Baker Towers (24 page)

The mourners got into their cars. One by one the doors slammed shut. The old man picked his way, roosterlike, across the sidewalk, and got into the passenger side of the hearse. The car rolled forward, its lights flashing. Dorothy squinted into the sun. A moment later she caught her breath.

The driver was Angelo Bernardi.

“Where are they going?” she asked Mrs. Bellavia.

“St. Brigid’s,” the old lady explained. “A McDonald died.”

After that Dorothy passed the funeral home every day. Each morning she checked the obituaries; in the afternoon she walked the Catholic cemeteries: St. Brigid’s, St. Casimir’s, Our Mother of Sorrows, Mount Carmel. When she spotted the hearse, her heart quickened; but always the wrong cousin was driving. Most days the driver was Jerry; a few times, Victor or Sal.

She did not give up. And on a windy afternoon in early October, she saw Angelo Bernardi.

An Italian child was to be buried: a boy, Nicholas Annacone, crushed by a car as he chased a ball into the street. Dorothy set out at noon under a clear sky, the vibrant blue of early autumn. An hour later she climbed the hill to Mount Carmel. The service had ended; the mourners were returning to their cars. A canopy had been erected at the grave site. Two men in overalls struggled to refold it, the canvas flapping loudly in the wind. Cars cruised toward the cemetery gates. At the grave site a man stood leaning against the hearse.

For once she did not hesitate. She had missed too many chances already: Walter Parish, a young clerk at Treasury who’d spoken to her at the watercooler; men who’d tipped their hats or smiled at her on the bus. Chick Rowsey in the pool at Glen Echo: his arms around her on the train platform, his mouth on hers. Each disappointment had weakened her; losing hope was like losing blood. She could not survive another failure. Already she was hemorrhaging from regret.

She walked toward him. The wind blew petals and loose dirt. A car horn blared. Later she realized she hadn’t even looked; she could have been run over like Nicholas Annacone. She had forgotten everything: her fears, her self-respect, what her sister called common sense. All she could remember was a name, Angelo Bernardi.

He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and lit it. Then he saw her.

“Hey,” he said, tossing away the match. “I know you.”

“Dorothy Novak,” she said quickly, before he could ask.

“From the festival. What, you think I forgot? I’m kidding,” he said, flashing her a smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Just walking.”

“In the graveyard?”

“My grandmother is buried here. I put flowers on her grave.”
I’m lying,
she reflected calmly. Just then it didn’t seem to matter. She watched his hands.

“What a beautiful day. Makes you glad to be alive.” A stream of smoke shot out his nostrils. “Did you hear about this kid?” He nodded toward the fresh grave. “Eight years old. Those parents, my God. You shoulda seen it. Out of their minds with grief.”

“It’s horrible.”

“Makes you think. Beautiful day like this: How many of them are you gonna get? I haven’t seen the sun in a week.” He noticed her frown. “I work at the Twelve. It’s my day off. I’m helping out my uncle for the day.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Tell me about it.” He inhaled deeply. “Nah. Tell him. I’m tired of hearing how I never lift a finger. I been hearing that song my whole life.”

He flicked a cigarette ash from his lapel.

“I’m sorry. I got no manners, running at the mouth like this. But I don’t mind telling you, I got frustrations.” He tossed away his cigarette. “I got the car all day. You feel like taking a ride?”

T
HEY TOOK THE BACK
way out of town, a winding road that cut through cool acres of forest, connecting Bakerton to the neighboring
towns: Coalport, Fallentree, Moss Creek, towns too small for even a post office. A hand-lettered sign—
U.S. MAIL
—hung above a walk-up window on somebody’s front porch. Dorothy had seen these towns from a train window, the slow local. She’d imagined them much farther away.

He drove fast and expertly. Wind rushed through the open windows, ruffled the silky curtains, and Dorothy remembered she was riding in a hearse. At first the speed delighted her. Then her stomach churned. Closing her eyes made matters worse. She clutched helplessly at the seat.

“Whatsa matter? You carsick?”

“A little dizzy,” she admitted. “Can we stop for a minute?”

He signaled and pulled off the road. “You okay? You look a little green.” He leaned across her to roll down the window. For a moment his head was level with her breasts. His black hair looked dense as moss.

“My fault,” he said. “I drive too fast. The old man is always on me about it. Good for the engine, though. Cleans out all the shit. Excuse my French.” He looked at her closely. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

Dorothy flushed.

“That’s unusual in a girl. I got four sisters, they never shut up.” He reached for her hand. “I thought about calling you. I could kick myself. Things got complicated. I don’t know what to say.”

His hand was broad and heavy in her lap, his skin warm to the touch.

“Kiss me,” she said.

H
E DROPPED HER OFF
at the bottom of Polish Hill. “Bunch of busybodies in this town,” he explained. “You can’t take a crap without somebody knowing about it.” She knew he was right. She’d be curious, too, if she saw one of her neighbors step out of a hearse.

At home her mother and sisters were sitting down to supper.

“Where have you been?” said Joyce. “We were starting to worry.”

“I took a walk. I lost track of time.” Dorothy tore into a hunk of Rose’s bread. She was suddenly ravenous. “It was a beautiful day.”

Joyce peered at her. “Looks like you got some sun.”

Dorothy ate in silence. She often ate in silence, but that day it weighed on her. For the first time in months she was dying to speak. Instead she shoveled in chicken, potatoes, her mother’s fried eggplant. It was the only way she could keep quiet, until she could be alone with the memory of him.

Her boldness had surprised him.
You’re something, aren’t you?
Then he pulled her close, wrapping her in his smell—cigarettes, garlic, cologne.

They had kissed a long time. His cheeks were rough as sandpaper. Later, in her bedroom mirror, she saw that Joyce was right: her mouth and cheeks looked sunburned; her neck, her ears, her throat. Even her chest was flushed, down to the top button of her blouse. She had stopped him there.

I should go,
she said.
I have to be home for supper.

His mouth had felt warm and alive. Eyes closed, she had imagined herself swimming. Now she wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t stopped him. She wondered if she would be red all over.

“I ran into someone when I was walking,” she blurted out. “That fellow from Mount Carmel Day. Angelo Bernardi.”

Joyce set down her fork. “Wasn’t he supposed to call you?”

“He lost my number,” Dorothy lied.

“Bernardi?” said Rose. “Eeee, I know him! That one that got divorced.”

“Divorced?” Dorothy repeated. “Oh, Mama. You must be thinking of someone else.”

“No, it’s him! He marry that Scalia girl. She living at her mother’s now, with them kids.”

“Children?” Dorothy’s voice quavered; for a moment she thought she might cry. “Oh, that’s impossible. It simply can’t be.”

“He don’t tell you?” Rose’s face darkened. “Bad enough he get divorced, but how come he lie about it?”

Dorothy rose, clearing the plates. She was unable to sit still.

“Mama, I’m sure you’re mistaken,” she said evenly. “He has so many cousins. You must be thinking of one of them.”

T
HE THING WAS
, it didn’t matter.

They met four days a week in the municipal park on Indian Hill. The park was deserted in the fall; the swimming pool drained, the chain swings taken down from their frames. Late afternoon, the sky a deep blue; they walked a slow circle around the park as Angelo told her about his day. A new boss the men despised, jokes he’d heard—the clean ones only—from a fellow on his crew. She smiled and waited. She sensed he was waiting, too. Finally he led her to his car, parked discreetly behind the pool house. He smelled of soap and hair oil, his after-work shower. His shirts were freshly laundered, his hands clean as a priest’s. Once, thinking of her father, she asked how he got his nails so white.

“Gloves,” he said bashfully. “The guys have a good laugh over it, but goddamn if I’m going to go through life with black fingernails.”

His mouth covered more of her. One day he led her to the backseat of his car. “More room back here,” he said softly. He eased her backward onto the seat and stretched out on top of her. For a moment she panicked, but his weight reassured her. The world seemed very small,
no wider than the confines of his car. For once it seemed a manageable size.

Afterward he dropped her at the bottom of Polish Hill. She noticed curtains moving in the windows—her neighbors wondering where the Novak girl was coming from.
Let them wonder,
Dorothy thought.

They didn’t go out on dates. Her mother wouldn’t have stood for it. Other girls might have minded, but Dorothy felt secret relief. She couldn’t imagine sitting across from him in a restaurant, making conversation; or navigating the crowded dance floor at the Vets, surrounded by strangers. A date would mean wearing stockings, fixing her hair, inviting him inside to chat with her family. Joyce did these things every week, when she went to the movies with Ed Hauser; but to Dorothy they seemed impossible. She came to Angelo in her natural state. She wore no lipstick; she spoke only when she felt like it.

It seemed too good to be true.

T
he three girls crossed the railroad tracks and started up Polish Hill. Clare Ann Baran and Connie Kukla, with their look-alike pageboy haircuts, their skinny legs in navy blue kneesocks. Behind them, a head taller, was Lucy Novak. The girls had stayed after school to practice their presentations for the science fair. Clare Ann and Connie had done a project together, a complicated experiment involving bacteria and petri dishes. Lucy had worked alone, observing different types of cloud formations and sketching them in a journal. All scientific research, Sister had explained, began with a hypothesis. The hypothesis was tested by conducting experiments. The class had written out their hypotheses on index cards and handed them to Sister. Lucy’s hypothesis was,
Different cloud formations predict the weather.
She had determined that her hypothesis was correct.

“He didn’t do it himself,” Clare Ann was saying. “I know for a fact that his dad made it for him.” They were discussing a fifth grader, Leonard Stusick, who’d built a papier-mâché volcano. No one had been impressed
until it exploded with foamy lava, a chemical reaction of vinegar and baking soda.

“I knew it!” Connie cried. “He never could have figured that out by himself. He’s only in fifth grade.”

“It isn’t fair,” said Clare Ann. “He isn’t even supposed to compete until sixth. Those are the
rules.
”

Lucy said nothing. Leonard Stusick had moved into the house across the street from her, and the two sometimes played together, even though Lucy was two grades ahead. She would have been ashamed to admit this to Clare Ann and Connie, who weren’t really her friends. They were the only other Science Club girls who lived on Polish Hill, and every Monday after practice they allowed her to walk home with them. This, too, was embarrassing, but not nearly so humiliating as walking alone.

The girls climbed the hill, their poster boards rattling in the wind. The sky had darkened.
Cumulus,
Lucy thought, eyeing the horizon.
Cumulus and nimbus.
Headlights flashed behind her: a hearse was climbing the hill. It passed the girls, then idled a moment. The driver stepped out. He was tall and handsome, with curly hair like Rock Hudson; he moved with an athlete’s grace. He went around to open the passenger door. Out stepped Lucy’s sister Dorothy.

Clare Ann and Connie seemed not to notice.

“He ought to be disqualified,” said Clare Ann. “That’s what happens when you break the rules.”

L
ATER, AT SUPPER
, Lucy watched her sister closely. Dorothy was her odd, distracted self, speaking little, staring vacantly out the window. After supper she skittered around the kitchen clearing plates,
wiping counters, scraping leftovers into Tupperware containers. She did whatever Joyce told her to do, even though Joyce was five years younger. This struck Lucy as horribly wrong, a clear violation of the family hierarchy.

Now she studied her sister in a scientific way. Dorothy was round-shouldered and flat-chested, plain and dreary in her pilling sweaters and baggy skirts. She had a pretty face, though. Her eyes were beautiful, deep brown flecked with gold. Rock Hudson might have noticed her eyes. Maybe pretty eyes were enough.

Maybe so; what did Lucy know? She’d been raised by women, and her teachers were nuns. Her whole life her brothers had ignored her, and she had no memory of her father. Leonard Stusick didn’t count; he was only ten, a little boy. The man Lucy knew best was Ed Hauser, who showed up every Friday night to take Joyce to the movies. Ed was tall and ungainly, nearly bald; his trousers an inch too short, as if a flood were coming. After supper Joyce would monopolize the bathroom for an hour. She’d emerge in one of her schoolmarmish dresses looking no different than before, except for the dash of red lipstick at her mouth.
For cripe’s sake,
Lucy wanted to say.
It took you an hour to do that?

When the doorbell rang, Joyce answered it in a sugary voice. She made a big show of inviting Ed into the kitchen, where he shook hands with Dorothy and Lucy, like the Fuller Brush salesman. Then Joyce took him into the parlor to say hello to Rose. For reasons Lucy didn’t understand, her mother was crazy about Ed. He sat beside her on the couch and tried speaking to her in Italian, which he had learned in college. His Italian was so bad that it made Rose laugh. This, Lucy supposed, was Ed’s best quality. As pitiful as he was, as awkward and unattractive, he could make her mother laugh.