“You’re kidding?”
“He wanted me to go into Issy’s room and do it on her bed. No class.”
“That’s an understatement.”
The friends cheered each other while they washed windows.
Eileen said, “I’ll bet Ev’s grandmother didn’t wash these windows for ten years. I guess it all works out, your eyes fail so you don’t see the grime about the same time you become too frail to do anything about it.”
Everett arrived home. “Window washing again?” he asked Lilly. He turned to Eileen, “Does this girl have a fetish?”
Lilly said, “It’s the ammonia; it turns me on.”
“Eileen, this girl is sick. What’s for dinner? I have to be at the K of C to get the old men drunk.”
“Ev, I forgot.” Eileen started searching bags in the kitchen. “I’ll make peanut butter and jelly. I painted the cabinets with the woodwork paint we found in the cellar.”
“Forget it, but the kids will be hungry.”
Lilly beat a hasty retreat out the door. “Eileen, I’ll call you. Bye now.”
Lilly got back to Tony’s to find a note placed on her purchases. Gone walking. Where are you Belle?
Lilly stood under a hot shower, relishing it fully, until she heard a knock on the front door. She slipped into one of Tony’s tee shirts and answered the door. She was met by a group of young professional types.
The sole female asked, “Where’s Anthony?” and then reading Lilly’s expression as acknowledgment, pushed past her followed by her companions.
“Anthony’s out,” Lilly replied, mimicking the female’s suspiciously clipped voice. The day’s frustrations rose in her, and Lilly suddenly felt in the mood for a dangerous night. “But he’ll probably return soon, if you make yourselves comfortable while I dress.”
She dressed rapidly and joined them. One was rifling Tony’s music collection. Lilly joined the others, sitting at her unplugged keyboards across from a ruggedly handsome man named Roger. She learned that this group, with Tony, had rented a summerhouse by the ocean the summer before and were looking to repeat the experience.
Roger said, “We wanted the Hamptons. Tony got us a remarkable deal on a house in Lyme, Connecticut. This year we want the Hamptons.”
Lilly couldn’t resist smiling.
“Don’t you like the Hamptons?”
“It’s not that. It’s Tony’s deals. The man’s a born wheeler-dealer.”
“Have you known Anthony long?” Joanne asked, revealing a trace of Brooklyn beneath her pseudo-sophisticated accent.
“It seems like years,” Lilly said sweetly. Joanne’s interest in Tony brought out the worst in Lilly. She asked, “Have you lived in Manhattan long? I mean when did you leave Brooklyn?”
Roger laughed, and then went to join his friends at the stereo. He said, “She made you fast Joanne. Watch out.”
Joanne studied Lilly as she answered. “I’ve had an apartment on East 68th for two years.”
Lilly excused herself to make coffee when Tony arrived. She listened to Tony laughing and reminiscing from the kitchen and immediately felt ashamed of her treatment of his friends. Roger came to help bring in the coffee. She saw, to her chagrin, that she couldn’t sit with Tony because Joanne had him cornered.
She returned to her stool at the keyboards, and Roger sat opposite her.
Roger asked, “Are you a model?”
Lilly almost laughed at that line, but answered, “I’m a nurse. How about you?”
“I’m a head hunter.”
“What?” Lilly was taken aback.
“I spear executives for corporations.”
“Oh,” Lilly said.
“You disapprove?”
“I’ve read the help-wanted ads. They speak in jargon. Shirtsleeve, hands on, thinks on feet.”
“True, true, but isn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Nowhere is jargon more pervasive than in a hospital.”
Marijuana was traveling among the group from opposite directions, and Lilly accepted it briefly and then passed it along. “Granted. Have you been hunting heads long?”
“A year.” Roger smiled.
Lilly leaned forward and whispered, “Do you have a headdress? A tooth necklace?”
Roger laughed a resounding boom that silenced the room. “Only in ceremonies for CEOs.” He turned his attention to Tony. “Tony, we’re going to the Hamptons to find a place Saturday. Will you join us?”
“Not this summer. I’ll be hiking the Appalachian Trail starting in Georgia. I’ll be back in September.”
Lilly watched Joanne for a reaction.
Joanne said, “We’ll miss you this year. Especially if Roger’s car breaks down every week.”
Roger said, “I know you like to camp. But isn’t that a little extreme?”
Joanne said, “My college roommate had a brother who did the Long Trail in Vermont and then went out west and did a trail in Oregon. He told us great stories. I always thought he had more outrageous stories than could possibly have happened in that length of time.”
Roger turned back to Lilly. “Perhaps you’d like to join us. If we become sick, you could nurse us.”
“I can imagine the infections you’d get. But I’m going on the trail with Tony,” Lilly answered.
“Do you live here?”
Tony said, “I never introduced any of you. This is my ex-wife, Lil.”
“Ex-wife? You were married?” Joanne said.
“We were married for four years,” Tony said ruefully.
Roger said, “You must have started young.”
Lilly took another hit from a passing joint and said, “Yes, we were married when I was twelve and he was fourteen. We were in the old country. My father sold a goat for milk and it died, so he gave me to the della Robbias in retribution.”
Tony laughed, “Don’t mind schizo. Pot always brings out the weird in her.” He turned back to Joanne. “How’s life at the U.N.?”
“Depressing. I’m working for the High Commission on Refugees. I’m working on a project that’s studying the Cambodian refugees. It’s difficult to spend the day contemplating multitudes of wretched peoples and then come home to watch reruns of M. A. S. H.”
“Refugees? That’s right up Lil’s alley. Lilly spent two years working as a relief worker at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand.”
Joanne said, “You’re not serious? Really?”
“Sure, me and the wretches.” Lilly smiled, accepting a joint from Ed.
Joanne said, “There have been terrible raids into the camps.”
“I wasn’t in Mok Moon at the time of the big raid, but those camps are truly scary places. The raids are seasonal, before monsoons start. The government’s afraid the camps are gathering places for revolutionaries. It’s a brutal area of the world. There’s a pecking order of brutality. The Thai soldiers aren’t as bad as the Khmer Vietminh, which aren’t as brutal as the Vietnamese, which aren’t as savage as the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge could make you believe in Satan. But it’s easy to be smug from eight thousand miles. There were times I didn’t think I’d ever feel safe again.”
Joanne walked over to Lilly and sat on the arm of a chair, nodding in agreement. “Sometimes I feel guilty, as though I should be there when I’m involved in a project like this, but then I realize I’m doing good here.”
Lilly smiled back. “The most gratifying day I had there was the day I boarded the plane in Bangkok to return home.”
“Do you regret going?”
“Not at all. I had some dues to pay.”
Ed left at eleven. “Tony, we’ll miss you this summer, but at least our women will be safe,” Ed said upon leaving.
The party continued and through the course of music changes, Lilly ended up with Tony. Roger gave up flirting with her when she leaned back on Tony and dozed. Roger and Tony discussed Tony’s business plans.
“Let me know when you get back. I have good connections in California. Will you be
selling this place?”
“Probably.” Tony noted his interest.
Roger looked at Lilly closely, decided she was asleep, and asked, “Are you taking her to California?”
“Lil has a job in the Caribbean in September.”
After a few moments of meaningful silence, Lilly sprang to an upright position. “I knew it. It’s like McGrath. You two steal each other’s women. That’s why you flirted with me, to get to him.” Lilly indicated Tony with her thumb. “Well fellas, I’m pooped. It was interesting, Roger. Good night.”
The next morning, they walked the park. Tony called her a flirt in a half serious tease.
“Tony, I didn’t flirt with him, at least hardly. You flirted with Joanne.”
“Me. You are imagining things.”
“You’ve never done anything but living room banter with Joanne?”
“Lilly are you questioning me?”
“No, I’m sorry. The Signore sisters are coming today, and I wish they weren’t.”
The conversation petered out, and they walked in silence. Spring was in full bloom, and the walk quickly turned into a celebration. It was with regret that they returned home so Tony could get ready for work.
Carly and Issy arrived at noon, while Lilly was still cleaning up from the party.
“Issy may have a job at the hospital,” Carly said brightly.
“As an aide?”
“No, sterilizing equipment,” Issy said.
“That’s great. Let’s take a walk and see what beckons.”
They hit the thrift stores Lilly had seen during her walks with Tony. “I could never drag Tony into a pawnshop.”
They were back at Tony’s in the middle of the living room surrounded by a motley collection of junk when Tony came home
“Hello, ladies. What’s this? Did you loot a dump truck?”
“Such a rapier wit,” Lilly muttered following Tony upstairs. “Would you like a sandwich before you go?”
“And miss out on a chance to gorge myself, one last time, on Yankee franks? Not on your life.”
“Ask about your grandmother. We should have called when we got back. Oh, and send a hello to Frank’s wife.”
Tony looked at her strangely. “You sound like a wife.”
Lilly blushed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of this domestic bliss and the wild woman will come out.”
Lilly rejoined her friends downstairs. Tony stopped to tease them about their purchases on the way out.
“Lilly, he’s so sexy. At first I thought he was ugly, with his nose and all, but he’s sexy,” Issy said.
“I can’t believe you both noticed his nose so much. I don’t even see it, except when he snores. I’m counting on that to keep bears away.”
When Tony arrived, the della Robbia brothers were assembled at the bat outside Yankee Stadium. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he and Lilly were still the main topic of conversation.
Frank asked, “Did everything go OK with Lilly’s friend?”
“Sure. Issy and Carly were at my house when I left. How’s Tanta? When is she coming home?”
Tito answered, “The doctor said it would be at the end of the week. She’s better.”
Joe asked, “When do you leave?”
‘“Saturday. We’ll fly to Atlanta. We’ll stay at a friend’s house, and then he’ll drive us to the park early Sunday.”
“Your mother said to come to dinner before you go,” Tito said.
“Why don’t you and Ma come down to my place? We have a lot to do Friday. Pops, you’ve never seen my house. Lilly will fix supper.”
“Seen it? I’ve seen it when you bought it. It’s a warehouse. What’s to see?”
Tito resisted the idea of recognizing Lilly any more than he had to. “If Tanta comes home Thursday or Friday, we can’t leave her anyway. You come up.”
“OK, we’ll go there. I’ll have Lil call Ma,” Tony conceded.
Tony didn’t get a chance during the game to speak with Nick confidentially. He waited through batting practice and the first few innings and then invited Nick to go inside for better dogs. Frank joined them, but Nick realized Tony wanted to talk.
After sitting through a dismal performance by the Yankees, Nick asked Tony, “Did you take the subway?”
Tony nodded.
“Let me give you a ride home,” he said, adding quietly, “You want to talk to me anyway.”
Tony nodded his head. “Are you ready Detective della Robbia?”
As they made their way through the traffic from the emptying stadium, Tony tried to collect his thoughts.
“Well?” Nick asked as he turned south on the FDR.
“Nick, you work with people in crisis all the time, right?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “Tito told me about the trip to Jamestown. Do you think the boyfriend is going to come causing trouble?”
“No, Nick.” For Tony, the words would not come yet.
“Tony, what is it? You wanted to speak to me all night. Spill it.”
“It’s Lilly, Nick. It’s hard to explain. She has a problem” Tony faltered, surprised by how difficult it was to address this issue. “You remember when she was …”
“Raped?” Nick said softly.
“It hurt her. Really hurt her inside. Not internally, but … she’s afraid of her own shadow. I mean really frightened. If she feels even a little threatened by a man, she faints … like that. Anything that reminds her, she’ll wake up screaming after. She has so much repressed. If she could talk about it, maybe it would free her a little bit. But when I try to talk to her, she gets all shook up. She’s like a caged animal.”
Nick didn’t answer for a few minutes. “I know some of what happened to her. I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve always liked her so much. She was so strong to fight back and live. Tony, maybe you should call a rape hotline and talk to a counselor about how to approach it. That man was sick. She might have had to do something she doesn’t want to remember. If you end up talking to her yourself, you’d better be ready to hear some things. And if so, be ready to accept her afterward.”
They arrived in front of Tony’s.
Nick asked, “I haven’t seen her to speak to in years. Do you think she is still up?”
“Probably. Come on in.”
Lilly, intent on playing keyboards, finally noticed them. They laughed and talked. Nick confirmed that, to him, her return was welcome.
The days before the departure hurried by. Tony tried to call the rape crisis center twice from work, but both calls were interrupted before he could make his dilemma understood.
Friday night at the della Robbias’ started stiffly. Lilly felt like Exhibit A. But Lilly and Isabel fell into an easy routine as the evening passed. Lilly had to blink back tears while doing dishes with Isabel. She was overwhelmed by the older woman’s acceptance. They spoke about a picnic planned for Bear Mountain State Park, halfway through the trail. Isabel saw Lilly’s glistening eyes and patted her back.
Tony and Lilly left early. Isabel hugged Tony and then turned and hugged Lilly heartily.
She said, “Take care of each other.”
Tito embraced his son but ignored Lilly.
Lilly watched Tony as he seemed to walk on air out of the building and tried to understand the source of his euphoria.
“You’re really high, aren’t you?”
“I only drank a little wine.”
“I mean you’re flying.”
“Yes, of course. I quit my job. When I get back, I will start my own company. It’s finally here. The trail … I’ve dreamt of it for eight years.”
“I’m scared. I’m not sure I’m strong enough, or stubborn enough, to keep climbing mountains every day. What if it rains for ten days straight? I might want to sit down and give up.”
“You are stubborn enough, and if your breath in the morning is any indication, you’re strong enough.”
“Low blow, stinker. If you think
after a couple of weeks in the woods, I’m going to let you zip the bags together and smell your pits all night, you’re dreaming.”
“You say that now, skunk mouth, but then you’ll be begging for it. ‘Do that to me again. Ohhh … ,’” Tony mimicked her in a falsetto.
“Dream on Godzilla axilla.” Lilly pushed him slightly and then ran ahead up the hill to where the car was parked.
They spent the last night in New York, checking their packs and telling each other secret hopes as they watched old movies on TV.
**************************
25. May 1978
The air of jubilant expectation continued on the plane. They arrived at Tony’s friend’s apartment in the early evening.
Tony wondered if he should have pre-advised Lilly that their host, Louis, was gay, but he remembered Lilly’s acceptance of Hillary’s cousin and his own immature rejection. Louis seemed anxious to make them welcome. He took them to a Moroccan restaurant that was an experience in itself, culminating in the guests having belly-dancing lessons. The men were called up for their own lesson as restaurant patrons roared with laughter.
Tony and Lilly settled in for the night in their sleeping bags in the living room. They lay quietly, listening to the rain on the roof.
“If this keeps up, it’s going to be slippery going up Springer Mountain,” Tony whispered.
“Yup, but I was thinking, it will be like it’s newly washed for us,” Lilly responded.
He hugged her closer.
The rain continued the next day. They started the ascent up Springer in a determined mood. Louis had planned to hike the day with them, but the rain dashed his plan.
They reached the first lean-to thoroughly drenched and were disappointed to find the lean-to was already occupied by two young men.
Lilly felt a little peeved with Tony for signing the register as “Tony and Lilly della Robbia.” They made an early start, but Tony’s lankiness and Lilly’s compactness made walking together almost impossible. Tony outpaced Lilly quickly, and they grew resigned to meeting for short periods. The next night, they were alone, and they found even the most grub-like trail food could make romantic fare.
They found the first town along the trail, Suches, delightful. They spent a couple of hours in the Laundromat and grocery store, making corny Suches-it-is jokes.
A Yonkers Kinda Girl Page 42