdens without names; how it looks out at the world with some profound, wounded doubt. He just sees an afterimage of her lingering at the stern before they’d left port, looking out at the glittering blue water like all she wanted to do was fall into it.
He frowns over his closed eyes and makes a frustrated noise, absently fingering the cut on his cheek, now bandaged, but still sore. Stupid boss’s daughter’s face, bugging him when he’s trying to sleep. He’s tired, too, you know. She wasn’t even the first person to stab him today!
Bucciarati comes over a couple of minutes later, saying that somebody needs to go check in on her. Nobody volunteers, so Narancia grumbles and raises his hand. He doesn’t want to get up for the world, but he’s loath to turn down an order from Bucciarati.
“I appreciate it, Narancia,” Bucciarati says, in this tone that sounds like he’s just being polite but that Narancia knows means he does feel bad for making him get up. “Downstairs, in the cabin.”
So Narancia goes down to the cabin. It smells like tobacco and wood varnish. Sale and Zucchero are nowhere to be found—they’d left those traitors with Pericolo back on the island. Narancia’s damn glad, too. Zucchero was too noisy. You put one fish hook in a guy’s eye…
He stops over the last stair. The cabin isn’t exactly dark, but after being out in the bright sunshine it takes a second for his eyes to adjust. He wouldn’t want to be cooped up down here. No way. The walls are cramped and the air doesn’t move. It kind of reminds him of—
He shakes his head and looks up.
The boss’s daughter is curled up on the seat by the left window, hugging her knees, leaning her head against the glass. She’s turned away from him.
Her hair is long in the back. It hadn’t looked that long under the bandana.
“Hey,” Narancia says curtly, and after a moment the boss’s daughter lifts her head and turns it around.
He doesn’t like the expression on her face: dull and empty, every inch. She’s got a small nose. His greeting goes unreturned.
Something rears sharply in his chest that he decides is annoyance. He aims his eyes at the hardwood floor, digging his heel into a coffee stain.
“Bucciarati wanted me to check on you,” he grunts.
The boss’s daughter looks at him for a second or two longer, and then turns her head away again, like he isn’t even there. When her temple lands on the wall, there’s a dull thud.
“Well,” she says sulkily, “here I am.”
Narancia scowls. Some attitude! First all that shit about stockings and mineral water and now—
“You just gonna sit around down here, or what?” he asks, and finally stomps down the last stair.
He hadn’t meant for it to sound as harsh as it does. Still, it gets a reaction—her shoulders stiffen up and her head whips back around, and her eyes flash to him as dangerously as they had outside the bathroom, about to reach for a sharp object. It’s only then that he notices that they’re green. A deep, living green, like some plant Giorno’s Stand might grow.
“Sit around?” she says acidly, and then her voice starts to rise. “Ah, of course, I’m so sorry. I’ll just go outside, then. Nothing could possibly happen to me, right? All those things that Mr. Pericolo was saying about torture and kidnapping and whatever else… I’m sure he was just making it up. Nothing to worry about.”
What’s in Narancia’s chest after that isn’t annoyance. Not exactly. It feels heavier. He averts his eyes and chews on the inside of his cheek until a word comes.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
The boss’s daughter doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. By the way her glare falters when he glances back, Narancia guesses maybe she feels bad, too. She must use a lot of hairspray to keep her style like that, but some of it has started going limp, and segments of it fall softly over her forehead. She almost looks ordinary now—not a princess of the organization or a target for assassination—just a girl, comprehending an apology, like it’s a foreign language.
Her arms loosen around her knees. She lets out a long, quiet sigh.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says, “but I forgot your name.”
Narancia blinks, his discomfort forgotten. Take it the wrong way? She says the weirdest things. Why would he care?
“Does it matter?” he asks.
An emotion he can’t name flickers between her eyes. Her eyebrows make a dent above her nose when she frowns, paper-thin.
“Of course it matters,” she says, in the same tone of voice Fugo uses when he’s telling Narancia about something he thinks is really easy, like prime factorization. “You have one, don’t you?”
Narancia squints one eye dubiously. “Yeah…”
The boss’s daughter’s face stays neutral. “Unless you’d like me to call you Signor Toilette?”
“No way!” Narancia groans, and scratches at his head. “Ugh, fine, fine. Ghirga.”
The boss’s daughter considers this. “Signor Ghirga,” she says softly.
Narancia makes a face. “Never mind. That just sounds weird.”
“It’s your name.”
“I know, but nobody’s ever said that signor part except—” The judge in juvenile court. The undertaker, seven years ago. “Forget it. Narancia, okay? It’s Narancia.”
The boss’s daughter unfolds it carefully—na, ran, cia, under her breath—and from outside Narancia can hear the sea and the wind and the engine, unending. His name sounds different like this, being treated so delicately, like it’s a spice or a color—like it’s something worth remembering.
“Thank you,” she says, even though Narancia has no idea what she’s thanking him for. “I’m Trish.” Quieter, “Trish Una.” Then she purses her lips, tilts her head to one side. Her eyes wander low. “Listen, about your face, I’m—it went deeper than I meant it to.”
Narancia blinks, his hand lifting reflexively to the bandage.
“Is that supposed to be an apology?” he asks, and he swears she actually turns red. “S’okay. I’ve had worse. Fugo stabs me all the time.”
“Fugo…” the boss’s—Trish says doubtfully, crooking one finger at her chin in thought. “Is that… the tall one…”
“Tall? Fugo?” Narancia splutters out a laugh. “Nah, you’re probably thinking of Abbacchio. Long hair?”
“Oh,” Trish says. “The one who follows Bucciarati around.”
“Huh? Does he?”
“Never mind.” Trish adjusts herself on the cushions, smoothing out her skirt with one hand. “Tell me about the rest. The others, I mean.”
Narancia shrugs, wandering to the wall at the right of the staircase. He can’t fathom why Trish would take an interest in them, but—maybe she’s the kind of person who’s more at ease listening to things than saying them.
When he thinks about it, there’s not much of a reason for him to keep hanging around down here—by now he’s followed Bucciarati’s order plenty of times over, and besides, he’s just hired muscle, not her friend—but it would feel wrong to leave her by herself when she looks so… lonely. Not that he’d tell her that. She doesn’t seem like she’d appreciate it.
He doesn’t feel like sitting, so he puts his hands in his pockets and slumps against the wall, bracing one foot on the wood. The rocking of the boat is gentle at most, but he’s always been more at ease with something at his back.
“What about ’em?” he says.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.” She says this almost imperiously, and for just a second Narancia thinks that she really must be the boss’s daughter, if she can talk to people like that. Bratty, but… forceful, steel-spined. “Their names, for one.”
Narancia tilts his head to the ceiling like there’s a list of names in the burls.
“Well… you already know Bucciarati. He’s been with the organization for a really long time. He’s really smart and strong—nobody can beat him! He taught me everything I know about fighting and—well, all kinds of stuff. He’s in charge—our capo.”
“Capo?”
“Yeah, caporegime. It’s, like… a leader, but not a boss. Because there’s the boss, right, and the consigliere… and then the underboss, then the caporegime. And capo are in charge of soldati. Like me.”
“Soldiers,” Trish says quietly, like it makes her sad. “I see.”
“So—” Narancia clears his throat, holding up a hand to tick the names off on his fingers. “So there’s me, and Abbacchio, and Fugo. I guess Fugo’s been with Bucciarati the longest. He’s some kinda big genius. Always hung up on, like, rules and stuff. I’ve known him forever, but he doesn’t talk about himself that much. He’s the one who…” What’s he blushing for? “You made him take off his jacket.”
“Oh,” Trish says. “Right, that. Does he wear that all the time? It’s ugly.”
Narancia’s snort takes him by surprise. “It kinda is. His family was super uptight, though, so—I think he was really happy when he realized he could wear whatever he wanted, y’know? So I don’t make fun of him for it.”
Trish’s eyes drift down to her lap.
“Oh,” she says again, unreadably.
“And Abbacchio… he looks scary, but he’s all right. He’s the oldest one here. Used to be a cop. He knows a shit ton about wine and, like, opera. I guess there’s… hm… people he hates and then people he hates less. And if you’re one of the people he hates less, you’re fine.”
“Mm.”
“Let’s see… oh, Mista,” Narancia continues. “He’s the guy with the…” He points a finger gun at her and makes a pow, pow sound. “Bucciarati bailed him out of prison for some murder charge and now he’s with us. He’s kinda loud and annoying sometimes, but… pretty cool. He reads a lot, so he’s always got weird questions about existence and love and all that stuff. Oh, and don’t mention the number four around him, yeah? He’s got a thing about it. A phobia.”
On the word existence, Trish had started toying with a loose thread in her skirt. She keeps doing it when she frowns up at him like he’s just described a pet that pees on rugs.
“And the other one?” she asks. “With the braid.”
“Oh, Giorno,” Narancia grumbles, and scratches at the side of his nose with a loud sniff. “Don’t know him. Some newbie.”
Trish nods again, taking this in. She subtly bites one side of her lip, as if conflicted, and then releases it again, the skin a little redder than before.
“And what about you?” she asks.
Narancia goes still. Her eyes are fixed on him, almost probing. He’s starting to discover that he has a hard time looking back at those eyes, for a reason that he can’t pin down—it crawls under his skin, unwelcome.
“Huh? Me?” He frowns warily. “What about me?”
“What made you decide to do it?” Trish asks, and tilts her head back to gesture with one arm at the ceiling. “Be one of them, I mean. A gangster. No offense, but you’re kind of…” She hums, eyes falling to her knees. “You’ve got a soft face. You don’t look like you’re that much older than I am, even.”
“Huh?” Narancia snaps. Soft face? What’s that supposed to mean? “I’m seventeen, y’know! And I—I did it cuz I wanted to. End of story.”
“And before that?” Trish presses him, undeterred by the hostility. That just makes Narancia madder.
“None of your business!” he barks, and pushes himself off of the wall to point at her accusingly. “What’s with all these questions, huh? What about you? You’ve got no problem nosing around about us, but you haven’t said anything about yourself, so come on!”
Something flares in Trish Una’s green, green eyes, then: not quite fury, but an anger with a gaping wound. She sits all the way up, and slams her hands down at either side of her hips, the impact silenced by the cushions; and already Narancia’s struck by the instinct to retreat, take it back—but she’s spitting out an answer before he can.
“Before this?” she echoes in a high, hateful voice. “Before this? Before this I went to school. I was good at French and bad at Chemistry. I had friends. Their names were Paola and Alessia and Gia. We fought sometimes, but they made me laugh. I lived in a little house with my mother and she taught me how to swim one summer when we went to Apulia and she saved up to buy me silver jewelry for my thirteenth birthday and when she died I wasn’t even there. I was asleep. Can you believe it? Asleep. Is that enough for you, then, Ghirga? Is that what you wanted to hear? I know a little French, and I can swim. And someday when you die I’ll sleep right through it. Happy?”
In the aftermath—with all the words embedded in the walls like so many throwing knives—she’s breathing faster. Narancia can see it move through her, like it’s a defiance all its own. That remarkable green has a dull shine to it now. Maybe, underneath his suddenly pounding heart, Narancia understands that shine enough to name it—but it’s a labor to dig that deep. And it doesn’t matter who or why: getting yelled at makes him want to show his teeth.
He can’t stand looking at her, right then. It’s like looking at an open wound, a bone sticking out of a leg: just blood and pain, unrelenting. He clenches his jaw, closes his hands into fists; starts counting backwards from thirty, like Fugo’s taught him. He talks himself out of screaming.
When he reaches zero, he bows his head to the floor. In the hangar of his chest, Aerosmith is almost too restless to hold in place.
This room’s too small, isn’t it? It’s too damn small.
“Forget it,” he mutters, flexing his fingers at his sides. “Forget it, yeah?”
This feels better than sorry. It feels better than of course I’m not happy. He knows it’s a pointless command, though; forgetting isn’t something you just do. Especially not when somebody tells you to.
He almost says, I wasn’t there when my mom died, either. He almost says, I learned to swim by watching her. He almost says, She named me.
“We’ll probably be there soon,” he tells her, low and without inflection. “Napule, I mean. Did—” He feels the line of his mouth harden, almost a grimace, and clicks his tongue to mask it. “Did you eat? You should eat.”
“What?” asks the boss’s daughter, but Narancia’s swung around to climb the stairs before he can screw up and look at her face.
The brightness of the world is jarring. His eyes resist it. He has to cover them with one arm when he lies down again in the same spot as before, where the boat begins, and pretends to be asleep.
“Ah, Narancia,” Bucciarati exclaims a few minutes later, coming to a halt next to him. “There you are. How was Trish? Did you speak to her?”
Narancia lifts his arm a little, even as his left eye strains against the light, the same as always. It’ll take a while to adjust. Bucciarati’s silhouette is indistinct in his periphery, but he can make out the general idea of his face: concerned, expectant.
He doesn’t think that he should mention the sleeping, the silver jewelry. He packs all of his answers away, smaller and smaller.
“Fine,” he says, and lays his arm across his eyes again, shielding so many things. “She was fine.”