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“Girls!” Carmela yelled upstairs to Meadow and Kelly Blundetto. “Breakfast!” She turned around to go back to the kitchen to serve AJ’s breakfast, who was already downstairs.
They both went silent to listen to her and then continued with their conversation like she hadn’t said anything.
“Shut up.” Kelly rolled her eyes. “You sound like a total head case.”
“How do you think my dad just bought this house? He’s supposed to work with garbage trucks.”
“Everybody needs garbage trucks, Meadow,” Kelly said as she finished doing her hair. “You can probably make a bunch of money that way. Like, thousands.”
“You ever noticed how every man we know disappears every Super Bowl?” Meadow gestured for Kelly to pass the hairbrush.
“So what?” Kelly passed her it. “They like football, they probably get so drunk they can’t come home.”
“Girls!” Carmela yelled. “I’m not gonna tell you again!”
The girls rolled their eyes and left their bedroom to go downstairs.
“I’m so tired,” Kelly complained as they walked down the stairs.
They’d been up most the night talking back and forth about this.
“Me too.”
“Finally,” Carmela remarked when they came into the kitchen. “You better eat up, you’re gonna be late for school.”
They sat down.
“You know, Kelly. When you came to live with us we promised your father we’d take good care of you.” Carmela put their plates of pancakes in front of them. “Being late for school every day’s really gonna let him down.”
“Sorry, Aunt Carmela…” Kelly said as she picked up a piece of bacon.
“AJ, slow down,” Carmela told him to stop shoving all his food in his face.
“I’m hungry!” AJ said through a mouthful of food.
“What’s the matter with you two?” Carmela asked the girls, making sandwiches for their lunch bags. “You look tired.”
“We’re fine, mom,” Meadow had an attitude. “Stop nagging at us.”
Carmela shook her head to contain her irritation. “I never talked to my mother that way, you know that?”
The doorbell rang and Christopher walked in to pick up Tony. “How you doing?”
“Good morning,” Carmela didn’t look up from the sandwiches she was making.
“Where’s Tony?”
“In bed,” Carmela said as she put the sandwiches in the bags.
“Great. I got up at 7 in the morning to get over here and he’s not even ready?”
“Where’re you going?” Meadow wanted to prove Kelly wrong.
“Work,” Carmela answered for Christopher.
“Where?”
“Barone Sanitation, you know that.” Carmela finished with the lunch bags.
“I thought dad was a butcher?” AJ interrupted them.
Everyone looked at AJ like he was an idiot.
“….What?” AJ looked around at everyone.
“He’s not a butcher, what’re you talkin’ about?” Christopher scoffed.
“I thought he worked at the pork store?”
“How do you know about the pork store?” Carmela looked at AJ with a furrowed brow.
“Christopher took me.”
Christopher felt betrayed.
“You took him to the pork store?! Why would you do that?” Carmela’s response made Meadow and Kelly look at her with suspicion.
“Tony made me pick him up from school that time he had detention and both of youse were busy. He was hungry! I got the kid a sandwich, that a crime?”
“You couldn’t have gone anywhere else?!” Carmela sounded incredibly exasperated. “McDonald’s, nothing?”
“What’s so bad about the pork store?” Kelly was starting to believe Meadow.
“Nothing. It’s unhygienic there. He could’ve gotten salmonella.”
“They don’t even sell salmon there.” AJ felt Christopher glaring at the back of his head.
“So does dad work at a pork store or not?” Meadow brought them back to the point.
“No!” Carmela felt herself getting flustered. “AJ got mixed up. Isn’t that right, Christopher?”
“Right.” Christopher nodded unconvincingly.
“Why can’t dad drive himself to work?”
“What is it with you this morning and all these questions?!”
Tony came down the stairs, still in his robe. “Christopher. Come help me with the water heater.” He gestured for him to follow him into the basement.
He followed him.
Meadow and Kelly looked over their shoulders for a moment to watch them. Carmela turned around to wash the dishes, and Meadow had an idea.
“I forgot my watch,” Meadow said to her mom.
“Go get it, you’re gonna be late.”
Meadow looked at Kelly and then jumped off the stool. She walked over to the basement door and put her ear to it. She kept an eye on Carmela in case she turned around.
“Don’t you got nowhere else in this house we can talk?” Christopher asked Tony as they went down the stairs. “Smells like damp in here.”
“It’s a new house, how can it smell like damp?” Tony sounded half asleep still.
“Hugh musta built it with damp cement then, I don’t fuckin’ know.”
“All cement’s damp.”
They got to the end of the stairs and walked towards the window.
“What is it?” Christopher said. “The thing with the–”
Tony put a finger to his lip silently and pointed at the AC with his other hand. He pulled the cord. He waited until the fan started before he took his finger from his lips.
“That’s why you put that thing on?”
“What did you think it was for? I like the noise?”
“Thought you was hot, maybe.”
“It’s November.”
Meadow sighed when she could no longer hear any conversation.
“Meadow, hurry up!” Carmela yelled when she was finishing drying the dishes.
“I’m ready!” Meadow came back over to the kitchen. “God.”
“Where’s your watch?” Carmela looked at her empty wrist.
“I put it in my bag,” Meadow came up with a quick lie. “I’ll put it on when we get outside.”
“All right, just go already before you miss the bus.” Carmela handed them their lunch bags. “Have a good day at school.”
The girls rushed ahead of AJ and looked at each other as they walked out of everyone’s ear shot.
“What were they talking about down there?” Kelly whispered.
“I don’t know, my dad put the AC on before they said anything,” Meadow whispered back. “AC in November? Come on.” she rolled her eyes.
“That’s so weird…” Kelly said as they walked out the door. “And what do they know about water heaters anyway? They’re not plumbers.”
“I told you they were in the mafia,” Meadow sounded arrogant that she’d been right.
Kelly didn’t reply as they walked down the driveway, embarrassed that she’d been wrong. “…Do you think they have guns?”
“It’s not Bugsy Malone, Kelly.”