Chris Grabenstein: Ring Toss

“Who? That blond bimbo in the office?”

Ceepak narrows his eyes. That “bimbo” is our mutual pal Becca who has been known to wear her bathing suit on the job because, well, she looks extremely good in it.

“Ohmigod. Did he call you guys?” It’s Becca. She comes out of the motel office wearing the terry cloth wrap she usually puts on after sunset. “Mr. Ryan, I told you I’d take care of it!”

“But you didn’t, did you? You should evict them.”

“Mr. Ryan?” This from Ceepak.

“Yes, sir?”

“Perhaps it would be best if you went back into your own room.”

My partner is a six-two tower of power who could probably bench press two Mr. Ryans with one arm so, when he makes the suggestion, Mr. Ryan quickly agrees and scurries back into his motel mole hole.

“It’s the DePinna family,” Becca says with a sigh, leading us over to the outdoor staircase leading up to the second floor. “There’s like twenty of them. Family reunion. Eight rooms. Checked in this afternoon. I think Mr. Ryan is ticked off because, well, he was supposed to check out today and then decided he wanted to stay but I couldn’t let him keep the room he’d been in because the DePinnas wanted a block all in a row, you know?”

“Sure,” I say. “Makes the family fights easier to organize.”

Becca shrugs. “What can I say? They’re Italian. They’re passionate.”

She’s probably right. It’s why operas are so loud.

“This is also like an engagement party,” says Becca.

“Come again?” says Ceepak.

“The youngest daughter, Connie, is getting married in September, so, you know, they’re all here, to show their love and support….”

“Get outta here, Donna!”

“Make me.”

“Shut up, tramp.”

Oh, yeah. You can just feel the love in the air tonight.

We reach the second floor, head up the balcony.

“Connie’s always been your freaking favorite!” I hear a woman holler as we pass Room 202.

“I think they’re in the parents’ room,” says Becca. “Room 210.”

Great. We have to listen to this family feud all the way down to the far end of the second floor balcony.

We pass a couple pudgy dark-haired boys sitting in lawn chairs outside their rooms, totally enjoying listening to their mothers scream at each other, shaking Doritos bags over their faces so they don’t miss a crumb.

“Donna’s right! Connie’s your baby so you spoil her! She always gets anything she wants.”

“Oh…my…gawd! I did not ask for it, Jackie. Seriously.”

“That’s enough!” says an angry older man. “You girls — apologize to your mother!”

“For what?”

“Saying those things you just said.”

“What, dad? Oh, you mean telling the truth?”

“Knock it off, Jackie!” shouts a woman who, it seems, has enough clout to get everybody else in the room to shut up. “Sit down Donna! Leave Connie alone. The youngest daughter gets the ring. That’s the way it’s always been and always will be. I was the youngest. My mother gave it to me when I got married. Connie’s my youngest. She’s getting married, she gets the ring. When the time comes, she’ll pass it on to her youngest daughter.”

“But, it’s a Tiffany diamond, mom!”

“So?”

And that’s when we knock on the door.

It swings open.

“What?” The woman on the other side’s hands go to her hips as she tilts her head sideways to let us know how annoyed she already is with us. She’s probably 30-something. Bronzed skin. Her upper arms look like they have their own personal trainers. Her face has that tough wife-of-the-Roman-emperor look. Her raven hair is thicker than a Troll Doll’s. “What?” She says it even more annoyed this time.

“Uh, well,” Becca stammers.

“We received a noise complaint,” says Ceepak.

The Roman empress gives my man the once over with her dark, angry eyes.

“You’re freaking kidding me.”

“No, ma’am. We would not be here otherwise. I’m officer Ceepak. This is my partner, officer Boyle.”

The woman spins around in a huff. “Can you freaking believe this? Someone called the freaking cops.”

“For what?” whines the other 30-something woman in the room. This one has a vague family resemblance to the woman at the door, except most of her facial features have been professionally smoothed out, her cheeks tightened up into bongo drum heads.

“For making too much noise,” I say.

“Noise?” says a white-haired woman in a white pants suit as she strides across the suite. She reminds me of Barbara Baccia’s mom, right after I made my Sinatra crack.

“The shouting and stuff.”

“Shouting?” Now she puts her hands on her hips and I figure that’s where her daughter, the one who looks like Caesar’s wife, learned how to do it. “We were having a family discussion.”

“Rather loudly,” says Ceepak. “We heard you down on the first floor.”

Now the young girl, the one who’s probably my age, gets up from the edge of the bed. Her eyes are a deep rich, brown — the color of chocolate chips after they melt. She’s wearing a two-piece tomato red bathing suit that hides only what the law requires it to hide, because like Becca, she has the taut, tan body to walk around in drip dry underwear 24-7. When she flashes me her dazzlingly white smile, I am hit with the same lightning bolt that knocked Michael Corleone for a loop in the original Godfather movie when he first set eyes on Apollonia while hiding out in Sicily.

“Danny?” whispers Becca.

Like I said, Becca and I have been friends since forever. When I fall in love at first sight — something that happens on a semi-regular basis with scantily clad, olive-skinned beach babes — she can usually tell.

“I’m sorry, officers,” the young girl gushes in a husky voice that fits her impossibly well-proportioned body even better than the bathing suit. “I guess our celebration went a little overboard. I’m Connie DePinna. I’m getting married!”

She wiggles her right hand. It sparkles.

“My mother like totally surprised us all and gave me the Galuppi family diamond.”

I hear Becca gulp. “That’s a Tiffany.”

“Yunh-hunh. Two carats.”

“Two point five,” says the mother.

“Uhm, would you like me to lock that up downstairs in the office safe?” Becca asks.

The bride-to-be giggles. “Of course not. I’m never going to take it off my finger.”

If only she’d kept her word.

All the DePinnas promise not to yell so loud the next time they have a family discussion. We send everybody back to their rooms.

The older ladies, Jackie and Donna, go all icy on their baby sister once we’re outside their parents’ motel suite.

“What time you guys want to hit the beach tomorrow?” Connie asks.

They don’t even answer, just clack away on their stiletto high heels.

“We’re still family, you guys!” Connie pouts at their backs.

Both sisters give her an over-the-shoulder, one-digit Jersey salute. It’s how we greet each other on the Turnpike and Parkway during our fits of road rage.

Abandoned by her seething siblings, Connie is left with Ceepak, Becca, and me. We escort her and “the Galuppi Family Diamond” all the way down the balcony to room 202.

“Oh…my…gawd. I can’t wait to show Billy!” Connie gushes, recovering nicely from being blackballed by her sisters. “The diamond is cut into a heart shape because a heart is like the universal symbol of love and junk.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to lock that in the safe?” asks Becca.

“Positive. It’s too amazingly beautiful to hide, don’t you think, Officer Boyle?” She wiggles her hand in front of her chest. I try to stay focused on the sparkly diamond instead of the perfectly tanned mountains in the background.