Author's note: Thank you very much for all the reviews (I still can't access the reviews. I can read them because I get alerts but then they don't appear here, I'm really sorry I can't reply to them yet).

Chapter Four:

Silence woke Jane up. Abruptly. She sat up in bed, breathless, and observed the bedroom. Maura was nowhere to be seen and the absence of loud voices was extremely unusual as well. Trying to ignore the fast beats of her heart, she got up and rushed to the window that overlooked the backyard.

The sun was shining high in a cloudless sky. Jane smiled: at least it wouldn't rain and they wouldn't be stuck inside.

Her dark eyes fixed upon the two figures that had squatted near Roberta's vegetable garden. Maura was in full talk with Lorena, one of Jane's aunts. She had dressed casually but in spite of her jeans and her plain blouse, a natural elegance exuded from Maura. She didn't belong there. She would never belong there in spite of her efforts to fit in.

Jane didn't lose a second. She grabbed a sweater and ran to the kitchen downstairs.

The dinner the evening before had gone as well as Jane could had hoped. Everyone had been nice to Maura and Jane had to admit that her relatives had remained as civilized as possible. Tired after such a long drive, she and Maura had gone to bed quite early. They had had a brief exchange, very neutral, before falling asleep.

"Good morning, ma'..." Jane walked to her mother and accepted with a smile the mug that her mother handed her. "Lorena's kidnapped Maura, I see."

Angela sat at the small kitchen table and glanced at nonna, the ninety-six-year-old woman who had become tight as a clam the day Papito had died.

"She's made a very good impression. I'm glad to see she easily interacts with everyone. Perla even gave her back her stiletto, this morning."

At what time had Maura woken up if she had seen Perla? Probably in the first hours. Guilt passed underneath Jane's olive skin. She had overslept and let her friend deal with a crowd of Italian-American strangers. It was wrong. The only person Maura knew was Angela but she didn't stay at Roberta's. Her presence in the kitchen was a simple coincidence due to the wedding preparations.

"Eulalia scared her yesterday with the antipasti though." Jane took a sip of coffee then went to lean against the door that led to the backyard. She observed Maura from there. "But then Eulalia scares the whole neighborhood since 1959. Where is she, by the way?"

"At the gym."

Jane didn't need more to choke on her coffee. She loudly coughed then turned around to stare at her mother as if she had just talked to her in a foreign language. Angela simply shrugged. She looked just as surprised as her daughter.

"She signed up for a zumba class three months ago and absolutely loves it."

The door of the backyard got opened. Maura came in, her hands in the pockets of her jeans. She flashed a bright smile at Jane then closed the door back as soon as Lorena followed her inside the kitchen.

"There you are, sleeping beauty!"

Maura felt the words slide on her lips, with all the things they implied, but didn't have a chance to hold them back in time. They hit the air with a disastrous enthusiasm that caused her to heavily blush. Her remark was not appropriate for she barely knew anyone in the kitchen but Angela and Jane. She had sounded too familiar with her friend.

"Gina's working today, Jane. You and Maura should stop by the boutique to say hello." Roberta made a loud entrance in the kitchen and spoke to Jane as if she had always been in the room. "But we need the two of you here at 3pm. You'll help us choose the wedding picture frames." The woman walked to the fridge and took a full bowl of ricotta out of it. "Tomorrow you'll go get Isabella. This girl..." Roberta sighed then shook her head with frustration. She then turned to Angela. "Can you believe she hasn't come yet to congratulate her sister?"

Maura observed the scene as we attend an opera. The mention of Isabella piqued her curiosity and the bitter tone Roberta had used to talk about her even more. Maura didn't like trusting her instinct but she could easily say that something had happened between Gina and her sister. Was it what Jane called an umpteenth Rizzoli drama?

"Isabella has a demanding job, she works hard." Jane set her empty mug down in the sink. She briefly looked Maura in the eye before smiling at her apologetically. It's nothing. "But we'll go get her, yes..." She checked the time on her watch: it was already 11.30am. "Does this mean Maura and I can go have lunch in town?"

A loud sigh made everyone jump. Nonna had widened her gray eyes and was looking at Jane as if she had just cursed under one of the numerous statues of the Virgin Mary that seemed to look after each room of the small house.

"Why would you want to eat outside?" Marissa, Angela's sister-in-law walked into the kitchen with a couple of tupperware boxes. She rolled her eyes at Jane then dramatically raised her arms. "She wants to eat outside! Don't you like the food we have here?!"

Stuck in a corner of the kitchen, Maura didn't know what to do anymore. She had lost the plot while a thousand questions kept on rushing to her mind: yet all of them remained desperately unanswered. What was wrong about eating outside? Why so many women were suddenly standing in this kitchen without being invited to even enter the house? Where were the men? She hadn't seen any yet.

"It's the first time Maura comes to Staten Island so Janie wants to show her the area." A tactful smile played on Angela's lips as she winked at Maura. "Besides that's where Gina works."

"Oh. Of course!" Lorena suddenly seemed to remember Maura's existence. She trotted to her and cupped her face in her hands. "The girl friend!" She then looked at Jane. "Treat your girl friend, Janie. Then go to the Mall to say hi to Gina. She has your dress and you need to try it."

...

Maura had met Jane five years earlier and she could say that the two of them had gone through a lot within a short amount of time but she had never seen her friend as pissed as she now was. This was a first, a terrible one.

Clutched to the steering-wheel, Jane kept on mumbling inaudible interjections. Her traits had deepened under the weight of her anger. Even her eyes looked darker.

"A fucking dress!"

The outburst caused Maura to jump on her seat. She had oddly got used to Jane's semi-silence during the first part of their drive to St. George waterfront. Thus hearing her friend's hoarse voice loudly burst in the car – so unexpectedly, besides – hurt her eardrums and made her wince in pain.

"I am not sure to understand why they have chosen a dress for you if you aren't a maid of honor... Is this an Italian tradition that I would have missed?"

The fairness of Maura's timid question had no soothing effect on Jane. She slowed down as she reached a stop sign and waited for a couple of seconds to reply to her friend. The last thing she wanted was to be rude to Maura for it would have been incredibly unfair. Jane still felt guilty for having overslept and let Maura deal alone with her relatives earlier in the morning. Snapping back would only make things worse.

"No, it's not. However pissing me off definitely is a Rizzoli tradition." Jane scoffed then honked at a vehicle that was going too slow for her own taste. "Look at the guys! Fabio, Enzo, Matteo... They do what they want. They're raised like kings and we, the women, are supposed to serve for the sake of some patriarcal bullshit. And because I had the unfortunate idea to be born with a uterus I'm now supposed to dress up as a stupid doll whenever someone gets married in the family!"

As they had retreated to their bedroom to get ready for a drive downtown, Maura had finally found out why the house had such a strong female presence during the day: only men were supposed to work. Jane's family was old-fashioned. Women became lovely housewives as soon as they tied the knot. Gina would stop working soon too even if she loved her job at the wedding dress boutique. When Maura had asked why the young woman had decided to quit, Jane had simply laughed then said that it was how it worked here.

"You shouldn't be mad because they want you to wear a dress. You're stunning, Jane... And a dress suits you. I'm sure that we'll find the right one for you."

"They won't let me choose it. I bet you $50 that the one Roberta chose is some atrocious pink meringue thing that even a Disney princess wouldn't want to wear. The same pink as the bathroom tiles, Maura!"

Maura shivered at the thought. She hadn't overcome yet the questionable color of their ensuite bathroom. It didn't even match with the small painting of the Christ that hung above the old mirror next to the bidet.

She squeezed her friend's knee in an attempt to show her support and looked at the brick buildings out of the window on her right. St. George looked liked to be a very quiet small town. Quite empty. She still had to see a passer-by.

"I won't let this happen. I promise you I won't let this happen."

Jane's dark eyes briefly fixed upon Maura's hand on her knee. Her friend's body heat had easily passed underneath the thin fabric of her jeans and had set off a confusing mechanism within Jane's head to the point that she now felt uncomfortable.

She understood the gesture. As a matter of fact, she even appreciated it. Maura simply tried to be supportive, to calm her down. Sadly what she saw as an innocent gesture got blown out of proportion for Jane and there was nothing innocent anymore.

Nothing at all.

"Thanks." Jane swallowed hard in an effort to enhance her concentration. "Thanks a lot."