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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

other men. His profile, the left one, was exposed to her view. It was cracked, indented,

like the plastic face of a doll that a child has wantonly kicked. In a curious way it did not

mar his handsomeness in her eyes but moved her to tears. She saw him put a snow-

white handkerchief to his mouth and nose and hold it there for a moment while he

turned away to come into the house.

She heard the door open and his footsteps in the hall turning into the kitchen and then

he was in the open space, seeing her and his mother. He seemed impassive, and then

he smiled ever so slightly, the broken half of his face halting the widening of his mouth.

And Kay, who had meant just to say "Hello, how are you," in the coolest possible way,

slipped out of her seat to run into his arms, bury her face against his shoulder. He

kissed her wet cheek and held her until she finished weeping and then he walked her

out to his car, waved his bodyguard away and drove off with her beside him, she

repairing her makeup by simply wiping what was left of it away with her handkerchief.

"I never meant to do that," Kay said. "It's just that nobody told me how badly they hurt

you."

Michael laughed and touched the broken side of his face. "You mean this? That's

nothing. Just gives me sinus trouble. Now that I'm home I'll probably get it fixed, I