“The guy in the apartment next to me, Ray Nardo.”
“Wait, honey!” Jess said excitedly. “Ray Nardo? Like Reynard? That’s French for Fox. I know because I majored in French.”
“Oh my God, you’re right,” I muttered. “I didn’t even think of that! He seems like a criminal.”
“He seems like a criminal?” Mark asked with a smile.
“Ignore him,” Adam said with a sarcastic look. “He hangs out with criminals for a living.” Mark rolled his eyes, shared an amused look with Cam and took a sip of his beer.
“He really does,” I insisted. “He’s mean and unfriendly and his eyes are really cold.”
“Unfriendly,” Gab repeated, typing on her iPad. “Name may be a play on French translation of Fox.”
“The only other tenant on my floor, our floor,” I corrected myself, glancing at Adam, “is Herb, this very innocuous guy who works for SEPTA, and lives for SEPTA. He loves to talk about train schedules, and bus routes, and things like that.”
“What’s his last name?” Gab asked.
“Lawrence, Herb Lawrence. He really is such a little mouse of a guy. Very polite, kind of nerdy. I could never picture him being a hit man.”
“Polite mass transit enthusiast, no obvious fox connection,” Gab noted.
“Anyway, one floor down is Donna, who’s basically an okay person, if you can get past the fact she’s a drunken, lecherous cougar who probably turns tricks.”
“Last name?” Gab asked again.
“Um, Diego, I think,” I answered.
“Donna Diego?” Cam asked. “Like Don Diego? You, know … El Zorro? Doesn’t that mean the Fox in Spanish?”
“What?” Braden asked, dubiously.
“No, wait. He’s right!” Mark said with a laugh. “Zorro’s real name was Don Diego, and El Zorro really is ‘The Fox’ in Spanish.”
“I don’t know. I think you’re stretching it now,” Adam said. “You haven’t met Donna.”
“Drunken cougar hooker, who may be a Zorro fan,” Gab said, entering the information.
“Then there’s Vixen, just Vixen, who’s a tattoo artist and body piercer, likely so she can inflict pain legally. She’s the right personality type, but she would be hard to miss. She doesn’t exactly blend in with the crowd, you know?”
“A vixen is a female fox!” Jess piped up, sounding like she was playing Trivial Pursuit. “This is fun, honey.”
“One bad attitude tattoo artist, named after female fox,” Gab repeated, typing away.
“Also on that floor are Regina and Mario. I think their real last name is Rosselli but I call them the Sopranos.”
“Wait, Mario Rosselli!” It was Braden’s turn this time. “Wasn’t he one of the owners of that adult bookstore who was investigated for allegedly laundering money for the Moretti family?”
“Yeah!” Adam jumped in “Foxy Lady Books.”
“Porn peddler with ties to Moretti, owns business with Fox in name,” Gab summarized.
“Okay, this is just getting weird at this point. So far, Herb and I are the only ones with no fox connection.”
“I don’t think Mr. Viagra has one,” Adam offered, “although he does like foxy ladies.”
“Oh yeah, Gab,” I said, “Do you remember a guy who took Viagra and committed a bunch of moving violations?”
“Oh my God. Mr. Davis is one of your neighbors?” she replied. Braden, Adam, Mark and Cam all looked at each other and cracked up. Obviously, they all remembered Mr. Davis. “Geriatric booty caller,” Gab said with a sigh, typing.
“Um, Yuri Ivanovich is on Mr. Davis’ floor. He’s another person who wouldn’t blend very easily. He looks like Lurch from the Addams Family. I honestly don’t know anything about him except that something about him reminds me of a KGB agent.”
“Lurch KGB,” Gab noted.
“Then there’s local, semi-derelict, M. Kazinski. I’ve heard people yell out, ‘hey, Scratch’ to him, so I guess that’s his nickname. I don’t know anything about him either, except it seems like people around the neighborhood know him. I see him hanging out on the street a lot. And that’s it. That’s my building. Nobody lives on the actual first floor.”
“So Adam,” Mark asked with a smirk, “how do you like your new digs?”
“I’m sure he likes the bedroom,” Braden replied with a laugh.
“I like my roommate,” Adam answered with a smirk of his own.
“I’ll bet your mom is really happy.” Mark was on a roll.
“Happy? Are you kidding? She’s probably alerted the media by now. Miracle in Philadelphia: How my daily prayers saved my son, the womanizer.” Braden obviously was too. That one cracked up Mark and Cam.
“Oh Braden. Leave him alone,” Gab said with a laugh. “Jewish mothers are just especially fierce when it comes to seeing their kids happily married and settled.”
Suddenly, it must have struck her that not all Jewish mothers cared so deeply about their children being happily settled, because she looked up at me and her cheeks turned pink.
“Some are just fierce in general,” I joked weakly and Adam reached over and put his arm around me protectively. Bruce, unfortunately, was even less tactful than Gab.
“Jesus, Lil, she’s never acted like a mother to you,” he thoughtfully reminded me. “She’s never been there for you. The only time she talks to you is to tell you how disappointed she and your father are in you. She doesn’t care if you live in the ghetto; she doesn’t care if you spend the rest of your life alone. Why don’t you just write her off already?”
“I have written her off,” I said, uncomfortably. “I’ve written both of my parents off. I’m tired of trying to please them and failing. I’m tired of ‘do what we want or we’ll pretend you don’t exist.’ I gave up a long time ago.”
“Well, so why do you care if you beat her in court?” he shot back.
“Because I want to put the past behind me. I want to stand up and say, I am strong and capable. Even if I lose, as long as I argue well, I stood on her playing field, and I stood as her equal. Then I can move on and not doubt whether or not I’m good enough anymore. This is to make sure that I respect me and I love me, not that she does.”