Breaking the Rules (17 page)

“It’s not like that exactly…”

“Exactly?” Joe raised an eyebrow.

She frowned, wondering how she could make him understand. Joe tugged his pants up and fastened them. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head, waiting.

Susana stroked her naked thighs. “It’s hard to explain. My people, the Rom,” she glanced up at him. “We value family above everything.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.” She looked down. “Sometimes it’s good. It’s kept us together through centuries of persecution; it’s kept our culture alive. But it comes at a price.” She looked up again and met his eyes. “And the price is sticking to our own.”

“Keeping clear of the
gadjo
.” He raised his eyebrows.

“
Gadje
is the plural, but yes.” She almost smiled, even though it wasn’t funny. “That’s how we’ve kept our identity.”

“Cultural identity doesn’t have to define your life. This is America in the twenty-first century. I’m Cuban and Italian and proud of both. You don’t have to give up your Rom culture to marry someone else.”

“But I would. Being Rom is an all or nothing proposition.”

“Why?”

“Tradition.”

“Maybe it’s time for traditions to change a little.”

“Tradition and change are two words that don’t really go together. Janus and Roman might agree with you. They’re not as old-fashioned as they’d have you believe, but the elders in my family?–no way. In Rom culture we have an expression:
marime
. It’s hard to explain to a…”

“
Gadjo
.”

“Yes.” Now she did smile, then it withered on her lips. “
Marime
means… unclean, contaminated. If it became known that I was with you, or if we lived together, then I’d become
marime
and no Rom would be able to associate with me.” She looked hard at him, her face composed. “And I mean that literally, they wouldn’t be able to look at me or talk to me or even acknowledge my presence.”

“Jesus.”

She shrugged. “So there it is. All or nothing.”

“I don’t think I’d want to be part of a culture like that.”

“You can’t be. You’re not invited.” She lifted an eyebrow.

“No kidding. But why do you want to be part of it?”

She swallowed. “Again, it’s hard to explain. It’s something I feel…” She put her hand over her heart. “Here. Deep inside me. It’s who I am. I’m proud of my people and of our journey.”

Joe nodded. She could see from his face that he understood the full implication of what she said. The light had dimmed in his eyes.

“I hear what you’re saying.” He swallowed. “To come with me you’d have to give up…”

“Who I am.”

He grimaced.

She felt her heart shrinking and shriveling inside her. A miserable organ not worthy of the man who’d touched it.

Would “her people” keep her warm at night over the next few decades? Nope. But sleeping alone was a
gadjo
tradition she’d gotten used to, and she could carry on that way if she had to.

“I won’t ask you to give it all up for me. I know only too well that love can turn out to be an illusion. A delusion.” He glanced away and picked up a broken part of something—an old lamp maybe? “Nothing lasts forever.”

She could see he wanted to say more but held back. Maybe he’d have liked to ask her to think about it or say that if she ever changed her mind…

“I shouldn’t have come.” He dropped the object and stared at her. “You were trying to let me down easy, and I stormed in here and started something I had no business doing.” His eyes dropped to her bare thighs, and his hand followed, stroking her skin. Sorrow pinched her heart at the tenderness of his touch. “I’m sorry, Susana.”

She felt a sob rising inside her, or a howl or a shout or something else desperate and embarrassing. She jumped off the table and groped on the floor for her skirt, tugging it on and fussing around looking for her underwear as a distraction.

“I won’t come to you again, so you don’t have to worry about me messing up your life.”

Cold shards of realization pierced her at his words. The thought of a lifetime without Joe resonated in her skull. What a long lifetime it would be.

She straightened up, brushing dust off her skirt, groping for words. “I won’t ever forget you. You’ve changed me.”

“I made you a woman.” He tried to force a smile, but it died on his lips. “No. You were a woman already. A strong and proud one. I’m grateful for the time we shared.”

“Me too.” More hot tears accompanied her harsh whisper.

“Some things just aren’t meant to be.” He took a deep breath, his face tight. She could tell he still fought words that wanted to come to his lips.

Did he want to beg her to come with him? To give up everything and follow him wherever he went? Would she?

No. They both knew it.

“Goodbye, Susana.”

“Goodbye, Joe.” Her rasped words were barely audible. She couldn’t even see him through the blur of tears that thickened and hung in her lashes.

He didn’t touch her again before he turned and left. She heard the door to the storefront close softly, then the bell as he opened the front door of the
ofisa
and exited out onto the street. For good.

CHAPTER 11

“G
et a job Susana, are you nuts?” Her aunt Leticia crossed her plump arms over her ample bosom. Her heavily made-up eyes blinked frantically beneath her mane of flame-orange hair. Don’t henna your hair once it’s turned grey, Susana thought, trying to take her mind off her predicament.

“No woman in my family will work for the
gadje
.” Her husband, Anton, buttoned the jacket of his suit, getting ready to leave the house for a meeting. Their three daughters played noisily about them in the big untidy living room of the Brooklyn house.

“But, Uncle, I’ll need to make more money to pay the rent on my apartment. I’ll lose Granna’s rent control if I put my own name on the lease. The storefront too. I’ve been writing checks on Granna’s old account for six months—forging her signature, for crying out loud. It’s not legal.”

“
Gadjo
laws, pah! You’re paying their rent. It’s all fair and square.”

Susana let out a snort of dismay. “I’m paying a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. The market rate is well over a thousand these days, even on my place. They’d love to get me out and fix the place up for some yuppies.”

“So move in with us, sweetie.” Leticia moved forward and rested her hands on Susana’s shoulders. Susana suppressed a shudder as the soft fingers pressed into her flesh. “We’ve got plenty of room, and you could help me out with the girls. You know how they’d love to have you around.”

Susana sighed. Is this what the future held? To become a slave at the beck and call of her domineering aunt and her three spoiled and demanding girls. To hole up in a room in their attic, hiding her school books under the mattress and sneaking off to class on a raft of excuses. At least she wouldn’t be struggling to keep a roof she couldn’t afford over her head. And however horrible, it would only be temporary.

“And, sweetheart. No more talk about getting a job.” A huge Cheshire cat grin spread over Aunt Leticia’s round red cheeks. “Because boy, do we have a husband for you. Anton and I have been up late nights talking about how to get you nicely settled now your Granna’s gone. I know she had some crazy ideas about marriage, but every woman needs a good man to look after her.”

Susana’s heart squeezed uncomfortably.

A good man.

No. Don’t think about him
.

“I don’t want to marry.”

“Nonsense, sweetie. Every woman needs a husband and the joy of children.” She cracked a smile, and gestured to her three little angels, who were busy pulling the heads off several naked Barbie dolls.

“A very good man he is. Good family. From Cincinnati, you know. Francis Melisto. Frankie, they call him.”

At least she hadn’t heard of him. That was probably a good thing. But she had a feeling he’d be pretty easy to dismiss. “How old is he?”

“Well…” Aunt Letica forced her huge fake smile again. “He’s been married before, I won’t deny that, but then you’re not young, Susana. Most girls your age have a family already.”

“How old?” She raised an eyebrow, ready to laugh.

“Under fifty.”

“How reassuring. But like I said, I’m not getting married. I’m going to try and find a job, and if that doesn’t work out right away, I—”

“You’ll be more than welcome here. But listen to me, Susana.” She leaned into Susana until garlicky breath stung her nostrils. “Marriage should be your first priority. While the old lady was alive people accepted her eccentricities—your eccentricities—but now she’s gone, frankly, people are talking.” She fixed Susana with a beady black stare that made her throat constrict.

Cold prickles of fear stung her fingers. Had Janus or Roman said something? No, she couldn’t believe they would.
People are talking
. And why wouldn’t they? A Rom woman of twenty-three, never married and living alone? It was unheard of, literally.

“Anyway, sweetie, Frankie’s coming here tonight. We’ll get you nicely settled, don’t you worry.” Her aunt patted her arm. “A good dinner, we’ll have tonight. And tie your hair up, it doesn’t look nice hanging all over like that.”

“Got to go. Appointment.” Susana blew a kiss and hurried out, before the walls of the house closed in on her and crushed her as they always threatened to when she spent too much time there. She’d be back for dinner. She was nothing if not reliable. She’d be polite to “Frankie.” She’d be a good girl, heck, maybe she’d even marry one day if the right eligible Rom widower showed up…

She shuddered, unable to think any touch but Joe’s on her skin.

You can’t have everything
, Granna had intoned with monotonous regularity.
Sometimes you have nothing. But you have your people
. And coming from Granna, who’d lost her entire family, those words rang deep in her soul.

Against all the odds, Frankie was a nice guy. Early forties, decent looking. Married once to a woman who died in a car crash. He had four teenage sons who he wanted to keep in school and out of trouble. His used computer game business sounded pretty modest, which probably meant he was honest.

When Uncle Anton left them alone together, she’d brought up her plan to study psychology as a sort of test. Not only had he not looked shocked and disgusted, but he’d actually been interested and encouraging. Uncle Anton and Aunt Letty beamed with delight as they wished him good night. Everyone could see it was a match made in…wherever those kinds of things were made. She could find absolutely nothing wrong with him.

Except that she didn’t love him.

And he wasn’t Joe.

Susana sat cross-legged on the table in the back room of the
ofisa
. The air still seemed to hum with the energy they’d created there, to smell of sex. Her thighs tingled as she remembered the feel of his tongue on her skin…

Stop it, Susana
! She growled with frustration. She’d been so cranky lately. Every single person in the family was getting on her nerves. Grating them raw. She found herself holing up in her apartment, avoiding them. Was it for this she’d sent Joe packing? If she married Frankie she’d have to move to Cincinnati anyway. She wouldn’t see even those family members she could stand the sight of.

Sure, she’d be living the life of a dutiful Rom woman, but was that enough?

On the other hand, what did she have with Joe anyway? They’d spent a little time together. Enjoyed each other’s company. Her body had opened like a night-blooming orchid under his gentle touch.

Love, huh?

Sure felt like it. Especially the part that hurt like poison in her system.

Would it be so wrong to see him one more time? Just to see.
To see what
?
If it was real
?

The chemistry between them was so powerful that good sense—any kind of sense—flew out the window when they were together. If she went to see him they’d be tugging each other’s clothes off and she wouldn’t be any wiser, only in deeper.

But what if she really
was
meant to spend her life with Joe? Should she throw away her true destiny for the sake of dusty “tradition”?

Could any harm come of doing a quick reading on the seeing globe? She’d never deliberately attempted to see into her own future. But would one little peek be so wrong?

She jumped down from the table and pushed out into the front room. The globe shone, filled with promise. Such a precious thing, bought by her grandmother with money she’d scraped together cleaning houses when she first came to New York. It was over a hundred years old and wrapped in legends.

Susana touched the smooth glass and felt the buzz of energy that hummed about its reflective surface. Her powers were still there, weaker, diminished by distraction, but thrumming at the core of her consciousness. They weren’t much consolation though, for the loss of Joe’s warm, strong arms around her.

She sat in her chair and arranged her skirt comfortably around her legs. Apprehension tightened her stomach muscles and pricked her fingertips as she moved them toward the glass again, ready to begin.

She looked past the reflection of her own face, distorted by the curve of the orb, into the inner core where the visions appeared. For a moment she didn’t see anything at all, and she prepared to turn away in relief, then an image flickered to life, like the ghosting on an old television set. She found herself looking at a man.

At Joe.

He was alone. Sitting on a bed. He wore a suit, maybe the same gray suit he’d worn when he last came to visit her. He held his head in his hands so she couldn’t see his face, but she’d know him anywhere.

Cold fingers of sadness clasped around her heart. He looked so alone. She gasped as he moved, sitting up and leaning backward to stretch out on the bed.

You’re not seeing the future, Susana. This is the present
.