[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019e7cbe-43dc-713a-9c31-7e0fc5f6a725.webp[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=9174cb][I]Eve[/I][/color][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=9174cb][b]Death and all her Friends - I[/b] [i]Sunday[/i][/COLOR][/right][/sup][/indent][center][COLOR=dimgray][SUP][sub]_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sub][/SUP][/COLOR][/center]

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[b]𝕄𝕖𝕕𝕒𝕘𝕝𝕚𝕒’𝕤 ℝ𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕦𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕥, ℂ𝕒𝕝𝕕𝕖𝕣 ℂ𝕚𝕥𝕪[/b]


Medaglia’s had never changed. A family owned restaurant in the Italian district of Calder City. They continued to cook with the meat from the Italian butcher two doors down, made their soffrito with vegetables bought from the Italian grocery, and served biscotti baked by the same Italian deli. The same furniture had been giving the same little Italy aesthetic for twenty-five years, at least. The same paintings, the same flags, the same collages of photographs of a homeland none of the family had been to created the authentic heritage vibe that every Italian family in Calder City coveted, and that’s how the money kept turning through it.

It wasn’t the food; the menu hadn’t changed - still the same dishes, still the same chefs, still the same waiters. Still the same Dean Martin record being flipped and flipped and flipped again until Volare was an ingredient to every dish, and to hear it played anywhere else would be jarring. [color=7ea7d8]𝙸 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝙱𝚞𝚘𝚗𝚊 𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚊[/color] Always the same restaurant for family Sunday dinner. Always the same table. Always the same seats. 

In attendance tonight, Joey and Ralph Raciti - Silvio’s biological sons from his late wife. Growing up, strangely, they’d never felt animosity towards Eve and her being there. Eve supposed it was because they were older than her, and the presence of a woman - even a young one, in their home was welcome after the death of their mother. Or, that the presence of someone even more fucked up than them made them feel secure, safe, [i]normal.[/i]

Ralph always had a chicken piccata with a side of spaghetti; and Ralph always insisted on ordering olives but would maybe eat one or two. Next to Ralph, was his wife Cosima. Cosima and her extravagant acrylic made claws - blood red and pointed and inches long. Cosima and her quaffed honey blonde curls; if the phrase “the higher the hair the closer to God” needed a face, it would be Cosima’s perfect heart shaped face; the big brown eyes, and the bright splashing red of her plumped lips. She knew, and she played her part. She was having a caesar salad – a dish that was not on Medaglia’s menu, but they would make to order for Cosima. 

Ralph’s son, Ralph Junior, sat in his high chair - two years old and already the weight of inheritance holding him down. A Ralph Lauren polo shirt, about to be bled through with spaghetti and meatballs, despite the bib around his neck. 

Joey had not brought anyone, but Eve knew he had been seeing a girl for several months. It wasn’t time to introduce her to the shitshow even if this was the most serious he’d been about a girl in his life. Joey was predictably having himself a whole diavolo pizza and Eve knew that between the cheese, the nduja, and his beer of choice, he’d be making a close call with his bathroom later.

Then, there was [i]"cousin"[/i] Luca – only he wasn’t a cousin by blood, no, he was sitting somewhere middle-high in Silvio’s hierarchy of made men. Eve had slept with him a summer earlier, and even now she could remember the strange noise he made when he finished. It was their secret of course; if anyone knew about it, he certainly wouldn’t have been sat at the table. He refused to look at her now. He didn’t always come to dinner, but when he did, he’d opt for a cream based pasta.

[color=9174cb]“I’m thinking of getting a job,”[/color] Eve said calmly, twirling spaghetti around the prongs of her fork.From the other side of the table, Silvio placed his fork down incredulously.

“Do I not do enough for you?” he asked. “Why would you want to go and do a thing like that?”

[color=6b7653]ᵒᶠ ᶜᵒᵘʳˢᵉ ʰᵉ'ᵈ ˢᵃʸ ᵗʰᵃᵗ, ᵒᶠ ᶜᵒᵘʳˢᵉ ʰᵉ ᵈᵒᵉˢⁿ'ᵗ ʷᵃⁿᵗ ʸᵒᵘ ᵗᵒ ᵈᵒ ˢᵒᵐᵉᵗʰⁱⁿᵍ ᶠᵒʳ ʸᵒᵘʳˢᵉˡᶠ.[/color] [color=7ea7d8]𝚐𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝙱𝚞𝚘𝚗𝚊 𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚊.[/color] 

Eve paused, waiting for the quiet, her eye twitching only slightly. [color=9174cb]“You know, like a barista or something. Really get to meet some people like that,”[/color] Eve continued. Joey smirked from the side of the table, Silvio? Not so much. He blinked slowly. 

[right][i][color=7ea7d8]𝙱𝚞𝚘𝚗𝚊 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚊 𝚜𝚒𝚐𝚗𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚊 𝚔𝚒𝚜𝚜 𝚖𝚎 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝[/color][/i][/right]
[color=537076]ʎpɐǝɹןɐ ʞuıɥʇ ןɹıƃ ǝɥʇ ʇǝן[/color]

“You need more allowance or something?” he asked.

[color=9174cb]“I’m just bored,”[/color] she said, biting at the corner of her lip, fingers rubbing against her silverware against the tide of her mind. She reached for her wine. A large mouthful to cleave off the edge.

“Then take a class!” Silvio exclaimed, red in the face about it too. “Go do an art class or whatever the fuck,” he added. “Saw something or other about dance classes.”

“Her paintings would be messed up Pa,” Ralph said with a chuckle. It was not a malicious comment, but a strange one, given that their very table at the restaurant was adorned by some large reprint of a Caravaggio on the wall; Judith Beheading Holofernes. Eve supposed that it was relevant, somewhat. The lines of blood from his neck surely did resemble spaghetti. She wondered then if Holofernes had any idea that one day his likeness would watch countless families eat chicken parms and stone baked pizza. Probably not. [color=537076]ƃuıʌoɯ ǝɹoɯ sɐʍ s,ıɥɔsǝןıʇuǝ⅁[/color]

Silvio softened somewhat, he always did for Eve. “Look,” he began, picking his fork back up. “I appreciate your…. Ambition, but, let’s not get too drastic. Let me… Let me talk to some guys.”

Eve’s mouth pulled to the side in a thoughtful pout as she drew her eyes away from the painting, grazing her gaze over Luca, who was still intently working through a fettuccine alfredo; avoiding every opportunity to have been pulled into the conversation at hand. Then she looked at Joey who had a raised brow at her. With a sigh she released the pucker of her mouth. [color=9174cb]“Sure… I’ll, look at some classes,”[/color] she relented.

“I’ll send you some more allowance,” Silvio added agreeably.

“What?” Joey said, “I bust my fuckin’ balls at the construction site–”

“Ayy, watch the language. I don’t want none of that vulgar shit at my table,” Silvio said before Joey could finish whatever he was trying to say. “Ladies are present." His eyes had darkened half with anger, and half with exasperation. "This family used to have class.”

Cosima, Cosima. Of course she’d reacted to it, a slight gasp; raising her hand to reach for pearls to clutch over it. “My god,” she’d uttered out in that nasal way she did, finding an entirely ill-fitting phonetic for the o in God, slamming down the d before the full stop of her quiet exclaim.

Would Silvio have found it classy if he knew about the way Eve had let Luca bend her over a table and grasp her neck just enough to dance on dangerous? She hadn’t exactly been a lady then. She thought of Luca’s strange little sound again and smirked, the slight motion went unnoticed as Joey attempted to blunder and bicker back some more before thinking better of himself and picking up another slice instead.

Ralph Junior gurgled and giggled, which seemed to simmer down the temperature of Silvio’s foul storm that had reared, and he laughed too - his fork then aggressively diving and digging back into his veal scallopini; clattering against the ceramic of his plate with a scrape. The conversation moved on at last; away from Eve and her corner of the table, and over to Ralph and his ventures and work and his money, and the renovation of his kitchen. 

Eve's eyes drifted up to the ceiling of Medaglia's. To that gaudy painting of a bright blue sky upon it, faded with time into a faint mockery of the grandness of the Sistine Chapel. Mottled clouds had been painted on, likely with a sponge. Someone had once climbed a ladder to reach and blot paint against the ceiling, and someone had once thought this to be a chic idea. Someone still did; clear fresher paint strokes suggested the touch ups over the years and Eve sat and wondered how many more Sunday dinners she would sit through under this fake sky.

[right][sup][i]Mi dipingevo le mani e la faccia di blu
Poi d'improvviso venivo dal vento rapito
E incominciavo a volare nel cielo infinito[/i][/sup][/right]

She let her eyelids slowly close over the blue-green of her eyes. Charcoal shadow smudged across them from a hand with far less skill that Cosima who had shown up with a cut crease and fresh lash extensions. In her mind, fragments and images bombarded her again, and she imagined herself floating across that blue sky just as Dean Martin crooned out again. 

Ralph Junior had thrown up on himself, Joey disguised a burp of indigestion, and Eve felt through the threads of Calder City that at least three people had died since this dinner had started.

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