Cynthia

Out of all the girls I thought I would be the last to be caught in a bullshit love triangle thing! Let alone with Chino and having two kids. But I suppose given everything that happened before Nick got home… I mean I knew Chino always had a little thing for me, but it really got bad when Junior broke his arm at school before the guys got home.

I always thought monkey bars were dangerous…. Anyway. I was at the diner when I got the call from the school nurse. We were distributin the new-new uniforms because Richy's blue jean red checked shirt uniforms just were stupid lookin and unreasonable for hot weather, so the cute little functional blue dresses were back in!

Chino was the one who answered the phone and told me what had happened. I let him drive me to the school too because I may not have showed it but I was a nervous wreck that my baby got hurt and I wasn't around. I think Chino sensed this because he looked at me in the rearview mirror and he says to me softly. "Don't worry, he's tough just like his mother." His eyes looked real tender, real sweet in that moment like melted chocolate or somethin…

Anyway, once little Nick's arm was in a cast with a sling to boot Chino and him took to each other like parmesan on spaghetti. Chino was always around doing something with Junior or even Patti, playing dolls, reading to them and he said and did the sweetest things… I always had a full vase of flowers on the table, dinner was always made, house was always clean. Not that I would ever think bout touchin another man, it was just nice. Cause you do get lonely and I was no longer hangin out with Mary Valli because all we seemed to do was drink and it got to a point where it was just too much and too pathetically sad, so I quit the bottle; so all there was too life was laundry and cooking and thinkin bout what to cook and buying stuff to cook and planning what the kids would take to school for lunch. Come to think of it 99 percent of my day persisted of thinkin about food! AND I OWNED A DINER!

So it was just nice having another set of hands around the house, but apparently Chino took it more as "my husband's not home why don't you step right in as husband and father if you're not doing anythin else". And stupid me, I didn't catch it until he actually punched a hole in the wall of the diner outta jealousy and he was tense when we all went to Strands.

So now the kids had two men tryin to act as dad. Patti preferred Nicki which was good, but little Nick he liked Chino better… he was about six now and was on the Bellville junior little league team and he was the pitcher; well he hit a homerun that won one of the games and instead of runnin into the open arms of his proud father he ran to "Uncle Chino".

It hurt Nicki, it hurt Nicki real bad. I mean Nick is not one to harp on things but he talked about it for weeks, every night before bed it was "how he failed as a father" and he would smite his chest and say "how he felt like a knife had been plunged in his heart when his own boy picked that awkward bastard over him".

Well, this sparked another one of Nick's "leavin the group" attempts. It was like watchin someone try to jump off a high dive into a cold pool, he'd get so far and chicken out, he'd get so far and chicken out! Nicki must have tried to leave the group what, 16 times maybe in a ten year time period.

This meant that Calello was back in. Who's Calello? Charlie Calello was Nick's replacement way before Joe Long! Actually Charlie was in the Four Lovers when Nick was on one of his early leave the group sprees, before Sherry was even a thought in Gaudio's head. So in short; Charlie replaced Nick who replaced Charlie who replaced Nick again who was later replaced by Long.

The funny thing is; none of the original Seasons were classically trained; but these guys, Calello and Long were like forget about it! Long only left playin classical music cause of a hand injury and Calello was so good he would later arrange a song written by Gaudio for Frank Fn Sinatra! No joke! Calello worked with the bigs, Bobby Vinton, Bruce Springsteen, Ray Charles, Streisand, Manilow. I mean the guy was good!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Its funny what weddings, good weddings can do to people. A wedding is basically a joining of two families or just people in general. Bobby and Judy's wedding joined a lot of things together. Their wedding was the first time Frankie met Loraine and us three girls; we came together, me, Judy and Joycie.

I had never really cared for Judy before this to be honest and I had thought the same went for her, but when she asked me to be a bridesmaid well that just all fell away. Suddenly, I was like her new best friend! She had all these questions about "how to be a wife" and "what to do as a wife" like it was a test she had to study for or somethin. She was around me all the time! even though I told her it was just natural!

With her proposal in may Judy had wanted to be an November bride for the fall colors; pumpkin orange, creamy white and sunflower yellow…mostly yellow, man that girl loved her yellow.

But she was your typical bride; excited and bouncy, even more so excited because she was actually going to have more than a cake, punch and coffee reception.

Their rehearsal dinner was of course at the diner. So we spent the whole day before decorating and sitting around drinking ice tea.

"Can you believe that tomorrow I'll be Mrs. Bob Gaudio!" Judy sighed waving that pear shape stone on her finger around like a kid with a flag on the fourth of July, too excited for words. I only chuckled into my straw and sipped my ice tea down to the bottom, I then snapped my fingers towards Rich jokingly. "Cabana boy!" I called.

Rich, being the southern gentlemen that he was had made it a goal of his to be a slave to anyone in the wedding party, and I milked out every second of that. "Have you started your thank you notes yet?" I questioned leaning on my hand as my drink was refilled.

"No." Judy answered before her eyes got big. "Should I have?"

I shake my head. "Nah, its just that Nicki and I did more of a fill in the blank thing with ours." I reminisced with a smirk beginning to tug at the corners of my lips. "Dear blank thank you so much for coming to our wedding and blessing us with your presence we love the blank that you got us, it is so blank, we'll be sure to blank with it. Love and miss you. Mr. and Mrs. Massi."

Judy got a big smile on her face at this. "That's brilliant!"

I shrugged all cutesy like squinting my eyes. Suddenly a voice rang out from a view booths down. "I seriously do not remember signing up for the decoration committee alone!" it was Joycie standing barefoot on one of the tables staplin strands of white and yellow crepe paper to the walls.

I wrinkled my nose and leaned towards the side to face her. "You didn't! I made the mini horn a plenty center pieces for the table remember? With the pumpkins and stuff in them."

"Which are so cute by the way." Judy added touchin my arm warmly. Joyce chuckled as she rolled her eyes and went to the next booth. "Besides Joycie this is your duty as maid of honor, you should be joyous!" Judy giggled.

"I don't remember manual labor being part of the job description." She said under her breath and stapled some more. The diner had cleaned up real nice with linin table cloths, candles and new lamp shades. With two more staples she was done and joined us in the booth and Judy wrapped her arms around her and planted a playful kiss on her friend's cheek before squealing. "Mrs. Bob Gaudio can you believe it!"

Then Mary stumbles threw the door wobbly, fallin all over herself and snickering. The three of us exchanged looks and then anonymously decided that I would be the one to speak to her. I slip out of the booth and shuffled a few steps forward. "Mary." I started and after she stopped cackling like a hen she gave me her attention. "We sent you out for ice two hours ago-"

Mary juggled her head around ending with a hiccup. "Yeahh, so?" she slurred still clutching on to the door handle for dear life; lettin in the cold air from outside in the diner.

"So?" I repeat through clinched jaw. "So where the hell is the ice?"

"Whaat ice?" Mary asked.

I ran a frustrated hand down my face. "the ice I asked you to get from the store two fn hours ago, because the machine in the diner is actin up!"

After a moment of being dumbstruck she starts laughin again. "Did you check up your ass?" she starts howlin with laughter almost fallin on her face. I throw my hands up. "Useless! Absolutely fn useless!"

Mary then spotted Judy and ran over to her, cupping her face and squeezing her lips into fish lips. "Look at this bootyful bootyful bride!" she slurred. "you know I was a bootyful bride once too!" Judy only sat there uncomfortably taking Mary's drunken affection in her stride.

"Well." Joycie said pulling on her coat. "Looks like its maid of honor to the rescue again." She started to head out for the ice and ran into Frankie, who was comin in haulin his tux over one shoulder with his three little daughters behind him. "Hey Monterey where you off too?" Frankie greeted warmly.

"Ice run Crooner, the machine is being faulty." Joycie replied motioning her eyes towards Mary who was still harassing Judy. Frankie shook his head with distain. You see, when Frankie and the guys got back he had thought Mary was doing better with her drinkin; but the truth was she just hid it overly well. Frankie had some suspicions bout it, but he didn't wanna acknowledge it, didn't wanna make it real. But after some, a lot of hateful remarks and finding her stash in one of her perfume bottles with drugs to boot, Frankie filed for a legal separation. "An ice run huh?" Frankie repeated putting his suit on one of the tables and pickin up little Francine. "I'll go with you Monterey, we should split the bill on it anyway me being the best man and all. Come on kids, back in the car"

They went off; actually with her being the maid of honor and Frankie being the best man for Bobby they spent a lot of time together; mostly to get away from Mary, just like on high school science projects when they were young, the Monterey Crooner tag team. They even had this runnin joke that they were gonna skip down the aisle and sing Follow The Yellow Brick Road.

So anyway they leave and we get stuck babysittin glubba the drunken fish when all of a sudden Nick comes in all red faced and pointin at Chino who had the kids screamin "Fire him fire him fire him!" in front of everyone. So I pull my hot head husband into the back room and he says this.

"Margie!" I knew it was serous cause no one ever called me by that name. "I've had it with him! Him and his being rude to people just because I'm around or tryin to show me up around the kids. You know what he did- do you know what he did?"

I cross my arms and huff. "No but I'm sure your gonna tell me."

"He's wearin my shirt! He is fn wearin my shirt! He went in my closet, he's tryin to be me"

I laugh at the stupidity of this rubbin my temple. "Did it ever dawn on you Nick that other people can buy the same clothes?" I ask realistically.

"Nah-nah this has a little stain of pizza sauce on the right sleeve been there for years, quarter of an inch in the shape of a diamond! Go look."

So I do and its there. There is some- I don't wanna call it argument but discussion between me and Nick about how Chino had been causin a lotta rift between him and I and him and the kids and how his works skills were lacking and what not. Nicki felt like I was leadin Chino on or somethin and that maybe it was time to let him go…

So I talk to Chino and let him down easy; and um…he tells me that he loves me… and the kids…and it breaks my heart because I broke his heart; even though I never loved him that way, I loved Nick, I never could. And the next thing I knew he was marching off to Vietnam; so… everyday I live with that weighing on my shoulders that… I was part of a love triangle and a man went off to war because of it.

Love triangles are such heartbreaking bullshit…

I had so much fun writing this! all the girls together and some history on the changing bass members! I am now on a new record of 108 pages! and I made some fan art too! so excited for November when the play comes to Sac and the movie comes out!

who's ready for another Judy chapter?!