“How do you like our mixer?” Her father beamed, gesturing at the crowd with his heavy hand. “It’s the Sinatra Society and the Dean Martin Club. We did it together.”
“You’re kidding.” Mary laughed, delighted. “How did that happen?”
“I knew you were busy with Trish Gambone and all, so I figured I’d pick up the phone and call Mrs. Foglia myself.” Her father grinned, and behind him, Mrs. Foglia came forward with Tony-From-Down-The-Block. You didn’t have to be an amateur sleuth to see the new warmth between them.
“It’s like this,” Mrs. Foglia said, wagging a finger. “Tony said he was sorry to me and Frank, and that’s good enough for me.”
Tony-From-Down-The-Block nodded. “Then she apologized for what she said about Dean. Now everything is copasetic.”
Mrs. Foglia looked over sharply. “You apologized first. Then I apologized.”
Mary interrupted before the truce collapsed. “I think that’s terrific. No more litigation, no more fighting. Peace is better than war, and love came just in time.”
“I did good, huh, Mare?” her father asked, grinning, and in response she gave him another big hug.
“I love you, Pop.” Mary hugged him one more time, then her mother, and just when she thought the hugfest was over, Anthony threw his arms around her and gave her a big kiss.
“You’re amazing,” he said, looking down at her, his dark eyes warm, and suddenly from the crowd, came a gasp. Elvira Rotunno stood aghast, her forehead creased with bewilderment and her eyes focused on her son.
“Ant’n’y, honey? What are you doing, kissing Mary like that?”
For a minute, Mary didn’t understand, then she remembered.
Anthony smiled. “Ma, I have something to tell you.”
The room fell silent except for Frank Sinatra, and everybody held his breath.
“Ma, I’m not gay. I never was gay and I’m never going to be gay.”
“Ant, it’s okay. I know you’re gay and I love you anyway.” Elvira gestured at the crowd. “We all know. I told everybody, it’s like Rock Hudson. We’re all fine with it, aren’t we?”
The room murmured in approval, though Mary spotted two members of the Dean Martin Fan Club exchanging looks in the back of the crowd. Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime, but only if the somebodies were a boy and a girl.
“Mom, no.” Anthony laughed. “I’m really not gay. I just like books and wine and opera.”
“That’s not true, son. You don’t have to lie. I like it that you’re gay. It makes me feel special.”
“Listen, I’m straight. I can’t help it. I was born this way.”
“It’s possible, Elvira.” Mary’s father looked over with a half smile, but her lined mouth was set with skepticism.
“No, it’s not. What about Celine Dion? That’s proof!”
Mary saw a chance to broker a settlement. “Elvira, he was gay, but I converted him, and if I keep at it, he’ll stay on the straight and narrow.”
“Right, Ma. All it took was the love of a good woman.” Anthony threw his arm around Mary and gave her a squeeze. “This woman.”
Mary’s parents beamed, and Elvira looked from Anthony to Mary and back again, then broke into a smile.
“That, I can understand,” she said, finally.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
A pale yellow sun climbed a cloudless sky, and Rittenhouse Square was just beginning to flower, the coldest of March gone for good. The hedges lining the park popped bright green leaves, and the grass, recently seeded, sprouted behind cordons of cotton string. People strode through the park, bearing briefcases and gym bags, full of purpose and caffeine, on their way to work. Mary sat next to Judy on a wooden bench, dressed in a khaki suit, white shirt, brown pumps, and her starter trenchcoat. She was betting it would help get her job back, if she dressed like a mini Bennie Rosato.
“She’ll take you back, I know it,” Judy was saying. “All you have to do is go into her office, sit in a chair, and tell her that you’re sorry.”
“What am I sorry for, again?” Mary kept forgetting.
“You’re sorry for walking out that day.”
“I’m not sorry for that. I’m sorry I lost my job. Does that count?”
“No. You need to say you’re sorry if you want your job back.” Judy looked concerned, which was a neat trick in a jeans jacket and a cherry red minidress, worn with black-and-white-striped leggings and yellow Dr. Martens boots.
“She might not take me back. At the Roundhouse, she barely spoke to me.”
“Don’t worry about it. She’ll come around. She was really upset last week, after she’d come back from court. She won her trial and she still wasn’t happy.” Judy flared her eyes. “Unprecedented.”
“Really.”
“Weird.” Judy nodded.
“She left me no choice but to go,” Mary said, thinking back. “The truth is, I wouldn’t do it any differently.”
“You’re not going to say that.” Judy brushed a spray of bangs out of her eyes. “It sucks working there without you. Anne feels the same way. We want you back.”
“I want to go back. It’s where I belong.”
“Good. Then do it for me. Say the magic words, and Bennie will accept your apology. Even if she’s still mad at you, it makes business sense to take you back.”
“I’ve lost some clients.”
“You’ll get them back and plenty more. In fact, I forgot to tell you, Nunez called this morning and he’s rehiring you.”
“That’s great.” Mary felt her heart lift.
“It’s just the beginning. Of course Bennie will take you back. She just needs to save face, which is why you have to apologize.” Judy pointed her finger. “Say it first. ‘I’m Mary and I’m sorry.’”
“I’m Sorry Mary.”
“Stop joking around.”
“I’ll crawl in on my knees.”
“That works, too.”
“I hear you.” Mary was thinking about Mrs. Foglia and Tony-From-Down-The-Block. “You know, Bennie should apologize to me.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“I’m just saying. I didn’t do anything wrong and in the end, I caught the bad guy. Even if it wasn’t my job and she was somebody’s mother.” Suddenly Mary wasn’t feeling so strong. She was destroying her own self-confidence. She needed to shut up. “At least I have a boyfriend.”
“True, and he sounds great.”
“He is.” Mary had told Judy every delicious detail. Twice. Of course, she’d never admit as much to Anthony. Not all conspiracies of silence were wrong.
“But now you need a job.”
“Can you believe this? For a long time, I had a job and no boyfriend. Now I have a boyfriend and no job. How do you get both at once?”
“Stand up. We’re going.” Judy rose to her full six feet and checked her ridiculous Swatch watch with the tumbling baby heads. “You meet with her in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay, I’m ready.” Mary rose with a self-assurance she didn’t feel, and Judy raised a hand to slap her five.
“Come on, give it up.”
“No. You always do it too hard.”
“Now. For luck.”
Mary obeyed, and Judy slapped her palm too hard, as she knew she would. “Jude, ouch!”
“Sorry.” Judy threw an arm around her and they joined the flow of the people with jobs, walking to the office down the main diagonal of the park. “It’s nothing compared to what Bennie’s going to do to you.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m kidding. You’ll be fine.”
“You’ll come in if I scream?”
“Goes without saying,” Judy said anyway.