“Lance …”
“I want you with me in everything. Here in my crazy family. In our business in Sonoma.”
Had he said “our”?
He caught her neck between his hands, braced her chin with his thumbs. “I want to fight with you like Bobby and Monica. I want to know you so well …”
She stiffened. “Don’t do this.”
“You want me to pretend?”
She scowled. Her whole life was the make-believe of someone else’s creating. “I’m not ready.”
“I’m not either.” He slid his hands up to cradle her face, and the muscles of his throat worked. “I never will be.”
What?
“I’m not going to get it right. I’ll never have it together. But I’m willing to fail with you.”
She stared into his face. That was a good thing?
“I’m willing to mess up again and again. To do it wrong and torque you off.”
Her throat tightened. When what he wanted most was to find his purpose and do it right?
“I’ve never kept a relationship long enough for someone to see that I’m a screw-up. I left them wishing for what they thought they saw, left them believing the myth.” He let go. “I want to be real with you.”
No words could come. She’d been waiting for him to prove himself trustworthy, reliable, constant. Solid like Dad. When Lance Michelli could no more be solid than she could be Star’s light and rainbow.
He was offering her something else. Reality.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Come to me, my melancholy baby.
Cuddle up and don’t be blue.
All your fears are foolish fancy, maybe.
You know, dear, that I’m in love with you!”
The song runs through my head as monotonously as the rumble of the engine while my gaze drifts within the space that has defined my life for days. Marco’s hands are long and angular, wrapped over the steering wheel, his shirtsleeve creased at the elbow, the navy blue suspender twisted on his shoulder.
He glances over with a smile. “The whole country’s gloomy, Antonia. Let’s not be.”
He’s right, but how can I help it? “I’m sorry. It’s just …”
“Did I ever tell you about the two-legged dog I had?”
I lower my brows skeptically.
“It’s true. He was sort of a brindle mix, white and brown, fur so wiry you could scrub the kitchen with him.”
“Was it his front legs missing or his back?”
“One of each, and luckily opposite sides.”
I don’t believe him but can’t resist. “How did he lose them?”
“Don’t know; I found him that way, down by the train yard. His owner must have hopped the line, and the dog couldn’t make the jump.”
“So you took him home?”
“Sort of. Momma wasn’t fond of dogs, and this one being less than pretty would’ve had a tough row to hoe. I fed him in the alley until he knew he could trust me.”
“That’s more than many boys would do. How old were you?”
“Oh … it was several years back.”
I raise my brows. “You were all grown? I mean, a man already?”
He grins. “Yes, I’ve been grown for some time now.”
“How old are you?”
“You’re interrupting my story.”
I settle back into my seat.
“Pretty soon that dog took to following me around as I made deliveries and such.”
“For the people with lots of jack?”
“That came later. These were preliminary positions, so I conducted business on the docks and train yards. In fact, it was at Grand Central that the little dog saved my life.”
I sink against the door and give him a truly withering look.
“You don’t believe me?”
“How did he walk?”
“Just like you and me. One foot in front of the other. He’d learned to balance and compensate so well he could almost walk a tightrope.”
“Marco …”
He raises his hand and drops it back to the wheel, then drives in silence so long I give in.
“How did he save your life?”
“Threw himself in front of a train.”
I gasp.
“Why do you care, if I’m just making it up?”
“But you’re not, are you?”
He reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I’m not. And he didn’t get hit by a train.”
Relief and exasperation.
“He did tear out the Achilles tendon of a man whose knife was perched against my throat.”
“Why?”
“I fed him pretty well.”
“No, why did someone have a knife to your throat?” I shove his arm and we swerve a little in the road.
“Oh, that. He wanted my delivery.”
I watch his face for clues. “Is that why you have a gun now?”
“Come to think of it, that was about the time.”
I laugh in spite of myself. “You’re impossible. What happened to the dog?”
“I sold him to the circus.”
“Oh!” I throw up my hands.
“I did. They taught him to walk on a ball. He couldn’t really manage the tightrope, but he was amazing on that big red ball.”
I punch my thighs. “I don’t know when to believe you.”
“You should always believe me. I hated to lose that little mutt, but I had landed a new position that would take me away too much. With the circus he had plenty to eat, a safe place to sleep, and he got to be special two shows a day.”
My brow creases. “How could you part with him?”
He turns his attention back to the road. “That’s always the hard part, isn’t it?”
Yes, she thought. Yes.
A hand on her shoulder brought Antonia to the present. She looked into the plate presented on a tray. Lance had to have cooked the omelet. Though Monica brought it up, she would have overpeppered, and the eggs would be thick and spongy. She cooked like her mother.
This omelet had Lance’s trademark nipetella accenting the porcini that were softly sauted, a thin golden edge and fragrant aroma to tempt her appetite. Monica settled down beside her and dug the fork in without appreciating any of that. But she was kind and willing as she brought the fork up, and Antonia was thankful for little things. She couldn’t say so, but she hoped they knew. She hoped they all knew.
————
Lance pressed his fingers to the strings, hammering and pulling the notes up the neck, then ending with a feather-soft touch to ring the harmonic pure and sweet. As it faded, he started the rhythm, and then the words, thankful they were automatic since he couldn’t focus. The morning had started out fine, then ended with him saying more than he’d intended, more than Rese wanted to hear. Her partner; her business partner. Why couldn’t he get that into his head? Chief cook and bathroom washer.
That was what she’d offered when he tried to sever ties. “I need a maid, but I’ll settle for a partner.” Why did he take that term and run? Partner … wife, lover, mother of his children. Right. When she couldn’t trust him as far as she could throw.
The attraction had gripped him even with her baggy shirts and construction boots, her short hair that set off the bones of her face, the stony expression he’d learned to see beyond. It wasn’t stony anymore but engaging and enigmatic. In the same way he might begin to see the thoughts of a figure carved in marble, he had learned to read her.
He just didn’t like what he was reading. If she was a girl from the neighborhood, three months? She’d be his. But Rese was no pushover. She had him pegged with a cement nail. And it was his own fault.
He’d stopped trying to wow her, to be everything she needed. He was letting her inside, showing her the real Lance Michelli. Here’s how I live. Here’s how I am. I sweat in my T-shirts; I talk in my sleep. I cried at Bambi and Pop smacked my head.
Maybe Rese was right, that his worry for Nonna had made him
want connection this morning. That he’d confused the hurt and guilt over her relapse with the longing he thought was love. Maybe he didn’t get it at all.
He tried to focus on jamming with Rico and Chaz, letting the music take him away, but his mind stayed on Nonna, on the things he’d found that she didn’t want to talk about and the way he’d forced the issue—as he’d forced his way in with Rese and hurt her too. He missed the cue for his solo, but Chaz filled in on the keyboard.
Rico’s suggestion to jam had been a surprise since he and Star were so wrapped up in their new direction. But of course he’d included Star in the ensemble, and that changed the dynamic. Lance watched her sway and hum as he chorded into a minor key.
He liked Star, but he couldn’t get a handle on her and Rico. Then again, he couldn’t get a handle on himself. All he knew was things had changed. Maybe the days of singing on the street corners with Rico were really gone. None of it mattered as much as it once had. He was making the break, inside himself.
He looked at Rese, cross-legged on the couch, watching. If the music transported or transformed her, it didn’t show. Did she worry still that he’d go back to it? That it was what he wanted? He should tell her, but that would move into what he did want, and she didn’t want to hear it. She’d made that clear.
He lost the lyrics and improvised a nonsensical line. Chaz and Rico glanced at each other. They’d gone with him before when he took a tangent or two. He rarely succumbed to “La-la-la,” but the words that came were not always what he’d put on the page. He reached the chorus and sang with Rico’s descant soaring above. But Star brought her voice in and the line didn’t hold.
Lance let them take it and worked the guitar, instead. That was one thing about music; it was fluid. Give something here; take something there. He climbed the neck of the guitar with a countermelody. It was good; it was new. He felt a twinge of pride in the gift. So he hadn’t eradicated that.
As Rico launched into a riff, Pop came up, looked in the open door, and walked out. It was all in the expression. Lance stopped chording, took the guitar from his neck, and got up. Chaz raised his brows, but Star and Rico simply morphed into a song with no lyrics or guitar. Once again the flow continued. Just that easily, he could disappear.
“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered to Rese, then swiped some money from the bowl on the bookcase.
Her face was quizzical, but he didn’t want to tell her the unspoken message in Pop’s face had triggered all the old memories. “Why don’t you get a job? Make something of yourself.” Even when things had looked good and gigs were stacking up, Pop shook his head. “Who’s gonna pay your retirement?” It didn’t enter his head they could make it big enough to pay all their retirements.
“What’s the money bowl for?” Rese broke his reverie as she stepped into the hall.
He closed the door behind them. “It’s where we pool the extra.”
She smiled. “I like your friendship.”
He shrugged. They hadn’t decided to throw in their cash together. It had evolved. Chaz made good money at the RestaurantWeston, but sent most of it back to Jamaica since he lived cheaply, sharing a room with Rico. Rico had done well off and on, but music was a hard business and sporadic, no matter how good you were.
And Rico was good. Innovative, yet exact as a metronome. He could hold an entire conversation without dropping a beat. But he didn’t hold on to his money well, always seemed to be falling short. The bowl had probably come out of his casing the apartment for loose change. Lance got into the habit of emptying his pockets in one place, bills and coins together, just to keep Rico from rooting through his things.
He led Rese down the stairs through the kids playing in the stairwell who tried to ambush, then followed him out to the street. He handed over a few dollars, and they ran off shouting, “Thank you. Thanks, Uncle Lance.” He loved that uncle part.
“Are they okay leaving like that?” Rese followed them with her eyes.
He shrugged. “They know to stay close; the candy store, the ice cream truck. The babies are napping, so Lucy and Monica will be glad for the quiet.”
“It’s hardly quiet.” Rese glanced over her shoulder toward the music streaming through the windows.
“That’s white noise. Every baby in that building learns to sleep to Rico’s drums.”
Rese snorted. “Not exactly Brahms’ lullaby.”
“Better.” He grinned. And then he imagined a baby of his own dozing off to the air brush on the cymbal and swallowed. “You want kids, Rese?”
She didn’t answer for so long that he tipped his head to catch her expression.
She said, “Not if I’m schizophrenic.” Her face showed nothing but candor, but he knew inside it was eating her.
“I don’t see that happening.”
“Yeah, well, Dad didn’t see it, either, but he noticed when Mom curtained the windows with his underwear. It caught his attention when neighbors showed him burnt bushes and lawn furniture.”
“How come he left you alone with her?”
Rese shrugged. “I don’t think he wanted to admit things were getting worse. It didn’t get bad until the last year. Before that, she was normal a lot of the time; not just normal, wonderful.”
“Still, you were just a little girl.”
“It didn’t feel that way. A lot of the time it seemed like I was the parent. Dad even started giving me instructions. ‘Don’t play on the roof today, okay, honey?’ And his ‘How was everything?’ meant ‘Did Mom do anything I need to know about?’ ” He didn’t want to think of Rese in that position, but it explained her self-sufficiency, her courage and determination. “That must have been hard.”
“It was hard being caught in between.” She paused at the corner, the wind flipping the fringe of hair up from her forehead. “I didn’t want to let Dad down, but I loved her so much.”
That was the first time she’d said it, but he’d already glimpsed her loyalty to the mother who had tried to kill her.
Her brow creased. “I think I knew I might not have her forever. Things were so precarious, never certain.”
She liked things certain. No surprises. After believing so long that her mother was dead, learning she still lived had come a little hard. He nodded. “Now you have her back.”
She turned. “That’s not what I expected you to say.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know: ‘You’re better off without her.’ ‘Good thing they locked her up.’ ” “Why would I say that?”
“Because most people don’t relish a psycho mother-in-law.”
The smile caught him unexpectedly. “Did you say mother-inlaw?” She frowned. “Hypothetically.”
He caught her hand and raised her fingers to his lips. “I would love to meet your mother.” He felt a quiver pass through her.
But she drew herself up, fully Vernon Barrett’s daughter. “You don’t meet my mother, Lance. She might think you’re the president or the devil. She might not even know you’re there.” She tried to pull away.
He kept hold. “I don’t care.”
“Because you don’t know.”
“You’re right. I haven’t lived with her. But everyone’s got something, Rese.”
“What? What do you have that I wouldn’t want with my whole …” She yanked her hand free and stalked down the sidewalk, her reflection framed briefly by the window of Borgatti’s Pasta that displayed the certificate from Ladder Company 38 thanking the Borgattis for their generosity during the darkest time in the history of the New York Fire Department. Rese passed without noticing.
He took his eyes from the certificate and caught up to her. “So you like crowds, noise, overt displays of affection?”
She didn’t answer, just focused on the section of Arthur Avenue that was more authentic than Mulberry Street’s Little Italy in Manhattan. Lance knew how it looked, this little enclave of times past and people united by history and traditions. Quaint. Foreign. Amusing.
/>
Lambs’ heads at Biancardi’s complete with eyes, brains, and teeth. Religious and regional clutter, and every second store peddling food. His place. His people. Was that what Rese saw, what she thought she wanted?
“Everyone knowing your mistakes, every stupid choice told from one kitchen to another. Prejudices ingrained for generations. Expectations you can’t ever meet.” Pop’s blank stare.
Rese slowed her stride.
He matched it. “Want some pizza?”
She shook her head, but they hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She was hungry even if she wouldn’t admit it.
“Giovanni’s is good.” He motioned her through the door. “What do you like? Quattro Formaggio? Capriciossa?”
“You’re speaking a foreign language.”
He ordered two slices from the glass case and carried them to the small, cheesecloth-covered table. The waitress, Anita, brought their drinks with a shy grin that showed her teeth pushed forward like kids crowding the line. Lance thanked her.
Rese lifted the flimsy tip of her slice. “It’s so thin.”
“No more than a tenth of an inch in the center or it’s not Neapolitan.” He folded his and raised it to his mouth.
“I thought New York pizza was thick.”
“That’s the Sicilian version. A bad copy.”
“Oh really.”
“I should know. Half my family’s from Naples, where pizza originated. Anything else is an illegitimate stepchild.”
Rese blinked. “Is everything so black-and-white?”
“The Italian flag should have been black-and-white. But then we’d have argued over which color goes first.” He bit into the crisp, gooey slice. “Around here, you take a position and defend it to the death. Right or wrong.”
“Like the guys on my crew, always had to be the experts, especially Brad. I said maple; he said oak. I said save; he said demolish. I think he notched his belt every time Dad took his suggestion over mine.”
“And when Vernon took yours?”
She looked up. “It wasn’t about winning. It was about doing it right.”
“So maple was right and oak was wrong?”
Unforgotten Page 15