Chapter 37 RóISE

Monday

"Are you really part of the mafia?" The question is hissed from one of my classmates sitting behind me during our Art and Community Engagement class.

You only have to take one class in this designation, but this is my third one. I've already taken a class on tactics and another on activism. I took that one my freshman year.

Because I see acting as more than a way to get famous. In fact, that was never my goal. My goal was to live out the lives of other characters for other people to enjoy.

Now, my goal is to graduate and hope that as an underboss's wife, I can volunteer in theater program for underserved youth. Or something.

I ignore the question because I don't know the guy who asked it. I mean, I know his name. It's Boaz. And I've seen him around, but he's not a friend.

I don't owe him anything, much less an explanation of whatever he thought he found on Google.

It has been a few weeks since my security detail increased by two and started following me around campus.

At first, when my friends asked what was up with that, I said I had a new overzealous head of security and they accepted it. Enough students at the school come from family with some level of personal security, it wasn't too big a deal.

I joked about preparing for the day I was famous enough to need this all the time and my friends laughed .

I thought I dodged the bullet that hit me so hard in middle school. After spending the rest of grade school and my first two years of middle school in anonymity, one of my classmate's parents dropped the bomb to their kid.

My dad was part of the Irish mob.

Which meant, I was part of the Irish mob. Suddenly, my friends were crossing the hall not to walk beside me, and kids were asking questions that made me sick to my stomach.

Did my dad kill people? Had I ever killed anyone? One of my former friends lost her phone and rumors I'd stolen it went through the school like wildfire.

At the request of the school administration, I did distance learning for the last two months of my 8th grade year. I was asked not to attend graduation.

The next year, I started high school in a different Burrough, using my middle name as my last name.

"I know a girl who went to middle school with you," Boaz says in a whisper loud enough to be heard by other students around us. "She says your uncle is the head of Irish organized crime in New York."

My face heats as other students around us hear his words and stare at me, waiting for a response.

They're going to be waiting a long time. Like forever.

The professor comes in and starts talking, but the whispering behind me doesn't stop. At least now it's not directed at me, but the classmates around us.

Finally, our professor, a gray haired woman who looks like Gloria Steinem, demands to know what all the chatter is about.

"We've got a real mobster in our classroom," Boaz replies promptly.

"Oh really?" The professor rolls her eyes. "And who might that be?"

She's that kind of teacher. She faces stuff head on and then gets us back on track. She's one of the profs who takes time to dispel urban myths around our profession especially.

She always has a few well-chosen words of logic and instructions to read a certain book, or visit a website with multiple sources (that don't all refer back to each other for god's sake – her words, not mine).

What will she say now? Maybe she'll just tell the jerk to mind his own business.

"Róise Aisling. Only her last name isn't Aisling, it's Shaughnessy and her uncle is a bigwig in organized crime."

"I see. Is that the reason for your increased security over the last month?" the professor asks me, without bothering to ask if it's true, or not.

I mean it is, but also, Aisling is my name. Just my middle name. And I planned to use it instead of Shaughnessy for my career. Lots of actors use stage names.

Why not start early ?

Unwilling to lie to her face, I stare at my professor without speaking.

Giving a brisk nod, the professor says, "Róise, please stay after class. I would like a word with you. Now, getting back to…"

But I don't hear the rest of her words. All I hear, over and over again in my head is, I would like a word with you . If anyone had any doubts about what Boaz said, she just gave it legitimacy.

My skin grows clammy, and I want to throw up.

Because I know what's coming.

And it's not understanding with a promise to talk to the other students at the next class. Not that it would matter.

Everyone at the university will know about my family's mob ties by tomorrow, if not sooner. Nobody gossips with more drama than theater people.

And finding out that I'm connected is too juicy not to serve up.

The day only gets worse. I don't even try to eat lunch in the dining hall. I don't want to answer a bunch of intrusive questions that I'll have to lie my way through.

No matter what they think they know, confirming my family's criminal connections would be a betrayal. I can't deny I'm a Shaughnessy, but I also can't talk about what that really means.

I can't correct the impression that Uncle Brogan is the head of Irish organized crime without explaining about mobs and how we're different from the Cosa Nostra and other mafias because we don't have a godfather.

We're more like the bratva, but I'm sure not going to explain that either.

So, I drown myself in tacos at a Mexican restaurant far enough away from campus there won't be any other students there.

Allessio and Zoey eat at a separate table. Like that makes any difference now.

But it's protocol.

Like following me around.

A student with a note from the dean is standing outside the door of my afternoon class. It's handwritten and signed in dark black ink.

I sigh and follow the other student, who keeps giving me curious looks over his shoulder. At least he doesn't ask.

The dean's secretary thanks and dismisses the other student before taking me into the dean's office.

Dean Howell is sitting behind his desk and he doesn't get up.

He looks a little like an aging Tom Hanks, and usually has a watered down version of that actor's affable smile and manner.

His expression is stern now though. "Some disturbing information has come to my attention."

"Yes?" I ask .

Don't give anything away. Keep the family's secrets. Don't cry.

"It appears you enrolled under a false name, Ms. Shaughnessy."

"It's not false. My middle name is Aisling." And if they'd done a rudimentary background check on me, instead of accepting the transcripts from my high school and test scores with that name on them, they'd know that.

But that's what I counted on when I enrolled. After what happened in middle school, my dad had falsified records and bribed school administrators to enroll me in high school under the name Róise Aisling.

Uncle Brogan wouldn't have done it for me for college though, so I was glad I already had the supporting documentation for my application three years ago. I even used my school I.D. for the picture identification required for the file.

Only, just like middle school, my real identity has come to light, and I don't have my dad here to help smooth it away.

Miceli De Luca is already causing big, unpleasant changes in my life and we're not even married yet.