“No, Johnny, no, it’s nothing like that, please, I’m alright, I swear!”
John relaxed; he’d seen no lie in her eyes, she really was OK. His eyes warmed, and once again his voice, his accent, and his smile were as light and bantering as before.
“OK, li’l sister, then whyn’t y’all tell me what’s goin’ on.”
Justine took a calming sip of her coffee and looked off into the distance, her eyes unfocussed.
“Ever since he lost his father’s business it’s been getting worse at home. He’s so stubborn, he wouldn’t take any offers of help, he won’t let me help him, he just tells me it’s none of my business and to shut-up, he knows what he’s doing, and he doesn’t need me poking my nose where it doesn’t belong; daddy’s friends, his old associates, they all tried to guide him, tell him things, show him what he was doing wrong, but he insisted that he was his father’s son, that any business his father could run, he could run just as well. But he couldn’t, Johnny, he’s not his father’s son, he made so many bad decisions…” her voice trailed off, and John noted with concern her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He took her hand and squeezed it comfortingly, and she tried to smile at him, but it was a poor effort at best.
“I tried to help him, but he wouldn’t listen,” she continued. “Johnny, he lost the stores, all of them; just one bad decision after another, and now everything his father and grandfather worked so hard for, everything they put away, all the investments they made, it’s all gone. He owes everyone, and now he just takes any old job that comes along, but he can’t even keep those; he starts off on this thing about how he ran his own multi-million dollar business, he tries to make them do things his way, he shoots his mouth off one time too many, and they terminate him.”
As she recited this, John saw her lip quivering, and he realized she was holding back the tears only with an effort of will. He slipped his arm around her shoulder and held her comfortingly.
“Whyn’t you tell me somethin’, Justy? Mebbe I could have helped you out, mebbe talked some sense into that… into Carlo. Do you need me to talk to him, baby?” he asked her softly, “Or maybe see if there’s anywhere I can slot him in, someone I can ask a favor if he needs a job?”
Justine shook her head.
“That won’t work; you can’t give him advice, and he’ll just throw any offers back in your face; he’s got too much fucking pride and not enough smarts to know when he’s in a hole. He knows how to run the world, everyone else is wrong, and he’s right, and I can’t get through to him. Because of his goddamn pig-headed pride and stupidity we’re stumbling along day to day, and he’s not cutting it. So I need some advice, and you’re the smartest person I know; I need you to help me, Johnny; I need you to tell me what to do, ’cause I’m out of ideas!”
“Anything, baby, you know that! Do you need money? I can…” But Justine cut him short.
“No, no thank you, baby, I appreciate the offer, but I can’t take your money, you know that; thank you for offering, though, honey, and I love you for it. No, I need to know how I can legally, or at least safely, make enough money to keep us afloat; all mama’s insurance is gone, everything she left me is gone too. He lost it all, and now we’re broke; all I have left are a few dollars in checking and mama’s engagement ring. I need to do something, Johnny, God knows, someone has to, but I don’t know what, so this is where you come in, Johnny B. I need ideas. Have you got any?”
John squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
“First things first; what can you do?”
Justine shook her head sadly.
“I have no marketable skills; you know I passed on college to marry Carlo; it seemed like such a good idea at the time…” she trailed off bitterly, her eyes glittering, then heaved a sigh.
“Thank you for not saying ‘I told you so’; you tried to stop me, and I didn’t listen, and now here I am. All I know how to do is cook and clean. I’m basically trained to be a wife, a wife whose husband won’t touch her because he’s too busy drinking in that goddamn bar he spends all his time in…”
John grinned at her, while his mind circled her admission that all was not well in the bedroom stakes. He briefly considered telling her that she didn’t have to worry about money, that all her father’s money was safe, in a series of trust funds set up by their mother against such an eventuality, with some very trustworthy people indeed looking after her best interests.
He knew now that keeping quiet had been a good, if instinctive, move; if Carlo knew she had all that money, he’d have pillaged it if he could, or made her hand it over to him, something John had suspected from Day One. Bruno Pellini had made no bones about how he saw his son, and his warnings about what kind of man Carlo was were being borne out by Justine’s predicament.
Johnny smiled grimly to himself; there was no two ways about it, the day she got shot of that spoiled, worthless turd was the day she became a very wealthy young woman, her trustees would see to that; Johnny trusted them to finagle a way to cut Carlo right out of the loop, and, knowing just who was on the job, and what kind of skills they had, he had no doubt that they would make it come out right for Justine. In the meantime, he’d keep on keeping quiet about it, because if he told her, Carlo would get it out of her somehow, and it would all go to shit.
But right now, she had to do something of her own; she needed to prove to herself she didn’t need that pointless husband of hers anymore.
“You say you can clean, and I know what a good cook you are, so here’s a suggestion right off the top of my head: why don’t you start your own cleaning or domestic care business? I’ll front whatever startup capital you need. I know a shitload of very well-paid single guys who need someone to organize their lives and clean up after them; their momma’s ain’t around to do it for them, and they’re incapable of doing it themselves. I think they’d pay to have a clean home and a proper, home-cooked meal once in a while. I know I would. Some of these guys pay a heap of money to some big franchised corporation just to have someone come in an’ do their laundry, wipe down the counters, run a vacuum over the place, and leave; I’m sure you could do it for less, and do a better job, an’ get paid cash in hand; I don’t think we need to trouble the IRS with somethin’ like this, they got more important stuff to worry about, an’ it’ll get you money to keep you afloat for now. What say you give it a whirl? If it works, you’re set, if it don’t, you’re no worse off…”
Justine looked at him in stunned, hopeful silence, but then her face fell.
“Johnny, I need to earn money now. I don’t have time to build up a business clientele; I need to be able to hit the ground running, and make money now, not down the road somewhere. Thank you for trying, babe, but…”
She stopped as John tapped her lip gently with his fingertip.
“Hold on there, baby-girl, I wasn’t finished; I said I knew a whole heap of guys. You just sit, I got some numbers to check, and we’ll take it from there. Sit!”
John padded over to his computer desk and pulled the massive, old-fashioned Rolodex flip-card index file close. Justine watched as he flipped through it, pulling out cards until he had a sizeable stack in his hand, and grinned over at his sister.
“OK, baby girl, this is what we gonna do; I’ll call each name here tonight; they all work same kinda hours as me, so I won’t go callin’ them now, but I don’t need to be at work until mebbe after midnight, so I got a couple hours to make some calls, and sell you as the perfect Domestic Goddess. These guys all know me, they’ll listen, and we’ll take it from there. Take my cards and my keys, go buy cleaning supplies, janitor buckets, mops, that kinda thing, whatever you think you’ll need, and dump it all here. Now, you got to go, I really need to get some sleep, just go get what you need, order it if you need to, and have it sent here. Let yourself in when you’re done, and we’ll talk again tomorrow morning. Anything I miss out?”
Justine looked wide-eyed at him; he was serious, he was actually getting off his ass and doing something; she mentally compared him to her husband, how organized, decisive, and level-headed he was, as opposed to what a fucked-up, chaotic mess Carlo had made of their lives and their finances, with his pettiness, his stubbornness, and his self-centered, hard-nosed, wilful arrogance and refusal to listen, and the thought flashed across her mind, instantly suppressed:
“God, I wish Johnny was my husband; if he was, I’d never be in this mess, not now, not ever…
*
Justine was a hit almost from the get-go; John was right when he predicted they’d be breaking down her door, and pretty soon she was working flat out, for more money than she’d ever had, doing what she’d always done; his friends and colleagues were well-paid, well-connected, and almost completely useless in the domestic arena, and pretty soon Justine was indispensible.
Whether they brought women home, or just came home after a bad night doing what they did, it was to a sparkling clean home, with an eggplant parmigiana or lasagna piping hot and smelling delicious in the oven, and a couple bottles of wine chilling in the fridge, all ready for them to swing into action. She was in her element, she was doing something she knew how to do well, only this time she was calling the shots, and for the first time in a long time, she was happy.
Carlo didn’t really notice her extended absences from the home; his time was taken up in Santini’s down in Hell’s Kitchen, and when he came home he was usually too trashed to eat, so he spent most nights sprawled on the couch, sleeping off the boilermakers while Justine scraped the meal she’d cooked him into the trash, washed-up, and went to bed alone.
Gradually, her days evolved into a particular routine; as word of mouth got around, her client base expanded, and she found herself having to perform more and more complex juggling acts to fit them all in, or at least work out who needed her least often; the people she worked for were so happy to have her they gladly paid whatever she asked, even when she gave preposterous prices to try and deter someone from engaging her services, because she was snowed under. The money began to pile up, even as more and more of John’s associates found out about her and requested her services, and she was working herself into a frazzle.
Eventually John came to her rescue with a suggestion that made a lot of sense; most of her clients slept through the day and worked all night, so why not copy them, and clean their places at night? They’d be at work, she stood little chance of disturbing them, and she could charge even more; they’d pay, believe it.