Tampa Back to Miami Drive – Carmela & Rosalie Monday, August 14, 2017
FROM
The Young Sopranos
TYS PART 7
APPENDIX
Tampa Back to Miami Drive –
Carmela & Rosalie
("Thelma & Louise")
Written By
Ara Fig
2026
"CANDY-O"
THE CARS--1979
https://youtu.be/TH5pD6PaJBk?is=rbD9FDuLjaRR4wOv
Monday, August 14, 2017
– 10:05 AM EST
The creamy white Chrysler 300 with Florida tags hummed south out of Tampa on I-75, the Gulf heat already thick against the glass.
Carmela kept her hands locked at ten and two in the thin leather driving gloves.
Beside her, Rosalie Aprile had her feet up near the dash, sunglasses pushed into her dyed hair, flicking ash out the cracked window as the flat green scrub of the peninsula began to open up.
They cleared the Bradenton–Sarasota stretch without much talk.
The real conversation started once the highway settled into its long, hypnotic rhythm past Venice and toward Fort Myers.
“So,” Ro said, eyes on the flashing scenery. “Did you tell Anthony yet?”
“Tell him what?”
“About Kelli. Being knocked up.”
“No.”
Rosalie turned slowly, pulling her sunglasses down. “No? (No?!) Why not? Are you ashamed or something?!”
The word hung in the humid cabin like exhaust.
Carmela didn’t yell. She didn’t turn her head. But her knuckles inside the gloves went paper-white.
Without warning she stomped the brakes. The Chrysler’s anti-lock system screamed. Rubber bit hot asphalt.
The heavy cream sedan dragged a jagged black line down the middle of the lane on the empty stretch of highway and shuddered to a halt.
Dust drifted past the windshield.
“Take that back, Ro,” Carmela said, voice flat and low.
(“What?!”)
“TAKE. IT. BACK. I AM AS PROUD OF THIS CHILD AS ANYONE!”
(“Carmela—”)
“YES—GODDAMN YOU, ROE! IT’S NOT MY FUCKING PLACE TO TELL HIM!”
She smashed the gas. The back tires chirped. The Chrysler surged forward again, south toward the Fort Myers stretch and the long run toward the coast.
Ro let out a slow breath and leaned back. Forty-three years earlier—Belleville High, 1974—she had stepped between Carmela and the senior girls behind the bleachers. She had owned that responsibility ever since.
A thin smirk tugged at her mouth.
“And you,” she said quietly, “are a little touchy, DeAngelis.”
The tension cracked. Both women laughed—dry, bitter, familiar. Carmela flicked two fingers toward the console.
“Light me a cigarette, Roe.”
Smoke curled toward the headliner as they pushed past Fort Myers. The land flattened further. Ahead lay the turn toward Naples and then the long, straight shot across Alligator Alley.
They talked about Carmine’s sixtieth at the Trafficanti Casino Hotel —the golden-decade speech, Nicole Lupertazzi in the VIP booth, while her little brothers Sally and Sandy were working the floor, & the mysterious dark, handsome middle-aged Puerto Rican Sugar-&-Tobacco Coffee-&-Rum Man.
(Whom Meadow identified from visiting the Keys with George Pagilieri earlier that summer.)
Rosalie flicked ash.
“Speaking of missing people… you notice nobody’s saying a word about Coco? Or Walden?”
Carmela didn’t flinch. “Carmine said they haven’t been around. That’s all.”
“Right. ‘Haven’t been around.’ Angie told me Walden’s cousin in Newark was asking questions on Thursday.
Nobody’s seen either of them since a Friday night warehouse poker game. No body, no crime. Everyone just pretends they went on vacation to the Poconos.”
“It’s not our business, Rosalie. We’re going to Miami. I have to clean out the condo after booting Carmine out in July, and I don’t need any of the Jersey grey cloud following us past Broward County.”
Ro studied her profile. A slow grin crept back.
“You really kicked Carmine Jr. right out onto the pavement in July, didn’t you? Right before you made Anthony come up to the roof?”
“He was overstaying his welcome. And he thinks just because he has a key to the coast, he owns the view.”
Ro chuckled and stubbed out her cigarette.
“Drive the car, Carm. Let’s get to South Beach before the sun goes down.”
Then a wicked glint flashed behind her sunglasses.
“I didn’t interrupt you when I came back to the room and you were sitting alone with your big, handsome stepson.”
Carmela froze for half a second. “WHAT?!”
“You heard me.”
“No—you didn’t interrupt anything!”
A small smirk cracked across Carmela’s face.
“He is big and strong,
Isn’t he?”
“SEE—I KNEW IT!”
“What?!” Carmela giggled.
“He looks like a younger Tony, only better looking! BUT HE’S HALF YOUR AGE!”
“SO?!—SO?!”
“CARMELA—I’M SHOCKED!”
“NO YOU’RE NOT!”
“NO—YOU’RE RIGHT,
I’M NOT!”
Ro burst out laughing.
“You were always easy!”
“Oh Roe—I was not.
Not all the time, anyway.”
Rosalie sighed, looking out at the horizon.
“I guess. You’re not blood-related. He’s your dead husband’s son—not yours.”
Carmela’s smile turned razor-thin.
“Exactly.”
Ro leaned across and pulled her into a fierce hug, planting a noisy kiss on her cheek.
“Alright, alright, get off me before we crash into the median,”
Carmela laughed, pushing her back while keeping the car steady.
She eased off the gas a fraction.
“Hey, Carm?”
“Yeah, Roe?”
“Can I stay with you a couple nights when we get back?”
“Sure, Rose. You know you can stay as long as you please. …Why?”
Rosalie took a long drag.
“I can’t take Liz. You know that. Between my moody pregnant daughter and my psycho sister-in-law, I’d rather go back to Newark for the winter.”
Carmela cracked a short laugh. “You got it backwards.”
“No, I don’t. Winters in Newark aren’t as bad as those two dark clouds hanging over Miami.”
Carmela smiled. “Whatever you want—stay, or go and come back.
You’ve always got a place with me.”
The highway stretched on. Heat shimmered off the asphalt.
“You know who else was working overtime that whole weekend?” Ro said. “Ronnie Capozza.
The way she was hanging on Carmine’s arm every time the cameras came out, laughing at every half-assed joke.
I thought she was gonna climb into his lap during the toast.”
“She’s always been like that. Needs a spotlight more than she needs a husband.”
“Her actual husband was standing ten feet away the whole time. Dennis. Looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. Kept checking his phone.”
“Dennis Capozza,” Carmela said. “Carmine’s front man down here. The one who signs the papers and smiles for the local people.
Ralph’s old leftovers, and now he’s playing house with Ronnie and that kid Justin.”
“Stepfather. Kid looked miserable the one time I saw him by the elevators.
Whole family feels like a bad arrangement nobody wants to admit is temporary.”
“Ronnie was auditioning. Every time Carmine walked past she straightened up, fixed her hair, put that little smile on like she was still twenty-five. Acting like she could slide right into the empty seat.”
Ro raised an eyebrow.
“You mean your seat?”
“She’s not replacing me,” Carmela said, sharp and clean. “I was never his whore.”
Ro blinked, then grinned. “Whatever you say…
Candy-O.”
Carmela’s head snapped toward her.
“Don’t call me that.”
They held the look—then both broke. Carmela’s dry laugh mixed with Ro’s deeper one until the tension cracked and drifted out the window with the smoke.
“God, I haven’t heard anybody call you that in years,” Ro said. “Johnny Boy’s little nickname. You used to hate it.”
“I still do.” Carmela adjusted her grip. “Ronnie can flutter her eyelashes at Carmine all she wants. He’s sixty and still chasing the same attention he got in the nineties. She’s welcome to whatever’s left of it. I’m not competing for scraps.”
Ro took a long drag.
“Dennis didn’t look too thrilled watching it either. You think he knows Carmine’s using him?”
“He knows. Men like Dennis always know. They just decide the money and the title are worth the humiliation. Same way Ronnie decides the attention is worth looking desperate.”
A few miles later Carmela spoke again, voice lower.
“Funny. Watching Ronnie hang all over Carmine like that. Made me think of how quick she moved on after Ralph. And how quick some other people moved on after Jackie.”
Ro’s head turned slowly.
“You just had to bring that up, didn’t you, Candy?”
“You brought it up first. Needling me about Veronica all weekend. Acting like you forgot I know exactly how that little fling with Ralph went down after Jackie died.”
Ro took a hard drag.
“That was different. Jackie was gone. I was a mess. Ralph was… Ralph. It lasted five minutes and meant less than that.”
“I’m just saying it’s rich watching you get so worked up over Ronnie making a play for Carmine when you once made a play for her husband.”
“Ex-husband,” Ro snapped, then shook her head, a reluctant smirk forming.
“Jesus. You always did know how to stick the knife in and twist it just enough.”
“You taught me.”
Ro stared at her, then broke into a low chuckle.
“Fair enough, Candy-O.
Fair enough.”
Then the real blade: Ralph Cifaretto’s bedroom secrets, delivered in Carmela’s calm, precise voice. Tony’s pillow talk. Janice’s three thousand dollars.
Valentina’s confirmation. The strap-on, the belt, the useless performance. Ro went quiet for a long stretch of highway after that, staring out at the endless green of the flat Florida scrubland as they neared the edge of the peninsula.
Carmela’s voice stayed even. “Tony told me everything, you know. About Ralph.”
Ro’s cigarette paused. “Everything what?”
“Pillow talk. After he paid Janice three grand for the details. Then Valentina filled in the rest when she jumped ship. He bottoms from the top.
That’s how Janice put it. Has to control everything but pretends he doesn’t. Liked to be dominated. Strap-on. Belt.
The whole ‘whip me like a bad boy’ routine. And according to both of them, he couldn’t do anything the regular way. Completely useless in that department.”
Ro’s face twisted.
“Jesus Christ, Carmela.”
“Tony used to throw it in his face without ever saying it straight. Called him a mama’s boy. Talked about giving him a beating. Kept asking if he was gonna step up and perform.
Once he had that information, Ralph stopped being dangerous to him.
Just became pathetic.”
Ro was quiet for a long time.
“I didn’t know any of that.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“He never… it was quick. Messy. I was grieving. He was just there.”
She shook her head.
“Christ. I feel dirty just hearing it.”
“Tony felt the same way after he found out. Said it made every argument they ever had look different. Made it easier to handle him. And eventually easier to be done with him.”
Ro crushed the cigarette out. “You really know how to ruin a memory, Candy.”
“You already knew it wasn’t a good memory. I’m just giving you the full picture.”
Ro leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment.
“Light me another one.
And for the record…
I hate that you know more about my worst decisions than I do.”
Carmela reached for the pack. “That’s what happens when you sleep next to the boss for twenty years.”
Ro stared out the passenger window for a long mile, watching the scrubland blur past. Her reflection was tight-lipped.
“You know,” she murmured, “for a woman who spent half her life pretending she didn’t see the dirt under her own porch, you certainly know how to sweep everybody else’s out into the open.”
Carmela kept her eyes on the road. “I didn’t sweep anything, Ro. You kept digging through the closet. I just handed you the box you didn’t want to open.”
“A box I didn’t ask for.” Ro lit another cigarette and took a fierce pull.
“Jesus. Ralph Cifaretto. What a miserable, sick bastard. And I let him touch me. Even for five minutes.”
“You were grieving.”
“I was lonely,” Ro corrected. “Grief makes you stupid. Loneliness makes you desperate.
Put them together and you end up letting a monster buy you a drink at the Bing.
And Tony knew. Of course he knew. He loved having something like that in his back pocket.”
“Tony didn’t need a leash for Ralph. Ralph was a grenade with the pin halfway out from the day he came back from Miami. Tony just watched him pull it the rest of the way.”
“And you watched Tony watch him.” Ro turned to study Carmela’s profile.
“That’s the part that always got me. You stood right in the middle of it.
You cooked their dinners, washed their shirts, sat at the head of that table looking like a Madonna in a magazine… and you saw every piece of filth moving underneath.”
Carmela’s grip tightened.
“You think I liked looking at it?”
Her voice dropped, absolute.
“You think I didn’t know what kind of house I was keeping?
Every time Tony walked through that door with blood on his shoes or a lie on his tongue—smelling of his countless whores—
Do you think I was blind?”
“No,” Ro said softly.
“You weren’t blind. You just decided the price of admission was worth the seat.”
“We all made our calculations, Ro. You, me, Angie, Charmaine… everybody in that zip code. Some of us just had better upholstery.”
Ro let out a dry, humorless breath. She tapped ash out the window.
“God. Look at us. Two middle-aged widows in a rented Chrysler on a swamp highway, talking about dead psychos and old turf wars like it’s high-school prom.
What happened to us, Carm?”
“Nothing happened to us,” Carmela answered. A thin thread of melancholy slipped through. “We survived. That was the only job description that ever mattered.”
The car fell quiet. This time the silence wasn’t a standoff. It settled over them like weight—heavy, familiar—broken only by the steady roar of the highway carrying them south.
Ro suddenly clutched Carmela’s near arm hard enough to leave marks through the leather glove.
“STOP THE CAR!”
Carmela’s head snapped over. “What?—Why?!”
“STOP THE GODDAMN CAR, CARM! PULL IT OVER BEFORE I PISS MYSELF!”
A dirty grin cracked across Carmela’s face.
“Can’t you just hold it?”
“NO. I CAN’T JUST HOLD IT—PULL THE FUCK OVER!”
“Okay, okay—” Carmela was already laughing as she checked the mirrors and eased the Chrysler onto the wide sandy berm of the four-lane.
She hit the hazards. The amber lights started blinking against the afternoon glare.
Ro had the door open before the car fully stopped. She swung her legs out, hiked her skirt, and squatted right there beside the open door, one hand braced on the frame.
Carmela reached across to the glove box, still chuckling, and pulled out a small pack of tissues.
“Just like the good old days, girlfriend.”
Ro didn’t look up. “Don’t you dare start.”
Carmela held the tissues out the open door. “Don’t litter or that’ll be the most expensive piss you ever took.”
Ro finished, grabbed a tissue, wiped, then lifted the used one high and let the hot Florida wind snatch it clean out of her fingers.
“Fuck you, DeAngelis,” she said, standing and shoving her skirt back down. “It was the best possible one I ever took.”
She was still laughing when the state patrol cruiser pulled in behind them, light bar flashing once, a short sharp whoop of the siren announcing itself.
Both women froze for half a second—then dissolved into helpless giggles.
Carmela was already fishing in her CLEO purse for her license as the trooper’s door opened.
Ro poked her hard in the ribs while snapping her seatbelt on and leaning toward the driver’s window.
“Don’t give him your old fake one.”
“Hush,” Carmela muttered, still grinning, license already in hand. “This is all your bladder’s fault.”
Boots crunched on the sandy berm. A shadow fell across the open window.
“Is there a problem here, ladies?”
Carmela looked up, polite smile firmly in place, license held out between two fingers.
“No, Officer. No problems at all.”
The trooper leaned down slightly, resting one hand on his utility belt while his sunglasses reflected the sun-bleached highway.
He glanced from Carmela’s pristine, poised expression down to the hazard lights still clicking on the dash, then over at Rosalie, who was trying—and failing—to look entirely innocent while tucking a rogue strand of hair behind her ear.
"Just a little emergency pit stop," Ro chimed in from the passenger seat, her raspy voice dripping with charm.
"You know how these long stretches of road get, Officer."
The trooper’s mouth twitching, the barest hint of a grin fighting through his strict demeanor.
He took Carmela's license, glanced at it, and looked out over the endless flat landscape where a single tissue was tumbling away across the grass like a tiny white tumbleweed.
"Next time, ladies, try to make it to the service plaza ten miles back," he said, handing the ID straight back to Carmela. "Or at least keep it behind the tree line."
"Will do, Trooper. Thank you," Carmela said smoothly, accepting the card back with a nod.
As the patrol car pulled back into the highway lane and accelerated away, Ro let out a long, wheezing laugh, slumping back against the headrest.
"Jesus Christ, Carm. For a second I thought he was gonna give us a breathalyzer and search the trunk."
"He didn't need to search the trunk," Carmela chuckled, clicking off the hazards and pulling the Chrysler back into the traffic flow.
"One look at your face and he knew he didn't get paid enough to deal with us."
Ro popped open her compact mirror, dabbing at her lipstick with a grin.
"See? That's the DeAngelis luck right there. Thirty-odd years, a state trooper, and a bladder emergency, and you still handle it like a dame."
Carmela watched the trooper step away, his silhouette reflected in the side mirror as he walked back to his cruiser.
She adjusted her sunglasses with a slight, theatrical sigh.
"That tall, handsome trooper could've put handcuffs on me..."
Ro’s head whipped around, her eyes widening behind her oversized frames before she broke into a wicked, raspy cackle.
She adjusted her position in the passenger seat, watching the trooper's tight uniform pants recede in the side mirror right along with Carmela.
"I heard that, Twisted Sister!" Ro snorted, shaking her head. "Sounds like Ralph should've hooked up with you!"
Carmela let out a sharp, genuine laugh, swinging the Chrysler back onto the highway and stepping on the gas.
"He'd never stand a chance!"
The silence that followed was heavy but companionable. The Chrysler ate the miles. The big green signs for Naples were coming up ahead.
The Naples Lunch
Interlude
Carmela checked the dash clock. A little after one.
“We’re stopping,” she said.
Ro looked over. “What for?”
“Lunch. Real lunch. Not gas-station garbage.” Carmela’s voice left no room. “We’ve got two more hours of Alligator Alley after this. I’m not doing it on cigarettes and adrenaline.”
They took the exit and wound toward the water. The air changed—salt instead of hot asphalt, a steadier breeze off the Gulf. Carmela parked in a small lot near the marina and they walked the short block to a quiet terrace restaurant with white linen tablecloths and a clear view of the blue-green water.
A waiter in a crisp shirt seated them at a corner table under a white umbrella. Cold Pinot Grigio arrived in an ice bucket. The grouper was grilled simply, with lemon and a little olive oil.
For a few minutes neither of them spoke.
The Gulf stretched out calm and expensive in front of them.
Boats ticked gently against their moorings.
Ro finally leaned back, glass in hand, and watched Carmela open the yellow legal pad she had brought from the car.
Carmela uncapped a pen and began writing in her tight, efficient shorthand.
“You really aren’t stopping with that yellow pad, are you, Carm?” Ro said, a smirk pulling at her mouth.
“What is this, chapter two of the autobiography?”
Carmela didn’t look up.
"Something like that."
(It was Father Ozario who would read these pages, and Ro had no idea.)
Ro swirled her wine. “You’re writing in a place like this. White tablecloths. People who never heard the word ‘family’ the way we use it. Feels almost indecent.”
Carmela’s pen paused. She glanced out at the water, then at the clean, sunlit faces around them.
“That’s why it works,” she said quietly. “No one here knows the difference between a social club and a country club.
Makes it easier to put the truth down without hearing the old voices in your head.”
Ro studied her for a long moment. The breeze lifted a corner of the legal pad. Carmela smoothed it flat with one manicured hand and kept writing.
They ate slowly. The wine stayed cold. The conversation drifted—Franny’s miscarriage & recovery:
Franny & Carmine III
w/his younger sister Alexandria "Carrie" Lupertazzi
Franny appearing for the better after a week abroad
(Week Abroad?!)
Yes—AJ took all four of them over to Naples to lift Franny up after her miscarriage post-op recovery before her enrollment into music college this autumn.
"She is quite a talented young lady between her singing voice & piano playing,"
Rosalie concedes.
"And if she can set her hooks into Carmine III, she’ll be set for life living off that Lupertazzi bankroll!"
They really seem to like each other. Carmine & Carrie brought Nicole along with fresh-cut flowers & gifts to visit Franny in the hospital.
They flew in their helicopter!
"GOOD HEAVENS!
—Sounds like she has cracked her foot in the door?!"
"We shall see?!"
Carmela warmly smiles.
"You like that Franny girl, don’t you, Carm?"
"Yea. I like her.
Her father pisses me off over it, but she is a beautiful child in spite of Tony being her father."
"It’s almost like Vito & Francesca have always been Meadow & AJ's brother & sister? I can't explain it."
"The four of them plus little Caitlyn all feel natural as family. I almost feel like the outsider."
Carmela admits, covering her mouth to peer away, choking up as Rosalie pats her other shaking hand.
"You’re taking it better than I ever could, girly!"
"You just got lucky you found a faithful man like Jackie!
Instead of a heel like my Tony was."
"Jackie knew better!
I'd kill him and his whore with a butcher knife!!"
Rosalie brings Carmela back around:
"Get your shit together in one bag with your yellow pad & pens—we still have Alligator Alley ahead of us with the sun to our backs!"
When the plates were cleared and the bottle was empty, Carmela closed the legal pad and slid it back into her bag.
“Alligator Alley next,” She said.
“Straight shot across the Everglades. We’ll be on Collins Avenue before the light changes.”
Ro stood, smoothed her skirt, and slipped on her sunglasses.
“Lead the way, Candy-Girl. Just try not to make me pee on the side of the road again.”
Carmela’s mouth curved as they walked back to the white Chrysler.
The Alligator Alley Run & Radio Broadcast
The Chrysler pulled out of the Naples marina lot and found the ramp back onto I-75. Within twenty minutes the manicured palms and Gulf sparkle were gone, replaced by the flat, sun-bleached run of Alligator Alley. Sawgrass stretched to every horizon. Heat shimmered off the asphalt in long, liquid waves. Now and then a dark shape in the canal resolved into a gator sunning itself like it owned the place.
Ro leaned her head against the rest. “Here we go. Two hours of straight swamp. No turning back now, Candy.”
Carmela kept the speed locked at seventy-two, gloved hands easy on the wheel. “Keep your eyes peeled for troopers. One bathroom emergency is enough for the day.”
They didn’t talk much. The silence was different out here—heavy, unhurried, the kind that only exists between people who have already said the hard things. Ro smoked and flicked ash out the cracked window. Carmela watched the mirrors from forty years of habit. The road behind them stayed empty.
The radio was already on, volume low, playing soft-rock before a midday news bulletin cut through the static:
“Good afternoon, this is your mid-day news update for Monday, August 14, 2017.
From the White House, President Donald Trump addressed the nation this afternoon on the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. After two days of bipartisan criticism, he declared that “racism is evil” and specifically named the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups as “criminals and thugs”…
Turning to the markets: Bitcoin made history today, crushing past the $4,000 mark for the first time, hitting an intraday high near $4,173 before holding strong in afternoon trading. Mainstream indexes are recovering from last week’s geopolitical jitters, with the Dow and S&P 500 pushing higher.
In baseball, the AL East race stays tight. The Boston Red Sox lead the division at 67-50. The New York Yankees sit second at 61-55, five-and-a-half games back, as they prepare for tonight's Subway Series opener against the Mets in the Bronx.
Rookie Aaron Judge has 35 home runs and the Yankees remain a major storyline as both clubs push toward October.
And finally the weather: Across the tri-state area and down through Florida, expect classic late-summer heat—highs in the 90s, heavy humidity, coastal haze, and afternoon thunderstorms rolling in from the Atlantic and Gulf.”
Ro reached for the dial to change the station, but Carmela’s hand came down lightly over hers.
“Wait. Leave it. I want to hear this.”
Ro blinked. “Market news? What the hell do you know about the stock market?”
“Absolutely nothing!”
“So what’s the big deal?”
“Just listen!”
Ro stared at her, incredulous. “Bitcoin? What the hell is that?”
“It’s a stock.”
“Ok?—What kind of stock?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What do you know then, Carm?”
“I know it’s going up, up, and away!”
Carmela’s eyes gleamed as she kept her hands locked at ten and two on the steering wheel.
“It’s doubled my money so far!”
“Double? What money?”
“A.J. and his cousin Tommy—Barbara’s son—have an investment fiduciary.
Meadow told me about it so I pitched on to buy some with them. I got in at $2K a share and now it's soaring past $4K!”
Ro let out a long, astounded whistle, shaking her head.
“My word, girl. You sure know a lot about nothing.”
Carmela didn't answer. She just smiled, humming softly to herself, while the white sedan chewed up the miles across the Everglades.
Arrival
In South Beach
By late afternoon, the wilderness frayed into gated developments, power lines, and the messy expansion of I-75 feeding into I-95 South.
They crossed the Julia Tuttle Causeway with the ocean opening on both sides, the pastel-and-glass skyline of South Beach rising ahead like a neon mirage.
Carmela turned onto Collins Avenue and dropped into the subterranean garage of her condo tower.
Inside the condo, the air was cool and hushed. Carmela dropped her bags by the console table and pulled a cold bottle of Vermentino from the wine fridge, pouring two generous glasses.
“Hot tub,” Carmela said, handing her a glass. “We’re doing the hot tub.”
Ro took the wine and grinned.
“After six hours of your driving, my bladder, and your secret crypto portfolio? You’re goddamn right we are.”
They changed without ceremony—Carmela into a simple black one-piece, Ro into a bright patterned suit. The private terrace was warm from the day’s sun.
The hot tub sat in the corner, steaming under its cover as city lights and the first neon of Ocean Drive glowed against the dark blue evening sky.
They sank into the water with matching groans of relief.
Ro finally lifted her glass.
“To surviving the Alley. And the trooper. And your mysterious four-thousand-dollar stocks.”
Carmela touched her glass to Ro’s. “To surviving.”
They drank. The jets bubbled around them. Carmela's legal-pad tote sat just inside the open slider, the written pages zipped inside, waiting.
Ro leaned her head back against the rim and closed her eyes.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of telling me what you’re actually writing in those pads,” she murmured.
“But it can wait until the bottle’s empty.”
Carmela smiled into her wine, the first real, unguarded smile of the day.
“Deal.”
The hot water held them. The wine went down easy. South Beach glittered and thumped, and for a little while, they let the rest of the world fade away.
. . .
(TO BE CONTINUED)
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CREATED
BY
J. BECK
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DISCLAIMER:
ALL
AI GENERATED IMAGES
CREATED BY
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MMXXVI
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