I took a seat near the back. The Wall got the seat next to Patsy, and I spat mental spitballs at him for the rest of the trip.
Dad called that evening. I really needed his advice, but I wasn’t ready to make a full confession.
While I was ruling out conversational topics, he asked, “How’s your mom doing?” He meant to slip it in casually, just an ordinary family question. If it was so easy, I wished he’d just ask her. “I don’t mean to pry, Vinnie,” he said as the silence drew out. “I just wanted to hear her life is working out the way she wants it to.”
I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see that. “She goes to work. She comes home. She hangs around the house on her days off. That’s what she wanted, isn’t it?”
“Vinnie,” Dad said. I was making him uncomfortable, sounding so bugged. “It’s bad?”
“Mr. B isn’t bad. Mom isn’t bad, either. It’s just not the same as coming home to you.”
“Why haven’t you said something before?”
“I don’t know. It’s just getting to me lately.”
“Why don’t you talk it over with your mom? I’ll take a weekend off—”
“No, no. Easter vacation is only a couple of months away. I’ll come in then to stay the week.”
I didn’t want to say that Mom had some things to sort out with Mr. B. It seemed strange to think of this as a responsibility I had, to hang around the house, but it felt like one. Not only because I had to live with Mr. B, but because Mom had to. I didn’t want to be worried about her when I went off to college. I didn’t want to worry about Mr. B, either.
I didn’t want to say that to Dad. It left us with an odd silence that we didn’t quite know what to do with. But Dad came through. “Hey, I’ll come out tomorrow and we’ll go pick up a tank.”
We’d discovered a neat little aquarium shop at the mall. Forget “little.” This store saw more action than the shoe department at Bloomingdale’s. We had plans to buy a fifty-gallon tank and a setup. We’d had a great fish tank for years, most of my childhood. Up until I dropped a sun-dried sand dollar into the water, thinking it would look nice on the colored gravel.
The sand dollar introduced some kind of bacteria that killed the fish. It also ruined the pumps and filters, and we never could get the tank clean enough to support fish again. We finally gave up. But after a stroll through that store, I’d gotten all charged up about trying again.
Plus, it could fill in for a required science project.
“That would be great.” Not just the tank. Maybe I’d get up my nerve and tell him about Patsy. Maybe.
“Not too early,” Dad said. “I’ll be working late tonight. I’ll pick up the taxi again at noon. Say one-thirty or so? Stop at a diner for something to eat after the mall.”
“I’ll be outside,” I said, like it was just eagerness. Like I wasn’t always outside waiting when he came by to pick me up. That way he didn’t have to come inside, see Mom in her harvest-gold kitchen.
Patsy sat low in the bleachers with Biff, wearing her peacoat. I sat higher up, with Mom, where I had a good view. The game started off with ordinary plays, fuchsia pink versus purple, and the first couple of runs and pileups looked pretty serious.
The third play was interrupted by cancan music. The teams stopped running and started dancing. People in the stands—parents didn’t know what the girls were up to this year?—sat surprised for a moment, then began to shout and clap. Patsy hopped around in her seat, amazingly uncool.
A moment later, the senior who carried the ball broke from the lines, making her run for a touchdown. In an instant the game resumed.
The cancan paused the game a couple of times more. Then, during the downtime of the first penalty, boys broke out from behind the bleachers.
They were dressed as cheerleaders in short skirts and headgear that held little mop-like ponytails over their ears. The crowd roared as they executed a routine with surprising grace.
At halftime a small white poodle came scampering out onto the field, its sharp, high-pitched yapping carrying over the crowd.
A blonde came out next, a Monroe look-alike, okay, but also like Marilyn in the way she moved. She called in a barely heard but unhurried voice—unmistakably Marilyn’s.
Five minutes of slapstick followed as the male cheerleaders tried to help grab the runaway. Marilyn tried to entice the dog back to her by squeaking a rubber toy. The dog wouldn’t be captured.
Finally both ran off the field, Marilyn gimpily chasing the animal with one of her high heels held overhead. Belatedly, I looked down to catch Patsy’s reaction, and saw she wasn’t in place on the bleachers anymore.
Early in the fourth quarter, the juniors made a bold and successful move to take the ball. Parents stood up and cheered them on.
Right in the middle of the run, the poodle came back, Marilyn—Patsy!—coming along behind it. As the juniors’ ambitious play went on, Marilyn and the dog continued up the sidelines.
The dog veered onto the field, and Marilyn changed direction, running straight into the path of the oncoming teams. The dog escaped, but Patsy went down, with the players piling up on top of her.
It brought everyone in the stands to their feet. It brought me to mine. Was this even part of the plan?
The noise was incredible.
The dog ran up on top of the heaped players and down the other side, going to somebody on the bench with a dog whistle in her mouth. The players rolled away, picking themselves up. Marilyn also picked herself up. She smoothed her skirt, fluffed her hair, and strolled off the field. If it was theater, I could say she brought the house down. Even Mom was up on her feet, applauding and laughing until Patsy was out of sight.
The rest of the game was fast and furious, with seniors taking the last point they needed to win.
TWENTY-TWO
11:58. I wondered if there’d be a coy invitation to say something nice about Patsy’s performance at the game. If I still had a shot at convincing her I wasn’t a fellow student. I wondered if I wanted to.
11:59. Countdown. Lights out. I rolled onto my side and dialed.
12:00. Ringing.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Like I wouldn’t know,” she said. I heard a little tapping sound, like a tiny woodpecker hammering away. Fingernail on the receiver, I guessed. “You saw the name Patsy and you called, not knowing if I’m ten years younger than you or ten years older?”
“Age isn’t a relevant factor in an obscene phone call.” I wanted to add which I did not mean to make.
“Just your first name. So I have something to call you.”
“Pick any name you like.”
“You know my name,” she said in a wheedling tone.
She wasn’t going to mention the game? Or the part she played? I didn’t know why. Unless she was waiting to see if I’d bring it up. It was a little trap she’d laid for me. One that indicated she still wasn’t sure I was a fellow student.
Should I admit to being there? Or keep her wondering. It would never have occurred to me to give an obscene caller credit for being smart, but they had to think fast.
“Probably it’s not a very interesting name.”
“Italian,” I said.
“What?”
“My name is Italian.” I punched the mattress. What a stupid thing to say.
“Are you serious?” And then, “It just doesn’t fit the picture I have of you.”
“Which is?”
“Um …”
“You might as well say it.” I heard the irritation in my voice and I guess she did, too. She took a second to venture an answer.
“I thought maybe you’re ugly.”
“Ugly?”
“You could be. Why else would you call like this?”
I ignored that. “How does my name being Italian change things?”
“I guess … it’s romantic. Italian. You know.”
She was one crazy girl. I liked that. The sad truth was, I liked
her. I said, “I’ve seen some ugly Italians in my time.”
“Do you have any scars?”
“Scars?”
“If you aren’t ugly but you don’t want me to see you—”
“Cripes.” She had some imagination.
“No scars,” she concluded.
“No.”
“So you didn’t know it was me. The actual me, Patsy.”
I laughed. Was I admitting I knew who she was all along? Was that wise?
“I guess I can understand it, anyway.”
“How’s that?”
“Oh, you know. I mean, I guess I can understand what you’re feeling if you’re just … ordinary.”
She left me gasping. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might not make obscene phone calls out of total admiration? I mean, maybe I called you because you looked like you’d be receptive to—”
Click.
Sociologists have pointed out that attractive people get treated better than less-attractive ones. They get complimented more often. They get unsolicited favors. They get a distorted impression of their importance. It makes sense.
If you looked in a mirror and saw that you were beautiful, you’d be satisfied, wouldn’t you? You’d look more often, and each time you’d feel that same satisfaction. After a while, you wouldn’t have to look in the mirror to get that feeling going. You’d just have to think about it. Or not. Satisfaction with yourself is something that can get to be a habit.
Patsy found this phone-call business titillating not because I was attracted to her but because it was a different approach. The problem would soon be how to hold her interest.
TWENTY-THREE
On Saturday morning, Mom made pancakes from an “add water only” mix and some kind of quickie frozen sausage. She was making a show of it, wearing an actual apron.
Despite the cardboard pancakes, Mr. B was in excellent spirits. He’d found a nice review of the game in the local paper and he didn’t spare us any insider details he supposed we might have missed. It was nothing we hadn’t gone over more enthusiastically after getting home the night before.
As for me, I was somewhat preoccupied. I had as much as admitted to Patsy that I knew who she was. The actual her. I could deny it again, of course, but did it matter? The main thing was not to be found out.
I poured more syrup over the cardboard pancakes. Big bites with lots of syrup was the definitive technique here.
Maybe Mr. B read our not-so-high-spirited responses as a sign that he might sound like he was bragging, because he added something that was news to me. “That girl next door came up with the whole skit herself. I didn’t know half of what she had planned, just the other girls did. I never would have dared put her underneath a pileup.”
Mom took a bite of her own pancake and chewed vigorously. “I think we should go out on Saturday mornings. Make a tradition of it,” she said, taking up the horoscope page that Mr. B had set at her place.
“I have practice on Saturdays all through football season, don’t forget,” Mr. B said.
“You could take your thermos and a box of donuts out and watch practice from the bleachers, Mom.” I chewed thoughtfully, if not enthusiastically, on as much pancake as I could wad onto my fork. “Or you could take a cooking class on Saturdays.”
I avoided meeting their eyes during the brief silence that followed. “Vinnie?” Mom sounded like she was going to check my forehead for a fever.
“Just an idea,” I said.
Dad was already waiting when I got outside. I took the passenger side of the front seat and he flipped the flag on the meter to start it working.
I was surprised. “You’re paying for this trip?”
“Hey, it’s not that big a deal. I had two fares to work my way out here. This way, my boss has no complaints.”
“Before you drove a taxi, you hated for us to take one. You said they cost too much money.”
“I’ve had a change of heart.”
“Guess so.”
“Tell me about your week,” Dad said as we headed for the mall.
I told him I was feeling a certain amount of pressure to get involved in a team sport.
“Like soccer?” Dad asked. Neither one of us was crazy about soccer.
“More or less.”
“What are your options for ‘less’?”
“Basketball, maybe.”
“I understand the school has a swim team.”
Dad knows I don’t like the water, but that never quite translates for him. He doesn’t get it that it means I don’t like swimming. There’s a sensation in my chest from water pressure, a kind of weight settling over me. When I didn’t reply, he came up with “Track?”
Track. That would never have occurred to me. “Is that a team sport?”
“I think the term ‘track team’ will stand you in good stead here.”
We dropped the subject as we approached the mall. Traffic was heavy, but Dad was undaunted. He wove his way across the lanes with the aplomb of a man who won’t have to pay for the auto-repair fees he incurs.
“You’re quite a driver,” I said.
“It’s important to remember it’s a team sport,” Dad said as he slowed to let another driver into the stream of traffic. A few minutes later, he made a left turn into the mall parking lot.
I spotted Sissy behind the counter as we entered the aquarium store. I raised a hand. She nodded, accepted a charge card from a man in a suede shirt, and made herself busy, too busy to talk.
“Friend from school?”
“Not really. We have a couple classes together.”
Sissy looked up at me once or twice as she packed all the guy’s stuff into two cartons, smiling crookedly. Dad and I strolled around the shop.
Probably this was the perfect moment to open up a serious conversation about Patsy and the phone calls, but frankly, it wasn’t the perfect place. Not only because it was a public place, but because it was too interesting.
The store featured a major floor-to-ceiling saltwater tank that held huge specimens. There was a mezzanine lit only by the light from the tanks. Most of the upstairs wall space was given over to fifty-gallon saltwater tanks. Dad and I wandered around up there for an hour before we settled on making up a list of what I would need.
We made decisions about air pumps and filters, and an assortment of other details. Some old guy was drafting arm-length sales slips while a couple of college kids ran around, getting the stuff the other customers were buying. By then, I think Sissy had forgotten I was there.
Dad got into line, saying, “Go do some thinking about fish.”
We both already knew what fish and snails we’d buy to help keep the tank clean, and that I would start with a few angelfish as the main event. This was a generous offer to hang around in front of the tanks upstairs instead of waiting in line down below.
I also had an aerial view of Sissy, who was kept busy scraping out charge-card purchases on a little machine that was nailed to the counter. And of Patsy, as she came in. I moved a few feet to stand next to a murky hundred-gallon tank, the bottom of which was dense with natural seaweed.
I stood right above them. I was mostly hidden behind the seaweed, but I could hear the girls clearly. I could even see them, although a grouper passed back and forth at regular intervals, briefly blocking my view.
TWENTY-FOUR
“Patsy,” Sissy said. “Are you here to buy fish?”
“No,” Patsy said, looking embarrassed. “I came to see you. I feel awful about the other day—”
“It doesn’t matter. Really,” Sissy said, looking apologetic. “I know how things are now.” Then she turned away because Dad was handing over his card.
Patsy stood there for another thirty seconds or so, looking stricken, then left. I went downstairs to help Dad carry the equipment out without making eye contact with Sissy. I acted like I’d forgotten she was there.
Dad and I hit a diner for a three o’clock lunch, and then he drove me home. It w
as time for him to get back to work. So far as I could tell, he was happy when he was driving.
“Why didn’t you ever do this before, Dad?”
“Drive a taxi?” He looked over at me. “Or you mean, get a regular job?”
I felt stupid. “I don’t mean it like that, exactly. Just, this seems to suit you.”
“We weren’t short of money, Vinnie. And I thought your mother and I were all right. With everything. I liked being the one who stayed home. She liked that I was. Mostly.”
Neither one of us said anything for a minute. I wanted to apologize, but that might have made it worse. I said, “You ought to put up some posters around the apartment, you know? Brighten it up.”
“I’ll help you carry the tank to the back door, Vinnie,” Dad said, turning onto the block where I lived now.
“I’ve got it,” I told him.
He stopped the taxi in front of the house. He helped me with the load, setting it onto the driveway while I trucked stuff to the door. When the trunk was empty, I said, “I’ll donkey the rest of it.”
Patsy came out then, wearing that peacoat again. She appeared to be surprised to see us outside. She gave us an uncertain smile and took off down the sidewalk, walking away with a brisk step.
“Friend of yours?” Dad asked.
“We ride the same bus.” Impersonal, that’s how I tried to sound. I don’t know that I made it.
Dad clapped me on the arm. “Nice scenery you have in this neighborhood.” And he got into the taxi. When he was lucky, he picked up a fare for the trip back.
“Anthony!” she said, like she was greeting an old friend.
“Anthony?” It caught me by surprise. A point for her.
“No?”
“No,” I said, understanding. “And you mean Antonio.”
“Maybe you’re the wrong guy. You want to say something obscene?”
“I told you. That was a mistake.”
“What does your dad do?”
Safe territory. “He’s an actor.”
Not Exactly a Love Story Page 6