by Mary Campisi
Nick coughed, cleared his throat. His mother could be about as blunt as a bulldozer in a flower patch. “Mom”—he shook his head—“I’m sure Alex can deal with her maternal needs by herself.”
That didn’t stop Stella from putting in another fifty-two cents. “I know that, Nick. I’m just reassuring her that just because she’s an only child doesn’t mean she won’t be a good mother.” She smiled at Alex, who was sitting like a deer frozen in headlights. “Meeting the right man, that’s the key. If you do that, the rest comes naturally. Look at Gracie and Rudy. Married seven years, have Cecily, who’s six, Sophia who’s four and in two months, there’ll be another one. Girl or boy, who knows?” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, so long as the partner’s the right one.”
“Mom, would you pass the stuffed cabbage?” He had to stop her.
“Alex, has Nick taken you to Sapphire Lake, yet?” Grace’s voice softened. “That’s where Rudy proposed.”
“I showed her the other day,” Nick cut in. “She needed to see it for her research.” He knew his family, knew how nosy they could be, straightforward when it came to family and family business. Nothing was private.
“Isn’t it romantic?” Gracie said, her words gushing. “Oh, and have him take you to the Cliff.” She and Rudy exchanged glances. “That’s a perfect couples spot.”
Alex nodded, dipped her head low and stabbed at a pierogie.
“Thanks for the advice, Gracie.” Nick narrowed his gaze on her. Kid sister or no, enough was enough.
Gracie shrugged, threw him a small smile.
“Alex, uh, do you know how to play baseball?” Justin hadn’t said a word through dinner, but now he was eyeing their guest, pulling his lower lip through his teeth, once, twice, three times, waiting as though her answer would be the most important words he’d ever hear.
“I… I kind of know how. It’s been a long time.”
His shoulders drooped and he stared down at his plate.
“But,” she went on, “they say it’s like riding a bike. Once you learn how, you never forget.” She spoke his name, then, soft, comforting, “Justin? Would you like to play baseball after dinner?”
His head shot up, and he nodded.
Nick watched the two of them, Justin with that stupid grin on his face, wide enough to show off the gap where his left front tooth had been, and Alex, smiling, a real smile, not one of those polite-shake-your-hand kind of smiles. She was being nice to Justin, and Nick appreciated that. When he got a chance, he’d tell her so. He hadn’t pictured her for the kid type, not with the pearls and the Rolex and the Saab. That had translated into something more cosmopolitan, more chic, more self-centered.
Maybe he was wrong about Alex. Maybe he needed to back up and get a history on her, forget the initial impression. He pretended an intense preoccupation with the insides of a pierogie, separating potato from onion as though he were dissecting internal organs. Alex was still talking to Justin, and the boy was laughing, honest to God laughing.
“So, if the ladder wasn’t tall enough, how’d you get the cat out of the tree?” he asked.
“Simple,” Alex said. “I put on my old sneakers and climbed it. Of course, at ten years old, I didn’t think about how I was going to get down with a cat in my arms. I must’ve been up there two or three hours.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
“Not really. I had Daisy with me. We just sat there and I held her, pressing my cheek against her fur. She was tan and white, with black paws. To this day, I’ve never felt anything so soft.”
“Who found you?”
“My aunt.” The lightness drained out of her voice. Nick set his fork down, looked up. She was staring at her glass but he knew she wasn’t seeing it, knew she was miles away, years away, back in that tree.
“So what happened next?” Justin asked with the innocence of one anticipating a happy ending and wanting to hear every minute detail.
“Aunt Helen called the fire department and they brought their ladder and got us down.”
“Wow. That’d be so cool. So then what? Did Daisy stay out of that tree?”
There was a second’s lapse, the briefest of moments when Alex’s mouth clenched into a hard, fierce line. “Yes, she stayed out of it. Aunt Helen gave her away two days later when I was at school. She said I was too young to care for Daisy and she’d be better off with another family, one who would be more responsible. Maybe in a couple of years, we’d try again.”
“Where’d she go? Do you know?”
“She went to the golf course to keep the area clean.”
“Huh?”
“To hunt mice,” Alex said.
“Did you ever go visit her?”
“Twice. One day she just disappeared, nobody knew where, and nobody went to look for her.” She paused, then said, “They just got another cat.”
***
“Thank you for playing ball with Justin.”
“Oh, is that what I was doing?” She’d run, jumped, fell, scraped her knees and got hit in the shin several times in a weak imitation that didn’t even vaguely resemble what she’d seen on a real baseball field.
“Sure was.” She and Nick were sitting on the swing in Stella’s backyard. The crickets were already filling the twilight with noisy cadence.
“Well, I couldn’t tell him the only time I’d ever held a baseball was in a souvenir shop.” She shrugged and thought of Justin’s face when he’d asked her if she played baseball, so hopeful, innocent.
“I appreciate that. You know, no matter what we teach our kids, there are times when honesty really isn’t the best policy.”
Right. Like now, for instance. If I told you why I was really here, you’d boot me out so fast my head would spin all the way back to Edna’s. “You’re right. There’s a time when it’s honorable to twist the facts.”
“I’ve done it a time or two myself.”
They were quiet after that, rocking back and forth on the old swing as it creaked and groaned with the weight of their bodies pressing against the boards. Justin and Kevin and Sara were on the front porch eating ice cream sandwiches and trying to catch fireflies. Stella had herded them out of the backyard, waving the box of ice cream sandwiches in the air like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. She’d said nothing to Alex and Nick, merely turned and winked at them. Grace and Rudy had packed up their brood an hour ago and headed home. I’ll see you tomorrow, Grace had said. We’ll make pasta together. There was a genuineness about her, an open honesty that spread to everyone near her. Alex had never been like that. She’d always hidden her thoughts, huddled them close to her, careful not to show too much. It was the way she’d been raised. With reserve, dignity, poise. Don’t smile so wide, Aunt Helen had told her when she was twelve. You look like a horse. Practice. Practice in the mirror. Don’t look so… happy. It’s just so common. Allusive… that’s what you want.
“Are you still interested in showing me around town?”
He didn’t answer at first. “My schedule’s gotten really crazy—”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to feel obligated.” Why did she feel a pang of disappointment at his response? “I understand.”
“It’s just that—”
“Nick, forget it. I can’t talk to one person that I don’t hear about Dr. Nick and how he’s fixed them up. I know you’re busy.” She paused. “It’s just that I would have appreciated it if you would have returned my phone calls and told me yourself.”
He stopped the swing, looked at her. “What phone calls?”
Alex shook her head, let out a sound that was half laugh, half aggravation. “Trying to twist the facts a little?”
“No.” He touched her chin with the tips of his fingers. “Look at me. What phone calls, Alex?”
She turned and saw the confusion in his eyes. “I called your office a few times, but you were always busy. After the fourth time, I got the message.”
“I didn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You said you’ve been busy,” Alex said, anxious to be done with the conversation. Even if he was telling the truth, and the look on his face told her he probably was, he’d just admitted he was too busy to show her around. Either way, it was a rejection and she wanted to be done with it.
“I am busy, so is Elise. But it’s not like her to lose a message, or in this case, messages. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She looked away as the last rays of light seeped through the branches. “Really.” If it was one thing Uncle Walter and Aunt Helen taught her it was to never, ever be a burden to another person.
“Maybe I can take you around tomorrow night, say seven o’clock?”
She shook her head. “That’s okay. Edna’s offered, so has Gracie.”
He ran a hand over his face. His fingers were strong, tanned, capable. “Edna’s a sweetheart but you’re going to hear about everything from old man Hatzinger’s cat to Mrs. Glonski’s pregnant niece from Schenectady. And Gracie will drag you from Restalline to Clarkton looking for garage sales.”
“Then I guess I’ll include Edna’s stories and Gracie’s garage sales in my research. After all, it’s small-town behavior that I’m researching.” And they won’t think of me as an inconvenience.
“I’ll take you,” he said, his voice firm, final. “Talk to them if you want, listen to Edna tell you about the way old man Hatzinger dressed his cat and took him to church, go with Gracie to fifteen zillion garage sales in search of the perfect pink tights for ten cents, but let me show you the land, the surroundings, the openness that’s nothing like a city.”
She hesitated a second, then nodded. “Okay.”
“One more thing. We’ve got some eccentrics in this town, but they’re ours. Good, honest, hardworking people. We take care of them and we care about them. I don’t want you making fun of them for the sake of an interesting read.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Just remember that. They’ll give you their trust, take what you say at face value and never think twice about it.”
“But not you.” The words fell out, cold, hard, wedged between them.
“I lived in the city, remember?” he said, avoiding a direct answer. “I know what preys there, what gobbles other people up, what can destroy them.”
“Not everybody is Godzilla.”
He didn’t answer. “I’ll help you, but just remember, you’re writing about these people’s lives, their families, the only town most of them have ever known.”
“You really don’t trust me, do you?” Why don’t you trust me? You can’t possibly know what I’m doing here.
“I don’t know you.”
“Neither does your mother, but she trusts me.”
“Yeah, well, she trusts everybody.” He laughed then, and she did too.
I’ll get you to trust me, you’ll see. And then I’ll convince you that life does exist elsewhere, maybe not in a big city, but a suburb. There are lots of hospitals in the suburbs, and they need someone like you, a doctor who cares about his patients, really cares. They’ll pay you a lot of money, get you established, find Justin a good school. Suburbs have land, parks, grass, for God’s sake, and theaters and ball games. You’ll see, Nick Androvich, you’ll see, I’ll get you to trust me. I will. I know all about suburbs, I know a lot of people. I’ll help you. I’ll help them all. Trust me, trust me. We’ll all be winners, every one of us.
“About my mother…” He leaned his elbow on the back of the swing, balled his hand into a fist under his chin. “She’s not the most… subtle person in the world.”
“That’s okay.” She didn’t want to hear this. Why couldn’t they just ignore it?
“It’s obvious what she’s trying to do… what they’re all trying to do.”
Oh, no. Was he really going to talk about it? No, no he wasn’t. “Why don’t we just forget it?” She touched her throat, felt for her necklace, her thumb and forefinger grasping two pearls, turning them over and over, the soft, smooth feel of them calming her, reminding her who she was, where she’d come from. Dignity, Alex, her Aunt Helen had told her. One must maintain dignity at all times. “I really don’t think we need to discuss it.”
“Of course we need to discuss it.” He sounded annoyed. “What are we going to do? Ignore it?”
“Well… yes.” Her fingers worked the pearls, harder, faster.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. We have to at least address the issue… take a stand.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know my family.” He blew out a long breath. “Next they’ll be planning the—”
“If we just ignore it, eventually they’ll stop.”
“Is that how you deal with problems?” He was close, leaning toward her, his breath fanning her hair. “Just ignore them, wait for them to go away?”
Sometimes. She turned to face him, the last sliver of light on his face. He was close, so close. Alex inched back, felt the wood of the swing dig into her back. “Look, Nick, it’s no big deal. Let’s forget it, okay?”
He ignored her. “I was trying to apologize for them. Sometimes they don’t know when to stop.”
“Thank you.” Okay, now let’s be done.
“It’s not as if… as though… you and I… we don’t even …”
That was it. “I think I know what you’re trying to say.” She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and stared at his face, half hidden in darkness and shadow. “You and I are not interested in one another in any capacity other than a strictly business one, in which you will act as a guide while I conduct my research in this town. There is not, nor will there ever be, even the merest hint of attraction to one another, and any attempt to enhance the relationship will be done so merely in the name of politeness.” There. Let him think about that.
He did not respond at first, and she wondered if her words had been too harsh, too cruel. She’d spent so many years burrowing under layers of aloofness that she didn’t stop to consider whether that very thing that protected her, injured others. “I… I’m sorry.”
The kiss came from nowhere, hard, powerful, consuming. He pulled her to him, his arms strong, protective, pressing her against his chest, hard planes to soft. She opened her mouth, let the feel of his tongue move over her, into her, through her. Heat pulsed deep inside, hot and wanting. Closer, she wanted to get closer. Her fingers found his hair, stroked its silkiness.
Then it was over and Nick was pulling away. His breathing was hard, heavy. Alex couldn’t move, couldn’t see his face in the darkness, couldn’t see if it was filled with regret. He unwound her arms from around his neck, placed them in her lap, and stood. “I’m sorry too, Alex.” Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter 8
Alex sprinkled flour over the long strip of dough, flipped it over and sprinkled the other side. Then she went to the next strip and the next until she had ten lined up. There had to be an easier way. She was hot and sticky, the back of her neck was wet, even her bra clung to her. They’d been at it all morning, pouring flour from a twenty-five pound bag of Robin Hood, mixing, kneading, cutting, flouring, and—the fun part—running the flattened strips of dough through the pasta machine. Finally, they’d spread the noodles out on dowels, set up over the backs of eight chairs, in the dining room no less, with layers of newspaper covering the carpet. They have to dry properly, Stella had told her. Air, that’s what they need. Don’t let them lump together, spread them around. In the old days, I didn’t have dowels, so I used to cover the dining room table with paper towels and spread them out there.
Alex tried to picture Aunt Helen’s mahogany table covered with layers of paper towel and floured noodles. It was impossible, of course. Furniture is to be respected, she’d sa
id, the one and only time Alex had left her algebra book on the table. Do you have any idea what the value of this table is? What it’s worth?
But these people didn’t seem to care. When Sophia spilled her whole cup of apple juice on the linoleum floor, Stella had just handed Gracie a rag and she’d cleaned it up. No fuss, no lecture, no warning that she was a disrespectful child.
“Alex? Ready to roll?” Gracie laughed, held out her hand for a strip of pasta. “Mom’s grading you, you know.”
Alex handed Gracie the pasta, waited for her to roll it through the machine twice, once to flatten it, and then a second time to cut it into wide noodles. She caught the noodles as they fell through the blades and then hurried to the dining room and lay them over a dowel.
“Stella,” she said, after they’d finished another batch, “isn’t there an easier way?”
The older woman looked up from the ball of dough in front of her. “What do you mean?” Her hands and fingers were crusted and caked with dough.
Alex wiped a hand over her forehead. “This is a lot of work! Isn’t there an easier way to get it done? Automate it somehow?” She looked over at Gracie, who was smiling. “Buy it, maybe?”
“Buy it? Buy it? Why on earth would I want to buy someone else’s noodles?”
Gracie laughed. “Bad word in this house.”
Alex tried to explain. “Well, it’d be a lot easier and probably cheaper when you figured the time and effort you put into it.”
“But Alex, why would I do that? I’m making noodles because I enjoy it, that’s half the reason for doing it. If I found a cheaper, faster way to do it, like those confounded bread machines they have out today, what would be the sense? Where’s the feeling of accomplishment? Any imbecile can measure out flour and water, dump it in a machine and press a button. But it’s the knowing that makes the difference, knowing the right ingredients by sight and feel, handed down through the family, working it in your hands. Creating something, that’s what it is, Alex and you can’t buy that in a store or with a machine.”