by Cora Brent
“And what’s that?”
“Nothing I can elaborate on in a family setting.”
Ah, she knew him well.
Jack crept toward her seductively. “As long as you agree to elaborate later.”
She was suddenly flustered, glancing around to make sure no one heard. She pursed her lips and her cheeks grew pink. “Behave and I’ll think about it.”
“That sounds like a promise.”
“It’s a maybe.”
“Kiss me, Anya.”
She beamed and threw her arms around his neck. Jack held her close and found her mouth. It was a sweet kiss, a gentle kiss. They stayed locked together that way until Jack heard a throat-clearing type of noise and glanced up to find that Claudia had changed to jeans and was standing there looking at them funny.
Anya detached herself from his neck and smiled nervously at Claudia. “You hungry?”
“I could eat,” Claudia answered, staring at him.
Jack regretted how little he knew her. He had no freaking idea what she was thinking. None. She could be internally calculating baseball statistics, or she could be trying to remember how to build a pipe bomb. She was his flesh and blood and a complete goddamn mystery.
Anya came to the rescue, making a sincere effort to get Claudia in a chatty mood. Jack was grateful because he seemed to be at a loss for words. Anya asked Claudia about her graduate school applications and jokingly wondered if it was really possible to fry an egg on the sidewalk during an Arizona heat wave. She carefully avoided mentioning anything about the motherfucker who’d given Claudia a ring and then humiliated her.
For her part, Claudia was cordial and even pleasant. Jack watched the two of them together – the two most important females in his life – and tried to remember what kind of trouble had existed between them when they were kids. Anya would have been a whole three years ahead of Claud in school but because the Malones lived around the block and this was the kind of place where kids hung out everywhere and played kickball in the street, they must have run into each other a lot. One time Claudia had been muttering at the dinner table about ‘that stuck up Malone bitch’ only two seconds before Jack’s mother slapped her across the face for her language. Claudia had always been a kid who rarely cried but something about being struck unexpectedly by her grandmother made her eyes well up with tears. Jack saw one thick drop fall down her cheek and his heart twisted. So he leaned across the table, looked his surprised mother in the eye, and said in a low, threatening voice, “Don’t you dare hit my daughter again as long as you live.”
That was the only clear memory Jack had of Claudia mentioning Anya’s name. But back then Anya was just a kid who he didn’t give a second thought to. Claudia might have said more about her but he just hadn’t been listening. Anyway, whatever kind of nonsense it was shouldn’t be any big deal, just the kind of juvenile bullshit girls fought over. There was no reason they couldn’t be friends now.
Anya had slow cooked a pork shoulder all night and Jack helped himself to a shredded pork sandwich while Claudia reluctantly followed Anya down the hall to go look at her wedding dress. Claud shot him a look before she rounded the corner and he couldn’t read the expression on her face. She kind of looked like she did when she was around six years old and he caught her eating a bag of sour gummy worms in the laundry closet at two am.
It could have been because she wasn’t especially interested in anyone’s dress. Claudia had always been sort of disdainful of the typical things girls got dizzy about. Or maybe she was feeling a little weird over being on the brink of watching her father get married when it should have been her turn.
Jack figured he should somehow get up the nerve to tell her she was better off seeing that asshole’s true colors before she walked down the aisle rather than after she was stuck with him. He should tell her that she deserved a guy who felt like he’d won the damn lottery every time she smiled at him.
Claudia deserved someone who felt about her the same way Jack felt about Anya.
Getty blew right through the front door without knocking. He tossed a white box into Jack’s lap. Jack frowned at the contents.
“Why’d you only get seven?”
“I ordered a dozen.”
Jack looked again. “I didn’t go to college, but I can count, Gaetano. There’s only seven cannoli in here.”
Getty grabbed a beer and sat on the couch. “I got hungry.”
Easton turned on the Mets game and fixed himself a sandwich. Jack asked him if he went down to the field to throw in a few this morning. Easton started say something about going to the beach but then abruptly stopped talking. Claudia and Anya were back and it seemed like Anya’s little brother was staring at Jack’s daughter. Claudia kind of stood there rigidly, looking like a captured animal bewildered by its strange new surroundings. At her side, Anya was gabbing brightly about the pink bridesmaid dress she had picked out for her. Jack had tried to tell Anya that was a mistake. Claudia wasn’t the pink and lace type. But Anya only laughed and said she was sure Claudia would like it just fine.
Meanwhile, Easton was still staring at Claudia and he suddenly didn’t look a good kid anymore. He looked like a hungry man and Jack didn’t want to find out where his appetite was leading him.
He shook off the feeling. Claudia was fully grown. She could handle herself just fine.
Things got loud for a while because Rocco and Getty were yelling at the television and loudly joking with Claudia. Jack had the sense they were trying to lighten the vague tension in the room and he noticed that Claudia started to relax a little as she accepted a plate of food from Anya and sunk into the orange armchair in the corner.
“Hey,” Getty called from the couch. He was finishing his third beer. “What time are The Stiff and his old lady getting here tomorrow?”
Jack tried to remember. Anya remembered for him.
“Their plane gets in at noon,” she said.
The Stiff was the long ago high school boyfriend turned podiatrist that Jack’s mother, Estelle Giordano, had married about three minutes after his father peeled his last stretch of rubber on the Wantagh Parkway. She seemed happy down there in Miami so Jack figured he shouldn’t begrudge her that, although he’d felt differently for a while.
Until he’d learned firsthand how love can turn you on your head.
Jack’s mother, an eternally agitated and high-strung woman, had been rather strident when he called her with the happy news.
“What? You’re marrying who? Why?”
Why? Because he’d finally found out the secret that everyone else seemed to know. He’d found out what it was like to fall in love. He’d found Anya.
Jack polished off the last of the pork sandwich and headed to the kitchen to toss the greasy paper plate away. When he returned to the living room he suffered an intense moment of déjà vu. He was thirty-eight years old and he’d lived in the same house his whole damn life. Sometimes that depressed the hell out of him. Lately he’d been trying to get Anya to consider selling the place and moving away. Maybe leaving the shop in the hands of Rocco and Getty and getting out of Long Island altogether. It was a big country, full of things he’d never seen. But Anya wouldn’t even talk about it. She loved it there. She loved Jack’s house, their house. She loved the comfortable familiarity of staying in the same town she’d been born in. She didn’t understand what else could be better than this. And right now, in this moment, with his daughter here and the love of his life wrapping up leftovers in tinfoil, Jack could admit that there probably wasn’t anything better.
Easton had made his way over to Claudia. He was talking to her. Drooling over her, actually. Jack figured Claud had enough good sense that she wouldn’t fall for Easton’s brand of bullshit. If he thought otherwise he might feel uneasy about leaving the two of them alone under the same roof for a week while he and Anya were gone. Even if the garage was technically a separate roof, it was still awful close for temptation.
Suddenly the mood shifted
. Claudia said something that Easton didn’t seem to appreciate. He slumped a little, grumbled a few words, and walked away. Jack hoped she’d put him in his place. He liked Easton a lot but that boy was full of conceit on account of all the girls trying to straddle him all day every day. He had a certain arrogant swagger about him and it was bound to get him in trouble. He reminded Jack of himself.
Papa chose that moment to drift into the room. He was dressed in sweatpants and a tweed blazer. He seemed like he was in a good mood.
“Hey, Papa,” Claudia said warmly and got out of the chair to approach him for a hug.
Papa blinked at his great-granddaughter and asked her if she’d cleaned the toilet yet.
“No,” Claudia said hesitantly and threw Jack a puzzled look. He’d tried to tell her how far gone Papa was getting, but he supposed that was different from seeing it up close. Really, Jack didn’t know how much longer they’d be able to keep Papa at home. There was no way the old man could be left on his own for a week while he and Anya were on their honeymoon. Rocco and Getty were going to be too busy covering for him in the shop and Papa’s daughter, Rochelle, the only surviving sister of his father, was the one who’d left him on their doorstep years ago. She hadn’t even waited until he was inside before she sped off in her Cadillac. Of course, Easton would be around but he was in his own jock-happy nineteen-year-old world. Jack was grateful to Claudia for agreeing to stay in the house and help with Papa.
Claudia sat back in her chair and watched her uncles yell at the television while she played with her long hair. She’d always worn it long. It was the one thing she’d been vain about as a kid.
“You want to take a walk?” Jack asked her. The sun wouldn’t completely disappear for at least another hour but it was easing its way over the horizon and a light breeze blew through the windows that Anya had opened.
Claudia wrinkled her nose, a cute nose, her mother’s nose. “Where?” she asked like it was a critical feature of whether or not she would agree.
“Just around the block or something. C’mon. Get your shoes on.” Jack found himself sweating it out a little as Claudia quietly considered for a minute. Tomorrow would be wedding mania and he would be leaving as soon as the party was over. He’d hoped Claud would fly in earlier so he could spend some more time with her but he supposed he’d have to take what he could get.
Abruptly she hopped up from the chair and headed for the stairs. “All right. Just give me a minute.”
Jack was already waiting in the front yard when she opened up the door. She had Converse on her feet, no makeup on her face and Jack felt a tight lump in his throat because she looked about fourteen years old. He suddenly, fervently, wished she really was fourteen. If Claudia was fourteen, he would be a better dad now than he was then. Much better.
Claudia fell into step beside him. She cleared her throat and started to speak but stopped, looking down at the cracks in the sidewalk. They were under a canopy of maple trees. Claudia squinted up into the dappled light. Jack could remember being right here and putting her on his shoulders, then running down the block as she held on and screamed with delight.
“Are you ready?” she asked with a hesitant note of curiosity.
“For what?”
She rolled her eyes and exhaled a little irritably, like her meaning should have been obvious. “To get married, Jack.”
“Yeah, of course I’m ready.” He glanced at her sideways. “Didn’t mean to surprise you with the news the way I did.”
“I’m not sure how you could have done it differently. I mean, it is what it is. You don’t owe me any explanation.”
“It’s not just a whim, Claud.”
“Did I say that?”
“No. I want you to know that I love her though.”
Claudia stopped walking and faced away. They were now in front of Rocco and Getty’s small house.
“They got rid of the crab apple trees,” she said, gesturing to where there was once a veritable forest of thick-stemmed weeds and gnarled trees.
“Yeah, they cut all that shit back when they bought the house.”
They stared at the yard in silence for a minute. Jack hated the silence. It was not a comfortable one. “Claudia. Look, I know we’re not the heartfelt types and it’s enough that you came out but I gotta ask this anyway. You okay with this? With me and Anya?”
She smiled vaguely. “I don’t hate Anya. She was a bigger bitch to better people than me.”
Jack was annoyed. He sighed. “Don’t hurt yourself with that ringing endorsement.”
Claudia clasped her hands in front of her and bent her head. “She’s fine. Really. I’m not gonna go hating on her for being a jerk when she was a kid. Everyone’s a jerk on some level. And I know she’s had her share of hard knocks.”
She didn’t know the half of it. Anya Malone was probably the bravest person Jack ever knew. He didn’t say that though. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stayed quiet while Claudia kept talking.
“So you can quit worrying, Jack. There’s not going to be a problem between me and Anya as long as this is the one and only time she tries to shove me into a pink party dress. Jesus, did you see that thing? Looks like something that was vomited out of a sweet sixteen circa 1956. But it’s fine. We’ll get along. Anyway, it’s not like I hang out in Lutztown all the time.”
He hated it when she said things like that. She said it like she was proud of it.
“You could,” he told her. “You know you always have a home here.”
“Thanks, but my life is out in Arizona now.”
“How’s that going anyway? Life?”
Damn.
He hadn’t meant to make it sound like a challenge, like he was trying to point out that things weren’t turning out so well for her so far. Crappy job, miserable prospects for something better. Oh, and a humiliating betrayal that ended the only long-term relationship she’d ever even mentioned.
She tilted her chin up and gave him a prideful glare. “Life is good, Jack. Thanks for asking.” Her narrowed eyes would set fire to one of the maple branches if she got any more hostile. Back when Claudia turned eight, she started calling him Jack instead of Dad. He always got the impression that she stuck his name into their conversations needlessly, excessively, to prove a point.
“I’ll be just fine, Jack,” she said with prissy conviction.
“I know that.” He really didn’t know that though. What he did know was that his daughter wanted the world to think that she had an iron force field surrounding her and no grief or heartbreak could penetrate it.
They resumed walking and talked about more trivial things, like which neighbors moved to Florida and who had died in the last few years. When they found themselves in front of the house again she started up the path to the front door. Jack wished she wouldn’t. He would have been happy just to stay in her company for a little while longer.
Miss you, kid. Wish I knew what to say to you.
He stood there, making a mental note to grease the hinges on the screen door because when Claudia opened it the rusty scream was spine tingling. Jack stared at the closed door for a few more seconds. He didn’t smoke anymore so there was nothing else to do outside. He sighed and entered the house.
The baseball game was over and his brothers were receiving a list of instructions from Anya about all the things they needed to do tomorrow. Pick up the tuxes at this time, get people from the airport at that time. It would be a small wedding. There was an Italian restaurant a few miles down the road that had a tiny courtyard for the ceremony and a private room for the reception. Jack knew it wasn’t the height of glamor and he knew Anya deserved better but she was so radiant it seemed she didn’t mind about any of that. He hoped not. All he wanted to do was marry her.
Rocco and Getty left after they helped cart Papa down the hall. He lived in the back bedroom, an extension tacked onto the rear of the house twenty years ago to give Claudia her own room.
Jack realized Easton was u
nusually quiet and a few times he saw the kid shooting irritated glares at Claudia. She didn’t seem to notice.
“You going out tonight?” Anya asked him as Jack folded up the table.
Easton shrugged and glanced at Claudia again. She was standing at the front window, watching the lightning bugs flicker on and off in the darkening front yard.
“Yeah, I think I might go out tonight,” he said loudly and seemed to waiting for Claudia to turn around or give any sign at all that she remembered he was there. She didn’t. Jack had to smile at the sight of a kid with a crush. As long as he learned right off the bat that he didn’t have a chance, everything would be fine.
“I shouldn’t be this tired,” Claudia grimaced, stretching. “It’s only five pm in my time zone.”
“Go to bed,” Jack told her. “We’ll clean up down here.”
He felt some weird satisfaction when she obeyed and headed up the stairs to Rocco and Getty’s old room. A lot of years had passed since he could tell her to go to bed and expect her to listen.
“Good night,” she called as she took the steps one thud at a time.
Once Claudia was gone, Easton grumbled and took off for his room in the garage.
“Just you and me,” Anya purred, sliding right into Jack’s arms, where she belonged. She slumped against his chest a little and he felt a stab of fear. She’d been awful fatigued lately. He tried to tell himself it was just because of all the wedding preparations but he didn’t know that for sure. That was the worst part, not knowing. He rubbed her neck and pulled her closer.
In response Anya stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss that turned deep and sexy.
“Don’t you want to save some for the wedding night?” she teased, reaching down to stroke him.
He groaned as she reached a sweet spot. “I’ve got plenty in reserve.”
“Prove it.”
So Jack picked her up and carried her down the hall to the bedroom, the warmth of her body right beside his heart.
