Sucker Punch (First Fangs Club #3) - Kristen Painter Page 0,21
That seemed to do the trick.
She left the bouquet on the counter so she’d remember to ask Charlie about calling the florist and went to her room to see what she had in the way of swimsuits. Not much, she was afraid, but there was one suit that ought to fit.
She’d bought it a few summers back for a long girls’ weekend to the Jersey Shore. All of the mob wives had rented a big house for the getaway. It wasn’t something Donna had wanted to do. She hadn’t liked being around most of the other wives. It had always turned into a big competition over who had the most expensive purse or the best nails or the newest designer whatever.
And then there was the husband talk. Big Tony’s wife and Donna’s sister-in-law, Lucinda, never went. Which was a blessing, but it made Donna the next most influential wife there. Really, it was a blessing and a curse. Some of the wives treated her like she held the keys to the kingdom. But others acted like it was their job to take her down a peg and remind her that their husbands could just as easily take Joe’s place.
Wasn’t true. Joe was Lucinda’s brother, meaning Joe’s spot in the Villachi family was set in concrete. But that didn’t stop the jealousy or one-upmanship.
Because of that, Donna had to show up on point. Joe would have had a fit if she’d done otherwise, as it would have made him look bad. Like he wasn’t doing well enough for his wife to be at her best for the trip. That meant new threads, hair and nails done, everything waxed and tightened and plucked to perfection.
The shopping trip beforehand was exhausting enough, but then to spend four whole days and nights with those women? There wasn’t a vineyard in the world that made a strong enough wine. And on those trips, they drank enough to know.
All that drinking led to some pretty interesting evenings. After they spent a day in the sun by the pool or on the beach, knocking back a significant amount of vino tended to exacerbate the women’s natural state beyond what the usual wine with dinner might do. The mopey ones turned sullen. The cranky ones got mean. The bubbly ones danced topless on the pool table. Or sang dreadful karaoke. Also sometimes topless.
Inevitably, things were said, tears were shed, and fights broke out. All of it exhausting and stressful and the opposite of what a vacation should be.
The only upsides were the new clothes and accessories. Now, she peered up at the top shelf of her closet for the boxes marked Summer Clothes. When she’d moved here, she’d sorted through most of her clothes, but a lot of the summer stuff she’d just dumped into those two boxes to be dealt with later.
There were two boxes the suit could be in. She got the stepstool out and took them both down, then put them on her bed to dig through.
She found the suit in question at the bottom of the second box. It seemed in good condition. What there was of it. For a one-piece, it was surprisingly low on fabric. High on gold hardware, however, in typical Versace style.
She’d chosen Versace because if there was ever a designer who knew how to dress a mob wife, he was the one. She’d paired the strappy black suit with Versace’s Grecian slides and billowing black chiffon coverup and big straw hat trimmed in black.
It had been an absolute winner as far as the wives were concerned. Total fail when it came to not spending every upright moment sucking in her stomach so it didn’t pooch out between the straps. Not to mention the weird tan lines all that crisscrossed fabric had left her with.
But the pool she was headed to now was indoors, and all that mattered was that she had a suit. The upside of this suit was that it was extremely secure. Or at least it had been that first time she’d worn it. Her new vampire self was a little smaller.
She undressed and got into the suit, which took a minute because she accidentally put her left arm through the straps that crossed over the shoulder and her right leg though an open space on the left part of the torso. Honestly, the suit needed an instruction manual.
When she had it situated, she went to take a look in the mirror.