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In their modest house, Tony sat watching old movies in the living room while eating ice cream. He wasn’t paying much attention to AJ, who was toddling around the room hyperactively. The doorbell rang, so Tony got up to answer it.
“Stay over there,” Tony said to AJ as he left the room. He opened the front door.
“My little nephew.” Junior smiled when the door opened.
“What are you doing here?” Tony was genuinely confused.
“Nice greeting.” Junior walked into the house without being invited. “I needa see if Carmela can get this stain outta my shirt.”
“She’s out, she’ll be back soon.” Tony shut the door. He looked at the shirt in Junior’s hand. “What is that? Blood?”
“Wine. That fuckin’ retard from New York spilled it on me last night.” Junior clenched the shirt angrily. “It’s a $30 shirt!”
“Little Carmine?” Tony guessed who it would’ve been from the description.
“No flies on you.” Junior walked into the living room and sat down on the couch.
AJ ran and jumped onto him. Junior froze like a statue.
“He’s hyper, I gave him some ice cream.” Tony shrugged.
“Get him offa me!” Junior leaned away from AJ.
Tony grabbed AJ and pulled him away. “Go over there.” He directed AJ to the toys in the corner of the room.
“Disgusting…” Junior muttered as he wiped at his pants. “Sticky hands.”
“Funny, I never remember you acting like that when I was a kid.” Tony sat down next to Junior.
“How would you know what I was like? Nobody remembers being that age.”
Carmela walked in the front door after being at the salon. AJ ran towards her and babbled. She was surprised to see Junior when she came in the living room. “Oh, Junior.”
“Hi, sweetheart.” Junior nodded at her.
“What do we owe this pleasure?”
“He’s got a stain.” Tony gestured at the shirt. “Needs you to get it out.”
“Oh…” Carmela’s smile faded. “Since you asked so nicely.” She walked to the couch and picked up the shirt. “What is this? Wine?”
“On a $30 shirt!” Junior felt angry again. “Johnny Sack told me to put white wine on it and it didn’t do nothing but give me another stain to get out!”
Carmela folded the shirt. “I’ll try and get it out later, but I can’t make any promises.” She picked AJ up and he started whining. “He’s sticky. Did you give him ice cream again?”
Tony shrugged, focusing on the TV now.
“Tony! He’s gonna be up all night.” Carmela sighed angrily and put AJ on her hip. “Where’s Meadow?”
“McDonald’s. Christopher took her.”
“I wish you wouldn’t let him do that.” Carmela kept getting more fed up, trying to ignore AJ’s screeching. “I hear him speeding in that car as soon as he gets off the driveway.”
“They’ll be back in a minute, don’t worry about it.”
“Turn the volume up, I can’t hear nothing.” Junior gestured at the remote in Tony’s hand.
Carmela shook her head and walked to the kitchen to wash AJ’s hands and face, carrying the shirt.
“I should send him a fuckin’ invoice for that shirt, is what I should do,” Junior couldn’t let it go.
“Uncle Jun, it’s $30,” Tony tried to give him some perspective.
“I went to the tailor special for it. Got it fitted right to me!” Junior continued to complain as if Tony hadn’t said anything. “It’s bad enough I gotta listen to him talk… Nothing he says never makes no sense, I don’t know why they let him outta the house.”
“I heard they’re sending him to Florida,” Tony told him as he finished his ice cream.
“Good!”
The doorbell rang. Tony waited for Carmela to answer it even though she was busy. She didn’t go to answer it.
“Carmela!” Tony yelled. “Can you get the door?”
She continued to ignore it, so Tony begrudgingly got up to let Christopher and Meadow in.
“Daddy!” Meadow hugged Tony’s leg as soon as the door opened. Tony put his arm around her shoulder.
“You got somewhere I can put the trash? I don’t got nowhere in the car.” Christopher held up the Happy Meal containers in his hand.
“You gave her two Happy Meals?” Tony asked as he gestured for Christopher to follow him into the kitchen.
Meadow came with them, not wanting to let go of Tony.
“I got a one too.” Christopher put the containers on the counter, expecting Carmela to deal with them. “Hey, Carm.”
“Hi.”
“Yeah? The toy good?” Tony joked.
“I asked for a girl meal and a boy meal but they gave me two girl toys.” Christopher wasn’t aware it was a joke. “Now I got a mermaid sitting in the car. I don’t know what to do with the thing.”
“Give it to Meadow,” Carmela suggested as she wiped AJ dry with a kitchen towel.
“I don’t want it,” Meadow said petulantly.
“Why not?” Carmela asked. “You like The Little Mermaid.”
“Why would I want two of the same toy? That’s stupid.”
“You keep talking like that I’ll take away the other one too,” Tony threatened.
Meadow stuck her bottom lip out. “…Sorry, daddy.”
“Go do your homework.” Tony ruffled her hair and gestured for her to go upstairs. She did what he said.
“15 minutes I been here and nobody’s offered me as much as a coffee,” Junior raised his voice to be heard from the living room.
“Would you like a coffee, Junior?” Carmela offered curtly.
“Cream and sugar.” Junior smiled to himself.
“I’ll take a coffee too, Carm,” Christopher invited himself to one.
“Tony?” Carmela accepted that she was now a barista.
“Sure.” Tony shrugged.
AJ babbled like he was part of the conversation.
“Your Uncle Junior here?” Christopher asked as Carmela started to make the coffee, confused by hearing him.
“No, they got me on speaker phone. What do you think?” Junior spoke loudly from the living room.
“What’s he doing here?” Christopher asked quietly. “It ain’t a Sunday.”
“He’s got a stain on his shirt.” Tony looked at the shirt on the counter. “Needs Carmela to look at it.”
“What is that? Blood?” Christopher made the same violent assumption that Tony had.
“Wine. Some idiot from New York spilled it on him.”
“Who? Little Carmine?” Christopher surmised from the description.
Tony nodded.
“The fuck was he doing with him?”
“It’s none of your fuckin’ business what he was doing,” Tony pulled rank. “If you wasn’t my nephew you wouldn’t even know he’d been there.”
“Do you mind with the language,” Carmela complained as she poured the coffee into cups.
“Carmela, he don’t know how to speak,” Tony reminded her of AJ’s age.
“I don’t want his first word to be fuck, Tony,” Carmela whispered as she said the curse word.
Tony and Christopher snickered, amused by the idea of his first word being fuck.
“It’s not funny,” Carmela told them off. “I don’t want our son being a potty mouth.”
“Fine, so we won’t say the F word around him,” Tony compromised, sensing that Carmela was stressed.
“What about cunt?” Christopher asked.
Junior laughed from the living room.