The way things worked out, I ran into her as she went out for the paper the next morning. I was on the same errand, giving me a fairly uninteresting opening as we walked down our driveways. “Funny we don’t run into each other this way more often.”
“I’m usually out here much earlier.”
“Early to bed, early to rise?”
“I go to sleep early,” she said with a little shrug.
So much for truth-telling.
“I meant what I said last night. The movie? I’d like to do it again sometime.”
“That’s okay, Vinnie,” she said. “I appreciate it. Really.”
“That sounds like a no.”
“You looked at me differently after you got punched out in the locker room. You were different.”
She was right. But not for the reasons she thought. How could I say that Vincenzo was the one who got mad at her?
“I mean, for me it stopped being about the good time we had last Sunday,” she said. “I’m embarrassed about the things he said about me.”
She tucked their paper under her arm and started back for the house without me. I grabbed our paper, closer to the curb, and dashed back to her.
“Admit it,” she said. “Part of the reason you keep asking is just to be nice.”
“What if I took you to the movies to be nice,” I said, “but I bought you the hot chocolate because I really like you?”
Wrong. It was written all over her face. Right then—not a moment before, I don’t know why—but right then, I remembered what she’d said about Vinnie Gold. A Ken doll.
I tried again. “I asked you because I thought we’d have a good time again, and we did.” Which was as real as Vinnie Gold could get.
I should’ve just tied a stone around my neck and jumped in.
Because what I wanted to tell her right then, sometimes a guy just likes the way a girl sounds late at night. And when her eyes widened, I could say, So of course I’ll keep on calling at midnight, even if I’ve just brought you home. But Vincenzo had blown his last chance.
So what I said was, “I took you out because I like you, Patsy.” No frills.
She gave me an odd look. I lost any points I’d gotten for honesty, because I didn’t quite meet her eyes. Telling the truth is tougher than it sounds.
“I’m not saying no to you personally, Vinnie. I don’t think I’m going to go out for a while,” she said. “I’m off dating.”
We had reached our doors, and both of us hesitated. I was trying to get up the nerve to say the kind of thing that Vincenzo found so easy. But Patsy beat me to the punch.
“You’re a good guy, I know how nice you were to me—” And then she pulled out all the stops. She used honesty. “I almost thought you were—it sounds stupid, I know, but I kept thinking you were going to turn out to be somebody else. I thought there was this soft part you were protecting—there’s just nothing soft about you, Vinnie. That’s not your fault, you don’t have to be different for me, so I’m just sorry, okay?” she finished, in a tone that didn’t sound sorry at all.
She opened her door and stood there, waiting to see if I had anything more to say. I’m not a glutton for punishment. I decided to take her at her word, at least for the moment. I opened the kitchen door and went inside without another word to her. I wish I could say Vinnie Gold ran his fingers through his hair and strolled off, the winnah. But it didn’t really feel that way.
Vincenzo had been right all along. I was the one.
But in a funny way, she had said the right thing. What might have happened if I had done the same?
Real meeting real.
An underwater earthquake. Foundations being ripped asunder miles below, and nary a ripple on the surface of the water. In a way, that’s what had happened, even though only one of us knew about it.
“Vinnie,” Mom said. She was sitting with Mr. B, dunking a French glazed. Mr. B had made an early-morning run to the donut shop. “Can we have the paper?”
I set it down on the table. “Hot chocolate in the mug,” Mr. B said, sort of in breakfast code as the phone rang. He got up to answer it, said “Good morning, Ma.”
I headed for the teapot and poured boiling water into the mug, stirring. “Hey, Mom, you remember Paul?”
“Paul who?”
“I don’t know. He was your Paul.”
“Oh! Of course I remember him.”
Mr. B stepped into the dining room with his conversation, phone cord stretched and jiggling.
I asked Mom, “Who was he, exactly?”
“First guy to love me. First one to tell me so, anyway. What a character.”
“What kind of character?” I made much of choosing from assorted donuts, hoping she’d talk.
“We grew up together, so I was aware of every silly kid thing he ever did. Awful things, sometimes. I didn’t take him seriously. But I broke up with my longtime boyfriend two days before the prom, and Paul stepped in to take me to the dance. And to a dance club in the city after. And to the beach at daybreak.”
She snatched up the last French glazed donut as my hand hovered too near, and added, “We were with a whole bunch of kids, of course, but that night I learned he’d loved me through most of our teen years.”
“So how come you and Dad used to sound sort of mean about him?”
“Did we?”
“Well. I was a kid. I could be wrong. But why would you say to Dad, ‘Remember Paul?’ And then laugh.”
“Ah. Well, your dad almost didn’t marry me.”
!!!
I was glad I had just taken a big bite. It covered my surprise.
“About a week before the wedding, he got cold feet. And Paul offered to step in.” This last bit about Paul was said with real affection. “Sometimes I wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“About Paul. He was such a great guy.”
“Even though he did all those things you mentioned. Awful things?”
“Probably because of them,” Mom said. “Out of all the guys I dated or even didn’t date back then, he was memorable, you know?”
“Where is he now?”
“Married the prom queen and moved to Seattle, last I heard.”
“The prom queen?”
“She had been, yes, but when he married her, she was a fashion buyer, moving out there to work for a big department store. And he was moving out there with her, moving his practice, way before it was fashionable to do that kind of thing.”
“His practice?”
“He was a lawyer. Defending the undefendable, of course.”
Mr. B came back and said to Mom, “Ma wants to say hello.”
I was standing in front of my breath-fogged bedroom window around five o’clock, maybe five-thirty, looking forward to spaghetti and meatballs. It was dark, of course, but I could see a few snowflakes drifting past the window.
I saw Patsy leave by her back door. She walked down the drive, not especially fast and not particularly purposefully. I watched long enough to see which way she went, thinking it was good I had my work boots on. No time to waste.
“Vinnie, what’s the rush?” Mom wanted to know as I sped through the living room. “I’m about to take the spaghetti out of the oven.”
“Save some for me,” I yelled back to her. “I’m going for a walk.”