One Good Friend Deserves Another

by Lisa Verge Higgins

  So here she was, stuck with her mother, who had been utterly giddy when she’d first mentioned wanting to see Tito again. In fact, her mother had risen up from the kitchen table where she’d been drinking her third cup of coffee and started pacing, checking her calendar for upcoming family events, verbally listing who she could pump for information, and when and where she would see them. But when Marta had given her the details of today’s plans, her mother had turned completely sour.

  “There,” Marta said, fixing on the sight of an awning halfway down the block. “There it is.”

  She had begun to worry that the café might have closed as they passed kosher butchers, tiny bodegas, and check-cashing storefronts. The little café appeared to be the only reminder that this part of Brooklyn was once predominantly Italian-American. She’d never seen it in the light of day. Back when she and Tito were an item, he used to bring her here after a night of salsa dancing at a nearby Bushwick club. Even at two in the morning, the place would be full of revelers, shouting and laughing over tiny, hot, bitter cups of espresso—or cappuccinos, dusted with nutmeg.

  Ducking her head, she headed toward the café, rewording again and again what she intended to say the first time she laid eyes on Tito. After her experience with Carlos, she was just beginning to realize how little she had appreciated her old boyfriend. Oh, she’d always appreciated his generosity, for law school had left her no cash for going out. She’d appreciated his patience too, for he’d sensed her reluctance, at first, to become involved with a man ten years older than herself—especially one from the old neighborhood who had been all but hand-picked by their respective abuelas.

  But she’d never truly appreciated how he made her laugh so easily with old family stories, how he relaxed her by teaching her to dance, how he charmed her into putting the books away for a few hours and taught her to just have fun.

  What a husband he would have been.

  “This is it?” Her mother paused as they neared the café with its rickety chairs and tables and a ripped and faded awning. “Really?”

  “Yup. Best coffee in Brooklyn.”

  Her mother wrinkled her nose as she squinted into the dim interior, the only light a little TV mounted in the corner set on some foreign sports channel. “You know that Tito’s abuela is having an eighty-seventh birthday party in two weeks, right?”

  “Three times you’ve told me that, Mom. Since this morning.”

  “Your own grandmother is throwing it. She’d love to see you. Everyone would. You’ve been a no-show at every family event since your cousin Rico’s wedding. And I know—for sure—that Tito will be there.”

  “Great. That’ll give Uncle Pedro an opportunity to waggle those caterpillar eyebrows of his, and Aunt Fidelia to make remarks about who’ll be the next bride.” Her heart gave a little skitter. “And my nieces, they’ll have an opportunity to dance around singing ‘Tito and Marta sitting in a tree…’”

  “So instead,” her mother said, gesturing to the deserted neighborhood, “we sneak out here and pounce on him?”

  “Mom, I’m not doing any pouncing.” Marta took her mother’s arm and pulled her under the awning. She chose a table strategically situated by the window, but in the shadows, so that anyone looking in from the bright June morning would not easily see her. “We’ll have a coffee. Tito will come by. We’ll all have a nice polite conversation…and then we’ll see.”

  We’ll see, indeed. Marta felt vaguely nauseous as she hooked her tote over the spindle of her chair. Tito would have every right to ignore her today. No ugly arguments or unforgettable words had heralded their breakup. It had been a quiet thing. Just thinking about it buried Marta in confusion and shame.

  It had been a typical law-associate day. She’d been sprawled at her desk in the middle of her cubicle, piles of papers everywhere, her mind buried in a huge deal. She’d heard her name, and she looked up to see Tito standing in the doorway, sporting a new suit.

  She’d completely forgotten that they’d made a lunch date.

  “Oh, Tito.” She glanced at the papers strewn around her. “I just…I just can’t.”

  “You have to eat, Marta.”

  She’d stared at him in panic, willing him to understand. The papers had to be filed the next day. She’d had six boxes of documents yet to review, and two partners whose approval hinged on the quality of her work. Past Tito’s shoulder she’d glimpsed one of those partners come into view, buttoning his suit jacket on the way to the elevator. He’d looked curiously at Tito. Marta had practically heard his thoughts as he stitched together the relationship. She remembered that a flush had risen up her cheeks, a warmth full of mortification for Tito and his ill-fitting suit and his scuffed shoes better fit for dancing.

  But that wasn’t why she’d hesitated. She’d hesitated because the weekend before Tito had talked in a soft voice about dreams, and hopes, and how beautiful her babies would be.

  She’d felt herself tremble uncontrollably.

  Babies changed everything.

  “I’m sorry, Tito.” Her voice caught. “I can’t have lunch with you today.”

  Tito had looked at her for a long moment. He’d turned slightly, caught sight of the partner’s curious gaze, and then brought his attention back to her. He didn’t speak for what felt like hours.

  “Ah, mi bonita, you’ll never marry a man like me.”

  Now Marta looked blindly out the window of the little Brooklyn café, wondering why she hadn’t chased him down the hall all those years ago. Why she’d just sat frozen at her desk, listening to his footsteps as he walked out of her life.

  “Buon giorno, signora, signorina. Caffè?”

  She started. She glanced up at the café owner, a grizzled ape of a man wearing an apron. She blinked, not believing her eyes. This was the same man who used to wait on her and Tito, right down to the rusty streaks on his apron. The last time she’d seen him he’d been ranting at the TV with a crowd of customers, while everyone watched Italy play Brazil in soccer.

  Some things never change. Maybe Tito hadn’t changed. Maybe she could start up the old relationship. She was ready this time, ready for love, marriage, ready for babies. Then she could put Carlos behind her—every bad relationship behind her—and finally be happy.

  “Cappuccino, et una sfogliatella, per favore,” she said, pulling off her sunglasses as she remembered two things in rapid progression. This curmudgeon of a man loved when a customer tried to speak Italian, and he loved pretty girls. “Per la mia mamma, anche.”

  That might have been a pleased light in his eyes, as he dipped his head and turned back to the counter, or it might be suppressed amusement. She spoke only restaurant Italian, and badly, so it was possible that she’d just ordered two cappuccinos and a chimpanzee. She hoped it was the former, for depending on how things went, she might be lingering here for a good, long morning.

  Her mother shifted her weight on the chair, slipping her purse onto her lap after considering all other possibilities. Marta released a slow sigh. Her mother was acting like someone had dared to take out a food processor to make the masa for the pasteles, instead of grating it by hand.

  “Mom,” she said gently, reaching across the table to tug her sleeve. “You like Tito, yes?”

  “Si, of course. I love Tito. I adore Tito. You know I do.”

  “Then, please, just go with this. You should be happy that I’m making an effort to bump into him.”

  “I’m glad. I am glad, mi hija.” She slapped the table. “Especially after that disaster with Carlos.”

  Marta flinched.

  “It’s just that I hate to see you in this situation. It makes me crazy.” Her mother leaned forward and gave Marta the laser-direct, urban-hospital-working-nurse look that dragged intimate secrets out of the most desperate people. “It’s like you’re little and shopping for boots again.”

  Marta closed her eyes. “Please, Mom. Not the boots story.”

  “It’s the same behavior, I’m telling you. You�
�re desperate for these boots, and we’re out shopping. On a Wednesday night.”

  “The only time,” Marta reminded her, “that you were available. You worked weekend shifts too, remember?”

  “I worked weekends so I could afford to buy you and your sisters what you needed, no matter how crazy it was. And you, you needed these boots. We see them at Macy’s. The perfect pair—the perfect pair. Dios mío, even the price is right, with my discounts. But no, Marta, you’re not satisfied—”

  “Are you really going to do this whole thing?”

  “You said the buckle wasn’t quite right. Two buckles, you wanted, and a different shade of leather.”

  Marta set her teeth on edge. Her mother would tell the whole story, from beginning to end, no matter how hard she tried to cut it off.

  “So off we go. JCPenney. Payless. Half the nameless shoe stores in that big mall in New Jersey. Three nights, we’re off looking for the perfect boots, dragging your sisters along. And then you decide—you know what? The boots at Macy’s were the best—”

  “—so we head back,” Marta finished, “and the boots are gone.”

  “Gone!” Her mother threw up her hands like she was tossing confetti. “Absolutely gone. So what does picky Marta Arroyo Sanchez end up with? No boots at all.”

  Better no boots at all, she remembered, than knockoffs or something too funky or not the right color. Too many days she had shown up at the new school at Riverside with cheap jeans and ratty sneakers, long swinging hair with ribbons, a look that practically screamed Hey! I just moved out of Washington Heights. She learned fast that she could keep up academically with the girls in the classroom but her barrio sense of fashion marked her as a whole new category of oddball.

  With her books and her basketball, her paper lists and her lanky legs, she was oddball enough.

  “Okay, the boot story is done.” Marta dragged her face out of her hands. “You want to bring up that thing about my quinceañera party or the time I ignored Uncle Pedro when he rumbled up to Sacred Heart in that juiced-up Buick? Or are we good for now?”

  “The point,” her mother said, scaling her Virgin Mary medallion back and forth on its long gold chain, “is that you’re lucky Tito is still single.”

  “I get it; I get it.”

  “If you’d been asking about Tito last year, it would have been a different story. Last year, he brought two girlfriends home to meet his abuela.”

  Marta stifled her unease. She knew a guy like Tito wouldn’t be single forever. At every family event, he brought a pocketful of coconut bars and dulces tipicos and mango candies for the kids. He’d swing around the little ones and wrestle with the older boys. And when he finally emerged from the tumbled pile, he’d make teasing remarks about how good she’d look in a long white dress.

  But eight years ago, she had still been in her twenties, and she’d had a darn good reason for pushing marriage and babies far, far down the Life Plan list.

  “The Mexican-American girl from Arizona,” her mother said, “I met her one Sunday in Washington Heights. A doll, she was, sweet as could be. But no, not good enough for Tito’s abuela. She spoke trash Spanish, she says, and so Tito lets her go. But when Tito brought home that Russian girl from Brighton Beach—oh.” Her mother stopped swinging her medallion long enough to bury it in her fist and raise it to the sky. “A thousand Hail Marys, at least, every single morning. The poor old woman wore out her knees.”

  Marta glanced longingly toward the counter where the owner was taking his time with the cappuccino. “Honestly, Mom, do you think his grandmother would love me so much if she didn’t know that my family came from the same village in Vieques?”

  “All I’m saying is that you should thank God he’s still single. Aunt Azucena tells me there’s been no one for months and months. And your Aunt Fidelia told me at Jojo’s baptism that Tito didn’t even bring a date to Eduarda’s first communion last May.”

  Marta jerked up from the cradle of her hand. “Oh God, Mom, tell me you didn’t say anything to Fidelia.”

  “I just asked about Tito,” she said, avoiding Marta’s eye, “I asked about a lot of people.”

  Fidelia was the biggest gossip in the family. Her mother may as well have posted it on the Facebook family page. “So now the whole Puerto Rican World Wide Web knows I’m sniffing around Tito again.”

  “Whose fault is that, when you’re doing crazy things like this? You have a knack of making yourself a curiosity.”

  “Mom, any unmarried girl over the age of fifteen in our family is an object of curiosity. You think I haven’t heard the rumors? If it weren’t for Carlos these past years, Fidelia would be whispering that I’m a lesbian.”

  “Well, I’m hoping,” her mother said softly, “that Tito is your last pair of boots.”

  Marta tried to field that verbal hit to the solar plexus. Nobody, nobody could find that spot quicker than her mother. Nobody, nobody could strike it with the same unerring force.

  “Attenzione! Caldo.”

  Marta jumped. The café owner slid two mugs of cappuccino across the table. The milky foam, swirled with caramel streaks, steamed visibly. Beside them he placed two curled claws of a flaky pastry, oozing fresh white cream that Marta estimated would be the equivalent of three hours on the treadmill.

  “Buon appetito.”

  Marta’s churning stomach did an extra little flip for good measure. She watched her mother take a sip of the cappuccino and lick the foam off her top lip.

  “Ay, Marta! You were right. Good coffee, very very good. But those…” She made a face at the pastries between them. “Dios mío. A full day’s worth of calories and fat.”

  Marta nudged the plate closer. Her mother had a terrible sweet tooth. “We’ll walk it off later at the street fair.”

  Her mother hesitated, eyeing the pastry. “Two miles, at least.”

  “That’s a promise.”

  Then Marta raised the cappuccino to her lips only to set it right back down. In the building across the street, the door to the gym swung open.

  Tito stood framed in that open door.

  A tingling started in Marta’s fingers and worked its way to her toes, then started its way back up all over again. She’d forgotten how fit he was. His chest under the gray T-shirt was a little more barrel-vaulted, his hair a little more salt than pepper, and his swagger as bold as always. There on the sidewalk stood the man she’d once loved, swinging a duffel bag in his hand.

  “Ay, Marta,” her mother murmured. “I last saw him across the pews at Santino’s confirmation, oh, what, two years ago? He hasn’t aged a day.”

  Marta felt a little lightheaded. She clattered her cup into its saucer. She really needed to calm down, to act natural, to pretend this was just a casual encounter of two old lovers. Maybe two new lovers.

  Her mother tapped the table to get her attention. “Come on, Marta. He’ll be here in a minute. Fix your lipstick.” Her mother’s quick eyes took in Marta’s crisp, white shirt and the few gold chains swinging around her neck. “That top button doesn’t need to be done.”

  “Mom!”

  “A little cleavage wouldn’t hurt. What’s the problem? Why must you always dress like you’re going to work?”

  Marta undid a button just as she noticed a taxi pulling up in front of the gym. She stilled as Tito approached the taxi. Why would Tito be getting into a cab? It was Saturday morning, after all, and Tito always came to this café after the gym for coffee and a cigarette, before venturing to the bodega for the afternoon shift.

  Her mind raced as Tito leaned down to the passenger-side window. About five years ago, Tito’s father had retired to a beach condo just up the coast from West Palm Beach. Tito was now in charge of his father’s whole empire, spread across all five boroughs, a chain of buoyant little neighborhood stores that stocked rows and rows of Goya canned goods, sofrito and plantains, and candles embossed with the image of the Virgin Mary next to lottery tickets and Chiclets and cigarettes. Perhaps the heavier
duties he had now didn’t allow him the same indulgences he’d enjoyed when he was just the carefree manager of one store.

  Then suddenly, Tito straightened up, tossed the driver a bill, and pulled open the passenger-side door. A woman unfolded herself from the back of the taxi. A tall, slim African-American woman, wearing a full headscarf and a flowing dress.

  “Mom?”

  Tito took the woman’s hands. The couple slid unerringly into a rumba. As if from a very long distance, Marta noted that they danced very well. The woman had a nice line to her back and professional grace.

  “Mom?” she repeated, watching how the couple’s feet moved as if they danced on a smooth parquet floor. “Have you heard…has Tito taken up dancing competition again?”

  Her mother made a strange, choking sound.

  Then Marta looked again and saw what her brain was denying. She saw how Tito’s gaze lingered on the woman’s face. She saw how his smile dimmed to something wistful, an expression that was terribly, terribly familiar.

  “Come on, Marta.” Her mother shot up and grabbed the cardigan off the back of her chair. “We need to leave. Through the back exit. Right now.”

  Marta stumbled to her feet, knocking the table slightly, sending a splatter of coffee over her untouched pastry. Her legs didn’t seem to be responding to her urgency. She grasped the handle of her tote, jerked it toward her, rattling the chair.

  This wasn’t possible.

  A Puerto Rican mother and her two hundred and seventy-two blood relatives couldn’t be wrong.

  But as Marta stumbled through the back room, tripping over boxes to the alley exit, Tito’s loving laughter rang in her ears.

  chapter ten

  Look, here she is. Prettiest doctor in the whoooooooole damn place.”