“Well, are you gonna walk her twice a day?” Anthony asks. “You going to have time between your shifts for that?”
I look at him, trying to figure out what he means. Is he saying that Mistake would be a burden, an inconvenience? I know we haven’t had her that long, but I would have expected that she would have meant more to him, like she means to me — because I’m starting to think that one of the reasons I’ve not thought much about my canceled flight, about getting home, in the last little while is because of that little dog. The dog that feels like our dog.
And if Anthony adopted her, then I’d have a chance at seeing her again.
If I come back, that is.
But maybe that’s not what he wants?
Fiorella gives a loud tut. “Isabella would have slapped you upside the head if you tried to abandon someone who needs you. Is that how you were brought up, Antonio?”
A hush falls over the table, and I get the feeling that everyone has been waiting for someone to make them all think about who’s not here tonight. And now, Fiorella’s finally done it. Everyone but me looks down. Luke makes a point of fussing over Mistake.
Tommy clears his throat, leaning a meaty, tattooed forearm on the table. “We’ll figure it out,” he says.
Carla nods. “We always do.”
It’s all I can do not to audibly catch my breath, to ignore the prickle I feel in my eyes. Anthony had it wrong earlier, in the park — no one here is pretending that tonight is no different from any other Christmas. Everyone around this table — tight-faced, narrow-eyed, ashen — feels Anthony’s mother’s absence (hell, even me — and I will never meet her). They’re trying to figure out, what do they do now?
I’m afraid that if I stare too long, what I’m thinking will become clear. I also worry that if I make eye contact with Anthony, I might start crying for him, so I just look down at my food.
“She has a good appetite.” Fiorella nods at Anthony, as if approving his choice of dinner guest.
I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to look at Carla. Her deep brown eyes glisten with tears she’s trying not to release, and I know that she just wants to keep herself occupied. “So, Charlotte, you live here now?”
“Not yet,” says Anthony. I shoot him a look: (a) don’t answer for me, and (b) we’ve been talking a lot about this topic tonight, and the one thing I haven’t done is make an actual decision.
“I’ve been on a student exchange program for this semester,” I explain. “Getting a feel for what it’s like here before deciding whether or not I’m going to come back next year for college.”
Carla gets up and goes to the cupboard, taking out a bottle of wine. “You haven’t made up your mind?” She holds up the bottle, asking me if I want any.
I shake my head. “It’s a big step to take.”
“But it’s your education,” says Carla, pouring a big glass for Frank. Something about the way she does it — automatic, almost robotic, as if she does this multiple times a day, every day — and the way that she has the same sharp nose as Tommy, sloping slightly left, fills in for me that Carla is married to Frank, and that she’s Tommy’s sister.
Carla notices me looking. “What?”
“No, nothing,” I say. “I’ve just been trying to figure out who’s married to who, but I see now that you and Tommy are definitely siblings.”
“Can’t escape her,” Tommy jokes.
Carla sits back down and pours a drink for herself. “You should give it everything,” she tells me. “And Columbia is an excellent school. Isn’t that right, Anthony?”
“I like it” is all he says.
Carla goes on: “You need to make the most of your youth — chase your dreams while you’ve still got the energy to do it.”
“You chase your dreams,” Tommy mumbles, “you might pull a hammy, means you can’t walk too good when you’re older. If she doesn’t want to risk it, don’t be too hard on the girl.”
Carla rolls her eyes at him. “It’s true — most dreams don’t come true, not for most people. But at least you’ll be able to say you went after them. Isabella, she … she understood that.”
Another hush falls over the table, this one feeling heavier than the last, coming so soon after it. Tommy’s voice is the one that breaks the silence as he whispers: “Yeah, she did. She did.”
I remember how Anthony was in the first half of our time together — coiled and wound up about things that weren’t just to do with Maya; not wanting to go home. He wasn’t bottling everything up — he was afraid to talk about it. Because talking about it equals facing up to it, and facing up to it means reliving the grief of losing a mother, a wife, a sister-in-law … The goal of grieving is to get back to normal, but Isabella was clearly such a big part of this family that none of them are sure what “normal” is going to be now.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
They all look up, faces slack, eyes darting left and right. Lips clamping together as if they don’t trust themselves not to start crying. Tommy and Luke nod, acknowledging. Frank looks at the ceiling, lightly shaking his head. Anthony looks at me, and I have to force myself to hold his gaze because I’m suddenly worried I’ve said totally the wrong thing.
“You’re a nice girl.” That’s Carla again, a thin — but genuine — smile on her face. Then she shakes her head. “Cancer’s a terrible thing. But you’ve got to keep going, right?” Then she smiles at me, in a way that tells me that’s as much as they need — or want — to talk about right now. “So, what’s wrong with you, Charlotte? You get this great opportunity, and you want to turn it down?”
“It’s not that,” I say. “I’ve just … been given a lot to think about.”
Fiorella snorts. “That sounds like boy trouble to me.”
I say nothing, just stare down at my cold pasta, wondering how I managed to eat so much of it already.
“Let me give you the advice I wish someone had given me when I was your age.” I look back up at Carla and can tell that whatever she’s about to say next must be deadly serious — she’s put down her knife and fork. “Never make a big decision based on where a man fits into it. A woman is only a woman when she is thinking for herself, doing for herself. And most men aren’t worth your tears, anyway.”
I try not to do it. I try to keep my eyes focused on Carla’s. But it’s no good. They flit to Anthony, just for a split second.
“Well,” says Carla, going back to eating, another gentle smile playing on her lips. “A few of them might be.” Then she looks to Anthony. “I’m glad you brought Charlotte instead of that other one. She was pretty, but she was so full of herself, too.”
*
After I’ve eaten, I take Mistake out into the backyard, letting her run around — and do some business — while the Monteleone family winds down inside. The light from the kitchen illuminates a little bit of the backyard — like the front, it is unkempt, wild — and I give Anthony, visible through a window, a wave. He’s standing next to Carla, washing dishes that she then dries. As the table was being cleared, Carla asked who’d help. Everyone muttered their offers, and Carla chose Anthony because “he’s the only one who’s any good.”
“Hey, there.” Luke comes out into the backyard, another beer in hand. I’ve been here less than half an hour, and I think that’s his third.
Hope he’s not on shift tomorrow.
His eyes are as wide as his smile. “So, how is your first experience of an American Christmas?”
I look at Luke, but I can see Anthony’s shape in the window, and for some reason, it makes me conscious of how I act around Luke. “It was great,” I say. “Although, I don’t know how you’re all going to get to sleep tonight with bellies full of spaghetti.”
Luke grins at me, holds up his beer as an answer. I smile back at him — as briefly as I can. “Well,” he says, “I don’t think it’ll
take you all that long to get used to it. You’ll have a New Yorker’s palate by your midterms.”
“Well, that’s if I take up the spot at Columbia,” I point out.
Luke rolls his eyes at me. “You can’t turn it down. It’s too great an opportunity. Besides, New York could do with more classy British girls on college campuses.”
“Shouldn’t we get going?”
Anthony appears at the back door, and while his expression isn’t the dead-eyed, don’t-mess-with-me look he gave what’s-his-name back at the party, I can still tell that he doesn’t like what he’s seeing. Luke turns to look at his brother, so I feel free to give Anthony a full-on What-are-you-on-about? look. It’s after midnight, and it’s bloody cold. To be quite honest, I’d be happy to hang out in this warm house, have some more of Carla’s delicious food and stay awake until I have to get to the airport.
But Anthony looks like he really does want to go, so I turn and call for Mistake, who comes bounding out of the shadows.
I’ll say one thing for that dog — she might be loud, wriggly and always hungry — but she learned her name ridiculously quickly. (Maybe she’s some kind of dog-genius!) I pick her up and follow Anthony inside, as he ducks his head into the living room and announces that we’re going.
The rest of the Monteleone clan thinks we’re totally crazy for heading back out so late. Tommy asks why the hell anyone would want to go wandering around when it’s nearly one o’clock in the morning.
Anthony holds up his hands in surrender. “Charlotte needs to be getting back to the airport.”
I do?
“Oh, Anthony,” Carla is standing up from the sofa, disentangling her fingers from Frank’s. “I’ve got something for you. Follow me.”
They disappear upstairs for two minutes, and when they come back down, Anthony is carrying a canvas tote bag that has a thick flannel blanket inside.
“It was his old dog’s favorite,” Carla explains.
“Yeah, it was Max’s,” Anthony says, and I think his grin is from the memories playing in his mind. “I forgot this was here.”
We put Mistake in the bag and say our goodbyes. I collect my tote bag, hook it over my wrist, while Anthony carries Mistake. We go outside and almost become ice sculptures.
“Um, where are we going?” I ask, clenching my jaw to keep from chipping one of my chattering teeth. “Not really the airport? I’ve still got hours before my flight.” What I don’t ask: Does he want me to leave?
Anthony points at the tote bag. “You tell me.”
Right. The last step. I can’t believe we actually ended up doing the whole book!
I take it out, flick to the chapter I need. “Well, according to Dr. Lynch, all we have left is, ‘Do something to help yourself gain perspective.’ And I suppose, after that, we’ll be over … them.” I throw in an incredulous chuckle, but Anthony looks as serious as when he was in the garden just now.
“Pretty vague, no?”
He’s right. Perspective. How to gain it?
Before I can talk myself out of the idea I’ve just had, I grab Anthony’s hand. I feel a thrill of excitement when he squeezes it back, our fingers interlacing perfectly this time. “Nearest subway station, now!”
8. DO SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU A LITTLE.
~ Chapter Ten ~
Anthony
10. DO SOMETHING TO HELP YOURSELF GAIN PERSPECTIVE.
When you’re in a relationship, it’s very easy for your focus to become narrow, limited only to the Now — the partner in front of you, and what you’re doing today. But every step you’ve taken on this new journey toward a new You has been to get you ready for What’s Next. This final step brings all of the previous nine together — you must gift yourself the time and the space to look at the journey you’ve taken. Only by doing this will you give yourself the confidence to believe that, yes, you will go far tomorrow.
12:55 a.m.
One of the rare benefits of it being Christmas Eve — well, Christmas Day now — in New York is that there’s a lot of drunk people on the subway, causing delays and station closures, which means trains skip stops here and there, and the Bensonhurst to Manhattan journey is much quicker than usual. We pass the Broadway–Lafayette Street station after being on the train for only fifteen minutes. Charlotte’s head shifts on my shoulder, and I get a mouthful of hair. Then a faceful of Mistake, who’s in the tote bag on the seat on my other side. She comes to me as I lean away, stretching up and licking the tip of my nose. Charlotte had better not be asleep, because I don’t actually know where she wants to go. On the way to the subway station and as we went through the turnstiles and as we got on the D train, I asked her, “So, where you taking me?”
Each time, she said, “You’ll see.”
That would usually be the type of thing that totally annoys me. But each time she gave her evasive answer, she’d smile, and I’d just find myself smiling back.
And now I’m remembering what Aunt Carla said as we fetched Max’s tote bag from upstairs.
“You’ve lucked out there, sweetie,” she said, rummaging through the closet in my parents’ bedroom. Mom’s untouched-in-a-year closet.
“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I kind of had an idea what she was talking about. That was the only way to explain why I was feeling relieved — relieved that someone else was saying it before I’d said it out loud, proving to me that I wasn’t crazy, wasn’t getting ahead of myself.
“A keeper has literally wandered into your life,” she said, smiling and shaking her head at me, like I was just not getting it. “That girl downstairs is pretty great.”
I could feel the smile splitting my face at the same time as my insides swirled and churned. All at once, I was excited that Carla saw it, too, and almost sick with uncertainty. Because there was a time when I had been absolutely sure that Maya and I were for Forever — but Forever lasted just over a year and ended at JFK Airport. If there’s one thing that today has taught me, it’s that I don’t know what the hell a girl is thinking, ever. The only thing I do know right now is that Charlotte is another girl who’s going to run away from me this Christmas. Okay, she was always going to do that, because, you know, England, her life there, her family and everything — but still. Girls don’t tend to stick around where I am concerned.
That feeling was back — that feeling like I had swallowed glass and it was now lodged in my chest.
“Take your chance to move on,” Aunt Carla said, as she was standing up from the closet, carefully replacing the folded clothes she had moved to get at the tote bag. Everything went back in exactly the same spot, as if it had never been moved — as if nothing had changed. Not a lot of “moving on” happening in our family.
“She’s going home in a few hours,” I said. “And she’s not sure that she wants to come back.”
“She’ll come back,” Carla said, handing me the tote bag. “She’ll have that whole plane ride to think about it, and by the time she lands, she’ll be sure that she wants to come back. But she’ll get there only if she knows there is something for her to come back to. So, you need to let her know.”
As I’m remembering what Carla said to me, I rest my head on Charlotte’s, the lilac scent of her hair giving me a little bit of a head rush. It’s nice to be close to someone, and for that closeness to be as relaxed and feel as natural as it does with Charlotte. Carla told me to let her know, but what if it’s not what she wants? I mean, she hasn’t really shown interest in me, has she? It didn’t even occur to her that we could kiss each other at Smooch, until I pointed it out, and then she kind of freaked out before she said yeah, okay. And she hasn’t mentioned it since. And she might definitely maybe have been flirting with my big brother out in the backyard just before we left.
I tell myself, I could end all this confusion if I just ask her what she wants, what she feels. But how am I going to ask her?
Am I going to do it here, on the D train? There’s a drunk yuppie lying sideways on the seat opposite us, talking in his sleep about … something to do with stocks, I don’t even know. Am I going to do it at the airport, before she leaves (for possibly forever)? What good will that do?
It will let her know there’s something to come back to — that there was always more to New York than that hipster doofus.
Besides, you won’t know what she feels if you don’t ask her. So, ask …
But there’s one thing I have to ask before that. I hate myself for not being able to help asking it, but I just can’t not ask.
“Hey,” I say, gently lifting the shoulder she’s resting on. She looks up at me through the hair that has fallen over her face, and I have to stop myself from reaching out to move it. That might come with the question after this one. “What were you and Luke talking about, out in the yard?”
“Nothing much,” she says instantly — no sign that she’s wondering why I’m asking. “I think he was just being a wind-up merchant, that’s all.”
Great — like this is the time for me to need subtitles.
She sees the look on my face and clarifies, speaking through a yawn: “I think your version is, he was ‘jerking you around.’ Is that it? He wasn’t interested in me, he just wanted to make you a bit jealous, to see if you’d throw a fit.” She drops her head back on my shoulder. Yawns again. “That’s what you two do to each other, innit?”
One hour at my house, and she picked that up. Maya had one year with me, and she’d never gotten there. She always flirted back. It was attention that was being offered, and she could never turn it down. Even if it totally embarrassed me in front of my own family.
Come on, man. Charlotte gets it; she gets you.
Just say it.
“Well, Luke was always good at making me mad.” I don’t lean my head on hers again, because the way my heart is hammering, I think I’d give her a bruise. “And he knew for damn sure it’d work tonight, because … well, I guess he was onto something. I, uh … I …” Man, why is this so hard to do?
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