He glanced down at her hands in her lap, then enclosed them in his and looked up at her. His gray eyes held hers in a steady, solemn gaze. “My father has been an abusive drunk for my whole life, Connie. I live at home because when I’m there, he’s less likely to take it out on my mother.”
Connie couldn’t imagine that. “He hits her?”
“He hit us all. I got the least of it because I was a sickly kid, and maybe that’s why I’m more willing than anyone else to stick around. My brothers live far away for a reason.”
“They don’t worry about what he might do to her?”
“They blame her for not doing anything to protect us as kids. She should have left him a long time ago. But she never would. She never will.”
“Why not?”
“She would never give up that house.”
Connie was appalled. “She stays with him for the house? You’re kidding! Why? She has a career! She comes from a wealthy family!”
“She doesn’t come from a wealthy family. And she’s never made much money as a social worker. Not enough to maintain that house or that lifestyle.”
“But she went to Mount Holyoke!”
“She worked her way through college. She had a couple scholarships, and she was smart. She played the Mayflower descendent card and got herself introduced into higher society by the friends she made there. That’s how she met my father.”
Connie took a moment to absorb all he was saying, her mind going back to the conversation in the kitchen. “She told me her parents didn’t approve of her Portuguese boyfriend, and that they sent her to Mount Holyoke to get her away from him. She said that was why she could understand your attraction to me.” She looked into Greg’s eyes. “That wasn’t true?”
Greg winced, almost imperceptibly but enough for her to notice. He let out a short, disbelieving laugh as he looked away. “Jesus, isn’t alcohol amazing?”
Connie watched him, not sure what he meant.
“What the hell,” he said with a sigh. His eyes came back to meet hers. “She was pregnant when my father married her. She said the baby was his. He had reason to believe it, apparently.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“Glenn didn’t get his brown eyes from my father, and he certainly didn’t get them from my mother. Yeah, she had a Portuguese boyfriend—when she was a senior in college.”
Connie blinked in surprise.
“When my dad realized Glenn wasn’t his, he was too embarrassed to do anything about it, but he told her he wouldn’t support him. He made her go to graduate school and get her master’s in social work so she could get a job.” Greg gave her a bitter smile. “It gets better and better all the time, doesn’t it?”
Connie shrugged. “That’s them, Greg, not you.”
“I just want you to understand, Connie. So you’ll see why I’m not concerned about us fitting in. They’re not who they pretend to be.”
“What’s going to happen if you go home?” Connie searched his face. “What’s he going to do to you?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t go after someone who can fight back.”
“And if she’s hurt? How will you deal with that?”
Greg looked away. “I do what I can when I’m there, but in the end, it’s her choice. She’s the social worker. She knows what the resources are, and she refuses to use them.”
Connie squeezed his fingers in hers. “If she had left him, you might not live here now, you know. We wouldn’t be together.”
Greg’s eyes came back to meet hers. “I wouldn’t blame you for bailing.”
Connie gave him a sad smile. “Why would I bail? Because you try to take care of your mother? Because your father’s a jerk, but you try to preserve his dignity?” She put her hands up to his cheeks and stared into his worried eyes. “Please don’t go home tonight. I promise you, it’ll be okay with my parents.”
“Okay.” He gave her a weary smile. “Just do me a favor, and put that sign in the bathroom.”
Chapter Twenty-two
January, 1969
“Do you know how many U.S. troops are in Vietnam? Five hundred forty thousand!” Marilyn leaned across the cafeteria table toward Connie. “The march against the war is at four o’clock, in front of the Admin building.”
Connie poked at the oyster crackers floating in her bowl of chili. She had attended one of the demonstrations the week before, but this time she couldn’t stay. “Greg needs to leave early today. He’s taking his mom to an AA meeting.”
“She can’t drive herself?”
“She wrecked her car last week.”
Marilyn shook her head. “I don’t know why you stick with this guy. When are you meeting Mr. Beautiful?”
Connie grimaced; she preferred not to think about her upcoming talk with Paul. “After supper.”
“What does Gregory think of that?”
“He’s not crazy about it, but he understands.”
Marilyn smiled as she stirred her chili. “You two are so cute. So upfront about everything. So honorable.”
Connie frowned at her friend’s mocking tone. “You think I should sneak around behind his back?”
“I just remember when you thought he was a pain in the ass. Now you’re ready to marry him.”
“Just like you predicted.”
Marilyn’s smile became a self-satisfied grin.“Yup. Just like I predicted.”
During the drive home Greg never mentioned her planned meeting with Paul. They talked about their new classes, their plans for the weekend, and the predicted snowstorm that might make travel difficult the next morning. He dropped her off in front of the store and drove away; his mother’s meeting started at six and he needed to get her there on time or she would use being late as an excuse not to go.
Dinner with Connie’s family wasn’t as quiet as usual. Gianna was now working at the elementary school, filling in for the librarian who was on maternity leave, and she was bubbling with stories she needed to share about her day. Angie was loving the debate club she had joined at the high school, and they had had their first meeting of the semester after classes that afternoon. Mamma had received a letter from her oldest sister in Italy, telling her that the sister’s second boy—Mamma’s nephew—was emigrating to the United States. Only Connie and her father had little to say as they ate and listened to the chatter all around them.
She had asked Paul to meet her at seven at the public library for lack of a better place. She arrived in the small lot behind the brick building with butterflies in her stomach. His car was already parked there, and he was sitting inside, staring off into space. She walked up to his side window and gently knocked on the glass.
He turned and rolled down the window but did not smile as he looked up at her through his dark lashes. “Can we go somewhere with coffee?” he asked. “I got home late.”
“Sure.” She walked around to the passenger side of his car and slid onto the seat beside him. Being so close to him felt awkward, and she kept her eyes straight ahead. “Where do you want to go?”
Paul leaned forward and started the car without answering, then backed out of the space and turned down the alley toward Main Street. His silence seemed to use up all the air in the car.
He turned into the public lot beside Sofretti’s pastry shop on Main Street, parked with the Ford’s hood against the building, and stepped out of the car without a word. Connie sighed to herself, then pushed her door open and followed him to the sidewalk and up to the glass front door of the little shop. He was wearing his usual tight-legged blue jeans and Red Sox jacket, and his luxurious black curls lay long and soft against the back of his collar. She wanted to reach out and touch them, to make him turn and smile at her, but that wasn’t the plan. Quite the contrary.
He opened the door to Sofretti’s, and she expected him to walk in and leave her to her own devices, but instead he stepped back and held the door for her. She smiled nervously at him, but he did not smile back, his expression as disinterested as if he we
re holding the door for a stranger.
Her resolve began to crack. What was she doing there? What did she hope to accomplish? Didn’t she realize that she couldn’t be this close to Paul and still hold onto rational thought unencumbered by pure emotion?
Small, round, two-person tables sat in the alcoves to either side of the door, and a young couple, holding hands, looking all dreamy in love, occupied one of the tables to the right. Connie took a table to the left and sat down to wait near the front window while Paul went to the counter to order his coffee. She watched him stand at the counter and pick out some cookies, and she thought about how incredibly good-looking he was and how much she enjoyed his company. When the girl behind the counter gave him a flirtatious smile, Connie felt herself bristle, and a sudden sadness washed over her at the thought that he wasn’t hers to bristle over. She forced herself to look elsewhere, and when he came to sit in the chair across from hers, she was reading the blackboard on the wall: olive bread and ciabatta were only made on weekends.
He put a small white box of cookies between them on the little table and took a sesame one, gesturing to her to help herself. He then devoted his attention to sipping his coffee and eating his cookie.
Doubt over what she was doing paralyzed her. She watched his face, and her heart ached when he refused to meet her eyes.
Finally he looked up. “You said you wanted to talk, so talk.” He stared past her to whatever was visible through the window behind her.
Connie swallowed back the lump rising in her throat. “I’m… I… I want us to still be friends, Paul. I want to be able to see you on the street or in front of your nonna’s house and not feel like I need to hide.”
His eyes shifted to meet hers, and a small thrill ran through her. She wondered if he realized how overwhelming his gaze could be.
“Whatever you want, Con.” He spoke without feeling, as though he were bored. “You don’t have to hide from me.”
“I don’t want this bitterness, Paul.”
“What bitterness?” His brow furrowed, and a small sneer teased at his upper lip as he stared at her. “All I’ve ever done is what you wanted, Connie. Whether it was to touch you, to not touch you, to give you space, to come when you call. You tell me what I’ve done wrong.”
He glanced down at her hands resting on the table, then back up at her face. “No ring? I thought you were engaged.”
“I never said that.” She fixed her eyes on his. “I said he asked me to marry him. I never said I had accepted. You assumed that and took off.”
“I took off.” He nodded ever so slightly, his expression hard. “So, that wasn’t him I saw you with on Christmas Eve, going into your nonna’s house?”
“You mean when your sister called Gianna a whore?”
He looked away from her again, the irritation on his face softening. “I’m sorry about that. Annie’s mouth outruns her brain.”
“And I’m sorry for how things happened between us.” Connie drew a deep breath; the tightness in her chest threatened to cut off her air. “I’m still learning, Paul. I know that sounds stupid, but I’m not real experienced at this. I’ve done dumb things. Very dumb things.” She stared into his face, hoping he would look at her again. “I never meant to hurt you. That’s the last thing I would ever want to do. But I’ve learned things, too. Like it’s not always best to go for what’s easy.”
Paul’s brow furrowed as his eyes shifted to meet hers once more. “What the hell does that mean?”
She stared into his blue gaze. “What kind of a future would we have together, Paul? We’re too much alike. We have the same background. The same experiences. We know all the same people. You need somebody from outside the neighborhood, somebody who can take you places you’ve never been—in your head, I’m talking about. I’ve learned a lot in the last six months alone, Paul. Things that have changed my life forever.“
“From him.” Bitterness dripped from his voice.
“No, not just from him. But I’ve learned about people and history and places and things I’ve been blind to because I’ve lived in my tiny little isolated world up until now. You need to find somebody fantastic from somewhere else, and you will. I know you will. I could introduce you to a cute Jewish girl from Brattleboro.” Connie gave him a smile meant to convey encouragement. Yet as she pictured him with other girls, her heart began to ache.
Paul’s eyes transmitted his disinterest. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be going places sooner than you think.”
Connie’s heart thumped hard against her ribs; she knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“I got my draft notice last week.”
She put her hand to her mouth to cover its quivering as she stared at his face. “Oh, my God.” Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, and she didn’t try to stop them.
“So, you see, you’re free and clear.” His eyes had turned cold as he stared back. “No chance meetings on the street. No uncomfortable sightings. It’s all for the best.”
Connie reached across the table and closed her fingers around his wrist, grasping it before he could pull away. “Don’t say that. That’s terrible. My God, Paul, that’s the last thing I would ever want.” Uncontrollable fear swelled within her as she looked at him, and she tightened her hold on his wrist as if, by sheer willpower, she could keep him from going. “Maybe you’ll flunk the physical,” she said in desperation. “Can’t you get a deferment for your apprenticeship? Pretend you’re gay. I’ve heard guys say you can get out of it if they think you’re gay.”
Paul let out a hearty laugh, the first she’d heard from him in weeks, and the sound tore at her heart worse than if he had told her to go to hell.
“I’m serious, Paul. Poke your arm full of holes like a junky. Do something!”
Hel brought his free hand to rest on top of hers where she gripped his wrist. “Hey. Take it easy. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay! Aren’t you scared?”
He closed his hand around her fingers, and the light in his eyes faded away. “I’m scared shitless.”
She stared into his eyes, so overwhelmed with love for him she could barely breathe.
“This doesn’t change anything,” he said, frowning at her.
“It changes everything.” Hot tears flowed down her cheeks as she leaned closer to him.
Paul abruptly pulled his hands free of hers. “No, it doesn’t,” he said angrily. “I don’t want your pity.”
“I don’t pity you, Paul. I love you.”
A look of distaste came over his face, an angry sneer that curled his upper lip. “How can you say that to me now?”
“Because I do love you! And I want the best for you!”
She couldn’t hold the building pressure anymore. The sobs rolled out of her, choking off her voice, distorting her features beyond her control. She turned away from him to cover her face with her hands, and he rose to his feet and came around to stand in front of her. His hands came under her arms, and he pulled her to her feet and into his embrace. She wrapped her arms around his torso, warm and firm beneath his bulky jacket, and pressed her face against the soft skin on his neck as she closed her eyes and cried. Her tears wet his neck and cheek as he held her tightly to him, and her awareness of him—the smell of his skin and his muscular frame and the strength in his arms—made her sob even harder.
“Whether we were together or not, I’d still have to go, Con.” His breath fell warmly onto her skin as he spoke. “This way, it’s better for you. And, maybe, for me, too. I won’t miss you like I would if I knew you were here waiting for me.”
“But if I could give you hope—something to come back to…” Her sobs cut off her words, and she pressed her face into his neck once more and tightened her hold on him.
“I’d worry more about you. I’d feel guilty expecting you to wait, like I was cheating you out of life. I’d probably put myself in more danger because I’d be distracted and depressed.” Paul gently pushed her f
rom him, holding her at arm’s length as she shuddered through her waning sobs. “We need to leave, Con.” He turned and picked up the napkin beside his coffee cup and handed it to her.
“Will I see you again before you go?” she asked between hiccups of sobs.
“No. I’m not having any stupid-ass party. And I can’t go through this again.” He picked up his glass coffee cup and walked over to the dirty dish bucket while she dabbed at her eyes and cheeks with the napkin. The couple on the other side had left at some point, but the girl behind the counter was watching them with a stricken look on her face.
Paul put his hand under Connie’s elbow and guided her out the front door. The iciness of the night air burned against the rawness of her eyes and cheeks. Paul silently opened the passenger side door for her and waited until she was inside before coming around to sit behind the steering wheel. Connie’s head was stuffy and ached; she must look awful, and this was how he would remember her. She turned away from him to look out the side window.
The drive to the library parking lot was painfully short. He pulled up beside her car, but left his motor running. She would need to open her own door and quietly slide out of his life.
She turned to look at him, her eyes pausing for a moment on his mouth, and he shook his head. “Don’t.”
Connie took a deep breath. She was aching to feel his lips on hers one more time. “Please?”
Paul shook his head, his face stern. “No. Please go.”
She closed her eyes and drew another deep breath to calm herself.
“Don’t make it harder,” he said.
Connie turned away from him and pushed the car door open. She felt as though she were shoving her way through gelatin; the air was thick and held no oxygen, and her movements were a struggle. She didn’t want to believe this was the last time she would see him, possibly forever. Yet, she had no desire to make anything harder for him than she already had. “I’ll pray for you, Paul. Every day.”
“Thanks.”
She stepped out into the night air once more and closed the door behind herself. Paul waited until she was in her car with the motor running and the lights on before he backed up and drove away.
Hope's Angel Page 29