I’m finally revisiting the characters from The River City Chronicles nine years after their original timeline. I’ll be running the series weekly here on my blog, and then will release it in book form at the end of the run. Hope you enjoy catching up with all your faves and all their new secrets!
Today, the Ragazzi Club calls an emergency meeting…
< Read Chapter Thirteen | Read Chapter Fifteen >
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Chapter Fourteen
The Ragazzi Club
Matteo’s phone buzzed.
He ignored it, concentrating on the books. The restaurant was finally regularly turning a profit, but it was always a delicate dance between revenue and all the rest—the costs for rent, wages, meat and produce, the inevitable repairs and upkeep, and sundry expenses that every restaurant had to contend with. Grazie al dio that inflation had finally moderated. Eggs and chicken prices were both down from a couple months earlier, and long-term price contacts had helped insulate Ragazzi from some of the other price spikes. It had been a roller coaster of a year.
His phone buzzed again insistently.
“Cavolo!” He picked it up, and then stared at the screen, dumbfounded.
It was a text from Marcos. Brad is dead. Heart attack. TRC?
Matteo shuddered. How could Brad be dead? They’d just spoken on Zoom the week before…
Cazzo. Tonight? After service?
The response was immediate. I think that would be best.
Matteo nodded. Brad had helped save Ragazzi when they’d needed it most, creating an intern program for LGBTQ+ youth and inspiring the lunch pick-up plan that had provided much needed income until the restaurant was able to establish itself as an East Sacramento culinary destination. He’d also helped them secure two emergency government loans during the pandemic. Povero Sam. What he must be feeling…
He switched to the WhatsApp group chat.
TRC emergency meeting tonight, 11 PM. Brad is gone.
He set the phone down and sat back in his chair, massaging his temples, as the chat room exploded with questions.
#
Ben knocked on the back door of Ragazzi. He slipped his hands into his jacket pockets. It was chilly out, an icy breeze surprising for late May blowing through the parking lot, clearing away the stench of the dumpster next to the door. The night was cloudless, her uncaring stars sparkling in the firmament above. Maybe one of them is Brad, looking down on us.
He checked his Apple Watch… it was already a quarter past eleven. Everyone else was probably already there.
He’d gone back and forth about attending. He hadn’t known Brad all that well—only from the time spent at their cooking class together. And death was still triggering, for him. But the look on Marissa’s face when she’d received that text… he’d decided he had to come.
The door popped open, and Gio beckoned him inside. “Hey.”
“Am I the last one here?”
Gio nodded. “Marissa beat you by about two minutes.” A painful pause. “I’m so sorry, Ben. About Ella. And now this—”
“I hardly knew him.” He said it like a shield.
“Me neither. Still…” Gio hugged him.
Ben melted into the embrace, stifling a sob. “Thank you.” I miss you, Ella.
When Gio let him go, he wiped moisture from the corners of his eyes. “Where are the others?”
“In the class kitchen. Come on.”
Ben closed the door behind him with a hollow thud, and followed him through the prep kitchen and into the main dining room. Shades were pulled down over the front windows, and the place looked dark and deserted, lit only by light from the main kitchen behind him and from under the door, where the others awaited him.
He’d stopped coming to the classes after Ella had… gone. This would be his first time seeing the class kitchen.
Gio pushed open the door, and Ben was back with all of his friends for the first time since—
His heart started to race, and a cold sweat broke out on his arms. “Sorry. I can’t…”
Marissa was at his side in an instant. Her face was puffy, her eyes red as she grabbed onto him and squeezed him tight. “I know. I know.”
He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Ella is gone. It hurt every time he thought about her, like someone had ripped his heart out of his chest with jagged black nails. And yet… I’m still here. People need me.
She let him go and held him out at arm’s length. “Please stay? I need you.”
Like she read my mind. He nodded. Brad had taken care of discarded queer kids like her at the LGBT Center—made sure they had food, a place to stay, a path to something better. He could imagine how she was feeling right now.
He looked around the room. Someone had lit a candle at each of the cooking stations. The overhead lights were turned down low, and all of his friends sat in a circle, looking at him expectantly. Waiting for their last member.
Marissa led him to the last empty seat. It was his first time in the new class kitchen. The place felt new, clean, fresh… and yet somehow old world. Steel and brick. Comfortable.
They sat next to one another, and he took her hand, giving it a squeeze.
I can do this.
#
Marcos looked around the room, the pain in his heart battling with the warmth he felt at seeing his closest friends gathered together again, here where it all had started. Even Ben.
He’d been sure Ben wouldn’t come. Ella had been gone for two years now, and her loss had hollowed him out. Marcos flashed a reassuring smile across the circle at him. Then he stood and squeezed his hands together. “It’s late, past some of your bedtimes, I’m sure. So let’s get started.”
There was scattered laughter, which died out quickly.
“As all of you have heard by now, one of our Ragazzi Club members, Brad Weston, passed away earlier today. I talked to Sam about an hour ago, and he filled me in with the details.” Marcos squeezed his eyes shut.
Brad had saved his business, the last time it had been in jeopardy, hiring him to run the Center’s website account, which Marcos still managed to this day. And he’d helped Marcos adopt Marissa, a debt he’d now never be able to repay.
“Is Sam all right?” Carmelina was staring at him, as if willing the information out of him, her usually neat red hair a mess. They’d all cried over the news.
“He’s coping. I think he’s still in shock.” As are we all. “Sam told me that they were out at dinner on Thursday night, celebrating Sam’s Netflix deal for Read Between the Lines, when Brad grabbed his chest and keeled over. The paramedics arrived within minutes and managed to resuscitate him. They rushed him to the hospital, into surgery.” Sam had sounded numb. Lost. Like I feel right now. Friends weren’t supposed to die. Not at Brad’s age.
“Was he in pain?” Marissa squeezed Ben’s hand tightly.
“Probably when he first had the heart attack. But Sam said they had him on painkillers right after the surgery. I’m sure he wasn’t feeling a thing.”
Diego shook his head. “Non capisco. If he had the surgery… why is he not okay?”
Marcos sighed. “The damage to his heart was too great. He had another heart attack this morning, and this time they couldn’t save him.” How could someone be there one day, and just be gone the next?
He longed to pick up the phone and call Brad, to just talk to him. He’d been remiss in their friendship since Brad and Sam had moved to Tucson to be closer to Sam’s mother. Now that regret was a burning knife in his heart.
#
Marissa closed her eyes, sinking back into the padded chair and trying to think.
Brad is gone. He’d been there for her when no one else had. He’d come with Marcos to get her out of jail, that time her adoptive parents had her arrested for breaking into her own house.
He’d gotten her started with the internship at Ragazzi, working with Diego and learning how to be a chef.
Why did I ever stop? It had happened after Gio. When she’d been too embarrassed to come back to Ragazzi. And she’d been busy with her classes, and the weight of the guilt kept her away…
If she were honest with herself, she’d admit that she hated her new job. The pay was decent, the people nice enough. But the work… sometimes she wanted to pull out her hair.
How she’d enjoyed pushing her hands deep into bread dough. Rolling out pasta. Seasoning a hearty ragu with a pinch of rosemary and a splash of garlic salt. It was honest work, work you did with your hands. Work that created something of worth.
“You always did love to cook.”
I know that voice. Her eyes flew open. “Brad!” In a second, she had her arms wrapped around him, hugging him so tightly he gasped.
“Easy there. Gotta breathe every now and then.” He patted her on the back.
She let him go. “But how… why… you can’t be here!”
He grinned. “You’re at Ragazzi.” He touched her cheek, reminding her, strangely, of her grandmother Carmelina. “Anything is possible here.”
She looked around. The whole Ragazzi Club—the OG students she’d initially scorned and then had come to love—were cooking together, talking and laughing as they prepared one of Diego’s signature dishes. The smell of tomato sauce and garlic filled the air, spiced with the sharp scent of fresh-cut basil. “Anything?”
Brad nodded. “Anything. Remember who you wanted to be.” Then he was gone, leaving a green shimmer in his wake.
“Marissa. Are you okay?”
She blinked. Brad had vanished, and Marcos stood before her. “I know what we need to do.”
“What’s that, dear?” Carmelina was wiping at the corners of her eyes with a Kleenex.
She inhaled, smelling the wonderful scent of fresh-cooked Italian pasta. “We need to cook for him.”
< Read Chapter Thirteen | Read Chapter Fifteen >
Like what you read? if you haven’t tried it yet, check out book one, The River City Chronicles, here.