Twenty-one

TEN DAYS LATER, Paul Tucci calls from North Carolina. He’s back at work, zip-lining through the woods with juvenile delinquents, but soon he’ll be on winter break, and he already bought his plane ticket. He’ll stay with his parents, so he can keep an eye on Big Nick—make sure he lays off the eggnog. If there’s snow, he says, he wants to teach me to ski.

I thought it would be awkward, talking to him on the phone. But it happens not to be so bad. The weird thing is when he asks to talk to my mom, or when she asks to talk to him. Listening to the two of them converse is like walking straight into the Twilight Zone. I sit here, thinking, My parents are talking on the phone. My parents are talking on the phone!

The novelty still hasn’t worn off. I blab about it to anyone who will listen: Liv, Riggs, even the Makeup Mafia, who, after a week of intense shunning, finally forgave me and Liv for our suspensions. It helps that they lost only one of their three games without us. It also helps that we finally told them what happened—that we didn’t ditch practice just to ditch; there was some legitimate drama behind it. I’d forgotten how much Jamie and Lindsey and Schuyler love the drama.

Liv hasn’t told them about Finn, though. She is still nursing a sore heart, is my theory. Or at least a bruised ego. I know she says it was all physical between her and Finn—no strings attached—but still. I keep trying to make her laugh with my dumb jokes, and I’ve put Riggs on the case, to help find a new and improved boy toy—an anti-boy toy—which Liv may not be ready for. But she deserves it.

Also still trying is Jonathan, who, while he hasn’t materialized on our front porch again, has been calling my mom constantly. I am starting to understand what she meant by the word “needy.” At first when he called, it was sweet. She would get off the phone and say, “It was sweet of him to check in.” And I would say, “Yes, it was.” But then, like an hour later, he would call again. And an hour after that. And an hour after that.

Now I am thinking, needy doesn’t gel with Kate Gardner. It’s not that Jonathan is a bad guy; he’s not. . . . It’s just, here is the thing: Kate Gardner is a strong, smart, incredible, beautiful person. Kate Gardner deserves someone who’s not only nuts about her—who not only holds his arms open wide, with no pretense, no bull—but can stand on his own two feet, watching her do her thing.

This hits me when I swing by the bookstore on Saturday, and my mom is running story hour. She is reading Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and I see the kids sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring up at her, their little mouths gaping open. She isn’t just reading; she’s doing different voices for all the characters; she’s making engine noises; she’s standing on her chair, peering down into an imaginary cellar, calling, “Hey, Mike Mulligan, how are you going to get out?!”

I forget, for a second, that she is my mother. And then I remember. And my heart squeezes in on itself, proud.

Later, when we get home, there’s bouquet of roses waiting for my mom on the porch. Shocker: They’re from Jonathan. Now I have to ask, “So what’s the deal with you guys?”

Again, she gives me the party line: they’re taking some time apart, time to think things through, time to let things marinate.

“How much time?” I ask. I sound exasperated, even to myself. “Just what are you waiting for, exactly? If you think he’s too needy, why don’t you break up with him for good?”

While she thinks, I hold on to my biggest point: I hope she’s not waiting for a Paul Tucci miracle.

“I guess,” my mom says finally, “I want to be sure that whatever I decide about Jonathan, I’m doing it for the right reasons.”

“You mean not just because Paul’s getting married.”

I can’t believe I’ve said it. But it’s what I’ve been thinking for the past week—ever since Paul informed us that Lauren will be coming with him for Christmas.

My mom shakes her head slowly. “More that I don’t want to stay with Jonathan just to avoid being alone.”

“Mom. You’re not alone.”

“Oh, I know. But next year you’ll be a senior. You’ll be applying to colleges, and then . . .” She looks at me, shrug-smiles. “You’ll be off.”

“Well, not permanently!” I say. “And who knows, maybe I’ll go to UMass. Or Elmherst College. Maybe I’ll only be five minutes away and we’ll still see each other, like, all the time.”

“Oh, honey.” She sighs. “I don’t want that.”

“Why not? If you need me to—”

“No. It’s my job, Josie, to sort out my life. Not yours. Your job is to hang out with your friends and have fun and play soccer and . . . you know . . . be young. I haven’t let you do enough of that.”

“Yes, you have.”

“I want you to do it more, though, is the point. . . . I want you to really cherish this time. OK? I want you to live it up.”

“OK,” I say, shrugging. “Great.” I tell her I’ll be all over it: keg stands, drag racing, ditching school to shoplift at the mall.

Even though she knows I’m kidding, she pinches my thigh. And even though I know there’s no one here to save me, I squeal for help.

Because that is what we do.

 

I am at Fiorello’s, standing at the coffee bar, restocking plastic lids. Bob is behind me, hovering. Ever since the thing with Big Nick, Bob has been hovering. My first day back, when he asked for a Big Nick report, I told him everything I knew—including that minor tidbit I’d left out from the beginning. “By the way . . . did I mention he’s my grandfather?”

At this, Bob practically fell over from shock. So of course I had to tell him the whole story.

“It’s true,” I said, when I’d finished. “You saved my grandfather’s life.”

Now, whenever I bring it up—the enormity of what he did—Bob brushes it away, embarrassed. But secretly, I know he’s pleased. He keeps the bouquet of lilies from the Tuccis smack in the middle of the pastry counter, where everyone can see them, and he hasn’t even bothered cleaning up the petals that have started to fall off. The card is cream-colored with a green leaf border and a single line of script:

Yours forever in gratitude, Nico, Christina, Peter, Patrick, and Paul Tucci.

While I restock, I think about the night before Paul left for North Carolina, how he brought his parents by my house, and we all sat around the kitchen table. It was the first time my mom and I had seen them since the hospital—the first time since Paul told them about me.

It could have been horrendously, torturously awkward, and, in a way, it was. One thing about Christina Tucci: she doesn’t mince words. She thinks Paul and my mom screwed up royally, and she wasn’t afraid to say it. She thinks she and Big Nick were robbed of the opportunity to be my grandparents, and she wasn’t afraid to say that, either. In a way, my impression of her hasn’t changed since that first night at Shop-Co, when she badgered the checkout girl and slapped her husband on the wrist for picking up a Peppermint Pattie. But I think I might admire her too, a little. For speaking her mind. For putting her feelings out there.

And anyway, Big Nick’s humor is the perfect antidote for Christina’s crustiness. Like how, in the middle of her tirade, he winked across the kitchen table at me and said loudly, “You can be glad of one thing, Josie. You didn’t get the Tucci nose.”

“What’s wrong with the Tucci nose?” Christina said. Then, to me and my mom, “He thinks there’s something wrong with his nose.”

Big Nick shrugged. “It’s a Rocky Balboa nose.” He elbowed Paul in the ribs. “A prizefighter nose, right, Paulie?”

“Right, Dad.”

“Well,” Christina said, “it’s a fine nose. I like it.”

Watching her lean over and kiss his cheek, I had to hand it to Big Nick. He knows how to break the tension. That is a skill everyone should have—tension-breaking. A skill that can take a person far.

Like now, for instance, when Bob is still hovering six inches behind me, I can turn to him and say, “Are you afraid I might slip?”

“Sorry,” he says quietly. He is shuffling his feet, twisting the towel in his hands. I realize what he wants is for me to move, so he can scrub down the coffee bar properly, leaving no germ unwiped.

“That’s OK,” I say, feeling bad. “You go ahead.” I sidestep out of his way so he can do his thing.

I still don’t get why Bob is the way he is, but I’m beginning to think he’s not any more freakish than the rest of us. Me, my mom, Paul, Big Nick, Christina, Riggs, Liv, Jonathan. We may not be germ-a-phobes, but we all have our peccadilloes, our irrational fears: the fear of falling too hard, or of never falling at all; the fear of screwing up, or of getting screwed; the fear of being held too tight, or of not knowing when to let go.

This morning before school, my mom walked into my room with the box from the attic. Paul’s letters. “I think you should have this.”

I looked at her carefully. “Why?”

“It’s your history,” she said. “How it all began.”

“It’s your history too,” I reminded her.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Yes, it is, Mom. You lived it.”

I felt sad, watching her put the box down on my bed. I felt like she should be sad, too, for what she was giving up.

“If you thought you could get him back,” I said, “would you try?”

She smiled a little when I said that. Then she shook her head again. “I’m tired of looking backward, Josie. I’m ready to move on.”

“With Jonathan?” I said.

“Maybe with Jonathan. Maybe on my own. . . . Maybe in a nunnery somewhere . . . you know, swearing off men forever, until I’m too old and withered to care . . .”

I stared at her.

“Kidding, Josie,” she said, laughing. “I’m kidding.”

“You’d better be,” I said.

The last thing I want to imagine is my mother in a wimple, hunched over a cane. I want her to stay exactly the way she is, with her spiky hair and penchant for cheesy ’80s movies, and when people see her coming they say, “Look, there’s Josie’s mom.” They tell me she’s a babe, and they’re right. They tell me I’m lucky to have her for a mother, and they’re right about that, too. For sixteen years she’s been the only parent I’ve ever known—the only one I’ve needed. I don’t know how things will change now, with Paul Tucci in our lives. It remains to be seen, I guess. But I know that whatever happens, my mom will be OK. We both will.

“Josie?” Bob says now, pulling me out of my reverie.

“Yeah?” I say.

“You have a customer.”

I turn, and there he is. Matt Rigby, standing at the cookie counter. Smiling that smile. I know he’s here to pick me up and drive me home, and yet a part of me still can’t believe it.

“Welcome to Fiorello’s,” I say, sidling my way along the display cases until we’re facing each other. “Can I offer you a beverage?”

“Hmm,” he says, pretending to think hard. “What do you recommend?”

“A Joseaccino, perhaps? We also have a fine selection of gourmet teas. . . .” I am dorking out, but I don’t care. This is Riggs. And with Riggs, I can act however I want. That is the beauty of it.

I know what we have may not last forever. It may not even last the school year. But it’s here now. And that is why I don’t even wait for him to order; I just lean across the glass and kiss him, square on the mouth. I can only imagine the look on Bob’s face right now. But what can I say? I’m a wild and crazy teenager, making out with my boyfriend across the cookie counter, germing up the joint.