The line of cars inched closer to the tolls, and as her engine shuddered in protest, Mia drummed her fingernails on the steering wheel. Somewhere between Springfield and Boston, her odometer had rolled past three hundred thousand miles. It was nearing time to send the ancient Blazer to the boneyard, but she was loath to spend the money on a new car. At least the old girl was paid for. Embarrassing to drive, but paid for. The previous owner, a twenty-year-old kid from Revere, had pimped it out with shiny black paint, chrome wheels and opaque, black-tinted windows. Kev, of course, loved the damn thing. He called it her Mafia staff car.
Kaye, on the other hand, was forever hounding her to buy a new car. Her sister-in-law was a strong proponent of the you-have-to-look-successful-to-be-successful philosophy. That might work fine for Kaye, who drove a flashy BMW and dressed like Ivana Trump. But Kaye wasn’t feeding and clothing a seventeen-year-old boy with a hollow leg and feet that wouldn’t stop growing. She wasn’t paying off student loans and a killer mortgage. And she certainly wasn’t going it alone. She had a husband to help pay the bills, a husband who was solid, respectable and gainfully employed.
Mia finally reached the tollbooth. The toll taker, a sallow-faced man in his sixties, wordlessly took the five-dollar bill she offered, and shoved the change into her hand with sullen impatience. Checking her rearview mirror, she pulled away from the tolls, changed lanes and shot across town through the Big Dig tunnel in a quarter of the time it had taken back in the days of the elevated expressway. She took a downtown exit and quickly found herself in the heart of the North End. Boston’s Little Italy, with its narrow, congested streets, its restaurants and its pastry and butcher shops, possessed an old-world charm and a warm, neighborhood feel Mia hadn’t known existed until she had married Nick and moved here. Now, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
She climbed the hill and turned onto her street, found a tiny opening at the curb only two houses down from her own, and squeezed into it. Shutting off the engine, she studied her house, assessing its curb appeal, admiring the brick and stone exterior, the bay windows, the freshly painted front door. She’d bought the house seven months ago, and still the sight of it sent a tiny thrill down her spine. She hadn’t been in the market for a house; she’d originally brought a client here, a thirtyish yuppie banker looking to invest in the recently fashionable North End. He’d wanted something he could buy cheaply, renovate and turn over in five or six years. The house had just come on the market, and the asking price, while a little steep, still didn’t reflect the skyrocketing prices she’d been seeing all over the Greater Boston Area.
The house hadn’t been what her client was looking for. Too expensive, too much work to be done. But Mia had walked through the front door and fallen instantly in love. The house might need work, but she was handy with a hammer and a paintbrush. She’d walked from room to room, picturing what she could do with the place even as she extolled its virtues to her client and prayed he wouldn’t love it the way she did.
It was the courtyard that sold her. It was exquisite, a sun-dappled oasis tucked away behind the house, accessible to the street only by a narrow alley that ended in a locked wrought-iron gate. Although it had been a blustery February day when she’d looked at the house, she had seen the tiny courtyard’s potential. She could picture it blooming in a riot of color, with tubs of pink and white impatiens and long wooden planters overflowing with red geraniums. A park bench over here, maybe some kind of water fountain over there, with cascading sprays of greenery everywhere.
She’d grown up without flowers, without any of the feminine touches a mother would have brought to her life. Johnny Winslow hadn’t exactly been Martha Stewart. Mia’s old man had been too busy drinking and committing the petty crimes that kept him on a first-name basis with various members of the local constabulary to place any stock in something as frivolous as flowers. Or any home decor more exotic than a tableful of empty Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles.
Mia had gone home that night and spent hours crunching numbers. Winslow & DeLucca was doing well, but she and Kaye had agreed at the start of their partnership not to bleed it dry. They lived on their personal commissions and filtered most of the agency’s share right back into the firm. The real estate business was notoriously unpredictable, and she had to be sure she had enough money tucked away to cover the next dry spell. In another year, Kevin would be off to college, and Mia didn’t even want to think about what that would cost.
She’d weighed her options and her finances carefully. It had been close, but in the end, the little courtyard, with its old-world charm, had won out. In the morning, she’d gone into the office, called the listing Realtor and made an offer. It had been accepted immediately. Four weeks later, she’d signed papers and the previous owner had handed over the keys. Now she had a home that belonged to her (or would, after 356 more payments), a never-ending renovation project that filled every hour of her spare time, and a hefty mortgage that kept her awake at night thinking up creative ways to put more cash into her bank account. Fear of starvation, she’d discovered, was a powerful motivator.
She found Kevin at his desk, his lanky six-foot-three frame hunched over a gargantuan computer monitor. He handled the joy stick with rapid and accurate movements as the vroom-vroom of racing automobile engines, accompanied by squealing tires and a frenzy of gunshots, poured from the wall-mounted speakers. Pausing in the open doorway, Mia made a sweeping assessment of his room: the empty pizza box beside his desk; the clunky size-thirteen sneakers—bought a month ago and probably already outgrown—carelessly discarded in the middle of the floor; the dog-eared Star Wars poster; the dirty socks collecting dust bunnies beneath the unmade bed. Kev’s housekeeping skills might be lacking, but this was his space. As long as there were no drugs hidden in his underwear drawer, as long as the dirty socks eventually got washed and nothing was growing under the bed, she let him keep his room the way he wanted it.
Leaning against the door frame, she said, “Killed any bad guys lately?”
“Shit! I mean, shoot.” Kevin glanced warily over his shoulder. “Geez, Mom, you just got me killed. Now I have to start all over again.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Forgive me for the intrusion.”
“You could at least knock first. You scared the crap out of me.” Finally remembering the manners she’d drilled into his head since birth, he leaned back in his chair, swiveled in her direction and said, “So how was the seminar?”
“Have you ever watched paint dry? Multiply that times ten, and you’ll have an idea.”
His grin was quick and broad. “Sorta like sitting through Miss Crandall’s English class.”
“Sorta like that.”
“So,” he said, “I have something to ask you.”
Cautiously, she nodded. “Okay. Ask.”
“Michelle’s family is flying down to Tampa for the Columbus Day weekend. They’re leaving on Thursday night. They invited me to come along. Can I go?”
“They’re flying all the way to Tampa for three days?”
“Three days, four nights. They do it all the time. They have a condo down there, and it’s right on the beach. There’s plenty of room. I’d have my own room and everything. It would be really cool, Mom. The sun, the sand, the swaying palm trees.”
The sex, she thought, but didn’t say it. What kind of supervision would the Olsons provide? Would it be sufficient to keep Kevin from sneaking into Michelle’s bedroom while the rest of the family was asleep? She knew the kids were deeply involved, and she’d spoken to Kevin some time ago about safe sex. Mia wasn’t