***All characters are over 18 and are fictional. Any resemblance to any real-life persons or situations is purely coincidental.
...
Joey had to take a deep breath to keep himself from getting angry. This was the fifth time he failed at putting on his tie. No matter how long he had been putting on his own tie, he always kept screwing it up. He could take apart a car engine and reassemble it perfectly, but he could never get his tie right on the first try.
He looked up on his phone different ways to put on a tie and found there were a lot more than he ever thought there would be. Some of them seemed too complicated to learn at such short notice, so he just went with the traditional easy method called the four-in-hand knot, according to the website he found.
On the eighth try, he got it right, relieved that it was finally over. He was now ready for the bigger task at hand, attending a family funeral.
He went downstairs, fully dressed in his suit, and met his mother in the kitchen, making phone calls with other family members who might be going to the funeral. She put down her phone and walked up to him, taking a good look at his suit.
"The tie could be better, but other than that, you look perfect," she said. "If we weren't going to a funeral, you could probably meet a nice girl today."
Joey just smirked at that comment. No matter what the situation was, his mother always found a way to bring up him getting a girlfriend. He was only 21 and in college, had a good job, and kept himself in pretty good shape. He did alright with women, and had sex with many of them; he just didn't want to be tied down so soon. He did want to get married one day, just not right now when he's enjoying his youth.
"Now, your Aunt Paula's car is in the shop, so you need to go pick her up and take her to the funeral home," said his mother.
"Why can't she take an Uber?" Joey asked.
His mother put her hands on her hips and looked at him disapprovingly.
"This is your Uncle George's funeral," she said. "Your Aunt Paula's husband--"
"Ex-husband," Joey corrected her.
"They weren't divorced yet," she countered. "Anyway, she shouldn't have to pay for an Uber or have to arrive in one. Someone in the family should take her."
"Why can't someone else do it?"
His mother got angry and started yelling at him in Italian. She learned this method from her own mother when she wanted her kids to do something they didn't want to do, and it worked pretty well on Joey as well.
"Ok, OK. I'll do it," he said.
His mother suddenly calmed down.
"You're a good boy," she said, and kissed him on the cheek.
Joe got his keys and drove off to his Aunt Paula's house. He had his car cleaned the day before, so it was good to have passengers in it.
He thought about what his mother said about them not being divorced yet. His aunt Paula separated from her husband a little over three years ago because she couldn't take his cheating any more. She let it go for the first several years of their marriage, although she was never happy about it.
His family was somewhat of a traditional Italian Catholic family, and divorce was a sin because the Bible said so. It was always a taboo subject to bring up, which is why it rarely happened. When it did happen, it was always a lot of drama for the person who sought the divorce.
Surprisingly, adultery wasn't as bad as divorce in their family. There have been many philanderers over the years. They were all accepted in some way or another, as long as it didn't end in a divorce.
Joey's views on the subject were different. He felt if they didn't get along, then they shouldn't be together. He never understood why people should stay together in misery just because of how it might make them look to others.
Eventually, Uncle George got too careless and got one of his mistresses pregnant--twice. Apparently, he was trying to keep both children secret, giving his mistress false promises of leaving his wife for her. Eventually, the mistress stopped believing his lies and told Paula, who promptly threw him out of the house.
Because of their family's views on divorce, their marriage was basically in limbo until something happened to finally end it. It usually ends when one side caves in and files for divorce. That way, the other side would say it wasn't them who tried to get that divorce. In this case, George had a heart attack at work and died on the way to the hospital.
Then came the funeral. Some people may find it odd that Paula would go to the funeral of the man who cheated on her and had children with another woman. But his family was somewhat intertwined by a series of marriages since both sides of the family knew each other for so many decades. For example, while Joey's mother and his aunt Paula were sisters, Joey's father was George's second cousin. Paula also got along well with other members of George's family, many of whom understood why she separated from George after what he had done. So, Paula was mostly there for their sake, not her own.
Joey arrived at her house twenty minutes later. His Aunt Paula greeted him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek and let him into her house. She was ready, wearing a short-sleeved black dress that was cut off at her knees.
"You ready to go?" Joe asked.
"No, it's too early," she said. "You want to have some coffee with me and wait a little while?"
They sat on the couch in the living room, drinking coffee and just hanging out for a while, talking about a variety of subjects.
"How are you doing with all of this, Aunt Paula?" Joey asked.
"I'm doing alright, I suppose," she said. "We haven't been together in a few years, but it still feels sad."
"That's understandable. He was a big part of your life."
Paula changed the subject and asked questions about Joey. Just like his mother, she questioned him about any women in his life, and he just gave her some vague answers.
Joe and his Aunt Paula always got along pretty well, probably because she was closer to his age than most of his other aunts and uncles. On his mother's side, Paula was the youngest of seven children. She was 34 but could pass for younger. She had dirty blonde hair and a very good body that even Joey couldn't resist noticing.
"Your tie is not right," said Puala.
"Yeah, this was the best I could do after several failed attempts."
"Let me fix this for you," she said as she grabbed at Joey's tie.
"You don't have to do this."
"It's fine, I want to," she assured him. "I used to do this for your Uncle George all the time. And before that, I used to help my brothers with this, so I was good at this for a long time."
She took Joey's tie off of his neck. She first smoothed out a few of the wrinkles that formed from a few of Joe's failed attempts to tie it, then she proceeded to tie it back on for him. She did a method he recognized from when he searched for tying methods on the internet but couldn't get it done right. On the first attempt, she got the tie around Joey's neck better than he could ever have imagined.
"This looks perfect," said Joey. "You're a natural."
"Thank you," said Paula.
There was an awkward silence between them as they looked into each other's eyes. Before he knew it, Paula grabbed Joey by the tie and pulled him toward her, and she kissed him hard on the face. She held the kiss there for several seconds before letting it go.
