The Domino Effect (13 page)

“Hello,” a man’s voice answered. It sounded like he didn’t like talking on the phone. I thought for a second about hanging up, trying again later in the day, but it had already taken me half an hour to get up the nerve to dial Brenda’s number. The paper she’d written it on was getting crumpled and soggy. I hadn’t called a girl on the phone since Genie Martini, the summer before 9
^th
grade, and even then I’d tried to wait until her father had left the house, because he hated the phone worse than this guy did.

“Hello,” the voice said again, louder this time.

“Ah, Mr. Divine?” I asked, bolting from where I’d started in the kitchen, as far as the cord would let me, to a corner in the back by the laundry. “Is, is Brenda there?”

“Who’s calling?” he asked. I couldn’t blame him. I should have introduced myself right away, like my parents had taught me to do whenever I called someone on the phone, but it had been awhile and I’d forgotten, and I was nervous, so Mr. Divine, who didn’t want to be on the phone in the first place, was probably thinking I was some sales guy, or someone who happened to know the names of him and his daughter. Super.

“Ah, sorry, sorry,” I said, “I’m Danny Rorro, a friend of your daughter’s, of Brenda’s, from school. I mean, Academy. Hamden Academy.”

I felt sweaty and stupid.

I think he kind of chuckled. “Ah, hold on there,” he said.

I heard him call out and then footsteps approached. When she got on the phone, it felt like she had saved me from drowning.

“Danny?” she asked.

“Hey,” I said, trying to be kind of cool.

“Hi!!!!” she said, too cool to try being cool.

It felt kind of funny talking to her on the phone, just a voice without her face, but we shot the breeze for awhile, told each other about our turkeys and all that (she had a lot more to say than I did), and finally got around to talking about what it was I had really called about, this great plan I had come up with before leaving school.

“So, ah,” I said, “are we set for tomorrow?”

“Well,” she started, kind of slow and excited before letting the rest just rip out, “I talked to my parents and I practically had to beg, but they said it would be OK, if I called them as soon as I got there and then again before I left. And I have to leave before dark. I mean, because I’ve never taken the train to the city by myself before, but I told them I’d be meeting you, and that you grew up there your whole life, and that you knew your way around and everything, so, and, oh, I have a cousin who just graduated college, from Smith, and she lives on the Upper East or Upper West Side, I forget, but I spoke to her and have her number and address in case, you know, something happens, so, yeah, yeah, I can come. I can come. I can’t wait!”

She sounded so young and adorable and anxious to see me. I felt powerful.

We figured out her train schedule and decided what time to meet at the information booth in the middle of Grand Central Station. After we hung up, I paced around downstairs for a bit, happy as I’d ever been in that big, lonely house. Suddenly, I wished I’d agreed to go with Pop to his stupid football game.

I paced around the information desk in the middle of Grand Central Station. It was just a circular booth with a clock on top, but everyone, from everywhere, used it as a rendezvous point. I’d been by plenty of times, and had seen people waiting, nervous, checking the clock or looking through the crowd. I’d seen couples meeting up, jumping all over each other with big kisses and everything. Now it was my turn, and I checked the clock, again and again, searching through that crowd for the first sight of my girl.

People crossed like crazy, but through the blur, right on time, I saw my Brenda Divine. She exited a track platform and made for the clock. I watched as she carefully walked the marble floor in the wide-open room. Her hair was curled against the shoulders of her camel-hair coat, and she was wearing a black skirt with matching tights and knee-high boots. I bet some people were envious of the person she was going to meet.

Seeing me, she smiled so wide I wanted to run over and tackle her.

“Hi!” She squealed, and gave me this huge hug. She smelled like all kinds of flowers.

“You look great, just great,” I said, after we parted. “Though I don’t know how far we’re going to get in those shoes.”

“Hey,” she said, with her chin up. “These boots were made for walking.”

“They were made for something,” I cracked.

“Come on,” she took my arm. “Let’s go!”

We hit 42
^nd
Street and then let the wave of shoppers pull us down the sunny side of 5
^th
Avenue. Sunlight splashed the sidewalks and bounced off the cars that zipped and jerked along. Smoke drifted from manholes. Salvation Army Santas rang their bells. Brenda smiled as we passed the storefront displays.

“You sure you don’t want to go into any of these stores?” I asked when we stopped above the fork at 23
^rd
Street.

“I’m sure, thanks,” she said, staring at the wedge of a building below 23rd. “I just love being in the city. It’s so…life-affirming.”

“You want life-affirming?” I asked, called by the smell of a smoky street stand. “Wait till you get a load of these.”

We angled down Broadway, below 14
^th
Street, sharing warm chestnuts from a hot bag. Brenda continued to affirm life, sniffing and looking and listening to everything as I rolled along, feeling like a superstar with her on my arm.

“Hey!” she declared around 8
^th
& Broadway. “We’re near NYU!!”

I pointed west toward Washington Square Park, and we started in that direction, passing academic buildings and high-rise dorms. A spoke of sidewalk led us into the park, where Rasta guys tried to sell anyone with lungs a nickel bag of reefer. The sunken fountain in the center had been turned into a theater for starving artists. Brenda gave a grizzled guy $5 for a half-assed Neil Young number before we walked out the south side of the park. I stopped her on the sidewalk to make a little joke and impress her with my memory at the same time.

“Oh, so now I get it,” I said, clever as all hell.

“Get what?” she asked.

“You came in to see the school, ’cause you’re thinking about applying here, and I was just here to, you know, show you around and everything. Oh yeah, I get it... I get it now. I’m nothing but a tour guide.”

I figured she’d laugh and bury me with kisses and whatnot, to prove how much she wanted to see me, not some school, but instead she got this real sad look on her face.

“Actually, Danny, I did have a reason for coming in today. I wanted to talk to you about something. And I didn’t want to do it at school or over the phone.”

A cloud blocked the sun as she rubbed her arm and looked down. A crowd of pigeons fluttered away. I’d never felt so vulnerable in my whole life, my beating heart in the hands of a green-eyed girl. She could have killed me on the spot. I swear. I remembered, last year, when this kid in the dorm named Watson got dumped by this girl named Mila or something. Poor Watson locked himself in his room for, like, three days, crying and everything. I pitied the poor kid, thought he was soft as could be, but he didn’t seem so weak anymore.

’Alright,” I said to Brenda. “Let’s talk.” I held out my clammy hands, but she only stumbled back a step. Her face lost some color.

“You alright?” I asked. “You want to sit down or something?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just that I skipped breakfast to make the train, and I haven’t eaten anything all day, really besides the chestnuts.”

“Um, OK,” I said. “So, just let’s forget the whole thing, then.”

She kind of smiled, and I felt saved.

“How about we get something to eat,” she said. “And then we’ll talk.”

I wanted to be cool, act real calm and everything over lunch, but there was no way that was happening not knowing what would happen afterward. “We’re not breaking up or anything, are we, Bren?”

“No,” she said with the warmest, sweetest smile I’d ever seen.

“Say that again,” I asked.

“No,” she said with the certainty I sought. “We are not breaking up or anything.”

“Let’s get some food, then,” I said, leading her away from the park.

The sunlight returned as we walked down Thompson Street. She stopped me on a quiet corner. “You remember when I told you that?”

“Told me what?”

“About wanting to go to NYU. That was the first day we met and you were asking me all those questions. Remember?”

I laughed and held her elbow. “Let me tell you something, Bren — I remember what you were wearing that day.”

She blushed and gave me a big, fat kiss, one of those straighton jobs, all lips. It felt so good, and I didn’t want her to pull away, but she did.

“I could tell you how you wore your hair that day, too, if you really want to know.” She kissed me again, and I held her there for as long as I could.

We crossed Houston Street into SoHo, with its boutiques, galleries, and cafés, and its throngs of people hogging the sidewalks.

We escaped over Lafayette Street into the tip of Little Italy. The streets hummed with both curious tourists and neighborhood people going about their business. In the windows above almost every shop, a Nona kept a watchful eye on the doings below.

On Mulberry Street, restaurant bosses fished for tourists, but we didn’t stop until a voice rang out. “Domino!” I looked all around. Across the street was a little guy beneath a big
Ristorante
sign, his hands waving at his sides. “Domino! That you? Get over here!”

The guy with the big mouth beamed as we approached, his hands still out to the side. “How ya’ doing there?” he asked as he leaned over to kiss me, with thick red lips, on both of my cheeks.

“Great, great, Ronnie,” I said, after the sloppy kiss. “How about you?”

“Can’t complain,” he said. “I have my health.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said. “Glad to hear it.”

“How’s your folks? And the holiday? What about school?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

A Hispanic guy brushed past with a crate of artichokes.

“Is this your place?” I asked.

“Nah, somebody else’s,” he said with a shrug. “I run the joint for him, though.”

“The food’s good?”

“Of course!” he said, flailing his arms. “Come on in!”

I started to lead Brenda inside.

“Wait a minute,” he caught himself. “Wait a minute. Who’s this?”

“This is my girlfriend, Brenda.” I said.

“Scuse
me, Doll,” he said putting the reading glasses high up on his forehead. “I didn’t even see you there.”

“That’s OK,” she smiled and stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” he said taking her hand. Then he grabbed my face and kissed me all over again, on both cheeks. Then he held open the door.

The open space was full of light. The ceiling, high and made of tin, had a fan that turned in the middle. The walls were worn white brick.

“Have a seat right here,” Ronnie said, offering us a four-spot in the middle of the room. “I’ll be right with ya.”

“How do you know him?” Brenda asked. She was all eyes and smile.