Reno Gabrini: The Trouble with Dommi Read online

  Sophia looked at him again. “No,” she said bluntly.

  Destiny stopped smiling. “What do you know?” she asked. “But no worries. It’s no big deal anyway.”

  But back on the row in front of them, Reno and Trina had plenty of worries, and they all began and ended with Dommi. They couldn’t see the silver lining Destiny seemed to see.

  Her parents saw the difference in the two rows, too, when they entered the auditorium and made their way to Reno and Trina. “What’s with the gloomy faces?”

  Reno and Trina looked up when they heard Tommy Gabrini’s voice. They were so caught up in their own thoughts that they didn’t realize that Tommy and his wife Grace, and Sal Gabrini and his wife Gemma, had all entered the auditorium and were right beside them.

  Reno stood up and gave Grace a hug, and then gave Tommy a bigger hug, while Sal and Gemma were hugging Trina, and Trina was giving Grace a bigger hug. But through all of that, Reno was still hugging Tommy. They weren’t just relatives, they were also best friends. Reno looked up to Tommy, which was saying something. And seeing Tommy, on such an emotional night, was making Reno emotional. He kept it in check, but it tried to bubble to the surface, when Tommy arrived.

  Tommy knew Reno better than Reno knew Reno a lot of times, and he held onto Reno as tightly as Reno was holding onto him. And then, when he realized Reno’s emotions were back under control, both men stopped embracing. And they all sat down.

  Tommy glanced back at Destiny, and gave her a harsh look when he saw how much makeup she was wearing, but he smiled at Sophie. She wore no makeup at all, and looked just as beautiful to him. But Destiny? She was like Dommi, he felt, since both of them liked hanging with the bad boys. He and Grace were going to have their hands full with that one, Tommy already knew.

  And then, just after they all were seated, the ceremony commenced and the graduates, all in flowing blue and white caps and gowns, came walking down the aisle heading for their seats up front. They lined up based on class rank, which meant Dommi was almost dead last in his class and they had to wait quite a while before he showed his face.

  But when they saw him, near the end of the line, they couldn’t quench their joy. Trina and Reno both had tears in their eyes. “He’s so handsome,” Trina said as she watched him.

  “He’s my son,” said Reno proudly. “What did you expect?”

  Trina pushed Reno playfully, as they both were smiling too. But Dommi was doing more than that. He was styling and profiling and grinning as he walked that aisle, which made all of the family grin, too. He even gave what he viewed as a gangland symbol with his thumb and pinkie stretched out and the rest of his hand in a fist when he walked past his brood, although Tommy knew it to be the Shaka sign of peace and prosperity from Hawaiian culture. But Reno took it to be what he knew Dommi took it to be and could have kicked his ass for being such a fuck-up on a reverent day like graduation day. But he was so happy to see his son in that cap and gown that he didn’t even care. He and Trina were grinning too.

  And then, after much speechifying from the dignitaries on stage, the graduates began to walk across the stage to receive their diplomas. When Dommi walked across that stage, the entire Gabrini family, and many of Dommi’s females friends in the audience, were on their feet with applause and with whistles, hoots, and hollers. And Reno and Trina couldn’t help it. They were still wiping away tears.

  Grace Gabrini leaned into Trina. “You have a very popular son,” she said as they stood and clapped.

  “But for all the wrong reasons,” Trina whispered back to Grace.

  But afterwards, they were just happy, as the long, drawn-out ceremony finally came to an end, the graduates threw their caps in the air, and Dommi broke away from the girls who were trying to get his attention, and hurried to his family.

  After hugging his parents, Dommi hugged his aunts and uncles. “Dommi a high school graduate,” said Sal. “How in the world did you pull that shit off?”

  “By the skin of my fucking teeth!” Dommi said, and he and his Uncle Sal laughed and fist-bumped.

  And then the girls started dropping by, one after the other one, wishing Dommi good luck.

  “Thanks,” was all Dommi would say. “You too,” he might add. Because his focus was on his family.

  “See you tonight, Dommi,” said Amber, the leader of a small group of pretty girls, the graduating class’s “mean” girls, as they walked by.

  But Dommi, Trina was pleased to see, didn’t even look her way. He, instead, was looking in a different direction. In the direction of the entrance, where his Uncle Mick Sinatra, a man known in the underworld as Mick the Tick because of his explosive temper, had entered the auditorium and was walking down the aisle toward Dommi and his family. Bodyguards were walking with Mick, which usually meant there was some serious issues going on in the Sinatra crime family, but even that didn’t put a damper on Dommi’s excitement.

  “I told y’all he was gonna come!” Dommi declared happily. “I told y’all. Didn’t I tell y’all?” But nobody said a word. Reno and Trina were too busy obsessing over the implications. Because they, like the rest of the family, stood in silence as they watched the man known as the boss of all bosses make his way down that aisle and toward the young man of the hour.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The mean girls kept walking when they realized Dommi was ignoring them and was, instead, focusing on some great-looking man who had just walked into the auditorium. But Amber, their leader, a short blonde who wanted in on that Gabrini money and power and especially their fine, muscular son, made certain that she and her girls would stay close by Dom. She knew other females wanted him too. She wasn’t letting them get near him.

  But Dommi was focused on his family. Just as he was thrilled to see his Uncles Tommy and Sal, he was also happy to see Uncle Mick, too. So much so that he almost broke away from the pack and ran and threw his arms around Mick.

  Almost.

  Mick Sinatra was a lot of positive things. Strong. Smart. Rich and successful, even in the legit world. The leader among leaders. But affectionate, however, wasn’t one of those positive attributes. Nobody just ran up on him and embraced him. Not even his own children. Only his wife, as the Gabrinis saw it, had that privilege.

  But that didn’t stop Dommi from grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, Uncle Mick!” he said happily when Mick made it up to them.

  “How are you?” Mick was also a man of few words.

  “I’m great. Thanks for coming. You almost didn’t make it.”

  Trina wanted to elbow Dommi. Saying anything negative to Mick could get you cussed out. And Mick did give Dommi a hard look. But he held his tongue. “Yes, I almost missed it,” Mick admitted.

  “How’s it going, Mick?” Reno asked, as he extended his hand.

  “It’s going,” Mick said as he and Reno shook.

  Because Tommy and Mick were close, Tommy was able to give Mick a half-hug, half-handshake, but he was the only one who would even attempt it. Sal and Jimmy shook his hand. Even the ladies, including Sophie, Destiny, and Oprah, just smiled and nodded and said their hellos.

  “How’s Roz?” Trina did ask.

  “She’s okay.”

  “She’s home in Philly?”

  “No,” Mick said.

  “Then where is she?” Reno asked. Leave it to Mick, he thought, to leave it hanging.

  “Australia,” Mick said.

  “On stage?” Grace asked.

  Mick nodded. “Yes. I’m headed there now.”

  “Is it a new play, or one we’ve heard of before?” Grace asked.

  “Some revival of some Tennessee Williams shit, I don’t know,” Mick said, and everybody laughed.

  “That’s why I’m just passing through,” added Mick. Then he looked at Dommi. “I just wanted to wish this young man a happy life.”

  Dommi was thrilled. “Thanks, Uncle Mick,” he said.

  But Reno was concerned. He knew good-and-well Mick Sinatra didn’t make a detour to Ve
gas, especially when the heat was on his back as demonstrated by his bodyguard contingent, unless he had a dual purpose that had little to do with wishing Dommi well. He could have phoned that in. “Yeah,” Reno said, “thanks, Mick. Now tell us what’s your real reason for dropping by.”

  Trina stiffened when Reno went there. She was thinking the same thing, but she didn’t have the balls to say it. Reno had the balls.

  And sure to form, Mick gave Reno a hard look too. But of all the Gabrinis, Mick loved Tommy the most, appreciated Sal’s toughness and heart the most, but he respected Reno above them all. Reno had been the son of a vicious mob boss, too, but he managed to come out of it unscathed. That was what Mick wanted for his children.

  “I dropped by to wish Dominic well,” Mick said, “just as I said. And I also wanted him to know,” Mick added, which Reno knew was the real reason, “that my door was always open if he needed anything.”

  Reno and Trina’s hearts dropped. Sal and Tommy’s hearts did too. They all knew what that meant. “No, he’s good,” said Reno, and then he looked Mick dead in the eye. “He won’t need anything that I can’t give him.”

  Mick stared at Reno too. All of the Gabrinis knew this could go all kinds of wrong. Even Sophie and Destiny stopped talking to boys and looked at their Uncle Mick and Reno.

  “You cannot break,” Mick said, “what’s already broken. You, me, Sal Luca, Thomas even, and my sons and your sons, too, unfortunately, were born broken. We just were. But I can protect that brokenness better than anybody else. Maybe even put it back together in a manageable way. That is all I meant.”

  Reno and Mick continued to stare at one another. Everybody in that group knew exactly what Mick meant. Everybody in that group knew Mick was telling nothing but the cold, hard truth.

  “But I must leave,” Mick said. He looked at Dommi again. “Congratulations, son,” he said. Dommi thanked him again, and then, just like that, Mick and his bodyguards were gone.

  Everybody looked at Dommi. “All that means,” Dommi said to his family, “is that he views me as worth it. He wants to be my mentor. I don’t know about y’all, but that’s saying something to me!”

  And as everybody started debating what it was saying to them, with the consensus agreeing with Dommi that Mick wanted to be Dommi’s mentor, Dommi heard the mean girls laughing, so he looked their way.

  “No worries,” Amber was saying with joy in her voice, “Precious is in the house!” And the girls laughed again.

  Dommi looked where they were looking and saw that Mariah Cooper, a large, beautiful, dark-skinned girl, was standing alone in her voluminous cap and gown, with no family anywhere near her. When she noticed the group, and began heading their way, the mean girls seemed taken by surprise.

  “I don’t want that thing anywhere near me!” Amber said aloud and she and her mean girls began scattering and laughing.

  But Reno and Trina noticed that Dommi didn’t find it funny at all. He, instead, moved away from his family and was in the aisle as Mariah made her way down.

  “Who is that?” Destiny whispered to Sophia as they both watched Dommi.

  “A girl they call Precious.”

  “Precious?” Destiny asked. “That’s her name?”

  “No, child.”

  “Then why would they call her Precious if that’s not her name?”

  Sophia looked at Destiny. Then it dawned on Destiny that they were referring to that movie and book. “Oh!” Destiny said. Then she shook her head. “Now that’s just plain mean.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Sophie. “But that’s how some of these girls are around here.”

  “That’s so high school,” Destiny said, shaking her head, and Sophie looked at her. They were both still in high school themselves!

  But Dommi was staring at Mariah. He knew Mariah had to have seen Amber and her foolishness, but that didn’t stop her from smiling.

  “Hey, Dom,” she said as she approached him.

  “How are you, Mariah?” Dommi asked, smiling too. “We made it!”

  Mariah laughed. “Yes, we did.”

  “Thanks for letting me cheat on your tests,” Dommi said with no shame.

  “So that’s how you did it!” Mariah said jokingly, and she and Dommi laughed again.

  When Amber and her girls realized the most popular boy in school was not only happy to be seen with Mariah, but was joking around with her, she felt some kind of sting. It felt like a rebuke to Amber. And she wasn’t having it. She began looking around until she found the perfect foil.

  “Go get Jonathan,” she said to one of the girls.

  “Why?” asked one of the girls.

  “Just do it,” Amber said. “He’s over there.” And the girl, true to form, went to do as she was told.

  But Dommi was still focused on Mariah. “Where are your folks?” he asked her.

  A look of sadness crossed Mariah’s big, cat-shaped eyes. “They couldn’t make it,” she said.

  “Really?” Dommi was shocked. “For their own daughter’s graduation they couldn’t make it? A daughter who graduated with honors no less? My parents are here and I barely graduated at all. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

  Mariah smiled. She liked the way Dommi never went along with the bullshit. “They should,” she agreed.

  “But they aren’t?”

  “They aren’t,” she agreed.

  Dommi stared at her. For the life of him he couldn’t understand why people were so cruel to Mariah. She was the nicest girl he knew. She was smart, she had a big heart, and she was beautiful too! Her big, cat-like eyes were stunning to Dommi, and her face was gorgeous with such smooth skin. Every time he looked at her he felt some kind of way. He couldn’t say what that kind of way was. But he felt different whenever Mariah was around. In Dommi’s eyes, she should be celebrated for being such a special person, not maltreated. But she was always maltreated.

  “Your folks may not be here,” Dommi said to her, “but you are. You made it, despite them. That’s saying something there.”

  Mariah smiled a pretty, white-teeth smile that Dommi found striking against her black skin. “You look beautiful,” he found himself saying to her.

  Mariah’s smile widened even more. She’d never met a boy quite like Dom.

  But as Mariah and Dommi continued to talk, and to laugh, Jonathan, a good looking black guy, arrived at Amber’s side. “What’s shaking, Am?” he asked her.

  “I want you to bring her to the club tonight,” Amber said.

  Jonathan saw where Amber was looking, but he knew that couldn’t be right. “Bring who?” he asked. “I know you aren’t talking about me bringing Precious somewhere?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “You want me to pick that up? No way, Am! Not her!”

  Amber looked at him. “You want some tonight?”

  “From you, yeah.”

  “Then you’d better go tell her she’s your date tonight. And you better show up with her, or you can kiss any private time with me goodbye!”

  Amber said this and gave him a knowing look, then she and her girls walked away, with one of the girls flicking Jonathan’s tassel. He looked at Amber, thought about how he always liked doing her, as did all of the popular boys in school, and decided it was worth it. He made his way over to Dommi and Mariah.

  “Hey, Dom, what’s up?” he said when he made it over to them.

  “What’s up?” Dommi said to him.

  But Jonathan was already looking at Mariah. “Wanna hang out at the club tonight?” he asked her. All the graduates planned to meet at Mo’s tonight, so it wasn’t any need to distinguish which club.

  Mariah smiled. She always did have a crush on Jonathan. “Sure,” she said.

  “Meet me in front of Mo’s at ten,” he said, and walked away even as she was saying okay.

  But Dommi looked at Mariah. “Sure you wanna do that?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, I want to,” Mariah said. “Why not? He’s a nice
guy. He doesn’t pick on me.”

  Dommi found such a statement a sad indictment of what Mariah really had to put up with. “Just because he doesn’t pick on you doesn’t make him a nice guy,” Dommi said.

  “I know,” Mariah agreed. “But he’s cool.”

  Dommi exhaled. If anybody was going to take her to the club tonight, he somehow felt it should have been him. But he wasn’t trying to get all caught up with any girl, he didn’t care who she was. He had a career to get going. A reputation to make. Because just as sure as he was standing there, he was going to be a boss as big as his Uncle Mick one day. He didn’t have time for girls.

  Then another group came over, the bad boys who barely graduated, too, and they all spoke to Dommi. This was more Dommi’s crowd than any other group at school, and he couldn’t resist their pull. Reno and Trina were watching as Dommi became distracted laughing and talking with the bad boys and seemed to forget Mariah.

  Mariah, realizing it, too, and suddenly excited about getting herself together for her date tonight, headed out of the auditorium.

  But Reno and Trina noticed something else as well. They noticed that their son glanced back at Mariah as she walked away, and he didn’t seem happy to see her go.

  Reno and Trina looked at each other. It was the first time Dommi ever showed any interest in any specific girl period.

  For Reno, who went through that bi-curious phase with Jimmy and often wondered if Dommi held the same predilection, it was a moment to exhale.

  But Trina was pleased for an entirely different reason. Most of the Gabrini men seemed to always prefer smart, strong, independent women above any other qualities, and Dommi, to her great relief, seemed to be following in that tradition too.

  However, she was also hoping that he didn’t try to follow any of their other, less admirable traditions as well.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I am so stuffed!”

  Sal Gabrini stretched out his legs and slumped down in his chair.