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CHAPTER ONE

SOME MEN ENTER a woman’s life and screw it up forever Jimmy Rosolli did this to my Grandma Mazur Not forever, but for an afternoon last hen he married her in the casino at Atlantis and dropped dead forty-five minutes later

So far as I know, the trip to the Bahae was even uess they were just a couple of wild-and-crazy seniors having a moment

My nath brown hair that curls whether I want it to or not I’ve inherited a good arian side of the faen-Dazs and still button et from my father’s Italian ancestry

I work for ent It’s a crappy job, but it’s not as bad asat Stiva’s funeral home

“What do you think of ot a black dress for the funeral, but it’s not s up for the viewing It’s going to be a doozy All the bigwigs from the mob and the K of C will be there”

Grandreen dress thatwith Jimmy Grandma was in her mid-seventies and didn’t look a day over ninety She had the posture and energy of a twenty-year-old ravity had taken its toll She carried slack skin over lean muscle and spindle bone and was in many respects the human version of a soup chicken The day before her ill-fated trip with Jis up at the hair salon and had gone with a short punk cut and flame red hair If you knew Grandht it suited her

“I saw the Queen of England wearing a dress just like this,” Grandma said “She had a hat on that matched the dress, but I couldn’t find one of those”

Grandma came to live with my parents when Grandpa Mazur ate his last pork chop, sucked in the last drag on his Marlboro, and went to heaven to keep his eye on Jesus It’s been a bunch of years now So far, uns away and we never leave sharp knives lying out in the open

My parents live in Trenton, New Jersey, in a shborhood called the Burg My mom has always been a homemaker My dad is retired from the post office

“It’s too bad your mother is in bed with a bad back,” Grandma said to me “It’s not every day that her stepfather is laid to rest”