Rico’s suggestion to jam had been a surprise since he and Star were so wrapped up in their new direction. But of course he’d included Star in the ensemble, and that changed the dynamic. Lance watched her sway and hum as he chorded into a minor key.
He liked Star, but he couldn’t get a handle on her and Rico. Then again, he couldn’t get a handle on himself. All he knew was things had changed. Maybe the days of singing on the street corners with Rico were really gone. None of it mattered as much as it once had. He was making the break, inside himself.
He looked at Rese, cross-legged on the couch, watching. If the music transported or transformed her, it didn’t show. Did she worry still that he’d go back to it? That it was what he wanted? He should tell her, but that would move into what he did want, and she didn’t want to hear it. She’d made that clear.
He lost the lyrics and improvised a nonsensical line. Chaz and Rico glanced at each other. They’d gone with him before when he took a tangent or two. He rarely succumbed to “La-la-la,” but the words that came were not always what he’d put on the page. He reached the chorus and sang with Rico’s descant soaring above. But Star brought her voice in and the line didn’t hold.
Lance let them take it and worked the guitar, instead. That was one thing about music; it was fluid. Give something here; take something there. He climbed the neck of the guitar with a countermelody. It was good; it was new. He felt a twinge of pride in the gift. So he hadn’t eradicated that.
As Rico launched into a riff, Pop came up, looked in the open door, and walked out. It was all in the expression. Lance stopped chording, took the guitar from his neck, and got up. Chaz raised his brows, but Star and Rico simply morphed into a song with no lyrics or guitar. Once again the flow continued. Just that easily, he could disappear.
“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered to Rese, then swiped some money from the bowl on the bookcase.
Her face was quizzical, but he didn’t want to tell her the unspoken message in Pop’s face had triggered all the old memories.
“Why don’t you get a job? Make something of yourself.”
Even when things had looked good and gigs were stacking up, Pop shook his head.
“Who’s gonna pay your retirement?”
It didn’t enter his head they could make it big enough to pay all their retirements.
“What’s the money bowl for?” Rese broke his reverie as she stepped into the hall.
He closed the door behind them. “It’s where we pool the extra.”
She smiled. “I like your friendship.”
He shrugged. They hadn’t decided to throw in their cash together. It had evolved. Chaz made good money at the RestaurantWeston, but sent most of it back to Jamaica since he lived cheaply, sharing a room with Rico. Rico had done well off and on, but music was a hard business and sporadic, no matter how good you were.
And Rico was good. Innovative, yet exact as a metronome. He could hold an entire conversation without dropping a beat. But he didn’t hold on to his money well, always seemed to be falling short. The bowl had probably come out of his casing the apartment for loose change. Lance got into the habit of emptying his pockets in one place, bills and coins together, just to keep Rico from rooting through his things.
He led Rese down the stairs through the kids playing in the stairwell who tried to ambush, then followed him out to the street. He handed over a few dollars, and they ran off shouting, “Thank you. Thanks, Uncle Lance.” He loved that uncle part.
“Are they okay leaving like that?” Rese followed them with her eyes.
He shrugged. “They know to stay close; the candy store, the ice cream truck. The babies are napping, so Lucy and Monica will be glad for the quiet.”
“It’s hardly quiet.” Rese glanced over her shoulder toward the music streaming through the windows.
“That’s white noise. Every baby in that building learns to sleep to Rico’s drums.”
Rese snorted. “Not exactly Brahms’ lullaby.”
“Better.” He grinned. And then he imagined a baby of his own dozing off to the air brush on the cymbal and swallowed. “You want kids, Rese?”
She didn’t answer for so long that he tipped his head to catch her expression.
She said, “Not if I’m schizophrenic.” Her face showed nothing but candor, but he knew inside it was eating her.
“I don’t see that happening.”
“Yeah, well, Dad didn’t see it, either, but he noticed when Mom curtained the windows with his underwear. It caught his attention when neighbors showed him burnt bushes and lawn furniture.”
“How come he left you alone with her?”
Rese shrugged. “I don’t think he wanted to admit things were getting worse. It didn’t get bad until the last year. Before that, she was normal a lot of the time; not just normal, wonderful.”
“Still, you were just a little girl.”
“It didn’t feel that way. A lot of the time it seemed like I was the parent. Dad even started giving me instructions. ‘Don’t play on the roof today, okay, honey?’ And his ‘How was everything?’ meant ‘Did Mom do anything I need to know about?’ ” He didn’t want to think of Rese in that position, but it explained her self-sufficiency, her courage and determination. “That must have been hard.”
“It was hard being caught in between.” She paused at the corner, the wind flipping the fringe of hair up from her forehead. “I didn’t want to let Dad down, but I loved her so much.”
That was the first time she’d said it, but he’d already glimpsed her loyalty to the mother who had tried to kill her.
Her brow creased. “I think I knew I might not have her forever. Things were so precarious, never certain.”
She liked things certain. No surprises. After believing so long that her mother was dead, learning she still lived had come a little hard. He nodded. “Now you have her back.”
She turned. “That’s not what I expected you to say.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know: ‘You’re better off without her.’ ‘Good thing they locked her up.’ ” “Why would I say that?”
“Because most people don’t relish a psycho mother-in-law.”
The smile caught him unexpectedly. “Did you say mother-inlaw?” She frowned. “Hypothetically.”
He caught her hand and raised her fingers to his lips. “I would love to meet your mother.” He felt a quiver pass through her.
But she drew herself up, fully Vernon Barrett’s daughter. “You don’t
meet
my mother, Lance. She might think you’re the president or the devil. She might not even know you’re there.” She tried to pull away.
He kept hold. “I don’t care.”
“Because you don’t know.”
“You’re right. I haven’t lived with her. But everyone’s got something, Rese.”
“What? What do you have that I wouldn’t want with my whole …” She yanked her hand free and stalked down the sidewalk, her reflection framed briefly by the window of Borgatti’s Pasta that displayed the certificate from Ladder Company 38 thanking the Borgattis for their generosity during the darkest time in the history of the New York Fire Department. Rese passed without noticing.
He took his eyes from the certificate and caught up to her. “So you like crowds, noise, overt displays of affection?”
She didn’t answer, just focused on the section of Arthur Avenue that was more authentic than Mulberry Street’s Little Italy in Manhattan. Lance knew how it looked, this little enclave of times past and people united by history and traditions. Quaint. Foreign. Amusing.
Lambs’ heads at Biancardi’s complete with eyes, brains, and teeth. Religious and regional clutter, and every second store peddling food. His place. His people. Was that what Rese saw, what she thought she wanted?
“Everyone knowing your mistakes, every stupid choice told from one kitchen to another. Prejudices ingrained for generations. Expectations you can’t ever meet.” Pop’s blank stare.
Rese slowed her stride.
He matched it. “Want some pizza?”
She shook her head, but they hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She was hungry even if she wouldn’t admit it.
“Giovanni’s is good.” He motioned her through the door. “What do you like? Quattro Formaggio? Capriciossa?”
“You’re speaking a foreign language.”
He ordered two slices from the glass case and carried them to the small, cheesecloth-covered table. The waitress, Anita, brought their drinks with a shy grin that showed her teeth pushed forward like kids crowding the line. Lance thanked her.
Rese lifted the flimsy tip of her slice. “It’s so thin.”
“No more than a tenth of an inch in the center or it’s not Neapolitan.” He folded his and raised it to his mouth.
“I thought New York pizza was thick.”
“That’s the Sicilian version. A bad copy.”
“Oh really.”
“I should know. Half my family’s from Naples, where pizza originated. Anything else is an illegitimate stepchild.”
Rese blinked. “Is everything so black-and-white?”
“The Italian flag should have been black-and-white. But then we’d have argued over which color goes first.” He bit into the crisp, gooey slice. “Around here, you take a position and defend it to the death. Right or wrong.”
“Like the guys on my crew, always had to be the experts, especially Brad. I said maple; he said oak. I said save; he said demolish. I think he notched his belt every time Dad took his suggestion over mine.”
“And when Vernon took yours?”
She looked up. “It wasn’t about winning. It was about doing it right.”
“So maple was right and oak was wrong?”
“If one worked better for the project.” She chugged her iced tea.
“That’s not opinion?”
She set down the glass. “He’d have said anything to edge me out.”
“If his input wasn’t valid, why would your dad go with it?”
“I’m not saying Brad wasn’t good. He knew his stuff. He just … resented me.”
“Why?”
She pushed back in her chair. “Threatened, I guess.”
“You are intimidating.” Lance smiled. “Brad admitted that much. But he still wants you back.”
She sighed. “I don’t believe it. He’s got an agenda.”
“He knows what you can do. He respects it.”
She snorted, but Brad had seemed sincere the one conversation Lance had with him. Rese’s skill was not in doubt, only her ability to carry on after her dad’s fatal accident.
“Your artistry shows, even to an untrained eye. You did an amazing job on my furniture.”
“Making your bed and wardrobe didn’t trigger flashbacks.”
He knew she’d been reliving the accident, but she’d never admitted it right out. “Why do you think that is?”
“Context, I guess.” She toyed with the crust of her pizza. “The focus is different.”
“You have skill. That’s a good way to use it.”
She wiped her mouth with the paper napkin. “Why can’t anyone else admit that?”
Lance leaned back in his chair. “You want the real reason?”
The pause before she nodded should have warned him, but he plowed on anyway. “You think the worst of people. You make them fight for a fair shake. Then you’re so competent, they want to show you up just on principle.”
She raised her chin. “In other words, I’m obnoxious.”
He grinned. “Basically.”
“So … because I know what I’ll get from people and don’t wait for them to prove me right—”
“See, there it is.” Lance let the front legs of his chair down. “Assuming the worst and taking it on. The first look you gave me was combative.”
“You walked in on me with no warning.”
“I knocked twice and called out. Not my fault you were off in your zone.”
“Actually … Oh, never mind.”
“Actually what?”
“I was thinking of Dad. Reliving it.” Her brow pinched. “You pulled me out of the memory and … I reacted.”
That explained a lot. The way she’d sneered at his filling the position of maid and cook. The way she had dissed his earring, and him in general. With her back to the wall, and all her energy focused on renovating the villa without losing it, a witness to a moment of weakness would seem like a threat. It wasn’t paranoid or obnoxious. It was understandable.
He leaned on his elbows. “Did I tell you I think you’re great?”
“The word was obnoxious.”
He laughed. “That was your word.”
“You agreed.”
“I promised you honesty.”
“Then I’ll return the favor.”
“Go ahead.”
“You intentionally provoked me, walking in as though you owned the place, and standing there with that slacked hip and belligerent expression as though trouble simmered right under your skin. Then you talked your way around my better judgment and enjoyed the fact that I couldn’t resist taking the risk.”
He spread his hands, already forming his defense.
But she went on. “You put the responsibility on everyone else, like, ‘Hey, I warned you, but you wanted it anyway.’ ”
Okay, that was touching home.
“You make people think the worst, but it’s all an act.”
He raised his brows with a laugh. “Tell that to Pop.”
“Well, that’s part of it too. You couldn’t compete with Tony for favored son, so you took the part of prodigal.”
Lance frowned. “I want to be a screw-up?”
“You want to do what’s right and good. Like Tony. But as long as Tony was here, your good wasn’t good enough. Now Tony’s gone, and neither one of you knows how to get past that.”
Lance stared into his plate, clenching and releasing his jaw. He hadn’t expected her to slice so deeply. “What’s Chaz been teaching you?”
“You told me the prodigal son story.”
“I don’t remember applying it to myself.”
“It’s obvious.”
“Well, I don’t see Pop running down the street with rings and robes.” And it wouldn’t happen anytime in this life, no matter what he did or didn’t do. How could he explain it? “Around here it’s practically decided who you are when you’re born. I mean, they held me up and said, ‘Just look at those eyes. This one’s trouble.’ ”
She nodded. “They’re deadly eyes all right.”
He leaned in. “Are you flirting with me?”
“It’s bad if you have to ask.” She flushed.
Had he ever seen her blush? Maybe when she’d wanted to take his head off with a shovel, but never because she’d overstepped, left herself vulnerable.