Izzy shook her head.
“They’d closed down the Suicide Chute,” Harry said, “right after Judith died. She was the eighteenth person to die in an avalanche in Colorado that year, and there was a lot of pressure to make the worst chutes inaccessible to the public. They locked the access gate and put up big orange signs, warning people away.”
“And Clay breached the barrier?”
Harry nodded soberly. “He broke down the gate and skied the chute.”
“Why?”
“Because Judith had always wanted to conquer it. It had meant a lot to her. So he decided he was going to conquer it for her.”
“He didn’t care about the penalties?” Izzy asked.
“He didn’t care about his life. He skied that chute right after a storm, when the snow is at its most unstable. The powder’s great, but the conditions are super risky. He knew that, but he did it anyway.”
“Was there an avalanche?”
“No, but that was just dumb luck. That chute is famous for avalanches. It’s a miracle he survived the run, if you ask me.
“Did he get in trouble?”
Harry nodded. “They fined him five thousand dollars. They could have sent him to jail for two years, but the judge figured there were extenuating circumstances—his wife’s death and all—so he cut him some slack. Anyway, after that, Clay threw himself heart and soul into extreme sports. He’d do anything—anything. He took unbelievable risks those first couple of years. I don’t think he cared whether he lived or died.”
Izzy felt sick inside. “He’s not that irresponsible anymore, is he?”
“He’s gotten better, but he still takes way too many risks for my comfort.”
“Mine, too.”
Harry regarded her with quiet interest. “You really love him a lot, don’t you?”
Izzy was taken aback. “Well... sure, don’t you? I mean we’ve been friends forever, and—”
“Give it a rest, Izz,” he said with an indulgent smile. “It’s written all over your face.”
I know you want to... It’s written all over your face. “It is not!”
“Oh, you think you’re hiding it pretty well, do you?”
“Yes. No!”
Harry laughed, and levered himself off the floor. “Yeah, Clay thinks he’s a pretty cool customer, too, but he’s as transparent as Saran Wrap. Trust me—you’ve gotten under his skin entirely as much as Judith did, and then some. You’re changing him, too. He’s in way over his head with you, honey, and fighting it tooth and nail.”
“You’re misreading things, Harry.” More or less. Harry was right—Clay was lousy at hiding his feelings, but what were those feelings, really? More than mere horniness; he genuinely cared for her, he always had. Maybe that was it. Maybe what Clay was feeling for her was that old fraternal affection gone haywire—temporarily haywire—simply because they’d ended up playing house for a while.
Harry laughed derisively. “I don’t misread people. I know what I know.” She opened her mouth to object again, but he cut her off. “You’re protesting just a wee bit too much, Izz. You must have it worse than I thought.”
He had that right, but admitting it would be worse than stupid. The only way Izzy could protect herself at this point was to deny what was happening between her and Clay until the whole thing blew over. And it would. Sooner or later, the point of the marriage will have been served and they could get that nice, civilized divorce. Then they’d go back to the way it had been before—assuming they hadn’t done anything stupid in the meantime.
“There’s obviously no way I’m gonna get the last word in this particular exchange,” she told Harry, rising and crossing to the door. “Think what you want to think.”
He grinned and opened the door, waving her out with an elaborate sweep of his arm. “I always do.”
CHAPTER NINE
THAT’S IT,” IZZY SAID, pointing through the passenger window. “That’s the house.”
“Which one?” Clay slowed the car to a crawl as he scanned the pairs of semi-attached houses. He’d never been to South Ozone Park until that afternoon, and it seemed the deeper he drove into this old Queens neighborhood, the more indistinguishable the housing became.
“The one with the fake brick on the front,” Teddy offered from the cramped backseat of his Porsche.
“They all have fake brick,” Clay observed.
“I meant red brick,” Teddy said. “The only house on this block with true fake brick is Al and Paola’s.”
“True fake brick?” Clay said. “Is that like genuine zirconium?”
“This one,” Izzy said, indicating a house faced in something that looked kind of like red brick, which shared a common wall with the house next to it. “They left room in the driveway for us.”
Clay pulled onto the concrete drive, grateful that he didn’t have to park on such a narrow street. He doubted he would have found a space, anyway, considering the number of cars already lining the curb. They couldn’t all be going to the Fabrionis for Sunday dinner; somebody had to be throwing a party.
Within a nanosecond, boys ranging from toddlers to teens swarmed out of the house and surrounded the car. They stood aside just enough for Clay and his passengers to get out, all the while gaping and pointing, their expressions as reverently dumbfounded as if a flying saucer had just landed in Queens. “Lookit! Hey, you guys!”
“Hey, check it out! Joey! Paulie! C’meah!”
“This your car, mistah?”
“That’s Aunt Izzy’s husband, ya jabronie.”
“I know that! Cool car, mistah.”
“His name is Clay, you guys,” Izzy said.
The boys grunted in primitive greeting, then returned their attention to the car.
“It’s a little chilly out here,” Clay said, although it was actually mild for mid-February. He opened the driver’s door. “If some of you guys want to sit in the car—”
In a heartbeat, the car was packed with boys. Somehow, they all managed to squeeze in.
Teddy banged on the windshield with her fist. “No smoking in there!”
Clay leaned down and addressed the oldest-looking one through the partially open side window. “Hey, man. Keep an eye on it for me, all right?”
The youth swore a solemn oath to protect Clay’s Porsche, threatening his companions with expulsion from the vehicle if they didn’t toe the line.
“The car will be fine,” Izzy said. “Let’s go in.”
Clay headed for the front door, but Izzy grabbed his jacket and pulled him toward the side of the house. “No one uses that door,” she said. “I don’t know if it even works.”
She opened the gate of a chain-link fence, batting aside the red and white balloons tied to it. The balloons puzzled Clay for a moment, until he remembered it was Valentine’s Day. You didn’t usually see people decorating for Valentine’s Day, but...
As he passed through the gate, he noticed lettering on the balloons: Happy Birthday, Clay.
He stood absolutely still and read it again. Happy Birthday, Clay.
Izzy was smiling at him.
Teddy snorted. “You really didn’t suspect a thing, did you?”
For the first time Clay became aware of muffled music from inside the house, and the voices of many people, some raised in laughter. All those cars on the street... Someone was throwing a party, all right. A party for him.
Izzy came to him and took his gloved hand in hers. “Come on, Clay.” She tugged, but he didn’t move. “Come on. And try to smile. It’s not a funeral—it’s a birthday party.”
A birthday party. For him.
Clay had the absurd urge to ask Izzy to stay by his side, not to leave him alone in there, not to let go of his hand. She guided him into the diminutive backyard—just a patch of grass with a little garden next to the garage—and led him to the back door.
Men were lounging on the back stoop, drinking beers and smoking cigars: Izzy’s father, a middle-aged priest, an older man Clay
hadn’t met before, and... Holy shit. “Harry?”
“It’s the birthday boy, gentlemen!” Harry announced, rising to his feet. The other men stood, greeting Clay with hearty backslaps and wishing him happy birthday. A cigar was thrust into his hand.
“Et tu, Harry?” Clay said, summoning up what little cool he could manage.
“You know I can’t resist a party, Hoss.”
Izzy’s father greeted her and Teddy and proceeded to make introductions. “Clay, you remember Father Frank from the wedding, right?”
The priest stuck his cigar between his teeth, set his beer bottle down, and shook Clay’s hand. “Nice to see you again, son.”
“Father.”
Al patted the older man on the shoulder. “And this here is the only guy from the old neighborhood who ever really made something of himself. Rory O’Dwyer... M.D.”
“Dr. O’Dwyer,” Clay said, shaking hands.
“Rory.” He had red hair on its way to becoming white, and perceptive blue eyes that quickly fixed themselves on Teddy. He nodded. “Teodora.”
Teddy crossed her arms. “Rory.”
They held eye contact for about a beat too long. Interesting...
“So.” Al Fabrioni clapped his hands together and rubbed them while addressing Clay and Izzy. “Father Frank here was just saying you two should get married again, in the—”
“I said you can get married again,” the priest corrected, “if you want to, in the church.”
Izzy’s grip tightened around Clay’s hand. He knew how she felt about this—that it was going way too far, to solemnize this fraudulent marriage with a religious service.
“I don’t think so, Father,” Izzy said. “It’s... it’s not our style.”
“Style?” Al said incredulously. This fervor surprised Clay, who’d always regarded Al Fabrioni as mild and agreeable. “This isn’t a matter of personal taste, Isabella. We’re talking about a sacrament here—the sacrament of marriage.”
“It’s none of your business how they choose to get married, Al,” Teddy said.
“None of my business?” Al’s face reddened. “It’s none of my business that my oldest daughter refuses to get married in the eyes of God?”
Izzy rubbed her forehead with gloved fingers. Clay patted her back and wondered what to say to his new father-in-law that wouldn’t just worsen the situation.
Teddy strode up to her brother, hands on hips, her face in his. “Shut up, Al.”
Rory O’Dwyer smiled. “You’ve met your match now, Al.”
“This is a party,” Teddy informed Al, “and you’re ruining it.”
“Some things,” Al said, punctuating his words by stabbing the air with his cigar, “are more important than parties. They won’t even talk about a real wedding, though. They won’t even consider it.”
Clay saw a possible point of conciliation. “It’s something to consider for the future,” he said.
“The future?” Al frowned at him, as if trying to figure out whether he was being indulged just to shut him up. “You two might get married in the church someday? For real?”
In his mind’s eye, Clay saw Izzy in a long white gown, veils floating around her face, her incredible hair crowned by a wreath of baby’s breath, and felt the oddest longing deep in his chest. “For real,” he said quietly.
Izzy looked at him.
Al nodded slowly. “All right. I’ll let you off the hook for now.” Slapping Clay on the back, he guided the couple up the back steps and into the house. “Come on. Paola will kill me if I don’t get you inside.”
ARE YOU DONE WITH THAT?” Izzy’s mother nodded toward the plate on her daughter’s lap.
“Yeah. Great lasagna, Mom. But let me help you clean up.” She started to rise, but Paola gently pushed her back down.
“I’ll have no such thing. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”
“She’s right,” said Clay, sitting next to her on the living room couch. “You know you’re not supposed to be doing stuff like that. I’ll give you a hand, Paola.”
The men in the room guffawed, as Izzy knew they would. The women stared as if he’d just said he would put on a tutu and dance Swan Lake.
“That’s sweet of you, Clay,” Paola said, “but you can help by just keeping an eye on my Isabella.”
“I’m not an invalid, you guys,” Izzy said. “I’ve been a lot better lately.” She had. It had been weeks since her last battle with nausea, and her energy was up. Still, she was careful. She limited her work for the magazine to two hours a day, sitting comfortably at the big worktable in the sun-washed front parlor. Nevertheless, a lot had been accomplished. The Rush’s new look had come about swiftly, and was already in production for the upcoming issue. The work kept her from dying of boredom, her bank account was swelling... and Clay was proud of her. He was always telling her how grateful he was to her for breathing new life into the magazine.
Of course, he was doing his part, too, with enthusiasm, Izzy thought dispiritedly. He’d been away three times in the past few weeks—business trips, if you could call them that. The first was a ski-jumping exhibition in Utah at which he performed some sort of breathtaking acrobatic maneuver that everyone was still talking about. Next, he took a week-long trip to Florida to participate in a water sports competition: kite-skiing, wind-surfing, and something called barefoot jumping that Izzy didn’t even want to think about. He took first place in wind-surfing and placed in the other events. And then last week he went to California to display his skill at sport climbing; he scaled a high, vertical concrete slab and came in second for speed.
Harry went along on all the trips to document the Hugh Hefner of extreme sports in still photos and video—which he then dutifully posted on Instagram and YouTube.
And, of course, the media had flocked to each of these events in droves, which was the point of Clay’s participation—to call attention to himself and the magazine, and thereby boost subscriptions.
Izzy had worried constantly while he was away on these trips. Her suspicion that he’d be taking more risks than usual, for the publicity, was confirmed after the first trip when Harry told her about Clay’s hot-dogging on the ski jumps. The crowd had eaten it up, and the media was all over him; photos of him executing a particularly death-defying jump appeared in a dozen periodicals afterward. But, according to Harry, he’d risked his life doing that jump, plain and simple. He was the old I’ll-do-anything Clay again, only this time it wasn’t because he was semi-suicidal with grief, but because he thought it would be good for business. He didn’t even seem to be enjoying it that much.
Regardless of his motivation, Harry had pointed out soberly, the results could be fatal. They’d both tried to talk Clay into dialing it back, but he’d refused. Once the magazine was secure, he’d think about it. Until then, he had to do everything he could to keep The Rush alive.
Izzy looked at Clay and found him looking at her. He smiled and took her hand for about the hundredth time that afternoon. Every time he did it, Izzy felt a ridiculous little tickle of satisfaction. But it was ridiculous. She mustn’t read too much into his feelings for her. They were a temporary aberration; their marriage was a mutation of his long-time affection for her. She wanted them to be more—just as she’d wanted Prez to be the real thing, so much so that she’d convinced herself that he had feelings for her. With disastrous results. It wasn’t the first time she’d fallen prey to a charismatic charmer. She must bear in mind that she was susceptible to that breed, and not trust her instincts with them.
Especially not with this one. He was bad news. Reckless with his own life, insatiable when it came to women. Until his marriage to her, that is. To her knowledge, he’d stayed out of other women’s beds since the wedding. Except for that one late night, he always came right home from work. And, to Izzy’s amusement—but secret relief—Harry had made a point of assuring her that Clay avoided the sports groupies during their trips, and always slept alone.
“A model of marital fid
elity,” Harry had called him, which was fine and good, for now. But what would happen when that old itch just got too irritating and had to be scratched? And that time would come. Izzy didn’t kid herself into thinking a man like Clay Granger was capable of committing to one woman for the rest of his life; he’d told her himself he had “no intention of ever settling down with anyone.” He was exactly the kind of man she should cross the street to steer clear of. And here she was, bound in marriage to him. And falling deeper and deeper in—
Careful.
Lust.
No. That was dumb. Not that she didn’t lust after Clay, but she cared for him, too, cared deeply; she always had. And that was fine. Only now her feelings were evolving into something more, which wasn’t remotely fine.
Tough it out. Then get divorced after the baby comes. That prospect was unaccountably depressing to her. But what real choice did she have?
Paola cleared away all evidence of the buffet dinner with her usual stealthy efficiency, then served coffee.
“So, Rory,” Al said, stirring three spoonfuls of sugar into his cup, “what’s this big charity project Father Frank’s suckered you in on?”
“A home health-care service,” Rory said, “for people with serious illnesses, like Parkinson’s, cancer, Alzheimer’s, AIDS...”
Father Frank’s eyes gleamed with pride. “It’s really taken off,” he said. “We’ve got almost a full staff now—over a dozen volunteers. We bring meals to people, run errands for them, drive them to the doctor... And if they can’t travel, Rory goes to their home and treats them there.”
Izzy noticed the crowd beginning to thicken as guests from other parts of the house gravitated to the living room. Children squeezed in and took positions on the floor, close to and facing Clay. If he was aware of this steady influx—engineered, of course, by Paola—he gave no sign of it.
“I don’t get it, Rory,” Al said. “You’re retired. Why not just enjoy your retirement?”
“And what?” Rory challenged. “Spend my days at Kissena Park whackin’ a boccie ball with the rest of you lazy apes?” The older Fabrioni men laughed good-naturedly.
The Marriage Arrangement Page 11