She’s friendly but a little reserved. Who wouldn’t be, Danny thinks, meeting this group for the first time. And not at all stuck-up, like Danny thought she’d be when he saw her coming out of the water. But she has a voice like sex, low and a little gravelly—they all feel it, even the women, and it triggers a little tremor through the group.
“How do you all know Paul?” Pam asks, making conversation.
She’s smart, Danny thinks—including them all but connecting it around to Paulie, as if she’s trying to say, I’m not after your men. I’m not a threat to you. I’m one of you, really. Beautiful women have their burdens, too, he realizes—other women’s jealousy is one of them.
“Our families have known each other since Noah’s ark,” Danny says, feeling a little shy. She has a man’s white shirt on over her jeans. Danny wonders if it’s Paulie’s, if she put it on after they made love because it was handy or because she just thought she looked good in it, which she does.
Paulie puts his arm around her shoulder.
This is mine. She’s mine.
“How did you meet Paulie?” Liam asks in this tone like he can’t believe it could happen in the first place.
“At a bar,” she says with a self-deprecating smile. And she pronounces it “bar,” with an r, not “bah” like the locals, and even that is sexy. “I was out with some coworkers, and there was Paul.”
“Paul,” Danny hears. Not “Paulie,” “Paul.” He hasn’t heard Paulie called Paul since, well, ever.
“Where did you move here from?” Terri asks Pam.
She’s starting to get the lowdown, Danny thinks. The wives will pounce on Pam like fresh meat and get her whole life’s story, it’s so rare a guy other than Liam brings anyone new. They’ve all known each other forever and never even dated outside their own high school. They know each other’s stories too well, and they’re the same freakin’ story anyway.
“Connecticut,” Pam said. “I do real estate, and Rhode Island seemed to offer more opportunities.”
Another first, Danny thought—someone using “opportunities” and “Rhode Island” in the same sentence.
“Pasco,” Danny remembers to say, “Mary’s asking about the food.”
“Tell her she can start serving the pasta,” Pasco says without looking up from what he’s doing.
“Nice to meet you, Pam,” Liam says.
On the way back to the house, Danny says, “No.”
“What?” Liam asks.
He knows.
“Just no.”
“First woman Paulie’s ever dated who didn’t have a mustache,” Liam says.
“Don’t go busting balls,” Pat tells his little brother.
“Since when do I bust balls?”
“Since always,” Pat says.
It’s true, Danny thinks. Liam likes his jokes and always gets away with them. He especially likes getting under Paulie’s skin, probably because it’s so easy to do. And Danny feels like he did when he first saw her come out of the water.
She’s going to be trouble.
Women that beautiful usually are.
Seven
Christ, the food, Danny thinks.
The clams, the quahogs, the crabs. The huge pots of spaghetti and gravy, stuffed peppers, and sweet Italian sausiche. The joke is that the Irish are never, ever allowed to cook, but one time Martin wrapped a potato in tinfoil and had Danny secretly bury it in the coals and when Pasco dug the clams out he found that spud and yelled, “Marty, you old mick!”
God, how they eat. The food never stops. After the shellfish and the pasta, the sausiche and the peppers, the women bring out big boxes of the sweet little Italian cookies from Cantanella’s bakery in Knightsville. Only Cantanella’s cookies will do; someone was always designated to stop in Cranston on the way down from the city and pick up those cookies.
First time Danny made the Cantanella’s run, the boxes of cookies were on the counter waiting for him but when Danny reached for his wallet the girl looked at him like he was pulling a gun. Lou Cantanella came out from the back waving his arms like a football referee signaling an incomplete pass.
Danny felt a little bad about it when he was loading the boxes into his trunk, but then again, he knew that Lou never had to worry about the store being robbed, deliveries not arriving on time, health inspectors jamming him up on some bullshit violation, or the city deciding it needed to put parking meters on the street outside his stores. And whenever one of the Italians got married, Lou Cantanella always provided the cake, and the father of the bride paid bust-out retail, because that was a daughter’s wedding and it was a matter of honor to pay.