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aren’t really fashionable, the cheap ones that come wrapped in cellophane and offer packs of low-quality cosmetics by mail order from companies nobody’s ever heard of. Her face, though, has nothing to do with her dress, it’s a normal face.
    Tony bursts into the kitchen, looking like someone with an urgent need to let off steam. He stops in front of the girls and starts to drum with his foot on the floor.
    â€œWhat happened, Tony?” Mindy asks.
    Tony says nothing and keeps on drumming with his foot. He’s acting like a sulky little kid, but not for the usual reason that the color of the paper napkins doesn’t match the color of the glasses, or the fact that Cettina watered the garden only two hours before the barbecue, so now all the guests have got wet shoes, not to mention the ladies in sandals … It’s not even because of the beer Cettina forgot to put in the fridge, even though it was right there in the kitchen, and when a housewife enters a kitchen and sees bottles of beer the day of a barbecue, then she puts them in the fridge. I mean: it’s something automatic, instinctive, like blinking if somebody tries to stick their finger in your eyes … And if a person doesn’t do it, then she doesn’t do it on fucking purpose! But that’s not what’s making him tense. It’s Uncle Sal and his fucking remark about Nick! What was the name of that fucking antique dealer? Tony can’t remember, but he remembers perfectly what Uncle Sal said the day they found his body slashed with a razor blade. “Everybody knew the guy was a snob.” That’s what he fucking said!
    Tony stops drumming with his foot.
    â€œValentina’s looking very pale,” he says. “I don’t think she’s feeling well … You’d better get out of here!”
    *   *   *
    Tuccio and Nuccio enter Tony’s garden, cutting right though the guests. They don’t say hello to anybody, they’re looking for Uncle Sal and no one else.
    Nuccio walks confidently, with a blissful look on his face like somebody thinking, Fuck, I’m a really handsome guy and I bet these whores are getting excited. I smell pussy! Fantasizing, Nuccio adjusts his balls.
    Tuccio, on the other hand, walks fast, face drawn. He hopes he won’t bump into Uncle Sal right away: he had a clear plan in his head before he got out of the Mercedes, he’d carefully weighed his words and gestures, silently mimed the right expressions, but the lights and faces at the barbecue have driven every thought from his mind.
    So for the third time now, he passes the same face. Either they’re going around in circles or Tony’s garden isn’t as big as it seems. Tuccio stops to look at the face, a face he knows, even if he can’t remember exactly who the fuck it is. Not knowing what to do, Tuccio says good evening.
    The guy says good evening, too, politely, like a rambling old man met by chance on a one-way street.
    Nuccio is wondering why on earth Tuccio is talking to that fucking guy instead of Uncle Sal. But it’s none of his business. He makes a little gesture with his shoulders, a little shake, like he’s straightening a very well-cut jacket, though he’s not wearing a well-cut jacket, then readjusts his balls. The guy facing him makes an embarrassed sign with his eyes, indicating a point behind Tuccio’s back.
    Tuccio doesn’t understand, he’d like to say to the guy, What are you looking at, you little faggot? But the guy’s a guest at Sal’s nephew’s barbecue. He may even be a Scali. So Tuccio blinks a few times as if to dispel the aggressive feelings rising inside him.
    The guy repeats the gesture, and it’s even more embarrassing.
    Tuccio decides to turn around (he doesn’t know why he decides to turn around, but he does) and sees Uncle Sal standing there, with his hands in the pockets of his dark gray