Here Comes the Body. Maria DiRico
A silver, older-model Prius pulled up in front of the Carina home. Mia shook her head but marched down the stairs and got into the back seat of the car. “First the airport, now here? You can’t be the only Pick-U-Up car in the area.”
The driver, Jamie Boldano, shrugged and smiled. “Let’s just call it luck.” Jamie, whose father, Donny, was Ravello’s boss, had the misfortune of being the sole intellectual in a family of mobster goombahs. Determined to forge his own path, he’d embarked on a teaching career, but was now earning a master’s degree in family therapy and ridesharing to pay the bills. Mia and Jamie had grown up together and even briefly dated in high school. Mia wasn’t the only Carina who wished she’d married Jamie instead of adulterer Adam Grosso. But Jamie, struggling to find himself, hadn’t asked. And now Mia, burned by her marital disaster, had more interest in cold fried eggs than in another relationship.
Jamie followed local streets until he merged onto Grand Central Parkway. As they drove past LaGuardia Airport, Mia flashed on when she and husband Adam made their move to Palm Beach. Theirs was a whirlwind relationship that began during Mia’s celebration of her twenty-seventh birthday with some girlfriends at Mingles, an aptly named Astoria hangout. Her friends were impressed when a 750 liter of Dom Perignon champagne was delivered to their table, “courtesy of the gentleman at the bar.” Mia was more impressed by the “gentleman at the bar,” who had the tawny blond looks of a Northern Italian and introduced himself as “your future husband, Adam Grosso.”
At the end of the evening, Adam had helped a drunk Mia into a taxi, then jumped in with her. A hookup turned into a torrid romance, which turned into an impulsive wedding a month later during a weekend getaway in Vegas. Adam revealed to Mia that when they met, he was only supposed to be in town for a week before moving to Florida to begin work as a manager at Tutta Pasta, a popular Palm Beach restaurant. He’d extended his stay for a few weeks just to be with her. She rewarded him with her hand in marriage and relocation to the Sunshine State, much to her brokenhearted family’s chagrin.
Basta, Mia said to herself. Enough focusing on four years of my life I’ll never get back. Like the saying goes, that was then, this is now. And now I’m in a car with Jamie. Smart, kind and cute Ja—No! Stop! Basta! She pulled out her tablet and tried to focus.
“So,” Jamie said, “looking forward to today?”
“Yes, in a big way.” Mia hesitated. “But I’m nervous. I’ve never done anything like this. Neither has my dad. It has to work out. I don’t want him going back to his old job. No offense to your dad or anything.”
“No worries, I get it. If it makes you feel better, I hear Ravello’s doing a great job running the place. Nothing seems to throw him, which is important when you’re dealing with the biggest events in people’s lives. Weddings, anniversaries, birthdays—they’re all emotionally high-octane events that can cause as much stress as pleasure.”
“I think that’s your psych degree talking.”
Jamie blushed. The fact that Mia found this trait of his attractive made her blush as well. “We’re here,” Jamie said as he drove through a parking lot and pulled up in front of a nondescript building from the mid-1960s.
Mia released a breath, and the unexpected sexual tension she felt dissipated. She looked out the window at her new work home. Belle View Banquet Manor was perched on a small outcropping of land squeezed between Flushing Bay and the parking lot that served its marina. Belle View’s glass-paned architecture was designed to take advantage of the views—some scenic, some not so much. The catering venue was also adjacent to the landing pattern for LaGuardia.
“Nice location,” Jamie said. “You know, it has the same name as the mental ward in Manhattan.”
“Yeah, we’re not gonna lead with that on the website.” Mia shoved her tablet back in her purse. “Thanks, Jamie.”
“See you later.”
“You might. Or you might not.”
“Odds favor the former.” Jamie shot her a slightly devilish grin and drove off. The son of Donny Boldano might claim independence from his mobbed-up family, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t occasionally take a page from their dicey book.
Mia inhaled and exhaled a few times to quell her nerves. I can do this, she told herself. Still feeling insecure, she said it out loud, yelling at the parked cars surrounding her, “I can do this!”
“Go for it!” someone yelled back. Mia hadn’t noticed a deliveryman sitting in the driver’s seat of a UPS van, checking his phone. Embarrassed, she returned the thumbs-up he flashed her. Then she adjusted her skirt, pulled open one of Belle View’s heavy glass doors, and entered the grand foyer.
A massive crystal chandelier dangled over the space, which with its white walls and tiled floor, was otherwise unremarkable, even bordering on dingy. The baseboards were scuffed; a faded triptych of a wedding from decades ago decorated one wall; a gilded plaster statue of Cupid did a valiant job of hiding a water stain. Mia felt deflated. She’d pictured a more grandiose venue, like the legendary Leonard’s of Great Neck, with its ornate ballrooms and twenty-foot chandelier presiding over a two-story grand foyer. Then Mia looked past Belle View’s far less impressive foyer into a large banquet room. A wall of windows framed the view of Flushing Bay, where boats bobbed serenely at the World’s Fair Marina’s docks. Her spirits rose again. Despite the hints of shabbiness, Belle View enjoyed a lovely location, much nicer than the flashier party palaces in the area. I can work with this, she thought.
Mia was about to go look for her father when she was startled by a large rumble. Two decorative urns filled with ferns began to vibrate. Her heart raced. “What the—”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, that’s just a 737 coming in for a landing.”
Mia turned and saw Ravello Carina standing at the entry to a hallway. Ravello threw open his arms. “Bambina.”
“Dad.”
She ran to her father and disappeared into the large man’s bear hug. Ravello Carina was built like an ancient growth oak tree, majestically tall and broad of trunk. Mia knew his imposing presence was the main reason Donny Boldano anointed him head of the Boldano family’s illegal gambling enterprise; it deterred participants from welching on their debts. Still, Ravello wasn’t a fan of confrontation. He’d eagerly segued from intimidation to the challenge of running Belle View as a legit business, much to his daughter’s relief.
Ravello released Mia. “You look good. You feel good?” He said this with a Queens accent thick as a slice of hand-cut hard salami.
Mia nodded. “I like this place, Dad. It has a lot of potential.”
“I think so, too. The room you were looking at is the Marina Ballroom. The Bay Ballroom is upstairs. Place needs work but it’s got good bones. You almost forget LaGuardia’s there.” Ravello pointed west, where the 737 that had landed could be seen lumbering down the runway toward the terminal. “I’ll give you the royal tour in a little. First, coffee.”
Mia followed her father up a glass-paneled circular staircase with a steel railing. They reached the landing and Ravello threw open the doors of the Bay Ballroom, revealing a banquet table laden with breakfast treats. A banner above it read WELCOME, MIA.
“Surprise!”
The greeting was bellowed by a small group of unfamiliar faces except for one. Ravello had hired Cammie Dianopolis, a neighbor who lived around the corner from Elisabetta, to help him coordinate events, with the proviso—put in place by Cammie—that her duties would lessen once his daughter came on board. Cammie ran up to Mia and gave her a hug that rivaled Ravello’s in strength. “You’re here. I’m so happy. Now I can coast.”
“Thanks so much for helping out my dad. I’m excited about working with you.”
“But you working harder, right?”
“Right.” Mia extricated herself from the woman’s grip and subtly