«Not at all. Hey, I _look forward to_ going to sleep at night! Yeah, I'm still in Rondua, but it's become . . . something entirely different. There's no dark stuff anymore, only wonders. Only beautiful, amazing things. I love it. It's like the old days, when we used to do drugs? But the good drugs, the pure ones that flew you right off the earth? I can't tell you how many new ideas it's given me for my new movie. It's all a mishmash right now, but I know it's going to be incredible when I get everything all sorted out. What was that word you used? The magic one?»
«Koukounaries?»
«That's it. Koukounaries. Well, it worked. I can't tell you. I've got to go! I'll be back in a couple of weeks. Can we go out to lunch and talk about it? Oh Christ, they're closing my gate. I'll call you! Cullen, hey, thanks a lot! God, I've got to tell you everything. Bye!»
On my birthday, my friend Danny James did something so crazy and lovely that I was speechless for almost five minutes.
We had arranged for Eliot to babysit with Mae while we went out for dinner. Danny hadn't given me a present, but our financial situation was such that I took it for granted the dinner alone would send our checkbook screaming.
It was a Friday night and, in general, New York was jumpy and electric and ready for its weekend. Even the weirdos and walking dead on street corners looked less hopeless and more sane than usual.
Danny knew about Alvin Williams' last letter and my conversation with Dr. Lavery. As a result, he did all he could to cheer me up and make me laugh. He did a good job, too. Danny was never flashy-funny; he didn't tell many jokes or make cute faces or speak in little Mr. Elf-y voices, but he could still crack me up whenever he wanted. If nothing else, all he had to do was tell a lames family story and that did it. For some reason, crazy things happened to the James family all the time. On the night of my birthday, I heard the tale of Uncle Gene. Uncle Gene James had played professional baseball in South America for a few years, and once had gone to bat against none other than Fidel Castro when Gene's team was in Cuba. Apparently, Castro is a big baseball buff and loves nothing more than to get out on the field and throw a few. This time out, Gene was leadoff hitter against the famous hurler. Castro, wearing his army uniform, threw exactly one curveball which hit Gene right on the head. He recovered, but wild pitches are _not_ good public relations for the leader of a country. After the game, when Gene was in the locker room holding an ice pack against his skull, two gorillas in military uniform came up and said if he ever let out about the bean-ball, he'd be turned into black bean soup.
«Those fuckin' Commies!» This came from the cabdriver who had been eavesdropping on Danny's story the whole time. His face in the rear-view mirror looked just as if it had been bitten by a wasp right in the middle.
I took Danny's hand and squeezed my choked laughter through it.
«Even when you're just playin' baseball, they try to get you!»
Danny winked at me, then asked the driver where he'd got his swell cap.
«Not in no Russia, I'll tell you _that_, Ace!»
Dinner was at a place in Chelsea which Eliot had recommended as having some of the best food in town. It lived up to his word and we ate ourselves into proud stupors.
After dinner, Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick envelope. «Do you want to guess, or should I show you?»
«Yippee! Show me, Dan! I hate guessing.»
Opening the envelope, he pulled out passports and two bright red-and-green airplane tickets.
«In exactly three hours, birthday girl, you and I are going to get on the midnight flight to Milan, Italy. We're there until Monday, and we're staying in the Brera at the Solferino. What do you think of that, Colon?»
«I think I like it a lot, Captain, but what about our daughter?»
«She's already with your parents – it's all been arranged. Eliot took her over right after we left the house. That's why they didn't all come out to dinner with us.»
«We can't afford this, can we, Danny?»
«Nope. Oh, maybe one-ninth of it. Do you want dessert? I saw a great-looking chocolate cake when we came in.»
Despite a sleepless, _multo agitato_ ride over the ocean, we arrived on Saturday afternoon in Milan wide-awake and crazy to get out and get started in Italy again. On the short trip in from the airport, we tried to decide what to do first: walk, or shop, or visit our beloved «Marchesi» for cappuccino and _dolce_. We agreed right off (and shook on it to make it binding) that there would be no rules that weekend. You could do or eat or have seconds on whatever you wanted, and no one was allowed to raise an eyebrow in disapproval.
The first part of that day was the most relaxing time I had had in a long while. Mae, Weber, Alvin Williams . . . not to mention the ever-frisky Rondua at night had filled my life to the top of its cup constantly. That was all fine, but there weren't many moments tor calm thought and/or reflection amidst that 3-D circus of mine.
I didn't know how much I'd missed or needed that relaxation until I was sitting alone in a cafй in the great Galleria, reading a magazine and having a glass of chilled fresh orange juice. Danny was off wandering the Via della Spiga, but I had decided it was just about time to sit back and take it easy for a while. My body yearned to feel heavy and content, sitting like a happy log at an exquisite Italian cafй, watching the rest of the world wander by.
After a good hour, I noticed something I had completely forgotten about. European women are so completely different from Americans. There seems to be so much pride attached to _being_ different from men over there – and not just in Italy either – to being special because you are, thank God, a woman.
On the other hand many American women, whether they're twenty or forty, seem so raw and graceless in comparison. In general, they move badly, talk like «good old boys,» chew gum with their mouths open, wear misshapen clothes . . . And even though they wear a lot of makeup I always have the impression the majority of them would like nothing more than to be «one of the guys.»
As a result, when we lived in Europe (and now again after only an hour in the cafй, watching), I felt like ET's rural cousin wrhen I held myself up to the women around me.
There aren't many beggars in Milan, but the ones who do work the streets are certainly a colorful bunch. Almost always women, they deck themselves out in gypsy kerchiefs and ragged dresses that fall to the tops of their bare feet. They inevitably carry an infant at a dangerous angle on one arm and come up to you with palm extended, looking as if they're about to cry.
I didn't notice the one who approached me until she was almost rubbing my shoulder. Looking up, a little dazed and still far away in my thoughts, I didn't register the change on her face until she leapt back and spoke to me.
«_Strega!_»
_Strega_ is the popular Italian drink. It is also the word for witch.
Shocked by both the word and her tone of voice, I looked from her to the baby in her arms. It was Mae.
«Mae! My baby!»
I got up so quickly that I knocked my chair over and a waiter standing nearby yelled at the woman to get out.
«She has my baby!»
I said it in English, but the waiter understood and grabbed the woman by the arm.
«_Strega! Maligna!_»
What followed would have been funny if it hadn't been so awful. The child came alive and started crying and when I saw its face I realized it wasn't Mae at all. But that recognition didn't make me feel any better because something just as bad dawned on me: the woman's face was familiar.
My dream of months before: women sweeping the floor with fiery scarves, threatening my daughter if I continued to help Pepsi in Rondua. This woman was one of them, I was sure of that.
She pulled away from the waiter and ran across the floor of the Galleria, looking at me over her shoulder as she ran. I didn't want her to come back, but unconsciously I put up my hand in her direction.
No purple light spun out of my hand in a hard arc as it had with Weber Gregston, but a hundred feet acro
ss the way the woman lifted off the ground and fell in a screaming heap. Had I done it, or had she simply fallen?
It would have ended there if she hadn't continued to yell at me, but I no longer knew what she was saying. Her words had become all short spits and crazy, whirling gestures. Thank God, the child was okay!
The commotion that followed was confusing and ugly; it lasted about twenty minutes. Besides the woman and me, it involved two policemen, the waiter and a number of «eyewitnesses.»
The police wanted to know if that _was_ my child – had the woman stolen anything from me, did I want to press charges? They didn't ask her one thing, although she continued to yell until one of them threatened to take her to jail unless she shut up.
When it was over, they told her to get out of there. Touching their hats to me, they gave me one last suspicious look and then followed her out to make sure she left. The poor waiter, who was completely baffled by then, kindly asked if I wanted another _spremuta_. It was obvious though that he wanted me out of there too and the whole thing forgotten. I said no and gave him ten thousand lira for his trouble.
I immediately went to a post office and – without thinking – called my parents in New York to see if Mae was okay. They thought it was very cute that I was so concerned, but it _was_ the middle of the night there and they hoped the ringing hadn't wakened her. My mother reminded me to bring home a big piece of Parmesan cheese and told me not to waste my time in Italy worrying. I felt very foolish, but greatly reassured.
When I met up with Danny again an hour later, he told me he had called a bunch of our friends and arranged for all of us to have dinner together later. We spent the rest of the day wandering around and that was nice, but the scene earlier had slapped me hard in the face and left it stinging and bright red.
Luckily, dinner was a rowdy three hours that did a great deal toward making things better. Familiar stories, heavenly food and funny, entertaining people reminded me once again of how first-rate living in Italy had been for us.
Everyone wanted to see pictures of Mae and I gladly obliged. Two of them decided after seeing the snaps that she must marry their sons in a few years and have Italian _bambini_. I didn't dare ask how she was to manage two husbands at the same time!
We ate and talked and it seemed as if someone was always gesturing wildly or else refilling everyone's glass with red wine. Danny sat directly across from me, wedged between two old basketball teammates; he looked very happy. Once in a while he would look over to make sure I was getting along all right. Good tears came to my eyes more than once that evening, and not only when they brought out a birthday cake. There were no candles, but Lorenzo remedied that by taking one from the table and jamming it into the middle of the cake, much to the waiter's dismay.
«Make a weesh, Cullen!»
«Yes, wish that we win some more games next year!»
«Hey, _fungione_, it's her birthday today, not yours!»
I closed my eyes and wished the fifth Bone of the Moon for Pepsi. I certainly had everything I wanted.
At the hotel afterward, we decided to take a bath together. Halfway through, we made slow, funny love right there in the tub. We hadn't done that in a long time and I thought it was perfect and hilarious. Danny asked what was so funny and the only thing I could answer was, «Our knees, our knees!» which didn't clarify much.
The nice thing about sex is that you can use it for so many different things: to get hot, to cement a bond or – in the case of that moment for us – to be little kids again together, having a great sexy time.
When we'd untangled ourselves from the love tub, Danny dried off fast and disappeared into the bedroom in a suspicious hurry.
«What are you doing?»
«You'll see.»
I looked at my reflection in the mirror and frowned. «Danny. . . .»
«Be quiet and just come in here when you're ready.»
I wrapped a towel around me and marched in. . . .
When I came to Europe and joined Danny in Greece, one day I found on a beach the most beautiful piece of bottle glass I'd ever seen. Bottle glass? It's glass that has been in the ocean so long that, broken or not at one time, all of its corners have since become rounded and smooth. What's even better if you've come across a special piece, is that it has the most gentle, washed-out, unearthly color imaginable. I have seen it the strange gray-blue of cigarette smoke as it disappears in the air, or the fragile pink of a baby's tongue. Of course it all depends on what color the glass was originally and how long it has been washing around under water. Many people collect it with a strange passion and I can understand that, because good bottle glass is like nothing you've ever seen before. Enchantingly, I found my piece on one of the first days in Europe and naturally I took that as a great omen. I treasured it for many reasons, but particularly because it meant so many things all at once. Every time I looked at it on my dresser – it was about the size of a fifty-cent piece – it was 1. Danny James; 2. the first days in Greece; 3. Europe; 4. Love; 5. My first great courage . . . all of it there in a small mysterious piece of glass.
This night in Milan it was sitting on top of one of the pillows. Danny had taken it to a jeweler and had a small hole drilled at the top, so that he could thread it on the thin gold chain that he'd bought. I could wear the whole beautiful thing as a necklace. I'd often mentioned wanting to do just that, if and when we ever came into a little extra loot.
It was a complete Danny James gift – loving, thoughtful, intimate. I went over and gave him a bear hug.
«You're such a big . . . treasure. You know that, Danny? Thank you very much.»
«You're welcome. I think you're losing your towel there.»
I pulled him down on to the bed and at half-speed, as sexily as I could, put his necklace on, watching him closely the whole time. My body felt charged with electricity, which made my skin hot and tight and tingly. We were both ready again, but it had to be slow now. Not funny or friendly slow as it had been before in the bathtub. Now it would be thick-slow; blood pounding in your head, slow. Don't touch yet – not yet. Wait and look, look until you can't stand it anymore, then wait more.
He understood. We had done it this way before, but because it was Milan and my birthday, and as much magic in the air as we'd ever have between us, we waited even longer. Danny's only move was to put one hot finger under the golden necklace and jiggle it lightly. I felt it all across my breasts. We were still looking straight into each other's eyes.
«Happy birthday, my Cullen.»
Later, dripping and exhausted, I fell right to sleep. I dreamed we visited the grave of our daughter.
I figured we missed the call by about twenty minutes. We were already on our way to the Milan airport when Danny's sister called the hotel from North Carolina to say his mother had collapsed at work and was in the hospital on the intensive care ward. The prognosis was not good; she needed immediate heart-bypass surgery, or else.
My parents gave us the news when we returned to New York and went over to their apartment to pick up Mae. Danny called North Carolina from their apartment and got all of the ruthless details. We decided it would save time and worry if he just went straight back to the airport and flew down to Winston-Salem on the next flight, alone. If he had to stay there for a while, then Mae and I could always join him later. For now, his getting there fast was all that mattered.
Trouble always knows how to take you by nasty surprise. One minute you're sitting at home by the fire, then – _blink_ – you're suddenly in a completely foreign city where you don't speak the language, all the banks are closed, you've got no map and night's already come.
My parents asked if I wanted to stay there with them, but after Danny left I was too hyper and out-of-sorts to accept their offer. I just wanted to put Mae in her playpen by the sunny window in our living room, get out of my squashed traveling clothes, shower, look at the mail . . . be home.
It was a big mistake not to stay with the folks. As usual, my parents had t
reated Miss Mae James like the belle of the ball and she was not about to relinquish _that_ status willingly. In other words, she was a complete pill for the rest of the day. Welcome home, Mommy! We glared daggers at each other until she finally gave up in gasping fury and went to sleep in her crib with an impressive snarl on her face.
Later, Eliot called from downtown to say hello and how was it? When I told him what was going on, he said he'd come by in a couple of hours with dinner from our local horrible Chinese restaurant. I was so glad to hear his voice and know he'd be there to keep me company. Before that, the evening ahead had looked awfully long and forlorn.
My inner time clock was so whacked out that after his phone call, my whole system started shutting down whether I liked it or not. I knew it was nap time.
The phone woke me. When I opened my eyes, everything in the room was dark bevond shadows. The ringing was shrill and bitter. Alarmed, I looked at my watch and its green glow told me I had slept over three hours.
As I struggled off the couch, still drugged from sleep, I banged into Eliot who was coming in from the kitchen on tiptoes with a burbling Mae in his arms. I was so surprised to see him there that I let out a whoop that scared all of us.
«It's only me, Cullen! Get the phone!»
Danny was calling from his sister's house; his mother was very weak, but stable. The surgery would be performed in the morning if everything was still all right; her chances of making it were good.
«What do you mean by 'good', Dan?»
«Better than fifty-fifty, the doctor said. Did you call Eliot?»
«He's right here now. Are you okay, Danny?»
«No, Cul, I'm scared and I'm worried. But what can you expect?»
I loved him for saying that, and not, «Everything's okay. I'm tough as nails.» Because Danny _was_ tough, but this wasn't the time to play virile and swagger around. It was the time to pray and be scared and feel very small.
«Can I do anything for you, love?»
Bones of The Moon Page 16
