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Kay was a little embarrassed now. "This is Kay Adams, Mrs. Corleone," she said. "Do
you remember me?"
"Sure, sure, I remember you," Mrs. Corleone said. "How come you no call up no more?
You get a married?"
"Oh, no," Kay said. "I've been busy." She was surprised at the mother obviously being
annoyed that she had stopped calling. "Have you heard anything from Michael? Is he all
right?"
There was silence at the other end of the phone and then Mrs. Corleone's voice came
strong. "Mikey is a home. He no call you up? He no see you?"
Kay felt her stomach go weak from shock and a humiliating desire to weep. Her voice
broke a little when she asked, "How long has he been home?"
Mrs. Corleone said, "Six months."
"Oh, I see," Kay said. And she did. She felt hot waves of shame that Michael's mother
knew he was treating her so cheaply. And then she was angry. Angry at Michael, at his
mother, angry at all foreigners, Italians who didn't have the common courtesy to keep
up a decent show of friendship even if a love affair was over. Didn't Michael know she
would be concerned for him as a friend even if he no longer wanted her for a bed
companion, even if he no longer wanted to marry her? Did he think she was one of
those poor benighted Italian girls who would commit suicide or make a scene after
giving up her virginity and then being thrown over? But she kept her voice as cool as
possible. "I see, thank you very much," she said. "I'm glad Michael is home again and
all right. I just wanted to know. I won't call you again."
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Mrs. Corleone's voice came impatiently over the phone as if she had heard nothing
that Kay had said. "You wanta see Mikey, you come out here now. Give him a nice
surprise. You take a taxi, and I tell the man at the gate to pay the taxi for you. You tell
the taxi man he gets two times his clock, otherwise he no come way out the Long Beach.
But don't you pay. My husband's man at the gate pay the taxi."
"I couldn't do that, Mrs. Corleone," Kay said coldly. "If Michael wanted to see me, he
would have called me at home before this. Obviously he doesn't want to resume our
relationship."
Mrs. Corleone's voice came briskly over the phone. "You a very nice girl, you gotta
nice legs, but you no gotta much brains." She chuckled. "You come out to see me, not
Mikey. I wanta talk to you. You come right now. An' no pay the taxi. I wait for you." The
phone clicked. Mrs. Corleone had hung up.
Kay could have called back and said she wasn't coming but she knew she had to see
Michael, to talk to him, even if it was just polite talk. If he was home now, openly, that
meant he was no longer in trouble, he could live normally. She jumped off the bed and
started to get ready to see him. She took a great deal of care with her makeup and
dress. When she was ready to leave she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Was she
better-looking than when Michael had disappeared? Or would he find her unattractively
older? Her figure had become more womanly, her hips rounder, her breasts fuller.
Italians liked that supposedly, though Michael had always said he loved her being so
thin. It didn't matter really, Michael obviously didn't want anything to do with her
anymore, otherwise he most certainly would have called in the six months he had been
home.
The taxi she hailed refused to take her to Long Beach until she gave him a pretty
smile and told him she would pay double the meter. It was nearly an hour's ride and the
mall in Long Beach had changed since she last saw it. There were iron fences around it
and an iron gate barred the mall entrance. A man wearing slacks and a white jacket
over a red shirt opened the gate, poked his head into the cab to read the meter and
gave the cab driver some bills. Then when Kay saw the driver was not protesting and
was happy with the money paid, she got out and walked across the mall to the central
house.
Mrs. Corleone herself opened the door and greeted Kay with a warm embrace that
surprised her. Then she surveyed Kay with an appraising eye. "You a beautiful girl," she
said flatly. "I have stupid sons." She pulled Kay inside the door and led her to the
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kitchen, where a platter of food was already set out and a pot of coffee perked on the
stove. "Michael comes home pretty soon," she said. "You surprise him."
They sat down together and the old woman forced Kay to eat, meanwhile asking
questions with great curiosity. She was delighted that Kay was a schoolteacher and that
she had come to New York to visit old girl friends and that Kay was only twenty-four
years old. She kept nodding her head as if all the facts accorded with some private
specifications in her mind. Kay was so nervous that she just answered the questions,
never saying anything else.
She saw him first through the kitchen window. A car pulled up in front of the house
and the two other men got out. Then Michael. He straightened up to talk with one of the