Not Exactly a Love Story (16 page)

Patsy didn’t turn to go. We stood there, looking at the frosty glaze that was laying itself over the driveway, at the light burning in her kitchen window. Our eyes met once, accidentally, and we were caught in a kind of I-dare-you stare. I was afraid I would be the first to look away, so I leaned down and touched my lips lightly to hers.

It had a kind of elegance. Not touching except for our lips. “Seemed like a good idea to get that out of the way. Now there’s nothing to be nervous about.”

“Were you nervous?” Her voice shook ever so slightly.

“First times are always nervous.” Vinnie Gold made it sound sophisticated.

“ ’Night, Vinnie.”

It wasn’t my imagination. She was trembling too. Of
course, it might’ve had to do with standing in the cold with only the sweater to keep her warm.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

I shut the door as soon as she reached her own back door. The trembling had collected itself dead center in my belly and the muscles were working themselves up to actual spasms. I felt short of breath, my heart was banging against the walls of my chest, like I was standing in a large body of water. You can say what you want. But it was there in the way she looked at Vinnie Gold. He was winning her over.

It was hard to say why I found that idea so unsettling. Whether
Vinnie won her affections or Vincenzo had her ear even as we entered college and went on to grad school, I was in a win-win situation here, right?

If things went well on Wednesday evening, I could give her a Valentine’s Day card and quit calling. So why did I feel torn? Why did I feel for Vincenzo? Why was I pulling for him as if he would lose something if Vinnie succeeded? And why did I feel Patsy had somehow disappointed us? Me.

I didn’t know, but that’s how it was.

At midnight, I dialed.

“You could’ve told me there’s no
H
in the Italian alphabet.”

“That would have been self-defeating.” Very smug, that Vincenzo.

“I know about the others, Leonardo.”

“Others?” She sounded like she’d been crying again. Stuffed up. A little alarming, considering I’d just spent a couple of hours with her.

It suddenly occurred to me that she might care more about Biff than I thought. She kissed me, sure, but so what? People kiss other people all the time, they date other people, at least until somebody is going steady with somebody else.

“
K
,
X
, and
Y
,
W
, too.”

“Where are you getting your information?”

“From somebody who just says what’s on his mind. It’s refreshing.” Stuffed up and in a pissy mood.

“You don’t say.” I wasn’t sure which way this conversation was about to go. “Are we going to fight?”

“We don’t have to. You could take me to the Valentine’s Day dance, Luigi.”

“Hasn’t Biff asked you?” But I was gentle. I really was.

“That isn’t his name. It’s what you—”

“I know, I know. The jerk who wouldn’t let you out of his car.”

“He wouldn’t do that again.”

“What do you think he does for an encore?”

Click.

Did she have hopes that Biff would turn out to be a great guy? No, it just couldn’t be that. She was smarter than that.

I allowed myself one exasperated sigh, then dialed again. “You aren’t crying about Biff, are you?” My throat tightened, and I could taste salt on my tongue.

“Stop calling him that.”

“Or anybody … else, right?”

“I’d tell you, Mario. You know I would.”

“I don’t find that particularly reassuring.” And then I felt a little smile start. “We’re skipping to Ms?”

“One letter per call.”

“So the tears are for …”

“Look, I shouldn’t be talk—I should never have said anything about my parents. About the problem they’re having.”

“I’m an obscene caller. Are we worried about my opinion?”

She said, “I don’t think you’re, like, a hopeless case.”

Ordinarily I might have taken advantage of the chance to tease her, even jog her into hanging up. But I heard this little quaver in her voice. I said, “Thanks.”

We gave it a moment. She said, “You haven’t done this before, have you?”

“Nope. You’re the first.”

“And the last?”

“I doubt obscene callers generally find this kind of reception.”

“I’m not sure that’s the answer I was looking for.”

“You mean you’re hoping I’ll make a career of—?”

“Never mind. I’m not in the mood for the way you twist things around.”

“Me? I’m the twister?”

“Your parents are divorced, right?”

“Right.”

“So okay, given that you know parents have a life outside of being parents, what do you think of—” She broke off with a little sigh. “You already know. One of them having an affair.”

“What do I think of it? Well. It happens.” I thought I knew what she wanted to hear and came out with something I thought sounded nearly profound. “Lots of men do this sort of thing—”

“Shut up!”

I did. I should have quit while I was ahead.

“You’re wrong. My dad would never—” She began to sob. She didn’t even try to hide it. Then she hung up.

I sat in the darkness. Clearly, I was a total jerk. I thought about calling back. Decided against it.

Then I dialed.

“What?” she said through her tears.

“I apologize.”

Silence.

“No wisecracks. Just, I’m sorry.”

“It’s really nice to hear someone say that, Nino.”

I wondered if she was thinking of a line from the movie we’d just watched. I had to make out like it meant nothing to me. “Nino, huh? You’re making real progress tonight.”

If she’d baited a little trap that didn’t catch me, she didn’t linger over it in disappointment. She said, “You have to tell me if I at least get to the right letter. That’s one of our rules, isn’t it?”

“It gets easier,” I said, not quite ready to go back to being flippant. “About your parents, I mean.”

“Is that what happened—”

“Not exactly. But it’s hard to know one of the most important people in your life is hurting the other one.”

“What do you do?”

“Watch. It has a horrible fascination.” My voice thickened and I waited for the tears to retreat. “After a while, you find something else to focus on.”

“That’s like something one of my friends said. That if she was in love, she didn’t pay any attention to what her parents were doing.”

“Maybe,” I said. “It doesn’t always happen that people turn up right when you need them.”

“You turned up.”

I swear my heart twisted like someone turned a knife in it. It hurt like that. It was strangely good. She had found something in our talks to help her. Me too. We sort of depended on each other. Probably we depended on each other in a way we couldn’t if we were dating in the usual way.

The tears were not just an odd sound in my throat. I needed to give it a glib finish. “What you tell me goes no further. Obscene callers are like priests. And of course, my secrets are safe with you.”

“You’re not funny.” She was gentle. Sad. “Thanks, uh …”

“I think you can give it a rest till tomorrow.” You had to be on your toes with Patsy.

“It makes me feel better just to hear your voice.”

“I guess the thing to do next time I’m feeling obnoxious is, don’t say anything,” I said, teasing her.

Patsy sniffled and said, “Can I have your phone number?”

Tears hung suspended from my eyelashes. The effect was peculiar, like looking at everything from underwater. I could even feel the pressure on my chest. “Patsy—”

“I need to talk to you sometimes.”

“I’ll call you more often.” My chest ached with the need to come up for air.

“Sometimes I need to call you.” I could hardly hear her. I thought sound traveled so well underwater.

“I can’t give you my number.” This came out with a muted, garbled sound, like the escape of air bubbles. And I thought I heard her say “please.” “I would if I could.”

“But you won’t.” Her voice went flat, cold.

“Can’t,” I pleaded. “It’s different.”

“Not to me, it isn’t.”

“You know why that is?” I was angry all of a sudden. “You don’t see me as a person who lives twenty-three-and-a-half hours a day after I talk to you. You never think what these calls mean to me. Or what it might mean if you knew who I am. You just talk until you’ve said what you want to say, and if I’m not telling you what you want to hear—”

Click.

—you just hang up.

I guess I made my point.

Something she said really got to me, I guess. I could hardly
sleep. I watched the clock record the passing of minutes. I dozed awhile, then woke to stare at the clock again.

I really wanted to be Patsy’s friend, not just over the phone, but sitting in class, standing in line in the cafeteria, riding the bus. I wanted Patsy to want me, Vinnie Gold, to give her a valentine. But I remember a conversation my parents had once when they were still getting along, still loved each other the way they were supposed to.

I was maybe ten, and they were just talking when my mom said, “Remember Paul?” and they both laughed. It was a little bit mean-sounding.

My impression was, Paul was a real clown. Which was what I called a jerk back then. So I asked, “Who’s Paul?”

And Mom said, “I dated him in high school.”

“You guys didn’t go to high school together, did you?” I was pretty sure. Mom was from Long Island and Dad was from Milwaukee.

“No, no,” Dad said. “But your mom told me about all her guys. I told her about all my girls.”

I was ten, so I shrugged, but it made an impression on me. And what I knew now, no matter what happened between me and Patsy from here on out, once she knew it was me making these calls, I would, someday far in the future, be the guy she remembered as someone who loved her, yeah—but what a clown.

I really didn’t want to be that guy.

And now it was too late to be any other.

The next morning I did just what Patsy asked, true to my word. I told Mr. B that she needed Italian names for an assignment. But he didn’t know that many Italian names.

“Let’s see. I had an uncle named Salvatore. My brother was named after our father, Roberto.”

Left to his own devices, he’d made breakfast—bread with a circle cut out of it and fried with an egg dropped into the empty circle.

“You can cook?”

“Sure, I cook,” he said. “I’ve been a bachelor a long time. But in my mother’s house, the wife cooked. And your mom was so excited about the kitchen, I thought she must love cooking. So I stopped when I got married.”

“Till this morning,” I said.

“I like eating,” Mr. B said. “Breakfast especially. Donuts are okay, but I need something to keep the chill off when I’m standing on that field. I need hot food.”

“Looks great.”

“There’s plenty here for all of us,” he said.

“So. Names?” I handed him two plates.

“There’s, uh, Mario and Giuseppe and Giovanni. You think that’s enough?”

“Sure. How many could she need?”

“What are you two talking about?” Mom asked as she whisked into the kitchen for a glass of juice.

Mr. B was still in pajamas. I was in my sweats, but I’d taken to sleeping in the ones I’d wear the next morning, so in a way, I was in pajamas too. Mom was already dressed for work, a little tornado of energy.

“The neighbor girl needs some Italian names for some project or other,” Mr. B answered, shrugging.

Packing her little travel bag with heels, appointment book, her purse, and the red thermos, Mom said, “Sounds like the project is to get closer to you, Vinnie.”

Actually, I’d meant to tell them I had a date with Patsy on Wednesday, but it felt weird now. Really weird. “I hardly know her,” I said, dipping into the cereal box I’d been munching from.

“That’s what I mean.” Mom noticed what I was doing. “Don’t eat standing up. And don’t eat straight out of the box.”

Mr. B set the plates on the table, where sliced tomatoes lay on a small cutting board. “Hungry?” he asked her.

“Not yet. I’ll get something at work.”