CHAPTER 5
Julia never actually snuck out of her house, she just didn’t tell her father. Usually, if she wanted to sneak out without her father’s permission or guard, she would go up to her room. She had a bathroom and would usually disappear from her father immediately following dinner. After disappearing, she would wait until her father moved towards the study, on the far side of the house. This would give her a chance to stand near the door, until there were no hired hands to see her. The only problem was that her father would sometimes sneak into check her before he went to bed that night. If she snuck back in by midnight, she was okay. Any later than that, she could chance her father catching her. She had done this for years and had only been caught once. Unfortunately, tonight, her father kept her late demanding attention. She didn’t get away until 8:45, by then, she was quite late for the movie.
It was now 1:15 in the morning. Julia stood outside the gated fence. The house was dark, maybe she was okay. Julia opened the fence and walked quietly on the front porch. She rubbed her jacket feeling the cold wind zip by her. She reached into her coat for the key and very slowly opened the door. It was so dark, she couldn’t see anything. Perfect, she thought. She couldn’t sigh, because even the slightest noise could wake someone up. The people who worked around Columbo’s house would dare not conceal his daughter’s disappearance. She was able to close the door without too much noise. Just as she was about to walk up the stairs, a light came on:
“Where you been Julia?” A deep voice echoed.
Julia screamed slightly startled to see her father sitting in a chair, near a lamp he had just turned on. His eyes were full of rage, yet his body was calm as the room around him. Julia stood there like a deer in the headlights.
“Where were you?” Columbo got up and slowly moved towards his daughter, standing on the first step of the staircase.
“I went out.” She responded.
“Out where?” Columbo was now right in her face.
There was a long silence. Columbo began to shake before she answered, “I went to the movies.”
“Why did you sneak out?” An immediate response. Columbo grabbed his daughter’s shoulders and snarled, “What are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything daddy,” Julia cried, “I just went to the movies with a friend.”
Columbo now hesitated. He reached into Julia’s pockets aggressively and pulled out her wallet. A movie ticket with the name of the Williamsburg theater gave away her story. Columbo now looked at her, his eyes widened. Julia began to shake. She didn’t know what would happen next.
“You went out with a boy, didn’t you?”
“No,” Julia said immediately.
“Don’t lie to me!” Columbo shouted shaking his daughter’s shoulders.
“I didn’t go out with a boy!” Julia managed to shake her father off of her. She wouldn’t dare mention the name Giovanni to him. The names Marlon, Jackie, Amy and Angelo were know to him, but he didn’t know the first name of the forgotten daughter of the family, “This girl Rachel invited me to the movies. I wanted to go out, so I snuck away.”
Frank Columbo was very good at reading people, knowing who was a good liar and who wasn’t. It wasn’t a lie. Julia did in fact go out with a girl that night to the movies. The mob boss just didn’t think that the girl might be a lesbian. He seemed to calm down a little, “Why didn’t you just tell me?” He removed her hat to reveal her long blonde hair.
“Would you have let me go?” Julia said confrontationally. Columbo was rather surprised, her daughter never talked back to him like this. “Without chaperones?”
Columbo began to rub Julia’s face soft and sensually. His touch always made Julia uncomfortable. She began to squirm slightly.
“You’re my little girl,” Columbo stared at her. Julia closed her eyes and didn’t say anything. Columbo’s hands now grabbed her face almost squeezing her temples, “I lost your mother, I won’t lose you!”
Julia held back tears of fear as her father squeezed her. She was trapped. Columbo grabbed Julia’s left gloved hand and squeezed it as hard as he could. He rubbed his thumb along the white fabric. There was a fire inside her that wanted to scream at him to let her go and live her own life, but she was a good girl. She was daddy’s girl. She would never defy her father’s wishes. So she simply stood there in her father’s clutches taking the abuse.
“Lorenzo!” Columbo called out without taking his eyes off of his daughter. The man appeared from the corner without saying anything, “Take Julia to her room, and see that she stays there.”
“Yes sir!” Columbo now let go of his daughter. Lorenzo’s kinder hands squeezed her own and led her up the stairs. She wouldn’t even look at her father as she made her way to her room tears in her eyes. All she could think about was Rachel. She needed her now.
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Rachel finally made it to her street. By subway, it was only a few stops away, but she chose to walk outside in the cold. Rachel had never been one to get too emotionally involved in a relationship. That’s probably why I’m still single, she thought to herself. She began to think it might have been a better idea to take Julia out to a movie less violent, but Rachel had been looking forward to seeing the film for too long. Perhaps she crossed a line when she kissed her. Rachel saw a figure on the stoop of her apartment. The figure dressed in a gray coat turned around walking down the stair ever so slowly. Rachel was just crossing the street when she realized who it was.
The girl in the gray coat looked forward to see the black-haired girl walking towards her, “Hey there you are.”
“Amy?” Rachel asked now face to face with her, “What are you doing here this late at night?”
Amy wore a black tuque, with her glasses on, she had brown leather gloves, black pants and brown shoes. She looked at her watch, “I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes ringing your buzzer, calling you.” She pulled out a DVD from her coat, “I got a Samurai movie, thought we could watch it together.”
Rachel then pulled her glove off and took out her phone. She forgot to turn it back on after the film. Her eyes rolled as she turned the device back on, “I was at the movies.”
Amy nodded her head, “You saw the Schwarzenegger movie?”
Rachel smiled watching her phone come back on, “Am I that predictable.”
Amy laughed, “C’mon Rach, you’ve been a Schwarzenegger freak since we were kids. Remember when we snuck into see True Lies? Dad didn’t want us to see it?”
Rachel simply stared at her phone, “Yeah,” was all she said.
Amy could tell her sister was in no mood to hang out, “All right, I get it. I’ll see you later.” She walked past her sister making her way back to her car.
Rachel sighed and turned around to look at her cousin. Even if she got on her nerves sometimes, Rachel still got along well with Amy and wasn’t about to let her come out to her apartment for nothing, “Which Samurai movie is it?”
Amy turned around and threw the movie towards her. Rachel caught it easily and took a look at the cover. After a few seconds, the raven-hair looked to the brunette and turned around walking to her door. Amy knew her sister well enough that this meant ‘Come with me.’ So she followed her to the door.
Most of the time, Rachel and Amy wouldn’t watch a foreign film with the subtitles on. Amy understood very basic Japanese, and Rachel didn’t speak the language at all. According to Rachel, the action should be enough to hold my interest without understanding what they were saying. Usually Amy could pull out a few important lines, but the raven-hair never cared. So they watched the movie on Rachel’s couch eating chips and drinking soda. Amy had her head on Rachel’s shoulder like a little sister to an older sister. Both of them were wearing tank-tops and shorts; Rachel’s apartment was ridiculously hot in the winter.
“I gotta be honest with you Ames,” Rachel said as they watched Samurais cutting each other up, “After seeing ACTION POPE, this isn’t epic enough.”
“So did you go by yourself?” Amy asked without taking her eyes off the screen.
Rachel chose not to answer that question.
Amy sighed and lifted her head. She grabbed the remote and put the movie on pause. Rachel was forced to look at her cousin.
“Rachel,” she said crossing her legs to look at her face to face, “I feel like we’re drifting apart. We used to spend all our time together when we were kids. You really were like my sister. Now I feel like you don’t care about me anymore.”
Rachel sighed and looked down at the floor.
“Dad’s passing really got me thinking,” she paused staring at her sister, “We’re family, we should be closer than this. Okay fine, I’m not really your sister, but I’ve always thought of you as my sister. Can’t you think of me the same way?”
Rachel still said nothing.
“I wanna go back to the way we were before: running around the city, sneaking into movies, telling each other secrets,”
“Amy,” Rachel now looked at her, “You were the one who broke us apart. Yeah, we used to be close, but then you just wanted to study all the time.”
“Come on Rach,” she briefly took her eyes off her sister, “You knew I wanted to go to college and get a degree.”
“I always felt that’s what dad wanted,” She pointed to her chest, “MY dad mind you!”
A hard sigh cause Amy to fall back onto the couch staring up at the ceiling. Even though they were right next to each other, she had never felt so distant from her “sister.” Maybe coming out was a mistake. Rachel had become ostracized from her family and wanted nothing to do with them. Marlon and Angelo didn’t care much for her either. Sure they would always love her like a daughter and sister respectively, but Amy was the genius sister of the family. Only Jackie attempted to keep her own daughter close to the family in recent years.
Amy’s conversation with Jackie began to replay in her mind. After everyone in the room had left, Amy and Jackie sat down privately:
“I’m worried about your sister,” the Godmother told her, “I feel like I don’t even know her anymore.”
“I guess,” Amy found it easy to converse with her step-mother, “That’s the way Rachel wants it.”
The two of them continued to share a meal together alone in the breakfast nook but Amy actually felt like this was something that needed to be addressed:
“Can’t you talk to her?” Amy asked, “Call her.”
Jackie put her fork down and sighed. She hesitated staring at her dinner. Finally her eyes looked to her niece, “You know, I have to stare my family’s business partners and enemies in the eye and speak to them as if I’m royalty and they are my subjects. Columbo’s gotta be the most intense person to have a conversation with, but I have no fear talking to him.” She stared off into space, almost imagining her daughter’s face in the distance, “But when I have a conversation with Rachel, I’m so nervous. Her shell is so thick, and if I say anything to upset her, she recoils into that shell.”
Amy sighed as well, “I always felt like it was my fault Rachel drifted apart from the family.”
“Amy,” Jackie spoke to her now, not as a boss, but as a mother, “I’ve told you before, your father and I are to blame for neglecting your sister’s feelings.”
“Angelo too,” Amy took another bite of her veil.
Jackie sighed again, “With your father gone, I feel like she really needs to be back with her family.” The strong head of the family almost felt tears coming on, but fought them, “I can’t talk to my own daughter.”
“I can,” Amy volunteered, “I was thinking about going out to see her anyway.”
Jackie nodded, “Don’t push her, okay?”
“Mom,” she said, “Trust me.”
The two of them smiled and held hands for a minute before Jackie’s cell phone chimed. She pulled it out and checked her text message. The Godmother rolled her eyes.
“What is it?” Amy asked.
“Sal,” Jackie said, “He’s in Boston and wants to know what to do now.”
“Mom wanted you to come here,” Rachel interrupted Amy’s dream, “Didn’t she?”
“What do you think?” Amy replied sarcastically. Now the cousins weren’t even looking at each other, “Yeah mom wants to see you more often, but so do I. You’re like my best friend.”
Rachel sighed feeling somewhat guilty.
Amy began to think back to when the two were closer. The last time the two of them really talked was the night Rachel revealed herself to be a lesbian, unintentionally. The next morning, Amy promised to keep her sister’s secret between the two of them. They spent the entire day together, went out to the movies, fell asleep in the same bed. That was the last night Amy shared with her sister. Sharing secrets was fun. Amy really had no secrets to hide… well except one.
“You know what,” Amy changed the mood and turned Rachel’s head so the two of them were eye to eye, “I’ll tell you a secret, if you promise not to tell anyone.” Rachel was curious, “Remember back in college that Irish girl I used to hang out with?”
Rachel thought about it for a minute, “Yeah, vaguely.”
“Well,” Amy smiled, “A short time after you told me you liked girls, I…” Amy hesitated and laughed, “God this is so embarrassing.”
Rachel began to really pay attention to her cousin now, “What?”
Amy smiled in a goofy way Rachel had not seen in years, “I kissed her.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. There was a long hesitation, “Excuse me?”
Amy smiled and nodded her head. Rachel couldn’t believe that her perfect cousin had kissed another girl, “You kissed her? On the lips?”
“Tongues too,” Amy smiled.
“Bullshit,” Rachel chuckled, “You did not!”r32;
“I swear to God,” Amy put her hand up, “Cross my heart hope to die.”
“Wow,” Rachel smiled, “So did you fuck her?”
“NO!” Amy laughed slightly disgusted, “No, we just kissed one time.”
“Booooring!” Rachel mocked her, “You’re a real tease you know that?”
“Oh come on,” Amy took a pillow and began to smack her sister with it, “That was my deepest darkest secret!”
Rachel pulled out her phone, and began to speak the words she texted, “Dear… Facebook… my cousin… Amy… kissed…”
“NO!” Amy laughed and hit her again with the pillow. Rachel laughed too. The girls felt like kids again. After they calmed down, it was Amy’s turn to pry, “Okay, your turn to tell a secret. You didn’t go to the movies by yourself did you?”
Rachel sighed and acquiesced to her cousin’s question, “No.”
“I knew it,” Amy was practically acting like a school girl. Rachel hadn’t seen this side of her in years. It was so refreshing to see the bookworm break out of her shell. She wasn’t a robot, she was a girl, just like her. Amy too felt like her sister was beginning to loosen up a bit. “Sooooo…” Amy pried.
“Yeeeeeesss?” Rachel mocked her.
“Was it a daaaaaaaaate?”
“Yes, it was a daaaaaaaaate!” Rachel mocked her cousin again.
“With a girl?” Amy asked a little more seriously, now holding onto her sister playfully. Rachel rolled her eyes.
“No a camel,” She said sarcastically, “Yes a girl!”
“Okay okay,” Amy laughed, “I’m sorry. So what’s this girl’s name.”
Rachel was very hesitant to answer her cousin’s question. Giving away her secret date could open up a can of worms that would lead to more problems than she wanted to deal with right now. Even so, she hadn’t felt this close to Amy in so long. She was having a good time talking to her. “Okay you can’t tell mom, you promise?”
“Rach,” Amy said still holding onto her sister, “If I didn’t tell mom about your last few girlfriends, what makes you think I’m gonna tell her about this one?”
The black-haired sister still had her doubts. She hesitated and looked to the ground.
“C’mon,” Amy said, “What’s her name? I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to tell me her name?”
Rachel blurted out, “Julia.”
“Julia,” Amy said in a cutesy way, “Rachel and Julia. Hey you guys got the same initials as Romeo and Juliet.”
“Well, let’s hope this turns out a little better,” Rachel joked in a deadpan tone of voice.
Amy thought to herself about that name, “Julia, Julia, who do I know named Julia?” She began to act even sillier, “Julia, Julia where for art thou-“ And suddenly it hit the brunette. The silly Amy evaporated and the Consigliere of the Giovanni family now stared Rachel in the eyes. After a few seconds, she let go of her and stood up looking down at her boss’ daughter:
“Not Julia Columbo?” There was fear in Amy’s eyes, but she controlled it with her calm voice.
Rachel nodded. This could have been a huge mistake, she thought to herself.
There was a long silence as Amy assessed the situation, “Julia Columbo is a lesbian?”
“We don’t like using that word,” Rachel explained, “We prefer Amore Ragazze.”
Amy now sat back down staring off into space. Rachel was the only person on the planet who could read her cousin’s mind. Amy was obviously thinking about how dangerous this relationship might be, but how she didn’t want to upset her. She also couldn’t believe that sweet innocent Julia, who played the part of daddy’s girl anytime she met her, was ‘Amore Ragazze.’
“Look Rach,” Amy finally looked at her, “You know the last thing I want to do is get the middle of your relationship,” Amy hesitated. She had to make sure her sister understood this next part, “But you’re dating the daughter of our business rival. Julia seems nice enough, but Frank Columbo is a nutjob.”
“I know Amy,” Rachel explained, “I’ve been hearing about Frank Columbo for the past twenty years. Every time dad came home it was always, ‘That cocksucker Frank Columbo’ or ‘That shit-spewing motherfucker’ or…”
“All right, all right,” Amy interrupted her. Her tone of voice was still just as professional and calm as it always was. She sighed, “Look Rachel, you know how good I am at reading people, and I sense if Frank Columbo was to find out that his baby girl, and that’s the way he treats her,” Amy now looked Rachel right in the eyes, “His baby girl was in a LESBIAN relationship with the daughter of his enemy…” She hesitated thinking about what the man was capable of, “Well, let’s just say it’s not good for business.”
Rachel grinded her teeth hearing that phrase, “You’re starting to sound like my father, Amy. Always about business. What do you think he sent you to college for? For his business! Why didn’t he care about me? Because I couldn’t do anything for his business. Angelo was going to take of his business. Well don’t get involved in my relationships, it’s none… of your… business,” Rachel now stared vehemently at the brunette, “Cousin!”
Amy looked down to the floor. Her sisterly instincts had to come before her ever-mindful business brain:
“You’re right,” Amy said. She held onto Rachel’s hand, “Do you love her?”
Rachel rolled her eyes again staring at her cousin, “I just met her-“
“Do you really like her?” Amy interrupted, “Is this someone you could really see yourself in a relationship with, or do you just want to get her pants?”
“Can’t it be both?” Rachel smiled.
“Rachel!” Amy scowled.
“I really like her,” Rachel replied in an annoyed voice, “I don’t know, but when I kissed her at the movie theater, I felt a really strong connection to her, more so than Sally, Melinda or any other girl I’ve gone out with.”
Amy nodded her head, “This stay between us okay? You’re right telling mom would not be a good idea.”
“Don’t tell Angelo either,” Rachel now held both of her cousin’s hands.
“And don’t ever let Frankie Columbo find out,” Amy shook a little.
“You okay?” Rachel held her sister’s shoulders.
“Yeah,” Amy said closing her eyes, “I just… I dunno I feel like,” hesitation, “Nevermind.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rachel said, “Just let Julia and I worry about our relationship.”
Amy finally looked up to the black-haired girl and smiled, “Okay.”
Rachel smiled too, “Now there’s the Amy I remember.”
The two of them hugged. Amy looked over her sister’s shoulder with a look of apprehension.
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