PROVENANCE

Chapter One

 A Guy Walks into a Bar…

Fitzgerald’s Bar and Grill

Barnegat Light

Long Beach Island, NJ

Mid-August

 

Maggie Fitzgerald first saw Marzio standing under the oak by the cemetery gate, just as Father Byrne began his spiel over Fitz’s coffin. She recognized him instantly, even through the fog and after twenty years, even in that dark suit and with those shades covering his eyes, even with the years adding pounds in badly-needed bulk. With the mainland squally that morning, Maggie wondered how long Marzio had been lurking there, though by the time she looked again, right as Kelly started wailing to the point of ridiculousness, he had vanished. That was what finally set her off, nevermind the old bastard in the box. Wasn’t it bad enough Marzio ghosted her the first time? Did he have to go all cliché and do it again in a boneyard? Then maybe she simply imagined him, brain warped by the whole sorry farce. Until he reappeared at the wake undeniably corporeal, raising a Jameson in another toast to Fitz’s memory.

If stares could bore holes, Maggie lasered one through him. “Why the audacity of that—”

“—old son-of-a-bitch Jimmy Fitz!” cried Mick McClain, alleged old pal and that morning, prime looter of bottle after bottle of Irish whiskey. He threw back a shot, pouring another before the last hit his belly. “If you gotta go, go shitface-first!”

“YAH!” they all yelled, pounding the oak bar, the Jameson and Guinness flowing as freely as the bay outside, the mourners’ glasses emptying as fast as the trays of corned beef and cabbage and good ol’ American lasagna. The bar was crammed cheek-to-cheek with Fitz’s besties, as along the knotty-pined walls the screens blared Flogging Molly and The Pogues, the air smoked by Fitz yarns and Garcia y Vegas.

Maggie stood across the room by the decimated buffet, every muscle a live wire. Jesus Christ—it really is Marzio, following the contours of his face as he downed another shot. The sharp cuts of his youth had filled out and mellowed, his hair still as dark and dense as any Black Irish boy, though his voice, the one you could always pick out in a crowd, now resonated like a riff of bass line. He still fit right in with the locals, even calling a few by names she’d long blocked out, bros who slapped his back and poured him another Jameson.  

Weird how no one questioned him being there. Then who’d think it weird beside her? Nobody would remember Marzio the way she did, so deep under all that chill, all into her one day and gone the next, like dropping off the face of the earth. So why’s he back now after all these years? she thought, catching the food cart Roxie swung beside the buffet. What the hell could he want?

“Your pop sure knows how to throw a rager,” Roxie said, tongue flicking a rosette off a tiny éclair. “Shame he’s otherwise engaged.”

Maggie glanced at the bartender. How did Kelly say Fitz described her? Brown and bodacious and barely twenty-three—his usual cringe-worthy sexist bullshit. Women were all Fitz ever hired for behind the bar, thinking the more voluptuous and vacant, the better for business. How this one got past him she couldn’t figure, a Princeton grad headed for Yale. Seemed she would’ve taken that description and wrapped it around his neck.

“Yeah, and I’ll be counting change to pay for it.”

Roxie shrugged, biting back the éclair. “But till then it’s carpe diem—am I right?”

Normally she would’ve argued the point. But she didn’t have time to be contentious. Not with Marzio pushing away from the bar, aiming toward her.

“Are you okay?” Roxie whispered.

Oh no. She turned to the buffet, unable to breathe.

“Hello Maggie,” he said, suddenly beside her.

That voice. It was him. The pizza-spinner her father had hired eons ago. Far from it now—just look at those shoes, all stitched leather and buffed black, no Chuck Taylors covered in flour or splats of sauce. It’d been twenty years since she’d last heard him say Maggie, yet when he did it still cooked her insides.

“Hey,” she said, looking over.

He smiled with such intimacy the years faded, his once angular face now filled out and chiseled, the slight lines around his eyes creasing with recognition. But if he expected her to smile too she couldn’t, in spite of her flustering like the seventeen-year-old he’d last seen. His being here, now, enraged her. Humiliation like that left a mark.

Maggie turned, yanking more plates from the cart. “If you want to hold on I’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

“I’m not here to—Maggie. C’mon.” Those shoes moved closer. “You really don’t remember me? I know it’s been awhile, but we used to be good friends.”

Friends? Really? She grabbed an emptied platter, suppressing an urge to smack him with it. “Yeah, well, with so many people coming at me today it’s hard to remember everyone.”

He grunted in agreement. “I get that. These things…they get you kind of numb. Seriously, you could be forgiven anything today.”

She didn’t need his forgiveness. And she sure as fuck didn’t want his sympathy. Not when it’s probably his fault she didn’t feel anything today at all. “I’m not asking to be forgiven.” She glared at him, flinging the platter into a bin. “Especially not by you.”

“See that?” His face lit. “You do remember me.”

“Oh I remember.” How dare he grin at her. “I remember what an—”

“Pardon me for intruding on your throwback,” Roxie interjected, “but I need to get back behind the bar. All this grief is shrinking the stock.” She slipped between them, eyes narrowing at the wall of man beside her. “I’ll be right over there flagging drunks if need me, Maggie dear.”

Maggie inwardly cursed Roxie stealing her exit line. “You heard her. Better go grab another shot before she shuts down the faucet.”

He moved closer. “I didn’t come for the drinks.”

“No?” She clanked more plates into the pan. “Then try the lasagna.”

“I’m more a corned beef kind of guy but that’s not why I’m here either.” He leaned in. “Look, what I’m saying is…” He briefly touched her arm. “I’m sorry about your dad. How he died, I mean.”

“Really.” He’s sorry. “A tragedy for sure.”

“It was.” He straightened, bowing his head slightly. “So sorry for your loss.”

Sorry sorry sorry. If one more person bleated I’m sorry she’d probably choke the shit out of them. “Well don’t be.” She snatched the last of the soda bread and dumped it atop the focaccia. “He was a dick and a drunk and he left me with a goddamn mess, and that’s the only reason I’m sorry he’s gone.”

His face blanked. “You sound like you mean it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Relief washed over her from just saying it.

“Then hire me and I’ll help you clean it up.”

“What?” Did he actually just say that? “We’re not hiring anyone.”

“This sign says you are.” He reached over the slatted shutters to the windowsill. “Says you need a bar-back.”

He held out a square of cardboard torn off a case of Johnnie Walker Red. BARBACK WANTED INQWIRE WITH IN scrawled in red.

She snatched it from him. Kelly.

“It’s a mistake,” Maggie said, flipping it under the buffet table. “We’re not hiring. Least not while I’m running the place.”

“So you don’t usually,” he said as point of fact. “You’re only here for the funeral.”

“I’m only here until I can decide whether to dump the joint or not. My sister can’t manage it. She can barely manage getting out of bed in the morning, forget about a bar and restaurant—” Why was she telling him this? “Look, we’re not hiring, okay?”

“Even though you need to?” He gathered a scatter of dirty forks, rattling them into the empty bread basket. “Look, I could use the job and you can use the help. I can handle the stock and deliveries, do the heavy lifting, bus tables, whatever you want. I can even fix what’s broken. Which seems to be a lot. We could help each other out.”

“You can’t be serious.” She gave him a quick assess. He looked far from the rangy nineteen-year-old she remembered, his Oxford shirt holding back a whole lot of gym time. But he hardly seemed blue collar or bougie either. What exactly was he? “You want to do grunt work? Fill beer coolers? Slop tables? Really?”

“Bounce drunks, too.” He inclined his head. “They were telling me about the brawl last week.”

Damn locals. “The cops were here in two minutes.”

“In two minutes I could’ve saved you a lot of furniture.”

She glanced to the broken table and chairs still piled in the corner. “Maybe it wasn’t worth saving.”

He came closer. “I think I would’ve known what was.”

Meaning Fitz, the bastard. Not that she was here the night of the fight, the night Fitz fell. She hadn’t been here in a long, long time. She didn’t want to be here now and she couldn’t wait to leave.

“I could really use this job,” he said.

Why didn’t she believe him? Maybe because of his not-too-shabby suit and his Swiss watch—he looked about as needy as the one-percenters down the Boulevard. “What do you really want? You don’t look like you’ve missed too many meals to me.”

“What I want is to not miss my—” His gaze shot past her. “Hey, is that…Kelly?”

Maggie turned. Oh no. Seemed her sister had risen from the miasma of grief she’d been wallowing in, finally gracing the Irish wake she insisted their father deserved. She even swore Fitz had demanded it in his will though Maggie had yet to see it, especially the part that made Maggie executor. No surprise there. Just another chore her estranged family had dumped on her. Which freed her little sister to go all in as the distraught next-of-kin.

Kelly slinked past the mourners like working a rope line, tearfully acknowledging condolences as she dabbed at her mascara-raccooned eyes. With her blonde curls atop her head in a messy bun, her overripe body sheathed in black, she shuffled and snuffled up to Maggie like a just-roused barroom Venus.

“Kelly…is that really you?” he said, looking amazed.

She sniffed, eyes slitting. “Yes.”

He looked affronted. “Don’t you remember me?”

With Kelly’s adorable girlhood long gone juicy, Maggie knew what mattered more was if he remembered her.

Kelly’s gaze dipped. “I don’t know….should I?”

As a kid the girl practically stalked Marzio. Not that he minded. He was always slipping her Ferrara Torrone, Kelly hording the tiny boxes like love letters. He touched Kelly’s hand, a gesture Maggie felt instinctively. “Yeah, you should.”

“Wait a minute.” Kelly gasped. “I do remember you. Aren’t you—”

“Mark.”

Mark?

“Mark…” Kelly cooed, apparently figuring it close enough. “Yeah…you used to work here making pizzas like forever ago. You used to give me those little boxes of Italian candy when I was a kid.”

He smiled. “Which you’re not anymore.”

“God no, I’m old. I just turned thirty.” She squared her shoulders, puffing her pulchritude as she waggled over to him. “You’re looking at the mama of a eleven-year old son.”

“Impossible,” he said with oh-so-faux shock.

“It’s true.” Kelly leaned close enough to give him a prime gawk at her girls. “I was just a kid back then, but you know?” Her gaze swiveled up to his. “Don’t laugh, but I was in love with you.”

“I wouldn’t laugh,”  he said, so serious. “Kids can fall in love too.”

Maggie snorted, clanking plates.

“So where’ve you been?” Kelly asked, sizing him up. “Not around here or I would’ve seen you. You just come for the funeral?”

“I came to see you,” he said. “To offer my condolences.”

She dabbed her eyes accordingly. “Thank you.”

“And now that I’m here, maybe I can help you out.”

“You saw my sign!” She squeezed his arm. “Do you need a job? Really?”

His face went grim. “In the worst way.”

Maggie cringed. Good God.

“Well that’s perfect ‘cause our bar-back quit after he got his face punched by the Acostas. Not like they’d be a threat to you.” She moved in on him, full-on sexpot now. “Boy, this’s kinda freaky, don’t you think? You need a job and we’ve got one, don’t we, Maggie?”

She said it like expecting props. “I said I’d think about it, not stick a sign in the window.”

“Then why’d you put it on Craigslist?”

“What?” The girl was delusional. “I didn’t—”

“The thing is…” Kelly looped her arm through Mark’s. “We can’t reopen without a bar-back. Like, who’s going to change the kegs and keep all the cases full and lift the heavy stuff? And jeez.” Her eyes went wide. “What if there’s another fight?”

“You stop playing the Acosta brothers against each other there won’t be another fight,” Maggie said. “And if there is any heavy lifting to do, I’ll do it.”

“But why should you if Mark could? I mean seriously—just look at this.” She trailed a hand down his muscled gun. “Ooh, Mark—you’re hired.”

“I appreciate that,” he said, looking to Maggie, “but let’s hear it from your sister, too.”

“Oh, she’s only been here a few days,” Kelly said. “I’ve got more say than her.”

As Kelly continually reminded Maggie until there was a hard call to make. “Go ahead. Take charge then,” Maggie said, swinging the cart to her sister. “I’ll go home right now.”

Kelly’s eyes widened and Mark loosened himself from her clutch. “Hey, I’m not out to break up the family.”

“You’re way too late for that,” Maggie said, already exhausted and it wasn’t even noon. “Kelly, why don’t you go check on your son? I don’t think he’s eaten a thing today.”

Kelly pulled Mark aside, pointing toward the bar. “That’s my kid over there, Conor. Isn’t he cute? Everyone says he gets his looks from me.” She glanced to Maggie. “See? He’s eating.”

The boy, rail-thin and sandy-haired, seemed focused on the drunks across the bar, glaring at them past his piled-high plate.

“He’s eleven.” Kelly shrugged. “Though you’d think he was an old man he’s so serious.”

“Has to be hard, burying his grandfather,” Mark said. “Funerals are tough enough on adults.”

“Don’t I know,” Kelly said, sniffing. “I’ve been a total mess.”

“For Christ’s sake, it’s not about you,” Maggie said. “Go see how he’s doing already. And let him go upstairs and change out of that suit.”

“O-kay.” Kelly swiveled to Mark. “Just so you know as far as I’m concerned, you’re hired. At least you’re not creepy and you won’t bail on us, right? Right!” Tossing him a smile, she waggled across the barroom to her son.

Maggie turned to the buffet and lifted an empty pan off its steamer, uncomfortably aware of the man behind her. “So it’s Mark now, huh?”

He draped his jacket over a chair and slid the pan from her hands to the cart. “What else should it be?”

Apparently, he wasn’t going anywhere, replacing the empty pan with a fresh tray of lasagna. “How about Marzio? Marzio the pizza guy?”

That relic made his brow lift. “Mark is what my friends call me.”

“I didn’t.”

His mouth curved in an insular grin. “But we were more than friends, weren’t we?”

Maggie ignored that, reaching for the corned beef. “Jesus, what do you want already?”

He took it from her, dropping it into the rack amid a puff of steam. “I told you. A job.”

“Oh come on. You need a job like I need more freeloaders.”

“Which I’ll get rid of, just say the word.” He loomed over her, looking ready to. “And trust me, I’ll be good at it.”

“Trust you? Right.”

“Okay, don’t. Least no more than anyone else. I’m not asking for anything special, just work. And from what I’m seeing there’s a lot.” He glanced from the smashed chairs to the cracked windows to the piles of stock left unpacked. “I’ll get this mess under control this afternoon. And as far as any more shenanigans?” His gaze darkened. “I can promise you that shit stops now.”

Maggie laughed. “You’re under the impression I care if it does—”

The door banged opened and in shoved Danny O’Neill, looking like he fell off a trawler out of port for a month. Oh no. What a beautiful capper on that shitshow of a morning.

“Who’s that?” Mark asked. “Do I know him?”

“No one should,” Maggie said, aiming for her brother-in-law.

If there was anything more annoying than having Mark or Marzio or whatever suddenly appear in her life, there was Kelly’s vile baby-daddy continuing in it.

“Get out,” Maggie said, hand to his chest.

“Hey! You up there!” he yelled toward the ceiling. ”Get down here!”

“Shut up,” Maggie hissed. “Can’t you see—”

“What?” Danny shoved past her. “I’ve got twelve hundred feet of trotline to bait. Fuck these—”

“Shut up! The kid’s not going anywhere.” What did Kelly ever see in the big ox? “He’s tired. We’re all tired.”

“You’re tired? Then you shouldn’t of let Billy pussy out to the Acostas.” Danny swiped a slab of corned beef off an abandoned plate, shoving it in his mouth. “Though the bitch just loves it when they fight over her.”

“Why don’t you shut your face,” Maggie whispered, getting in his. “It’s shit-talking like that that got them fighting in the first place.”

“How would you know? You weren’t here.” He pinched a glob of fat from his mouth, flicking it to the floor. “Come to think of it, why you here now?” He prodded her back. “You hated Fitz. Everyone knows it.” Her hands fisted as Danny backed her across the room, and for the first time since she’d been back Maggie felt threatened. “So why the fuck are you—”

“Hey pal,” Mark said, shifting Maggie behind him. “Show a little respect.”

Surprise rippled his face before it switched to bullshit bravado. “Who’s the douchebag?”

“The new Billy,” Mark said, glowering at him.

“Oh yeah? Who gives a fuck?”

“You should,” Mark said. “That’s the mother of your son you’re disrespecting. Keep it up Danny boy and we’ll have more than words.”

Maggie gaped at Mark. How’d he know his name? He didn’t know a couple seconds ago.

Danny went scarlet. “Who are you to—”

“Dad!” Conor called, flying up to him. “I’m here! Let’s go!”

A scene already familiar, Conor muscling in before his parents could get into it. The boy grabbed his father’s arm, trying to yank him out the door. But Danny was too gobsmacked by Mark the Alpha dog pissing all over him. And to her surprise, Maggie was liking it.

“You feel me?” Mark said.

“Okay, knock it off, both of you,” Maggie said, alongside them. “It’s a funeral, for Christsake.” She looked to the boy. “Conor, go back upstairs.”

Conor glanced to his aunt with mix of defiance and resignation. “Dad—c’mon,” he said, tugging Danny’s arm. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Danny pushed the boy toward the door. “Go get in the boat.” Then jabbed a finger at Mark. “Don’t think I’m forgetting this, bro.”

“Don’t think I’m letting you,” Mark said. “And don’t take it out on the kid either. Just saying.”

Conor turned, his face lit like Mark just beat up the school bully. “Who are you?” he asked.

Who was he indeed? Maggie thought.

“Never mind.” Danny’s hand curled possessively around his son’s shoulder. “Now get in the boat.”

Maggie grabbed her uneaten energy bar of a breakfast from her pocket. “Conor—catch!” His hands slapped around it a second before Danny hauled him out.

“Don’t let that be the only thing he eats all day!” Kelly called, trotting over as the door slammed shut. She huffed, shrugging at a few sympathizing mourners. “Sorry about that, but sometimes he sure makes me wanna…” She punched her palm.

“So why don’t you,” Maggie said. “The dick deserve it.”

But Kelly ignored her for Mark, beaming at him. “Babe, you’re my hero. Thank you.”

Pink creeped up his neck. Embarrassment? No, Maggie figured. He’s angry.

“No thanks needed,” he said stiffly. “I was just thinking of the kid. Didn’t you hear what that ass called you? You shouldn’t take that crap from anyone.”

“Who says I do?” she said, suddenly indignant. “Jeez, you sound like my sister.” She tossed her head, glaring at them both. “Neither of you know what I’ve been through. You didn’t see how bad it can get. It’s better to just play him off than have his family pile on me.”

“You cave because it’s easier,” Maggie said. “Because Conor never complains.”

“So not true.” She hugged her arms, breasts ready to pop out of her dress. “Conor just knows how to handle him.”

“Conor’s a child, remember?” Maggie said. “Though next to you he’s the adult in that relationship.”

“Danny…O’Neill,” Mark said pensively. “Is that right?”

“Yeah,” said Kelly, crumpling a tissue. “You remember him?”

“I think so.” Mark watched him out the window lumbering away.

An odd answer.

“Worse mistake of my life, marrying him,” Kelly said, dabbing her eyes. “We lasted seven whole years, can you believe it? The only good thing coming out of it was Conor.” She sniffed. “I should’ve learned from Mom.”

Yeah, you should’ve, Maggie thought. The O’Neills figured their mother the local Hester Prynne, Big Daddy O’Neill dying atop her in flagrante delicto. Didn’t matter there were two of them in that bed, or that Fitz deserved a wife who cheated on him. Cuckholded, an old label Maggie knew her mother would know. She left soon after anyway, and for that Maggie never did forgive her. Maybe that’s why Kelly married the big ox. Maybe the two of them found a sick compatibility in their common betrayal. Or maybe both women found the big-mouthed O’Neills irresistible.

Or maybe rotten mothering just ran in their blood.

“Remember the shit they put you through,” Maggie reminded her.

“I didn’t forget and neither did Dad.” Kelly slid back a chair, her toe tapping a pea-size hole in the wooden floor. “See that? He tried to shoot him a couple weeks ago.”

Mark bent to look. “He did? Why?”

“For being a O’Neill, I guess,” Kelly said. “You should’ve seen Danny jump.”

“I’m surprised he missed,” Maggie said. “He couldn’t have been aiming.”

Kelly smiled, losing twenty years. “Remember what he used to say? If you’re gonna sell liquor you gotta keep one hand on the till—.”

“And the other on the trigger—yeah, yeah,” Maggie said, recalling when Fitz took them into the woods to learn to shoot. “Now with Fitz gone Danny’s bullshit will keep coming.”

“Not with Mark around.” Kelly beamed at him. “He’s hired, isn’t he?”

He’d make a decent bouncer, Maggie conceded. Hadn’t he just proved it? And since she planned on escaping as soon as possible, it’d help to have one coherent mind between them. Besides, Kelly would be the one who’d have to work with him, so who was Maggie to say no? But that wasn’t the deciding factor. Not even close.

For days she’d been asking herself why she’d come back, to a family who didn’t deserve her, whose patriarch practically abandoned her years ago. At first she told herself she’d come for Conor, an innocent by-product of this car-crash of chromosomes. Then she blamed it on duty, silly her for being mature. But in the end she settled on pure selfishness.

She looked to the knotty-pined walls and the oaken bar, to a ceiling yellowed by a century of nicotine, to the raised booths that kept them drinking when the bay flooded in. To the salt-crusted windows and the waterfront outside, to all the folks in the kitchen and on both sides of the taps who’d suddenly become her responsibility. What Fitz had handed down from his father and grandfather was just as much hers as Kelly’s, and no one, not even that self-righteous drunk of a father, would take that legacy away from her—or the bucks she’d get from selling it. And now there was Marzio—Mark—begging for a job she knew he didn’t need. So why was he really here? After twenty years, there had to be a reason. How could she not find out?

“Oh why not,” Maggie finally said.

“Okay!” Kelly cried. “You’ll see. He’ll be awesome.”

He looked to Maggie. “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

Yet somehow she knew she would.

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