“Come on down,” she said, smiling, eager as a puppy. Not the horny little rich girl she was when she was in her bikini at her house. She reached up and held out her hand. “Come on down, Frank.”
Frank was spooked. He’d never heard her call him by name, and it sounded weird. And what was with this hold-my-hand shit? They hadn’t held hands at her house. But Frank knew he was stuck. He didn’t want to be an asshole, so he took her hand as he came down off the last two steps. She immediately laced her fingers through his and squeezed tight. The music suddenly stopped.
Two sets of eyes glared at him. Dom holding his Jaguar, and Johnny Trombetta holding the white Precision Bass that Frank had seen in his basement. Johnny looked so much like his father it was scary. But Dom was looking pretty scary himself, and Frank couldn’t figure out why his best friend would be pissed at him.
“Frank,” Annette said, pulling him toward her brother, “this is my brother Johnny.”
“Hi,” Frank said.
Johnny barely nodded.
The amps hummed through the silence. Nobody spoke, and Frank wasn’t about to be the one to break the ice.
Dom said, “You have fun with my father?” His voice had an edge. He was definitely pissed.
“Yeah.” Frank nodded, not knowing what else to say. “He bought me a donut.”
Johnny smirked and exhaled his disdain.
“So what’re you guys doing?” Frank hoping to cut through the hostility.
“Practicing,” Dom said. “We’re starting a band.”
Whoa. What did he mean by “we”? Frank did not want to be in a band with Johnny Trombetta. He didn’t care how good Johnny was on bass. He could be fucking Paul McCartney for all Frank cared. This would never work out.
Frank decided to change the subject. He’d talk to Dom about this when they were alone. “You know, you’re still messing up the chords on ‘House of the Rising—‘”
“Nobody asked you.”
Dom had never been this nasty with Frank, and it smarted. “Well,” Frank said, trying to make like it was nothing, “if we’re gonna do that song, we should do it right—“
“Who said anything about ‘we’?” Dom said.
Frank felt like he’d been slapped. He and Dom had been talking about starting a band for months. They’d even put together set lists and talked to a kid at Dom’s school who was saving up for a drum kit, planning to have it by the end of the school year.
Annette squeezed his hand to get his attention. She rolled her puppy-dog eyes at him. “Do you play, too?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Frank grumbled.
Dom scowled at Frank, looking madder than ever. “You two going out together or what?”
Annette shrugged and giggled. Little Miss Modest.
Johnny scowled, too, but that seemed to be his permanent expression, just like his old man. He plucked his low E string twice. It rang out, sounding ominous.
“Well?” Dom said. “Are you?”
“What?”
“Are you going together?”
Frank wanted to let go of her hand, but she had a tight grip on him, their palms sweaty. Christ! he thought. Is this what happens? You get your finger inside a girl and you’re trapped? She sticks her flag in you, like Columbus claiming the New World for Spain? And he didn’t even get his finger all the way in. Fuck!
And what the fuck was Mr. Dom fucking Juan’s problem? Did he have the hots for Annette? Is that what this was all about? Dom gets any girl he wants, and all of a sudden he has to have Annette Trombetta. Because of her father? What, he wants to marry into a good crime family?
“So are you two dating?” Johnny said. His voice was as low and ominous as his bass.
Frank’s first impulse was to say no because they really weren’t dating, but then he caught her staring up at him, and he remembered lying with her in her psychedelic sheets. She was without a doubt the closest chance he had to get laid before graduation. Yolanda was his dream, but Annette was right here, holding onto his hand. She wanted it as much as he did.
“So?” Johnny said. “What’s the story?”
“Well…” Frank said, thinking fast. He wasn’t about to make a declaration of love, not in front of these guys and not when he didn’t mean it. He had to be cool. But he didn’t want to turn her off either. “We kinda just met,” he said. “You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t know what you mean.” Johnny tilted his head back and showing his big nostrils. Frank felt like he was staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
Frank didn’t like where this was going. He’d seen the signs before with other guys, usually after school in a playground or an alley, in out-of-the-way places. He hadn’t been in a fist fight since freshman year, but this was usually how it started—the challenging wise-ass question that had no answer. If he said something, he’d be upping the ante. But if he didn’t say anything, that would be taken as an insult, a snotty put-down. And then there was the size factor. Frank was fairly big. Troublemakers like to pick on big guys just to prove that they could beat them up. Johnny was tall but he was skinny, and Dom was just average. Fuck. There was no way out of this.
Dom took off his guitar strap and held his guitar by the neck, ready to set it aside at a moment’s notice. Johnny slid his bass behind him, the strap crossing his chest like a bandito’s bandolier.
A flash of rage blinded Frank. He envisioned a fight—Dom trying to take him down like Wilenski in gym class, Johnny raising the bass over his head like a sledgehammer, aiming to smash Frank over the head. Frank grabbing a bar stool and swinging it wild, making them both back off. Frank out for blood, going after them with the stool, intent on getting payback for attacking him first, determined to break some heads, make them sorry they ever—
“Let’s go outside,” Annette said. “It’s stuffy down here. Come on.” She pulled his arm and led him toward the stairs, turning the channel on his revenge fantasy. She sounded calm and in control, more mature than the average sophomore. It was as if she’d had experience defusing tense situations.
Frank looked over his shoulder. Dom and Johnny stayed where they were, glaring at him.
“Come on,” she insisted, pulling him upstairs. Her tone implied that she thought they were all a bunch of idiot Neanderthals, and she wasn’t about to let them have a caveman rumble.
When they got up to the kitchen, she closed the door with her butt and grabbed him around the neck, grinding her lips into his.
What the fuck! he thought, pulling away. He was just about to break some heads. This was no time for kissing.
She frowned and looked just like her father and brother. “What’s the matter?”
“This is someone else’s house,” Frank said, keeping his voice down. “What if Dom’s mother came down and caught us?”
But what he was really thinking was, what if Dom’s father who works for your father walks in on us making out? What if John Trombetta himself caught them? Hot lead and a one-way trip to the landfill, that’s what would happen.
“Oh, come on,” she said, pressing her forehead into his. “Don’t be such a prude.”
“Yeah, but Dom’s mother is very religious. She’d go ape-shit.”
That was true. Mrs. Nunziato was a super-Catholic, but she was also one of those people who never left the house and rarely left her bedroom. Her way of going to Sunday Mass was watching Bishop Sheen on TV.
“We’ll just be quiet,” she whispered, licking the end of his nose. “Come on. Just a little.” She took his hand and placed it on her tit.
Frank could feel her hard nipple through her bra and white cotton blouse. Every part of him melted except for the soldier in his shorts. He was incapable of resisting. Their lips met, then their tongues probed, and in no time they were at it, just like that time at her house. Except
they were standing up and they were in Dom’s kitchen. But he didn’t care. For all he knew he was in heaven, light-headed, standing on clouds, intensely focused on their tongues and her tit.
He pawed her breasts and unbuttoned the top button of her blouse, then reached in and slipped his fingers under her bra. It was skin on skin, his fingers on her nipple. And she wasn’t even trying to stop him. She was letting him do what he wanted. Unbelievable!
“Frank… Frank…”
He was only vaguely aware of her voice, a soft moan that escaped between kisses.
“Frank…”
He was on a high, unable to tell reality from pleasure, unable to stop.
“Frank.” Her voice louder. “Frank, wait.”
He gradually floated back down to earth, blinking at her as if he’d just been pulled from a dream. “House of the Rising Sun” drifted into his consciousness. Dom and Johnny, Dom strumming the chords and making the same mistake.
“Frank, listen to me. I want to ask you something.”
Yes, he said in his head. I will make love to you. I will fuck your brains out. Yes. You don’t have to ask.
“Frank, are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“I want to ask you something.”
“Yes.”
Dom hit the wrong chord again.
“Are you going to the St. A’s prom?”
“What?”
“Are you going to the prom?” Her finger brushed the curve of his ear.
“Ah… I dunno.”
“I’d love to go with you. Unless you’ve already asked someone else.” She was pouting, sticking out her bottom lip.
“No. No. I haven’t asked anyone.” He was still a little fuzzy.
“Well, if you’re going and you haven’t asked anyone…” Her eyes were chocolate sinkholes.
“Well, uh… I don’t know if I can go.”
“What do you mean? Why can’t you go?”
“I don’t have tickets and I think I missed the deadline.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I think I have.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“I know some girls who are going, and the deadline is next week. There’s still time.”
“I don’t know about that.” The linoleum was turning into quicksand under his feet. Dom hit that goddamn wrong chord again.
“Will you check?” she said. “I’d really like to go. With you.”
“Well, I’d like to go, too, but I don’t think I can get tickets—“
Her hand was on his crotch, palming the soldier. Oh, my God. He was all melty and light-headed again.
“Please, Frank?” She kissed him with her pout. “Will you try?”
The little soldier was standing at attention, thrumming at attention.
“Ah… I can try, but—“
“Please? For me?”
She ran her fingers up the length of the soldier, feet to head. The little guy shuddered and so did the rest of Frank.
“Okay,” he said.
She smiled a giddy smile.
Dom hit that wrong chord again, but Frank didn’t give a shit.
“Anybody home?” Frank called out as he walked into the kitchen at his house. He dropped his book bag on the floor. “Anybody?”
It was quiet. Not even the radio playing in his parents’ bedroom.
The car wasn’t in the driveway, and his father’s truck wasn’t in the shed. He figured his mother was out shopping with his little sister. Perfect, he thought with a grin. He’d be alone for a while. He could go to his room and take care of the little soldier.
But then he thought of something. He might have an opportunity here. He rummaged through his book bag and pulled out the newspaper clipping Yolanda’s grandfather had given him. He’d read the article, and he’d been thinking about calling the reporter who wrote it. The problem had been privacy. When it came to using the home phone, he didn’t have any.
He walked through the living room to a tiny alcove just big enough for the desk where the beige touch-tone phone sat. Frank almost never used that phone because it was six feet from the couch where someone always seemed to be watching TV. Actually the top TV in the stack of three. For some reason his parents never threw out the ones that broke, they just bought smaller ones and stacked them like a totem pole—console set on the bottom, 21-inch in the middle, 18-inch on top. It was as if they were so addicted to television, they couldn’t make time to throw out the broken sets. If someone was home, the TV was on, and if it wasn’t one of his parents watching, it was his little sister. But now it was off and he had a chance to make a call without someone listening in.
He picked up the thick Yellow Pages from the floor and opened it on the desk. Under “Newspapers,” he found the number for the Newark Herald. He punched out the number and glanced out the window, watching for vehicles coming up the driveway.
The phone rang once, and a woman answered: “Newark Herald. How may I direct your call?”
“Ah…” Frank looked down at the byline on the article in his hand. “May I speak to Arthur Brown please?”
“Do you know what department he’s in?”
Frank was surprised that she didn’t know who he was. “He’s a reporter.”
“Please hold.”
A moment later another woman’s voice came on the line. “City desk.”
“May I speak to Arthur Brown please?”
“Hang on.” She put him on hold.
Frank looked out the window and waited, anxious that his parents would return at any moment, wondering if maybe Mr. Brown was stuck in the bathroom or something.
Finally the woman came back on the line. “Mr. Brown isn’t in right now? Give me your name and number and he’ll get back to you.”
Frank stared at the garish autumn-leaf pattern on the couch’s upholstery and the console TV set and the kitchen table through the open doorway. “That’s okay,” he said. “I’ll call back another time.”
He hung up the phone, closed the Yellow Pages, and put it back on the floor to cover up the evidence. He couldn’t imagine how embarrassing it would be if Mr. Brown called him back and his father answered. Or even if Frank answered and the whole family was around listening to the conversation. The questions would go on forever.
He checked the driveway again. Still time to beat off, he thought as he stepped through the living room and into the kitchen. He whipped his untied tie out of his collar and took off his St. A’s blazer. But as he reached down for his book bag to take it into his room, he noticed something on the kitchen table. A letter standing up straight, propped up by the salt and pepper shakers. His mother did that whenever something important came in the mail, like a notice from the IRS that his father was behind in his estimated tax payments or a threat from the water company that they were going to discontinue service if they didn’t get paid. Frank was about to ignore it, but then he thought maybe it could be for him. From a college maybe. He took a closer look and spotted the return address on the letter. Black letters and a red shield logo. His heart started to pound. It was from Boston University.
Frank picked it up and felt its weight. It was addressed to him, and it was thick. A regular white envelope, not a big brown manila envelope. It could be an acceptance. Or a long-ass rejection. Or a waiting-list acceptance, which would be almost worst than a rejection.
He ripped it open, his heart slamming so hard it could have broken a rib. He ripped it unevenly in his haste, made a mess of it. A sheaf of papers inside. He unfolded them, stared down at the cover letter, expecting the worst.
Dear Mr. Grimaldi:
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Boston University class of 1
974…
He didn’t have to read anymore. He couldn’t. He was too ecstatic. He was electric. He couldn’t believe it. He had gotten in. He could go away to school next fall. He could start his life. His real life. Free to be himself. Holy fuck!
He couldn’t wait to tell someone. But he was home alone. There was no one to tell. Except his grandfather. He was probably down in the cellar, reading. Frank knew he’d be happy for him. He was the perfect person to tell first.
Frank headed down the staircase with the letter in his hand. “Hey, Grandpa!” he called out. “I gotta show you something.”
But when he got to the first floor, he heard the rumble of his father’s engine. Frank looked through the lace curtain over the window in the front door and saw his father’s truck coming up the driveway and backing into the shed. He wondered if he should tell his father first. He knew his father wasn’t going to be ecstatic about it. Maybe he should wait until his mother got home.
As he watched his father ease the big truck into the ramshackle shed, another car came up the driveway. Mr. Nunziato’s two-tone green Cadillac. Fuck! Frank thought. Was this Dom coming to kick his ass because Frank had stolen Annette from him? He couldn’t see the driver through the glare on the windshield. Instead of just parking, the driver pulled the car around so that it was facing the street. The trunk popped open, and Frank wondered if Dom had brought a baseball bat or two-by-four or a shotgun. Fucking asshole.
But it wasn’t Dom who got out of the car, it was Mr. Nunziato. Frank grinned. This was good, he thought. Better to tell his father about the acceptance with Mr. Nunziato here. Mr. Nunziato wanted his own son to go to college so he might stick up for Frank. Plus, his father probably wouldn’t get all crazy in front of his buddy. This was good.
As Frank stepped out onto the front porch, his father was walking toward Mr. Nunziato who was standing by the open trunk of his car. The two men greeted each other with their usual wordless greeting.
“O!” his father said. It was a clipped guttural sound with a short gravelly trail.
Mr. Nunziato responded in kind. “O!”
They were like gorillas meeting in the jungle.
The Temptations of St. Frank Page 21