Rachel Dyken - Elect

I took a few deep breaths and strolled into the kitchen. Finding an apron, I wrapped it around my waist and poured myself a large glass of wine. I would get through this, I would make it through and I’d be fine. I’d just have to screw a lot of girls and possibly be drunk the entire time to do it. Right. No big deal.

A large gulp of wine worked wonders as I began chopping up the vegetables for my pasta ncasciata. I’d just finished arranging the eggplant and getting the peas ready when Tex walked into the kitchen with Mo.

“Aw shit.” Tex poured himself a glass of wine. “Your damn dog die, Chase?”

“He doesn’t have a dog.” Mo reached for Tex’s wine.

He pulled the wine away from her. “Get your own wine, and it’s an expression, Mo.”

She rolled her eyes and slapped me hard on the back. “What’s up, cousin? You only cook when you’re either trying to impress someone or ready to commit murder.”

“Yeah.” Nixon waltzed into the kitchen, Trace in tow. “That’s only partially true. Remember last summer when he baked for three months straight?”

“Why?” Trace came up alongside me and examined the eggplant, a confused look on her face.

I took the eggplant from her grubby hands and put it back into the bowl. “It was an experiment of sorts.” God, she smelled good.

“Experiment?” Mo choked on her laugh. “Is that what you’re calling it now?”

Tex chuckled behind me. “Chase replaced sex with cooking.”

Tracey burst out laughing. “And he lasted three months?” Seriously? Even Trace thought I was that bad of a player? Really? Well, there went my self-esteem, not that it was dangerously high or anything in the first place. After all, I’d stuck my tongue down her throat and pondered suicide all within the same amount of time it took for her to not only forget our heated exchange but kiss my cousin directly in front of me. Where the hell was a gun when I needed one?

“Oh look, dinner’s almost ready! Who wants to help with the pasta?” I clapped my hands loudly and tried to distract everyone in the room but they just kept talking.

“Three days,” Nixon snorted. “He lasted three days, but he didn’t want anyone to know about his epic failure, so he cooked dinner every night for three months.”

“That is…” Tex took a sip of his wine and grinned. I rolled my eyes and waited for him to continue. “Until we told him we already knew he’d failed but had wanted badass dinners. He bought our silence with food.”

“Bastards.” I threw a towel at Tex’s face. “I slaved for days on end for you two!”

“And we appreciate it, Betty Crocker, we really do.” Nixon smirked in my direction. The only reason I was able to smile back was because I knew he was just trying to make things normal for everyone.

We’d sit. We’d eat. And I’d pretend that I wasn’t in irreversible love with his girlfriend. No. Big. Deal.

“Need help with the pasta?” Trace grabbed my glass of wine and took a sip. It was decided. God hated me. Her lips were everywhere on my glass and now I had to drink after her? You’ve got to be shitting me.

In true Sicilian fashion I had made the noodles from scratch, which would take anyone who didn’t know what the hell they were doing a long time. “Pasta.” I pointed at my handiwork. “It’s almost done, why don’t you go relax? Drink some wine, put your feet up, do your homework.”

Trace groaned. “Did you just tell me to do my homework?”

“No?” I took a step away from her. The perfume she was wearing was literally killing me and I could only hold my breath for so long. And I was sure that if she touched me I would probably explode with frustration, or just scream and have to be institutionalized. Wonder if the mafia had connections in the loony bin.

“Look, you do have a lot of homework. Maybe Nixon can help you?”

“Help me?” she repeated, and then tilted her head to the side. Before I could back up any farther she reached up and felt my forehead. “Are you sick?”

“No.” I swatted her hand away. “I’m just… cooking.”

Oh God kill me now.

“Cooking?”

“Are you going to repeat everything I say?”

“Depends.” She shrugged. “You gonna stop acting like an ass?”

I grinned. “Nope.”

Trace swatted the back of my head. “There he is. Welcome back, asshole; don’t scare me like that. You’re making me nervous with all this baking and ordering me to be responsible and do my homework. You’re not my brother, you know.”

The huge gulp of wine I had just taken spewed out of my mouth and onto the stove.

The room fell silent, and then Nixon clapped. “Well done, you’ve finally shocked the hell out of him, Trace.”

I wiped my face and threw the wine-stained towel at Nixon’s head. “Whatever. Wash up, children, dinner’s almost ready.”

“Yes ma!” they all yelled as they went to set the table, leaving me alone in the kitchen yet again.

I leaned over the sink and told myself to keep the contents of my stomach inside, not out.

Brother? A freaking brother? Was she insane? Yeah, pretty sure I would never, ever think of her as family. She wasn’t family. She was—shit. She was everything.

Well, that was awkward. Points go to Chase for not completely losing his shit while Tracey touched his forehead and then proceeded to tell him not to be an ass. If it hadn’t been my girlfriend he was crushing on—I may have found it funny.

But it wasn’t.

So instead, to rein in my anger I was clenching my fork and trying my damnedest not to bend it in half while we all sat around the table like a happy little family.

“So.” Mo dipped her bread in the olive oil in the middle of the table and stuffed it into her mouth. “Any updates, Nixon?”

I shrugged and poured myself another glass of wine. “Nothing helpful. I’ve been looking through all the accounts from the De Lange family. The same as always. We’re working on a hunch. We know my father didn’t kill anyone, but that’s it. We don’t know anything else, and now that Trace’s grandpa isn’t here it’s not like he can even help us. I mean, he’d die before we could even gain access to what we’d need.”

Trace dropped her fork onto the plate. “My grandfather?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed her back. “Trace, I’m sorry, it’s just, he’s the only one involved in this who wasn’t still watching cartoons and playing with toy soldiers when everything took place.”

She grimaced. “I wish I could be more help. I feel like everyone’s risking so much for me and I’m not even doing anything to make it better. If anything it’s worse.”

“Whatever.” Mo thrust her fork into the air. “Boots, things sucked before you came around. Nixon never smiled and I’m pretty sure if you hadn’t have shown up Chase would have gotten one of his professors preggo.”

“Thanks, Mo.” Chase flipped her off.

“Whatever.” Mo rolled her eyes. “This is our family. This is life, take it or leave it. If it wasn’t you it would be something else, so for right now we just need to focus on…” Her eyes darted to mine. In fact, everyone’s did. Right. No pressure.

“The past,” I said slowly. “We need to focus on the past.”

“Trace…” Tex leaned in and grabbed a piece of bread. “Do you remember anything about that night—?”

“Tex,” Chase snapped. “Leave her alone.”

Staying true to my ability to be a complete ass, I said, “I agree with Tex. Sorry, Trace, but we need to know. I know you were six, but do you recall anything at all? Any words your grandfather said to your grandmother? Anything in Sicilian?”

Trace looked down at her plate. “Guys, I wish I could help you but there isn’t anything—”

She jolted out of her chair and ran out of the room.

“Well done,” Chase snapped, “Cause her to have a nervous breakdown why don’t you?” He threw his napkin onto his plate and stood just as Trace ran back into the room.

“This!” She held a small book in her hand. “My grandma kept this with her all the time. She even slept with it at night. Before she died, she said she wanted me to tell their story. How her and my grandfather met, but… the thing is… although my grandfather gave it to me, he never gave me the key.”

“We don’t need a key.” I held out my hand.

Trace placed the small leather case onto my palm. It was secured with a pretty legit lock, but it was also really old. I pulled at the lock a few times.

Tex chuckled and said in a terrible impersonation of my voice, “We don’t need a key.”

I flipped him off and tried again.

“Idiots.” Mo sighed. “All of you.” She held out her hand. “Give me the book.”

“Pardon?”

“Give me the book.”

“What? You looking for a mirror? Mo, just let the guys take care of this one, okay?”

Trace slapped the back of my head so hard I could have sworn my teeth went numb. “Asshole, hand her the book.”

Cursing, I dropped it into Mo’s hands.

Tex chuckled. “Trace totally just proved her true heritage right there. I swear if I had a dollar for every time my ma smacked the back of my head—”

Mo did the honors that time, making Tex almost spill his wine as he caught himself against the table.

Tracey followed Mo to the breakfast bar, where Mo dug through her purse. She pulled out something small, and then fit it into the lock. Three seconds later she was dangling the leather book in front of my face. “You were saying?”

“Girls rule, boys drool?” I offered sarcastically as I snatched the book from Mo and turned to the first page.

“ ‘Secrets are hidden in our past—they define our future. This, my love, is our story. In these pages you will find all you need to know. All there is to know. Always my love—Grams.’ ”

“Well.” I turned the page. “That wasn’t cryptic.”

Everyone was silent as I turned to the next page and read aloud. “ ‘I saw him across the room—’ ”

Tex groaned.

Laughing, I continued. “ ‘I shouldn’t have looked, but I couldn’t help myself. He wasn’t mine to stare at, yet I was still staring. And I knew… I would have him and damn your grandfather to hell. Damn him for keeping it from me, and damn him for buying my silence. I would be with this man, I would get back at the Alferos in the name of my family’s honor—They destroyed what I had, and because of them, I refuse to keep my silence any longer.’ ”

I swallowed and closed the book. “Shit.”

“Maybe this isn’t the best thing to be reading…” Trace tried to grab the book but I snatched it away.

“We’ll read every damn page. Together, okay? But we need to know what she knew, Trace. I know we’re grasping at straws, but unless Phoenix talks or someone confesses, it’s all we have.”

Her gaze flickered to Tex’s, Mo’s, and finally Chase’s. He nodded at me and then placed his hand on Trace’s. “Nixon’s right.”

“Okay.” She squeezed his hand and then turned to me. “But we read it together, agreed?”

“Agreed.”

The book may as well have been a guest of honor. It sat on the table the rest of dinner earning curious stares from everyone, Trace included.

Finally, once we were done eating, I grabbed the book and nodded toward the wine. “Might as well make it a party.”

“Thank God,” Mo whispered. “I’m not sure I can make it through dirty laundry without wine and I know Trace is gonna need it. It’s her grandmother, after all.”

Trace smiled but didn’t laugh. We walked into the living room and sat down, each of us with a glass of wine.

“Who wants to read it?”

“I vote Chase.” This from Mo. “He always got straight A’s in reading class and I’ve always wondered why the teachers found his voice so alluring…”

“I was seven.” Chase glared.

“He started so young.” Tex put a hand over his heart. “Now read, bitch. I have a seven a.m. lab to look forward to.”

“Right away.” Chase saluted and picked up where I’d left off. “ ‘I followed him with every intention of propositioning him. I wanted to feel desire. Perhaps, the De Lange right hand man could give it to me?’ ” Chase choked and closed his eyes. “Yeah, feeling like a perv right about now.”

“Read!” everyone yelled in unison.

Chase cleared his throat and kept reading, “ ‘He went outside. He lit his cigar in the shadows, and then I saw another person walk up. They exchanged pleasantries about the weather, and then he was handed an envelope. I remember thinking it was so strange, to be handed an envelope and not examine what was inside first? It meant they trusted one another. I had no way of knowing that the next day he would be dead. Nor that it meant my own husband would be blamed. My shame was exposed for all to see, for I had to tell everyone what I’d seen and why I saw it. I did not think he would ever forgive me. But he did and that’s why I’m writing this story. To explain forgiveness to you, Trace. So you understand, that when you read the final chapter of this story, it does not mean the end for your family or for his. It is okay for you to love him.’ ”