Not Exactly a Love Story

by Couloumbis, Audrey

  But the wind snatched away our stored-up heat before we’d gone a hundred feet. We were crossing the street when a vision appeared. “Look,” I cried as my arm shot up into the air. “Taxi!”

  It swerved in our direction. I grabbed Patsy around the shoulders and ran. “Will you take us home?” I yelled, bent over to send my voice through the partially open window.

  “You on your way to the city, Bud?”

  “No. We’re on your way, though. You don’t have to start the meter.”

  “How far?”

  “Couple of miles.”

  “Five bucks.”

  “Done.” Patsy and I fell into the backseat, shivering. At least it was a heated cab. I’d had to let go of her to get into the taxi, but I planned to recapture the territory.

  However, she was leaning eagerly over the front seat. “Is your name Italian? Aldo, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” he said, his tone guarded and ready to take offense.

  “Oh, great, do you know any others?”

  “Other what?” he said, like he didn’t believe his ears.

  “Italian names are so sexy, my friends and I have decided to give our children Italian names.” Pretty sly, that Patsy. “Mainly the boys. We’re making a list.”

  He laughed, relaxing then. She was playing the giddy teenager, and he was buying it. “Let’s see, there’s Mario and Bartolo—”

  “How about from the end of the alphabet?” she asked, rooting through her purse for a pen.

  “Where we going, Bud?”

  “Straight ahead six blocks and a right turn.”

  “Right. Umberto and Ugo and Tino and …” I settled into the corner, with one arm stretched behind Patsy in case she should sit back. Then I just watched her getting wound up over the names she’d never thought of. It was fun to see her excited—childish, even, all sophistication washed away. The way she sometimes sounded late at night.

  The funny thing, when she sat back she hardly said a word. She didn’t act like she was angry or anything, she seemed cheerful enough, writing down some names on a scrap of paper. And the ride was over only a minute later, I could have been misreading her. The best way to say how she was, she’d hung up.

  She was fine as we got out of the taxi, and, as I said, I could have misread her. But I went all hot and cold, I lost the feeling for being cool.

  I didn’t kiss her good night. I’d expected to right up until I saw she expected it too. I tried to play it that Vinnie Gold was a contrary bastard. “I had a nice time.”

  “Me too. Thanks, Vinnie.”

  She didn’t look disappointed about the kiss.

  FORTY-TWO

  I turned out the light. It was my way of reminding myself who was making this call. I liked being Vincenzo. I am Vincenzo, of course, but I felt like I was dressed up as a more confident form of myself in the dark. I could say anything. Be almost fearless. Almost.

  I couldn’t help the cold little zing that whizzed through my spine when I remembered how Vinnie’s evening ended. Something had gone wrong, and I didn’t know what it was. If I was ever going to turn this relationship into something more meaningful than a few phone calls, I was going to have to figure out how to do it. Soon.

  “Hello, Quirino.” Soft and blurry.

  “Asleep?” I asked.

  “Dozing.”

  “Dreaming?”

  She giggled.

  I asked, “Dreaming of me?” She sounded sweet as hell. She sounded better.

  “If I dreamed of you, Questione, you’d be wearing a handkerchief. And you’d be taking me to the dance.”

  “I should have been expecting this, right?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she told me. “That I don’t see you as a person separate from these calls. In a way, you’re right.”

  “The dance would change that?”

  “I have a picture of you in my head, Quibble. You’re perfect. Handsome, sensitive, sweet. Also sarcastic, smart-mouthed, challenging.” A pause for effect. “If you don’t tell me who you are soon, I’m not going to be able to reconcile reality with my ideal. You’ll be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  “What we’re talking about here are degrees of disappointment.” I wanted to sound remote. Like this was a problem that didn’t involve me personally. I don’t think I made it.

  “We’re both going to want more.” She sounded so cold. Really icy. “You because you’ll think I know you as you are. But you can’t possibly live up to the picture I’m creating.”

  “I told you before. I’m not somebody you’d date.” I waited, but she didn’t respond. “You’re just beginning to realize it yourself.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Sure you did. You said I couldn’t live up to your imaginings,” I said, treading water now and feeling some sand between my toes. “I knew that all along.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said.

  “Ask your father,” I said. “People are usually telling you the truth while they’re saying something they didn’t mean.”

  “Leave my father out of this.”

  “You said you weren’t going to go anywhere with Biff again. That was a lie.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “I saw you come to school in his car after you said that.”

  “You don’t understand. He’d have made a big scene.”

  “Did he ask you to the dance?”

  “I told you, he isn’t taking me. But I agreed to dance with him.”

  “He’s sure to get the message if you keep saying yes.”

  Click.

  I sighed, and dialed again.

  She said, “Okay, maybe you’re right. But I’ll want to date someone sooner or later. I can’t sit in the house on Saturday nights, Rocco.”

  I had the feeling I was being manipulated, and I hated it. Besides which, I had no intention of letting go of the bone when I had it so firmly in my teeth.

  “Every time you get into his car, he’s promising you he’s trustworthy and you’re promising him that you trust him. Soon you’ll think you can’t say no without hurting him deeply,” I said. “Maybe that’s true already. Meanwhile, he’s telling everyone you’re hot for him—”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Because he’s a football hero.”

  “No, Roberto, because other girls are hot for him and they won’t believe I’m not. Anyway, before long he’ll get interested in one of them and stop bothering me.”

  My anger dribbled away so fast, I had to catch it in a cup to have enough left to say, “Why do you need a boyfriend so badly, Patsy?”

  “Unless you’re interested in the position, don’t go starting with the penny psychology.”

  “I just think you could make a better choice than an obscene caller, you know?”

  “I don’t think of you that way anymore,” she wailed, frustrated.

  “Maybe I should say something dirty.”

  “You can be so nice when you want to be, Rodolfo.”

  “Rodolfo? Where are you getting these?” As if I didn’t know.

  She said, “Listen, I’m asking you to go to the dance with me.”

  “What I said, some choice.”

  “I swear, I won’t tell anyone about these calls.”

  “Me either.”

  “You still don’t trust me,” she said. “You don’t trust. That’s why you don’t believe Biff could regret—”

  I was laughing. “Did you hear yourself?”

  “I don’t have to like him to know there’s a person in there. Maybe he’s a person in pain. Did you ever—”

  “You’re calling him Biff, too. Ha-ha!”

  Click.

  I felt like an idiot. Vincenzo was an idiot. But what choice did I have?

  I was afraid I’d do something to tip her off if I ever stepped out of the tight box that I’d built for Vinnie Gold. I’d messed up tonight, and I still didn’t know what I’d done wrong. That’s what I had to figu
re out.

  As for Vincenzo, he had to remain closeted.

  FORTY-THREE

  I left early the next morning. No school, so no need for the backpack. In fact, no one would have said a word to me if I’d stayed in bed. Strangely enough, I felt like getting up to run. I was eager to see what it was like to do it without the weight of books banging against my back.

  The air was frigid when I went outside, the wind was brisk enough to make my eyes water, and there was no sun. Turned out it suited me. Last year I’d’ve been wrapped up like a snowman in this kind of weather. Here I was now, in only a sweat jacket, running down the street like a jock. It felt good.

  I ran a few extra blocks in one direction, happy to be running and no one watching to see how I was doing. Then I heard a car several yards behind me. It stayed behind me.

  When I turned to get a look at it, Mr. B was behind the wheel. When he knew I’d seen him, he pulled up alongside me.

  “Good boy. You’re already up to a qualifying time.”

  I kept running and, taking the crest of a gently uphill slope, I raised a triumphant fist in the air. Mr. B got a charge out of that and returned the gesture as he drove on.

  To tell you the truth, I got quite a charge out of it myself. I’d pared nearly two minutes off the previous morning’s run. I felt great. What was racing speed, anyway? I’d ask Mr. B.

  I spent the rest of the morning looking for another old essay and found one about learning to swim when you’re afraid of the water. I don’t know whether it was the early run or what, but I fell asleep as I lay on the bed, my pen scratching over the notebook paper.

  When I woke up, it was already getting dark. I looked around for something to eat, but Mom’s cupboards were bare. No hidden brownies, no dry cereal to munch, no leftovers of any kind. But she’d probably do some shopping on the way home, I’d survive.

  I checked the reading on the water in the aquarium and found it good. Dad wanted me to have it stabilized before we put any fish in there, but I wasn’t sure how long he thought we’d have to wait. I called to ask, but no one was home at the other end.

  I was in my room, rewriting the essay, when I heard Mom and Mr. B downstairs. Yelling. I opened the door to my room and listened from there. It wasn’t necessary to go any farther. They were working their way in my direction.

  “I can’t believe you want to get into this now,” Mom was saying.

  “Get into what? I’m hungry, and I want to eat.”

  “I didn’t do any shopping today. I didn’t have time,” Mom said. “We can go to that little restaurant on the boulevard.”

  “It’s a diner,” Mr. B said. “I don’t like eating in diners.”

  “If you don’t want to go out, we’ll just order in.”

  “The boy has to be able to come home from school and find something besides eggs or tuna fish. There never seems to be anything else to eat. When he gets here, he has homework he needs to take care of, and he ought to be able to count on someone else having done the cooking.”

  I could get behind that.

  My stomach growled.

  “You’re getting into dangerous territory there, Dom,” Mom said, slipping into her feminist mode. Actually, I tended to agree with her—despite having taken a stand earlier—that I could do some of the cooking. So could Mr. B, and with my compliments, but I also agreed that Mom had to hold up her end.

  “From now on,” he said, “we go shopping together on the weekend, and we make sure we buy enough to get through a week and then some.”

  I headed downstairs to make sure they knew I was home. Just seeing me would probably calm things down. I went into the kitchen with a carefully bland expression in place. Just looking for snacks, that was my mission. It did create a lull in the, uh, conversation. Mom looked embarrassed, Mr. B still looked determined. Probably the man was just hungry.

  “I’m not ordering in,” Mr. B said. “I’ll eat whatever’s in the house tonight, but I’m not going out or ordering in.”

  Mom stood there and stared at Mr. B. I knew what was on her mind. She wanted him to say, “All right, let’s go out, both of us being tired and hungry, and we’ll work this out when we’re feeling more relaxed.” She wanted him to say, “I know this is working out differently than you thought it would, and I don’t want you to be unhappy.” Mom expected him to say that because it’s the kind of thing Dad would have said.

  12:00. Patsy picked up with, “Still mad at me?”

  “I was mad?”

  “You think I can’t tell when you’re mad?”

  “Are you sure about who was mad last? I’ve lost track.”

  “Let’s just have a serious conversation, okay?”

  “We’ve had those.”

  “Don’t try to sound like this has nothing to do with you. I tell you things I don’t tell anyone else.”

  I knew right then where this was going. “You know my secrets too.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “No, and knowing who I am won’t make it the same, either. It will just be different, and maybe not in such a good way.”

  Silence.

  Finally she said, “I know it’s hard to talk about feelings. Face to face, I mean. Especially for you, right?”

  All right, I’ll bite. “Why for me?”

  “Isn’t that the point of these calls?”

  I didn’t like her tone. And why was I the one with problems, anyway? I wasn’t making a confidante of an obscene caller. “You mean we can talk because we’re speaking anonymously?”

  “You’re speaking anonymously, Salvatore,” she said. “You know who I am.”

  “Suppose you know me,” I said. “Suppose I drop a card into your locker tomorrow. And then you find out who I am, who I really am. And you’re sadly disappointed. How do you think we’re both going to feel about that?”

  “Suppose I find out who you are and I’m not disappointed in you. What then?”

  “Not possible. Sometimes you’re disappointed in me now.”

  “Okay, it’s a point.” I heard that little tapping thing going on. When she spoke again, it was with a fair amount of excitement in her voice. “You know, you’ve got something. But it’s not that you’re afraid you’re— It’s that you think you look good to me now, the you that I see every day at school—and that I’ll know this dark and secret thing about you once I do know who you are. That’s it. That’s how you’re afraid you’ll be a disappointment.”

  Actually I didn’t think that was it. Vinnie Gold already knew that wasn’t it. I was willing to talk about it, though. “Okay, so let’s say I’m out there, looking perfect to you. What then?”

  “No one looks perfect to me, Sergio. Even perfect people have gaping holes in their underwear. The minute you get close to them, you get a glimpse of the underwear.” She sighed, and added, “That would be just about everybody I know.”

  “All right,” I said, a little breathlessly. “Hypothetically. You have this guy with holey underwear.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What kind of guy is he?”

  “Someone who won’t say, I asked this girl out. Where does she get nerve to be sad or crabby, or maybe interested in anything besides me.”

  “What are you going to do for this hypothetical guy?”

  “I … I guess I can accept him, just take him the way he is. It’s what I’m asking for, isn’t it?”

  “Suppose you’ve already had that chance? Suppose you looked me over and found me wanting?”

  “I’d say you never let me get to know you, not the way I know you now,” she said. “Guys—no, not just guys,” she corrected herself. “We all try to look just a little bit better than our real self. You only let me see you as you really are because we’re on the phone, because I can’t match your false face to your true identity.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Wrong, how?”

  “Suppose this is my false face. What if I’m just talking a good game now, while
you can’t see me for who I really am—that loser who passes you in the hallway at school. Maybe being an obscene caller is the best I can aspire to.”

  “I guess you could have a mask for these talks,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that, but I can handle it.”

  “Handle what?”

  “That maybe it’s not just that you’re somebody I’ve always overlooked. Maybe you’re somebody I wanted to overlook.”

  “So you can accept anything? Absolutely anything?”

  “I think so,” she said confidently. “I know the worst.”

  “What’s the worst?”

  “You make obscene phone calls.” There was just the hint of a doubt in her voice now.

  “There’s something wrong here,” I said. “You’re assuming that because you know that, the rest of me can only be better.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “I could be a cripple.”

  “I don’t know anyone who’s crippled, Sebastiano,” she said, abandoning the philosophical approach.

  “I could be excruciatingly poor, wearing hand-me-down jeans and never getting a decent haircut.”

  She made a sound under her breath, but she replied, “I don’t know anyone like that, either.”

  “No one?”

  “No.” Trace of impatience.

  “I think I might be disappointed in you.”

  She hung up.

  Okay, so I was still mad.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Taking my time, I ran four slow laps as Mr. B put the football team through a torturous session on some new equipment. Basically, the equipment looked like a section of a brick wall, and they rammed into it, leading with a shoulder. They looked surprisingly enthusiastic about the whole thing.

  Thursday’s day off stretched Biff’s suspension through Friday. He watched the team take their punishment from a place high on the bleachers, clearly suffering from deprivation. I broke to do some stretching, silently congratulating myself for looking like a runner. For being one.

  Biff stomped his way off the bleachers. He made the whole structure shake, and made a fair amount of noise too. I got the feeling he was admiring his style, much the way I’d been admiring mine.