Anyone But You (8 page)

“You’re selling pizza? That’s the only thing on the menu?” Gertrude’s voice failed to mask her skepticism.

“Yes, once we open in a couple of weeks, that is,” I answered. Her upper lip crinkled faintly in disdain.

“From the look on your face, Gertrude, I’ll take it that you’ve either never tasted pizza, or you’ve never tasted
good
pizza. I assure you, Nick and I are going to rectify that.” I recognized Benny going into sales pitch mode, something we’d been rehearsing for weeks.

“I’ve actually never tried it, myself, to be honest,” said Estelle. “You said it’s like a pie, Ben? There’s nothing I love more than sinking my fork into a good flaky pie crust ….”

“A
fork
!?” Benny threw his head back with laughter, then grabbed her hand and kissed it. “Oh, Estelle, you lovely girl. A smart cookie, but so much to learn, eh, Nick?”

“No fork,” I explained to both girls. “You can eat it with your hands. And the crust isn’t flaky. It’s more of a perfect combination of crisp and chewy.” Estelle and her sister exchanged perplexed glances.

“You eat it with your hands? Sounds positively boorish,” Gertrude said.

“It
sounds
delicious,” Estelle said, wrapping her arm around Benny’s waist, “and I can’t wait to try it.” She couldn’t have been more sincere in her enthusiasm. Maybe that’s what had me feeling all topsy-turvy inside. The way Benny looked at her, I could tell he was besotted. But for how long? I loved him like a brother, but he’d already left a string of spurned damsels in his wake. It was statistically a near certainty that he would break this sweet and lovely young woman’s heart into a thousand smithereens, like the remnants of broken glass I’d just swept up out front.

“Will you excuse us?” Gertrude said abruptly, ushering her sister by the elbow to the front of the shop. They talked in whispers, but I could tell from the look on both young women’s faces that they were in disagreement with one another over something. Gertrude evidently wasn’t too thrilled about being dragged into such a “boorish” establishment. Benny sidled up next to me, meanwhile, and we both watched from across the room.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Does she not have the most spectacular blue eyes you’ve ever seen?” My mind reeled as it hit me. Those eyes … the color of blue hydrangeas. Seven years had changed her, physically (and how!), and her “grown up” name had thrown me off, but it was her.
My
Stella. I hadn’t recognized her at first sight, and she clearly had no inkling that we’d met before, once upon a time when she wore her hair in ponytails. Certainly Benny hadn’t made the connection, nor were either of them likely to untangle our strangely entwined fates so many years after the fact. Benny had made good on his promise. He’d found her. Only this time, he was head over heels in love with her. It felt like being punched in the face all over again.

T
HE DANCE FLOOR PROVED TO BE THE IDEAL
refuge from Beresdorfer the younger, who was well on his way toward earning a new moniker: Pushy Perry. All was copacetic until I could no longer ignore the painfully obvious: my mom was trying to catch my attention from across the room. Communicating through a complicated system of vigorous hand waving (on her part) and eye rolling (on my part), we reached a détente, which was that I would spend the next hour or so “working the room,” as I’d promised my dad. Like an overly ambitious gubernatorial candidate the day before an election, I kissed adorable babies, shook hands with elderly patrons, and generally played the dutiful daughter and amiable hostess. Despite the fact that I hated being on display, it was actually really touching to see that so many people had shown up for the occasion. My head spun as I interacted with an onslaught of close and distant relatives, including second and third cousins two and three times removed (whatever that meant). Mario, acting more like a furtive political aide than a maître d’, shadowed me with a veritable dossier on the guests in attendance.

“That’s Teresa, your cousin Dino’s second wife—her first grandson was born in May.”

“Teresa!” I’d chirp. “How’s that baby?”

“Claire Paulinelli is over at Table Four,” Mario would continue under his breath. “She sends those god-awful cookies at Christmas.”

“Mrs. Paulinelli! Can I put in my order now for more of those delicious
pizzelle
?”

“They’re
angeletti
!” Mario hissed, not moving his lips. He ought to consider moonlighting as a ventriloquist.

“Only kidding you, Mrs. P! Who could ever forget your
angeletti
?”

Plenty of neighbors and local business owners had shown up, and I even spied Father Vito, the pastor from Our Lady of Pompeii church, charming Carmen with his moves on the dance floor. How surreal. Most of these people, I knew, were here out of love for the restaurant and the Caputo family as a whole, and I was proud to be an extension of that unit. That being said, if I didn’t get a reprieve from the fake smiling soon, I might develop a case of self-induced lockjaw.

“Hey, cuz,” Ty said, coming up behind me and nudging me with his elbow, “had enough yet?”

“Yes, more than enough,” I sighed. “Think you can keep my parents off my back for a few minutes while I get some air?”

“Consider it my birthday present to you,” he drawled with a wink.

Moments later, true to his promise, Ty, Frankie, and Enzo launched into the clownish boy band-style dance-off they’d been performing at every family wedding since they were ten years old. Shirttails untucked and ties around their foreheads, the brothers enthusiastically karaoked their way through a cheesy pop tune, leaving no pelvic thrust or air guitar solo unturned. With guests obviously highly entertained by their antics and my parents distracted, I chose that moment to make my escape to the kitchen. I needed to sneak away for a few minutes to check in on Chef, or, truth be told, to confab with him about the mysterious guy I’d seen. The encounter, though brief, had wreaked havoc in me, body and soul. Chef would understand as no one else would. He always did. I backed into the hallway that led to the restrooms, intending to enter the kitchen from the back door when I tripped over one of a pair of preppy navy-blue deck shoes. Unfortunately, they belonged to Perry, who was blocking my potential escape route.

“Hey, I’ve been looking for you,” he said, way too enthusiastically.

“Um, I was just on my way to ….” I attempted, unsuccessfully, to squeeze past him.

“I wanted to make sure we finalized plans for our date,” he said, grabbing my hand with his sweaty one. Ew.

“Our
date
?” I gently tried to extricate my hand, but he held it fast. His proprietary air was really beginning to annoy me. I’d tried to be pleasant out of respect for my dad, but this was going too far. “What are you talking about?”

“If you’re worried about your dad, I checked with him and he gave me his blessing.” His
blessing
? I shuddered inwardly.

“Um, Perry ….” I backed away from him, wishing I could for once just speak my mind and tell him to go away. Instead my mom’s command—“Be nice to that boy”—echoed in my brain. “I think there’s been some misunderstanding—”

“Hey,
there
you are,” said a voice from behind me. As though harvested straight from my (admittedly obsessed) brain, I turned and saw that it was none other than the dark-haired boy I’d noticed earlier—the very object of my idolatry. Taking my free hand, he gave Perry, who was still holding my other hand, a friendly, yet somehow dismissive, nod. I looked from one hand to the other, marveling at the strange situation I’d found myself in. “Sorry—” he started to say to Perry, and then looked at me quizzically.

“This is Perry,” I said, catching on.

“And you are?” Perry asked him.

“With her,” he said, winking at me and holding up our entwined hands for Perry’s inspection. “As in
together
. Which means she can’t go on a date with you.” His tone was apologetic, but his eyes held an almost dangerous glint.

“But …” started Perry, confused, as he let go of my hand.

“Sorry, Barry—”

“It’s Perry.”

“Perry, right. See you around.” Perry watched us depart, his broad, bland face expressing a mixture of irritation and perplexity. I thought we were headed for the dance floor, but still holding my hand with a confident grip, my rescuer veered in the opposite direction. He led me up the stairs to a corner of the mezzanine that had been curtained off from floor to ceiling by silver fabric to give the dance floor the feel of a stage. Behind it was the Monroe booth, which was virtually hidden from the rest of the room. He pulled aside the curtain, and we slid into the darkened nook.

Just being near him had my pulse racing, and I knew I was blushing like an idiot, which made me grateful for the lack of lighting.

“Thanks,” I said. “That was getting awkward. Make that
awful.
”

“No problem,” he replied. My hand in his didn’t feel the least bit strange. On the contrary, it felt exactly right. I waited for him to say something else, but he looked at me, calmly, as if expecting that I’d speak now.

“We haven’t met before, have we?” I asked.

“Uh, no. I’m not from around here. I came with some friends. Actually,” he added, “they had the idea to crash the party. I’m meeting up with them here.”

“So you weren’t invited?” My party had crashers? Maybe I was cooler than I thought.

“No. And, to be honest, I don’t really like parties. What about you?”

“Oh, I don’t usually like parties, either.” Though this one wasn’t turning out to be as bad as I’d imagined, I added silently to myself. Instead of responding, he nodded and smiled, waiting for me to complete my thought. I wasn’t used to anyone asking for my opinion, let alone giving me the floor to say whatever it is I wanted to say, so I tentatively continued. “I mean, birthdays are fine when you’re
five
,” I said, “but at a certain point, get over it, right? It kind of seems redundant for every single person on Earth to celebrate their birthday once a year for the rest of their lives. A birthday once a decade after you hit ten seems like it would make more sense. Then again, I don’t have much luck where birthdays are concerned, so maybe it’s sour grapes.”

“Do tell.”

“A kid threw up on me in a birthday bounce house when I was seven. It was a pizza party, so, well … you can imagine. Then, when I turned ten, my mom hired a clown for my birthday. He was terrifying, and slightly drunk, and had breath so rank it could have euthanized a small animal. When I was fourteen, I had an allergic reaction to the food dye in the icing on my cake—wound up covered in hives. So you could argue that the whole ‘party apathy’ thing is really PTSD.” I paused. Had I been rambling? If so, he didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, the devilish grin from before was back in full force and it utterly bewitched me.

“Duly noted,” he finally said, nodding. “You have a wry sense of humor, do you know that?”

“Uhh, no, not really,” I said. Next to my clowning cousins, I was never considered the comic relief of the family.

“Well, I like it. So if you’re not into birthday bashes,” he continued, “then why are you here?” He obviously had no idea who I was. It was refreshing not to have “Caputo’s only daughter” stamped on my forehead, figuratively speaking.

“Oh, I work here.” Which wasn’t a lie.

“No kidding. I’m in food service, too.”

“Waiters and waitresses get no respect,” I sighed, only partly in jest.

“No doubt—those government signs in the bathroom telling us to wash our hands. Um, why is that only directed at us?”

“Right? It’s ridiculous!” I laughed, feeling myself come alive. “And the crazy orders people come up with: ‘I’d like a house salad, only hold the onions, dressing, tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce.’ Why not just order a plate of croutons?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t even get me started on splitting a check nine ways.”

“I can’t feel too sorry for you, though. I
never
get Saturday nights off.”

“Okay, well, confession time: I’m supposed to be working, too,” he replied. “I faked a cold to get off early.”

“Degenerate!”

“I know, I know. I didn’t want to—come to the party, I mean. My buddy basically badgered me into it. He thought I needed a change of scenery and wouldn’t shut up about it, so I finally gave in. And I have to admit, it’s nice to see how the other half lives for a change.”

“Agreed,” I sighed. “I basically work in a windowless basement. I swear, it’s turned me claustrophobic. It can’t be healthy.”

“I’m right there with you. Work is like my second home, in the best and worst sense,” he noted. “What’s it like working for the Caputos, anyway?”

“You could say they’re like family,” I said, inwardly congratulating myself for my artful reply.

“So, I guess you probably
had
to come to the party then? Because of your job, I mean.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Hmmm … sounds like there’s more you’re not telling me,” he said with a sly smile. “A sense of humor and mysterious, too—sounds like trouble.” I wondered how a stranger sitting next to me in the dark could be more in tune with me than most everyone else in my life. I smiled back and shrugged, partly to flirt, and partly because telling him I was the guest of honor might be the conversational equivalent of turning my coach back into a pumpkin.

“Well, anyway, I’m glad,” he said, more serious now.

“Glad that I was forced to attend this party against my will?” I asked with a laugh.

“No. Just glad you’re here.”

“Oh.” There went my stomach again, as if I was slowly cresting the peak of a wooden roller coaster. My brain was a forest canopy brimming with birds—a million little thoughts I didn’t know how to convey. I’d never been forthcoming with my innermost feelings, yet for some reason, I now felt a frantic need to share them with this complete stranger. The moment was strangely evanescent—as if it might vanish in an instant. I needed to keep this perfect place in time from slipping out of my grasp. But where to begin? What to say? And if I did speak, would it suddenly break the spell we both seemed to be under?