Not Exactly a Love Story (20 page)

All right, Vinnie Gold came from New York and she assumed Manhattan. Anyway, I said my girlfriend had moved away a few weeks before my mother made a decision to remarry. I made it that we’d accepted the inevitable and broken off our relationship completely. I made it tragic. It seemed like a good time to ask the question that burned beneath my tongue.

“Tell me what happened between you and your boyfriend.”

“We dated, that’s all,” she said.

“You made it sound like something more.”

“I hoped he’d turn out to be somebody I liked, but he didn’t,” she said, evading the question about the boyfriend label. “I gave it a chance, I went out with him a couple of times.”

“He’s a big-deal sports hero.”

“I know. That’s why I gave it a chance.”

Vinnie Gold wasn’t touched by this admission, but somewhere, deep inside, Vincenzo was trembling with emotion.

“Okay, he wasn’t making your heart throb. Why break it off?”

She shrugged. “He’s … pushy. He doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“So why me?” I asked.

“Why am I going out with you?”

“I think I’m an excellent choice,” Vinnie Gold said with a disarming smile. “What I want to hear are your reasons.”

“You’re not popular in the sense that everyone knows you,” she said frankly. “But you’ve made an impression around school.”

Vinnie Gold ought to like flattery. But it was making Vincenzo antsy. She might be working up to me asking her to the dance. “We’d better get going,” I said. “While we’re feeling warmed up.”

But the wind snatched away our stored-up heat before we’d gone a hundred feet. We were crossing the street when a vision appeared. “Look,” I cried as my arm shot up into the air. “Taxi!”

It swerved in our direction. I grabbed Patsy around the shoulders and ran. “Will you take us home?” I yelled, bent over to send my voice through the partially open window.

“You on your way to the city, Bud?”

“No. We’re on your way, though. You don’t have to start the meter.”

“How far?”

“Couple of miles.”

“Five bucks.”

“Done.” Patsy and I fell into the backseat, shivering. At least it was a heated cab. I’d had to let go of her to get into the taxi, but I planned to recapture the territory.

However, she was leaning eagerly over the front seat. “Is your name Italian? Aldo, I mean.”

“Yeah,” he said, his tone guarded and ready to take offense.

“Oh, great, do you know any others?”

“Other what?” he said, like he didn’t believe his ears.

“Italian names are so sexy, my friends and I have decided to give our children Italian names.” Pretty sly, that Patsy. “Mainly the boys. We’re making a list.”

He laughed, relaxing then. She was playing the giddy teenager, and he was buying it. “Let’s see, there’s Mario and Bartolo—”

“How about from the end of the alphabet?” she asked, rooting through her purse for a pen.

“Where we going, Bud?”

“Straight ahead six blocks and a right turn.”

“Right. Umberto and Ugo and Tino and …” I settled into the corner, with one arm stretched behind Patsy in case she should sit back. Then I just watched her getting wound up over the names she’d never thought of. It was fun to see
her excited—childish, even, all sophistication washed away. The way she sometimes sounded late at night.

The funny thing, when she sat back she hardly said a word. She didn’t act like she was angry or anything, she seemed cheerful enough, writing down some names on a scrap of paper. And the ride was over only a minute later, I could have been misreading her. The best way to say how she was, she’d hung up.

She was fine as we got out of the taxi, and, as I said, I could have misread her. But I went all hot and cold, I lost the feeling for being cool.

I didn’t kiss her good night. I’d expected to right up until I saw she expected it too. I tried to play it that Vinnie Gold was a contrary bastard. “I had a nice time.”

“Me too. Thanks, Vinnie.”

She didn’t look disappointed about the kiss.

I turned out the light. It was my way of reminding myself who
was making this call. I liked being Vincenzo. I am Vincenzo, of course, but I felt like I was dressed up as a more confident form of myself in the dark. I could say anything. Be almost fearless. Almost.

I couldn’t help the cold little zing that whizzed through my spine when I remembered how Vinnie’s evening ended. Something had gone wrong, and I didn’t know what it was. If I was ever going to turn this relationship into something more meaningful than a few phone calls, I was going to have to figure out how to do it. Soon.

“Hello, Quirino.” Soft and blurry.

“Asleep?” I asked.

“Dozing.”

“Dreaming?”

She giggled.

I asked, “Dreaming of me?” She sounded sweet as hell. She sounded better.

“If I dreamed of you, Questione, you’d be wearing a handkerchief. And you’d be taking me to the dance.”

“I should have been expecting this, right?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she told me. “That I don’t see you as a person separate from these calls. In a way, you’re right.”

“The dance would change that?”

“I have a picture of you in my head, Quibble. You’re perfect. Handsome, sensitive, sweet. Also sarcastic, smart-mouthed, challenging.” A pause for effect. “If you don’t tell me who you are soon, I’m not going to be able to reconcile reality with my ideal. You’ll be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“What we’re talking about here are degrees of disappointment.” I wanted to sound remote. Like this was a problem that didn’t involve me personally. I don’t think I made it.

“We’re both going to want more.” She sounded so cold. Really icy. “You because you’ll think I know you as you are. But you can’t possibly live up to the picture I’m creating.”

“I told you before. I’m not somebody you’d date.” I waited, but she didn’t respond. “You’re just beginning to realize it yourself.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Sure you did. You said I couldn’t live up to your
imaginings,” I said, treading water now and feeling some sand between my toes. “I knew that all along.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said.

“Ask your father,” I said. “People are usually telling you the truth while they’re saying something they didn’t mean.”

“Leave my father out of this.”

“You said you weren’t going to go anywhere with Biff again. That was a lie.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“I saw you come to school in his car after you said that.”

“You don’t understand. He’d have made a big scene.”

“Did he ask you to the dance?”

“I told you, he isn’t taking me. But I agreed to dance with him.”

“He’s sure to get the message if you keep saying yes.”

Click.

I sighed, and dialed again.

She said, “Okay, maybe you’re right. But I’ll want to date someone sooner or later. I can’t sit in the house on Saturday nights, Rocco.”

I had the feeling I was being manipulated, and I hated it. Besides which, I had no intention of letting go of the bone when I had it so firmly in my teeth.

“Every time you get into his car, he’s promising you he’s trustworthy and you’re promising him that you trust him. Soon you’ll think you can’t say no without hurting him deeply,” I said. “Maybe that’s true already. Meanwhile, he’s telling everyone you’re hot for him—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Because he’s a football hero.”

“No, Roberto, because other girls are hot for him and they won’t believe I’m not. Anyway, before long he’ll get interested in one of them and stop bothering me.”

My anger dribbled away so fast, I had to catch it in a cup to have enough left to say, “Why do you need a boyfriend so badly, Patsy?”

“Unless you’re interested in the position, don’t go starting with the penny psychology.”

“I just think you could make a better choice than an obscene caller, you know?”

“I don’t think of you that way anymore,” she wailed, frustrated.

“Maybe I should say something dirty.”

“You can be so nice when you want to be, Rodolfo.”

“Rodolfo? Where are you getting these?” As if I didn’t know.

She said, “Listen, I’m asking you to go to the dance with me.”

“What I said, some choice.”

“I swear, I won’t tell anyone about these calls.”

“Me either.”

“You still don’t trust me,” she said. “You don’t trust. That’s why you don’t believe Biff could regret—”

I was laughing. “Did you hear yourself?”

“I don’t have to like him to know there’s a person in there. Maybe he’s a person in pain. Did you ever—”

“You’re calling him Biff, too. Ha-ha!”

Click.

I felt like an idiot. Vincenzo was an idiot. But what choice did I have?

I was afraid I’d do something to tip her off if I ever stepped out of the tight box that I’d built for Vinnie Gold. I’d messed up tonight, and I still didn’t know what I’d done wrong. That’s what I had to figure out.

As for Vincenzo, he had to remain closeted.

I left early the next morning. No school, so no need for the
backpack. In fact, no one would have said a word to me if I’d stayed in bed. Strangely enough, I felt like getting up to run. I was eager to see what it was like to do it without the weight of books banging against my back.

The air was frigid when I went outside, the wind was brisk enough to make my eyes water, and there was no sun. Turned out it suited me. Last year I’d’ve been wrapped up like a snowman in this kind of weather. Here I was now, in only a sweat jacket, running down the street like a jock. It felt good.

I ran a few extra blocks in one direction, happy to be running and no one watching to see how I was doing. Then I heard a car several yards behind me. It stayed behind me.

When I turned to get a look at it, Mr. B was behind
the wheel. When he knew I’d seen him, he pulled up alongside me.

“Good boy. You’re already up to a qualifying time.”

I kept running and, taking the crest of a gently uphill slope, I raised a triumphant fist in the air. Mr. B got a charge out of that and returned the gesture as he drove on.

To tell you the truth, I got quite a charge out of it myself. I’d pared nearly two minutes off the previous morning’s run. I felt great. What was racing speed, anyway? I’d ask Mr. B.

I spent the rest of the morning looking for another old essay and found one about learning to swim when you’re afraid of the water. I don’t know whether it was the early run or what, but I fell asleep as I lay on the bed, my pen scratching over the notebook paper.

When I woke up, it was already getting dark. I looked around for something to eat, but Mom’s cupboards were bare. No hidden brownies, no dry cereal to munch, no leftovers of any kind. But she’d probably do some shopping on the way home, I’d survive.

I checked the reading on the water in the aquarium and found it good. Dad wanted me to have it stabilized before we put any fish in there, but I wasn’t sure how long he thought we’d have to wait. I called to ask, but no one was home at the other end.

I was in my room, rewriting the essay, when I heard Mom and Mr. B downstairs. Yelling. I opened the door to my room and listened from there. It wasn’t necessary to go any farther. They were working their way in my direction.

“I can’t believe you want to get into this now,” Mom was saying.

“Get into what? I’m hungry, and I want to eat.”

“I didn’t do any shopping today. I didn’t have time,” Mom said. “We can go to that little restaurant on the boulevard.”

“It’s a diner,” Mr. B said. “I don’t like eating in diners.”

“If you don’t want to go out, we’ll just order in.”

“The boy has to be able to come home from school and find something besides eggs or tuna fish. There never seems to be anything else to eat. When he gets here, he has homework he needs to take care of, and he ought to be able to count on someone else having done the cooking.”

I could get behind that.

My stomach growled.

“You’re getting into dangerous territory there, Dom,” Mom said, slipping into her feminist mode. Actually, I tended to agree with her—despite having taken a stand earlier—that I could do
some
of the cooking. So could Mr. B, and with my compliments, but I also agreed that Mom had to hold up her end.