One Good Friend Deserves Another (12 page)

“I’ll agree to have Birdie there,” Parker said, as he let the jib go slack and he steered the boat to a good mooring, “because you want it so badly. Isn’t that why you’ve been pulling away from me these past weeks?”

Wendy felt the ghostly shadow of a paint-flecked hand against her palm. She saw, in her mind’s eye, a shock of crisp, dark hair. And around her, the salt-sea breeze smelled oddly of turpentine.

“Yes.” She spoke quickly, roughly. “Yes.”

“Then by all means, bring Birdie to our wedding.”

She slid down onto the port bench as Parker set the wheel and abandoned the back deck to work on the sails. She took a shaky sip of her ice tea as Parker climbed over the deck, set out the anchor, and tied ropes with the quick hands of a man who raced boats regularly.

She’d won the skirmish.

The victory shouldn’t feel so hollow.

Moments later, a shadow fell across her face. Wendy looked up to find Parker leaning over her.

“Listen,” he said, his voice conciliatory. “I don’t want to make a big deal of this. In three months, this wedding will be over. Your mother’s meddling, this whole thing with Birdie, it’ll all be in the past.”

She dropped her gaze to the sailor’s knot necklace she’d given him for their fifth anniversary, swaying from his neck.

“And you and I,” he continued, “we’ll be drifting on a yacht in the Aegean Sea. We’ll be sipping ouzo and basking in the Mediterranean sun. We’ll be island-hopping, eating moussaka,
and growing fat on baklava.”

He cupped her face in his hands, drawing her gaze back. She searched his dear, dark blue eyes for some sense of understanding. She was torn between the urge to push him away and an equally insistent urge to pull him closer. These past years, he’d been the partner in a tux dutifully beside her at every club function, smiling as she nattered on about art. He’d been the sweet lover accommodating her silence about her Soho past. He’d been the solid man at her side, snickering at her snarky jokes. She was glad he’d compromised about Birdie, but she wanted more.

She wanted him to love Birdie too.

“And then,” he continued, “when our honeymoon is over, we’ll be back here. We’ll be playing tennis at the club, knocking that damn arrogant new couple off the leader board. And, eventually, we’ll look for a little house up in Armonk, or Larchmont, or wherever you want to live—”

“As long,” she interrupted in a whisper, “as it’s close to the marina.”

“Yes.” He smiled, slowly shifting onto his knees, clearly pleased that she’d picked up the familiar narrative. “Yes. A five-bedroom, close to the marina. And before you know it, you and I, we’ll be settled in that fine house, starting a fine family.”

A ripple of emotion trembled through her, an emotion she was too frightened to name. She didn’t need to hear Parker spell out her future. She saw it clearly. It was a life as unruffled as the surface of an upstate lake. It was a life bathed in shades of golden afternoons.

“We’ll vacation in Vail with Audrey and James,” he continued. “We’ll spend weeks in Newport for the regatta—”

“Stop talking, Parker.”

“—and everything will be just as we dreamed, Wendy. Just as we always wanted.”

She dug her fingers into his forearms. She stopped him the only way she could—with a kiss, a hard kiss, a kiss on his cold, salty lips that gave him no more reason to speak.

W
ill you please stop complaining, Mother?” Marta slung her tote over her shoulder and leaned toward the curb, searching far down the street for the red awning of the café. “We’re only a few blocks away from the street fair.”

“
Loco,
Marta. This is just crazy.” Her mother’s gently padded thighs labored as she tried to keep up. “I mean, look at you, with those ridiculous sunglasses, dragging me down the back streets of Brooklyn on some scheme. I thought my daughter was a lawyer. Yet here you are, acting like some sneaky actress in a Colombian telenovela.”

“I’ll have you know these are designer shades,” Marta said, lifting her sunglasses high enough to give her mother an arch look. “And I am
not
being sneaky. You and I are just making a little detour from the Bedford Street fair because I suddenly remembered a great bakery nearby. A little Italian café that I happen to know because of Tito.”

“One that Tito still goes to,” her mother retorted, “every Saturday morning at ten o’clock.”

“Information that you yourself dragged out of Uncle Pedro.” Marta slipped into Manhattan walking speed. “Come on, Mom, didn’t you think I was eventually going to act on it?”

“Marta,
mi hija,
my darling little girl, just think for a moment.” With short-nailed hands that could deftly fold the banana leaf of a
pastele
, her mother gestured to the expanse of the quiet side street. “Do you really think Tito is going to believe that you—a big-shot junior partner—just happened to be wandering around this neighborhood at nine thirty in the morning?”

“The biggest fair in Williamsburg is six blocks from here. Lots of people are here. How is this weird?”

“For starters, you haven’t taken a Saturday off in seven years.”

She flinched. “
He
doesn’t know that.”

“And why would he think that you’ve changed from when he last knew you?”

“Because now that I’m a junior partner, I can take a day off now and again. And so, we just happened to be so close to this café, and I remember it had killer cappuccinos, and there we go—a perfectly viable excuse—”

“For hunting down an old boyfriend.”

Marta tried very hard not to sigh. She wasn’t really
hunting.
She was just engineering a casual meeting. Gauging the situation. Seeing if there might still be a spark with the man she now knew she should never have let go. She would have much preferred to have Wendy or Dhara or Kelly along on this adventure, but that was a no-go. If they even
suspected
she was contacting Tito, they’d plant her butt on the hot seat of an intervention. And with reason. She was clearly breaking at least two major rules: initiating a relationship before six months had passed and committing the same romantic mistake twice.

So here she was, stuck with her mother, who had been utterly giddy when she’d first mentioned wanting to see Tito again. In fact, her mother had risen up from the kitchen table where she’d been drinking her third cup of coffee and started pacing, checking her calendar for upcoming family events, verbally listing who she could pump for information, and when and where she would see them. But when Marta had given her the details of today’s plans, her mother had turned completely sour.

“There,” Marta said, fixing on the sight of an awning halfway down the block. “There it is.”

She had begun to worry that the café might have closed as they passed kosher butchers, tiny bodegas, and check-cashing storefronts. The little café appeared to be the only reminder that this part of Brooklyn was once predominantly Italian-American. She’d never seen it in the light of day. Back when she and Tito were an item, he used to bring her here after a night of salsa dancing at a nearby Bushwick club. Even at two in the morning, the place would be full of revelers, shouting and laughing over tiny, hot, bitter cups of espresso—or cappuccinos, dusted with nutmeg.

Ducking her head, she headed toward the café, rewording again and again what she intended to say the first time she laid eyes on Tito. After her experience with Carlos, she was just beginning to realize how little she had appreciated her old boyfriend. Oh, she’d always appreciated his generosity, for law school had left her no cash for going out. She’d appreciated his patience too, for he’d sensed her reluctance, at first, to become involved with a man ten years older than herself—especially one from the old neighborhood who had been all but hand-picked by their respective
abuelas.

But she’d never truly appreciated how he made her laugh so easily with old family stories, how he relaxed her by teaching her to dance, how he charmed her into putting the books away for a few hours and taught her to just have
fun
.

What a husband he would have been.

“This is it?” Her mother paused as they neared the café with its rickety chairs and tables and a ripped and faded awning. “Really?”

“Yup. Best coffee in Brooklyn.”

Her mother wrinkled her nose as she squinted into the dim interior, the only light a little TV mounted in the corner set on some foreign sports channel. “You know that Tito’s
abuela
is having an eighty-seventh birthday party in two weeks, right?”

“Three times you’ve told me that, Mom. Since this morning.”

“Your own grandmother is throwing it. She’d love to see you. Everyone would. You’ve been a no-show at every family event since your cousin Rico’s wedding. And I know—for sure—that Tito will be there.”

“Great. That’ll give Uncle Pedro an opportunity to waggle those caterpillar eyebrows of his, and Aunt Fidelia to make remarks about who’ll be the next bride.” Her heart gave a little skitter. “And my nieces, they’ll have an opportunity to dance around singing ‘Tito and Marta sitting in a tree…’”

“So instead,” her mother said, gesturing to the deserted neighborhood, “we sneak out here and pounce on him?”

“Mom, I’m not doing any pouncing.” Marta took her mother’s arm and pulled her under the awning. She chose a table strategically situated by the window, but in the shadows, so that anyone looking in from the bright June morning would not easily see her. “We’ll have a coffee. Tito will come by. We’ll all have a nice polite conversation…and then we’ll see.”

We’ll see, indeed
. Marta felt vaguely nauseous as she hooked her tote over the spindle of her chair. Tito would have every right to ignore her today. No ugly arguments or unforgettable words had heralded their breakup. It had been a quiet thing. Just thinking about it buried Marta in confusion and shame.

It had been a typical law-associate day. She’d been sprawled at her desk in the middle of her cubicle, piles of papers everywhere, her mind buried in a huge deal. She’d heard her name, and she looked up to see Tito standing in the doorway, sporting a new suit.

She’d completely forgotten that they’d made a lunch date.

“Oh, Tito.” She glanced at the papers strewn around her. “I just…I just can’t.”

“You have to eat, Marta.”

She’d stared at him in panic, willing him to understand. The papers had to be filed the next day. She’d had six boxes of documents yet to review, and two partners whose approval hinged on the quality of her work. Past Tito’s shoulder she’d glimpsed one of those partners come into view, buttoning his suit jacket on the way to the elevator. He’d looked curiously at Tito. Marta had practically heard his thoughts as he stitched together the relationship. She remembered that a flush had risen up her cheeks, a warmth full of mortification for Tito and his ill-fitting suit and his scuffed shoes better fit for dancing.

But that wasn’t why she’d hesitated. She’d hesitated because the weekend before Tito had talked in a soft voice about dreams, and hopes, and how beautiful her babies would be.

She’d felt herself tremble uncontrollably.

Babies changed everything.

“I’m sorry, Tito.” Her voice caught. “I can’t have lunch with you today.”       

Tito had looked at her for a long moment. He’d turned slightly, caught sight of the partner’s curious gaze, and then brought his attention back to her. He didn’t speak for what felt like hours.

“Ah,
mi bonita,
you’ll never marry a man like me.”

Now Marta looked blindly out the window of the little Brooklyn café, wondering why she hadn’t chased him down the hall all those years ago. Why she’d just sat frozen at her desk, listening to his footsteps as he walked out of her life.

“Buon giorno, signora, signorina. Caffè?”

She started. She glanced up at the café owner, a grizzled ape of a man wearing an apron. She blinked, not believing her eyes. This was the same man who used to wait on her and Tito, right down to the rusty streaks on his apron. The last time she’d seen him he’d been ranting at the TV with a crowd of customers, while everyone watched Italy play Brazil in soccer.

Some things never change. Maybe Tito hadn’t changed. Maybe she could start up the old relationship. She was ready this time, ready for love, marriage, ready for babies. Then she could put Carlos behind her—every bad relationship behind her—and finally be happy.

“Cappuccino, et una sfogliatella, per favore,”
she said, pulling off her sunglasses as she remembered two things in rapid progression. This curmudgeon of a man loved when a customer tried to speak Italian, and he loved pretty girls.
“Per la mia mamma, anche.”

That might have been a pleased light in his eyes, as he dipped his head and turned back to the counter, or it might be suppressed amusement. She spoke only restaurant Italian, and badly, so it was possible that she’d just ordered two cappuccinos and a chimpanzee. She hoped it was the former, for depending on how things went, she might be lingering here for a good, long morning.

Her mother shifted her weight on the chair, slipping her purse onto her lap after considering all other possibilities. Marta released a slow sigh. Her mother was acting like someone had dared to take out a food processor to make the
masa
for the
pasteles,
instead of grating it by hand.

“Mom,” she said gently, reaching across the table to tug her sleeve. “You like Tito, yes?”

“
Si,
of course. I love Tito. I
adore
Tito. You know I do.”

“Then, please, just go with this. You should be happy that I’m making an effort to bump into him.”

“I’m glad. I
am
glad,
mi hija.
” She slapped the table. “Especially after that disaster with Carlos.”

Marta flinched.

“It’s just that I hate to see you in this situation. It makes me crazy.” Her mother leaned forward and gave Marta the laser-direct, urban-hospital-working-nurse look that dragged intimate secrets out of the most desperate people. “It’s like you’re little and shopping for boots again.”

Marta closed her eyes. “Please, Mom. Not the boots story.”

“It’s the same behavior, I’m telling you. You’re desperate for these boots, and we’re out shopping. On a Wednesday night.”

“The only time,” Marta reminded her, “that you were available. You worked weekend shifts too, remember?”

“I worked weekends so I could afford to buy you and your sisters what you needed, no matter how crazy it was. And you, you needed these boots. We see them at Macy’s. The perfect pair—the
perfect
pair.
Dios mío,
even the price is right, with my discounts. But no, Marta, you’re not satisfied—”

“Are you really going to do this whole thing?”

“You said the buckle wasn’t quite right. Two buckles, you wanted, and a different shade of leather.”

Marta set her teeth on edge. Her mother would tell the whole story, from beginning to end, no matter how hard she tried to cut it off.

“So off we go. JCPenney. Payless. Half the nameless shoe stores in that big mall in New Jersey. Three nights, we’re off looking for the perfect boots, dragging your sisters along. And then you decide—you know what? The boots at Macy’s were the best—”

“—so we head back,” Marta finished, “and the boots are gone.”

“Gone!” Her mother threw up her hands like she was tossing confetti. “Absolutely gone. So what does picky Marta Arroyo Sanchez end up with?
No boots at all.
”

Better no boots at all, she remembered, than knockoffs or something too funky or not the right color. Too many days she had shown up at the new school at Riverside with cheap jeans and ratty sneakers, long swinging hair with ribbons, a look that practically screamed
Hey! I just moved out of Washington Heights.
She learned fast that she could keep up academically with the girls in the classroom but her barrio sense of fashion marked her as a whole new category of oddball.

With her books and her basketball, her paper lists and her lanky legs, she was oddball enough.

“Okay, the boot story is done.” Marta dragged her face out of her hands. “You want to bring up that thing about my
quinceañera
party or the time I ignored Uncle Pedro when he rumbled up to Sacred Heart in that juiced-up Buick? Or are we good for now?”

“The point,” her mother said, scaling her Virgin Mary medallion back and forth on its long gold chain, “is that you’re lucky Tito is still single.”