The Temptations of St. Frank (20 page)

Frank was tense again. “Why?”

“Because the one thing I hate the most in this whole fucking world is people saying, ‘I'm sorry.' I never ever like to hear that.”

Frank nodded. His throat was the Sahara Desert.

“So… we will not be having this conversation twice. You understand what I'm saying?”

Frank coughed and nodded. “Yes.”

“Good. Just treat her right.” He walked back to his car. The
or else
was implied, but it was the biggest bomb in his payload, hanging right over Frank's head.

Trombetta got into his car and stomped on the gas, turning in a tight circle around the pickup, staring at Frank the whole time. The car's mirror finish made Frank squint as it bounced along the bumpy road back to the street.

How much did he know? Frank wondered. What the hell had she told him? Did he know that Frank had been in his office? Did he know that he had been in Annette's bikini bottom? Fuck! He was a dead man. If Trombetta ever found out how far Frank had gone, he'd be in a 55-gallon drum with zombies dumping whatever was left of him into the burning ooze that bubbled in the toxic pits right under his feet.

Mr. Nunziato came out of the shack and walked back to the truck. Frank's thumping heart synched with his footsteps.

“Okay, we're done,” Mr. Nunziato getting behind the wheel.

Frank studied his face. Did he know, too? Was this a set-up? Had he brought Frank here specifically so that Trombetta could corner him? Was the steel drum just an excuse? But Mr. Nunziato's face was the same as it always was, Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.

“Hey, you feel like a donut?” he said. “There's this great donut place not far from here.” He turned the ignition and fired up the engine. “C'mon. I feel like a donut.”

“Sure,” Frank said. But his heart was still thumping.

Mr. Nunziato stopped the truck next to a metallic blue Ford Mustang parked in the driveway just like the one Frank had seen in the Trombettas' driveway.

“Whose car is that?” Frank asked.

Mr. Nunziato shrugged. “Some friend of Dom's.” Frank stared at the car. Was Dom friends with Trombetta's son? When did that happen?

As soon as Mr. Nunziato shut off the pickup's engine, the sound of an electric guitar replaced the farting rumble of the leaky muffler. Frank recognized the song right away, “House of the Rising Sun,” and he knew that it was Dom playing because Dom always messed up the chords on the second part of the verse.

“You comin' in?” Mr. Nunziato said.

“I really gotta get going. I got homework.”

“C'mon. Just for a minute. Show Dom how to play that fuckin' song, will ya? Drives me nuts whenever I hear him get it wrong.”

Frank was surprised that Mr. Nunziato knew “House of the Rising Sun,” that he knew any rock song. “If I had time, I would, but I got this paper I gotta write—“

“Come on. Just show him the chords. I'll drive you home.”

Right on cue, Dom came to the part that he always messed up and of course, he messed it up again, repeating the same chords as the beginning of the verse. Frank pictured Dom's sunburst Jaguar. If Dom let Frank show him the chords, it would be a chance to play his guitar. Dom had only let Frank try it once, and he wouldn't mind trying it again. It was that nice.

“Okay,” Frank said. “Just for a minute.”

“Good.” Mr. Nunziato grabbed the bag of donuts, and Frank followed him into the house through the kitchen door.

Inside Dom's playing was a lot louder. Mr. Nunziato tossed the donuts onto the counter and nodded toward the cellar door. “Go ahead down. You know where it is.” He walked into the hallway that led to the front of the house.

Frank opened the basement door. A broom, a mop, a duster, and a metal dustpan hung from the back of the door. The dustpan rattled with the volume of the guitar. Frank started down the wooden steps when he heard something unexpected, something different. A thumping bass line from a bass guitar. Dom wasn't alone. Someone was playing with him.

Frank slowed down. He had a bad feeling about this. Trombetta's son had a bass—Frank had seen it at his house. Was this a setup, like the trip to the landfill? Were they gonna beat his brains out with a heavy Fender Precision bass, stuff him in the trunk of the Mustang, and take him to the landfill? He stopped in the middle of the staircase and considered turning around and getting the hell out of there.

“Frank! Hi!”

Frank looked down and there she was, standing at the bottom of the stairs. Annette with her Nancy Sinatra flip. Annette wearing her school uniform, the blue pleated skirt hiked up way above the knee, showing a lot of leg… leg that led up to the place he'd almost been to.

“Come on down,” she said, smiling, eager as a puppy. Not the horny little rich girl she was when she was in her bikini at her house. She reached up and held out her hand. “Come on down, Frank.”

Frank was spooked. He'd never heard her call him by name, and it sounded weird. And what was with this hold-my-hand shit? They hadn't held hands at her house. But Frank knew he was stuck. He didn't want to be an asshole, so he took her hand as he came down off the last two steps. She immediately laced her fingers through his and squeezed tight. The music suddenly stopped.

Two sets of eyes glared at him. Dom holding his Jaguar, and Johnny Trombetta holding the white Precision Bass that Frank had seen in his basement. Johnny looked so much like his father it was scary. But Dom was looking pretty scary himself, and Frank couldn't figure out why his best friend would be pissed at him.

“Frank,” Annette said, pulling him toward her brother, “this is my brother Johnny.”

“Hi,” Frank said.

Johnny barely nodded.

The amps hummed through the silence. Nobody spoke, and Frank wasn't about to be the one to break the ice.

Dom said, “You have fun with my father?” His voice had an edge. He was definitely pissed.

“Yeah.” Frank nodded, not knowing what else to say. “He bought me a donut.”

Johnny smirked and exhaled his disdain.

“So what're you guys doing?” Frank hoping to cut through the hostility.

“Practicing,” Dom said. “We're starting a band.”

Whoa. What did he mean by “we”? Frank did not want to be in a band with Johnny Trombetta. He didn't care how good Johnny was on bass. He could be fucking Paul McCartney for all Frank cared. This would never work out.

Frank decided to change the subject. He'd talk to Dom about this when they were alone. “You know, you're still messing up the chords on ‘House of the Rising—‘”

“Nobody asked you.”

Dom had never been this nasty with Frank, and it smarted. “Well,” Frank said, trying to make like it was nothing, “if we're gonna do that song, we should do it right—“

“Who said anything about ‘we'?” Dom said.

Frank felt like he'd been slapped. He and Dom had been talking about starting a band for months. They'd even put together set lists and talked to a kid at Dom's school who was saving up for a drum kit, planning to have it by the end of the school year.

Annette squeezed his hand to get his attention. She rolled her puppy-dog eyes at him. “Do you play, too?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Frank grumbled.

Dom scowled at Frank, looking madder than ever. “You two going out together or what?”

Annette shrugged and giggled. Little Miss Modest.

Johnny scowled, too, but that seemed to be his permanent expression, just like his old man. He plucked his low E string twice. It rang out, sounding ominous.

“Well?” Dom said. “Are you?”

“What?”

“Are you going together?”

Frank wanted to let go of her hand, but she had a tight grip on him, their palms sweaty. Christ! he thought. Is this what happens? You get your finger inside a girl and you're trapped? She sticks her flag in you, like Columbus claiming the New World for Spain? And he didn't even get his finger all the way in. Fuck!

And what the fuck was Mr. Dom fucking Juan's problem? Did he have the hots for Annette? Is that what this was all about? Dom gets any girl he wants, and all of a sudden he has to have Annette Trombetta. Because of her father? What, he wants to marry into a good crime family?

“So are you two dating?” Johnny said. His voice was as low and ominous as his bass.

Frank's first impulse was to say no because they really weren't dating, but then he caught her staring up at him, and he remembered lying with her in her psychedelic sheets. She was without a doubt the closest chance he had to get laid before graduation. Yolanda was his dream, but Annette was right here, holding onto his hand. She wanted it as much as he did.

“So?” Johnny said. “What's the story?”

“Well…” Frank said, thinking fast. He wasn't about to make a declaration of love, not in front of these guys and not when he didn't mean it. He had to be cool. But he didn't want to turn her off either. “We kinda just met,” he said. “You know what I mean.”

“No. I don't know what you mean.” Johnny tilted his head back and showing his big nostrils. Frank felt like he was staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

Frank didn't like where this was going. He'd seen the signs before with other guys, usually after school in a playground or an alley, in out-of-the-way places. He hadn't been in a fist fight since freshman year, but this was usually how it started—the challenging wise-ass question that had no answer. If he said something, he'd be upping the ante. But if he didn't say anything, that would be taken as an insult, a snotty put-down. And then there was the size factor. Frank was fairly big. Troublemakers like to pick on big guys just to prove that they could beat them up. Johnny was tall but he was skinny, and Dom was just average. Fuck. There was no way out of this.

Dom took off his guitar strap and held his guitar by the neck, ready to set it aside at a moment's notice. Johnny slid his bass behind him, the strap crossing his chest like a bandito's bandolier.

A flash of rage blinded Frank. He envisioned a fight—Dom trying to take him down like Wilenski in gym class, Johnny raising the bass over his head like a sledgehammer, aiming to smash Frank over the head. Frank grabbing a bar stool and swinging it wild, making them both back off. Frank out for blood, going after them with the stool, intent on getting payback for attacking him first, determined to break some heads, make them sorry they ever—

“Let's go outside,” Annette said. “It's stuffy down here. Come on.” She pulled his arm and led him toward the stairs, turning the channel on his revenge fantasy. She sounded calm and in control, more mature than the average sophomore. It was as if she'd had experience defusing tense situations.

Frank looked over his shoulder. Dom and Johnny stayed where they were, glaring at him.

“Come on,” she insisted, pulling him upstairs. Her tone implied that she thought they were all a bunch of idiot Neanderthals, and she wasn't about to let them have a caveman rumble.

When they got up to the kitchen, she closed the door with her butt and grabbed him around the neck, grinding her lips into his.

What the fuck! he thought, pulling away. He was just about to break some heads. This was no time for kissing.

She frowned and looked just like her father and brother. “What's the matter?”

“This is someone else's house,” Frank said, keeping his voice down. “What if Dom's mother came down and caught us?”

But what he was really thinking was, what if Dom's father who works for your father walks in on us making out? What if John Trombetta himself caught them? Hot lead and a one-way trip to the landfill, that's what would happen.

“Oh, come on,” she said, pressing her forehead into his. “Don't be such a prude.”

“Yeah, but Dom's mother is very religious. She'd go ape-shit.”

That was true. Mrs. Nunziato was a super-Catholic, but she was also one of those people who never left the house and rarely left her bedroom. Her way of going to Sunday Mass was watching Bishop Sheen on TV.

“We'll just be quiet,” she whispered, licking the end of his nose. “Come on. Just a little.” She took his hand and placed it on her tit.

Frank could feel her hard nipple through her bra and white cotton blouse. Every part of him melted except for the soldier in his shorts. He was incapable of resisting. Their lips met, then their tongues probed, and in no time they were at it, just like that time at her house. Except they were standing up and they were in Dom's kitchen. But he didn't care. For all he knew he was in heaven, light-headed, standing on clouds, intensely focused on their tongues and her tit.

He pawed her breasts and unbuttoned the top button of her blouse, then reached in and slipped his fingers under her bra. It was skin on skin, his fingers on her nipple. And she wasn't even trying to stop him. She was letting him do what he wanted. Unbelievable!

“Frank… Frank…”

He was only vaguely aware of her voice, a soft moan that escaped between kisses.

“Frank…”

He was on a high, unable to tell reality from pleasure, unable to stop.

“Frank.” Her voice louder. “Frank, wait.”

He gradually floated back down to earth, blinking at her as if he'd just been pulled from a dream. “House of the Rising Sun” drifted into his consciousness. Dom and Johnny, Dom strumming the chords and making the same mistake.

“Frank, listen to me. I want to ask you something.”

Yes, he said in his head. I will make love to you. I will fuck your brains out. Yes. You don't have to ask.

“Frank, are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“I want to ask you something.”

“Yes.”

Dom hit the wrong chord again.

“Are you going to the St. A's prom?”

“What?”

“Are you going to the prom?” Her finger brushed the curve of his ear.

“Ah… I dunno.”

“I'd love to go with you. Unless you've already asked someone else.” She was pouting, sticking out her bottom lip.

“No. No. I haven't asked anyone.” He was still a little fuzzy.

“Well, if you're going and you haven't asked anyone…” Her eyes were chocolate sinkholes.

“Well, uh… I don't know if I can go.”

“What do you mean? Why can't you go?”

“I don't have tickets and I think I missed the deadline.”

“No, you haven't.”

“I think I have.”

“I don't think so.”

“I'm pretty sure.”

“I know some girls who are going, and the deadline is next week. There's still time.”

“I don't know about that.” The linoleum was turning into quicksand under his feet. Dom hit that goddamn wrong chord again.

“Will you check?” she said. “I'd really like to go. With you.”

“Well, I'd like to go, too, but I don't think I can get tickets—“

Her hand was on his crotch, palming the soldier. Oh, my God. He was all melty and light-headed again.

“Please, Frank?” She kissed him with her pout. “Will you try?”

The little soldier was standing at attention,
thrumming
at attention.

“Ah… I can try, but—“

“Please? For me?”

She ran her fingers up the length of the soldier, feet to head. The little guy shuddered and so did the rest of Frank.

“Okay,” he said.

She smiled a giddy smile.

Dom hit that wrong chord again, but Frank didn't give a shit.

“Anybody home?” Frank called out as he walked into the kitchen at his house. He dropped his book bag on the floor. “Anybody?”

It was quiet. Not even the radio playing in his parents' bedroom.