Round Here

Chapter Six

October '68

It's been a tough few months without Em. After we became little Sonny's god parents, C dropped off the face of the earth. We haven't heard from him in months. He was still grieving the loss of his best friend, and I understand that, but somehow I think he should still be around. Freddie and I think so anyways. 

Today was a cooler day, and even being as chilly as it was dad had the window's open. He says it was fine. I didn't care, but it was a tad bit chilly. I asked him to shut some, but he told me it was none of my concern and to put a blanket on. I ignored his nonsense as he came back into the living room. 

"You wanna watch something?" I turned to him. He was holding a beer. "No. I'm fine. I don't wanna watch any t.v." He sighed as he leaned over to the record player. He put the record back on. It was the Elvis one we always listened to. "What do you wanna do then?" "I wanna lay down and sleep for the rest of eternity, but since that's not gonna happen I want to just lay down." "Santina you can't lay down everyday. You gotta do something." I snapped a bit. 

"What am I supposed to do dad? None of my friends seem to want to be near me, and my husband is busy with a job." He sighed. "I don't know. Stop moping around all day and go out. Go find your friends." I rolled my eyes as I got off the sofa. "Yeah well one's dead, one's off into his own world, and the other is doing the exact same thing as I'm doing, so there's no reason to do so." He grabbed a hold of my arm. "You can go call up that friend and yous can hang out here if you want. As for Calogero I have no idea where he is. Stop dwelling on his disappearance. Hang out with Freddie." I scoffed as I went over to the kitchen to use the telephone. 

I mean he was right. I should stop dwelling on his disappearance, but I can't. I just can't understand why he left. It was so weird, and he took off without even telling anyone. So we all deserved an explanation that we probably weren't going to get. I decided to stop dwelling and to call Freddie. "Hey it's Freddie, who's this?" "It's me San, what's up?" He sighed. "Still no sign of C, but not much. Was just thinkin' bout callin' you actually. How's it hanging?" "Still struggling to cope with stuff, but wanted to know if you wanted to hang out?" He seemed to lighten up. "Of course I'm down to chill. You know all we've got is each other, and I ain't lettin' that go. I'll be down in about twenty." "That sounds great. I'm glad we've got each other. I'll see you shortly." "Yup, see you soon." I hung up the phone.

 I was startled by dad. "So is he coming over?" "Yes dad he's coming over." "Good, then I can go do the job I was supposed to do." "You gotta job?" "Yeah it shouldn't be long. You can order something with that kid, and I'll be back hopefully with Santino." I sighed as usual. "Alright dad. Have fun, and be safe please." He gave me a kiss. "I'll be fine baby. Yous two behave and I'll see you when I get home." "Okay dad, love you." "Love you too." And like that he was gone. 

~

Freddie finally showed up, thank god. I was starting to worry. We were eating pizza and he was drinking beer while listening to records in my bedroom. We were listening to the Viva Las Vegas soundtrack for a while. Then we switched to the Blue Hawaii soundtrack. Freddie was very drunk by seven o'clock and I just had to sit there as he told me weird stories about him and Dominick. Then he started going on about Em. I wasn't ready for them. The good stories he was telling me brought me back to the night she died, and I didn't really want to relive them. Thankfully for me he was getting very tired, so I tucked him into my bed and replaced Elvis with The Beatles. Then I carefully snuck out of my bedroom. 

I went downstairs to be startled by Sonny. "Jeez kid, you need to take it easy. How was your night?" He said as he was eating a piece of our pizza we ordered. "Oh, um. Well, it started off good, then Freddie got wasted and started to cry about Em. So I put him to bed for the night. Where's dad?" He then pulled me in closer. "Dad's upstairs changing out of his work clothes or something." He tried kissing me.