The date was set last night. Vitaly came home in an unusually good mood and told me, "Early September." That's 6 weeks away. I haven't been able to eat since. I can barely swallow. I've called Sasha and purged. I've called Mila and purged. Both are still excited to be coming to America for the wedding. Traitors.
Mrs. Rizzo kidnapped me today and brought me to a bridal shop. She took me to a cake testing too. She's so happy and I just want to scream. Now Giana and Mia are here getting sized for bridesmaid dresses.
Apparently they will officially be in the wedding. The bridal party goes as follows.
Anthony as best man and Mila as maid of honor. Sasha is my first bridesmaid and she'll be paired off with one of the Lombardo's I think. I forget now. Mia and a Rizzo cousin whose name I don't remember, and then Giana is going because Enzo wants her to, so on the men's side Andrei has volunteered himself as an usher to even the numbers out.
Vitaly was so pleased. Andrei's just having a laugh.
I couldn't bring myself to try on any brides dresses. Not today. I couldn't do it. We covered a lot of ground today though, and Mrs.Rizzo eventually set her captive free. I feel sick inside. I locked myself in my bedroom and haven't come out for hours.
All I could see were bridal magazines poking out of my bag that Mrs. Rizzo insisted I take home to look through. We have more decisions to make tomorrow since we only have 6 weeks. The woman called like 40 venues trying to find someone to accommodate the short notice.
Then Domani threw his name's weight around and suddenly we booked a venue. No decorations though.
Because I was in the privacy of my bedroom I pulled out the magazine. With every page that I flipped I saw smiling happy women and beautiful gowns. I tried picturing myself in those gowns smiling at the mirror when I found 'the yes dress'. I thought about my mom.
I pictured her behind me, wiping away silent tears as she took my shoulders and rested her chin on one of them when she said, "I did good making you." That's what she said every time she looked at me and was proud of something.
I started to cry. I couldn't stop crying actually. I sobbed into my pillow until my eyes stung and felt swollen against the tightness of my salty cheeks. I crawled into my bed and stayed there. I think overnight and well into the afternoon.
I heard voices at one point that woke me up.
"Mr. Petrov, is Miss Petrov home today? We call for breakfast-no answer- lunch- no answer" she told someone. I heard Andrei's voice respond. "She's supposed to be" he sounded curious so he knocked. I ignored him but he came in anyway.
"The hell's wrong with you? Don't you hear Magdalena calling for you all morning?" I heard his voice from above me, but I was under my blanket. "Hey" he poked at the lump he assumed to be me. When he dramatically pulled back the comforter I think he was expecting to find a bunch of rolled up clothes as a decoy for me to sneak out. But he did in fact find me.
"Aleks?" Andrei called me the nickname I told him not to call me already twice. My mother called me that. I was at my breaking point. "You AREN'T allowed to call me THAT" I shouted at him. His head moved back on his neck in surprise.
"Are you on your period or something?" He asked me. "Yes, I'm bleeding all over the place. Menstrual blood everywhere. Run" I was so sarcastic it lingered. "Ok LEXI, what's your issue?" He called me the name they never call me, but I always ask them to. For that I granted him an answer. Just one.
"My mom won't be at my wedding," I said. He turned eerily quiet. "Oh" was all he could respond.
Even though the boys lived with my father growing up they do still have a mother. She's completely relevant to their lives. I just heard Andrei on the phone with her the other day actually.
And they may have known my mom for many years, but they held no attachment to her, especially since she ran away and they never saw her again. So they don't care about my mom. I'm the only one in the world that does.
Andrei didn't know how to address the topic so he just covered me and left the room. Good. I stayed in bed well into dinner too.
-
I hadn't worn my engagement ring in over a week. I would have forgotten where I put it if not for sweet Magdalena holding it up to me with big round eyes saying, "Miss Petrov, you will lose." She made me slide it back on and I've ignored it since.
I guess I should wear it seeing as today I'm going to see Enzo. He'd heard I'd been in a funk, and said he wanted to take me to dinner, and talk with me about all this going on around us. We've had no time to get to know each other at all. I've spent the least amount of time with him actually.
I've seen Anthony, Mia, Giana, Mrs. Rizzo, even Sophia more than I've seen him.
For that I agreed to meet, and we ended up at some local chain restaurant. I thought for a minute he was taking me to De Luca's, and I was going to beg him not to. I'm sick of all those people. I just wanted a quiet night where I could finally eat something since I've barely eaten in days.
"So Lexi, five and a half weeks until we get hitched..." he trailed off. "I'm aware," I said from behind the menu. "So, what are you all about?" He asked me. I dropped the menu and looked at him head on. "What am I about?" I repeated his question. He rubbed his neck.
"Yeah, ya know, like, who is Lexi? What should I know about you?" He tried.
"I don't know how to answer that question," I admitted. "Oh come on. When you meet new people or go on dates you get asked this kinda stuff. What do you say?" He tried again. I chuckled humorlessly.
"Well, Enzo...I didn't meet with new people very often for that exact reason. I don't know how to answer that question. I'd have to lie about 90 % of my life, and who can ever keep those straight?" I asked.
"How so?" He didn't get it. "You should know. I can't very well just tell people I'm the daughter of a Russian Bratva mobster, but I ran away with my mother and hid from him for most of my life, now can I?" I asked. He opened his mouth to say something then shut it.
"Guess you can't. But you could say you had a mom and you had no father in the picture. It's all about how you phrase it" he continued. I picked up the menu again and we fell into an awkward silence.
When the waitress came I was relieved and we ordered our meals. When she left the awkwardness returned. "Fine. Enzo...what are you all about?" I turned the tables on him so I could stop this agonizing silence. He shrugged. What an articulate man.
"I like my life, man. Fast money, always busy with something new at my job, you just never know what to expect and I like that kinda stuff, and I liked the power and the women and booze...oh, uh, well, before I was engaged" he tried correcting himself.
"Let's not do that. Let's not lie about things when we really don't need to. I know you're out there fucking girls. I don't care" I made that clear. A stupid grin came over his face. "Cool" he said.
"What about your kid then? Does she know we're getting married?" I asked him. "Yeah, she's excited. Her momma is kinda giving me shit though. Wanting to meet you and stuff." I cringed, "Why?" He chuckled at my reaction. "She wants to know the woman who will be living with her daughter" he made a valid point.
"Does she know it's fake?" I asked him. He shook his head no.
"That's not something we're supposed to be advertising Lexi. That's business related and I don't share details of business with my baby's mother" he broke it down. "So she thinks you're in love" I snorted. He frowned.
"What? I can't fall in love?" He was almost offended. "You're out with all kinds of women everywhere. You have a reputation, which means she knows you aren't in love, or else you're a cheating piece of shit" I smirked. He chuckled and rubbed his neck.
"This is kinda weird, huh?" He said. "Kinda?" I asked. Then the quiet crept back in. Oh this is awful. "Soooo...do you want your kid to be, like, the flower girl then?" I pulled anything outta my ass to find something to talk about. He tipped his head. "Yeah, that's a good idea" was all he said about it. Kill me please.
"Do you read?" I asked him. He laughed like I was kidding. "Not my thing, gorgeous" he told me, and for a split second he sounded like Anthony with the pet name.
"If I started talking about books would you run to the bathroom and jump out the window?" I asked him. I never asked Anthony this question, but I never needed to. He'd always been open to talking about it. He listened, and he'd ask questions, and we'd laugh about something.
"Eh, yeah, I'm not gonna lie, that sounds boring as hell," Enzo told me. I hate this. I have nothing in common with this man. He holds absolutely no depth to his character. And I'm bound to this dude. In my desperation I clung to the one common point we've got.
"So you and Anthony grew up together, huh?" I asked him. He took a sip of his beer and nodded. "Yup, he was always hanging around being the more level headed one. I was a hot head growing up. Anthony always had my back though. He'd go knocking kids heads around if I said they needed to be set straight" he chuckled at the memory of them two running around terrorizing other children.
"Me and Dom were the troublemakers. Anthony was...well, he was Mr. Charming" he said, and I could see it all. I could picture it.
Cute Anthony Rizzo minding his business, flirting with all the little girls. Then his hot headed cousin comes in, starting trouble with Dom and fighting at recess. And Anthony, he was off leaning on the fence making all the girls smile. Then he'd look up and see his cousin in the middle of a tussle and come running. Then Anthony would fight them too.
And he'd win. They always would. So they'd always fight.
"Is that what inspired his fight club idea? Are you a part of that?" I asked him next. He took another long swallow of his beer. "Nah, that's Rizzo's thing" he called his cousin by their shared last name which is funny.
"He's good at it. Fightin' I mean. He was restless. He always wanted more work. More responsibility. My pops was teaching us to take over as number two, and he wasn't satisfied with just that, so he started his little club. Then it wasn't so little anymore" he said. He sounds like a New Yorker when he talks like that.
"I'd like to see it,"I told him. He eyed me for a second without saying anything. "What? No girls allowed?" I teased him. He took another swig of his drink.
"Nah, it's not that...I just think we should maybe keep the talk about Anthony to a minimum here, huh? I feel a bit weird about the shared history there" he admitted. "Why should you care? You don't like me. I don't like you" I deadpanned. He snorted a humorless laugh.
"Very straightforward with it then. Alright fine. Here's why," he straightened up. He had his hair combed back off his forehead. His outfit was plain. He had a ring on one of his fingers on his right hand and he twirled it a lot when he got going on something.
"You're gonna be known as my wife, alright? No matter the circumstances that brought us to that point, it's still a fact. You're gonna be my wife. I don't want there to be talk about my wife stepping out on me. Alright?" He said. I was ready to ring his neck.
"As opposed to you stepping out on me? Those rumors you're fine with?" I called out his condescension and hypercriticism. "Made Men-" he went to give me some sexist bullshit speech and I stopped him two words in.
"Let's get something straight. I'm no mafia wife. I'm not gonna let you go off doing whatever the fuck you want while I wait at home for you, cooking you fucking lasagna or something. Get that right out of your head. If you fuck around, I fuck around. Simple" I told him.
I've never seen Enzo look so angry before, but I knew he was. He was grinding his teeth and kept gulping down his beer. "You're a piece of work, you know that?" He finally said after a long tense minute. I shrugged.
Enzo tipped his head to get the last few drops of his beer before he waved the waitress for another, then leaned forward again.
"What do you want from me? You want me to give you my blessing to go fuck my cousin? Is that what you were hoping for?" He asked me. Talk about straightforward alright. I licked my lips, which brought his eyes down to my mouth. I didn't want him looking there.
"I don't want your blessing for anything. Don't you get that yet? You are not going to have a say in my life, like some husband with a complex would. It's my life. We're bound by a piece of paper, and it doesn't run any deeper than that" I broke it down for him.
I was angry about his comment with Anthony. Why the hell would Enzo get in our way? And first of all, I didn't even ask to be with Anthony. I'm not even speaking to Anthony! After I found out he's sleeping with multiple women I cured my affliction of wanting him.
I'll find somebody else. It will not be my husband though. I'll tell you that. I don't want Enzo. I'm not even sure I like Enzo. After my statement he rubbed his hand over his face and turned his head away from me. He muttered something in Italian, and I doubt it was anything nice.