Mary DiNunzio sat across from the old men, deciding which
one to shoot first. Her father, Matty DiNunzio, was the
natural choice because he was the most stubborn, but his
three friends were tied for second. They sat next to him at
the conference table, a trinity of Tonys β Pigeon Tony
Lucia, Tony-From-Down-The-Block LoMonaco, and Tony Two Feet
Pensiera, who was called Feet, making him the only man in
South Philly whose nickname had a nickname.
"Pop, wait, think about this," Mary said, hiding her
exasperation. "You don't want to sue anybody, not really."
She met her father's milky brown eyes, magnified by his
bifocals as he sat behind an open box of aromatic
pignoli-nut cookies. Her mother wouldn't have let him visit
her, even at work, without bringing saturated fats. Besides
the cookies, waiting for her in the office refrigerator was
a Pyrex dish of emergency lasagna.
"Yes, we do, honey. The club took a vote. We wanna sue. It's
about honor."
"Honor?" Mary tried not to raise her voice. She loved him,
but she was wondering when he'd lost his mind. A tilesetter
his working life, her father had always been a practical
man, at least until this meeting. "You want to sue over your
honor?"
"No, over Dean's honor."
"You mean Dean Martin?"
"Yeah. He was a great singer and a great man."
"Plus a great golfer," said Tony-From-Down-the-Block.
"Great golfer," repeated Feet. "And Bernice disrespected
him. In public."
"But Dean wasn't there." Mary stopped just short of saying,
he's dead. Or, are you insane, too?
Tony-From-Down-the-Block nodded. "Dean Martin wasn't his
real name, you know. It was Dino Crocetti."
Mary knew. Dean Martin, born in Steubenville, Ohio. Adored
his mother, Dolly. Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime. She
hadn't grown up her father's daughter for nothing. In his
retirement, her father had started the Dean Martin Fan Club
of South Philly, and she was looking at its four
co-presidents. Don't ask why there were four co-presidents.
The fifth had to step down from prostate problems.
Mary asked, "How does it avenge his honor if you sue?"
"Mare," Feet interrupted, indignant. "Bernice insulted him.
She called him a drunk!"
Mary winced on Dean's behalf. Her father shook his head.
Tony-From-Down-The-Block reached for another pignoli-nut
cookie. Feet's slack cheeks flushed with emotion, trumping
his Lipitor.
"Mare, she hollered at him like a fishwife, in front of
everybody. The mouth on that woman. So Big Joey hollered
back and before you know it, he's holding his chest and
falling down onna floor. She gave him a heart attack." Feet
pushed up the bridge of his Mr. Potatohead glasses. "That
can't be legal."
"I saw on Boston Legal, it's motional distress."
Tony-From-Down-The-Block brushed cookie crumbs from a red
Phillies T-shirt, which matched his unfortunate new
haircolor. He was single again, a fact that his red hair
blared like a siren. Also that he might not own a mirror.
"That's how they always are, that club," her father said.
"They never shut up. Sinatra this, Sinatra that. They think
Frank was the best, but Dean had the TV show. They forget that."
"Dean was the King of Cool, 'at's all," added
Tony-From-Down-the-Block, and Mary's father turned to him.
"Don't get me wrong, Sinatra was good, my Vita loves him.
But he hogged the spotlight. A show-off."
"A showboat," Tony-from-Down-the-Block agreed, and Mary
listened to the two men have the same conversation they'd
had a thousand times. Pigeon Tony sat silently on the end,
dunking a cookie into his coffee. At only five feet two, he
was more wren than pigeon, with his bald head inexplicably
tanned, his brown-black eyes small and round, and his tiny
nose curved like a beak. He was quiet because his English
wasn't that good, and for that, Mary felt grateful. Two
Tonys were enough for one lawyer.
"But, Pop," Mary interrupted, trying to get them back on
track. "Big Joey's fine now, and Bernice didn't cause his
heart attack. He weighed three hundred pounds." Hence, the
Big part. "In an intentional infliction case, you have to
prove that the act caused the harm. And the statement she
made wasn't outrageous enough."
"How can you say that, honey?" her father asked, stricken.
"It's outrageous, to us." His forehead wrinkled all the way
to his straw cabbie's hat. He was wearing an
almost-transparent sleeveless shirt, dark pants with a wide
black belt, and black socks with pleather sandals. In other
words, he was dressed up.
"Mare," Tony-From-Down-The-Block interjected, "the drinking
wasn't for real on Dean's TV show. They put apple juice in
the glass, not booze. It's show business."
Feet's face was still flushed. "Yeah. They just spread that
rumor to make Dean look bad. They're always trying to ruin
his reputation. Can we sue about that, too? If Dean was
alive, he could sue, so why can't we? He can't help it he's
dead."
Mary sighed. "Slow down, gentlemen. It costs money to sue.
Even if I don't charge you, there are filing fees, service
fees, all kinds of fees. You have to have money."
Feet said, "We have money."
"Not this kind of money."
"We got seventy-eight grand in the kitty."
"What?" Mary couldn't believe her ears. "$78,000! Where'd
you get that?"
"Dean's got a lot of fans," Feet answered, and her father added:
"Dead fans. Angelo, you know, the barber down Ritner Street.
Remember, his wife Teresa passed two years ago, and they had
no kids. Also Mario, who had the auto body shop on Moore,
and Phil The Toot, got that nice settlement from the car
accident. He passed, too, poor guy." Her father paused, a
moment of silence. "They left their money to the club. We
had $312 before that, but now we're rich. We can sue anybody
we want."
"Anybody says anything bad about Dean, we're suing," Feet said.
"We don't even care if we lose," said
Tony-From-Down-The-Block. "It's the principle. We're sick of
Dean gettin' kicked around. It's gotta stop somewhere."
"Right!" Mary's father pounded the table with a fleshy fist,
and Pigeon Tony looked up from his coffee. Her father and
The Three Tonys looked determined, their lined faces an
Italian Mount Rushmore.
"Gentlemen, how's it gonna look if you sue?" Mary fought the
urge to check her watch. She had so much else to do and was
getting nowhere fast. "Your club is mostly male, right?"
"Yeah, it's true." Her father shrugged his soft shoulders.
"What are you gonna do? Dean was a man's man."
"It's 'cause of the Golddiggers," Feet explained, and
Tony-From-Down-The-Block sighed like a lovesick teenager.
"Weren't they somethin' else?"
Mary gathered the question was rhetorical. "As I was saying,
your club is mostly men. Isn't the Sinatra club mostly women?"
Feet interjected, "It's not a real club, like us. They call
it the Sinatra Social Society. They don't even have by-laws,
just parties."
"Their name don't even make sense," Tony-From-Down-The-Block
said. "It has too many s's. You oughta hear 'em. Sounds like
snakes with dentures."
"Women," Feet said, but Mary let it pass. A flicker of
regret crossed her father's features. He knew where she was
going, and she went there.
"Pop, let's say you take the Sinatra club to court and even
that you win. How's that gonna look? A group of men beating
up on a group of women? Is that really what you want?"
Her father blinked.
Feet and Tony-From-Down-The-Block exchanged looks.
Pigeon Tony dropped his cookie into his coffee. Plop, went
the sound, and a pignoli nut bobbed to the black surface.
Mary pressed on. "Is that what Dean would have wanted?"
"No, he wouldn't want that," her father said, after a minute.
"But we don't like people insulting Dean," Feet said.
"Plus we gotta set the record straight," said
Tony-From-Down-The-Block, and Mary got an idea.
"Tell you what. Why don't I call Bernice and ask her to
apologize. Then you get what you want and nobody gets sued.
You can even put it in the newsletter."
"You sound like your mother," her father said with a wry
smile, and Mary laughed, surprised. Her mother would have
sued. Nobody loved a good fight more than her mother. She'd
take on all comers, armed with a wooden spoon.
"Bernice Foglia will never apologize," Tony-From-Down-The
Block said, and Feet shook his head.
"She buried two husbands, both from heart attacks."
"Let me try, gentlemen. Let's not get crazy." Mary needed to
resolve this fast. She had three hundred things to do. Her
slim Blackberry Pearl sat next to her on the table, its
email screen dark and its phone set on silent. She hated
being tethered to the device, but it was a necessity
nowadays. Mary touched her father's hand. "Dad, why don't
you take the money you'd use on a lawsuit and do something
positive? Something good, in Dean's memory. Something that
honors him."
"I guess we could buy somethin' for the playground," said
her father, cocking his head.
"Or sponsor a softball team," said Tony-From-Down-The-Block.
"Or have a party," said Feet, and on the end, Pigeon Tony
looked up.
"O andare a casino."
And for that, Mary didn't need a translation.
Fifteen minutes later, she had ushered them out of the
conference room, hugged and kissed them all, and walked them
out to the reception area. The elevator doors slid open, and
the Tony trifecta shuffled inside, followed by her father,
to whom she gave a final hug, breathing in his
characteristic spice of mothballs and CVS aftershave.
"I love you, Pop," Mary said, surprised by the catch in her
throat. It was paranoid, but she always wondered if it would
be the last time she would see him alive. The man was
perfectly healthy, but she couldn't shake the thought. It
was a child's fear, and yet here she was, over thirty, with
no excuse except a congenital flair for melodrama.
"Love you, too, honey," her father said softly. He patted
her arm and stepped back into the elevator. "I'm so proud a
you -" he was saying when the stainless steel doors closed,
leaving Mary facing her blurry reflection, wearing an
unaccountably heartsick expression and her best navy blue suit.
"Mare?" said a voice, and Mary turned, recovering. It was
Marshall Trow, their receptionist, walking from the hallway
in a blue cotton shirtdress and tan espadrilles. Her usual
smile had vanished, and her brown eyes were concerned. "I
just put a friend of yours in your office. I didn't want to
interrupt your meeting."
"No problem." Mary switched her Blackberry back on, and
email piled onto the screen, making a mountain she could
never climb, like an electronic Sisyphus. "What friend?"
"Her name is Trish Gambone."
Trash Gambone is here?
"You know her, right?" Marshall blinked.
"Sure, from high school. Here?" Mary couldn't process it
fast enough. Trash, er Trish, Gambone personified every
slight she'd suffered at St. Maria Goretti High School,
where Mary had been the myopic straight-A President of
National Honor Society, the May Queen, and all-around Most
Likely to Achieve Sainthood. During the same four years,
Trish Gambone had flunked Religion, chain-smoked her way
through Spanish I twice, and reigned as the quintessential
Mean Girl.
"She said she had to see you and it was confidential. She
was beside herself."
"Upset?"
"She was crying."
"Really?" Mary felt her heartbeat speed up. A classic
flight-or-fight reaction, but she didn't know which to do.
"I wouldn't have taken her into your office, but I couldn't
leave her here, hysterical."
"No, sure, you did the right thing." Mary slipped the
Blackberry in her pocket, where it began to vibrate like
crazy. If it were in her pants, she'd be having a really
good time.
"Good." Marshall handed her a thick stack of phone messages.
"These are for you. I put your mail on your desk, and don't
forget you have the Coradinos coming in fifteen minutes,
then the DiTizios and Mrs. Yun."
"Thanks. Get my calls, please?" Mary hurried from the
well-appointed reception area, passed the gold-plated Rosato
& Associates sign, and hustled down the hallway, where her
best friend Judy Carrier called out from her office. "Mary!"
Judy's lemony blonde head popped through her doorway. She
had large, sky-blue eyes, chopped chin-length hair, and a
gap-toothed grin, which somehow looked good on a face as
round as a dinner plate. "How about hello? Time for
how-was-your-weekend."
Mary was about to burst with the news. "Guess who's in my
office right this minute." "Who?" Judy had on a hot pink
T-shirt, yellow cargo pants, and kelly-green Dansko clogs.
Read, dressed like the colorblind.
"Trash Gambone."
"That bitch!" Judy's eyes flew open. "She's here?"
"In the flesh." Mary appreciated that Judy reacted with the
appropriate hate, even though she'd never met Trash. Only a
true girlfriend would hate someone on your say-so. In fact,
that's what girlfriends were for.
"She's a jerk," Judy added, for emphasis.
"A skank."
"A slut. What does she want?"
"I have no idea. Marshall said she was crying."
"Goody!" Judy clapped. "Maybe she's in trouble with the law?"
"We can only hope." Mary almost cheered, then caught
herself. "Wait. I feel guilty."
"Why? She deserves it."
"I thought I was nicer than this, but I'm not."
"It's human nature. Delight in the pain of your enemies. The
Germans have a word for it. Schadenfreude."
"The Catholics do, too. Sin."
"It's not a sin to be human," Judy said with a smile, but
Mary let it go. Of course it was, but she'd given up on
saving Judy's soul. Her clothes alone were sending her
straight to hell.
"I can't believe Trash needs my help. What should I do?"
"I smell payback."
But deep inside, all Mary smelled was nervous. Trish and the
Mean Girls had bullied her during lunch, assembly, and Mass;
anywhere you could make someone feel smaller, uglier, and
more myopic than she felt already. Was she the only person
who had post-traumatic stress syndrome - from high school?
"Did your dad bring us food?" Judy asked, hopeful.
"In the conference room."
"Woot woot!"
Mary hurried down the hall, passing Bennie Rosato's office,
which was empty. She was glad that Bennie had a jury trial
this week because she didn't want the boss to see her dark
side, which she didn't realize she had until this very
minute. She'd always heard that what goes around, comes
around, but she didn't know that it really happened.
I smell payback.
Mary reached for her office door, with its MUST WEAR SHIRTS
sign. Lately, she had so many clients from South Philly that
the sign had become necessary. She was pretty sure that was
a first for a law firm.
And when she opened the door, her hand was shaking.
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