Bottled Up: Pietro Family Estate (Five

Families Vineyard Romances Book 8)

Kelly Kay
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 Bottled Up
PIETRO FAMILY ESTATE

FIVE FAMILIES VINEYARD SERIES

KELLY KAY
 Bottled Up: Pietro Family Estate
Five Families Vineyard Series
Copyright © 2024 by DECORATED CAST LLC by Kelly Kay/Kelly Kreglow
All rights reserved

www.kellykayromance.com

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To those who go coffee to wine everyday, skipping water. You are my people.

(Although we should probably hydrate more)

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FIVE FAMILIES VINEYARD ROMANCES
Interconnected standalone small town series exploring the lives and loves of five winery families.
LaChappelle/Whittier Vineyard Trilogy
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Crushing, Rootstock & Uncorked

Stafýlia Cellars Duet

(Tabi & Bax) Friends to Lovers
Over A Barrel & Under The Bus

Gelbert Family Winery

Meritage: An Unexpected Blend (Nat & David)
Secret Baby, Reformed Player, Single Dad

Residual Sugar
(Becca & Brick) Reverse Grumpy Sunshine, Forced Proximity, funny suspense

Pietro Family Estate

Bottled Up
(Poppy & Sal) Mafia, Opposites Attract, Secret Life

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 Contents

Quick Note
Definition
Prologue
I. Prima Parte
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
II. Seconda Parte
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
III. Parte Terza
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Epilogue
Hey Kel, What Else Can I read?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
 Quick Note

Hi Readers!
Welcome back to the Five Families Vineyard Series and Sonoma! This book is riddled with triggers but I’ll get to that.
Thanks for being here. This book continues down a path set forth in book seven, Residual Sugar. It’s pretty much Romantic
Suspense, but it’s still funny. It can be read as a standalone with references to other stories but not dependent upon any previous
knowledge. If you’re a completist, please feel free to start this series with Crushing, where Sal Pietro and Poppy Gelbert are
first introduced. (which is on Amazon and free in KU and right here ----------> Crushing )
You don’t need to read the other books to enjoy this one.
But a quick side note. Only one book remains in this series, and this one serves as a prelude to the final installment. The
end is not so much a cliffhanger as a path to the final book. Ok, it’s kind of a cliffhanger. Although Poppy and Sal’s story is
complete, the cliffhanger is for the next book. It couldn’t be helped. You’ll see. And this one was so much damn fun to write. I
can’t wait for you to read it.
Trigger Warnings
Blood, guns, language, sex, kidnapping, physical violence towards men and women, knives, misunderstood sheep, some
snapped necks, death, murder - your standard mafia fare is all found in this book.
It’s always about the blood.
Talk soon, Kelly K
 Definition

Bottled up
bottled up; bottling up; bottles up.
1. to keep (a feeling or emotion) inside instead of expressing it: to hide (a feeling or emotion)
2. Some experts say, surprisingly, that it’s best to store Champagne and sparkling wines standing up or - bottled up - to put less
pressure on the cork.
 Prologue

SAL
I huff as a piece of paper slides across my desk. “I’m on my way out. I need to get to Sonoma like fucking yesterday. Can this
shit wait?”
Lou shakes his head slowly. Then he covers his heart. I got ice in my veins suddenly. Fuck.
“It’s time.” If he says it, it must be true; he’s the man I trust the most.
I unfold the paper. It’s a transcript of a text exchange we’ve been monitoring.
E: Time’s up for the chef.
D: E. O. D.

I hold it out to Lou, who exhales and then closes his eyes tight. And I know it’s been vetted, authenticated and if it’s
crossing my desk, there’s not a choice left to be fucking made.
Forgive me, my love.
PART ONE
Prima Parte
 Chapter
One

POPPY
Reality flows in and out. Like waiting for an image to move from pixelated to clear. Sometimes the moment is crystal and I’m
able to focus. Other times, it feels like I’m moving in a memory not rooted to anything. I hear his voice and imagine the
moments as if I’m reliving them. As if they’re real, and I can touch them. I can touch him. And then the dreamy pixels snap into
their proper place, and he’s gone again. It’s like I keep reliving his death over and over.
A disconnected voice says, “Gray works.”
“Green,” I say over the din of voices that keep trying to decide things. They don’t get to say anything about what my
husband wears for eternity. “Black suit and the emerald green tie I gave him on our second anniversary. And don’t try to tell me
the gray suit matches it better. I said that to him like a thousand times. He won’t hear it. He insists that the green, black combo
doesn’t look too St. Patrick’s Day or too Italian if there’s red anywhere near him. Don’t argue with me… or him. Black with
the green tie.”
There’s a light touch on my arm. Everyone is a light touch right now. “Poppy, honey. We don’t have the body. He won’t be
wearing a tie. It’s a gray headstone.” My mom says as Becca tugs at my hands and I let her come into focus.
Don’t Leave Me This Way. I can’t survive. I can’t stay alive. This ancient disco song my mom used to like keeps running
through my head like it’s the soundtrack to the montage of him in my mind.
Becca takes my face in her hands and my eyes focus on her. Snap. The volume of the song in my head turns down as I hear
her.
“Poppy, this has to happen quickly. Stay with me, Poppy. Please, focus on me Poppy. I need so many facts. This is urgent,
according to his attorneys, to protect it all. Stay with me.”
I say nothing. Her official lawyer voice drops, and I hear my sweet cousin, who’s like a sister. “You didn’t tell me you
were married to him. That he was your husband. I didn’t know he was legally your husband.” She wipes something from
underneath her eye quickly.
“Were?” I say.
“Poppy, I need you to pay attention.” Her stern attorney tone returning.
“Was?” I reply.
“This is not my strong suit.” She looks at the doorway and I follow her gaze.
My mom is there again. I know she told me, but things are constantly changing right now. I know we just discussed his tie,
but my mind keeps flipping to places I don’t understand. Headstones, wait. I’m trying to breathe and make sense of everything
happening around me. A headstone is a little cart before the horse.
“He was my husband? He is.” I state, and no one understands what I’m saying. Like I’m the crazy one in the room. What
they’re saying makes no sense. He’s indestructible. He’s Sal Pietro. He steals all the air in every room he’s in. He’s
incandescent and lights every part of me. He survives, he’s smart and scarred and cunning and brilliant and vibrant and mine.
He’s outwitted all the crime families, bullets, knives, knaves, and fools that have come for him. He’s immortal and larger than
life and is my husband. Present tense.
My mom’s arms wrap around me, and I pull the goldenrod dish towel through my fingers again. I try to shake her off, but
she holds fast as Becca says more things that can’t be true.
“Arrangements were provided in his will. The color of the stone is all you need to concern yourself with. But this is vital. I
need you to focus. Poppy, sign this immediately. We have a lot to do in very little time since no one knew the two of you were
married. Then we can bury Sal and Lou.”
“Lou?” His bodyguard and best friend. Lou? “Lou is my friend. He’s the protector of all of us. He would save Sal if Sal
couldn’t save himself.” It’s sharp now. The pain is sharp. It’s clawing at me. But I don’t know where they are. Or how to get at
the pain.
My mom grabs my cheeks, speaking directly into my face. “Oh, honey. Listen, sweetie. I’m so sorry. According to Mark,
they’re both gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Gone forever, my sweet girl.” A hand covers mine.
Why is his FBI handler reporting false information? I know Mark. He’s so honest and forthright. He’s so connected to Sal.
They are friends after spending so much time together as Sal’s been going legit. Mark doesn’t lie. Why would he start now?
The weight of the world settles into my befuddled brain, making every cell in my body instantly heavier. I look at Becca’s
face and then my mom’s, and a light turns out inside of me.
We sit for a long time, or maybe it’s a moment. But a second is all it takes to change my chemical makeup. Who and what I
am. The direction my life will go all hinges on this sentence they keep repeating. “He’s gone.”
And then there are other men. Men in suits who surround me.
I can’t breathe.
And if I ever do it again, it won’t be the same.
It will be hard to breathe without him in the world.
I’ll never know another day to its fullest.
They’ll all be shadows and reflections of who I might have been.
We didn’t even get our moment. He said we could walk away and be safe. He promised, and he’s never broken a promise.
I’m sure I’ll get angry at some point.
If I’m able to get up again.
If I’m ever able to find peace.
There’s only darkness now that Sal Pietro has been taken from this earth.
“Sign here, Mrs. Pietro.” Someone in a cheap suit shoves a piece of paper in front of me as he says my married name for
the first time out loud.
I never got to be Poppy Pietro, always hiding our relationship behind Poppy Gelbert. Mrs. Pietro loved the man who was
bigger than this life and lit me up in a way no one ever will again.
“Poppy, honey. Sign this, ok. It’s what Sal left you,” Becca explains.
All the things around me mush together again as if I’m standing too close to an impressionist painting behind the blur of my
tears. Colors bleeding into each other, defining nothing and leaving me hollow. I can’t see the picture clearly. The pixels aren’t
sharp but the pain is.
“What did he leave me?” My voice eeks out.
There’s a beat in the room that could be my heartbeat or just stilted air.
“Everything.”
 Chapter
Two

POPPY
Day 2 Post Sal (PS)
I can see it so clearly from the outside of the fray as I step away from the Gelbert Family Vineyard house. People keep
showing up and I don’t want anything to do with them. I keep searching my family’s vineyard for space and comfort. I’m
wandering through the Syrah vines touching the leaves and floating among the not-yet-formed grapes, thinking about the moment
he claimed me. The moment I knew I was supposed to be by his side.
I sit on the ground and let the warmth wash over me, allowing the world to go blurry for a moment. I used to nap in the
vines as a little girl blanketed by the sunshine. They’d find me out here soaking up the sun and talking to grapes. I settle down
and let the sharp images bleed into a dream.

Five Years Ago

I’m doing a sloppy job closing my café.

“What’s the rush Pop?” I grin at the older couple at table seven.
“You know damn well where I want to be, so eat up.” He laughs as he shovels his last bite.
The woman, who used to be the elementary school’s principal, knows all of us inside and out, smiles. “I heard your whole
crew will be at the LaChappelle/Whittier Vineyard’s wine club member’s party tonight.”
“Yup. Almost all. Nine out of ten of us will be there.”
The man smiles and says, “Does an old vintner’s heart good to know that your generation is all still close. Whose the
missing piece?”
His wife touches his hand, “The youngest Schroeder daughter, I assume.”
I bus their table while I confirm her suspicions, “She’s still in college. And it’s probably best since she’s like ten years
younger than the rest the crew and doesn’t need to be corrupted just yet.” Ingrid is the only one of us that’s younger than me. I
had to be the baby of all my friends and cousins for eight years until she came along.
Her husband smiles, “Ah, the kids of the ‘Five Families.’”
I grin at him walking away and saying, “There’s not a memory from my childhood without one of them.”
I shove the linens into the wrong basket and I’m wrapping up the rest of the food. And think to myself, most of my adult
memories are with them too. With the staff gone for the night, I glance at the almost empty dining room.
I drop a gelato at table six, turn and discover a gorgeous dark-haired, hulking guy staring at me from my kitchen. My head
reels as he winks at me.
It’s that man. The business associate of Josh Whittier. I met him at their winery when I was finishing up a catering job. The
brawny, huge Italian one who enthusiastically ate my leftovers. The one I’ve chosen to pretend doesn’t exist on this realm
because he’s just too much, well, too much of everything. Tall, big, sexy, with stunning dark eyes and dreamy dark stubble. He’s
a man, not a boy. He’s not one of the pretty assholes I grew up with, who I love. But the boys of the ‘Five’ aren’t even the same
species as this man.
He’s otherworldly with his almost coal black hair and cola dark eyes and that Mediterranean skin, so contrasting to my
pale Irish complexion. I’m a walking stereotype. I’m short, pasty, with a mass of red curls and light green eyes.
Everything about him physically says this man was drawn to be my exact opposite. I can’t look away or think of anything
but him after his hand took mine weeks ago. Since the moment he moaned, eating my food. I’ve imagined that moan in a variety
of scenarios but not one of them involved him waltzing into my kitchen unannounced. I peer in and he waves hello. I duck down
like I got caught doing something wrong.
Wait. It’s my kitchen. I stand back up and turn away from him and drop a couple of cheesecakes at table seven. Shoulders
back, tits out, pretending I’m confident and not rattled by this mystery fantasy man. I refill our local sheriff’s wine, who is off
duty tonight with nowhere to go. He keeps touching my hand. Perhaps he’s interested but no thank you. He’s nice enough but
never done it for me.
“Pop, that vegetable thing was so good, and I hate veggies.”
I explain, “Primavera. It’s really the local veggies that make it so good. I just made the pasta.” I turn to go because there’s
still a deliciously menacing man in my kitchen. Robert grabs my wrist so I don’t walk away, but before I can say a word,
there’s a wall of machismo at my back.
“Sir, I believe the lady has other customers to tend to.”
He shrugs. “Poppy and I are old friends.” He tightens his grip, and I think he thinks this is cute.
“Let me rephrase, officer. Don’t touch her.” He’s not afraid of this man, who, although is a bumbling cop in a tiny town,
he’s still the sheriff.
My eyes go wide as Sal Pietro peels the fingers from around my wrist, one at a time. My body flames, as does my face,
with flickers of desire at this man’s instant possessiveness over me. No one has ever wanted to protect me like that. I’m
scrappy, and I’ve gotten used to handling things myself.
I sink into that deep voice, and I’m like a cartoon animal floating away on the waft of a freshly baked pie.
I come back to my body when I realize they’re both staring at me. And I have to act like a normal human.
I toss my hands up and turn to both of them. “Sherriff. The veggies are on me tonight. Just finish up and skedaddle. And
you…” I shoo Sal away and he backs away from Robert to the bar. I poke him in the chest and almost break my finger. He
looks down at my finger, and then at me with a slow smirk spreading across his face.
“Yes, Gingersnap?”
I shake my head. “What did you call me?”
He wraps his giant hand around my finger.
“Gingersnap. You’ve got some bite, and some heat, but I think you’re all sweet underneath.”
I try to pull my finger back from him and he envelops my entire hand. Then he raises it to his lips and dusts a very light kiss
on the back of my hand. And I’m toast. Brain, heart, and panties are all toast. I’m barely keeping my knees from giving out and
falling into a puddle of romantic goo. His voice rumbles through every part of me, and I snatch my hand back before I mount
this man and never look back.
“Follow me.” I scurry toward the one place I feel in charge, my kitchen.
“With pleasure, so far this is one of my favorite views, if you don’t mind me saying.”
I gasp and hope he didn’t hear me. I’m not a girl who gets swept away. I observe, then choose someone I like and then curl
up to them. Eventually, they tire of me talking too much, or being too intense or too independent and they break up with me.
Danny McMahon broke up with me in first grade, right before we had a wedding during outside time because he said I was a
jabber jaw. My mind is running as fast as my mouth usually does.
I turn back to him before I reach the kitchen door, trying to stop my skin from goose bumping. “Mr. Pietro.”
He covers his heart and says, “Ah, you remember me.”
“We met recently.” I pop a hip and roll my eyes.
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen what?”
“It was sixteen days. Give or take some hours. You got a way about you, Gingersnap. I might be trapped.”
He suddenly pulls me to his body. I’m an accessory, he’s so large. But his hands slide down my sides, and I place my hands
on his hard biceps, and I can’t explain why, but he feels more right than anything in my life. I’m helpless against this man.
He digs his hands into my hips, and I melt into thoughts of tonight and beyond with him. He hasn’t been far from my thoughts
since our ten-minute conversation and the plate of ziti I served him.
He’s so close as he says these words to me, and I struggle not to completely rip my clothes off.
“I don’t get hung up, but I swear, woman, you’re under my skin. Forgive me, I can’t stop thinking about doing this.” My eyes
widen as he leans down, and I float away on the feel of his lips as they feather over mine and I moan into him. It’s a soft kiss as
his full lips slightly part and then back off.
“There. Now we got that out of the way.” He grins.
“What?”
“The answer to your question.”
“What question?”
“The one about why I’m here. I’m here for that kiss.” My knees buckle. As he passes me and enters my kitchen, I stand
there, struck down by his words as I touch my lips where they tingle from his kiss.
“Poppy, can we get our check?” A voice from behind me asks.
“Huh?” I say, still staring at the door where that man just went.
“Poppy! Earth to Poppy?”
Earth? No. I’m not on Earth anymore. I’m in that man’s atmosphere.
“Dinner’s on me. No more food tonight! Night!” I say too loudly. There’s a cheer from my couple of tables and I march
after the man who stole my breath and my sanity.
The door isn’t even done swinging when he claps his hands together then points toward the dining room. “That’s how you
get shit done.” Then he laughs.
His deep voice fills every inch of my kitchen and nudging all rational thoughts out of my damn head. He’s leaning against
my prep counter with his hands gripping the table. It makes his already insane biceps look even larger. And that smile is pure
sin. There’s not enough space for me to look away from him. He takes over the room.
“Mr. Pietro,” I say.
“Gingersnap, I think we’ve moved beyond the formalities.”
“Salvatore.” His grin gets impossibly larger and his teeth gleam in the din of my kitchen.
“I like it. I mean, you can call me Sal. But you should know, and there’s no explaining this. You’re a snack. A fucking
firecracker that makes my blood sizzle. Can’t tell you why and my dear departed mamma would say ‘it’s written.’ About this
moment we’re having, she’d say, ‘Then that’s that then.’”
“You kissed me!” I shove him a little, and he doesn’t move an inch.
“I did. And I’m going to do it again, right the hell now, unless you think you can stop me? Moth to a flame and all that shit.”
“You and I both know that I can’t stop you. You’re the size of an SUV.”
“Yeah, and you’re a Fiat.” He looks me up and down, and there’s a thrill having his entire attention.
“Next to you I’m a vespa.” He laughs again and I like it. I enjoy needling this man who seems like everyone else on the
planet should be afraid of. He tugs at my apron strings, and I realize I’m the moth in this situation as I happily enter his arms.
His thumb dusts over my cheek. His warmth is surrounding me. I say to him, “What am I going to do with you or all of this?
I’ve lost my damn mind.”
He leans forward. “Then I’ll join you in this madness.” He brushes his lips over me and says, “Just tonight. Let me know
what it could be like and then I’ll go. My life is complicated.”
“So is mine. This is the last of the linens because they got burned at the cleaners. My fish guy just retired and now I have no
ahi for the week. And I haven’t had a haircut or a hot meal in months. How’s that for a complicated life?” He grins.
“Yeah, sounds just like mine. Only without all the fish and substitute hair cut for a fucking hassle-free day.”
I know the rumors. Josh warned me if I ever see this man again to run the other way. But his smile, his lips, these arms,
these are not run away from arms. I know he’s a business executive, but my wild imagination has him making offers people
can’t refuse.
Despite all of it, I see him. “Salvatore, I have things to do…”
He puts his giant hand on my lower back and secures me to him. My breath catches and I’m almost panting at this point. His
voice is slow, steady, and exact. It rumbles through my body and my core. I am a ball of want and need.
“Look, Poppy Gelbert, I’m a man who gets what he wants. And I make things happen. I only have tonight for you. So, you
let all your to-do lists fly the hell away from here. I’ll get you a fish guy. You kick vegetable man out of here. And if the sheriff
even breathes near you again, I’ll know. I don’t like the look in his eyes or that grabbing your wrist bullshit.”
“He’s harmless.”
“Not if he’s touching you without permission.” His voice is menacing but everything in my body is sprinting around, trying
to find a place to calm down. Blood, nerves, butterflies, thoughts are all freaking rushing around in a chaotic swirl. All that
voice does to me is make me throb all over for him.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I say.
He huffs a short laugh. “That’s dumb. But you’ll never be in danger. I won’t bring pain or trouble across your door. But
fuck, you’re so gorgeous, fucking beautiful.” I gasp. “And that sass, the ginger in you, I’ll eat it all up. And even though we can
only have tonight, keep the fuck away from that guy.”
I grin at how he wants to possess me, own me, protect me. He leans into my smile, parting my lips easily with his tongue.
And I let go because it’s only for tonight and I’m never this girl. I wonder what it’s like. I’m going to fuck a virtual stranger and
I’m pretty sure I won’t regret it. I look in his eyes and they’re dark and hooded. I have no choice but to be with him. Just this
once.
My arms slide up around his neck, and I devour his mouth. We gasp and nip at each other’s lips. I’m up on my tiptoes, but
he lifts me up and puts me on the silver prep table. He steps between my legs. I feel how hard his rather impressive cock is as I
angle my hips for friction. I moan and he pulls me further into him.
“We should get rid of our clothes. I need to see you.” He kisses up and down my neck.
 “That’s a health code violation and I really can’t afford to get a ding right now and get bumped down to a B.” He lifts me
up, scoops up the register take for tonight and all the credit card slips, and carries me out of the back of the restaurant with my
legs wrapped around him. I pull my phone out.
POPPY: Jims. Bestie. Need a favor. Can you lock up the café?
JIMS: Where are you? Josh’s new woman is fabulous and taming our dear boy right now. I’m eating up the downfall of
Alpha Josh.
POPPY: I have a once in a lifetime opportunity. Can you lock up my café, and then you can go back to the party. Please.
Please. Please.
“Who are you texting?” Sal asks, carrying me toward a black SUV.
“The sheriff, in case I go missing.” He roughly takes my lips and I sink into the hint of a violent passion. Something
dangerous flirts on his tongue. I eat it up as if I’ll die without the taste of him. His scruff brushes deliciously across everywhere
he kisses. I want to feel it between my thighs as well as scraping up my torso. Is that a normal thing? People wanting to be
roughed up with stubble. I pull back, gasping and grin. I’ve never been normal.
POPPY: You owe me.
JIMS: Fine. But I get the details of whatever mischief you’ve found this evening.
Salvatore plucks my phone from my fingers and puts it in his pocket. “Just me.” He puts me down and opens the passenger
side door. I look at him once I’m in the car. His fingers dust my collarbone. “Just me.”
“Just you.”
 Chapter
Three

POPPY
Day 4 (PS)
I don’t like being awake. It means I have to be the grieving widow. When I dream, I get to be the girl in love and he’s not
fucking dead. I turn my phone over in my shaking hand, rereading Mark’s text, hoping this time the shaking will stop.
MARK: I have no words for you. Only a pledge to bring down Enzo. You were the light of his everything.
Know that. I can’t bear to be there today even though I’ve lost a brother. This day is for you and the 5.

It’s of no comfort to know the FBI is hunting Sal’s nephew for his murder. It’s a murder. That’s a word that exists in my life.
Everyone except the ten of us and their significant others have cleared out of the Gelbert Family Winery tasting room to
give me space. Like they know what I need. I don’t, how do they? I grew up in a village of people who love me and fill in most
of the spaces of everything. My mother brought us to her ancestral home in Sonoma to live on her family’s vineyard when I was
six months old. I haven’t had a moment alone since. I never met my grandparents or my father. But I’ve missed neither, given
the generosity and love of the ‘five’.
Five close winery families who not only raised their children together but grew up together themselves. Friendships
between our parents date back to before we all existed.
I’m sitting in a building that’s in my blood and I’m hollow. I wanted his funeral reception to be here. I wanted it in a place
I’d always have to return to instead of some banquet hall that would be turned over for a retirement party later in the day. This
place, the tasting room, will never change, and it will always be here.
My sweet restaurant staff, who catered this, are milling about. David, my cousin, is topping off everyone’s wine and then he
hikes himself up onto the tasting room counter and sits next to Sam Langerford. Both attractive men cut a handsome path for
themselves in the wine industry. I think about them, so I don’t think about him.
David has a lot of his life together, and Sam doesn’t. Sam never bounced back emotionally from when the love of his life
ghosted him years ago. He’s different now. Will I be? Will this all change me? Sam was funny, gregarious, and sweet. He was
shaggy around the edges and resembled Winnie The Pooh, often forgetting pants after a night of drinking too much. Now, he’s
all sharp angles and rock-hard muscles with a jaw and a temper that are both so defined it’s painful somedays. He carries an
edge of an asshole these days.
Will I be different in the after? His salvation is working with wine and the winery he owns with his four best friends, the
group that are the same age. Will I find the love of work again? I don’t want to cook. Ever.
They’re a couple years older than I am and right now Josh, Sam, Baxter, Tabi, and David form a protective circle around
me as I glance around the room. They’re the core of who we are, but even as I feel like a satellite in their orbit, I know I’m the
eye of this hurricane. Because I was younger, I always felt on the outskirts of their bond, so living with Sal on the edges of our
worlds seemed normal to me. Even though it might have been in my mind, it still felt as though I was a touch out of step with
this world. There’s so much love in this room, but I can’t feel it. I’m numb.
I swing my head like it weighs 1000 pounds to catch Sam’s eye. My voice is rough, as if it’s been nicked and cut up. “Hey,
Sam. Does the pain of being left go away?”
“Yours might. You at least have closure.” He doesn’t hesitate. His pain is always on fucking display.
I raise my glass to him. Everyone is talking around me but not to me. I get it. There’s a lot of shit that’s come to light, and
I’ve dealt with none of it so I could get Sal buried.
Everyone waits for me to say something else. I’ve never been one to shy away from attention or talking. I’ll give them this,
the things I wish I could have said at the service, but I wasn’t brave enough. After a glass of wine and way too many Gougères,
I think I can now.
“Our story lived underneath all of yours.” Everyone’s faces snap to mine, and I grin a sad smile. My eyes mist over, but I
keep going. I only want to tell this once to my large family. Most people would look at everyone in the room and be struck by
the overwhelming number. But this feels intimate, having grown up with this collective.
 “We were there for the beginning of all your beginnings, living and growing in the underneath. We met at Longhouse when
he came to yell at Josh. You know that, though.” The couples snuggle closer, and I resent their breath. But I push on because
that’s a silly thing to hate.
“Our first kiss was when you were all at the LaChappelle/Whittier member party, the last one where everyone was there.”
They all nod. “You know, back when you all thought Sal was the villain.” They smile like it’s a joke, but it was true.
Becca scoots closer and takes my hand. She didn’t used to be affectionate, not until her man, Brick, showed her how.
“I was the reason he was in town for the all hands-on deck meetings or in your lives at all. His business with Josh passing
and the bond remaining. I held Becca’s hand when Brick walked away to finish his business. Every life event I missed of
yours, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays…I was with him. I was always in contact with his FBI handler, Mark, and have had a
constant shadow since we fell in love. For the safety of everyone in this room and for him, I remained as hidden as we could
make me.”
I grin at my trained sous chef, who carries a Beretta and can bench press a car. They all turn to look at him and nod in
recognition. They don’t know that my next-door neighbor of six years is lethal as well. Will Enzo hunt me? I have all the money
and own Raptor Industries. Am I a loose end? Or is Enzo happy with all he’s gained from Sal’s death? He’s in charge now. He
doesn’t need whatever I’ve inherited. I know there are men around the perimeter of this place, but what’s their purpose now
that Enzo’s blood lust has been satisfied?
I sip my water and look into all their faces as none of them say a word. Just let me speak.
“I was in all the places you saw him, and he overlapped in your lives. Jims and Evan don’t know this, but we kind of share
a wedding anniversary. I know you officially got married months after the shower, but we stole your officiant from your joint
shower. He was there just hanging out, not doing anything, so he married us. We missed the karaoke ‘N SYNC performance that
night. My apologies.”
Baxter yells, “Not accepted.”
Everyone smiles at the forced joke. I can see it’s humor but I can’t find the laugh. “Did you know he sang? All the time, any
song he could think of. Our first dance when we got married was to him singing The Way You Look Tonight.”
Brick raises his hand, and I smile as his molasses smooth southern accent pours out some knowledge about my husband. “I
knew that good man could sing. I heard him a time or two. I know I shouldn’t have been listening to another’s man’s
conversation, but his heart spoke to me. He was singing you to sleep, ma’am.” Brick gives me a curt nod. I relish the stories
about him I didn’t bear witness to. My eyes mist up again. He used to record songs for me to listen to when I missed him on the
long stretches of work that took him away from me. I nod and smile at Brick. I curse all the phones and messages I’ve
discarded. I only have a few songs and messages left.
“It was magical and perfect and secret, the way we had to live. I’m not dumb enough to believe you all didn’t know about
us. But what you didn’t know was we’ve always been happier than all of you. Your miserable ups and downs and second-
guessing love or finding insurmountable ideals floating around to protect you instead of diving in. We were all in from the start
and always will be.”
I recross my legs and look at the ceiling as if I could find his face there. This fated star-crossed lovers’ shit is annoying and
inconvenient. And as deeply as everyone in the room loves their partners, I think only Sam gets this soul-shattering love I feel
turning to darkness as it ebbs away with Sal’s spirit. I shake off those thoughts and smile back at the people who love me.
I speak again for them and for me. I want there to be a record of our shadows, if only an oral one. “You all thought I was a
know-it-all or judging your relationships and maybe I was. Mine was always better, and maybe I got jealous and I’m sorry.
Because I couldn’t flaunt it. You all got to live life out loud. Mine was always in the margins and shadows behind impenetrable
doors and bulletproof cars. You got to walk hand in hand through the plaza and now I never will. He was so close to getting
out. You all know that. I wanted sunlight on our relationship and on our love. I wanted to shout it from every corner of every
place I’ve ever been. But now I know I signed on for the extreme and there will never be sunlight again, on anything. I know I
sound melodramatic, but have you met me?”
There’s a laugh in the room and my friend, Tabi Aganos, moves swiftly and aggressively to the chair next to me. She’s
always so blunt and quick to joke or dismiss someone’s feelings because she thinks she knows better. And although her heart is
huge, she has a talent for hiding it. I don’t think I can take it if anyone touches me right now, but someone who can tuck their
emotions away like she can, might break me. I turn away from her.
And then a sob erupts, and I jerk my head to hers. She’s folded over into herself. I move in front of her, shocked and pull
her to me. She lets me take her into my arms, and I let her cry.
“I would have liked to tell him I loved him,” Tabi blubbers out.
“He knew,” I say to her. Other than Josh and his fiancée Elle, Tabi knew him best. She never backed down from him and
always felt a kinship with him. They shared that hard on the outside, soft on the inside thing.
She sputters out in a loud sob, “I just want to bust his balls one more time.” And then everyone laughs. “What?! I do.”
Everyone’s laughing, including me, and only my most inappropriate friend could do that.
“I do, and I’m devastated. Perhaps you had the right idea all along. I should have guarded at least a little of my heart and
kept it for myself. But unfortunately, it’s now buried with him.”
My Salvatore, my Skylark.
 Chapter
Four

POPPY
Day 5 (PS)
Sleep is all I can do. It’s all I want to do. I dream not of things that might be, or fluffy unicorns and trees made of Ruffles
Sour Cream and Onion potato chips, but of my past. Of the only history that matters to me, my moments with Sal. It’s only when
I’m dreaming of those memories does the pain stop.

I’m pissed. He’s gone, which isn’t unusual since the man is mysterious and has only hinted at his life. But I’m not dumb. I
Googled Sally Pipes. That brute of a man slipped me a note with some bullshit about how this is for my own good. Showing up
randomly, saying impossibly romantic things to me, screwing me senseless for almost seven months, and he thinks he can leave
a fucking note? I’m all worked up and before I could stop myself, I was on my way to LA to the address I cribbed from Josh’s
desk. Because no, sir, a note is not how you break up with me. In fact, that’s not happening at all. You pushed for this and now
I’m in it.
The car slows in a neighborhood that has twisty hills and compounds. I thought I was headed to an office. Even if you’re
running a crime family, it’s still a business and should have an actual business appearance. He should not be running things
from a house. It does not give off the CEO vibe I think he’s looking for.
This place is far from what he told me the old Italian neighborhoods are like. It’s not a place to flop, as he said. The ports
he runs are in Long Beach and San Pedro. The rest of the businesses, from what I understand, he’s trying to leave behind. Not
that he’ll tell me anything. I’m in the dark all the time, and this man is trying to get rid of me. Easier said than done.
The car slows. “Are you sure?” It’s banked on one side by a hill and the other side by a cliff with a view of LA that’s
enough to teach you not to judge a book by its cover. I’ve always looked down on LA, being from Northern California, but I’ve
never seen anything like this in my life. Breath is gone.
The car stops. “Get out here. I won’t be able to turn around up there.” I roll my eyes.
“Good luck getting a tip and a good rating.”
I get out of the car and slam the door and trudge up the hill. There’s a set of black gates that are supposed to be menacing,
but really, they’re beautifully crafted and complement the property perfectly. He’s all bluster. I know the man underneath.
There are two black SUVs kind of hidden in the trees off the side of the road. I assume they’re Sal’s people, but it all seems
a bit excessive. I haul my pink roller bag behind me, and it clacks on the tight brick of the driveway entrance. There’s a call
box that I push and instantly four menacing dogs sprint to the gate, teeth showing and a lot of growling. If I weren’t on a mission
and single-minded, I’d let my mind drift to the man and how his dogs are a metaphor for him.
“Hi, puppies.”
“No deliveries.” Is all the box squawks. Then I see men moving in the shadows. I look behind me and over to the side, and
there’s a strange stillness.
There’s rustling, and I see a large man just past the gate hiding behind a pillar.
“I need to see him, please. You don’t know who I am, but he does, and I’m not going anywhere,” I say defiantly, and then
my huffiness takes a backseat to the glint of a gun.
He sputters out, “Shut the fuck up and get down, whoever the hell you are.”
I try to explain, “I only came here to have a conversation with----” My heart stops and the reality of his life comes charging
in. Not the abstract but the gun reality. There’s a gun and a guy hiding, and he’s yelling at me. I don’t like to be yelled at, but I’m
frozen. “I want to---”
“Do not say his name. I’ll shoot you where you stand.” Wait. Am I perceived as a threat? A stalker?
“I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m not here for problems. You don’t need to hide in the shadows or pull weaponry to
subdue me, I just want to have a conversation and get ---” The box bellows as the gate opens a crack.
“Holy fucking Christ, Gingersnap. Shut the fuck up and do as they say. Get in here now and keep your fucking head
down!” I lunge for the speaker button on the box on instinct, clinging to his voice.
It happens rapidly and nothing and everything registers at once at the naïve thing I’ve done. I can’t breathe as a man pulls
me through the crack in the gates and then they slam shut again. None of this is about me. I can’t speak. I need to see Sal. The
hush in the air is suddenly charged with energy that feels wrong. I don’t like this. Then there’s a series of popping and
shattering things. Pieces of brick spray off of the building as if someone is power washing it.
I’m hoisted over a man’s shoulder. He’s shooting a gun behind him as he sprints to the front door. This is a mistake. I’ve
made a mistake. I only scream in surprise at the popping. A reflexive shriek instead of yelling. I curl up around his shoulder
and try to make myself smaller. Then more popping. Then literally a giant boom as I see the gates get rammed by a car and my
favorite pink hard shell suitcase flies up and crashes into the yard.
There’s no time to worry about my underwear scattered for all to see before the door flies open. The man doesn’t stop
running until I’m tossed into a closet. I land with a thud. A wide and kind face literally fills the doorway.
“I’m Lou. Do as I say. Do not come out of this closet until he comes to get you. Don’t move or he’ll kill me.” I nod a lot at
him. I’m shaking, but I can’t process this. I don’t know what’s going to happen and I always know what’s happening.
“Lou, I have---”
I open my mouth to ask a question and a voice just out of range booms, “No! Don’t you fucking move, Red. Resta fermo,
Rosso. Stay put!” Even though he’s insistent and his voice is dark with a rage I don’t know, my body and mind know he’ll keep
me safe. I don’t know what the Italian was, but I’m sure it was telling me not to move. As long as I can hear his voice, I can try
to calm down.
The door slams shut, locks from the outside, then everything gets muffled. My heart and blood are pumping like crazy. What
is happening here? Who the hell is Lou? The sounds are softer as my panic mounts higher. I didn’t even sense anything was
terribly wrong as I was standing outside. I have zero instincts. Zero. I’d be a disaster in battle. I was so focused on yelling at
Sal. Someone is shooting, and he’s in the middle of it all. Shit. I was in the middle of it all. That was dumb. They’re shooting at
Sal. They don’t get to kill him until I get to yell at him for trying to break my heart. Or just not kill him because I don’t want him
dead. I want to make sure he’s ok. There are shouts and shuffled feet. Something heavy falls but there’s no crash, just a thud.
And then silence and a stillness I’ve never heard. What if he’s not ok? There’s no more popping or shooting. I stand up and
jiggle the locked handle.
I’m not thinking, I’m only consumed by blind resolution to protect that man. I stand back from the door and realize I don’t
know how to help him. I slump to the floor again and scoot to the farthest corner of the closet. There’s something metal poking
me in the back. What if something happens to him? To all of them. What if I’m stuck in this closet forever? I feel around and
find a wire hanger. Surely someone other than me could use this pick-a-lock. I start to hyperventilate, thinking about a hanger
being my only weapon against this enemy.
I talk to myself to calm my butt down. But my voice is loud and shrill when I don’t intend it to be. “Oh God. I don’t know
how to help. Help him. And if they’re all gone, how do I get out of the closet?” And then my ass vibrates, and I realize I have
my phone.
SAL: You won’t be trapped forever, but I need you to quiet down. Do this for me. Keep yourself safe by
keeping quiet. Then we talk. I promise, but let’s both not wind up dead, ok? Only way I can keep you safe is
if you lower that gorgeous loud voice and keep that sexy mouth SHUT! I’ll make sure you get to be loud later
if you’re soft now.
SAL: Also, you daffy broad. If we all die, you still have your phone.

I need to breathe. Concentrate on simple things. Not on the panic that might consume me if I let it. Time to think clearly. He
doesn’t seem scared. He’s ok. He’s taking time out from the shooting to text and manage me. It must not be heavy shooting if he
can do that. I take that small piece of comfort and let it wash over me. I let it fill me with peace. He’s ok. He’s keeping me safe.
He’s not scared, so I won’t be scared.
POPPY: Don’t die.
SAL: That’s the plan. Need to focus, Gingersnap.

I don’t respond, afraid he’ll miss shooting a guy because I texted. That’s not something I could come back from. I clutch my
phone and pull down a cashmere camel coat. I drape it over me and pull it up like a kid settling in for Xmas Eve. It’s agony
being curled up in here, and I’m not sure how to compartmentalize all of this. When I’m at home in Sonoma, is this what he’s
doing? I’m mincing garlic and he’s being shot at or doing the shooting. Either way, there’s risk and bullets and fuck. Reality
crushes me a little, but the only thing it can’t touch is the way I feel about him.
 I lean my head against the wall. There’s too much silence in this gun battle. Have they turned to knives? Are nun chucks
quiet? Aren’t they ninja weapons? Oh, god. Now I think they’re ninjas? His world is so beyond my scope, could be ninjas. I
move again, and that metal handle hits me in the back again. It’s a safe of some sort. It’s like an entire wall. It’s so eerily quiet
and I think about texting just so I know he’s alive. I write a message to him.
POPPY: I don’t know what to say. I came here to yell at you for breaking up with me. For leaving me and all I
can think about now is how I want you to be on the other side of this door when it opens. I want to fight,
laugh, reconcile, do dirty stuff, hold your hand, be held, and cook for you. I’m terrified sitting in here. I can’t
stop shaking or catch my breath, really. But it’s not because I might die. It’s because you might

.
I don’t send it. I clutch my phone to me like it will cosmically get to him. That he knows if he’d let me, I’d stand right
beside him against anything. I don’t think he knows that.
And even though I came there to set things right, it wasn’t until now; I realized there’s only forward for us. No matter what,
I’m only fully alive when he’s with me. I’ve never really opened my eyes or belonged anywhere. I was always the AI Bot
version of myself. Something slightly off until him. I never fit anywhere because I was meant to fit with him.
I hear him bellow. “All of them. Leave no one and torch the fucking cars and toss the carcasses in a ravine. And fucking
find out who the hell decided this was a good fucking idea. To attack me here at my home!?”
Lou yells into the hallway, “Done.”
“Who the fuck is coming for me? Is this Enzo stirring up shit?! Or some other broken down outlet?” Then he yells, “Mark!”
Oh, thank God he’s talking to the FBI guy he has to work with to get out from under all of this. He’s a friend of Josh’s. Sal
continues, “Rain of bullets. A fucking hurricane cat 5 level of bullet rain at my home. Fix this shit. Do your fucking job, you
FBI motherfucking piece of garbage. You have a leak or I do. Someone knew I was here. This was well planned. Is there a
fucking schedule somewhere? Fucking burn it.”
His voice is low and loud. “You want me as an asset? Then stop people from trying to ice me.” I only hear one side of this
conversation. I lean against the door, my heart begging for him to come and get me.
“No. Cleaned already. What? I’m gonna ask for more fucking trouble? No sir, you could eat off my floor.” There are
several explosions and a long pause.
“Well, they’re gone now. Pull the footage. And ankle bracelet me. Track me, whatever, but let me leave my fucking house.
I’m a target in what we thought was the safest place. I’m tired of asking permission to take care of my business or my personal
life. Be by my fucking side so it doesn’t look like I’m on a fucking leash. I have something to attend to, so I’ll be saying
goodbye, and I won’t hold your personal comments against you.”
There’s a pause.
“Pink suitcase. Yes. And don’t fuck with me on this. Doesn’t matter who.”
I exhale as Sal says that with such resignation. Mark must somehow have seen my suitcase explode on security cameras or
something but missed me being hauled into the house. I scoot back onto the floor and into the shadows as my breathing
regulates.
The door unlocks and I stare up at the door frame, letting my eyes adjust on the man I want to pour my whole life into.
He grins and says, “Those gorgeous greens are hitting me right in the fucking solar plexus.”
There’s no blood. He doesn’t look hurt. I stand on shaky legs, my voice louder and shakier than I want it to be. “We are
NOT broken up.”
“Good to see you too, Gingersnap.” I launch at him, and he catches me. I pat him down all over, searching for evidence that
he’s ok. “I’m fine. Not a scratch.” I hold him close and he hoists me to him. I wrap my whole body around this giant man who
tried to get rid of me. He kisses the top of my head and squeezes me to him.
“Is it safe?” I say into his chest.
“Never. And that’s the point. That’s why I left you. I can’t possibly keep you safe from all this shit.” I look around and I
only see some broken glass.
“You cleaned it all.”
He holsters his gun, and I don’t flinch. Not sure why I don’t flinch, other than I’m in shock. He slings his other arm around
me and walks me to the back of the house.
He says, “I have good people.” He lifts me onto the kitchen counter and steps between my legs. My adrenaline is pumping
out of control and I put my hand on his face. It’s still shaking, but his dark, beautiful eyes are so open and vulnerable. He
pushes the hair out of my face. He presses his lips to my forehead and holds us there for a minute.
“I’m not a good guy. I’ve done too much to have you.” It comes out like a rasp.
“Were they? I mean, did they deserve it? I mean, no one deserves to die but ---” My voice drops away. That’s not like me.
I’m usually never at a loss for words. He puts his forehead to mine.
“Yes. And not always. I only knew some of them and whatever fucking awful you can think of, they fucking did it. There are
some people who deserve it. I don’t want any of this shit touching you. But I can’t stop.” His hands run up and down my arms
as he stands up.
No. He does not get to blame himself for the world he’s in. He settles on my hips and grips me hard. “You said you’re no
good. That you’re dangerous.”
“As evidenced by today.” He’s so earnest.
“And you can’t protect me.” His lips curl.
“Certainly not when you do stupid shit like you did today by showing up.” I grip his forearms because I’m determined to
tell him all the things that have been clawing their way out of me my whole life. My brow is furrowed and determined, and my
mind set.
“That’s a look, Gingersnap. What you got?”
“Dangerous. Ok. That may be well and true. That this is all scary but sitting in that tiny room waiting to see you--” My
breath is even finally. “We have no choices anymore. Whoever you’ve been in the past or anyone has called you. Those titles
and job descriptions that are like out of a movie script, don’t matter. The only label that matters moving forward is mine.
You’re mine. You’re my peace and every piece of me is yours. Love is hard enough even without bullets. We’ll just have to try
a little harder. But so help me god, if you try to break up with me again for a bullshit reason- I will absolutely get that big guy
Lou to beat your ass for me.”
He shakes his head at me. “Woman, you’re insane. Bullshit? Bullets, blood, revenge, drug traffickers, fucking assholes,
made guys that will all keep coming for me, and they won’t hesitate to use you against me in all the gory ways you can imagine.
And it’s not TV, it’s not a fucking movie you can turn off when it gets too intense.”
I grin because he knows I turn off shows or movies when they’re too much. I look at the ceiling and try to picture turning off
my life. I can’t. Won’t work, I’m in this.
“Focus, sassy. This is the horror. They will torture you to get my power, my parts, my money, my crew. Did you just smirk
at me? Come on. You’re fucking impossible. Do not raise that sexy eyebrow at me.” He gives me some side eye and then says,
“Wait, you love me?”
“Unfortunately.”
His big, bold laugh rumbles through both of us. He attacks my lips. And folds my leg around his waist. I twist and slide my
tongue against his. The moaning and groping is out of fucking wild control. We are lust and heat and spent frayed moments
close to death.
I pull back once we’re both panting, and he steps back to get some distance from me.
“And your sassy ass thought it would be a good idea to show up here unannounced?”
“I’m sorry. I never thought…and it was terrifying, and I can’t stop…” I say earnestly because I’m not sure how this
conversation is going to end. My eyes fill with tears that have been waiting for their moment.
“Don’t be sorry for wanting to see me. You can’t do boneheaded shit like this, though. I have the luxury of looking
impulsive and romantic to you, but every fucking move I make and those around me has to be calculated.”
I swipe my eyes, trying to put on a brave face for him. “I didn’t think it through. I just needed to yell at you as soon as
possible.” I’m shaking and crying. I’m terrified but I’m more terrified of walking away. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t mean to
get people killed.”
“You didn’t. My guys are ok, and those guys are not your fault.”
I take in some more breaths and stroke my fingers against each other. “I needed you to know that you can’t shake me that
easily. But maybe not an unannounced pop-in next time.”
He paces around the kitchen and scrubs the stubble on his face. I hear the scratch and I know exactly what that feels like on
my skin. A clean shave on this Italian man doesn’t last long.
“I’m a bit exasperated that everlasting happiness comes as a pain in the ass gorgeous woman.” I smile and then his face
turns more serious.
“I wish I was a better man, a stranger and not so selfish. But I take. I conquer, possess. My wants don’t go unanswered in
my world. And now that you’re here. I’m done denying myself. Fuck it.” I slide off the counter and he moves, lightening quick
to cage me in place with his hands on the marble behind me and his face close to mine.
He’s pulled out his calm, dark and commanding tone, the kind I’ve only heard in bed. It’s almost like a growl or something
so primal and guttural my body erupts in goosebumps before he speaks again.
“You’re mine. Do you fucking hear me? You don’t get to touch another man ever again. I’m so fucking gone for you. If you
want this, this is what I am. I’m not dating you and hoping to catch a nice fancy supper sometime and maybe hold your hand.
You don’t flirt with anyone else. You don’t answer to anyone but me. I will not be able to handle it because this is how much I
want you in all the parts of my life. In my arms, in my bed and at my side. You’re all in or you’re all out right now. I cannot
hear stories of you out at a bar with friends and a guy hits on you. I will hunt that man down, so he knows he touched something
that wasn’t his.” I poke at him a little bit.
“Seriously, you’ll hunt down a man for flirting. That seems excessive.”
“Try me.” He flattens me with a look. “I don’t share or play well with others.” He reaches out and cups me through my
dress. “And this. Mine. Only mine.” I gasp. He moves his hand back up to the counter to keep me pinned. “Understand? Pretty
sure this love will kill me because I’d die for you. Christ, woman, you’re the end and the beginning of everything in my soul.
How the fuck did you do that?”
I stare at him and then raise my eyebrows. “You done?” He lets his lips curl up like he can’t help it. Seeing the man behind
the Don is my favorite part of being his.
“With you, I’m thinking never. So, what was your no about?” I lick my lips and look at my most unlikely perfect man. “Give
it to me. I need it, Gingersnap.”
“The only thing I’m scared of is losing you. So, no. You will not get rid of me. I’m yours for more than forever. I love you.”
“Damn, that’s a sweet fucking sentence. Thanks, I needed that. I love you too, in case you didn’t figure that out. And pretty
sure it’s going to be the death of me.” He kisses me deep and slow, then winks at me. “Let’s go upstairs before anyone else
comes looking for me.”
 Chapter
Five

POPPY
Day 8 (PS)
My eyes pop open, and a smile is on my face. Then it hits me like a 2x4 each time I wake up. He’s dead. I turn into the back
of the couch and contemplate another sleeping pill. If the only place I can see him is in my dreams, then I’ll only be awake long
enough to eat and pee.
I roll over and reach onto the coffee table, feeling around in the murky light for the pill bottle. And it rolls off the other side
and towards the kitchen area. Shit. I’m too cozy to get up. I pull my phone from between the cushions.
POPPY: I need your help. Not 911 but important.
JIMS: Of course, my darling. Dropping the kids off at daycare and I’ll be right over. The husband is picking
them up so I can spend the day helping you with your non 911 emergency.
POPPY: TY

Twenty minutes later, my best friend bursts into my dark lair. I observe the dust particles as they float down, highlighted by
the sunlight.
“Poppy? Hon, are you awake? Jims Langerford at your service. Pop?”
I moan like I’m just waking up. I close my eyes to him. The couch sinks down and my bestie rubs my legs under the blanket.
His hands settle on my feet. I wiggle my toes and open my red-rimmed eyes.
“Hi,” I croak out. Not sure I’ve used my voice in a couple of days.
“Love. Oh, my love. This is all very tragic. Height of tragic and you are playing the part well. But you look like shit. That
can’t feel so great.” He’s impeccably dressed to drop his children off at daycare.
“Grief. I’m dressed in grief.” He sighs and squeezes my leg.
“What did you need?
“Can you get me those pills over there?” I ask.
He glances three feet beyond the coffee table to the bottle that’s rolled over there.
“Oh, hell no.”
“Please,” I plead. I’m sure I could work up some tears. They’re always at the surface.
“If you weren’t a widow…” I try to smile. He stands and pulls a perfect crease down the front of his pants and picks them
off the floor. I reach out my hand.
He puts a finger up in the air. “Hell to the fucking no.” He’s reading the bottle. “Who gave you this shit?”
“Doctor Johnson,” I say defiantly. “A doctor prescribed them.”
He puts a hand on his hip and leans forward. “Did he prescribe it from his barstool at the Town Square bar?”
“Funeral,” I answer.
He tosses his head back and then breathes heavily. When he looks back at me, he’s pissed, I can tell. “He’s a blast of a man
and a caring doctor, but this is fucking Halcion. Look, Judy Garland, pills are not your answer. You’re such a goodie goodie.
What in the actual fuck with these pills?”
“I just want to sleep.” My voice ends in half equal parts sob and desperation. He does exactly what I think he’ll do. He
dumps them into the sink and turns on the disposal. Then he lifts me weakly into his arms and carries me into the bathroom. I’m
still in the same dress as I was four days ago. He sets me down on the counter and turns on the shower. Then he rolls up his
sleeves. When the water steams up the room a bit, he turns back to me.
“Arms up, stinky.” A sob comes from me instead of saying yes.
“I’m so sad.”
Another random document with
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carelessly discovered a resemblance between the said starved poet and your
humble servant, the consequence of which was that your humble servant
bought up, at no inconsiderable expense, all the copies of the said print, and
committed them to the flames. And now, if I were to see my own features
prefixed to my own writings; if I were to imagine to myself your curiosity,
my public, criticizing expression of countenance as well as expression of
thought, and lines of face as well as lines of metre, I could not endure it—I
should faint! Yes, I should positively faint.
I have another reason; another very momentous one. I once heard a lady
criticizing the “Lines to——.” How beautiful were the criticisms; and how
beautiful was the critic! I would have given the riches of Mexico for such a
review, and such a reviewer. But to proceed with my story—thus were the
remarks wound up:—“Now do, Mr. Courtenay, tell me who is the author?
What an interesting looking man he must be!”
From that moment I have been enwrapt in most delightful day-dreams. I
have constantly said to myself, “Peregrine, perhaps at this moment bright
eyes are looking on your effusion; and sweet voices are saying, ‘What a
pretty young man Mr. Courtenay must be!’” And shall I publish my picture,
and give them the lie? Oh, no! I will preserve to them the charity of their
conjectures, and to myself the comfort of their opinion.
And now what rests for me but to express my gratitude to all who have
assisted me by their advice or their support, and to beg, that if, in
discharging my part to the best of my abilities, it has been my misfortune to
give offence to any one of them, he will believe that I sinned not
intentionally, and forgive me as well as he can.
I have also to return thanks to many gentlemen who have honoured me
by marks of individual kindness. It would be painful for me to leave this
spot without assuring them, that in all places, and under all circumstances, I
shall have a lively recollection of the attention they have shown me, and the
interest they have expressed in my success.
But most of all, I have to speak my feelings to him who, at my earnest
solicitations, undertook to bear an equal portion of my fatigues and my
responsibility—to him who has performed so diligently the labours which
he entered upon so reluctantly—to him who has been the constant
companion of my hopes and fears, my good and ill fortune—to him who, by
the assiduity of his own attention, and the genius of the contributors whose
good offices he secured, has ensured the success of the Etonian.
I began this letter in a light and jesting vein, but I find that I cannot keep
it up. My departure from Eton and the Etonian is really too serious a
business for a jest or a gibe. I have felt my spirits sinking by little and little,
until I have become downright melancholy. I shall make haste, therefore, to
come to a conclusion. I have done, and I subscribe myself (for the last
time),
My dear Public,
Your obliged and devoted servant,
Peregrine Courtenay.
 ABDICATION OF THE KING OF CLUBS.
We, Peregrine, by Our own choice, and the public favour, King of Clubs,
and editor of the Etonian, in the ninth month of Our reign, being this day in
possession of Our full and unimpaired faculties both of mind and body, do,
by these presents, address Ourselves to all Our loving subjects, whether
holding place and profit under Us, or not.
Inasmuch as We are sensible that We must shortly be removed from this
state of trial, and translated to another life, leaving behind Us all the
trappings of royalty, all the duties of government, all the concerns of this
condition of being, it does seem good to Us, before We are withdrawn from
the eyes of Our dearly beloved friends and subjects, to abdicate and divest
Ourselves of all the ensigns of power and authority which We have hitherto
borne; and We do hereby willingly abdicate and divest Ourselves of the
same.
And be it, by all whom it may concern, remembered, that the cares and
labours of Peregrine, sometime King of Clubs, are henceforth directed to
another world; and that if any one shall assume the sceptre and the style of
Peregrine, the first King of Clubs, such person is a liar and usurper.
Howbeit, If it shall please Our trusty subjects and counsellors to set upon
Our Throne a rightful and legitimate successor, We will that the allegiance
of Our people be transferred to him; and that he be accounted supreme over
serious and comic, verse and prose; and that the treasury of Our Kingdom,
with all that it shall at such time contain, song, and sonnet, and epigram,
and epic, and descriptions, and nondescripts, shall be made over forthwith
to his charge and keeping.
And for all acts, and writings, made and done during the period of Our
reign, to wit, from the twentieth day of October, anno Domini eighteen
hundred and twenty, to the twenty-eighth day of July, eighteen hundred and
twenty-one, inclusive, we commit them to the memory of men, for the
entertainment of our friends and the instruction of posterity.
Further, If any one shall take upon himself the office of commenting
upon any of the deeds and transactions which have taken place under Our
administration, whether such comment shall go forth in plain drab or in
gaudier saffron and blue, We recommend to such person charity and
forbearance, and in their spirit let him say forth his say.
And be it hereby known, that for all that has been said or done against
Us, during the above-mentioned period, whether by open hostility or secret
dislike, We do this day publish a general and hearty Amnesty: And We will
that all such offences be from henceforth committed to oblivion, and that no
person shall presume to recall to Our recollection such sins and treasons.
And We also entreat that if, in the course of a long and arduous
administration, it has been Our lot to inflict wounds in self-defence, or to
wound, unknowingly, those who were unconnected with Us, the forgiveness
which We extend to others will be extended by others to Us.
And We do, from this day, release from all bond, duty, and obligation
those who have assisted Us by their counsel and support; leaving it to all
such persons to transfer their services to any other master, as seemeth to
them best.
We decree that Our punchbowl be henceforth consecrated to Our lonely
hours and our pleasant recollections; that no one do henceforth apply his
lips to its margin; and that all future potentates in this state of Eton do
submit to assemble their privy council around a coffee-pot or an urn.
And We most earnestly recommend to those dear friends, whom We
must perforce leave behind Us, that in all places and conditions they
continue to perform their duties in a worshipful manner, always
endeavouring to be a credit to the Prince whom they have so long honoured
by their service.
And now, as Our predecessor, Charles of Germany, in the meridian of his
glory, laid down the reins of empire, exchanging the court for the cloister,
and the crown for the cowl—even so do We, Peregrine of Clubs, lay down
the pen and the paper, exchanging celebrity for obscurity, punch for algebra,
the printing-office for Trinity College. And We entreat all those who have
Our welfare at heart to remember Us sometimes in their orisons. And so We
depart.
Peregrine.
Given in our Club-room, this twenty-eighth
day of July, A.D. 1821.
 THE UNION CLUB.

A.D. 1823.

The Union Club, of rhetorical fame,

Was held at the Red Lion Inn,[9]
And there never was Lion so perfectly tame,
Or who made such a musical din.
’Tis pleasant to snore, at a quarter before,
When the Chairman does nothing in state,
But ’tis heaven, ’tis heaven, to waken at seven,
And pray for a noisy debate!

“What’s the question?”—“Reform.” “What! the old story!”—“Yes, the old

story; the common good against the Commons’ House; speechifying versus
starvation!” “Oh, but you’re a red-hot Radical?”—“Yes, that’s my key;
every man is red-hot who is deep read!” “Reform in Parliament?”—“Yes,
the only thing men are agreed upon; for the Outs can’t carry it, and the Ins
can’t bear it.” “Infamous! split me!”—“Order, order! Gentlemen will be so
good as to take their seats. The question for this evening’s debate is: ‘Would
Reform in Parliament have been conducive to the welfare of the country at
any period previous to the year 1800?’ To be opened by Mr. Pattison of St.
John’s.”
And the honourable opener immediately mounts his hobby, and proceeds
at a rapid rate over a level road, panting and blowing like a courier. Off he
goes! Mounts at Magna Charta, breakfasts with the Long Parliament, dines
with William and Anne, and finds himself comfortably at home in the state
of the nation.
[10]“We have heard of a time, Mr. President, when England was the envy
and the terror of the whole world; we have heard of a time when commerce
flourished, and the quartern loaf was sold for a penny-halfpenny; but these
things are now altered; bread has risen, as stocks have fallen; we lose time
in debates, and we lose men in battle; and are not all these things owing to
Mr. Pitt? Unfortunate man! he had it in his power to make his country
happy, and he has left it miserable; all of it encumbered with penury and
taxation, and half of it fettered by a damnable religious restriction. Yes, Mr.
President, from the fear of rebellion and revolution, the Protestants are
wretched and spied upon; and from the dread of the Holy Alliance, the
Pope, the Pretender, the Arch-Fiend Napoleon, and the Devil, the Catholics
are oppressed and persecuted.”
Here the honourable member is jerked from his hobby by an orthodox
hiss from the corner, and he sits down among the comments of the crowd.
“What do you think of the opener?”—“Why, I think he’s all

Public debts,
Epithets,
Foul and filthy, good and great,
Glorious wars,
British tars,
Beat and bruise
Parlez-vous,
Frenzy, frown,
Commons, Crown,
Ass and pannier,
Rule Britannia!—
How I love a loud debate!”

Then the Church shakes her rattle, and sends forth to battle
The terror of Papist and sinner,
Who loves to be seen as the modern Mæcenas,
And asks all the poets to dinner.

[11]“Mr. President,—I rise to express my dissent from the honourable

opener with regard to the Catholics. With respect to the question of debate,
my sentiments are entirely those of the late Charles James Fox. He was a
man adorned by every manly virtue that can adorn and dignify a man—
Propria quæ maribus tribuuntur, mascula dicas. But with regard to the
Catholics, when I remember the times of the Bloody Queen Mary, when I
call to mind the horrible massacres she perpetrated—the helpless old
women that were depopulated—I cannot sufficiently restrain my feelings to
hear the Catholics commended without expressing my dissent.”
 Then the gentleman Attic, with tales Asiatic
And body that bends with a grace,
The maker of jeers that led us for years,
The prime Staple-Ton of the place.

[12]“Mr. President,—From the look of virtuous indignation with which

the honourable gentleman arose from his seat, I expected to have heard
something worthy of a Blair or a Benson, a Confucius or a
Nebuchadnezzar; but lo! when my hopes were wrought up to the highest
pitch, the honourable gentleman has suddenly reseated himself, and I do not
even understand the purport of his sudden ebullition. Once upon a time a
sudden darkness overspread the town of Ching-Chong-Foo; the sun and the
moon and the stars were hidden, all business was suspended, all hearts were
astounded. The mathematician Sing-Su said it was an eclipse; the Bishop
Chit-Quong said it was the Devil; and the Chancellor Hum-lum said that he
doubted: when suddenly there flew down from the skies, extending his
wings over all the city, a stupendous cock; he soared majestically down—
sullenly—slowly; and when they expected from him the voice of Azrael the
Destroyer, or the Mandate of Mahomet the Prophet, he said—nothing, Mr.
President, but Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
“Why the devil do you laugh?”—“Laugh! why because it’s all

Indian Stories,
Damn the Tories,
None but he can rule the State,
Wise magicians,
Politicians,
Foreign lands,
Kings and wands,
Fiends and fairies,
Dromedaries,
Laugh at Boodle’s,
Cock-a-doodles—
How I love a loud debate!”
 Then up gets a youth with a visage of truth,
An omen of good to our islands,
Who promises health and abundance of wealth
To our Oatlands, and Wheatlands, and Ryelands.

[13]“Mr. President,—I had not intended to address you on the present

question; but some observations which have been made on the character of
George the Third prevent me from remaining silent. If I use any strong
expressions, I trust they will be attributed to the violence of my feelings.”
(Refers to a paper.) “When I remember, Sir, that in the reign of George the
Third the purest blessings of Heaven were shed upon us, and that Mr. Pitt
was Prime Minister; that the powers of darkness were scattered before us,
and that the combined fleets of France and Spain were defeated—above all,
when I reflect that all the nine Muses migrated from Pindus to England, and
that Mr. Southey was the Poet Laureate—I cannot help saying that George
the Third, who reigned so gloriously, and lived to an advanced period of
life, was very wise, very prudent, and very triumphant. In short, Sir, I do not
fear to affirm that he was very good.”
And the honourable gentleman halts as systematically as a posthorse
knocked up or a timepiece run down. “Very perfect in his lesson!”—“Oh,
very! but it’s all

Sigh and simper,

Whine and whimper,
Kings and princes, Church and State;
Cut and dried,
Ill applied,
Nightly taper,
Pen and paper,
Audience dozing,
How composing!
Would ’twere shorter!
Milk and water!—
How I love a loud debate!”
 But the favourite comes, with his trumpets and drums,
And his arms and his metaphors crossed;
And the audience—Ο dear!—vociferate “Hear!”
Till they’re half of them deaf as a post.

And the honourable gentleman, after making the grand tour in a hand
canter, touching cursorily upon Rome, Constantinople, Amsterdam,
Philadelphia, and the Red Sea; with two quotations, two or three hundred
similes, and two or three hundred thousand metaphors, proceeds to the tune
of
[14]“We, Mr. President, have indeed awful examples to direct us or deter.
Have we not seen the arms of the mighty overpowered, and the counsels of
the wise confounded? Have not the swords of licentious conquest, and the
fasces of perverted law, covered Europe with blood, and tears, and
mourning? Have not priests and princes and nobles been driven in beggary
and exile to implore the protection of rival thrones and hostile altars?
Where is the sacred magnificence of Rome? Where the wealth and
independence of Holland? Where the proud titles of the German Cæsars?
Where the mighty dynasty of Bourbon? But is there yet one nation which
has retained unimpaired its moral and political strength? One nation, whose
shores have ever been accessible to a suppliant, and never to an enemy?
One nation which, while the banners of her foes have been carried in
triumph to half the capitals of the world, has seen them only suspended over
her shrines as trophies? One nation, which, while so many cities have been
a prey to hostile fires, has never seen her streets lighted up but with the
blaze of victorious illumination? History and posterity will reply, ‘That
country was England.’ Let them not talk to us of their philosophy and their
philanthropy, their reason and their rights! We know too well the oratory of
their Smithfield meetings, and the orgies of their midnight clubs! We have
seen the weapons which arm, and the spirit which nerves them. We have
heard the hyæna howl, till the raving which excited dismay provokes
nothing but disgust. Amid the railings of disappointed ambition, and the
curses of factious hate; amid the machinations of the foully wicked, and the
sophistries of the would-be wise, we will cling to our fathers’ banner—we
will rally round our native rock. Mr. President, that banner is the Charta of
our rights—that Rock is the British Constitution!”
 “Bravo!” “Can’t say I quite caught the line of argument.” “Argument!
Fiddlestick! Quite gone out except for opponencies; and then for the
language, and the feeling, and the style, and all that sort of thing—oh!
nobody can deny that it was all

Oratoric,
Metaphoric,
Similes of wondrous length;
Illustration,
Conflagration,
Ancient Romans,
House of Commons,
Clever Uriel
And Ithuriel,
Good old king,
Everything!—
How I love a loud debate!”

With his sayings and saws, his hems and his haws,
Another comes up to the scratch;
While Deacon and Law unite in a yaw! [Yawning.
And the President looks at his watch.

And the honourable gentleman, after making a long journey and

plunging up to his knees in dirt, bog, and quagmire; after taking up many
strong positions and much valuable time, after bruising the Bishops and the
table, and twisting his argument and his sleeve in twenty different ways,
proceeds to wake the members with a joke.
[15]“Mr. President,—I am out of all patience when I hear the poor abused
because they wish to reform the Constitution. Why, when you have taken
from them all they have got, and all they hope to get, what can they do?
Why, they complain, to be sure; and as soon as they complain, like the poor
fellow who was tried for stealing a pair of leather breeches, and found
guilty of manslaughter, the unfortunate rabble—though why they are called
rabble the Attorney-General only knows, I’m sure I don’t—but, as I said
before, the unfortunate rabble are prosecuted upon ex officio informations,
or persecuted by a Bridge Street gang, which I look upon as a combination
of fiends against our Constitution—that is, what we’ve got left of it, which
to be sure is but little, whatever the honourable gentlemen opposite may
think, who seem to be very much amused at the idea—but as I said before,
the unfortunate rabble, like the poor fellow who was tried for stealing a pair
of leather breeches and found guilty of manslaughter, is tried for high
treason and found guilty of being ragged, and so is hung, fined, imprisoned,
or sent to Botany Bay, or Australasia as the Vice-Chancellor calls it,
according to the will and pleasure of His Majesty’s Attorney and Solicitor-
General. But the honourable gentleman would let the poor starve, while the
rich take coffee and snuff, talk religion, and buy into the stocks; provided
my Lord this and my Lord that may keep their mistresses and their
boroughs, all the scum, all the canaille may be cut down by the dozen. The
honourable gentleman cares no more for the poor than the country
gentleman did—a good, honest, well-meaning man—who lost so many
turnips that he wanted to make turnip-stealing a capital offence. The
country gentleman and the honourable gentleman argue on the same ground
—they are on the same bench—there they are!”
“Bravo!” “Bravo!” “Pray, Sir, how long has that young gentleman been
on his legs?”—“Really I can’t tell, 1 was so much amused at his

Admirable,
Bang the table,
‘Sir, although its getting late,’
Opposition,
Repetition,
Endless speeches,
Leather breeches,
Taxes, hops,
Turnip-tops,
Leather ’em, lather ’em,
Omnium-gatherum—
How I love a loud debate!”

Mr. Punnett, whose vows are put up for the House

As if he was born to the trade,
Would chafe if we close with the ayes and the noes,
And break up before we have—prayed!

And accordingly, after the honourable gentleman has abused, ad libitum,

all persons not freeholders who wish to have votes, and told us, “as for such
people, now we have got ’em down, keep ’em down;” he is succeeded by
the laureate jester of the society. The honourable gentleman plunges into a
sea of puns, passes a few modest strictures on the freedom of the press,
likens Frederick the Great to a thief, and Mr. Bartholomew to the devil; and
at last betakes himself, like all poets, to abusing his friends.
[16]“Not being disposed, Mr. President, to pun it in a decidedly personal
manner through any more of the honourable gentleman’s speech, I proceed
to say a few words in reply to my honourable friend who preceded him. But
I conceive, Mr. President, when I see how much the table of the House has
suffered from the fist of the honourable gentleman, I may be somewhat
afraid of the knock-down arguments of my honourable friend. Let him not
commit violence on our persons or our property; let him not frighten the
freshman or annihilate the Soph. He is already the Ord of this House, let
him not make himself the Lord of it; we give him an inch, let him not take
an ‘L.’ But I conceive, Sir, that my honourable friend will attend to no
suggestion of mine. He is a Republican, a Radical, a Revolutionist, a Fury, a
Firebrand; but, however hot may be the doctrines he now advocates, I
would whisper in his ear: ‘You were once something far more reasonable;
yes, though you may now be a rioter or a regicide, yet, as the poet says, You
were a Whig, and thereby hangs a tale!’ I have detained the House too long,
and will make haste to conclude. I have been censured for mixing too much
of the ludicrous with the debates of the House. It has been said of me that
the thread of my argument is drawn from the tassel of my cap, that the point
of my jokes is drawn from the belles of Barnwell. Mr. President, I plead
guilty to the charges, and the House must be well aware that the insignia of
my profession were never anything but the cap and bells!”

Quite divine
Peregrine,
Never shall we see his mate;
Fun and flams,
Epigrams,
Leering, lying,
Versifying,
Nodding, noting,
Quibbling, quoting,
‘Thief!’ and ‘Bore!’
‘Lie!’ no more—
How I love a loud debate!”
 Then up gets the glory of us and our story,
Who does all by logic and rule,
Who can tell the true diff’rence ’twixt twopence and threepence,
And prove Adam Smith quite a fool.

[17]“Mr. President,—I had intended to have addressed the meeting at

considerable length, but as the ground I meant to occupy has been entirely
and successfully anticipated by my honourable friends, I shall not dwell
upon the crying and terrible demand there is for Parliamentary Reform, but
shall confine my observations to the existing aggression of France upon
Spain. For it is not so much the question whether France or Spain shall be
victorious; it is not so much the question whether that ‘alter Achilles,’ the
Duke d’Angoulême, with his miserable and half-starved myrmidons, or
General Mina and his patriots, shall be vanquished; the question is, whether
the nefarious and accursed principles of foreign aggression and tyranny, the
principles of despotism and usurpation, shall triumph eternally over the
principles of freedom; whether worse than Scythian ignorance and
barbarism shall crush the progress of science and enlightened
understanding; whether that holy knot of confederated despots (who I trust
in heaven will ere long meet their well-earned reward of the halter)—
whether they are to dictate laws and constitutions to the rest of mankind;
whether that hellish power which has crushed the freedom and trampled on
the genius of Italy shall crush the freedom and trample on the genius of the
rest of the world; whether we, who boast ourselves freeborn Englishmen,
shall tamely look on and see the rights of nations and the rights of man
assaulted and violated; whether we are to listen with submission and
humility to the insolent decrees of the Autocrat of the Russias; whether we
are to cringe and subscribe to the proclamation of a semi-barbarian who
dares to issue his mandate to the world—a mandate which is nothing but an
ignorant tissue of Syrio-Calmuc jargon and cacophony.”

But Lord! Sir, you ask a more difficult task

That aught in the son-shop of Burchill,
If you ask me to dish up, like many a Bishop,
The eminent words of the Church-ill!
 [18]“Mr. President,—The honourable opener of this debate called Mr.
Pitt an unfortunate man; now I think him a very fortunate man. He went
about, like Jeremy Diddler, borrowing sixpence from every one who was
fool enough to lend him, and died before he was called on to refund. We
have heard the prosperous state of the country referred to. Now, Sir,
everybody that can pay for his passage is going to the Cape; for though a
man likes his bed, he leaves it when he finds it full of fleas. The distresses
of England have also been alluded to. Now, Sir, with regard to Lord George
Gordon’s riots, they were like Tom Thumb’s giants—the Minister made the
riots first, and then he quelled them.”
“Does any other honourable gentleman wish to address the House? I
shall proceed to put the question. It is carried that Parliamentary Reform
would not be beneficial, by a majority of 77 to 13. (Hear! hear! hear!) There
is a motion on the boards, ‘That an adequate supply of chairs for the
reading-room be provided—proposed by Mr. Moore, of Caius.’”
[19]“Mr. President,—It is not often that I rise to address this society; nor
should I on the present occasion, but that I see so strong a necessity for
interference, that I should deem it a dereliction of my duty were I to remain
silent. In those things which regard our intellectual and moral improvement,
this society should be more especially attentive to its interests; but I have
observed with regret and concern that there is by no means an adequate
supply of chairs in our reading-room, and I therefore move that a fit supply
be immediately procured.”
[20]“Mr. President,—I have observed with great satisfaction the interest
which the honourable gentleman takes in the welfare of this society; but as
in an inn, where there are nine beds, and ten travellers to sleep in them, one
bed must carry double or one traveller must go without; so, in the present
case, if upon any occasion the honourable gentleman should find ten chairs
in the reading-room occupied by ten individuals, I should recommend him
to make them determine by lot which of them shall hold him on his knees!”
“Well, Sir, what do you think of the Union?”—“Why, Sir, I think it’s all
 Bow, wow,
What a row,
Money lost, and laurels earned;
Constitution,
Elocution,
Whig and Tory,
Oratory,
Hauling, bawling,
‘Order’ calling,
Headache, dizziness,
No more business—
Sirs, the meeting is adjourned.”
 MY FIRST FOLLY.
“L’imagination grossit souvent les plus petits objets par une estimation
fantastique jusqu’à remplir notre âme.”—Pensées de Pascal.

“I have spent all my golden time,

In writing many a loving rime:
I have consumed all my youth
In vowing of my faith and trueth;
Ο willow, willow, willow tree,
Yet can I not beleeved bee.”—Old Ballad.

“Do you take trifle?” said Lady Olivia to my poor friend Halloran.
“No, Ma’am, I am reading philosophy,” said Halloran; waking from a fit
of abstraction, with about as much consciousness and perception as exists in
a petrified oyster, or an alderman dying of a surfeit. Halloran is a fool.
A trifle is the one good thing, the sole and surpassing enjoyment. He
only is happy who can fix his thoughts, and his hopes, and his feelings, and
his affections, upon those fickle and fading pleasures, which are tenderly
cherished and easily forgotten, alike acute in their excitement and brief in
their regret. Trifles constitute my summum bonum. Sages may crush them
with the heavy train of argument and syllogism; schoolboys may assail
them with the light artillery of essay and of theme; Members of Parliament
may loathe, doctors of divinity may contemn—bag wigs and big wigs, blue
devils and blue stockings, sophistry and sermons, reasonings and wrinkles,
Solon, Thales, Newton’s “Principia,” Mr. Walker’s “Eidouranion,” the
King’s Bench, the bench of Bishops—all these are serious antagonists; very
serious! But I care not; I defy them; I dote upon trifles; my name is Vyvyan
Joyeuse, and my motto is “Vive la Bagatelle!”
There are many persons who, while they have a tolerable taste for the
frivolous, yet profess remorse and penitence for their indulgence of it; and
continually court and embrace new day-dreams, while they shrink from the
retrospect of those which have already faded. Peace be to their everlasting
laments and their ever-broken resolutions! Your true trifler, meaning your
humble servant, is a being of a very different order. The luxury which I
renew in the recollection of the past is equal to that which I feel in the
enjoyment of the present, or create in the anticipation of the future. I love to
count and recount every treasure I have flung away, every bubble I have
broken; I love to dream again the dreams of my boyhood, and to see the
visions of departed pleasures flitting, like Ossian’s ghosts, around me, “with
stars dim twinkling through their forms.” I look back with delight to a youth
which has been idled away, to tastes which have been perverted, to talents
which have been misemployed; and while in imagination I wander back
through the haunts of my old idlesse, for all the learning of a Greek
professor, for all the morality of Sir John Sewell, I would not lose one
single point of that which has been ridiculous and grotesque, nor one single
tint of that which has been beautiful and beloved.
Moralists and misanthropists, maidens with starched morals and matrons
with starched frills, ancient adorers of Bohea and scandal, venerable
votaries of whispering and of whist, learned professors of the
compassionate sneer and the innocent innuendo, eternal pillars of gravity
and good order, of stupidity and decorum—come not near me with your
spare and spectacled features, your candid and considerate criticism. In you
I have no hope, in me you have no interest. I am to speak of stories you will
not believe, of beings you cannot love; of foibles for which you have no
compassion, of feelings in which you have no share.
Fortunate and unfortunate couples, belles in silks and beaux in
sentimentals, ye who have wept and sighed, ye who have been wept for and
sighed for, victims of vapours and coiners of vows, makers and marrers of
intrigue, readers and writers of songs—come to me with your attention and
your salts, your sympathy and your cambric; your griefs, your raptures,
your anxieties, all have been mine; I know your blushing and your paleness,
your self-deceiving and your self-tormenting.

so com’è inconstanta e vaga

Timida, ardita vita degli amanti,
Ch’un poco dolce molto amaro appoggia;
Ε so i costumi, e i lor sospiri, e i canti
E’l parlar rotto, e’l subito silenzio,
E’l brevissimo riso, e i lunghi pianti;
E qual è ’l mel temprato con l’assenzio.
 All these things are so beautiful in Italian! But I need not have borrowed
a syllable from Petrarch, for shapes of shadowy beauty, smiles of cherished
loveliness, glances of reviving lustre, are coming in the mist of memory
around me! I am writing “an ower true tale!”
I never fell seriously in love till I was seventeen. Long before that period
I had learned to talk nonsense and tell lies, and had established the
important points that a delicate figure is equivalent to a thousand pounds, a
pretty mouth better than the Bank of England, and a pair of bright eyes
worth all Mexico. But at seventeen a more intricate branch of study awaited
me.
I was lounging away my June at a pretty village in Kent, with little
occupation beyond my own meditations, and no company but my horse and
dogs. My sisters were both in the South of France; and my uncle, at whose
seat I had pitched my camp, was attending to the interests of his
constituents and the wishes of his patron in Parliament. I began after the
lapse of a week to be immensely bored; I felt a considerable dislike of an
agricultural life, and an incipient inclination for laudanum. I took to playing
backgammon with the rector. He was more than a match for me, and used to
grow most unclerically hot when the dice, as was their duty, befriended the
weaker side. At last, at the conclusion of a very long hit, which had kept
Mrs. Penn’s tea waiting full an hour, my worthy and wigged friend flung
deuce-ace three times in succession, put the board in the fire, overturned
Mrs. Penn’s best china, and hurried to his study to compose a sermon on
patience.
Then I took up reading. My uncle had a delightful library, where a
reasonable man might have lived and died. But I confess I never could
endure a long hour of lonely reading. It is a very pretty thing to take down a
volume of Tasso or Racine, and study accent and cadence for the benefit of
half a dozen listening belles, all dividing their attention between the work
and the work-basket, their feelings and their flounces, their tears and their
trimmings, with becoming and laudable perseverance. It is a far prettier
thing to read Petrarch or Rousseau with a single companion, in some
sheltered spot so full of passion and of beauty that you may sit whole days
in its fragrance and dream of Laura and Julie. If these are out of the way, it
is endurable to be tied down to the moth-eaten marvels of antiquity, poring
to-day that you may pore again to-morrow, and labouring for the nine days’
wonder of some temporary distinction, with an ambition which is almost
frenzy, and an emulation which speaks the language of animosity. But to sit
down to a novel or a philosopher, with no companion to participate in the
enjoyment and no object to reward the toil, this indeed—oh! I never could
endure a long hour of lonely reading; and so I deserted Sir Roger’s library,
and left his Marmontel and his Aristotle to the slumbers from which I had
unthinkingly awakened them.
At last I was roused from a state of most Persian torpor by a note from
an old lady, whose hall, for so an indifferent country-house was by courtesy
denominated, stood at the distance of a few miles. She was about to give a
ball. Such a thing had not been seen for ten years within ten miles of us.
From the sensation produced by the intimation you might have deemed the
world at an end. Prayers and entreaties were offered up to all the guardians
and all the milliners; and the old gentlemen rose in a passion, and the old
lace rose in price. Everything was everywhere in a flurry; kitchen, and
parlour, and boudoir and garret—Babel all! Ackermann’s Fashionable
Repository, the Ladies’ Magazine , the New Pocket-book—all these, and all
other publications whose frontispieces presented the “fashions for 1817,”
personified in a thin lady with kid gloves and a formidable obliquity of
vision, were in earnest and immediate requisition. Needles and pins were
flying right and left; dinner was ill-dressed that dancers might be well-
dressed; mutton was marred that misses might be married. There was not a
schoolboy who did not cut Homer and capers; nor a boarding-school beauty
who did not try on a score of dancing shoes, and talk for a fortnight of
Angiolini. Every occupation was laid down, every carpet was taken up;
every combination of hands-across and down the middle was committed
most laudably to memory; and nothing was talked, nothing was meditated,
nothing was dreamed, but love and romance, fiddles and flirtation, warm
negus and handsome partners, dyed feathers and chalked floors.
In all the pride and condescension of an inmate of Grosvenor Square, I
looked upon Lady Motley’s “At Home.” “Yes,” I said, flinging away the
card with a tragedy twist of the fingers, “yes: I will be there. For one
evening I will encounter the tedium and the taste of a village ball. For one
evening I will doom myself to figures that are out of date, and fiddles that
are out of tune; dowagers who make embroidery by wholesale, and
demoiselles who make conquests by profession: for one evening I will
endure the inquiries about Almack’s and St. Paul’s, the tales of the
weddings that have been and the weddings that are to be, the round of
courtesies in the ball-room and the round of beef at the supper-table: for one
evening I will not complain of the everlasting hostess and the everlasting
Boulanger, of the double duty and the double bass, of the great heiress and
the great plum-pudding:

Come one, come all,

Come dance in Sir Roger’s great hall.”

And thus, by dint of civility, indolence, quotation, and antithesis, I bent

up each corporal agent to the terrible feat, and “would have the honour of
waiting upon her ladyship,”—in due form.
I went: turned my uncle’s one-horse chaise into the long old avenue
about an hour after the time specified, and perceived by the lights flashing
from all the windows, and the crash of chairs and carriages returning from
the door, that the room was most punctually full, and the performers most
pastorally impatient. The first face I encountered on my entrance was that
of my old friend Villars; I was delighted to meet him, and expressed my
astonishment at finding him in a situation for which his inclination, one
would have supposed, was so little adapted.
“By Mercury,” he exclaimed, “I am metamorphosed—fairly
metamorphosed, my good Vyvyan; I have been detained here three months
by a fall from Sir Peter, and have amused myself most indefatigably by
humming tunes and reading newspapers, winding silk and guessing
conundrums. I have made myself the admiration, the adoration, the very
worship of all the coteries in the place; am reckoned very clever at cross
purposes, and very apt at ‘What’s my thought like?’ The squires have
discovered I can carve, and the matrons hold me indispensable at loo.
Come! I am of little service to-night, but my popularity may be of use to
you. You don’t know a soul! I thought so—read it in your face the moment
you came in. Never saw such a—— There, Vyvyan, look there! I will
introduce you.” And so saying my companion half limped, half danced with
me up to Miss Amelia Mesnil, and presented me in due form.
When I look back to any particular scene of my existence, I can never
keep the stage clear of second-rate characters. I never think of Mr. Kean’s
Othello without an intrusive reflection upon the subject of Mr. Cooper’s
Cassio; I never call to mind a gorgeous scattering forth of roses from Mr.
Canning, without a painful idea of some contemporary effusion of poppies