“Good. How was yours?”
“Okay.” He drove silently for a while, and Connie spent her time looking out the side window at the houses they passed. It was going to be a very long ride.
“I only want to bring this up once” he said, “and then I promise not to anymore.”
Connie kept her face to the window. She should have known better than to think he’d leave it alone.
“I overreacted, and I’m sorry,” he said. “I want to just forget about it, and I want you to forget about it, too. I don’t care that your sister’s boyfriend is black. And I understand why the Kake Walk would piss him off. I just want us to go back to where we were. Can we do that?”
Connie spoke slowly and carefully. “We need to go back to being friends who carpool, and that’s all. I don’t want to lose you as a friend, but I think it’s a mistake to go beyond that.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, I do. It makes things awkward, like now.”
“I’ll do what you want, Connie, and I’d rather have this than nothing, but I don’t understand why we can’t go back.”
Connie kept her face turned from his. “Because I’m seeing someone else.”
Greg was silent for a long moment before he said, “That was quick.”
“He’s someone I’ve known for a very long time.”
“Then, why now? Just a coincidence?”
Connie closed her eyes, as if that could block out the pain in his voice. “He asked me out the night you came over for dinner, and I said no. Then he asked me out again this past weekend, and I went.”
“And that means I can’t see you now?”
“You’ll see me every day.”
“You know what I mean.”
Connie let out a long sigh, then turned toward the windshield, still avoiding his eyes. “You said you’ll do what I want. What I want is to have some space. And if that’s not going to work for you, I understand. I can drive myself.”
“I don’t want you to drive yourself. And I won’t bring it up again.”
After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Connie reached for the radio and turned it on. They rode the rest of the way without speaking.
Over the next two days, things between them improved. They talked about class work, argued over presidential politics, agreed that George Wallace was not a viable candidate, and discussed the outlandish marriage of Jackie Kennedy to some old, rich Greek guy. Neither of them brought up the two American athletes who gave the black power salute while standing on the winner’s podium at the Mexico City Olympics. Civil rights and associated topics remained off-limits.
They were talking about the army sending guys back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours when Greg pulled up to the curb in front of Connie’s house on Wednesday evening.
“Who’s that?” he asked as Connie bent over to retrieve her purse from the floor.
She looked up to see Paul approaching them from across the street where his car was parked. He was scoping out the red Mustang, and a small smile lit his face as he looked it over. Before she could reply, his gaze shifted upward to the windows, settling first on Greg and then on her. His smile widened for a moment, then toned back, as though his delight at seeing her had been tempered by the realization that she was riding with another man. “That’s Paul.”
Greg watched Paul walk around the hood of his car. “Is this the old friend?”
Instead of answering, Connie opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She grinned at Paul, and he grinned back at her as he approached. He stepped up and gave her a kiss full on the mouth, his hands gripping her upper arms as he looked into her eyes. “I like your wheels. Who’s the guy?”
Greg remained seated in the car, watching them, and Connie bent to look through the open door at him, grabbing Paul’s arm and drawing him down with her. “Greg, this is Paul Cefalu. Paul, Greg Fairchild. We carpool.”
Paul reached into the car to offer his hand, and Greg shook it. Greg’s face was solemn and his eyes hard as he withdrew his hand, then looked at her. “See you tomorrow, carpool buddy,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. She closed the car door, and he drove away.
“Is that your friend from UVM, by any chance? The one you made spaghetti and meatballs for last week?” The smile on Paul’s face had lost its warmth.
“Yeah. It was a thank-you for driving me.”
“So, your carpool only goes one way? He does all the driving?”
“No. Sometimes I drive.”
Paul took the books from her arms and held them under one of his as the two of them walked side-by-side toward the stairs. “Then, does that mean he owes you a dinner now as a thank-you for driving him?”
Connie laughed in an effort to break the budding tension. “Not really. What do you want to do this evening?”
Paul gave her a suggestive smile and raised one eyebrow, and Connie laughed again. “How about starting with dinner here?” They paused, face to face, beneath the stairwell. “I asked my ma this morning, and she said that would be fine.”
Paul put his free hand against her breastbone and gently backed her up against the wall, then leaned forward and kissed her lips, his palm still resting on her chest. “That sounds good,” he said, his eyes intent on hers. “And then what?”
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
They walked out from under the stairwell and started up the stairs.
“Where does this guy live?” Paul asked from behind her as they climbed upward.
“I don’t know. Somewhere on the west side.”
“Fairchild, right? Is his old man a lawyer?”
“I guess so.”
“I might have worked at his house when I was doing landscaping with Frankie’s brother Mike. If that’s the one, this guy is filthy rich.”
“Could be. I really don’t know.” Connie paused at the top of the stairs and turned to look back at him.
His gaze was on her ass as he stood two steps below her. “I gotta say, I do love these stairs.” He looked up to meet her eyes and gave her a mischievous grin.
Connie shook her head in mock dismay, then smiled to herself as she opened the kitchen door and led him into her house.
Her sisters acted predictably giddy at having Paul Cefalu at their house for dinner; even Gianna was on the verge of outright flirtatious. Paul talked sports with Papa, both of them being Red Sox fans, and he pleased Mamma with his hearty appetite for her venison stew. When he asked who bagged the deer, Angie regaled him with stories of her hunting exploits in Swanton.
After dinner, he wiped dishes while Connie washed, in spite of Mamma’s insistence that he was embarrassing her by doing dishes when he was a guest in her house. When he and Connie announced that they were going out for a while, no one questioned where they were going.
He escorted her out to his car and drove to the edge of town, then took a country road that was totally unfamiliar to her. Before long the rare house or outbuilding to either side gave way to nothing but open fields flanked by the occasional stand of trees. He pulled into a small turnaround on the side of the road and shut off the car’s lights. Total darkness surrounded them, except for the weak glimmer of the waning moon passing in and out of high clouds.
Connie slid into his arms, and his mouth closed over hers, sending shivers of delight through her. They kissed until their lips hurt, running their hands through each other’s hair, pulling each other closer and closer as their breathing accelerated. When he rested his hand on her jacket, over her breast, she moved against it to increase the pressure, and when he unzipped the jacket, she didn’t stop him. His hand moved to cup her breast through her t-shirt, and she leaned into it, kissing him hungrily, searching for his tongue with hers.
Paul was the one who ultimately pulled away. “We need to get you back. It’s almost ten.”
Connie sat back against the seat, her heart beating rapidly, her breathing uneven. Her hair was disheveled and her lips bruised; she felt as though she
had been in a car wreck. Her private parts were aching for his touch, even as her conscience started to kick in. “Is it really?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
Connie tucked in her t-shirt and zipped up her jacket. “Where did we go?”
Paul started the car’s motor. “Come again?”
Connie turned to him. “When my mother asks where we went, what do I tell her?”
Paul looked confused. “Tell her we just took a ride. I don’t know.”
“We just took a ride in pitch darkness when there’s nothing to see.” Connie grinned at him.
He gave her his heart-melting slow smile. “I don’t know what to tell you, Con. She’s your mother.”
“I guess it shouldn’t matter, should it? We didn’t do anything.”
“Nope.” Paul turned on the lights and drove the car out onto the road, executing a U-turn to take them back toward town.
“Thanks,” Connie said.
“For?”
“Being a good guy.”
Paul frowned as he kept his eyes on the road. “Was that such a surprise?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, you probably kept me from doing something I’d regret later.”
His devilish grin returned. “We’ll have plenty of time for that.”
***
Vermont’s weather turned damp and bleak during the last week of October. Still, neither Connie nor Greg were ready for the early snowstorm that greeted them after class on the afternoon of November first.
By chance, they had Connie’s heavy station wagon, which performed better in snow than Greg’s Mustang, and when he offered to do the driving, she happily agreed.
“I’m supposed to go to Mass at six,” she said as he drove out of the parking lot. “It’s All Saints Day.”
“What’s All Saints Day?”
“It’s a holy day of obligation. Catholics have to go to church. If you don’t, it’s a sin.”
Fat snowflakes collected at the base of the windshield, and Greg turned on the wipers. “Like eating meat on Friday?”
“That’s not true anymore. Only during Lent.”
Greg glanced at her with an amused look on his face. “When did that change?”
“A couple years ago.”
“What happened to people who ate meat on Friday before that?”
Connie peered out at the road ahead; it looked wet and slippery.“If they died before going to Confession, they went to hell.”
“For eating meat.”
She knew where he was headed. “It was a rule. A law. You followed it if you were a good Catholic. Like Jews who don’t eat pork.”
“But now it’s okay to eat meat on Friday,” he said, “and now you don’t go to hell.”
“That’s right.”
“Did the other guys get dispensation?”
Connie smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay. And what happens to people who kill someone?” he asked.
“They go to hell.”
“And hang out with the guy who ate meat on Friday?”
Connie laughed. “I don’t make the rules. And just so you know, my family still doesn’t eat meat on Friday. Even though we could.”
“Aha! That’s why you ordered an anchovy pizza the Friday we stopped at DeLuca’s. Too bad you have to go to church, or we could do it again.” He glanced at her. “Or is this a Paul night?”
Connie turned her face to the blackness outside the passenger side window. Paul was working that night, helping his boss finish an overdue job in Barre, but that was none of Greg’s business.
“Wow, this is all black ice,” Greg said as he squinted at the windshield.
Connie looked out at the snowflakes blowing directly into the headlights like a million swirling dots of light. Beyond them, on the side of the road ahead, were the rotating red and blue lights of a police cruiser slowing down southbound traffic.
“What happens if you don’t get there because of extenuating circumstances?” Greg asked as their progress slowed to a crawl.
“I’m not going to worry about it.” Connie watched the flashing red tail lights of the cars ahead of them, thankful that Greg was driving instead of her. This was exactly the scenario that had given her frights in past winters, but this time she felt safe. When she glanced at his profile, a surge of affection welled inside her, appreciation for him being there to take care of her.
“Tell me about Confession,” he said. “I’ve seen it in the movies, but is it really like that? It seems like the priest can always see the person on the other side, so why do they bother to do it with the little screen?”
“To make you think it’s anonymous, I guess. Of course, if you know the priest, he’s probably going to know your voice, even if he can’t see you.”
“Doesn’t that make it hard to tell him you’ve done bad stuff?” Greg glanced at her. “Not that I’m saying you do bad stuff. But if eating meat can send you to hell…”
“If you do bad stuff, you go to a different church, where the priest doesn’t know you.” Connie kept her eyes forward. Her past two Confessions had been at St. Florian’s church on the south side. She had no intentions of telling Father Ianelli what she had been doing with Paul for the past two weeks, even though she was sure he had heard much worse. For her, petting under her clothes was a major departure from her usual misdemeanors.
“And you go so that if you get hit by a bus, you won’t go to hell?” Greg asked.
“Yes. And because you can’t go to Communion on Sunday if you’re not in a state of grace—if you’ve got mortal sins on your soul.”
“And what happens if you don’t go to Communion?”
Connie grimaced. “Your family knows you have mortal sins on your soul, and you might as well just come out and tell them what you did, because they’ll either figure it out or come up with something worse.”
Greg let out a chuckle. “I’m glad I’m not Catholic.”
A vision of Greg touching someone the way Paul touched her sent a surprising pang of jealousy through Connie. She was pondering what that meant when he said, “So… if you don’t commit mortal sins, then you don’t have to go to Confession every Saturday?”
“That’s right.”
“Then, if you do go on a Saturday, wouldn’t your family still figure it out?”
Connie laughed at his persistence. “Well, I happen to be in luck. My family believes in going every Saturday. So, we’re always safe from suspicion.”
Greg glanced at his watch in the light from the dashboard. “We’re not going to get there by six. Sorry. Is there a church along the way where you want to stop?”
The question took her by surprise. “You would do that?”
“I don’t have any plans.”
She thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know where there are other churches, plus they might not even have an evening Mass.” She gave him an appreciative smile. “But it’s really nice that you would think of that.”
“I’m a nice guy.”
“I know you are,” she said.
Greg kept his eyes on the road ahead, but a small smile played around his mouth. “In fact, you once said I’m the nicest guy you’ve ever known. Of course, that was a while ago.”
The glow of the dashboard bathed his handsome features in soft light, and Connie studied his profile. She had enjoyed riding with him for the past two weeks, and she had to admit that much of her early interest in him had resurfaced as they resumed laughing and talking together. Still, she was happy with Paul, who had turned out to be thoughtful and caring and interesting, and whose attentions brought her incredible pleasure in ways she had imagined but never experienced before.
“I’m sure you still are,” she said for lack of anything better to say.
Greg’s laugh held a tinge of bitterness. “Which means Paul’s not as nice as me. But then, that would make sense. Nice guys always finish last, from what I hear.”
The
conversation had become one she had no intentions of continuing..
They rode in silence for several minutes until Greg said, “Can I ask you something?”
She would rather he didn’t, but they were still trapped in the car together. “You can ask. I may not answer.”
“Did you ever learn more about that angel at the cemetery?”
That wasn’t a question she had anticipated, and a welcome sense of relief reversed the tension building inside her. She had forgotten all about the angel.“No, I never did. It sort of left my mind, I guess, after all the stuff with you and David. I mean, at first, I thought about asking you to take me there during the day, but that was the week you and I didn’t ride together and, since then, I haven’t thought about it again.”
“I’m surprised. You were so freaked out that night.”
Connie relaxed against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. “It was the pot.”
“You said it wasn’t.”
“I know, but after I thought about it for a while, I figured that must be what it was.”
Greg’s voice was noncommittal. “I’d be glad to take you there during the day sometime. If you still want to go.”
Connie thought about that for a moment. It would be a harmless thing to do, and she was curious about the place.“Sure. I don’t think I’d ever find it myself.”
“Tell me when, and if I have to skip a class, I will.” She could hear the grin in his voice as he said, “Especially if it’s Russian.”
Connie opened her eyes and looked at her wristwatch. Five fifty. They were just outside Barre, and she was getting hungry.“DeLuca’s sounds good. I’m not going to make it to Mass on time.”
“You sure? What about your family?”
“I’ll call them when we get to the pizza place. They all went to church this morning, so they’ll eat without me anyway.”
Traffic had resumed its normal pace; the highway was snowy but no longer icy. They arrived at DeLuca’s shortly after six and were seated immediately thanks to a light crowd. Connie used the public phone to call home and say she would be delayed by road conditions and not to hold dinner for her. On the chance that Paul might call, she didn’t mention she was in Barre eating with Greg.
She returned to their booth beside a window. They ordered a medium pizza covered half with sausage and half with anchovies. When the waitress laid it on the table between them, Connie was captivated by the symbolism. “This is us,” she said sadly.
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