Chapter 20 - Matteo
2255 Words
Matteo looks at the road ahead waiting for her to say something else, but she doesn’t. Okay, so he has to get straight to the point because she obviously knows that he didn’t just hit her up so they’d hook up, like most girls usually do. It seems like Isabella and Aurora, his sister, are the only girls close to his age that he can text without s*x being implied.
Matteo: u got business psycologu?
He looks at the road ahead. Texting and driving is a lot of pressure when he drives 120 an hour. He decides to call her directly and speak through the car phone.
She picks up on the third ring. His ego tells him that she waited a little to seem busy but he knows she didn’t.
“Hello.”
“Hi. Uh, are you taking Business Psychology this year?”
“Yes, I was just there. Why?”
“I’m also supposed to be taking it, but I’m on my way to New York.” There’s a short pause where neither of them says anything because Matteo focuses on switching lanes, and then he continues. “Anyway, could you send me your notes or something?”
“I can send them to you by email.”
“Photos on w******p are fine.”
“I am taking them on my laptop, so I’ll send them to you by email. If I take photos of the screen, they’ll all be blurry.”
She’s right.
“Alright.”
“Just text me your address and I’ll send them to you.”
“It’s matteolorenzogiudice@giudicespa.com”
“Yeah, no way I can remember that language. Text me so I can just copy paste it.” Matteo smiles. “Alright. I’m driving now though.”
“It’s fine, I’m not going to wait around for it.” she says, and Matteo can hear the smirk on her face.
“Okay.”
“Well.”
“Thank you.”
“Okay. Byee.”
“Byee.” He says and the line goes dead.
He texts her his email address at the next stoplight half an hour later, and he gets the notification from valentinalevin@gmail.com just as he gets onto the George Washington Bridge to enter Manhattan.
The apartment looks just like he left it before 2019 ended so he gets comfortable on the couch and rolls himself a joint. Then he texts Valentina to thank her.
Matteo: got it, thank u
Valentina: * thumbs up emoji *
Matteo looks at the emoji for a second, before he opens the email she sent. It’s a pdf of her notes taken in class, from which he understands right about nothing.
Matteo: are they supposed to make sense?
Valentina: if you’d been in class, yes
Matteo: f**k
This would’ve been the part where she offers to explain them to him in order to spend time with him, but she just leaves him on read. Well, not really read, because his read receipts are off, but she stops replying.
He’s gotten through college until now exactly because he knew the right people to help him out or he knew exactly which girl would do most of the work for him just as an excuse for them to say to their friends they hung out.
Sometimes he thinks it’s just the money, but that can’t be it – everyone he met at school and now college comes from rich families. Some of them are old money, others new money families, but all of them have multi-million dollars to their name.
Matteo knows what people, especially women, think of his family and how there’s a certain allure to it because it is 'dangerous'. But these women fall in love with the movie mafia guy everyone romanticizes, not realizing that in reality everything is far more dangerous and f****d up than could ever be described in words.
It would take a strong woman to put up with everything that comes with entering a crime family. Matteo has never met one that could live up to the role, only those who thought they could. He fell in love with Allison because she was the only person in the world who Matteo even considered worth the effort, but that’s all over now (even though they still meet up sometimes). When feelings disappear, the only thing that keeps it going is the fear of change.
***
The Barone kids come over to his apartment the week before Valentine’s Day weekend, together with Marco and Isabella. While Pia and Isabella are out getting dinner in the city on Saturday night, the boys choose to stay in and have a Fifa tournament.
It always reminds Matteo of the days when they were younger and living in Palermo. He would go over to the Barone house just to stay for hours and play on their Playstation. They stopped when they moved to New York for school. Matteo noticed it because it's the first time in two years where they decided to stay in instead of going to the club.
They order pizza and smoke joints, and it’s not until they hear Isabella and Pia’s voice in the hallway that they realize hours went by.
“This makes me feel nostalgic.” Isabella smiles and comes inside the living room with her shoes in one hand, bottle of wine in the other. “The boys playing football.”
The couch is in an L shape, big enough to fit all five of them, so Pia and Isabella take the lower part of the L so the boys can sit by themselves focusing on the TV.
"Did you hear about this Coronavirus?” Isabella asks after the first sip of her wine. Matteo looks at her without pausing the game against Vinnie.
“The virus in China?”
“I heard someone saying it could become a pandemic.” Eddie chips in.
“My dad says it’s going to get bad. As in, they’re going to lock people in their homes."
Marco rolls his eyes. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Why isn’t Aurora here?” Matteo asks half an hour later right before he’s about to start another game. “She already lives in the city.”
“She said she had a date this weekend.”
All of the boys turn their heads to look at Pia now.
“With who?” Marco asks incredulously.
Pia shrugs. “She didn’t say.”
“Didn’t you ask?!”
“I did, but she wouldn’t say.”
“She’s hiding something.” Vinnie observes after he’s turned his attention back on the game. Matteo agrees and looks at Isabella, who doesn’t seem fazed by the information. “What do you know?”
Isabella looks at him surprised. “Me? Why would I know anything?”
“Because you always know.”
She puts her phone down and looks Matteo in the eyes. “I don’t know anything, promise."
“Fine.” He knows when she’s lying.
“What do you know?” she asks him.
“Nothing, obviously.”
“No, like, have you noticed her being unusual?”
“I tried to take her phone at Christmas and she got very defensive.” Marco says.
Matte nods. “Yes, and she’s got this weird smile on her face and I know she’s texting someone.”
“Ask her then.” Pia says, like it’s the most logical thing in the world.
“Like you would ever tell us.” Vinnie interjects.
“I would! But you never ask.”
“Alright, who have you slept with?”
“Eddie!” Pia exclaims, crossing her arms and looking at Matteo for a second. It’s hard for Matteo to think of her as Vinnie’s twin. Even though she’s about to turn 21 in April, he thinks of her like he thinks of Aurora: a younger sibling who needs to be protected. The fact that she usually keeps to herself and sometimes acts childish just enhances his image of her.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Vinnie asks.
Pia shakes her head, relaxing, and looks at Matteo again.
“Do you have a crush?” Isabella asks, turning to look at her.
“What? No!” she says, looking down at her phone.
“You do.”
Eddie screams at the TV when Matteo scores a goal, which takes the attention away from the conversation.
“What do you want to do for our birthday?” Pia asks Vinnie after they’ve cleared two bottles of wine and are now watching some random show on Comedy Central.
Vinnie takes a hit from the bong Eddie brought and thinks about it for a second. “Uhh, whatever you want to do I guess.”
Matteo smiles. Obviously, Vinnie is too lazy to even think about that because his favorite part is having fun, just like Matteo. Vinnie likes leaving the organizing to his sister, and Matteo to Isabella. It has been working like this since they had their first party without parents present.
“I want to go to Ibiza.” Pia says without even thinking about it.
“Oooh yes, I vote yes!” Isabella says and turns to look at the boys with an excited look on her face. “Let’s go to Ibiza.”
And as usual, the boys agree to everything the girls think of, because they always make it fun. All they have to do is show up.
Isabella and Pia start making the invite list even though it’s more than two months away, just because there’s nothing to do anyway.
“Do I put Allison and Sophia on here?” Pia asks in an accusing tone and looks between Vinnie and Matteo.
“Why do you always put them together?” Vinnie asks.
“Because they’re besties, aren’t they?” Pia replies in a sweet voice that’s meant to be annoying Vinnie even more.
“Maybe they can call the police this time too.” Isabella jokes and Pia laughs.
“I don’t care what you do about Allison, it’s your party and she’s not my girlfriend anymore.” Matteo tells her. He’ll find someone to go home with anyway, if he wants to.
“If you invite Sophia, I’m sure she won’t call the police anymore. She said she’s sorry.” Vinnie says.
“Are you kidding me?” Isabella exclaims. “If she comes, then Allison comes. And how many more times do they have to f**k you over until you move on?” she asks, looking at Vinnie.
“I agree.” Pia says and points at Isabella.
“My birthday is before yours, why are we even discussing it now?” Marco groans, sick of Isabella’s high pitched angry voice.
“It’s both of our birthdays, not just yours.” Vinnie reminds her. “If I want to invite Sophia, I’ll invite her.”
Isabella gets even angrier now and stands up, grabbing her glass. “I’m going to sleep, goodnight.”
“Aw, come on Izzy!” Vinnie yells after her but she flips him off as she stumbles back into the hallway, in search of the room she shares with Pia.
Matteo watches the door closing behind her and thinks it’s weird that she’d get so upset over Sophia and Allison attending. Usually, she just makes snarky comments but never actually gets mad.
“We stopped playing or what?” Eddie nudges him and he snaps back to the TV.
“You wish.”
He spends Valentine’s Day in the club with his friends because they’re having a special 'single's only' event suggested by Isabella a few days ago, and since Aurora didn’t want to have her birthday there, they hosted “Valentine’s Dead”. It was a huge success.
Everybody got dressed up and the club was packed, Aleksi was there with his usual deliveries, and everyone was happy. Things were back to normal.
Now that it’s way past midnight and Matteo is on the way home in a taxi, he remembers that it’s the 15th. Which means Aurora just turned 18 and celebrated somewhere else in New York, since she was going to the school in the city.
“Hello? Happy birthday!” he says, still pumped from the cocaine.
“Thank youuu” Aurora says on the other line, slurring her words.
“Where are you?”
“With a friend.”
“Who?”
She sighs into the phone. “You don’t know him.”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
Raisa looks at him from the other side of the taxi. Matteo looks at her for a moment before turning his head back to look out the window. The streets are still covered in snow and it’s cold outside. He left the club without a jacket because he couldn’t feel the cold from the alcohol and drugs.
“Don’t start Matteo. Marco has already asked like ten times and now I think dad is onto something. Let me enjoy becoming an adult.”
“As if you’re an adult.” Matteo snorts. “Anyway, take care of yourself, okay?”
“I always do.” She says. “Have a good night.” She says in a tone that lets Matteo know she knows he’s with a girl headed back from the club.
“I will. You too. But I want you at the club next month.”
“Promise.”
- Writer
