Don Bowed To Me Chapter 08
For a moment, the entire ballroom was stunned.
The room fell so silent you could hear the tremor of a single crystal on the chandelier.
My mother’s voice caught in her throat.
“Don Salvatore, forgive me. You must be… you must be mistaken. That’s Hazel. She barely made it into a community college.”
Matteo came down from the stage in quick strides, shock and confusion plain on his face.
“Nonno, I don’t understand. That’s Isabella’s sister. She never even finished…”
“ENOUGH!”
Don Salvatore’s palm came down on the nearest table. The word cut through the room.
“You have no idea who is standing in front of you.”
Silence.
His voice rose.
“Dr. Hazel Vitale.”
“PhD in Biomedical Engineering from MIT.”
“Youngest tenured professor in the university’s history.”
“She holds the patents on every serious neural signal decoding architecture that matters to the people we care about.”
“She has a Top Secret clearance from the Department of Defense.”
“She sits on advisory panels the FBI would give a lung to be read into.”
“Every Family on this coast has been trying to get a meeting with her for the last two years. Every single one.”
“And I have been trying for three months.”
Title after title, hitting like hammer blows.
The ballroom erupted in low, urgent whispers.
The looks turning toward me shifted in real time. Shock. Recalculation. Something close to reverence.
The heavyset DeLuca man shrank half a step back into the crowd.
The five-five bookkeeper drained his glass in one pull, ears burning red.
At a table near the front, a capo I recognized as Ricci leadership leaned over to the man beside him, unable to keep the shock out of his voice.
“Wait. Wait. The neural signal woman. That’s her? A Vitale girl?”
“How did we not put it together?”
“The bride kept saying ‘my sister is a barista.’ I wasn’t looking for anyone at that table. Nobody was.”
“Two of our own tried to pick her up like she was somebody’s cocktail waitress. Christ.”
The side doors of the ballroom pushed open.
A man in a charcoal Brioni suit walked in, flanked by two men who carried themselves the way Don Salvatore’s people carried themselves.
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“That’s Frank Colangelo. Out of Jersey. He hasn’t left the city in six years.”
“There’s no way a man like that shows up to a wedding this size. That’s not a wedding face. That’s a business face.”
Colangelo reached me and offered his card, his voice warm and eager.
“Dr. Vitale. My people have been trying to get on your calendar since spring. Name the day. I’ll send the car.”
I took the card with a polite smile.
Right behind him, a woman in a cream-colored suit hurried over from the head table.
“Dr. Vitale. Diane Delgado, out of the Providence side. My family runs the port concern. May I sit down with you before the weekend is out?”
One after another, they came. Names I recognized from Boston to Philadelphia. Names my father would have crossed a state line to shake hands with.
“Dr. Vitale. Michael Genovese. It would mean a great deal.”
“Dr. Vitale, the DeLuca table would very much like a moment.”
Cards accumulated in my hand like falling snow.
My mother was frozen in place.
Her mouth opened. The wineglass in her hand tipped. Merlot bled across the white tablecloth in front of her.
Isabella stood on the platform, fingers white-knuckled around the microphone.
Elliot took half a step forward, as if to say something, and stopped.
Ethan’s wineglass hung suspended in the air, his pupils blown wide with disbelief.
“How is this possible…”
Melanie forced a smile.
“Hazel. I had no idea. I’m so happy for you.”
I glanced at her.
“Melanie. Your line would land better if your nails weren’t drawing blood from your own palm.”
Her smile faltered.
My parents finally seemed to catch up.
The fury on my mother’s face had evaporated.
In its place was something I’d never seen on her before. Something close to eager.
She hurried over to Don Salvatore, her face folding into layers of smiles.
“Don Salvatore, please. Hazel is my own daughter. My blood. Whatever business you have with her, the Vitale name stands behind it. Let’s finish Isabella’s wedding, and then we’ll all sit down as Family…”
“Family?”
I repeated the word softly.
“Funny. Nobody said Family a minute ago when you were pushing me out the door.”