Speak Low (22 page)

I laughed. “Uh, let’s start with one—eventually. And you don’t have to leave bootlegging behind, not completely. Just promise me you’ll be careful and smart, and if it gets dangerous, you’ll quit.”

“Promise.”

“And there is something you can do for me.”

“Name it.”

“I want to go to New York and stay in a big hotel like the Astor or the Plaza.”

He kissed me again. “Done.”

I hugged him close. “So how much longer do we have to stay at this reception? I’m dying to get these clothes off you.”

“Say the word and I’ll carry you out of here.”

“Now.”

“That
is
a word you like, I’ve noticed.” After one last kiss, Joey pulled the pantry door open, and led me back through the kitchen. We ignored the knowing looks among the waiters, who elbowed each other and guffawed, keeping our heads up as we re-entered the restaurant. As always, Joey’s family said the longest goodbyes in all Creation, each person hugging and kissing us and wishing us well. I endured more than a few jokes about having children soon, and rolled my eyes at Bridget, who was laughing at me from across the room. I knew she understood.

We said goodbye to my family too, Daddy actually kissing my cheek and then Joey’s wordlessly. My sisters hugged and kissed us both, and Bridget clung to me for a long moment. “I know you’ll be happy together,” she whispered. “Vince would be so glad.” I squeezed her back and turned to Evelyn, who embraced me while Ted shook Joey’s hand.

“I can’t believe it, Tiny. You’re married. To
Joey
!” She released me but kept my hands in hers.

“I know. I can’t believe it either,” I admitted. I’m glad you and Ted aren’t as stubborn or blind as Joey and I were.”

“Me too.” She leaned in again to whisper in my ear. “Cross your fingers for me. I think we might be next.”

“Crossed,” I whispered back in hers.

She giggled. “Now go. Any fool can see how impatient you two are to be alone.” Glancing at the ceiling, she added, “And if the chandeliers start shaking, I’ll know why.”

I gave her one last hug and took Joey’s hand, and we walked out the main doors into the lobby. It was there Joey swept me into his arms and carried me up two flights of stairs. I laughed when he started skipping steps on the second flight. “Take it easy. I don’t want you worn out before we even get inside.”

He grinned. “Never.”

Without setting me down, he turned the knob and opened the door to his apartment.

Our apartment.

Inside, he went straight for the bedroom, setting me down at the side of the bed. I grabbed him by the tie and pulled his mouth to mine, tipping backward onto the mattress. He laughed as he fell on top of me, then propped himself up slightly on his hands, pressing his lower body into mine. My breath hitched at feeling him hard on my leg, and I wiggled impatiently beneath him. “Too many clothes between us,” I whined. “Get them off, now.”

He laughed, and my insides filled with longing again as I looked up at him. I’d never get enough. “Relax, Mrs. Lupo. We’re just getting started.”

It’s only the beginning
, I thought as I brought my hands to his face. When he lowered his lips to mine, I remembered thinking the exact same thing the day he’d kissed me in the front hall, only that day the words had filled me with trepidation.

Today, I just felt alive, bursting with life and love and hope, and it was everything I wanted.

Epilogue

Joey and I spent a week in New York after we wed, and a more romantic honeymoon I could not have imagined. Soon after we returned I discovered I was in a family way—of
course
I was, we were terribly careless about precautions from the start—and we began planning for our family. I thought I might feel some regret at expecting so soon, but I never did. Joey still said he’d support my going to school if I wanted to, and I did, in fact, take a few classes before the baby arrived. It was a good thing I was interested in science, because I was only permitted to take classes where the long white lab coats would hide my condition.

But once the baby was born, a girl we named Vincenza Kathleen, I realized school would have to wait. I didn’t mind—taking care of Vinnie and keeping accounts for the boarding house kept me busy, although Joey, true to his word, did all the cooking for us. How he managed that plus the restaurant and his bootlegging operation was a mystery to me, but he was smart, hard-working and ambitious, although never so much that ambition overshadowed his devotion to his family.

Unlike Enzo DiFiore.

We didn’t cross paths with him for a while, but I heard he married Gina and took over her father’s distilleries after Vito Meloni’s mysterious death—shot one day while exiting a diner, the victim of a sniper across the street whom no one seemed to notice. The sniper even entered a woman’s nearby apartment and called a cab, explaining that his car had broken down, and waited in her front room for twenty minutes before the cab showed up.

Yet she was unable to identify him.

Evelyn told me Rosie was Enzo’s mistress of choice for a few months the next year, even staying at his apartment at the Statler. But he grew tired of her and eventually took up with someone else, leaving Rosie to move back home until she married a divorced executive at Ford, moved into his house in Grosse Pointe, and never set foot in J.L. Hudson’s dress department again.

As for Evelyn, she married Ted that winter and had twin girls almost as quickly as I had Vinnie. We often met for walks with our girls, pushing the buggies and laughing about how much our lives had changed in just one year. For the most part, it felt like my life began when Joey and I fell in love, and I never even thought about those insane weeks during July of 1923.

Until one day when Enzo showed up at the restaurant with a blond on his arm that was not his wife. Sometimes I helped Joey down there if he was short-staffed, and I happened to see them at a corner table. Immediately, my stomach filled with dread and I sought out Joey in the kitchen.

“It’s OK,” he assured me. “He came in about a week ago demanding payment. Apparently, territory has been renegotiated once more and this is his block now.”

“And?” My heart was pounding with fear. Not again.

“And I paid him. And I’ll keep paying him as long as he stays out of our lives and doesn’t interrupt my bootlegging. We settled on a number and agreed to put the past behind us.”

I relaxed a little. “And you trust him?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But I don’t think he’ll bother us,” he continued, his eyes going dark. “Because I told him if he comes near you or our family, I’ll fucking kill him.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Congratulations,’ and he handed me a hundred dollar bill.”

It didn’t surprise me at all. Doling out favors on the street was part of Enzo’s vision of himself as an all-powerful, benevolent mafia don, just like the men he’d seen growing up in Brooklyn. “God, what an asshole,” I said.

“Yeah. I told him to keep it. We don’t need his money.”

“No, we don’t.” I wrapped my arms around Joey’s waist.

When I went back into the restaurant, I looked at Enzo, and he raised his glass to me in a silent toast.

I nodded.
That’s right, asshole. Here’s to me. I have everything I want, and you’ll never be happy. Life isn’t about owning things or people or money, but you’ll never understand that.

The next time I saw Enzo’s name, it was in the newspaper—he’d been arrested for shooting his brother in an argument over who was stealing money from Club 23.

It didn’t even faze me.

As for the rest of my family, Bridget surprised us all by marrying Martin after he graduated from dental school, and they sold the store, bought a home on the east side near Daddy, and raised the boys there, as well as their own two girls that followed. Eventually, Joey and I bought a house in that neighborhood as well, and our eight children grew up playing with their cousins, just as it should be.

Yes, eight. Four of each, within ten years.

We never did get very good about precautions, and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

Molly and Mary Grace both went away to college—paid for by Daddy, who finally put some money away—but both of them returned to the Detroit area to raise families. In fact, we rented our apartment to Molly and her pharmacist husband Jeff, and they lived there happily for many years.

I did become a nurse, eventually. It took me a while, what with eight children and all, but by the time the second world war broke out, I was working for the Red Cross. Two of my daughters followed me into medicine—one became a nurse; another, a doctor.

Prohibition ended, of course, and with it went a large portion of our income. But Joey had saved a good deal of cash, and at that point he and Jeff invested in a chain of drug stores that took off, and while we were never overly rich, we were certainly wealthier than either of us had been growing up.

And as the years went by, the summer of 1923 took on an unreal quality—as if it had been the plot of a movie or a book, the events so dramatic it didn’t seem as if they could’ve happened to us in real life. But then Joey would dig out that handkerchief, the one with the words still written on it in red lipstick, faded but still legible. And we’d know it was all real.

The beginning of us.

THE END

A note from

the author...

Thank you so much for reading Speak Low. I’m truly grateful for your purchase, as I know there are many amazing books and authors out there.

If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review on a retail site, such as Amazon, or Goodreads. Reviews are a fantastic (and free!) way to support indie authors, and they are much appreciated.

Cheers,

Melanie

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I dedicated this book to you, my readers, because without your words of love and support for a scrappy, sexy historical series, this story would not have been written. Your reviews and emails thrill and humble me. THANK YOU.

A huge shout-out to the members of Team Harlow: Lisa, Cristina, Melannie, Brittany, Delilah, Dawn, Jennifer, Jodie, Georgie, Zandalee, and Mia—your enthusiasm for Tiny (and her men) inspired me daily as I wrote this book, and I want to take you all out for cocktails!

Thank you to Tom Barnes for another gorgeous cover, and to Cait Greer for formatting and technical assistance. I’m so grateful to you both.

To the sexy awesome ladies of the Wrahm Society—you’re amazing. I’m so lucky to be one of you. Wrahmpage, here we come!

“Tamara Mataya, you’re the greatest editor ever,” she said, because she can’t lay off the dialog tags. “I’d be lost without you in so many ways.”

To Bethany Hagen, Gennifer Albin, Kayti McGee, Laura Barnes, and Tamara Mataya—you’re the best friends I’ve never hugged or spilled gin on, and I’m going to remedy that soon. Thank you for the countless times you’ve made me laugh, cry, drink, swear, flail, squee, and fan myself. Your words, your minds, your beauty, and your friendship are golden.

To my daughters, thank you for giving me the time and space to write, even when you really really really just want me to get up and get the purple paint.

To my husband, whose love and sense of humor I could not live without, thank you for your endless encouragement, patience, and understanding. You’ve always been the one.

About the Author

Melanie Harlow likes her martinis dry, her lipstick red, and her history with the naughty bits left in. The SPEAK EASY series was inspired by her affection for good gin, her fascination with local history, and her obsession for the Prohibition era. When she’s not writing or dancing the Charleston, you might find her sipping a Queen Anne’s Revenge at The Sugar House in Detroit or a Double Plus Good at The Oakland in Ferndale. Belly up to the bar and say hello or connect with her online…

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