Family Man (3 page)

“Twenty-five?” I asked. “How can you do so much?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to keep them all. I sent the confirmation off to my dad. Now I just have to wait for the check. After I cash it, I’ll drop most of them.”

“Aiden, that’s awful!” Kat laughed.

He shrugged. “As long as I keep one class, I’m good. I’ll tell him I failed out, or that they interfered with my work schedule.”

I looked down at my lap to hide my expression. It wouldn’t do to have them see how much I hated them. How much I resented them all, cashing their daddies’ checks, living in apartments they didn’t have to pay for, not even bothering to appreciate what they had. I worked over fifty hours most weeks. Thirty-four at the restaurant, the most they’d give me, because even one more would require them to give me benefits, and they were too cheap for that. Thirty-four hours of screaming chefs and bitchy patrons, all for the lousy tips that would pay the bills and Gram’s second mortgage. Then I worked another fifteen hours at the coffee shop, rising at 4:40 so I could be there when they opened at 5:00, burning my hands on steamed milk and skinny half-cafs just so I could afford one class a semester. If I was lucky, I’d earn my degree in another year and a half. That was
if
my mother didn’t go on another spending binge or Gram didn’t break her hip. If there were no household problems, like the broken pipe that flooded our small basement and stole my class from me three semesters ago.

They paused in their exchange of Tales of Beating the System, and I did my best to reroute them back to the task at hand. For better or for worse, forty-five minutes later we stopped working—Aiden was bored, Kat didn’t have enough money in her meter and Misty had a headache. Of course they all promised to get their part done the very next day, but I’d learned long ago exactly how much a promise meant: absolutely fucking nothing.

It was just as well that we wrapped things up though because I wanted to check in with Gram before I headed off to The Rose for my shift. I owed her that, and a whole lot more.

My dad died shortly after my second birthday. He was shot during what should have been a routine traffic stop. I didn’t even have a memory of him to console me. So many times, I’d pored over the photos of us at our old house in Oak Park, my dad pushing me on a baby swing, or laughing while I stood wearing his badge, his police cap hanging down over my eyes. I’d tried to convince myself that I remembered him, but I was old enough now to admit the truth. He was nothing more than a shadow in my mind where happiness should have been.

Two years after his death, we’d come to live with his parents. I hadn’t understood why. Back then, I’d loved Gram’s narrow brownstone on Loomis: my grandfather had still been alive, and I’d come home from school to see him fussing with our tiny spec of yard in an eternal battle with the shade trees before his shift at the plant, or touching up the paint on the rail. The neighborhood had been full of kids, many of them Fierros, and our house was warm with laughter and love.

Now our section of the block was more than a little rundown, and Gram’s brownstone wasn’t helping anything. Even if any of us had time to touch up the paint on the railing, we wouldn’t waste money on it. The steps had finally become so rickety we’d had to deal with them, but that had amounted to me clumsily nailing thicker boards over the top of the broken ones and hoping no inspector came by to tell me I was breaking city code. The yard was a weedy, barren mess. The neighborhood mostly housed college students. There were no packs of kids running the streets. No kickball games. No Kick the Can. And as for our house—well, I loved my Gram and my mom, but the laughter had stopped long ago.

“Gram,” I called when I came in the front door. “I’m home. Did you need me to go to the store for anything before I go to work?”

It wasn’t Gram who answered though. It was my mom’s voice that drifted in from the kitchen.

“I already went to the store. I’m making your favorite: goulash.”

Goulash hadn’t been my favorite since I’d hit puberty and learned to distinguish Chef Boyardee from dog food. “I won’t be here for dinner. I have to work tonight.”

My mom came out of the kitchen with her paring knife still clutched in her right hand. She wore jeans and T-shirt, and she even had on a bit of makeup. She looked better than she had in a long time, though she did have a needy look about her that set off the old alarm bells. “But, honey, I was all set to make you dinner then take you to a movie.”

Why exactly she’d decided out of the blue to try to turn the evening into a mother/son date was anyone’s guess. “I can’t. Not tonight.”

“But, Trey—”

“I have to work, Ma. What do you want me to do? Call in sick?”

Even suggesting such a thing was a mistake. “You could. Then we could go—”

“I was kidding.”

Her smile disappeared. Her shoulders drooped. She sighed, a big dramatic gesture full of self-pity, because although it was me working two jobs while trying to go to school, in her mind she was the one who was really being inconvenienced. “I get so lonely. You’re never here, and Gram isn’t much company. I don’t know anybody—”

“We’ve lived here for more than twenty years. You know everybody.”

“But I don’t have any friends.”

We’d been over this, more times than I could count. They say misery loves company, but the truth is, misery gets lonely pretty damn fast. “Mom, I don’t have time for this right now.”

“You never have time. You work too hard. You should be home—”

I turned away, heading up the stairs to change into my work clothes. What could I say to her? Yes, I was young. Yes, life was unfair. I would have loved to be one of the college boys who could show up to a few classes and spend the rest of my time getting high. But the fact of the matter was, somebody had to pay the mortgage.

It wasn’t going to be Mom.

“Don’t wait up,” I said. I didn’t bother to acknowledge the disappointment on her face. God knew she’d never bothered to acknowledge mine.

Chapter Four

A few nights after he’d gone to Emilio’s, Vince called his sister Rachel. She answered on the third ring.

“Vinnie. I thought you’d forgotten my phone number.”

“Hey, Rach. Sorry. Been busy.” He rubbed hard against the back of his neck. “What about you? Are you busy? Right now, I mean?”

Rachel went immediately serious. “I knew it. Something’s wrong, isn’t it. You never call unless something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Vince lied. “I just wondered if I could stop by and talk to you, that’s all.”

“Sure, hon. Where are you?”

That was a good question. Vince looked around to get his bearings. “Rush and Wabash.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

It was past ten when Vinnie finally got to Rachel’s apartment. She lived in the Marina Towers, three floors from the top, which Vinnie hated because he always felt like he was going to puke from the wind-resistant design. The term was a not-so-humorous oxymoron, because while the building might be safer from damage, “wind resistant” for the residents meant a great deal of swaying back and forth. Normally he got used to it once he’d been in the building for awhile, or once he’d had a few drinks, but when the wind was up like it was tonight, the motion never seemed to subside, which was why he had to stop halfway down her hallway and let the wall prop him up for a minute before he continued on to her door.

She answered wearing what he would have sworn was a bright blue kimono over a soft peach lacy number with spaghetti straps. Vince staggered back a few steps and held up his hands. “What the hell, Rach?”

“What?” Frowning, she glanced down at herself before rolling her eyes. “Jesus, Vinnie. You think I’m supposed to get dressed because my big lunk of a brother is coming over?”

“You trying to tell me you were sitting around the house wearing that?” he demanded.

Now she was mad. “If I’d known you were coming over to play Italian Big Brother, I would have told you to stay home. I was getting ready for bed, if you must know. Are you coming in or what?”

Vince grunted and shoved his hands in his pockets, keeping them there as she pulled the door open wider and he shuffled inside.

Rachel’s apartment was the same as it ever was: like an ad out of some luxury-living magazine. Like the ones, in fact, that she’d pored over as a kid when she’d hid out in his bedroom. Everything was sleek and white and minimal and arranged to take in the amazing view of Lake Michigan through the open curtains. Vince hated it, because he always felt like he was going to get something dirty. Which was why he didn’t sit down on the couch but sat on one of the chrome barstools and watched Rachel pull down the bottle of Oban and pour him three fingers into a tumbler.

“You should be nicer to me, considering what I picked up this afternoon.” She slid the glass toward Vince, then opened a cupboard as he took the first sip of scotch. The woodsy smoke taste exploded over his tongue, making him wish he’d brought a cigar—and then he saw she’d produced a box of Havana Ovals and a lighter.

Groaning, Vince sagged against the bar and held out his hand. When she only lifted her eyebrows and smirked at him, he said, “Please, Rach. I’m sorry I freaked out that you met me at the door like a streetwalker.”

She snorted, but she smiled too, and most importantly she passed the cigarettes over. Vince was a bit of a snob when it came to cigarettes—he only smoked Nat Shermans, usually settling for the naturals. Havana Ovals weren’t made with Havana tobacco anymore, but they were the Cadillacs of the Nat Sherman line: rich, unfiltered 100s wrapped in brown paper. Vince drew the box to his nose, shut his eyes and inhaled. It smelled like tobacco and heaven.

“Take them out to the balcony,” she called over her shoulder as she poured gin into her martini shaker.

Vince grabbed his scotch and tucked the cigarettes and lighter into his pocket before weaving his way carefully through the living room to the double doors off the dining area that led to the balcony. The breeze coming off the lake was a wind up this high, but he didn’t mind. He felt the sway out here too, but for some reason it never bothered him outside as much. Something to do with physics, he supposed. He stood a minute holding his scotch, his other hand in his pocket, and he took in the glorious night. Sighing happily, he set the glass on the bistro table, pulled out the Havana Ovals and tucked himself into a corner to light up. He always smoked Nats, but the Ovals had no filter, which meant a moment of adjustment as he tried not to get the raw tobacco on his tongue. Eventually he got it lit and tossed the box and lighter onto the table next to his drink. Vince leaned against the iron rail and savored his cigarette.

Rachel came up beside him, martini glass in her hand. Vince passed over his cigarette before she could ask for it and went to the corner to light himself a new one as he returned to the rail. They stood there for several minutes drinking and smoking in silence as they watched the lights of the city play below until they were swallowed up beside the darkness of the lake.

Rachel ashed over the edge. “So what’s eating you, big brother?”

Vince cradled his scotch in the center of his palm and trailed a car down Lake Shore Drive. “It’s complicated.”

Rachel didn’t say anything, just waited, letting Vince take his time.

Which was why he had come to her. Even if he thought he could have discussed this with anyone else in his family, he still would have come to Rachel, because everyone else would have talked him to death. Everyone else would have used the lag it took him to get started to talk about themselves. Most of the time that didn’t bother him. He liked listening to his family. He liked it, mostly, when they meddled. But this was too complicated for that. So he stood there with Rachel, drinking and smoking until both their cigarettes were spent and their glasses were empty, and about ten minutes after that he cleared his throat and said, “I’ve kind of been thinking that maybe”—his heart clenched, and he shut his eyes—“I’ve been thinking that maybe I—”

But he couldn’t say it.
I think I might be a little bit queer.
It was terrifying enough in his head, but not even Oban and Havana Ovals and the view from Rachel’s balcony helped him get the words out.

Rachel’s hand landed on his shoulder and massaged gently. “You want some more scotch, hon?”

Yes, he did, but Vince wasn’t sure he could keep it down with the way his stomach was dancing. He shook his head.

Rachel’s massage ended with an encouraging squeeze. “Just take your time, Vinnie.”

Vince nodded and trained his eyes on Lake Shore, willing the traffic to hypnotize him. It did, a little, lulling his panic back to a dull roar, and he decided to try a different approach. “There was this call the other day. Down in Lakeview. I took it because everyone was out and it sounded like a pretty simple leaky disposal.” The story relaxed him further, and his grip on the rails eased. “It was these two guys. They both met me at the door and were real nice, thanking me for coming so quickly, and then one of them went back into the den and the other guy took me to the kitchen. They were regular guys. I mean, at first I figured they were roommates or something. They had the game on in the other room, for God’s sake. They were just guys.” He paused for a breath. “But then I saw this picture. It was the two of them, sitting all close together like a portrait, like a couple, and that’s when I realized it. They were gay. And—” He stopped, hitting the wall again.