Love on a Rooftop
By Shotzette
PG
“Even More” series
L/C
This is only a work of fan fiction, and is not intended to infringe upon anyone else’s copyrights or intellectual properties.
The summer air hung heavy and hot on the rooftop as Laverne
DeFazio leaned back on the green army blanket and watched the sun set over the
Shirley. She missed her best friend so much, but another part of her was glad to be on her own. Laverne grinned as she imagined Shirley’s shriek of horror if she could see the tiny studio apartment that she shared with Carmine. Shirley would have fainted dead away at the sight of the mildew encrusted bathroom that she and Carmine had spent two hours scrubbing with two gallons of bleach before they would even walk in there barefoot. That is, if the sight of the queen sized mattress that took up over half of their living space didn’t kill Shirley first. Laverne didn’t care. The oversized bed was hers and Carmine’s sanctuary from the world. It was the quiet place where they had shared their joys and disappointments over the past seven months, their solace from the big bad city. She knew Shirley would see it merely as the place where they vodey-oh-do-doed in sin. Laverne smiled as memories of the previous night made her blush. Not that there was anything wrong with that…
A man’s muscular form eclipsed the sunset in front of her. Laverne squinted up at him, then smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” the Big Ragoo replied before joining her on the blanket. “Nice,” he said, as he indicated the sunset.
“I thought we were overdue for a nice romantic sunset.”
“Every sunset is romantic with you, Pookie.” At her frown, he ventured, “Muffin?”
Laverne groaned, “Carmine, my Pop calls me that.”
“Bunny rabbit?”
“Ewww…”
“Sunshine?”
She favored him with a scowl. “Is anything about me sunny?”
Carmine shrugged. “I’ll keep trying.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Carmine, it don’t matter that we don’t have nicknames for each other.”
“I know, but…”
“It don’t matter,” she repeated more firmly. Poor guy, she thought to herself. After calling Shirley, “Angel Face” for so many years, he was turning himself inside out trying to find a pet name for her. His devotion was sweet, even if a bit forced. Eager to change the topic, Laverne said, “Anyhow, the canollis are going to melt if we don’t eat them.”
“Aww… I love canollis.” Carmine greedily tore into the paper bag lying on the blanket, eager as a child on Christmas morning.
Laverne chuckled. “No kidding. You only called me twice at the restaurant today to make sure that I brought some.”
Carmine smiled and pulled out a small green bottle and two jelly glasses from behind his back.
“Riuniti? What’s the occasion?” Laverne asked.
“You’re not the only one with big news, Thumper”
“Thumper?”
“Yeah, on account of last night when you…”
Laverne sputtered and nearly spewed the overly sweet
sparkling wine out of her nose.
“Carmine, if you’re going to give me a nickname, we both gotta be able
to hear it in public without blushing.”
At his crestfallen look, she continued.
“Okay, spill it,
“Ladies first.”
She grinned. “Brace yourself.”
Carmine melodramatically clenched his jaw and clutched the green blanket. “I’m braced.”
“As of Tuesday, I won’t be waiting tables at Martinelli’s anymore.”
Carmine’s face fell. “Laverne, I’m sorry. I can’t believe that they fired you!” His face darkened further. “I can’t believe that sonovabitch is firing you! You are the best waitress Vic ever had!”
“I’m the only waitress Vic ever had,” she corrected, “but that ain’t the point. Carmine,” she said as her grin spread from ear to ear, “I didn’t get fired, I got promoted!”
“Yeah? You?”
“Yeah, me,” she replied a little defensively. “Didn’t you just say I was the best waitress Vic ever had?”
“Well, yeah. I just didn’t figure out that he was smart enough to realize it.”
“Good save.”
“I was hoping so. Tell me about the promotion.”
Laverne smiled at her boyfriend’s not so subtle change of topic. He was a little too good at that some days. “Well, despite all of his grumbling and groaning that he didn’t like working with women, guess who Vic wanted to leave in charge when he goes to the Catskills next week?”
“You?”
“You bet your sweet patootie that he did,” Laverne replied. ‘Then I turned him down.”
“You what?” Carmine blinked in confusion.
“You heard me. Then I said, “Hey Vic, you’ve got five waiters and two cooks here, and it’s me that you want to leave in charge. What does that tell you?”
“That everyone else there is a relative and no matter how stupid they are, he can’t fire them cause his aunt will disown him?”
“Pretty much,” Laverne nodded. “I said if I was good enough to be in charge for a little while, I was good enough to be promoted. If he didn’t think I was good enough to be promoted, I’d just work my shifts and nothing more and he could see how well everybody else pitched in.”
“You said that?”
“Well,” Laverne hedged. “There was some yelling.” At his unwavering stare, she continued, “And some spaghetti throwing. But, in the end, he saw it my way.”
Carmine’s face darkened again. “Vic yelled at you?”
Laverne rolled her eyes. “Please, it was nothing next to how my Pop yells. Vic and his family don’t know from yelling. I was the only one in the restaurant who wasn’t taking cover.”
“Still…”
“Forget about it. If it wasn’t for Vic, I wouldn’t have a job, much less a promotion.”
“You mean if it wasn’t for your grandmother…”
Laverne sighed. Her ears were still blistering after the reaming out her grandmother had given her when she discovered that her only granddaughter had been in the city a week without contacting her. When she discovered her Bambina was living in sin with an unemployed actor, things just got even worse. While Sophia DeFazio refused to let Carmine in her house, or even to meet him, the thought of Laverne starving to death in an alley was too much for her to bear. A quick, yet guilt-intensive phone call to her neighbor’s nephew, earned Laverne a job in the formerly all male domain of Martinelli’s Trattoria.
“Your grandma hates me, y’know,” Carmine said glumly.
Laverne shook her head, “Nah…”
“Laverne,” he prodded.
“Okay. But just a little,” she amended.
Now it was Carmine’s turn to roll his eyes. “Great.”
Laverne tried to toss him a bone. “Anthony’s warming up to you.”
A twisted attempt at a grin was his response. “Yeah. He’s only threatened to break both of my legs once this month.”
“See? He’s making progress.”
“I’m sorry, Laverne.”
“Carmine, don’t start…”
“I know one of the reasons that you wanted to leave
“I’m not exactly keister-deep, Camine. My family lives in
Carmine’s smile flared. “You know that audition I went on two weeks ago for that soap opera?”
“Yeah. I thought they went with someone else.”
“They did. However, the director really liked me. Like me enough to recommend me for an audition in a movie he’s doing.”
“Carmine! That’s wonderful! I’m so happy! When’s the audition?”
Carmine’s smile seemed to lose some of its wattage. “That’s the hard part, Laverne. It’s next week.”
Laverne hugged him happily. “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to rehearse your lines. I’ll help you.”
Carmine shook his head.
“It ain’t that Laverne.” He
seemed to steel himself, then said, almost hesitantly,
“The audition is in
Laverne released him from her arms and scooted further back on the blanket. She turned towards the sunset, her back to her lover. “I’ll tell Vic that I ain’t going to take the promotion,” she said in a quavering voice.
Carmine sat up abruptly and jerked her around to face him. “The hell you will. Five minutes ago, you were all smiles because of it. It’s a good opportunity for you.”
Laverne’s lip quivered. “Yeah, but…” She looked away.
“But nothing.” Carmine persisted, “Laverne, he wants to make you Assistant Manager, that’s a management position.”
“I know that…” she said, her voice rising to a shrieky wail that even made her wince.
“Well, that’s called an opportunity. You don’t walk away from them.”
“Another will come along.”
“Laverne, you’ve been working there only six months and they promoted you. How many years did you and Shirley work a Shotz?”
“That’s different,” she countered. “We got raises.”
“Yeah, that you had to go on strike for. How many times did you two nearly catch pneumonia on the picket line? Besides, it’s different, and you’re excited about it.”
“Not really.”
Carmine rolled his eyes. “Yeah right. How often do we get to celebrate on rooftops with canollis and wine?”
“Never,” she admitted, leaning back against him despite herself.
Carmine tightened his arms around her. “See? This is what they call success. Feels good, don’t it?”
“Yeah but…”
“Again with the “buts”.
“I’m gonna miss you.” Her words sounded plaintive and small, like a child begging not to be left alone.
Her words seemed to register with him. “I’m coming back,” Carmine said, as he looked at her intently, his dark eyes adding more emphasis to his words.
“What if they offer you something terrific out there?”
“I’m coming back,” he repeated, his gaze unwavering.
“I don’t want you to do anything stupid on account of me, Carmine.” Laverne knew she was losing her argument, but she couldn’t let it go.
“I won’t. But, I’m coming back.”
“But what if they offer you something great.”
“They won’t. But even if they did, we’d work something out. I ain’t going anywhere for long, Laverne.” He cupped her chin in his palm and whispered, “I don’t want to be without you, either. I’m coming back, you gotta believe me.”
“I’m trying to,” she whispered, her voice strained to a harsh gasp.
“Try harder.”
Laverne melted into his arms, and tried to make herself forget everything but his taste and his touch on the rooftop. They were going to be okay, she repeated to herself. They had to be.
FIN