I kept my eyes to the alley for a while before I turned and looked down the steps.
Vinnie had never taken me there.
In the early days, before it got exclusive with Vinnie, I’d had a date with a guy who took me there.
The instant Vinnie found out some guy had taken me there, he pressed for exclusive. He knew what it meant when a guy took a woman to Giuseppe’s.
Why he never took me there himself, I would never know.
But right then, I couldn’t go in. Not alone. Instead, I moved to a bench, sat and waited for Benny.
It didn’t take long for him to show, and when he strolled into the dim light, I saw his eyes narrowed on me.
I gained my feet and he was right there.
“Why didn’t you go in?” he asked.
“Waitin’ for you,” I answered.
He studied me a second before he took my hand and, without a word, led me to the steps.
Then we were in. Music playing so soft you could barely hear it. A faint hum of conversation that made you think every patron was whispering. Muted noises of silverware clinking on china or crystal tinkling against glass. Candlelight on the tables and in some sconces on the walls. A fresh, extraordinary, but understated bouquet of roses at the hostess station.
Love in the air.
Its silken feel glided down my throat as Ben stopped us at the hostess station and Elena appeared before us. She wore a trim, black sheath dress that skimmed her knees and a pair of delicate, black slingbacks with peekaboo toes, her hair pulled back in a soft updo.
“Frankie and Benny,” she said quietly, her lips curved up in a slight smile, her hands held out low to her sides.
Elena was ten years older than me, maybe a bit more. I knew her not because I’d eaten at her restaurant only once, but because she went to the same church as my family, she lived in the ’hood so I saw her around, and, even having her own eatery, she’d come to Vinnie’s Pizzeria more than once (because everyone in the ’hood had been to Vinnie’s more than once).
She was like her restaurant, like her father was before her and, if rumor served, her grandfather was before him. Pure elegance.
She came to me first. Grabbing my hands, she leaned in and touched one cheek to mine, then she moved to touch the other one before she kept hold of my hands and shifted away to catch my eyes.
“You’re well?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“So brave,” she said softly.
She’d heard. This wasn’t a surprise. She was from the ’hood. Not to mention, it was on TV.
“Thanks,” I replied.
She squeezed my hands before she let me go and turned to Benny, giving him the same treatment but without the hand-holding. Instead, she let her hand rest lightly on his upper arm.
She moved from Benny and said, “Let’s get you to your table.”
Not waiting for us to respond, she started to glide through the restaurant. Ben put his hand to the skin at the small of my back and guided me after her.
With the shortness of time when Benny made the reservation, I was surprised that Elena led us to a premier spot—a corner table, even quieter and more private than any of the other tables due to a strategically placed planter. She stood to the side, smiling with approval as Ben proved further how awesome he could be when he shifted around me to pull back my chair.
I sat. He scooched me in, rounded the table, then he sat.
Elena moved in and floated a hand low across the table, saying, “Someone will bring your menus shortly. If you require anything, just ask.” She dipped her chin and finished, “Buon appetito.”
With that, she glided away.
I watched her do it, saying, “She’s the shit.”
I heard Benny chuckle as he agreed, “Yeah.”
I looked to him. “You been here before?”
“Yep, Ma and Pop’s thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. They hired out the back room. And brought a couple of women here.”
“Oh,” I murmured as a young woman in a fabulous but refined black dress swooped in and handed Ben and me our tall, leather-bound menus.
We said thanks and she’d barely moved away when a waiter wearing a white shirt, black tie, black trousers, and a pristine, long, white apron arrived with a pedestal bucket of Champagne he placed on the floor behind Benny’s chair.
“Compliments of Elena,” he murmured. He put two flutes on the table, popped the cork, and expertly poured. “I’ll be back for your order or to answer any questions you may have,” he stated while shoving the bottle back in the ice, then he drifted away.
The Champagne was a surprise. Then again, it wasn’t every day a girl from the ’hood survived a kidnapping and being shot, this making the news, and a couple of weeks later goes out with the man who rescued her.
All of us surviving that situation was worthy of celebration. It was very like Elena to think the same and do something about it.
I reached to my flute but saw Ben’s fingers close on the stem before I got near it.
He took it away and I looked to him.
“When was your last pill?” he asked.
“This morning,” I answered.
“You gonna need one to get through the night?”
The pain was nagging, and from experience, I knew it was likely to get worse. So the answer to that was yes.
Therefore, I gave him that answer.
“Yes.”
“Frankie, read the leaflet that came with your meds. No alcohol.”
I blinked. “But I’m at Giuseppe’s.”
“Yeah. And I’ll bring you back and you can drink all the Champagne you want then. Now, you be safe.”
I made a grab for my glass, saying, “I’m sure it’ll be all right.”
Ben pulled back the glass, saying, “I’m not, so you’re gonna be safe.”
I focused on him. “Ben, just a glass.”
“Francesca, no.”
It was then I glared at him and declared, “Already this is not a fun date.”
This did not perturb him in the slightest and I knew that when he stated, “It’ll be less fun you have a seizure or go to sleep and don’t wake up or start gettin’ sick or whatever the reason is they put on that leaflet you shouldn’t drink while on those pills.”
“It’s probably not that dramatic.”
“Babe, you’ve been shot. Against all that’s holy in a Chicago that is not the bootlegging, roaring twenties, your man decided to become a wise guy and ended up whacked. Your brother is about to go bankrupt due to the child support he’ll be payin’, or his story will be a made-for-TV movie when all those bitches he’s tagging or recently tagged lose their minds and turn on him and/or each other. You’re a drama magnet. You wanna flirt with that, proves you’re the nut I know you to be. But you aren’t gonna do it on my watch.”
“How is it that you can make being rational and protective so incredibly annoying?” I asked on a snap, and he grinned.
“It’s a gift.”
I rolled my eyes.
Benny took a sip from my Champagne glass.
I snapped my menu open and proceeded to study it with the intention of memorizing every word, even if it took me all night.
Unfortunately, it would be rude to make the waiter keep coming back to the table to ask if we were ready to order. So the first time he showed, I ordered the fried calamari, the spinach salad, and the lobster risotto, the last being the most expensive thing on the menu.
I ended my order with, “Later, don’t trouble yourself with offering us a look at the dessert tray. Just bring it.”
He bowed his head to me and looked to Benny, who placed his own order and ended it with, “Your bartender got it in him to make a virgin Bellini?”
I pressed my lips together because I loved Bellinis. They were my favorite. Benny obviously remembered and it was sweet that he did.