Brooklyn Story (7 page)

The things he had done and what he was saying both excited and scared me. I was glad he hadn't forced himself completely on me and that I would have time to sort things out. I wanted to find Janice and go home. “I have to go, it's getting way too late for me to still be out.”

“Yeah, at your age an' all. Ya should be home in bed,” Tony said with a narrow smile. “Gimme your number. I might wanna take ya out to Angelo's sometime. What do you think of that?”

I thought enough of going to
the
place in Manhattan's Little Italy to open my purse and take out a tube of black eyeliner. I grabbed Tony's hand and wrote my number on his palm. He reached into a pocket and handed me a piece of scrap paper with his name and phone number written on it. “Take this,” Tony said, “an' call me when ya wake up tomorrow. I wanna hear how ya sound first thing.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said, taking the paper from him and staring at it before putting it in my purse. “What do you do? Carry those around in case you meet a hot girl?”

“You're already breakin' my heart, Samantha Bonti.” Mine fluttered as he led me back to the avenue. “Let's go find Janice so's you two can hold hands on the way home.”

I walked beside Tony, searching for my friend at every food and game booth that we passed. I saw her at last, hanging on Richie's arm and munching on a cannoli. I smiled at the two of them together and then rushed over and hugged my friend. “Hey, Richie,” I said after I separated from Janice.

“How ya doin', Sam?”

“Not too bad,” I answered, blushing. Tony came up and they exchanged hellos. “Want one a doze?” he asked me as he pointed at Janice's cannoli. “I better not,” I said as I looked at Janice and tilted my head to the side and back quickly.

Janice turned to Richie. “I gotta walk Sam home,” she said.

“Okay,” Richie said, “I'll call you later.”

Janice and I disappeared into the crowd and headed for my street. “So, was I right, or was I right?” she asked.

“He was pretty cool,” I said.

“‘Pretty cool'? Is that all you have to say?”

“He gave me his number and asked me to call him in the morning.”

“I knew it!” Janice said. “Now we can be a foursome.”

“Not so fast,” I said. “I haven't decided for sure to call him yet. He's pretty pushy.”

“They're all pushy,” Janice said. “Trust me on that one. And trust me, you'll be calling him. There's no way you'll ever find a hotter guy than Tony Kroon. Everybody wants him and you got under his skin. I saw it. But he won't wait around. He don't need to.”

Janice was right. I
had
gotten under his skin. And he had gotten under mine.

Sleep eluded me the night I kissed Tony Kroon.

If I'd had my own room, I would have turned on the light and written in my journal about the feelings that were coursing through my virginal body, but I didn't want to wake my grandmother. She would soon be seventy-five and insomnia plagued her; I often heard her rustling the sheets during the night. She slept soundly that night, her chest rising and falling so rhythmically that, as much as I wanted to write or talk to her about Tony, I didn't have the heart to disturb her.

I dropped off to sleep after hours of tossing and turning. When I awakened, still a little groggy, Grandma was already in the kitchen. I could hear the pots and pans and smell the aromas of scrambled eggs, lox, onions, and bagels, our usual fare on Sunday mornings. We did not keep a kosher home, but ever since my father had abandoned us, bacon was banned from the frying pan and lox became a satisfactory replacement.

After I inhaled the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen, I grabbed the telephone. Tony really ought to be calling
me,
I thought. I mean, he had to know that. But I had promised to call him when I awoke and I always kept my word. “Without your word,
bubelah,
” Grandma always said, “what do you have?”

I closed my eyes and felt Tony's kiss again, the way it had made me melt, and then I looked at the slip of paper he had handed to me. I said hello a few times out loud to test my voice before I dialed the number. It rang a few times—I almost hung up—and then a woman answered the phone.

“Hello?” she mumbled.

“Oh, hello. Is Tony there?”

“He's sleeping. This is his mother. Who's this?”

I hesitated a bit before I spoke. “Samantha. Can you ask him to call me when he wakes up? He has my number.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, and hung up the phone. I guess she's used to annoying phone calls in the morning, I thought, like Tony had numerous girls calling him and she knew the drill. Would she give Tony the message? I worried. If she didn't, he would think I hadn't called and I didn't want that. But there wasn't anything I could do except wait.

It was time for breakfast, and if I could get into the kitchen before Mom did I could have a private talk with Grandma about Tony. Grandma was less reactive and much more level-headed about things that young girls cared about—although the topic of dating Italians sure challenged that. I preferred not to keep secrets from my mother; I had been taught to be honest at all times, and instructed in a code of ethics that was supposed to get me through life and avoid trouble. That meant telling the truth and dating boys who were honest, too. Janice tried to live by the same code. She had gone out with a guy once who rented a limo to take her to a very expensive restaurant in Manhattan. When the check came, he asked her to wait in the car while he took care of it. It was not until they'd sped down the street and across the bridge that the guy told her he had cut out without paying. She never dated him again, and he couldn't understand why she had been so pissed off.

“Sam?” my mother called from the hall outside her bedroom door. A private talk with Grandma would have to be
postponed, I thought, and I slipped Tony's number into a drawer in my bedside table, threw on a nylon robe, and went to hug Mom. Her familiar scent of jasmine bath salts made me feel cozy.

“Did you sleep okay, Mom?”

“Not really. My pressure was acting up. I heard ya come in late last night.”

“Not very,” I said.

“No matter. Ya know the rules.”

I nodded and we went into the kitchen. I put my arms around Grandma's waist and squeezed. She was a lot heavier than she used to be and her flat breasts sagged against her body. “Morning, Grandma,” I said. Mom and I sat as Grandma handed me a glass of generic orange juice. I was accustomed to the no-name stuff in my household.

“I heard ya talkin' on the phone,” Mom said.

“I met a guy last night, Mom,” I said, wide-eyed. “At the feast. He told me to call when I woke up.”

Mom pursed her lips and shook her head from side to side. “He did, did he? And ya just did it?” She lit a cigarette, pulled her thick auburn hair back, and tied a rubber band around it before eating or drinking a thing—her morning ritual. Puffs of smoke circled that once-lustrous hair I had loved and the breakfast table as it always had, that was when she wasn't off dyeing it every different color under the sun. I swear one day it would be jet black and one day it would be platinum blond. When she got really bored she would hit the box of dye, hard, her modest splurge besides drugs here and there. The blond-in-front-and-black-in-back look took the cake. I preferred the auburn strains. They were safe and that's what I wanted so badly for her.

Grandma and I said nothing. Mom had grown deaf to our protests and concern for her health long before. “I told ya that boys are supposeta pursue girls. They won' respect ya otherwise.”

“It was just a phone call, Mom.” I looked to my grandmother for support but she kept her eyes glued to the frying pan.

“So what did he have to say?” Mom asked. “Did he remember ya name?”

“He wasn't awake yet.”

“It's ten thirty in the morning!” Mom shouted. “What the hell is he doin', sleepin' his life away?”

“Mom, it's Sunday. Everybody sleeps in on Sundays.”

“Unless they're God-fearing people that goes ta church,” Mom said.

“You don't go, so who are you to preach?”

Mom's eyes narrowed. “Don't crack wise with me, Sam.”

Grandma turned her head and her eyes met mine for an instant before she resumed cooking. “Sorry, Mom,” I said. “I don't know about church, but he does wear a cross.”

“That doesn't prove anything,” Mom said. “Plenty of creeps, your father included, wear medals.”

I lowered my head. Grandma changed the subject while she stirred the eggs. “What does he do, Samelah?”

“Well, I can't say exactly, but it's important. Everbody's real respectful of him.”

“Respect him?” Mom asked. “How old is he?”

“Around twenty.”

“Chrissakes, Sam! He should be wid someone his own age.”

I didn't answer. It was no use arguing with my mother. She was bitter about her life and that she had gotten sick, and sometimes directed her resentment toward me and Grandma. Mom battled with her mother over not wanting to be Jewish and the kind of men Mom hung around with, and she never dealt with her demons in a healthy way. The older I got, the more I knew her weak condition had stemmed from an unhealthy lifestyle and addictions that weakened her immune system. It was sad, but over time I had been able to accept who she was. I felt terrible because I did know in my
heart that Mom wanted to be happy for me. It was just too hard for her.

Grandma put a generous helping of eggs and lox on our plates and sat down at her place. She and I started eating while Mom stubbed her cigarette and then pushed her food around. Her appetite was often suppressed by a load of meds she had to take for her various complaints. She put her fork down and looked at me. “Don't forget the welfare check today,” she said. I cringed. “It's on the nightstand and I need you to refill some of my pills.”

I hated cashing the checks and living on welfare. But I knew Mom needed my help, especially on the days when she just didn't feel good enough to go out. She had made friends with the local check-cashing guy and he would give me the money without asking for a matching ID. Mr. Weissbaum was one of the nice men whom Mom could have dated, but didn't.

The welfare checks and food stamps were an ugly reminder that we weren't like most other families. Standing in line at that check-cashing joint with a bunch of other people, ashamed as I was, staring at the floor, was pure torture. No one could imagine how humiliating it was to be in the checkout line of the supermarket, ready to pay with food stamps, while kids I knew from school were one aisle over, laughing at me. I would pray to God and then rationalize my situation. At least I was able to eat and buy clothes, I would think at those times. I felt that I was the one who was paying for my mother's mistakes, but knew I had to help her as much as possible. If that meant cashing a check or two, so be it. It wasn't until I got much older that I realized that those other kids were idiots, and their smirks and remarks weren't important at all. Surviving takes its toll but makes you strong, I learned.

“Well,” Mom said, “now that you're callin' boys first thing in the mornin', I hope ya won't forget your family.”

“Jeez, Mom, all I did was call a guy on the phone. Don't make a federal case out of it.”

Mom softened. She lit another cigarette and sipped her coffee. “I jus' worry about ya, Sam. Who is he?”

“His name's Tony.”

Mom grunted. “Half the men in Bensonhurst are called Tony.”

“He's got Italian blood but his last name is Kroon.”

“Never heard of them. They must not be from around here.”

“Janice and Richie know him.”

“That should make me feel good?” Mom clucked from deep in her throat. “If Richie knows him that means this Tony knows Vin Priganti. I won' have ya takin' up with Italian trash like Janice did.” I fumed at Mom's comment about my best friend. Mom knew how good Janice was to me and I felt she didn't deserve to be dragged into the conversation. “God knows I had enough of that in my life and ya don' need it in yours.”

“I'm not you,” I said. Mom screwed her face and dragged on her cigarette. “What kind of a name is Kroon?”

I looked at her through the smoke. “Dutch. He's a half-breed, like me.”

“Don' talk like that,” Mom snapped.

“But I am,” I said.

“Let's slow down a little, Joanie,” Grandma said. “You're jumping all over Samelah and maybe he's a good boy.”

Mom smirked. “Maybe not,” she said.

“Mom, I told him I'm gonna be a famous writer and he liked it. Told me to write about him.”

“So now it's all about him,” she scoffed.

I knew my mother's painful marriage and abandonment by her husband soured her on men. If only I could do something to make her feel better, I often thought. God knows how I tried every day. When I got my first book deal, I decided, I would take the advance money and buy her a real bed to sleep in with beautiful, exotic Italian sheets. What a dream that would be! A
string of pearls would look real nice on Grandma, too, and that would only be the beginning.