“Oh, really?”
“Admit it. You’re fully cooked. Time to stick a fork in this turkey.” Erin leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs.
“There may be a hint of truth in what you’re saying.”
Erin threw back her head and laughed. “A hint of truth? Yeah, and there’s a pinch of salt in the ocean.”
Lloyd unfolded his arms and placed his hands in his lab coat pockets. “A smattering of veracity, a smidgen of verisimilitude…”
“Extra points for the SAT words,” Erin said.
“But my visit here had a specific purpose beyond satisfying my insatiable craving to see you,” Lloyd said.
“So you admit it? You’re infatuated with me.”
“I won’t deny a considerable attraction.”
“A considerable attraction? Huh, Lloyd Copeland – hopeless romantic.”
“You’re the second person who has called me that in just a few days.”
“Another girl?” Erin asked, tilting her head.
“I already told you, there’s no other girl,” Lloyd said. “It was a guy; my lab technician.”
“And was he delirious?”
Lloyd crossed his arms again. “Okay, forget it. I won’t tell you why I came.”
Erin leaned forward, reached under Lloyd’s clasped forearms and grabbed his hand. “Oh, come on.”
Lloyd lifted his chin with aristocratic huff. “No, no, it’s too late.”
“Do I have to take my pepper spray out?”
“Pepper spraying a physician in the ethics department. Now that would be the height of hypocrisy,” Lloyd said.
“Just tell me, already.” Erin gave his hand a brisk tug.
Lloyd hesitated for a moment, purposely trying to heighten the suspense. Then, in a deadpan voice he asked, “How would you like to meet my family?”
Erin sat quietly, her eyes locked on his.
“Well, my mom and uncle, that is,” he added, unnerved by the lack of response.
Erin blinked her eyes and shook her head, “Lloyd, I’m speechless.”
“It’s just for lunch, no big deal.”
“This is a threshold,” Erin said with moist eyes.
“A threshold?”
“A huge threshold,” she said, her voice cracking. A tear streamed down her cheek.
Lloyd crouched on his knees. “Geez, Erin, it’s not that big a deal.”
“Just shut up for a second, will you?” Erin said. “Lloyd, I’d love to meet your family. I’m flattered that you’ve asked me.”
She opened a desk drawer, pulled some tissue from a box and blew her nose.
Lloyd placed his hands on her knees. “We have to find a way to be together without falling in swimming pools, using pepper spray, getting caught in the rain, or crying.”
Erin tossed the balled up tissue in a trash bin. “You done for the day?”
“I have to meet your friend,” Lloyd said.
“My friend?”
“That guy you’re always hanging out with. Nick De Luca.”
“I’m not always hanging out with him.”
“The guy rubs me the wrong way,” Lloyd said.
“I don’t know, I think he’s nice,” Erin said. “Kind of handsome, too.”
“I hate him,” Lloyd said with a playful scowl.
Erin laughed. “You really are adorkable. But, you should cut him some slack.”
“I don’t trust him,” Lloyd said. “It’s like he’s always checking on me.”
“You have him pegged all wrong,” Erin said. “The guy admires you. He’s got some kind of man-crush on you. Why are you meeting him, anyway?”
“That’s the thing. I have no idea.”
The sun was casting long shadows ahead of him as Lloyd rode his bike eastward on North Avenue. A long line of people had already formed outside of Johnny’s Italian Beef, eagerly waiting to taste the season’s first Italian ice.
He turned left on Harlem Avenue where a vague memory of him going to the old Sears with his mother to buy a new school outfit flickered into his consciousness. His childhood, the life on North Mason, seemed so distant now as if it were another life altogether, detached from his present being; as if the broadcasting of his life had inadvertently switched to a different channel. If only it were so.
The café was bustling with customers when he arrived. A few older faces of dark, deep complexions, but there were many younger men in business suits and shirt sleeves with loosened ties, mostly English speaking. The after work crowd.
A young man in an A.C. Milan soccer jersey was pouring a draft beer behind the counter. Lloyd recognized in him the aloof countenance that is the hallmark of youth made to work in their parents’ business.
He stepped up to the counter and said, “Excuse me, can you tell me how I get upstairs?” The young man eyed him suspiciously. “I’m here to see Mr. De Luca.” Then realizing that there may be a dozen De Lucas somehow affiliated to the café, Lloyd added, “Nick, the private eye.”
The youth finished pouring the beer with a calculated sluggishness. He set the schooner on a cardboard coaster and, with an air of unnecessary somberness, pointed to a corner of the café.
“Down the hallway, there’s a stairway to the left. If the door’s not open a crack, don’t bother knocking.”
“Thanks,” Lloyd said. Why was it that every Italian kid of a certain age living in the Western Suburbs spoke like they were auditioning for The Godfather?
When Lloyd reached the top of the stairs, the door was open a crack. He was about to knock on the jamb when the door pulled open and a smiling De Luca stood there buttoning his suit jacket.
“Heard you coming,” he said extending his hand to Lloyd.
“Creaky step?”
“Naah. The Ducati engine, I can recognize that in my sleep,” De Luca said. “Come in, come in.”
The office was excessively neat. Just a lap top computer and a gold plated letter opener sat on the desk. A framed poster of Wrigley field adorned the back wall while a solitary black metal file cabinet stood in a corner. Lloyd suspected the De Luca brothers didn’t conduct much business in their side venture after all, and perhaps Nick had dragged him all the way here with the pretense of drumming up new business.
“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Mineral water?”
“I’m fine.”
De Luca walked behind his desk, unbuttoned his jacket and invited Lloyd to sit with a sweep of his hand as he settled in his chair. Nick rested his hands on the desk, intertwined his fingers and leaned back in his chair. Lloyd wondered if the man was trying to size him up or if he was injecting melodrama to the meeting. He surveyed the room a second time to avoid eye contact.
“You been in this office long?” Lloyd asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t see any pictures of your family.” Lloyd pronounced it, pitchers, imitating De Luca’s cadence.
De Luca laughed. “You got me, Dr. Copeland. You got me good. But in this line of business, it’s best not to have family portraits on display.”
“Rule one: trust no one,” Lloyd said.
“You got that right.” De Luca flipped open his lap top. “Let me show you what I have to show you.” He typed on the keyboard and turned the computer around so Lloyd could see the screen. In a window, a video was playing with no sound. It was a black and white view of a corridor seen from above. Two figures came into view. Lloyd leaned towards the screen. It was him and Todd English. Lloyd didn’t need to see the rest. He turned the laptop back the other way.
“It’s distasteful that I should even bring this to your attention,” De Luca said.
“So why do you?”
“The video was requested by the new Chief of Staff. I wanted you to get a sneak peak first. Give you a heads up so to speak,” De Luca said. “I mean, this doesn’t exactly portray you in the best light.”
“Go ahead and show it to him.”
“It’s not like I have a choice,
” De Luca said.
“I honestly don’t give a shit.”
De Luca rapped his fingers on his desk. “Look, Dr. Copeland, I don’t mean to overstep my footing, and I say this with the greatest respect but, how can I say this? There are winds of change blowing at the medical center, and these winds…” De Luca seemed to be searching for words.
“Just say what you have to say,” Lloyd said.
“There are people who don’t like you so much at the hospital.”
“That’s not new.”
“But now they have the means to hurt you,” De Luca said.
“And that I already know.”
De Luca nodded. He folded down the laptop screen. “That’s all I had for you.”
Lloyd stood up and headed for the door. He turned on his heels and said, “Why are you doing this?”
De Luca raised his eyebrows as if he hadn’t understood the question.
“Why are you trying to help me?” Lloyd asked.
De Luca leaned back in his chair and stared at the letter opener on his desk and took a deep breath. “A couple of years ago, my grandfather was in the hospital. All these doctors coming in and out, poking this, prodding that, talking and talking but never saying anything (begging your pardon) like you doctors are apt to do sometimes. One afternoon, I’m sitting in a chair in the corner of his hospital room, and this group of about five doctors comes in. They pull the sheets down to his ankles, open his pajama shirt, they pull here, push there, do their usual talking, yada yada yada. But one doctor says nothing. He just listens. So then they start to leave. But the quiet one, he stays. He walks to the bedside and looks in grandpa’s eyes, still doesn’t say a word. He starts to button up grandpa’s pajama shirt, just like it was before they came in, and pulls the blanket back over his chest. Then he shakes grandpa’s hand and he leaves. So grandpa turns to me, and he says, in Italian, ‘This one… this one is a noble man.’ So I follow the group out in the hallway and I ask a nurse. I say, ‘Excuse me, but who’s that doctor?’ I point him out to her, ‘the handsome one right there.’ And she says, ‘Why, that’s Dr. Copeland.’ So I say, ‘What is he like a student doctor or something?’ And she says, ‘Oh no, he’s the attending physician. He’s the boss.’ So I go back in the room and I sit down again and I say, ‘You were right, grandpa. That was a noble man alright.’”
De Luca looked up to the ceiling. “A little later, I peel him an orange, you know, one of those Sicilian blood-red oranges. The lady from the grocery store down the street brought them special for him, wrapped one by one in pink tissue paper.” De Luca glanced at Lloyd with a rueful smile. “The things we remember!” He shook his head. “And you know what I saw in the old man’s eyes? Something that had been missing for quite a while – something that had been robbed of him by disease and old age.” De Luca sighed. “I saw dignity. Yes, dignity. And what can be more important than that?” He tapped the pads of his fingers together. “Two weeks later he passed away in peace.”
Lloyd glanced at the letter opener on De Luca’s desk. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
De Luca tapped his temple with a finger, “Yeah, but I’ll never forget.”
Chapter 25
Saturday morning, Lloyd filled the Subaru’s gas tank and drove through the automated car wash. The Ducati would have to sit in the garage today. In fact, it might end up spending a whole lot more time on its kickstand.
At noon Erin was waiting curb-side for him as he drove up to her apartment building. She was glowing in a breezy summer dress which billowed with each gust of wind. She got in the car with a skittish, schoolgirl grin.
“Ready?” Lloyd asked her.
She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek, strapped on her seatbelt and rested her hands stiffly on her knees. “Ready,” she said.
Lloyd pulled away from the curb. A red light on Harlem Avenue gave him the chance to turn his head and study her profile.
“Why are you so jumpy?” he asked.
“I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“You’re not nervous about meeting my mom?”
“No, of course not,” Erin said.
She kept her gaze straight ahead as the light turned green. Neither spoke for a few blocks, Lloyd stealing glances of her every so often.
Finally Erin said, “Your uncle…”
“What about him?”
“He wouldn’t happen to be Father Roy Copeland from St. Vincent de Paul?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Lloyd said. “You remember him?”
“God, I knew it!”
Lloyd smiled. “What’s the matter?”
“He taught me catechism,” Erin said.
“He taught the whole neighborhood catechism.”
“He hated me.”
Lloyd shook his head. “Uncle Roy is incapable of hating anyone.”
“Well, he hated…” she pointed at herself with both index fingers.
Lloyd chuckled.
“I’m serious. He always told my parents I had a rambunctious spirit.”
“How old were you then?” Lloyd asked. “I mean, chances are he won’t even remember you.”
“Oh, he’ll remember me, all right.”
Lloyd took the west-bound ramp onto the Eisenhower. The car engine whined as he accelerated to pass clear of a slow-moving Cadillac.
“And all this time I thought Milk-Duds was the rabble-rouser in your family,” Lloyd said.
“You have no idea.”
Erin was still jittery as they stepped up to the concrete front porch of Ellen Copeland’s home. Lloyd reached for the doorbell but hesitated before pressing it. He turned and smiled at Erin. She flattened the hem of her dress with her palm and nodded once.
Lloyd said, “Hey, you’re beautiful.”
Erin punched him in the shoulder and said, “Okay, ring it already.”
A few seconds later the door opened. Ellen Copeland stood there with a nervous smile. “What took you so long?” she asked.
Ellen’s skin was sallow, her eyes sunken. Lloyd was startled by how frail she looked. She picked up on his alarm and lowered her chin.
“Don’t be mad at me, Lloyd,” she said.
He stepped towards her and smothered his mother in a long embrace.
“Don’t be mad,” Ellen said, still in his arms. “Promise me you won’t be mad.”
“What are you talking about mom?” Lloyd said.
“I’ve made such a mess of things. Just promise me you won’t be cross with me.”
“I can’t be mad at you, Ma.”
“Life’s too short to hold grudges, my boy. Just remember that.”
Lloyd let go of her and she immediately busied her hands straightening her collar, which did not need straightening, and touching her hair, which was not in the least out of place.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Ellen asked in the same voice she used when Lloyd would bring classmates home in Junior High School.
“Actually, we’ve already met, Mrs. Copeland,” Erin said. “I’m Erin Kennedy; Daniel and Brenda Kennedy’s daughter.”
“Dear Lord! But you were just a child,” Ellen said bringing her sinewy hand to her mouth. “Your parents?”
“They’re doing well – retired in Boca Raton,” Erin said.
“Won’t you send them my love?” Ellen turned to Lloyd and knitted her brow as if she were about to scold him, but her face softened and she let out a cry of laughter. “Finally, Lloyd, you do something right.”
“You’re happier than the day I graduated medical school.”
“Blood is thicker than water. Remember that,” Ellen said.
“That’s not what they taught me in medical school,” Lloyd said.
“Dear Erin, don’t pay attention to everything my son says,” Ellen said. “He’s a block-head, but his heart is in the right place.”
“Yeah, I know,” Erin said.
Lloyd turned to Erin and said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”<
br />
The roar of a low-flying jet drowned out his voice. Ellen Copeland waved them inside and shut the door.
“Roy’s cooking one of his fancy Italian dishes,” Ellen said as she put a hand on Erin’s waist. “Roy!” she called out. “Come look who’s here.”
Roy stepped into the hallway, drying his hands on a terry cloth kitchen towel.
“Try to guess who this is,” Ellen said, tugging Erin by the forearm. “It’s Erin Kennedy!” she blurted out without giving Roy a chance to say anything. “Daniel and Brenda’s kid, do you remember?”
“How could I possibly forget Erin Kennedy?” Roy said with a smirk. Erin blushed. “There’s simply no way to forget those beautiful eyes. And I remember your parents fondly.”
“Is that all you remember, Roy?” Lloyd asked.
“Your brother…” Roy said.
“Sean,” Erin said.
“Milk-Duds, they called him. Milk-Duds Kennedy,” Roy said.
“I hate that nickname,” Erin whispered.
“He was a spirited boy,” Roy said, “but charming.”
“How about Erin?” Loyd asked. “What do you remember about her?” Erin stepped on his foot.
“Erin?” Roy said, “Why, she was a joy. An absolute joy.”
Lloyd eyed Erin and mocked her by raising a single eyebrow.
“Are you kids hungry?” Roy asked, bouncing on his heels.
“Famished,” Lloyd said. “Something smells great, what are you cooking?”
“Penne alla Vodka,” Roy said. Lloyd and Erin smiled at each other. “Have you had it before?”
“Just once,” Lloyd said.
They sat around the small dining room table, laid out with a fresh table-cloth. Roy poured Merlot for Erin and Lloyd, his own glass still half full, and mineral water for Ellen. He scooped the pasta from a ceramic bowl, serving himself last.
“Don’t forget the cheese,” Roy said. “I hope you don’t mind Pecorino instead of Parmesan. That’s what we prefer in Rome.”
“When in Rome…” Lloyd said and scooped a heaping spoonful of grated cheese on his dish. He picked up his fork but his mother shot him a menacing look.
“Aren’t you going to bless the food, Roy?” Ellen asked.
Roy took a deep breath, clasped his hands together, closed his eyes and bowed his head. Lloyd bowed his head just slightly, but kept his eyes fixed on his uncle. Roy parted his lips but said nothing. After half a minute he straightened, opened his eyes and picked up his fork. He looked around the table with a serene smile and said, “Buon Appetito!”
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