Gianna
The clink of glass on the table tore my attention from the skeletal outer wall of the Roman Colosseum. That famous ancient structure loomed only a few hundred feet away from us, across the street. The clear liquid inside the shot glass rippled from the force, almost spilling over the flared edges. Katie dropped into the chair on the other side of the wooden table we’d snagged in the outside seating area.
“I thought I said no vodka,” I grumbled, head shaking, “not after spring break and the sun hasn’t even set. Isn’t it early for the hard stuff?”
Katie giggled and rolled her eyes like a community theater understudy trying to impress. Her head dropped back after she brought her own glass up, downing the liquor. When the glass slammed back to the table, her head twitched, sending her blonde hair dancing.
“First of all,” she said, almost stuttering thanks to the potent drink, “that is not vodka, it’s grappa. The bartender said it’s what Italians drink. Smell it, if you don’t believe me.”
Under her watchful eyes and not exactly reassuring smile, I plucked the glass from the table and slowly brought it toward my nose. The potency had me blinking.
“It smells like paint thinner.” I frowned at the glass.
“You’d make a great sommelier.” Katie held up a second finger. “It’s not vodka, and two, we’re in a different time zone. Just pretend we’re back in New York.”
“It’s not even three in the afternoon in New York,” I replied.
Katie offered another melodramatic sigh as she crumpled against the back of the chair. When she shook her head and flashed her ‘really, Gia,’ smile, I gave in to the inevitable.
Given her reaction to the drink, I expected more than the mild burn in my throat as it went down. She clapped and gave a whoop that had a few of the other patrons frowning our way.
“Finally,” Katie huffed, pushing a second glass of the caustic liquor in front of me, “I mean, I thought the whole point of this trip was to get wild and crazy. Celebrate graduation in style before we have to live in the real world.”
“We came straight here straight from the hotel,” I countered while glaring at the second glass of grappa, “and there’s wild and crazy and then there’s guzzling paint thinner.”
“Really, Gia?” Katie added words to her upturned eyebrow glare. “I mean, come on. You’re going to need a few drinks in you to work up your courage if you’re going to finally lose your V-card.”
“I never said that!”
My volume caught the attention of the other patrons and even a couple walking down the street. I’d pulled it to a hissing whisper by the end. It only earned me a giggle and another ‘really Gia’ glare from my companion. She sat straighter in her chair and pressed her lips together flat, eyes narrowed. Her impression of me was incoming.
“My father,” she began with her voice lower, mimicking my alto, “is going to make me marry one of his business partners now that I’ve graduated. Maybe I should have a little fun on our trip, make sure I’m not pure on my-”
“I don’t sound like that,” I interrupted, eyes still on the glass of grappa.
“Sure. Criticize my performance but I didn’t hear a refute of the content,” Katie said, her teasing smile blooming.
No, I hadn’t.
My hand snatched the glass and I gulped the burning liquid in one go. Katie didn’t cheer this time. Her lopsided grin faltered and turned down as she looked between me and the empty glass.
“You know how crazy that sounds?” she whispered with a growing frown. “I mean, you aren’t royalty or anything. It’s the 21st century. It doesn’t make any sense.”
No, it didn’t… at least not without all the information.
Katie might have been my best friend and roommate for the last three years, but I didn’t share everything with her. My father had drilled that into me before he’d ever come clean on who he really was, on what he really did when I was younger. According to his business card, Michael Marciano was the CEO and owner of Marciano Capital, our family-owned private equity firm.
In truth, Marciano Capital operated with two accounting books. One showed the story Katie knew, an American success story. He’d taken the shipping interests his father owned and leveraged them into a billion-dollar investment firm with its fingers in everything from agriculture to bleeding edge tech.
The other books, those kept only in my father’s head and the encrypted flash drive he never let out of his sight told the rest of the story: where the money really came from. My father ran a different type of family business, the Mafia type. When the feds hit the five families hard, my father only burrowed in deeper with a stronger legitimate cover, worked to rebuild the shattered empire.
Sure, the owner of an investment firm didn’t pawn off his daughter to the owner of another hedge fund. The head of a Mafia family intent on rebuilding the Commission with himself as Chairman did. Not that I could share that with Katie. I didn’t want to attend her funeral.
“I don’t understand how you put up with that.” Katie’s words pulled me back to reality.
“It’s complicated.” I offered my rote reply to this conversation.
Again, I couldn’t share the truth. No, I was unwilling to. It wasn’t like my father had a gun to my head. Not that he couldn’t, if he wanted. You didn’t get to his position without some blood under your nails. He dangled my credit cards over a shredder instead.
When he first told me about his plans, I acted exactly like Katie, incensed and enraged. The bar set in his study didn’t survive my preteen tantrum. As the 30-year-old scotch spread across the hardwood floor strewn with shattered crystal, he gave the ultimatum. He’d cut me off if I denied him.
“It’s not complicated, you’re a free woman,” Katie argued, same as always.
No, I wasn’t a free woman. I’d been bought and paid for like one of the high end call girls at my father’s exclusive escort service, a virgin whore.
“That wasn’t a joke,” said Katie, her ‘really, Gia’ expression glued in place.
Had I laughed?
My eyes fell to the two empty glasses in front of me on the table. Sure, I had not been drinking that much since the cucumber lime vodka incident during spring break, but two drinks shouldn’t have hit me that hard.
Everyone’s drunk was different, I’d found in my admittedly limited experience. We all had different inhibitions. After Katie downed a few, she got emotional. Nine times out of ten, she’d stay happy, bouncy and infectiously energetic. Just like Russian roulette, there was a single, regrettable shot in the revolver. Sad, drunk Katie might have been rare, but when it came out she went from the life of the party to its unrepentant murder.
When I drank, my mind turned inward. The alcohol picked the locks to memories and thoughts I tried not to dwell on. Thankfully, drinking with a cheery Katie kept me from getting lost down those dusty mental paths. Now, I just had to keep her smiling.
“You know what, maybe it is a good time, for, you know,” I said, only losing my nerve at the end.