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“I thought you were bringing Nancy and the baby?” Carmela asked Tony B when she answered the door.
“She’s at her mother’s.” He came inside.
“Oh, everything’s okay I hope?”
“Everything’s fine, her mother’s just got cancer,” he casually dropped that bomb as he walked towards the kitchen.
“Oh! How’s the rash?” Tony S greeted the other Tony as he walked in the room.
“Ask your mother, she’s the one who gave me it.”
They both laughed even though it implied that he’d had sex with his aunt.
“I thought you were bringing the baby and Nancy?”
“She’s at her mother’s.”
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah, her mother’s just got cancer,” Tony B once again walked away after casually saying that.
He snuck up behind Christopher in the living room and put him in a headlock. “How’s little Chrissy doing?” He wrestled to keep ahold of him.
“Stop it!”
Carmela placed the last dishes out on the table. “Dinner’s ready!” Her and Tony then sat down.
The other two came into the room.
“The hell happened to you?” Tony S noticed how disheveled Christopher was.
“Nothing.” Christopher sat down.
Tony B sat down too and they all started to eat.
“How comes your parents and your Uncle Junior aren’t here?” Tony B asked as he buttered his bread.
“My father’s too sick with the emphysema… Uncle Jun’s coming but he drives so slow it’ll probably be next Sunday by the times he gets here.”
“It better not be, I made enough for 6,” Carmela was disgruntled that Tony B hadn’t told her he was coming alone.
“How come your mother’s not here?” Tony B asked Christopher snidely. “She having Sunday dinner over at her friend Jack Daniel’s?”
“Tony,” Carmela scolded him. She knew Christopher was already sensitive today for that very reason.
“What? I’m just joking around. You know that, don’t you, Chrissy?” He nudged him, purposefully getting him to spill his drink.
Both Tonys chuckled.
Christopher was already hurt by the comment about his mother and this just made it worse. He tried not to react.
“Tony!” Carmela scolded him again.
“The kid’s a klutz.” Tony B shrugged like he hadn’t done anything. “What you want me to do about it?”
Carmela got up to get a kitchen towel to clean it up.
Christopher went to pour himself a new drink but hesitated before actually doing it. “…Don’t do it again.”
“Do what again?” Tony B asked as he cut his food. “I didn’t do nothing to begin with.”
He poured the milk into the cup, nervously glancing at each Tony every alternating second.
Tony S jokingly jerked towards him as if he was going to knock it over. They both chuckled again.
“Both of you knock it off,” Carmela said as she finished cleaning the table. Just as she was about to sit down, the doorbell rang. She went over and let Junior in.
Christopher picked the cup up to drink some and looked between the two Tonys like he was being held hostage.
“I’ll fix you a plate,” Carmela said to Junior as they walked in the room.
“How’s my little nephew?” Junior took his hat off and sat down.
“You look balder than last time I seen you…”
“Go shit in your hat.”
Carmela put a plate of food in front of Junior and finally was able to sit down to eat. “Don’t listen to him, Junior. You don’t look any balder than usual.”
“Christ!” Junior regretted taking his hat off. “How bald do I usually look?!”
“Pass me the peppers.” Tony S pointed across the table, intentionally knocking his arm into Christopher as he was drinking the milk.
The Tonys laughed like schoolboys.
“Stop fuckin’ doing that!” Christopher looked on the verge of tears.
“Don’t cry over spilled milk, kid,” Junior gave a word of wisdom.
“I wish you two hadn’t taught him to curse like a sailor.” Carmela gave them both disdainful looks as she once again had to pause her dinner to clean the table.
“Relax, he woulda learned it at school anyway.”
“Woulda been the only thing he learned…” Tony B said under his breath.
She got the table clean and sat back down. “Now both of you just leave him alone.”
“Chrissy’s the one invading our personal space.”
“You know good and well that he didn’t go near either of you.” Carmela was already fed up of Tony B being here.
“No, but his beak did.”
The Tonys chortled like it was the first time they’d ever made that joke.
“Ignore them, Chris. There’s nothing wrong with your nose,” Carmela tried to make him feel better since he looked absolutely miserable.
“No, no, course not.” Tony S felt a little bad because he looked so upset. He put a hand on Christopher’s back. “You got a good nose, shows you’re Italian.” He patted him on the cheek.
He then looked at the other Tony, deciding to make fun of him to try and cheer Christopher up. “Look at your cousin over here, that blue eyed fuck. You can’t even tell he’s Italian with those headlamps he’s got.”
“They give me the creeps, blue eyes,” Junior didn’t care at all that he was in the company of people with them. “Like talkin’ to a husky.”
“Like staring right into his soul.” Tony S laughed at the other Tony, patting Christopher on the back.
“You’ll be staring into the sole of my shoe if you keep this up.”
“So how’s Nancy’s mother?” Carmela wanted them to stop insulting each other.
“Got cancer, I told you,” Tony B said between mouthfuls.
“I know, but how is she?”
“…Cancerous, I dunno.” He hadn’t been paying much attention to Nancy. “They got her on chemotherapy.”
“She’ll be balder than my Uncle Junior.” He chuckled.
“Such a thing to say,” Junior found the joke in poor taste. “The woman has cancer for chrissakes!”
“I was making fun of you, not her.”
“How about we just don’t make fun of anyone?” Carmela suggested. “Would that be too much to ask?”
“It’s hard to do when you got baldy and the beak sitting here.” Tony B gestured between the two of them with his head. “The jokes write themselves.”
“Watch who you’re calling baldy, kid.” Junior gave him a threatening look.
“Sorry…” Tony B just couldn’t stop himself from saying these things, even though Junior was a captain.
“He’s not the only one you need to be apologizing to,” Carmela had a pointed tone.
“Who?” Tony B legitimately had no idea.
Everyone at the table looked at him in disbelief. It still wasn’t clicking for him.
“The kid, you shadrool!” Even Junior had some empathy for Christopher. “Look at him, milk all down his shirt… poor little fuck.”
Tony B begrudgingly turned to Christopher. “I’m sorry about the milk, Chrissy.”
“Yeah, me too.” Tony S felt bad in hindsight.
“And…?” Carmela wanted Tony B to apologize fully.
“And for teasing you about your bea– nose.”
“And?”
“And for–” Tony B had no idea. “For what?” he asked Carmela. “The fuck did I do now?”
“You asked where his mother was…”
“What’s so bad about that?” Junior asked.
“He asked if she was having dinner with her friend Jack Daniel’s.” Tony S suppressed laughter but couldn’t hold back a smirk.
“It was a genuine question!” Tony B acted innocent. “She coulda been having dinner with her other friend Jim Beam for all I knew.”
Both Tonys found that hysterical.
Christopher got up and left the room, blinking away tears.
“Where are you going?” Carmela yelled over to him.
“Home.”
“Wait there! I’ll take you.” Carmela didn’t want to be around them either. She stood up and glared at them. “You three should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“I didn’t do nothing!” Junior looked affronted. “I defended the kid.”
“You’re right, Junior. I’m sorry.” Carmela shook her head, flustered by the Tonys. “Thank you.”
She grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter and walked over to Christopher, who was waiting by the door. She opened it and they left.
“You can cry around me, you know.” Carmela saw him trying to act like he wasn’t. “I’m not gonna tease you like those two.”
“I’m not crying.”
They got in the car and she started the engine.
“…Carmela.”
“What?” she asked as she began to drive.
“I don’t wanna go home.”
“You wanna stay here?” She looked incredulous and slightly judgmental. “Really? With those two?”
He shook his head.
Carmela understood what he meant now and she sighed. “I’ll take you to my parents.” She liked the idea of going there too. “Quite frankly, Christopher, I don’t wanna go home either.”
The men had started talking shop as soon as Carmela had left.
“Uncle Jun, I wish you’d consider what we’re proposing here,” he talked as though he was higher up in the family than he really was. “It could be very good for us financially.”
“Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which fills up first.”