Until Love Do Us Part

by Anna Premoli

  “Sorry, everybody!” was all she said while she continued to laugh. Then, almost in a whisper, she turned to Amalia. “I don’t believe it! Talk about a hidden message.”

  “So if you’d been in my place you would have thought it was a clear signal too, right?”

  “Well, yes. What else could it be?” asked Kayla, becoming serious.

  “In fact, that’s exactly what I pointed out to him. But Mr Know-it-all insisted that it was just an oversight on his part. He says he is ‘out of the habit’ of doing certain things,” she complained. “As if anyone would ever order a pizza like that without thinking! Particularly someone who thinks even while he’s sleeping…”

  “Easy, calm down, don’t get worked up. So you felt offended because he didn’t want to kiss you?”

  At that, Amalia, who had been holding a perfect sirshasana position a few seconds before, started leaning over dangerously until she suddenly fell to the ground with a thud.

  “Oh, my God!” cried the instructor and ran to her rescue. Fortunately, years of practice had taught Amalia how to fall without breaking her neck. Her pride was in pieces, but at that moment in time, feeling silly seemed to be becoming the norm. Making fool of herself yet again would make little difference. “I’m fine, I’m fine, really. I’m just very tired,” she tried to reassure everyone.

  Kayla helped her to sit down again. “Do me a favor, just do elementary positions today. That guy kissed you and all those peppers must have gone to your head, my dear,” she told her friend, understanding perfectly well why she had just toppled over. “Of course you should have reminded him that you hate peppers…”

  Amalia hid her face between her legs, trying to resist the shame she felt mounting inside. “The situation is far worse than you can imagine,” she mumbled, hiding her face.

  Kayla looked at her doubtfully. “What could be worse than being kissed by someone who has just eaten something like that?” she asked.

  “Well, for example, being the one who kissed him, and not vice versa. Despite having seen him eating… And not even being able to taste the peppers,” Amalia admitted reluctantly.

  “You’re right, I have to agree with you – that is far worse!” declared Kayla seriously. And Kayla was never serious – ever.

  *

  Ryan had just had a hellish day. In fact, he had had a hellish week. By now it was official, he regretted everything about moving back to New York. He had thought, poor deluded fool that he was, that he had led a stressful life in Chicago but nothing could have prepared him for the disaster that awaited him back home. Not to mention the fact that he had moved over a month ago and still hadn’t even decorated his apartment. All he had managed to do was buy a sofa and a bed, and he was still living with his clothes hanging in a makeshift closet. In addition, he was often forced to eat out as he didn’t have a kitchen table. He didn’t even know if his refrigerator worked. He had put off cleaning it, so he hadn’t been able to turn it on. He now found himself buzzing the intercom of his brother Niel, who fortunately lived only a few hundred yards away, feeling more tired and hungry than ever before.

  Thank God Niel was at home and invited him in without asking too many questions. In all probability, his morose expression told Niel all that he needed to know. He gave him a beer and a steak served with potatoes and Ryan ate in silence while they watched an old action movie on television. Niel filled up his own glass and waited for him to relax.

  “If you want to talk about it…” he said, passing him another beer.

  Ryan sighed melodramatically. “Tell me again – why the hell did I come back, do you think?”

  His brother looked at him patiently. “Because you were tired of being alone and you wanted to be closer to your family. Maybe not so close… I guess?”

  “Probably. So why do I feel so damned crappy?” he asked, quietly.

  Niel thought for a moment. “I have my own personal theory, but I’m not sure you’re going to want to hear it.”

  “I’m about to lose my mind, so I want to hear it all right,” he assured him, sinking into the couch.

  “Well, obviously there is the stress of your new job, first of all – you’ve had to get to know a new office, which is in itself a pretty big challenge. You have to understand how things work here, who supports who, which judges are easier to get around and which ones aren’t. Then there’s the stress of having to hold off our parents: now that you’re back here you have to see them a lot more even though you don’t really have time, and so you put them off, increasing your sense of guilt.”

  “Right. You’re right and they’re all things that I had foreseen,” Ryan admitted. “So what the hell is it that didn’t occur to me?”

  “You mean, besides the fact that you’re human and therefore aren’t able to foresee everything?” laughed Niel.

  “Yes, exactly – apart from that one little detail…” Ryan muttered.

  “I don’t know if I should tell you this… I mean, your anger can get a little uncontrollable when you talk about uncomfortable issues…”

  “Please Niel, don’t make it even harder on me,” pleaded Ryan.

  “Look, I know full well what’s eating you. I’m not stupid, you know, and you don’t need me to tell you her name. But if we really must, then ok – Amalia. You see? I said it.” Ryan’s brother looked at him seriously.

  “Amalia?” Ryan repeated, immediately becoming defensive.

  “Yes, Amalia, Amalia. You know perfectly well who I’m talking about. And don’t look so surprised. Who the hell were you so angry with when you buzzed my intercom?”

  “I wasn’t angry with her. Not exactly. I mean, I’m angry with myself, with her, with the situation,” he mumbled in an attempt to explain himself, although he knew he sounded somewhat incoherent.

  Niel was obviously in the mood to play D.I.Y. psychologist, though.

  “You have this irritating habit of always trying to divide things into compartments. Always. In one drawer there is work, another family, in another your private life… Which is something that you haven’t really had for years now, if you don’t mind me saying so, and that’s what’s killing you. You don’t have a release mechanism. So when something happens to you that you hadn’t taken into consideration, your drawers theory goes to hell. So tell me, which drawer are you going to relegate Amalia to?” he asked defiantly.

  Ryan was totally taken aback by Niel’s little speech. “Work?” he asked indecisively, after thinking about it for a while.

  “Well, if that’s what you want to think…” was Niel’s only comment. But then he couldn’t resist continuing. “If I were you, I’d start examining my conscience. I would start with university and when you met her for the first time. As long as you’re actually able to be honest with yourself, because I’m really starting to have my doubts.”

  At that, Ryan started to feel like a caged animal.

  “Ok then, Mr Genius, what do you suggest? Ten years ago I liked a girl with whom I had nothing in common – what sense would it make to start something with her now!? Yes, okay, I liked her, I’ll admit it, and I tried to protect myself from the misery she would inevitably have brought me, sooner or later – she isn’t the kind of person I could ever have a relationship with. She wasn’t then and she isn’t now. She’s got a goddamn trust fund as big as this whole town, and for me that’s a problem, okay?”

  Niel’s brother had finally managed to express something that he had never been able to admit before, not even to himself. But once he had said it, he suddenly realized that it was exactly the issue that bothered him more than anything else.

  “Do you realize that you’re punishing yourself for something that’s not even her fault?! It happened, it’s not a sin!”

  Ryan did not know where to turn. “Who says I’m not doing her a great favor by keeping her at a distance? And don’t take it for granted that she likes me. And even if she did like me, I doubt she’d be able to put up with being around me for more than three
days. Tell me, who the hell could?”

  “If you keep ranting like this, nobody! You need to calm the hell down, bro! I don’t know, if I were you I would try meditation or something like that…”

  Niel was trying to make a joke of it, but Ryan was not in the mood for jokes.

  “God, I’m losing it. This is a nightmare!”

  “And what if you didn’t have to deal with her family and their money?” Niel suddenly asked.

  “But they’re there, they exist! There’s no point wondering about what might be. What do you think I am, some teenager, daydreaming about his first crush? Let’s come back down to earth, please. There are millions of girls in this city. Millions! And I only need one. Someone normal, nice and sociable – and who, for God’s sake, isn’t a lawyer!”

  “All right, okay, don’t get mad! I’ll help you find one. Someone who’s normal – really normal…” Niel reassured his brother.

  “And I’m serious – make sure she’s not a damn lawyer!” insisted Ryan grimly.

  “Believe me, one in the family is more than enough.”

  “Okay, fine. But for now, let’s watch this damn film.”

  “Yes sir!” said Niel, turning up the volume.

  14

  Judge Wyatt’s e-mail arrived the following day, when Amalia was already almost sure she’d got away with it. She read the contents for the fifteenth time and shook her head in disbelief. “Not only does he force me to take half a day off, he’s also sending me to a kindergarten now!?” she complained loudly, although she was alone.

  That soon changed.

  “Did you call me?” asked Michelle as she appeared at the door, efficient as usual.

  “Have you heard about Judge Wyatt’s latest crackpot idea?” Amalia asked, profoundly horrified.

  The secretary didn’t seem too shocked. “I did, and I think it is obvious what he meant all along. He’s sending you off on a tour of duty amongst all kinds of people: convicts, the poor, the elderly, and now children. I already know where he’s going to send you next.”

  “Where?” asked Amalia, desperate to know immediately.

  But Michelle absolutely refused to reveal anything.

  “What, and let you spend the whole of next week worrying about it? Come on, I’m not that cruel. And anyway, what’s so horrible about a kindergarten?” she added.

  Amalia stared at her in astonishment. “How can you ask such a thing? There are children! Children everywhere!”

  Michelle laughed at her expression. “They’re just three to six year olds, I’m sure they won’t bite you!”

  “Well I’m very sorry to disagree with you, but children do bite all the time – especially when they are three to six years old,” Amalia answered very seriously.

  “So what? What’s the big deal? When you realize that they’re about to bite something, you just stick the Assistant D.A.’s leg or arm in their mouths. Just choose one.”

  “I didn’t think I would ever have to say this, Michelle, but you are actually even more sadistic than me.”

  Her secretary didn’t appear to be particularly shocked by the accusation. “Listen to me: put Mr O’Moore on the front line. That way you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Amalia almost burst out laughing. “Didn’t you say they were just children?”

  “Of course not! They disguise them as children, but underneath they are real little humanoid-looking demons.”

  Amalia was temporarily lost for words.

  “My thoughts indeed. Thanks a lot, you can go back to work now. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  *

  The Judge had courteously invited them to attend an Upper West Side kindergarten near Eighty-fifth Avenue. That district was up market and residential, so one would at least hope that the well-heeled people who lived there might have well-mannered children. But then she inadvertently remembered some of her classmates, who came from apparently perfect families, and she shuddered before finally summoning up the courage to enter the place. She was about fifteen minutes late, and this was intentional: as Michelle had suggested, she had preferred to send Ryan in first. That way he could get acquainted with the little monsters.

  She was led towards an airy corridor, decorated with colorful drawings. How lovely to be the age when you went to kindergarten, she thought.

  “Please, Ms Berger, come in, the others are all here,” said the young teacher who had accompanied her. “Jane, this is Amalia Berger,” she said, introducing her to the teacher in charge of the class.

  “Great!” Jane exclaimed, attempting enthusiasm. Apparently, working with children can boost your optimism – but Amalia was sure it would take more than that to lift her spirits.

  She walked into the room and her eyes immediately alighted on Ryan, who had already hung his jacket and tie up and was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall.

  “So you finally decided to show up,” he said.

  He didn’t really seem mad about her being late, she thought and, after a closer look didn’t even look particularly surprised.

  Amalia took off her coat and jacket too and went to sit by him.

  “Are you afraid?” Ryan asked her, laughing.

  “Of children? Absolutely,” she said very seriously while observing the class of twenty or so children warily. They looked sweet and calm, but Amalia was sure that beneath those sunny exteriors they were hiding completely different temperaments. So far, none of them had really noticed their presence, but she knew they would soon. Unfortunately…

  “I’d imagined you wouldn’t be completely comfortable here,” he confessed to her.

  “Well, that was quite an easy guess: this is a kindergarten…” she whispered in a horrified shiver.

  “I already told you that I think that you would be good with children. But that is not really the reply you want to hear, so I would ask the Court to please not take into account what I just said.”

  “Don’t play the smart-ass with me. I’ve seen that tactic adopted in plenty of courtrooms and have always despised it: a lawyer who says something absolutely bizarre to try and influence the jury, even though he knows the judge is going to accept the other party’s objection. And they do that because they are well aware that once you reveal some information, you cannot delete it from people’s minds. Where do you think we are? In Men in Black 8? And anyway, what do you mean ‘you would be good with children’?” she demanded. He had clearly touched a nerve.

  Ryan laughed. “Don’t get sore about it, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. The thing is, I can just picture you clearly going mad at your son. But you, unlike many parents, would be able to make him behave properly.”

  “You’re forgetting about genetics, Ryan: it is highly likely that any son of mine would take after me, and that means we would be continuously fighting. And I can live without that, thanks.”

  But he wouldn’t give up the argument. “Well, in that case, you just need to choose a good father,” he suggested, looking at her in a weird way.

  “What the hell are you talking about? If I didn’t know you well enough, I would think you were proposing to me,” she mocked him to break the tension.

  Ryan immediately went pale.

  “And that’s the exact reaction I was expecting…” Amalia mumbled, turning to look at Jane.

  “Children,” the teacher began, “two friends have come to visit us today and will be staying with us for the whole morning: Amalia and Ryan. Amalia is a lawyer and Ryan is an Assistant District Attorney.”

  “Cool!” said one plump little boy. “My father is a lawyer too!”

  “So is mine!” chimed in various other children.

  “Is everybody a lawyer in this town?” asked Ryan, looking disturbed.

  “So it seems. And it is quite obvious, given the world we live in…” Amalia answered in a low voice.

  Jane asked the class to be silent. “Our two friends are here today to help us…”

  All the children shouted together to f
inish the teacher’s sentence: “Paint!”

  Amalia turned to look at Ryan. “What? Are we supposed to paint?” she asked with dismay.

  “Don’t worry – they only use paint that comes off in the washing machine. If they didn’t, the children’s mothers would kill the teachers. Believe me, I know these things.”

  “What washing machine are you talking about? I have all my clothes dry cleaned,” she moaned.

  “Relax, I’m confident we can survive this. I mean, at the end of the day, they’re just children, right?”

  That was his opinion. Amalia moved closer to Ryan’s ear, giving him goose bumps. “You couldn’t be more wrong, my dear…”

  After two hours Amalia had had enough of children and paint, and especially of the combination of the two. She’d got slightly dirty – or, more accurately, the little devils had painted the white t-shirt she was wearing, which was now decorated with blue stripes and fuchsia dots. She could have accepted the blue, but she absolutely hated the fuchsia!

  “Well done, children!” said Jane in a satisfied voice. “Now we need to go and wash our hands and start getting ourselves ready for lunch.”

  “What time do you think these little pests eat?” Amalia asked Ryan. The Assistant D.A. too had some very nice new patterns on his once plain white shirt, but he had been more fortunate: on his shirt there were no fuchsia dots but only little grey and yellow stains.

  “Around noon, I guess. But they’ll have to go and wash their hands first, and go to the toilet, all of them, and so on. So, I don’t expect it’s going to happen any time soon.”

  “Please, Lord, deliver us from having to take them to the toilet…” Amalia prayed silently.

  “Amalia, Ryan, please follow me, I’ll show you where the toilet is so that you can wash. I am so sorry about your clothes, but you know how kids are… you always get dirty when you’re around them,” the young teacher apologized.