Page 22 of Jesse

Died. He didn’t die. He was murdered. But of course, that’s hardly first-date material so I don’t expand.

“We came from the north side of the city back in his day. My whole family, before my dad and uncle came along, were all plumbers. But my grandfather made them both go to college. It was a change-the-fate-of-the-family kind of move.”

“Well,” she huffs. “That worked.”

“Yeah, it did. But when you come from a blue-collar family and then suddenly you’re white collar, living in a huge mansion, buying cars, and racehorses, and”—I nod my head towards the road—“lake houses, it’s weird, ya know.”

“I do,” Emma says. “I come from humble beginnings. You’re a generation ahead of me, actually. I guess I’d be your father in this scenario.”

“Yeah. So you get it. But maybe your family wasn’t so… let’s say inclined or maybe just leaning… towards a life of crime?”

She laughs. And this is her first real laugh of the evening. “What?”

“Yeah. We’re kinda dirty.”

She raises her eyebrows at me.

“Is that a waggle?” I ask. “Are you innuendo-ing me?”

“What? No.” And then she laughs again.

“I’m just checking.” And then I smile. An honest, genuine, happy smile.

I like her. I know we’ve met before, I just can’t figure out where or when.

“Dirty how?”

“You know how,” I say. “Do you need me to spell it out? Because I can’t. Sorry. Some things just don’t get said, if you get my meaning.”

“Family secrets,” she says, nodding.

“Right. So as I was saying, my life looked like one thing but it was really something else entirely.”

“Your dad, he did dirty deals?”

I nod. “You could say that.”

“And did you and your brothers get caught up in it?”

“I guess. I mean, I had it the easiest because I’m the youngest. Johnny knows way more about that shit that happened when we were young than I do. Joey knows some. I only know the outcomes.”

She’s squinting at me now. “Outcomes?”

“Yeah. When my uncle ‘died’—” I shove the last part of my ice cream cone in my mouth and do air quotes, then chew and swallow before I continue. “He didn’t just die. Right.”

More raised eyebrows from Emma. “Someone killed him.”

I nod. Not gonna admit that in words, but yeah.

“And your father? Same thing?”

I nod again.

“Wow.” She looks away and says it again. “Wow. OK. Yeah. That’s news to me.”

“So people maybe jumped to some conclusions about me when I was young. Not that I didn’t give them a reason. For sure, I was a dick. Total fucking dick. But I was just caught up in shit I didn’t understand and had no power to change.”

“So… what did change? You, so you say. But why? How?”