As I fall into the routines of the Lippert house I’m surprised to find that I’m quickly bored by them. Life at my home with David and Janeen was also boring – but they’re just normal people. A little of me, I think, expected everyday gang life to be more exciting.
It’s not that the house is empty, really. Every day starts with a flurry of activity. Breakfast in the kitchen is a big affair, with everyone rushing through. Kent’s top guys – mostly older gentlemen - drink their tiny glasses of espresso at a table in the corner, bantering. Lower-level guys, dressed in thousand-dollar sweatsuits, run briskly through, reporting and getting new orders.
Guards are all around – watching everything, but mostly wishing, I think, that they were important enough to be included with the others. If they work hard enough, though, they can level up.
As the day passes, everyone spreads out to do their work. Daniel goes out a lot – to school, mostly, wrapping up his spring semester. I’ve been expressly forbidden to go out with him, to school or anywhere else. Apparently, I’m still a kidnapping target. Kent has told the Mafia world that I’m out there, but until he locks me down as part of his family I’m forbidden any freedom.
The first day Daniel left me behind, Fiona had come into the house just as he was leaving. Seeing my sad face, she wrapped an arm around my shoulders, her voice full of pity.
“I know,” she said, giving me a little squeeze. “It’s like you’re a mafia widow already, stuck in this house. May as well dress yourself head to toe in black crepe and spend your day saying the rosary for his soul.”
“At least it would be something to do,” I moaned, slumping my shoulders forward in misery. “It’s so boring here.”
And it really is. Again, not that there’s not a lot going on in this house at all times, it’s just that I’m…not at all a part of it.
Everyone – the guards, the captains, the made guys – they’re all very nice and polite to me. They smile at me when they pass me in the hall. But no one really talks to me, even if I try. I get the impression that Kent expressly forbade it.
My only friend is Fiona, and she’s very sweet, but we don’t have a lot in common.
Fiona is, I think, a mafia boss’s dream girlfriend. She’s sweet, funny, and has enough bite in her wit to keep from being boring. She’s incredibly sexy, but she spends most of her day building and maintaining that sexy appearance for Kent.
When she’s not here, she’s out getting her hair and her nails done. When she’s in the house, she’s doing aerobics, or facials and beauty treatments, or playing with makeup and clothes. Fiona always looks stunning and keeps up with the latest fashions, but it’s a ton of work.
Fiona has swept me up in her world a bit. I think she likes it, giving me a whole master’s course in makeup and hair care that I never, ever would have even thought about before she came along.
But so much of the world just seems…ridiculous to me, though I’d never say it to her. For instance, once, her Botox doctor came by the house and she asked me if I wanted a little. “Just here and here,” she had said, tapping the corners of her eyes and between her eyebrows.
Worried, I had touched my fingers gently to my skin in those places. “Seriously? Do I need it?”
Laughing, she had told me that I didn’t. “It’s just preventative,” she said, snapping her bubblegum as she leaned back in her chair and let the doctor do his work. “If you start when you’re twenty, you’ll look thirty when you’re fifty.”
I had smiled at her and declined the treatment. What, really, was the problem of looking fifty when you’re fifty? After all, Kent was forty and he looked –
Well. I cleared my throat and moved my thoughts on to something else.
I am less tempted by the enticements of Fiona’s super-feminine lifestyle, I think, because I already had a sister who delved into all of that sort of stuff. Sure, strippers are all about being sexy while being a mafia side piece is all about being luxe, but there was some overlap. And it just wasn’t for me.
Instead, I missed my work. Missed going to the office to meet with my colleagues, missed helping people, even missed going to the prison to interview inmates – though I never thought I’d miss that. I missed going to the coffee shop, missed studying and finding new books. And while Kent has given me free reign to order any books – or really, anything I want - it’s just not the same.
I miss my life. And I’m terribly, terribly bored.
Kent and Daniel know, of course. Daniel because I’ve told him and Kent…well, because Kent knows everything. I stopped begging him for a little freedom a while ago – the answer was always no. Now, I mostly plead wordlessly, with my eyes, my expression.
He knows I’m miserable here, but he still won’t let me out.
I’m staving off my boredom, today, by painting my toenails in the back garden. Fiona has given me an elaborate manicure kit, telling me to practice, so my feet and hands are far, far more polished than they’ve ever been. I sigh as I finish painting a lavender sheen on my pinkie toe. What the hell am I going to do next?
I jump, then, as a box smacks on the ground next to me – a big one, as long as my arm. I look up at the back door with wide eyes, shocked to see Kent standing there, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed.
“Put those on,” he says. “We have somewhere to be.”
Frowning, I lift the box into my lap and open the top, gasping a little as I see a pair of the most gorgeous boots. They’re tall, nearly knee-high, and made of supple black leather with a delicate little buckle around the ankle.
“Where are we going?” I ask, my face lighting up. Honestly, I don’t care – out of the house it sounds like, so I’m thrilled either way.
“You’ll see,” he says, turning and heading towards the garage. “Meet me by the car when you’re ready.”
I quickly pull on my socks, not caring that it will ruin my pedicure, and then tug the boots on as quick as I can. I have to force my foot in all the way to the bottom, tugging hard at the top – there’s no zipper to help. But, when I finally get them on, they fit perfectly.
As usual, Kent has guessed my size to perfection.
I admire the boots for a moment and then spring to my feet, running to the car.
Kent drives us in silence to wherever we’re going, but I do note the subtle smile playing on his lips. I’ve stopped asking about our destination – he never tells – so I just spend my time gazing out at the landscape as we pass. We’re out of the city now – just about fifteen minutes, really – but how I’ve missed the sight of a variety of nature beyond what Kent’s little back garden can offer.
I’m surprised to see him slow in what seems like the middle of nowhere, turning towards a simple gravel drive crossed with a metal gate. He presses a button on the roof of the car and the metal gate slowly swings open. I look closely, but I can’t see anything beyond it.
“Are we here?” I ask, frowning at him.
He looks at me and nods. I see that he can’t help but smile a little, so I smile too and sit up in my seat, looking eagerly out the windshield. Then I just wait, a little breathlessly, to see where he’s taken me.