The woman snorted. “You call what that cheapskate Joe pays us a paycheck?” Venus took no offense. Janie was Joe’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. This week they were off-again.
Besides, Janie was right. The pay was pretty abysmal. It was the tips that had kept her clothed and fed for several months. For some reason, the regulars at Flanagan’s seemed to like Venus’s caustic wit and in-your-face attitude. Plus, she made a damn fine Bloody Mary, if she did say so herself.
But bartending wasn’t exactly her dream job. Up until eight months ago, Venus had had the job she’d always hoped for, complete with the kind of salary that had enabled her to actually open a savings account. Starting out in the typing pool of a financial company right out of high school, she’d worked her way up for ten years. She’d scraped and studied, taken college night courses when she could. She’d put in long hours and kept the right attitude, including keeping her mouth shut when the occasion warranted it. Eventually she’d ended up in management in the HR department.
Then she’d been stupid enough to let down her guard, to get involved with Dale, one of the executives in the company. She’d fallen in…well, not love, but at least infatuation. He’d fallen in lust. Unfortunately, she’d gotten over the infatuation a little sooner than he’d gotten over the lust. When she’d broken it off, he hadn’t been pleased.
In fact, he’d been so displeased, Dale had made sure Venus ended up on the unemployment line three months later.
Hence, her dislike for guys in ties.
Without a college degree to go with her experience, Venus had simply been unable to find a new job—unless she wanted to start all over again at the bottom of the ladder.
She might reach that point. If she hadn’t had this job at Joe’s place to fall back on, plus the remainder of that nearly empty savings account, she probably already would have. But holding out for a better-paying job wasn’t just about taking care of herself. She needed to make enough to get back to helping Ma. Her foster mother had insisted she was doing fine, but Venus knew more than most the way Maureen struggled. Until her layoff, Venus had managed to send enough back to Trenton to make a real difference for the four kids currently living in her old home.
She wanted to be able to do so again. Soon.
“Imagine not having to worry about a paycheck,” the man said, sounding almost desperate. “Please, Ms. Messina, give me a few minutes of your time.” The word “please,” and the urgency in his voice, made her pause and really look at the man.
“Go ahead, V,” she heard from behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the sardonic look on her uncle Joe’s craggy red face. “And if you’re a millionaire heiress, don’t forget who taught you to ride a bike.”
“That woulda been Tony Cabrini, the boy in 6A,” she replied with a saucy grin.
Joe wagged his index finger at her. “And who taught you how to deal with Tony Cabrini and boys like him when he got fresh on your fourteenth birthday?”
Venus fisted a hand and put it on her hip. “Ma did.”
“Well, who do ya think taught her that knee trick, hmm?”
Laughing helplessly, she said, “Okay, okay. Thanks for teaching her the knee trick, Uncle Joe.”
Not that she’d ever used it on Tony Cabrini. The last time she’d seen him, her knee definitely was not the body part she’d reacted with when he “got fresh.” She’d lost her virginity to Tony in the laundry room of their building when she was sixteen.
Venus still had a real fondness for the spin cycle.
“Now, take a break,” Joe said. “You can use my office.” He turned toward the stranger. “Don’t try nothing funny. You try to run a con on her and I’ll make sure you have to drink your vodka through a straw for the rest of your life.”
Venus gave Joe a quick hug, noting his start of surprise. Though not a real blood relation, he was as close as any uncle one could want. His sister, Maureen, had been Venus’s foster mother since age eight. She remembered looking forward to Joe’s visits to Jersey the way she’d look forward to Santa in December—even if Santa had usually brought only sensible clothes and donated secondhand toys, rather than the Barbie stuff and play makeup Venus had asked for.
Heck, when she thought about it, Joe’s visits were probably more entertaining than Santa’s anyway. Joe had taught her to play poker when she was ten. He’d taught her to spit like a boy when she was twelve. He’d taught her how to fake a fever to avoid a big exam when she was fourteen.
He’d also taught her that being poor was nothing to be ashamed of, and used himself as an example of how you could get what you want if you were willing to work for it.
She’d never forgotten the lesson.
Joe had also been the one who helped Venus when she’d come to Baltimore looking for a job right out of high school. And he’d been her closest family member ever since.
“Okay,” she said over her shoulder to her impatient customer. “You’ve got five minutes.”
Leading him through a swinging door, Venus walked into the cement-floored storage room, piled high with boxes and crates, broken bar stools and lined with shelves full of premium liquor. At the back of the room was the desk Joe referred to as his office. Sitting in Joe’s well-worn chair, Venus leaned back, crossed her arms over her chest, and watched as the stranger sat in the metal folding chair opposite her. “Now why don’t you tell me who you are and what the hell it is you want?”
Though he stiffened, she didn’t apologize. He was on her dime. And if he didn’t like her attitude, that was too damn bad. To Venus, attitude was everything.
“My name is Leo Gallagher,” he finally said. “And, to confirm, you are Venus Messina, born in Trenton, and your parents are Trina O’Reilly and Matt Messina?”
“So they tell me, not that I know for sure since I never laid eyes on my father,” she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Any particular reason you’ve been checking up on me?”
He ignored her question and mumbled, “The hair is a surprise. But the eyes, that deep green…”
Venus watched as he looked her over again, knowing what he saw—a tall redhead with a big mouth and the kind of figure that could turn horny men into drooling idiots and jealous women into shrews. Venus had long since stopped feeling self-conscious about her height or her very curvy figure. But she began to fidget as the man continued to study her.
“Your parents weren’t married.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway. “Nope. Shocking, huh? My mother used to joke about how awful her name would have been, Trina Messina.”
He ignored her sarcasm. “You never knew your father, and lost your mother to cancer when you were eight.”
Venus clenched her back teeth, fighting the impulse to stand up and walk out of here. “What do you want?” she bit out.
He seemed to sense her patience was nearing its end. “Ms. Messina, I believe your father, who called himself Matt Messina, may actually have been my cousin, Maxwell Longotti, Jr.”
Her heart beat a little faster, but Venus took a deep breath, ignoring it. “Why?”
“My cousin left my uncle’s estate in Atlanta thirty years ago, determined to make it as a stand-up comedian. He stayed in New York for a while, using a stage name—Matt Messina.”
Her heart quickened even more. “My mother met my father in New York, but she never mentioned a stage name.” However, she did say he’d