The next day’s paper reports that a pedestrian was killed while attempting to cross the West Side Highway. There were conflicting reports from eyewitnesses as to whether he stepped out of a car or he came from the path along the river. There was no identification on the body, the paper said. No one could come up with any motives. There’s only a small picture, something that looks like it was taken by Weejee, the crime photographer from like the ’30s and ’40s who took lurid pictures of dead bodies at crime scenes.
But the picture is enough for Anthony to recognize it.
“Fucking Sal,” he says while he’s drinking coffee at breakfast. “Got what he deserved.”
I don’t dare say anything because he’ll be furious at me for running alone along the river, but my heart registers panic.
“Sal One-Eye? The one that Dad hated?”
Anthony nods without looking up.
They called him One-Eye because he lost an eye during a fight and wore an eye patch for the rest of his life. It always made me cringe to hear about him. Was Sal after me? Even with my father locked away in prison, were they still going after him by going after me?
I vow that I’ll never go running alone after dark. Clive’s right. I should start a club, at least a running club, because there’s safety in numbers.
All day at school I’m thinking about the day before and what could have happened and how stupid I was and if anyone knew, not that I’d tell, and somehow I get through the day, and even with my dad away and Michael out of my life forever and all the shit that enters your head at night, after running thirteen miles around the track at the health club because it’s brightly lit and safe but not much fun, I manage to sleep.
Only after I hit the pillow all the craziness gets woven together in a patchwork of fantasies and the dream begins. I’ve decided to bring Michael home with me to meet my mom and Anthony. Ro thinks I’m insane.
“He’s different,” I say.
“He’s a cop,” Ro says.
I invite him anyway.
“You sure?” he says.
I’m not sure of anything. “My mom will love you.”
I invite him for Saturday dinner and the day before my mom is standing in the kitchen making manicotti when she turns to me. “Is the boy Italian?”
The boy? “He’s not Italian.”
She exhales and draws another breath. “Is he Catholic?” she asks, holding out her hands.
“He’s Catholic, Ma.”
She touches the crosses on her chest, like her prayers have been answered, at least some of them.
We’re interrupted by a knock at the door. Michael’s standing there holding a bouquet of flowers. He holds them out to me, but I can tell this is weird for him. He doesn’t know how to act, but he smiles at my mom and his cop eyes scan the house.
I panic that he’ll turn and run, insisting that it’s wrong and stupid and crazy, or worse, that he’ll go up to Anthony’s room and find grass or coke and change back from boyfriend to law enforcement officer again and bust my brother. But that’s not what happens.
We open the wine and Michael pours some for my mom and then for me. We toast.
And then Anthony walks in. He looks at Michael and does a double take. He walks toward the kitchen and motions for me to follow.
“That’s the same cop who—”
“Yes, Anthony.”
“You bring him home with you? You know what Dad would say?”
“Do you see Dad here, Anthony?
We eat together in the dining room and Anthony mutters a “how you doin’” in a guarded way then fills his plate, ignoring Michael who sits and waits.
Our eyes meet across the table, and then Michael casually asks Anthony about his car. Anthony looks up and they start talking car stuff and the air changes and Anthony goes on about his beloved Jag with this kindred spirit, and I’m sitting there like, okay, can you guys just shut up about cars and carburetors and the throttle body needing to be replaced, whatever the hell that is.
But never mind that because then they move on to head gasket failure, which seriously sounds like car impotence, and then my phone rings and I answer it because it’s Clive so I go to the living room to talk, and when I get back it’s not like I was missed because Michael and Anthony are still talking car failure. And I’m wondering about this cop, the one who never talks.
After I help my mom clean up and Anthony and Michael finally shut up, I grab Michael’s hand and pull him upstairs and show him Vogue and he looks at the pictures and shakes his head and says, “did your dad see these?”
“No.”
He laughs. “That’s good.”
We make out and he tastes like merlot and I lock the door and finally Michael catches his breath and says, “Baby, I better go.”
Then I wake up and that make-believe world vanishes. I’m alone.
Again.