Make Me Work (24 page)

The answer echoed back—because he'd been fearful and vain.

Into the inviting pelt of his temples Robert had carved symbols, but not the chevrons and lightning bolts every teenager had. Instead, Anthony had mathematics—multiplication, subtraction, addition, division. He had equals and square root. He looked like a magician or a wizard from a book. He looked better than the guys in the ads for MTV. If this was his punishment, something had gone wrong. His newness and mystery canceled out the sting of reproof. How could it be atonement if it didn't hurt?

Nuong hovered nervously nearby, trying to assess Anthony's mood. “Easy haircut to have,” she said hopefully. “Shampoo and go away.”

“He's happy, Nuong,” Robert said. “He likes it.”

Anthony looked up into his old friend's eyes. “Math was my best subject.”

“I know, Anything. You told me years ago, remember?”

“I wonder why I never followed up on it.”

“Because you're a deeply flawed person.”

At the register, Anthony offered Robert money from his wallet. “Pay the lady,” Robert said. Anthony took another look at himself. It was like the old days on LSD, when you went to the bathroom at a party and your face melted in the medicine-cabinet mirror. “Can I ask you something?” he said to Nuong. “The first time I came here, you told me your husband was a lawyer. That was the only reason I never asked you out.” He had discovered Nuong just after Sarah left. “You mean you weren't really married back then?”

“I always marry Robert,” said Nuong.

Anthony turned to him. “You're supposed to be a lawyer.”

“I am a lawyer,” Robert said.

“How the hell did you get into cutting hair?”

“I just put up the money for the store. You're the first hair I've ever cut.”

The plush passenger seat of Robert's Alfa was like a person in itself, and in this person's lap Anthony rode, in a car that was magical compared with his own old wreck of a thing, the same yellow hatchback he'd had eight years before. Coming out of Shear Satisfaction, Robert had seen the hatchback on the street and walked Anthony to it in disbelief. “How do you expect to get a new girlfriend driving a car like this?” he'd said, tapping the crumbling rocker panel with the toe of his tasseled loafer.

“The type of woman I like doesn't care about cars,” Anthony said.

“Oh. And what type is that?”

“The alternative, nonmaterialistic type.”

Robert snorted gleefully. “There's no such person, Anything! Women love cars. Yes, your women from Cambridge with their Ph.D.s. When they get together by themselves, what do you think they talk about? The kind of car a guy drives. Why do you think they're not making a commitment to you? They're waiting for a man with a decent automobile.”

He steered the Alfa out of Cambridge and toward Boston's North End—Paul Revere's neighborhood in the olden days, but for most of this century a small working model of Italy. They were going to Caffè Vittoria, scene of the crime of their friendship, as Anthony thought of it now, located right around the corner from the building where Robert and Sarah had lived. They'd often hung out together there, the three of them. Robert claimed to have an appointment there today. Anthony had been back to the venerable café a few times in the past eight years, always against his better judgment, to make Sarah happy. She loved Caffè Vittoria, but it was the one place that twisted the knife in Anthony's brain, dispelled his Robert-amnesia until he found himself staring at the door, convinced that his double-crossed friend was about to walk in—Robert, who didn't even live in Boston anymore but who could, like the monster in
Frankenstein
, materialize instantly wherever Anthony was.

Robert was not Italian. He was a Presbyterian from flesh-colored Ohio, but his inner life had begun when he discovered the dusky peoples of Europe and the Levant. He adored everything about the North End, including its famous mistrust of anyone without an Italian name. Anthony, possessor of such a name, lived in Cambridge. He had always tried to acquaint his friend with the other side of the Old World, the noncharming side that screamed and beat you up and then smothered you after that. Robert only scolded him for failing to honor his heritage.

They were taking a route that Anthony didn't know—under the Expressway and down grubby streets across from the Boston Garden—and suddenly, before Anthony was ready, they were there. They parked and walked together up Hanover Street, aorta of the North End, past new espresso shops and restaurants Anthony didn't recognize. In the window of the world-famous Mike's Pastry, where life itself had a sweet cream filling, he caught their reflection—a male fashion model escorting a telephone installer from Mars. The old guys from Central Casting were in a cluster on the curb, hats and pinky rings and shouting mouths. They shouted at Robert, and he shouted back, and then they saw Anthony and fell ominously still. Out of the public eye, with Robert not around, they would have leaped on him like lions. Anthony knew this because he was virtually their son. But today they let him move on to the jewel of North End cafés, where he peered through the glass for a minute as though looking across time for his former self. Robert held the door and Anthony stepped inside.

A guy behind the counter was steaming milk for cappuccino, raising and lowering the metal pitcher with a flourish. Over his shoulder he saw Robert coming in. “Roberto!” he called out. “Paisan!” Then he saw Anthony and forgot what he was doing, and the hot milk foamed all over his hand.

“Nice haircut, huh, Rocco?” Robert asked, buffing Anthony's head with his palm as though caressing a large brown nut.

Rocco gripped his scalded hand in a towel. “Where do you find these birds?” he asked.

Robert laughed and walked Anthony into the room. It was all the way it had always been, an Italian spaceship parked on a knoll above Boston Harbor. The golden tin ceiling spread like daybreak over the marble-topped tables. Gilded wrought-iron railings bordered stairs down to the dungeonlike basement room and up to the mezzanine, where spotlights shone on the painted diorama of a painfully blue harbor rimmed by mountains. Sinatra was singing “They Can't Take That Away from Me” on a fluid-filled jukebox that bubbled and pulsed through the color spectrum like a giant Lava lamp. He'd been singing “I've Got You Under My Skin” the last time Anthony was here; he sang many songs in Caffè Vittoria. The jukebox was actually an urn containing Sinatra's soul, along with the spiritual essence of Tony Bennett, Jerry Vale, and Vic Damone, all watched over by a black-robed Cardinal Law in a frame on the wall.

Several tables on the main floor were empty, but Robert liked the mezzanine. Anthony opened the small menu and stared at the categories of drinks—the coffees, digestifs, grappas, and cognacs.
“Paisan
, huh?” he said.

Robert poked him in the chest. “I've been inducted.”

“Into what?”

The inductee's smile collapsed. “What do you mean, into what? Into the Order of the Sons of Italy.”

“You're kidding me.”

“No, Antonio, I am not.”

“How the hell did you manage that?”

“I told you. I was inducted. The citizens of the North End have taken me to their breast.”

A waitress appeared at the table, a fortyish woman from a long line of Mediterranean forebears. Her hair was dyed a black not found in nature, but neither was it the black of the Rollerblade boy. Extreme though it was, hers still meant to convey the idea of human hair. “Grappa,” she said to Robert.

“Yes, Isabelle, thank you. And a Galliano for Antonio here.”

“I don't drink sweet things like that,” Anthony said.

“He forgets,” Robert told Isabelle. “When his teeth were coming in, Dad would rub Galliano on his gums to ease the pain.”

Anthony looked up in surprise. “When did I tell you that?”

“This was when he was a baby,” Robert added.

“Oh, good,” Isabelle said. “I thought you meant recently.” She turned to Anthony. “Got a tooth coming in today?”

“No. I'll have a beer.”

“In this hallowed place, Antonio?” Robert said. “A beer? Have a Galliano. For old times' sake. For back when Dad used to soothe your gums.”

“You two are brothers?” Isabelle asked. “You don't look anything like each other. Who takes after Dad?”

“All right, I'll have a Galliano.”

“You didn't put up much of a fight,” Isabelle said.

“You should have seen him in the hair salon,” Robert said.

“I wasn't gonna say anything.” She wiggled Anthony's good ear. “You could use a little something here. Complete the look. Silver, maybe with a stone.” The she slid her pencil behind her own ear and went away.

“That's Isabelle,” Robert said. “Great lady.”

Anthony asked, “Did you meet Nuong because she cut your hair?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I did. Isn't that great?”

It was so great that it struck Anthony dumb.

“What's the problem?” Robert said. “You don't like Nuong?”

“No. I've always liked her a lot. I didn't like her much today, though.”

“Ha! Perfect. You always were a fickle person.”

“I thought you always liked me.”

“I did, Antonio. I still do. That's the point. I'm the rational, consistent one. You're the emotional loose hubcap. You're the runaway truck.”

Anthony looked away. His eyes fell on Robert's handsome jacket. “That's an expensive suit, isn't it?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You've done well for yourself. The suits, the car, a store for your wife.”

“Most of my clients are prosperous people with a knack for major blunders. Those billable hours add right up.” He tickled the addition sign on Anthony's head.

Down on the main floor, a tall, gray-haired man called up to Robert. He was at the foot of the mezzanine steps, honoring the jukebox with coin.

“Hi, Pasquale,” Robert said, waving back. “That's Pasquale,” he told Anthony.

Pasquale pushed some buttons on the throbbing machine. Sinatra's “Witchcraft” began to play.

Anthony breathed deeply and said, “I'm sorry I slept with Sarah.”

“You slept with her?” Robert said. His lips twitched and fluttered on his face, independent of his other features. It was disturbing to see. Even Orson Welles didn't do that. “Were you tired?”

“I'm saying I'm sorry, Robert.”

“Hey, can I ask you something? I'm just curious. Who seduced whom?”

“She seduced me, I guess.”

“You guess? I always had the impression that Sarah intimidated you, Antonio. In fact, I had the distinct idea that she scared you to death. It must have been something when she came on to you. Fourth of July, huh?”

Isabelle arrived with their drinks. Anthony was playing dead, hoping the bear would go away. Robert raised his glass in a toast and sipped his grappa. “It was over between Sarah and me before you slipped in,” he said.

“What?”

“Finished. Absolutely. Had been for some time.”

“I didn't know that,” Anthony said. “She never told me.” His hand was trembling, but he got the Galliano to his lips.

Robert winked. “I didn't say she knew.”

Once, this would have been the most fascinating information in the world. It was amazingly irrelevant now. “Are you saying you're not mad at me because I slept with her?”

“Sarah was a woman, you were a man. Should I be mad at nature? Besides, you behaved honorably toward Sarah. You practically married her, for God's sake.”

“It's a great relief to hear this, Robert.”

“Sure. Glad I could clear it up. One thing, though. You were not a man of honor with me, Antonio. Your closest friend. In relation to me, man to man, you behaved like a worm. No, you behaved lower than that. What's lower than worms?”

“Slime, I guess,” Anthony said.

They fell silent in the blue light coming off the Amalfi Coast or whatever it was painted on the wall. Three or four tables away, a man's voice said, very slowly, “Your…personality…bums…me…out.” No one said anything back. When Anthony lifted his face to see who these people were, a beautiful woman was looking down at his head.

“Check out the man's hair!” she cried.

“Hello, Celeste,” Robert said. “You're late.”

“I know, I know, I know!” she said.

“Celeste, this is Anything. Anything, Celeste.”

“Anything!”
she exclaimed. She was possibly the most exuberant person Anthony had ever met. “Really? That's great! What a great name! You mean, like, ‘Whatever'? ‘All options open'? ‘Total potential'?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Anthony said.

“He guesses!” she said. “He doesn't know!” She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Why do I feel I'm interrupting something?”

“I'm afraid I've been giving Anything a little scolding,” Robert said.

“Welcome to the club, Anything,” Celeste said, slapping Anthony on the back. She was wearing a dazzling vest with colorful yarns and bits of metal woven into it. Also a white silk blouse, a tiny red skirt, and the translucent black stockings women never wore anymore. The world's great religions could probably be traced to the feeling Anthony had upon seeing her legs.

“So what time is it?” she said, and reached for Robert's Rolex.

He pulled his arm away and hexed her with his fingers. “Whatever you do,” he told Anthony, “don't let her near your watch.” Then he looked at the Rolex himself. “It's three forty-five. You were supposed to be here at three.”

“We weren't even here at three ourselves,” Anthony said.

“I know that, Anything. Don't contradict me. I was allowing for Celeste's affliction.”

“I can't wear watches,” she explained, showing her wrists, each bereft of any timekeeping device. “My body stops them.”