And the festive occasions had a different tone. There was alcohol, and the odor of marihuana in the air, but there were none of the compulsive qualities I remembered. And sex seemed less casual than what I recalled. If I were to single out one feature of my son’s acquaintances—and, of course, I have to be careful not to generalize from them to an entire generation—there was a surprising lack of hypocrisy, an overall honesty which I found refreshing.
Jordan, himself, had brought young women home with him from time to time, and I wasn’t surprised at his seeming success with the opposite sex. I must say it was pleasant to hear someone say he looked like me, since I considered him quite handsome, half a head taller than me, with his mother’s blue eyes rather than my brown ones, and with a shock of brown hair that showed none of the thinning mine had begun to exhibit. I’m also quite sure he didn’t mind being told he resembled me.
Where we differed most was in temperament. He had an outgoing personality, where mine was far more introspective. And my idea of exercise was limited to walking our aging Labrador, while Jordan had become addicted to mountain climbing. My interests in Medieval History left him yawning, and he had carefully avoided the humanities in college, opting for—I must admit—a very practical engineering degree.
I had been rather expecting at least a phone call from him that weekend, which he placed Saturday evening. He said he had been planning to come home for a couple of days, but a cram session for a course he seldom attended required his presence that day. He alerted me, however, to an early Sunday arrival. It was May 15, the anniversary of Louisa’s death, so I wasn’t surprised at his wanting to be home that morning. What did surprise me was his companion of the day.
Shana O’Brien wasn’t beautiful. That was too strong a word to apply to her—”attractive” too weak a one. “Startling” seemed a far more appropriate term. Her hair was literally the color of a mint penny, her skin was the fairest I’d ever seen, with just the hint of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her tall, slender figure was rounded in all the right places. Most striking was her demeanor.
“Dad, this is Shana,” Jordan announced as he dropped their overnight bags. “Call him Lawrence, Shana. Everyone does. Unless you want to make him cringe. Then call him ‘Professor’.”
Her voice was equally pleasant as she said, “I’m very pleased to meet you,”—and gave every appearance of meaning it. Her handshake was surprisingly firm. I had the feeling she was looking on me as an equal, a feeling few of Jordan’s friends had evinced in my presence, most usually making me feel old and doddering, though I’ve just put forty behind me.
Jordan broke into the introduction to say, “C’mon, Shana, let me show you your room before Dad starts bending your ear about Thomas Aquinas. You’ll never get away once he starts talking.”
I immediately caught the different element in this visit. It wasn’t “our room,” it was “your room,” and the expression had been no mistake. Jordan took Shana’s bag to one of the guestrooms in the west wing and then went off to his old bedroom with his own luggage. He was the first to return to the living room. I looked up at him from my book and asked, “Am I mistakenly reading something into your strange behavior, or is this one a keeper?”
Jordan seemed puzzled by the expression at first, then grinned. “Keeper! Hey, Dad, that fits. Let me just say I hope she is.”
And after she’d come back and we’d chatted a while, I was hoping she was, too. Shana was pleasant, intelligent and had the unusual quality of actually listening to people, a characteristic especially dear to someone who teaches. We talked about college. She had just graduated with a major in European History, which I of course applauded.
“Yeah,” Jordan said, “We poor juniors have to take all the finals, but Shana’s senior status got her out of most of them and she took the others early. She’s through for the year, and I still have to sweat out three exams.”
“Three I would never want to take,” Shana said. “All math and physics and stuff like that.”
I, of course, sympathized, since numbers had almost been my downfall as an undergraduate. “Any plans?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Graduate school, yes. But I’m still not sure what I want to go on in. Not engineering, that’s for sure.” She smiled at Jordan as she said it. “Literature maybe. Perhaps history. Definitely Europe.”
I could see that Jordan was getting restless, and he soon excused himself. I knew the reason. Our two-car garage had been reduced to a one-car garage because of all of the coiled ropes, pitons, sleeping bags, tents and other equipment dear to a mountaineer’s heart. I never could quite understand how he could lavish all that time on burnishing and caring for his equipment, or why he needed so much of it. But I had visions of his moving on to the Mount Everest stage soon, and then I’ll have to leave my BMW out in the open to make room for oxygen bottles.
“Are you interested in mountain climbing?” I asked, after he’d gone off to his toys.
Shana laughed—an engaging deep-throated laugh. She put one hand to her cheek. “It takes SPF 48 to allow me ten minutes of sun at sea level. Can you imagine what I’d look like after a day at ten thousand feet? I’d be one massive blister. Besides, I’ve never been much for strenuous exercise. Swimming in an indoor pool is my biggest concession to anything resembling sport.”
For the first time I begin to have doubts about Jordan’s choice, which I had considered to be excellent only a short while before. Perhaps a mutuality of interests wasn’t essential for a happy marriage, but I immediately had visions of Jordan off on a month’s safari, while Shana spent an all-too-boring time at home. Children might occupy some of her waking hours, but her obvious intellect would need stimulation beyond the caring for toddlers.
The drift of our conversation added to my doubts. “I missed you when you spoke at Grinnell about your book.” I raised an eyebrow as she went on. “I bought THE HEAVENLY HELOÏSE when I heard you were coming to the college to speak, and then I came down with food poisoning the day you were scheduled. Even so, I wanted so badly to attend and have you sign my copy, but I was afraid I might throw up half way through your talk. I don’t think you would have appreciated that.”
I laughed. “Maybe that would have added spice to my lecture.”
She gave one of her appealing laughs in reply, adding, “My roommate was dating Jordan at the time. That’s how I met him. So I asked him if he would have you sign the book for me.”
I recalled doing that service for Jordan on two or three occasions, and now I even remembered one for a ‘Shana.’
“Thanks for doing that,” she went on with a smile. “Your handwriting is atrocious, by the way. Your signature was totally illegible, and I’m not sure whether you wrote, “‘best wishes to Shana’ or ‘bust washes to Susanna’.”
I freely admitted to my deficiency in handwriting and assured her that her first guess was the correct one. Then, ever the author in search of compliments, I asked how she had liked THE HEAVENLY HELOÏSE.
For a moment she didn’t answer, then said, “I think it was one of the most poignant expressions of grief, loneliness and hope I’ve ever read.”
Needless to say, I was pleased. I was less so as she went on.
“It made me want to read more of what you had written, so I delved into the Journal for Medieval Studies and found your article on Abelard’s philosophy.”
I immediately pictured an undergraduate trying to wade through that abstruse material—a far, far cry from the novel.
“I have to disagree with you,” she went on. “You’re mistaken about Abelard’s commitment to nominalism. His early writings clearly indicate he was strongly influenced by Platonism, and his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans is nowhere as controversial as you make it out to be. Actually…”
Before I was even aware of it, we had launched off into a heated discussion of twelfth century philosophy, its impact on the Parisian university community, its significance in the rise of r
ationalism in Europe—and much more. And then Jordan came back in to announce that dinnertime was approaching and that he was ready to pitch in on its preparation.
My head was still filled with arguments I should have used, and hadn’t as yet had a chance to bring forth, when we went off to the kitchen. Jordan took care of the baked potatoes while I worked on my specialty—flank steak. Shana turned out a delicious salad with a dressing I had never tasted before. The dinner was a rousing success… at least on the surface.
I must admit I was badly torn. My first assumption that Shana would be a splendid daughter-in-law was rapidly being undermined by what I now could see would be total incompatibility between her and my son. Even more, I was wondering who would have the worst of it: Jordan, bored beyond all imagination by Shana’s intellectual bent, or Shana, with a partner whose real interests lay on faraway mountain tops that she would neither visit nor ever want to see.
The rest of the evening did little to disabuse me of my doubts. Jordan retired to the far end of the living room to watch a two-hour documentary on—what else—mountain climbing in the Andes, while Shana and I continued our pre-dinner discussion. Anyone who has ever taught can appreciate my feelings at talking to an eager, intelligent, challenging student. For the time being, I ignored my doubts.
The evening came to an end. I had trouble sleeping. One year ago, to the day, Louisa had died. I missed her terribly and wished she were here to talk to Jordan. She, like me, would have seen he was clearly making a mistake, but—unlike me—she would have been able to make him see the situation more clearly.
Early the following morning I found Jordan rushing through a breakfast of cereal and orange juice. “What’s the hurry?” I asked.
“Hey, Dad, I’m still a student. Some of the profs may have forgotten I exist, so I’d better make at least some of their final classes.” He got up as he spoke, downed the last of the juice, picked up his overnight bag, and started for the door.
I looked around. “Where’s Shana?” I asked
“Shana? Don’t you remember. She’s graduated. She doesn’t need to go back today—or at all for that matter.”
“You mean, she’s going to stay here?”
“That depends on you, Dad. You were the one who said she seems like a keeper. I’m sure she is. She thinks you are, too.”
____________________
FALL GUY
Roberto Zuccala was in love. Not just in love, but really in love. Olivia Tedeschi was in love, too. The combination left them insulated from the world around them—almost.
They met at a free YMCA art class, the tall and handsome youth with the grace of a trained athlete and the dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman who barely came to his shoulder. Olivia took the class to pass the time; Roberto took it because he loved painting more than anything else in the world—until he met Olivia.
Olivia recognized Roberto's talent, as did the instructor. “You have an extraordinary gift,” Professor Simmons told him. “I've taught you everything I know. You need to go on—to a major art school. Being creative is not enough. You need training. You need to study the great artists. You need to broaden your sights.”
Olivia agreed. “Berto, you can't just waste your talent. Listen to Professor Simmons. You could be a famous painter someday if you followed his advice.”
Roberto frowned and shook his head. “I would if I could, but all that would take money. I barely have enough for streetcar fare to the class.”
Olivia didn't need to be told. He wasn't the only young man looking for work and not finding it. One of eight children, Roberto could expect no help from his parents, who were scarcely managing to make ends meet. Two of the children had lightened their parents' burden by marrying, but Roberto could scarcely afford to even think of doing that.
While the goal Mr. Simmons had described seemed no nearer, Olivia and Roberto grew closer and closer. When he had finally gotten up the courage to ask her to marry him though he could barely support himself even while living at home, she had answered, “I love you Roberto. You know I do, but I don't want to live with either your parents or mine. We'll have to wait until we have enough money to rent our own place.”
Reluctantly, Roberto agreed. But the few part-time jobs Roberto found, against the competition of the others left jobless by the Great Depression, helped with the Zuccalas' groceries but left little beyond that.
Though the possibility of marriage was remote, he knew it would receive a parental blessing, his mother having finally accepted Olivia even though she was not Milanese. The pressures for marriage, for setting the date, actually became enormous.
Olivia's parents joined the chorus. They either voiced the question directly or implied it. “You're not getting any younger,” Olivia's mother reminded her. And, “Roberto is a really nice boy, even if his parents are from Milan.”
The pressures from both families continued. Only Olivia did not press. But she made it clear that holding hands and an occasional brief meeting of lips would be the extent of their physical intimacy prior to marriage. “No, Berto,” she said, pushing him away if he lingered. “Those kisses are for after we are husband and wife.”
One day Roberto found a glimmer of hope. A way to earn enough money to marry and perhaps to also go to art school. They would have to be careful of their funds. But with Olivia's tips from Barzini's Restaurant and with what he could pick up from odd jobs, they might be able to make it—providing there were no children immediately. Roberto knew ways to put that off, though Father Lodi would not approve.
In his endless search for work, Roberto had wandered into a boxer's training club and had been drafted as a sparring partner. The club manager had been amused at Roberto's attempts to defend himself in the tradition of schoolyard fights, but quickly recognized Roberto's potential.
“You're a natural born boxer,” he told Roberto, and urged him to come back for training. There was no mention of money but Roberto had nothing else to do. He took to the ring as though it were second nature. In the middleweight division he established himself with two knockouts in exhibition matches.
After Roberto's second match, the manager declared, “Roberto! You are the best young fighter I've seen since I was in the ring myself.” The knowledgeable spectators at the matches nodded approval at Zuccala, the new find. What was almost unheard of was his sudden escalation to a preliminary bout at the coming heavyweight fight. Fifty-dollars, win or lose! That was more than the entire Zuccala family's monthly income.
With success came notoriety. Roberto's family soon learned that their son had moved into the boxing world, and they expressed disapproval tinged with fear. Worse was Olivia's reaction when she heard the news. She confronted him, eyes flashing, voice strident in anger. Roberto cringed, but found Olivia, in the midst of her fury, even more beautiful and more desirable than ever.
“Berto, how could you? Don't you know what prizefighting does? You've seen Giulio Barzoni. His nose is all over his face; his ears are like cabbages. If you ask him something, it takes him five minutes to realize he's been asked a question and five minutes more to answer it. And he's still in his twenties. And your hands! What will boxing do to those hands that should be painting, not pounding some other brute in the ring?”
“I know, I know. But my artwork has not brought me a penny. And Mama says that I should be painting Madonnas instead of doing what she calls 'hen-scratchings.'“
Olivia was adamant. “Berto, I love you, but I love you the way you are. I don't want a battered hulk for a husband. If you box once more, I'll have nothing more to do with you.” She turned and left. Roberto watched the small, trim figure as she ran to catch the streetcar. All he could think of as he watched her go was that perhaps she would forgive him, perhaps she would come back—if this next fight was his last one. And this next one would be. It would also be the basis for their marriage, for the art school he was planning to attend, and for their future together. He didn't like the choice before him, but it was the only
one he could make.
***
Aldo Calvini and Fabio Masone were old friends. Aldo was in his seventies, comfortably retired from the fish-processing plant he'd inherited from his father and run successfully for twenty-odd years. Fabio, ten years younger, was more than comfortable with his used car business—was actually wealthy—and found plenty of leisure time to spend with Aldo at their favorite form of entertainment, bocci.
Today was a perfect day for the game. Warm, but not too warm, calm and overcast. At the moment they sat on the park bench watching their rivals roll the ball down the grassy path.
“How would you like to make a few extra dollars, Aldo?” Fabio asked, speaking Italian—a relief from struggling with English.
“You know I never refuse money,” Aldo answered.
“Then bet on Tony Angeli in his next fight.”
“You know better than that, Fabio. I don't believe in gambling beyond a dollar or two on this.” He indicated the bocci players who were engrossed in their game.
“This wouldn't really be gambling. Think of it as an investment. The Angel can't lose.”
“I've heard differently. It sounds to me as though the Angel can't win. Young Zuccala is the favorite. Those who should know say he's the fastest fighter they've ever seen in the ring, and he has a right like a sledge hammer.”
Fabio grinned. “That is exactly why you should bet. The odds are ten-to-one in Zuccala's favor. You would receive back ten dollars for every one you bet on the Angel.”
“You seem very sure.”
“Of course I'm sure. You see, like you, except for a few pennies on bocci, I never gamble. I bet only when I am sure to win. A small preliminary-uh— financing, has guaranteed the outcome of the fight. This isn't a bet. It's an investment.”
Aldo smiled. “So Zuccala will be a fall guy.”
Dear Diary, I'm In Love Page 20