Not Exactly a Love Story (13 page)

Right. At least mentioned that he was interested in somebody. That he was going to ask her out. We talked to each other just about every other day.

I guess we all have our little secrets.

I said, “So listen, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“It’s just that I’m running late.”

“Go. Tomorrow,” I said, and hung up. I felt kind of bad because I was somebody he couldn’t confide in.

Of course, I wasn’t exactly confiding in him either. What
could I say?
Hey, Dad, it’s a few calls, that’s all, no harm done. Nobody’s going to know it’s me, plenty of people have Patsy’s phone number
. Biff
has her phone number
.

If I’d opened a window, a cold draft would have blown in. It couldn’t have been any colder than the realization I had right then that Biff was probably calling her every night too.

“Frederico?”

“You were expecting another caller?”

“Was I a snot last night? I didn’t mean to be.”

“That’s all right. Short guys are used to being the butt of jokes.”

“It’s okay then?” she asked. “You’ll call later on Saturday nights.”

“Oh, so now it’s more than one. Cheating on me, are you?”

“We’re not dating,” she said.

And so, hardly exclusive. “No, we aren’t.”

“You sound a little down,” she said, and hesitated. “Usually you snap back at me like a rubber band.”

“Everything’s fine” was all I managed.

“Come on,” she said. I suppose I could say she was wheedling,
but it sounded much more attractive than that. Like real concern. “Girl trouble?”

“Not my girl.” Froglike. My voice didn’t sound like my own.

“Whose?”

“My dad got himself one.” I felt better just saying it out loud. And it seemed to me that she might be more forthcoming about Biff if I set the tone with a confidence of my own.

“A girl?”

“I suppose she’s older than that. I could see he would, eventually. It’s just that he didn’t tell me about her. I’m feeling a little left out, I guess.”

“You see a lot of him?”

“I used to.”

“You’ll still get to.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, shrugging in the darkness. Self-pitying, okay, but it felt good for just that minute.

“He’ll be happier if this works out. You want him to be happy, right?”

“I guess I’m being childish.”

“You are his child.”

“Good point.” Suddenly I felt like grinning. The funny thing, she helped. I didn’t feel such a pressure to “handle” this thing with my dad. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Nothing, that’s what.

She was quiet for a minute, and I just listened to her breathe.

It was pretty nice, actually. That we could just be there, breathing, and not saying anything.

“I’m sorry I give you such a hard time,” she said.

“Are you serious? I’ve got a two-minute window before your next wisecrack.”

“You don’t think I’m really sorry?”

“Have you spoken to anyone about this neurotic need to apologize?”

“Please don’t do that,” she said, and her tone of voice threw me. Not asking, not ordering, but communicating a real need to talk to me. To hear what I had to say. But I guess she’d done that before. Maybe it was the first time we were both ready at the same time. Maybe that was it.

“Maybe we ought to hang up now,” I said. “Before we ruin what seems to be a good moment.”

“Or you could tell me about the valentine you’re going to give me.” Her flirty voice.

Of course. I could give her a card and know that she’d be eager to find it. Why hadn’t I thought of it? And why was I suddenly feeling reluctant? Well, for one thing, it called for a disclosure.

“I guess I could slip it into your locker,” I said.

“So you’re giving me one?”

“Are you setting up cameras?”

“Francesco.” Sort of dragging it out. Wheedling.

“I’m trying to figure out how I’d sign it. ‘Anonymous Admirer’ doesn’t quite do it.”

“I’ve been thinking about us, Fabio,” she said. “You call back, wanting to know what I’ll say, we argue, get mad.”

I drew back, not just away from the receiver, but my whole insides cringed. “I’m listening.”

“You care. And still, we only talk on the phone.”

“Yeah?”

“I thought you were embarrassed to be found out,” she said. “That I’d tell someone what you’d done. I don’t think that anymore.”

“Just when I was starting to feel so good about us.” She was getting on my nerves.

“I think you don’t let anyone get close. You’re afraid someone
will
love you.”

“A lot depends upon which someone we’re talking about.”

She said, “Let me ask you something. My pick, like playing Twenty Questions.”

“I have to answer?”

“How else am I supposed to guess who you are?” she said.

“I don’t think we’re playing the same game.” It was all slippery muck I was standing on, but I was finding my footing. When she made an exasperated sound, I added, “A one-time question or a to-be-continued, like my name?”

“One time only,” she conceded.

“Okay.”

“You’ll be honest?”

“One time only.”

“Have we ever spoken to each other?” she asked. “Off the phone, I mean. Are you somebody I talk to every day but don’t notice, like somebody who shelves books in the library or sits at a desk near mine?”

I laughed out loud, a real laugh. I don’t know why exactly. I was perspiring all of a sudden. “That’s all you want to ask?”

“What would you suggest?”

“If I could ask you any question, I could come up with something better than that.”

“Just answer, Fandango,” she said in an annoyed tone.

“No,” I answered, chuckling reassuringly. “We don’t talk. No shared classes.”

That’s right. I lied. What would you have done?

A breathy, impatient sound traveled over the line. I imagined feeling the puff of air in my ear. “So can I?” I asked her.

“Can you what?”

“Ask you anything I want to.”

Click.

Guess not.

I got up late for running, but the sun was shining—that was the upside. I decided to skip breakfast, do the alternating thing of walk some, run some. Ten minutes later, the sun was not shining.

It was a cold, crummy morning, and as I jogged past the as-yet-unpopulated bus stop, a drizzly rain started to fall,
adding to the misery of being outside in the cold when half an hour before I’d been in a warm bed. That was the downside.

My head ached in the cold, but I got into a stride. The walk-run stride. It wasn’t poetry. I’d nearly reached the school when my unfed energy began to flag, seriously flag.

Blood was pounding so loudly in my ears that I didn’t hear the school bus coming, and it passed me just as I gave up and bent over at the waist, gagging. I was too miserable to take note of how much of an audience I had, or who was part of it.

Oh, and here’s the best part. Changing up to an A class? More homework to make up. Three essays and a test.

In class, Patsy turned around and offered up a sympathetic pout. I sent back a devil-may-care grin, but she’d turned back too quickly to catch it.

I decided to take a turn around the track after school.

That was when I saw Patsy on the bleachers, looking cold but determined. I tried to tell myself she was waiting for the late bus. But that bus came and went with the other girls who’d been milling around the gym, talking decorations. Patsy stretched her jacket over her knees for warmth and watched the guys speeding around the track.

I hated knowing she could also watch me.

I ran faster and not especially well, thinking about how I looked. I tightened up, didn’t get enough air. I was out of breath sooner than I should have been. The wind was
picking up and made my eyes water. Pretty soon my nose was running. I cramped up.

I got off the track and into the locker room. It was a terrible run.

Dad called that evening. I waited for him to say something about the date, where our last conversation broke off, and tell me where he met her or something. But he went straight to “How’s the running going?”

“Better every day,” I lied. “I’m turning out to be the athletic type after all.”

“Great,” Dad said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Tomorrow morning I expect to make it to the end of the block.”

Dad laughed, first in surprise and then gratefully, knowing how hard it was for me to admit to the possibility of failure. We never did get around to talking about his date, but I was in no mood to hold that against him.

I wondered if I was wrong to lie to Patsy, and then I wondered
if it mattered. Vinnie was never going to get a shot at dating her anyway.

“Giorgio.”

“You sound soggy.”

“How can one word sound soggy?”

“I’m not a total jerk. I can tell you’ve been crying.”

“Some people would pretend they didn’t notice.”

“Some people would,” I agreed. “So why are you crying?”

“That’s none of your business,” she said, after a long moment. “It’s none of my business, even.” And while I was wondering what that meant, she made a little kitten sound, crying. She asked, “What do you think about married people having sex?”

I tried not to think about that. “I believe they generally do.”

“I can’t talk to anybody else about this,” she said, the tension cracking her voice. Total surrender.

Fear curled deep in my belly. “Are they having it with each other?”

She giggled and stopped, then laughed in a hiccuppy way.

I said, “I know that sounded stupid.”

“Somebody else,” she said, still giggling. I had a feeling there were tears as well. “They’re having it with someone else.”

“As in swapping?”

“No. As in one person having an affair. I shouldn’t—”

“It’s out now. Keep talking.”

“I’m talking too much. It’s one of my parents. The other one knows, but—I don’t want to talk about them.”

“You want to just sit here in the dark and be quiet?”

“Are you sitting in the dark?”

I lost only a split second before I said, as if amazed, “You mean you aren’t?”

“I just never thought of it,” she said.

“Oh,
now
I don’t feel you’ve been taking these calls seriously enough.”

“Seriously enough for what?”

“I feel so used.”

She laughed. “Cut that out.”

“Here I believed you loved me the way I love you, as a dark and secret thing.”

“You love me?”

“Only as a dark and secret thing.”

“Just so we understand each other,” she said, and hung up.

I had a warm and happy glow going as I put the phone down. I had the feeling we did understand each other. Sort of.

Mom shook me awake on Saturday. “Vinnie, it’s past noon.”

“It’s the weekend, Mom.” I didn’t have to get up while it was still dark out. I didn’t have to run until I threw up my meager breakfast. “The. Week. End.”

“Get up now or you’ll never get to sleep tonight, you’ll want to get up even later tomorrow morning, and by Monday you’ll just be getting to sleep when you ought to be getting up.”

This is a mother’s logic, and I’d heard it before. I rolled out, landing flat on the floor. She jabbed me in the ribs with a toe. “Up.”

She was in one of her businessy moods. Feeling very efficient. All I can say is, when she’s home for the day, this is wasted energy. Everybody’s wasted energy.

She spent a lot of time making lists and scribbling on index cards. This morning, she tacked up a chart in the dining room. It didn’t reflect schedules so much as the
division of labor. I noticed most of the labor fell to Mr. B and me, while Mom covered us in the shopping and carrying-dry-cleaning department. Neither Mr. B nor I have much dry cleaning to worry about.

Mom hadn’t finished making entries on the chart, she was still shifting index cards around on the table, each card representing a task to be carried out. I looked over her shoulder and saw that the row of cards she consistently left in place were marked “Dinner Mon,” “Dinner Tues,” “Dinner Wed,” and so on.

“Vinnie, weren’t you getting home from school earlier last week?”