I felt myself blush. His compliments always made me feel self-conscious. In Italy men are always complimenting women, didn’t matter if they knew you or not, if they or you were married or not. That didn’t affect me at all. I was used to it. But when it came from someone whose words meant something to me, then it was very different. From Brandon it meant something.
“Don’t be shy,” he said, as he took me by the hand. “You look too good to be shy.”
But I was so nervous I was shaking as he took me to his car.
“What’s the matter, my love?” he asked.
“I’m worried.”
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
“There is lot to be worry. All those fancy people there. Your commander. The officers. Everyone. This is a important thing. My English is not so good. I’m worried I’m going to…”
“What? First of all, your English is great. You speak better English than half the guys in the platoon. There a couple privates from Alabama, sound like their speaking another language altogether. And Sergeant Connelly, he mumbles so much no one understands him most of the time. Believe me, you won’t have any problem at all with language.”
I laughed, but I knew my English wasn’t as good as most of the people there, nowhere near as good as the American girlfriends and wives. They were going to look at me as inferior. Honestly, I didn’t care what they thought of me. They weren’t my friends. I didn’t have to spend time with them beyond tonight. But Brandon saw them all the time, and I didn’t want them to think less of him because he was with me.
He must have seen the uneasiness in my face, even though I was trying to smile, because he held me tightly and said, “You’re with me, Luisa. You’re going to be fine. I’ll make sure of that.”
He was the first and only man that, when he said those words, I truly knew he would.
. . . . .
When we arrived at the celebration, it was like something out of a movie. All the Marines in their dress uniforms. Beautiful women in their best dresses. A live band. The best food. Brandon treated me like I was special, not little Luisa La Rotonda from Giugliano, Italy, but instead like someone who belonged at fancy events like this, by his side. He held my chair and made sure I had something to drink, made sure they bought me everything I wanted to eat, focused his attention completely on me.
Three other couples sat at the same table with us. I was the only Italian. I felt the other women looking at me strangely. No none said anything bad to me, but something about the way they looked at me, the way they avoided talking to me, made it clear that they saw me differently. Maybe as less than they were. Or maybe as a threat. I couldn’t tell. But there was definitely a barrier between us.
It became most clear when a Marine came over and said he needed all of the men because they Marines were going to take group picture together. Brandon excused himself and left with the others, telling me that it would be okay, it would only be a second, he’d be right back.
I took a sip of wine to fortify myself to be alone and smiled at the women surrounding me.
Two of them smiled back. One said something to the woman beside her too soft and rapid for me to figure out the English. The one she spoke to giggled. I wondered if they were talking about me.
“So, Lisa,” the third woman said. “We don’t know much about you. What do you do?”
“Is Luisa,” I said.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“After my mother she die, I take care the house.”
“Oh.” She nodded and avoided looking at me. “That’s…nice.”
“Do you go to school or something, Lisa?” the one who had giggled asked.
I shook my head no.
“That’s okay.” Her tone was condescending, something we weren’t used to in Italy. Italians will talk about you or criticize you if they don’t like you, but they do it directly, and they’ll have a reason for it. “Maybe some day, right?” she said.
The way they were talking to me, looking at me, I felt so uncomfortable I wanted to leave. I felt tears pooling behind my eyes and my throat began to swell, ready to cry, but I didn’t want them to see this. And I didn’t want to let Brandon down. I fought to hold it in. I didn’t speak, knowing that if I opened my mouth I’d either tell them what I thought of them or I’d start crying.
The one who had whispered to the other woman earlier now looked at me and said, “We were wondering who the woman was that took Brandon off the market. He had a lot of girls after him, you know.”
“I know,” I said, though I really hadn’t known, nor did I care. I just wanted them to see me being strong and confident.
“Well,” the giggler said, her eyes sweeping over me as through she were looking at item in the store she was about to reject. “You’re not what I imagined, Lisa.”
“My name is Luisa,” I said, glaring at the three of them. I was not going to let myself cry. Not in front of them. “You may no remember my name,” I said, blurting out the only thing I could think to say. “But I guarantee you, you men do.”
Three mouths fell open. Three pairs of eyes stared at me. Not a word came out of any of them. I had no interest in their husbands or boyfriends or whatever they were, but I just wanted to get back at them for being so rude. And it worked.
Just then Brandon hurried over. “Luisa, come with me,” he said. ”I want to get a picture with you.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m very sure. You’re so beautiful. I want to remember forever how beautiful you look tonight.”
The three women stared in silence. I could tell that Brandon’s praise of me devastated them. They were so jealous, they hated me. I loved it.
And I realized how much I loved Brandon. He didn’t care what anyone else thought about me, how anyone else saw me, whether anyone else was even in the room with me and him. He saw me for who I was and he loved who I was. I had so much fear of relationships, of men leaving, of letting someone in only to lose them, of loving someone and being loved back less. But my heart was telling me that Brandon was the man. I needed to follow my heart.
CHAPTER 7
In April, on my twenty-fourth birthday, Brandon came over with roses and a Caravel Ice Cream cake. We have some of the best pastries in Italy. The cakes that local bakeries make for birthdays are incredible, but in twenty-four years I had never had a cake made out of ice cream. It was the coolest thing.
He also gave me a gold Gucci watch that was so elegant and beautiful I couldn’t believe it was really for me. I’d never had anything like it before in my life. He put it on me and told me that I was more valuable and special than even the finest jewelry. It was my best birthday ever.
“You are the most important person in my life,” I told him when we were alone. “I love you with all my heart.”
“And I love you, Luisa.”
Three weeks later, Brandon came over to the apartment to see me. I thought it was just a regular visit, but before I knew what was happening, he got down on one knee. It suddenly struck me what he was doing.
I gasped. “Oh, my God.”
He looked up at me and smiled. His eyes saw straight into my heart.
“I don’t have a ring yet,” he said.
His words touched me, but at the same time they filled me with such fear, I thought I was going to fall apart. I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.
“But I promise you I’m going to get you the best ring,” he said. “I just can’t wait for that. I need to do this.”
“Oh, Brandon,” I said, the only words I was able to get out.
“You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, Luisa. Ever since I m
et you, I’ve been the happiest man on earth. I don’t want to spend a day without you. I love you so much. I want you to marry me.”
His eyes were so sincere, his words so wonderful to hear. It was like a scene from an American movie. I couldn’t believe it was really happening to me.
“Please stand up,” I said. “I no want you on your knees for me.”
But he remained there. He grasped my hands and again said, “Luisa, marry me.”
I knew what I had to say. It wasn’t easy.
“Brandon, I love you. But I can no marry you.”
“What do you mean you can’t? Are you saying you don’t want to?”
“Is no it.” All my adult life, all I wanted was to marry a man who would love me unconditionally, give me security and not cheat on me. If anyone was that man, it was Brandon.
“Don’t you understand,” I said. “I can no leave my family? They need me.”
“I need you.”
I smiled. “No you don’t.”
“Yes I do. Not to cook dinner and clean and wash my clothes, no. I need you more deeply than that. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“But I…”
He held up his hand and stopped me. “Luisa, they’re shipping me back to California.”
His words were like blows to my stomach. I struggled to breathe. I couldn’t believe it. My father’s warning was coming true. He was going to leave.
“Come with me,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because is true. My family needs me to take care of them.”
“No they don’t. You have to make your own life, Luisa. They all are. You can’t live the rest of your life for them. You’ve done it long enough.”
In my head I reasoned that he was probably right, but in my heart it felt selfish, like a betrayal to my mother, like I was abandoning the family.
“Come at least to see what it’s like there,” he said. “Meet my family. Then you decide.”
“I don’t know…”
I had always wanted to leave Naples, leave Italy. There was a big world out there and I was desperate to experience it. But I had promised my mother. Besides, it was one thing to dream of leaving. Another thing to actually pick up and go.
“Don’t say no yet. Please. Promise me you’ll think about it. Okay? Really think about it.”
“I think about it. Maybe if I can save some money for a ticket…”
“Is that it? I’m paying for the ticket,” he said, as if it should have been obvious. “I’ll take care of everything. Is that what’s bothering you?”
“You can no understand,” I said. “Is more than that. Let me think about it, okay?”
. . . . .
When I told my father, his first reaction was to get angry. He yelled that I was crazy. He said he’d told me that Brandon would leave. He scolded me for even thinking about leaving the family.
“Who’s going to take care of your brothers and sister?” I was sure he meant who was going to take care of him.
Later, calmly, sadly, he asked me not to go.
“It’s only for three months, Papa,” I said. That was all the visa would allow me to stay in American. “I have to come back.”
My father shook his head. He didn’t believe me.
“It’s the truth, Papa.”
“You’re going to do what you want to do,” he said. “But you have a family here, Luisa. This is where you come from. This is where you belong. With your family. Not in America or anywhere else. Think about your sister and your brothers.”
“I do, Papa. You know I do. But then tell me something. Who thinks about me?”
“Your family is forever. An American Marine is here one day. The next day, poof. I think about you. I don’t want you to be hurt. I don’t want you to make a mistake.”
He left me with those words, with his wishes very clear. But what was not clear was which thing was the mistake, going to American or staying here.
My little sister Angela came to my room that night. She’d heard what my father had said. She walked over to my bed, where I was lying, staring at the ceiling, praying and struggling with what to do. She lay beside me and hugged me. My first thought was that she, too, was telling me not to leave.
“Luisa,” she said. “You have to go. Don’t listen to Papa about this. I know you’re afraid. But if you don’t go—or at least to see what it’s all about—you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.”
PART TWO
CHAPTER 8
SUMMER 1993
Boston, Massachusetts
When I arrived at the airport in Boston with a three month visa to stay in the US, I was worried about what would happen when I stepped out into the terminal. I went through customs and immigration, so nervous they looked at me suspiciously, but eventually they stamped my passport and passed me through.
Pulling my suitcase behind me, I followed the other passengers through the automatic doors and into the waiting area of the international terminal. A low railing kept the people waiting twenty feet away. Behind that railing hundreds of people formed a wall directly in front of me. On either side, also held at bay by restraining railings, were more people. Narrow spaces were left open to the right and to the left, allowing passengers to exit. The scene was confusing and overwhelming. I wasn’t sure which direction to go until I heard Brandon’s voice.
“Luisa!”
I looked to the right. Brandon came running toward me, smiling. He’d had to return earlier and we hadn’t gone this long without seeing each other in more than a year. Before I could start toward him, he covered the ground between us, grabbed me and lifted me off the ground as if I weighed nothing. I started to worry that the other people in the terminal would think we were crazy, but then I decided that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that we were together again. We kissed with desperation. The scent of his cologne, the passion in his lips and strength of his arms around me dominated my senses.
When he finally put me down, he grabbed my suitcase with one hand, grasped my hand with the other and said, “Come on. I want you to meet my brother and his fiancée.”
His brother Shane didn’t look much like him, but he welcomed me with a friendly handshake. People had told me that Americans don’t hug a lot unless they know you very well. I assumed I would get used to it, but it felt strange. His fiancée Dina smiled and shook my hand too. I really couldn’t tell if they liked me or not. Brandon liked me. That much I could tell. He put his arm around me and we all walked to Shane’s car parked outside.
. . . . .
Brandon and I sat together in the back seat on the drive to his grandmother’s house. Still so happy to be together again, we hugged and kissed most of the time. Brandon was staying with his grandmother in Hudson, forty-five minutes away from Boston. To get there Shane took a highway that had us cutting right through the center of the city. Tall buildings were everywhere. Thousands of cars sped alongside us. More cars were crowded on the city streets below us.
I kept thinking, My God, I’m in a country, a different world. I was thrilled to be out of Naples, thrilled to be here, but I was still nervous. I looked over at Brandon. Sometimes we had this way of communicating that did not involve words. We spoke with our eyes. This was one of those times. He seemed to understand exactly what I was feeling. He pulled me a little closer and held me protectively the whole way.
When we arrived in Hudson and left the highway, Brandon pointed out the significant things that we passed on our way to his grandmother’s house. “There
,” he said. “That’s where I went to high school.” A little later. “Over there’s where I used to go sledding when it snowed. Do you like snow?”
“We don’t have snow in Napoli.”
“It’s great, you’ll love it.”
“It snows in the summer?” I asked. “My visa is no more after October.”
He just waved that off and said, “We’ll see about that.”
I knew that three months was the longest they would let me stay. But I didn’t want to think about that right now. I wanted to enjoy the present with Brandon.
“And over there,” he said, pointing again.
I was glad that we were going back to happy things again.
“Over there is where Uncle Dennis is buried.”
. . . . .
I never could have expected such a warm welcome from his family when we reached his grandmother’s house. I found out later that his grandmother practically raised him for many years. She hugged me enough to almost be an Italian. Brandon’s grandfather and uncle seemed to like me as well. Even Brandon’s mother treated me like someone they had been waiting for forever. So much different from the way my father was when he met Brandon.
They kept saying how beautiful I was. No one seemed to mind that my English wasn’t very good. Everybody wanted to meet me and they all sat around me in the living room, asking all kinds of questions, many of which I didn’t understand. I answered a lot with smiles. That seemed to be okay. Brandon sat close to me. I felt he was protecting me.
Amid all the happiness and hospitality, I noticed Shane and Dina looking at me strangely a few times. Dina especially. She didn’t talk much, just watched. Her stare made me a bit uneasy.
At one point, when I excused myself to use the bathroom, I saw her in the kitchen on my way back. She was putting some cookies on a plate. I stopped and asked her if I could help.
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