“I have twenty-three.”
He smiled. “I have twenty-three, too.”
“You tease my English?”
“No way. It’s much better than my Italian.”
My father wasn’t going to like that he was only twenty-three. But he seemed more mature than that. If this ever went anywhere, my father would see that and it would be all right.
Brandon reached over and gently took hold of my gold necklace. “I like this,” he said. “Where did you get it?”
“In Napoli.”
“It’s nice.”
“You like?”
“Yes, I like. I’m going to go to Naples and get one for myself.”
“Good for you.”
“How am I going to find the place?” he said. “I guess you’ll have to take me there, show me where it is.”
I smiled and held in my laughter. That was such an obvious line. Americans were so different from Italian men. An Italian man would have had his hands all over me. The Americans played it coy. I didn’t mind though. It meant Brandon was interested in me. That still surprised me, but it made me feel happy.
“I take you,” I said.
“So then you’ll have to give me your phone number so I can call you.”
This time I laughed out loud.
. . . . .
We went to Naples a few days later. After that we went to the swimming pool at Corney Park together. Some friends of mine were there and I introduced him to them. Everyone liked him right away. He started holding my hand. He had a white Alpha Romeo sports car, and when he picked me up in it and we drove to Naples, I felt like everyone was looking at us, envying me.
We loved to walk near the sea together. Brandon always held my hand and told me stories about America. I only understood a little of what he was saying, but what I did understand fascinated me. I always dreamed of visiting other places in the world. Talking with Brandon was almost like going away from Naples for a brief moment.
Communicating was always difficult, but we tried and laughed and seemed to do okay. That first day he took me for a Margherita pizza and gelato. Afterward, anything I wanted he would say buy it. He’d say, don’t worry about it, he’d take care of it. He paid for everything, a big change from Nino, who was always short of money. And he was always polite and attentive. With him, I knew I was well-taken-care-of and protected.
And respected. Days passed and he didn’t even try to kiss me. Then two weeks. Then three… I felt closer to him. I experienced a strange connection to his body even though we had done nothing more intimate than holding hands and hugging. But there was a special connection. He was the kind of man I had always dreamed about, nothing at all like Nino, or my father, or anyone else I knew in Italy.
Wanting to get closer, I tried to learn English. He struggled to memorize more words in Italian. We were together most nights. We drove to Naples a lot, too. It was exciting being in the city with him. Sometimes we went dancing. He usually took me to dinner. Other times we just walked together, barely speaking. My life, which had been sad for so long, had changed abruptly when I met Brandon. Sometimes I wasn’t sure it was really happening. I was also afraid that it would not last.
One night when we were driving back from Naples in my mother’s Fiat because Brandon’s car wasn’t working, a car on the opposite side of the road flashed its headlights at us as we approached. It was well past midnight on a road that usually wasn’t busy at this hour.
“What that is?” I said.
Brandon slowed down. “You think someone is in trouble?” he said. “Maybe they need help.”
We drew closer, moving slowly now. Just as Brandon brought the car to a stop and began to roll down the window, I recognized whose car it was. It was too late to stop him. I shivered in the chilly air that came through the window, fearing what was going to happen between them.
“Is everything okay?” Brandon said out the window.
I moved so I could see past Brandon and into the car stopped alongside us. Both cars were blocking the road, but no one else came from either direction.
“Come stai, Luisa?” Nino said. He looked between me and Brandon. I could tell from his eyes that he was up to no good.
Brandon looked at me. “You know him?”
Before I could answer, Nino gestured toward Brandon and said to me, “Il tuo nuovo salsiccia?”
I couldn’t believe he was calling Brandon that. He wouldn’t be so brave if he thought Brandon understood him. I didn’t know what Brandon would do if he did know that Nino had called him a sausage, a slang for boyfriend, so instead of telling him I sneered at Nino and said, “Stai zitto!” hoping he would shut up.
Nino just laughed.
I looked at Brandon. “We go, si?”
“Of course, Luisa. Just one second.”
Brandon turned and glared at Nino. I could see his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were fierce and never veered from Nino. His jaw showed that he had clenched his teeth. He held his lips tightly, as if a firestorm of words was about to leap out at Nino and it was taking all his strength to hold back. He exuded strength. Nino tried to stare back, but he only lasted for a moment. Then his eyes lowered and he turned his head.
“Ciao,” Brandon said, and I’d never before heard that word uttered as a threat, but this time I saw how that single word from Brandon filled Nino with fear. Nino rolled up his window and drove away.
Brandon turned back to me. “Don’t worry about him,” he said. “You’re with me now.”
In that moment I knew for sure that my feelings for him were real, that he was the right man for me, that with him I would always be protected and taken care of.
. . . . .
I arrived home late and found Angela in the kitchen, eating grapes. I sat with her and had a few grapes, too.
“I was waiting for you,” she said.
I laughed. “Before I was the one waiting up for you, worried about you. That’s a change.”
“I’m not worried. I know you’re okay with your Marine. I waited because I want to find out if, you know...”
“No, I don’t know.” But I did know.
She leaned closer to me, giggled and whispered, “Did he kiss you tonight?”
“That’s none of your business.”
She frowned. “That means no.”
“It’s too early. I need to know him better.”
“My God, how much better do you need to know him? I practically know him well enough to kiss him myself.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“You should start thinking about it. You’re not getting any younger, Luisa.”
“We’re taking it slowly,” I said. “Besides, he’s not an Italian. Americans aren’t like that. It’ll happen when it happens.”
Angela rolled her eyes. “I hope by then you won’t be too old to kiss, or even too old to…”
“Angela!”
She giggled.
My father came down the hall and poked his head into the kitchen. “What’s all the noise?”
“Nothing, Papa. Go back to bed,” Angela said.
My father looked straight at me. “You went out with that Marine again tonight?” His expression was hard, a strange anger underneath. I didn’t understand why.
“He’s a good man,” I said.
“He’s American.”
Angela said, “That’s not his fault.”
“Twenty million Italian men and you pick an American.”
Before I could answer, Angela said, “Papa, you don’t h
ave anything to worry about.” She got up and walked to the doorway where he was standing. “They haven’t even kissed yet,” she said. “That’s the problem with Americans.” Angela kissed him on the cheek and headed up the hallway to her bedroom. “…‘Night.”
My father stood in the doorway, staring at me. I felt like I had to say something.
“He’s a good man, Papa.”
“You tell him you can’t see him anymore.”
“What? I’m not going to do that.”
“You think you’re going to marry him?”
“We’re just friends,” I said. “Nothing is happening.”
“He’s not for you, Luisa.”
“I’m going to follow my heart, see what happens.”
He came closer to the table and glared down at me. “I’ll tell you what happens. You know he’s a Marine, and when the time comes, they tell him he’s done here, he’s going to leave you. And then what are you going to do?”
“He’s a nice guy.”
He dismissed that thought with the flick of his hand. “That doesn’t matter. The Marines tell him to go, he goes. And you, you follow your heart, you’ll have a broken heart.”
“I’m careful.”
“Don’t you understand?” He blew out a breath of exasperation. Struggling to control himself, he sat down next to me and said, “Listen to me. I only want what’s best for you, and he’s not what’s best for you. I’m older than you. I know more, Luisa. You listen to me. I’m right.”
I took his hand and said, “Papa, I’m not a little girl. I know what I’m doing.”
He looked at me one more time, shook his head then went back to bed.
. . . . .
A few weeks later, as we were driving back from a date in Naples, Brandon glanced at me in the darkness of the car and said, “I have something to tell you, Luisa.”
His expression was so serious, I was afraid of what he was going to say. My father’s words surfaced in my head. Brandon was leaving.
“What is it?” I asked. All this time with Brandon, practicing my English and studying the dictionary, I had learned a lot and we were able to communicate much better. I couldn’t believe I had learned English this well, only to be told that he was leaving me.
He hesitated and then pulled the car over to the side of the road. When he turned off the engine, I found us in uncomfortable silence. A single car sped past. Then silence returned. Darkness surrounded us. I feared what was about to come.
He reached over and took my hands. “I want you to know that I love you,” he said. “And the reason I didn’t tell you this before, what I’m about to tell you, is because I didn’t want to take the chance that you wouldn’t see me again.”
“Tell me what?” I asked.
“The minute I saw you and our eyes met, I knew you were for me.”
I didn’t understand. This isn’t what you say when you are about to leave someone.
“What’s wrong, Brandon?”
He hesitated again.
“Brandon,” I started to say.
Then he blurted it out. “I’m not twenty-three years old, like I told you, and it’s bothering me that I told you that, but I didn’t want you to decide not to go out with me before you even got to know me.”
I knew he was mature, but exactly how old was he. He had a young face. He couldn’t be that much older than me. “How old are you?” I asked.
He hesitated, took a breath and said, “I am turning twenty.”
I waited for the rest—twenty-what?—but he stopped. It took me a moment to understand what he was saying. He was four years younger than I was. I looked at him in shock. What had I done? How could I be with a man so much younger than I was? Husbands had to be older. My mother told me. My father told…Oh, no, my father was going to kill me. And kill Brandon.
“What I going to tell papa?” I said.
“Luisa, it’s not a big deal. It’s not such a big difference in age. And a lot of times the man is a little younger. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“For you, no, because you are not Italian.”
“No, that’s because it’s a fact.”
“How you can lie to me, Brandon? I no understand.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You lie to me.”
“It was wrong to lie, but I did it because I love you and I was afraid I’d lose you.”
“Still you lie. How you can do this?”
“It was wrong, I know, but I’m sorry.”
“Twenty,” I said. “My God, you so young.”
“Luisa, age doesn’t matter. What I feel for you, that’s all that matters.”
“No, the age, it matters.” He was too young for me. A husband couldn’t be younger than his wife.
“Do you love me, Luisa?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t get it out of my head that he was so young, Angela’s age, just a boy.
“Luisa,” he said, squeezing my hands. “Look at me. Do you love me?”
I stared into his eyes and told him what was in my heart. “Yes, I love you.”
“And I love you and that’s all that matters.”
“What I’m going to tell my father?”
“I’ll tell your father.”
“No,” I said. That would never work. My father didn’t need to know that right now. I would figure out that part. But something else bothered me. What else had Brandon lied about? I did not want to tie my life to someone who did not tell me the truth. I’d already had that, with Nino. Having broken that off, I was not going to repeat the same mistake.
“What more lies did you told me?” I asked.
“Nothing, honest.”
“Tell me now, Brandon. I don’t want no more surprise, like this.”
“I swear, there’s nothing else. And there never will be.”
“I not going to with you, you lie to me,” I said. “Is one thing I can no have.”
“I swear to God that I’ll never lie to you again. I swear it. I swear to God, to the Marine Corp, on my mother. I’ll never lie to you again, Luisa. You mean everything to me. All I want is to be with you because I love you.”
I stared into his eyes, and my heart told me to believe him.
CHAPTER 5
When I finally brought Brandon home to meet my father, I was not surprised that my father didn’t like him. He was not rude to him, just cold. Afterward, my father again told me to forget about him, that he was going to leave me. That was the nature of American Marines.
“You think he’s going to stay and make his life here? They all go home. This one is no different. And how will that leave you?”
I told my father not to worry, that I knew what I was doing. I didn’t ask him, but I wondered if he cautioned me not so much out of concern for my having a broken heart, but more because he feared that more and more of my time would go toward Brandon and my own happiness, and less toward him and his happiness. He had already lost my mom. To him, Brandon meant another loss.
Brandon and I continued to see each other. After several weeks he invited me to go with him to Rome for a weekend.
“You told me that your mother used to take you to the Vatican every year,” he said. “You haven’t been there since she passed away so I’m going to take you this year myself. It’s been long enough.”
“You do that for me?” I asked.
Going there had always meant so much. My mother had had a strong faith and she had wanted to instill it in us as well. The yearly trips to the Vatican to see
the Pope and receive his blessing, to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, to refill the soul had always been special. When she had died, that ended, and I more than my brothers and sister truly missed it.
“You have to say yes,” Brandon said.
. . . . .
My father was upset when I told him I was going with Brandon to Rome, but I wasn’t surprised. He saw that we were becoming increasingly serious and I saw that it worried him. But I had to live my life, just as my father had lived and still was living his. I didn’t want to hurt him, and I reminded myself that any hurt he felt was imaginary. I wasn’t supposed to take the place of my mother for him. And he wasn’t losing his daughter. His daughter was growing up and finding her own path, the way everyone is supposed to.
We took the train to Rome on Saturday morning, left our bags at the hotel he’d found just a few blocks from Vatican City, and then went straight to St. Peter’s Square. Tourists wandered about snapping photos and reading guidebooks aloud in more languages than I could identify. We passed a group of women who looked Eastern European, dressed in black and praying the rosary. As I stood in the shadow of the Basilica, my head filled with memories of my mother. I felt both happy and sad at the same time. I wiped the tear that snuck from my eye. I didn’t want to cry.
Brandon put his arm around me, a comforting hug that instantly made me feel safe.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Your mom’s probably watching and is happy that you’re here.”
“I know she is.” I could feel her presence. I’d always had a strange awareness of things like that, a sense of things unseen, premonitions. It was not something I ever talked about. But it did guide me at times in my life.
This was one of those times that I felt this awareness, and it felt right, being here, being with Brandon.
We went into the Sistine Chapel, and I prayed for my mom and for the rest of my family. Brandon, who wasn’t even Catholic, knelt down beside me and seemed to be praying. Afterwards we waited in line to see La Pieta, Michelangelo’s marble statue of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus after he’d died. It was stunning to look at, even with people crowded all around us.
Until Forever Page 4