On the first anniversary of his death, we took a pint of his favorite chocolate and cherries ice cream, sat at his gravesite, and ate the whole thing. I even took an extra spoon and set it on the tombstone.
We did that every year until we moved to Boston. I think one of the reasons I hated Boston so much was because we couldn’t do that ritual. We just settled for dinner at a “nice place.”
In the emergency room, a doctor shines a light in my mother’s eyes. She responds well, but it’s clear that she’s on drugs. They put her on IV fluids, and three bags later, she’s no longer dehydrated. There’s a bandage around her head where a gash has finally stopped bleeding. She has multiple cuts on her upper thighs from where she fell on the broken bottle. The worst part for her was asking for a female doctor, because she couldn’t stand the idea of the handsome male doctor turning her on her side and stitching up her ass. That’s my Mom.
James and Felicity are outside, waiting for us. My mom hasn’t said a single word. I don’t expect her to. I’m surprised she hasn’t asked for a private room. Instead, she lay back, sectioned off by curtains from all the other minor tragedies in the ER.
I have so many questions I want to ask her, but when I take a look at her swollen lips, the dark circle under her grey eyes, my heart breaks for her and I stay quiet. When the doctor releases us, and James drives us back to the apartment, we still don’t talk.
Felicity whimpers a cry. Truth, when my mother hit her head, I lost it. She didn’t move and every fear and regret in my body manifested inside of me like a demon. I turned around on Bradley and broke his nose with the palm of my hand. Security separated us and he got arrested for drug possession, but knowing his father’s connections, he won’t even get processed. Truthfully, I don’t want him to go to jail or ruin his life, but I don’t want him within yards of my family.
James helps me carry my mom up the steps and into her room. It’s the one part of the penthouse I haven’t been in. My heart stops a little when I see his face on the wall. It’s a photo of my dad, mom, and me on a camping trip. I had braces and was super dark from all the time under the sun. My mom was the only one who was sunburnt. Dad’s eye was swollen from a bee sting. Our hair covered in twigs and leaves, but we were at the edge of a cliff, the grand expanse of New York State behind our arms spread like eagles.
There’s a series of frames with my graduation pictures, each one surlier than the last. There was the one time my hair was green. I cringe. What was I thinking? I move along the walls. There’s even some of my dad’s stuff. His golfing trophy, his apron that says “Kiss the Chef.” There’s a picture of me at my first pageant, my mom using her spit-covered thumb to get a dirt smudge from my face, and me recoiling from her. I remember my dad laughing his ass off.
James kisses the top of my head and retreats without a word. When I turn around, my mom is watching me.
“This is where you keep all of it,” I say.
She cough-laughs. “Did you really think I didn’t have any picture of you two anywhere?”
I shake my head. Sit at the foot of the bed. “I don’t know what I think anymore.”
“Oh, honey… I’m so sorry.” She leans her head back. “I’ve been such a fool.”
I shrug, like it’s no big deal. But this isn’t something that I can shove my head into the sand from. I can’t keep avoiding this.
“Ma, Bradley?”
She half laughs, half groans. She takes on her dainty air once again. “Can I blame it on a mid-life crisis?”
“Well, if men get shiny cars and models half their age, I suppose why can’t women?” I try to laugh. “But why Bradley?”
She studies her fingernails. When she fell she broke off two. They’re wrapped up in bandages. “He made me feel beautiful again.”
“But you are beautiful.”
“Not the way I used to be. I feel like every man that’s ever loved me has been fat and sloppy and old. I even have a nice old wine maker trying to court me. He’s kind. He makes me laugh. So naturally I want nothing to do with him.”
Shame bubbles up in my chest because I know exactly how she feels.
“I know being with Bradley was wrong. But he took me to parties and we had stupid fun. Like you do.”
“Like me?” I jump up from the bed. “Mom, I don’t have stupid fun. I work. I work my ass off in shit bars and put up with assholes all the time. That’s not fun for me.”
She sighs. It’s almost like we can’t say anything to each other without pissing the other off. “Then why do you do it? Why don’t you just come home? Pick something that won’t have you living at the bottom of the barrel with god knows who.”
That makes my blood boil. “You mean the top of the barrel like you? Like Bradley? Bradley, Dr. Plymouth Rock, who gives his sidepiece ecstasy while cheating on his girlfriend in her face? Jeez, what has become of me that I align myself with lowly barmaids who put up with drunk business guys just to pay for their rent or support their kids or just make a living! Do you know how fucked up your life priorities are right now?”
“Don’t talk to me about priorities, young lady.” Her voice takes on that mom-strength. Don’t you take that tone of voice with me, Lucky Pierce. “At the drop of the hat, you just abandon everything. You abandoned me.”
“I abandoned you?” My voice is shrill. “You were always traveling the world with husband pick-a-number!”
“You never wanted to come!”
“Because I hated them! I still hate them. I hated that they thought they could buy us. That you just went with them. That our lives had become this show for people we didn’t even know or like.”
She’s quiet, deadly quiet. “Lucky, how was I supposed to take care of you? Did you want me to fall in love again and live happily ever after? That wasn’t an option for me. I had to take care of us, and that was the only way I could. If you think that makes me a bad mother, then I’ll have to find a way to live with that, but I would do it again because at least I kept you fed. I gave you the option to hate private school, to jump around colleges.”
She’s right. It’s something James pointed out when he met me. My inherent brattiness comes from a place of privilege. Telling my mother that she didn’t have to sacrifice her happiness would be like slapping her in the face.
“Do you know why I decided to open up the restaurant?”
I sit back down on her bed. “Because you wanted to see your name in lights?”
She takes my hand and holds it. “For you.”
“For me?”
“Before your dad died,” she shuts her eyes and takes one of the pills the doctor prescribed to her. “Before… he was going to take over his friend’s restaurant. It was Italian, very old school, and it desperately needed a new coat of paint, new staff. Your dad had all this money squirreled away for early retirement. He said he wanted to name it Estella’s, but at the time I didn’t like the idea of my name on a giant sign. Do you remember what he used to call you?”
If there were an award for shit daughter of the decade, I would come in first place. It hits me like a wrecking ball to the heart. “My little star.”
She swallows, and looks to the side so I can’t see her be emotional. At least we have that in common.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“So am I.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
She shakes her head. “Because I was hoping that you would take it without the guilt trip. I want you to have something that is truly yours. Even the money I used for it came from Dad’s money. I invested it. When it was a nice fat check, I pulled out the funds.”
“Then why did you leave to New York the other day?”
“My network wants the final show to be live.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“They also want me to renew for another season.” She leans her head back and closes her eyes. I’m not allowed to let her sleep so I squeeze her hand to wake her up. “But I’m tired. I just want a margarita a
nd some bread.”
It’s my turn to choke-laugh. She takes my chin in her hand like she’s done so many times. Usually it’s to point out that I need to get rid of my black heads, or that working in bars is going to age me prematurely.
“I’m so proud of what you’ve done the last couple of days.”
I lie down on her lap and she strokes my hair the way she did when I was a kid. It’s a strange feeling knowing that we wasted so much time being angry because our lives didn’t go the way we thought they would. Somehow, we’re meeting in the middle. Or trying to.
“So,” Stella says, with a curious grin on her face. “Tell me about you and James.”
Chapter 42
“This is brilliant!” Felicity says.
We’re in The Star two days after our hellish night at Jet Set Lounge. Carlos and his team are back at it with saws and hammers. An electrician figures out the contraption on the wall and how to rig it so we don’t have any problems in the future.
Felicity sips her iced latte. A little bit falls on the center of her shirt and she groans. “I just got this shirt!”
“That’s why I never wear white,” I say. Despite the new stain, Felicity looks great in a white tunic and skinny jeans. She finally looks her age. Even Nunzio slowed down on his way to the kitchen to check out her assets.
Felicity smirks. “That, and the obvious.”
I’m glad she’s feeling so comfortable around me these days. Then again, after she mooned me in the VIP harem while she made out with a stranger who was never seen again (there are pictures to prove it actually happened), we’ve gotten a lot closer.
“Really, Lucky,” Felicity says, staring at the new wall. “It’s beautiful. It’s fun and different. It brings the room together.”
I keep looking over my shoulder at the kitchen. Now that there are three days ‘til the grand opening, the restaurant is a mad frenzy of action. There’s last minute construction. There are orders to replenish alcohol and food. There’s a line out the door ready to get interviewed for servers and back-up bartenders.
I flip through The Boston Inquirer on the bar top just to make sure Clarissa Adams hasn’t written up anything new about James. Then again, maybe with her mad stalker skills, I would actually know where my head chef was.
I pace around the restaurant a few times before making my way to the kitchen.
Nunzio puts his hands up defensively. “I don’t know where he is.”
“I just want to get a sandwich,” I lie. I take a cut from the six-foot long sub that’s out for everyone working today.
James and I have been playing phone tag. At first he wanted to give me space to be with my mother. Then, I wanted to give him space because I’m an idiot and couldn’t deal with his words. If I take him at face value, if I believe him when he says that he wants me for me and then he doesn’t… My mom says that men like James don’t grow on trees. Even after I told her everything he told me, she confessed that she’d suspected something as much when she couldn’t dig up anything on him beyond a few years go. Still, his food was too good. His face too beautiful to pass up.
Then again, she just wants me to stick around so of course she’s pushing me on the James Hughes train. Scratch that, James Murphy.
So at the end of another day, I get a text from James that says, “Meet me outside.”
It’s ominous and demanding, two things that I don’t like. When I stay put inside the restaurant he sends a second text. “Please.”
I don’t hide the smile on my face as I step into the cool summer day. His motorcycle revs between his legs, his leather jacket is stretched taught over his muscles as he leans forward on his bike. His sunglasses reflect my own stupid smile as I say, “Should I even ask how you got it all fixed?”
The bike purrs, all metal and smoke. “I want to show you something.”
We ride for fifteen minutes deeper into South Boston. Apparently some assholes are calling it SoBo these days to jack up real estate prices. Old, attached houses in all shades of pastel colors line either side of the street, except when you get to one corner, where there’s a bar that looks like the house the big bad wolf could knock down with a single sneeze.
James parks beside an old Buick. A couple of mustached, plaid-wearing, Starbucks-holding hipsters walk across the street. I watch as James’s face goes from calm to irate in a flash, then a resigned sigh leaves his pretty mouth.
“Where are we?”
“This is where I grew up,” he says, hopping off the bike. “I mean, before the rent started going up and all the damn New Yorkers started invading, this was my block.” New Yaw-kahs.
“Whatever. Give me the tour.”
While there isn’t much to see, there’s still everything to see. Families sitting on front lawns watch us walk back and forth with the same disdain James had for those hipsters. A stroller full of groceries is parked in someone’s front porch. An old man in a Red Sox t-shirt stretched beyond capacity waves at James who nods back. I don’t even know what most of my neighbors have looked like in the past, let alone said hello to any of them.
But here, everyone seems to know one another. Two white haired men make their way to the pub, Murphy’s Law. They eye us suspiciously as we walk in behind them. The place is dark, so dark my eyes don’t adjust properly. I make out a pool table and an old mahogany bar that is the only thing in the place that seems to ever get cleaned.
Men are slouched over amber pints. My heart does a little jerk when I see James’s brother, Michael, tending bar. He has a sly smile, just like his brother. Then another sight makes me do a double take.
“I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a baby waiting to get some service.”
The little girl shakes a rattle. Her mess of brown curls devastates my heart and makes my ovaries give a little squeeze. Her eyes are brilliant and green just like her dad and uncle.
“What’s her name?”
“Dee,” Michael says. “Deirdre.”
We let silence acknowledge that. Then Michael holds out his hand to me. “Heya, sorry about last time. Didn’t mean to trample you. I didn’t think this loser ever got visitors.”
James takes a seat at the bar. “Where’s dad?”
“Slept it off. Now he’s taking a shower. Got a call about two hours ago from Anton. He’s like, your Pa’s sleeping behind the bar again. This fuckin’ guy, one of the Flaherty brothers, the little one, he was in here pumping away at the tap like it’s a fuckin’ gas station.” Michael shakes his head and wipes down the bar. “I don’t know, Frankie.”
It startles me to hear James called something else.
“Oh, fuckin’, excuse me,” Michael says, “I forget it’s James Fucking Hughes shining us with his presence.”
“Will you shut up already? Jesus, you know fucking well why I had to do it. Stop being Pa for two seconds.”
I watch them go back and forth like this for a little while. There’s something familiar in the way that they argue. I won’t say it reminds me of Stella and me, but yeah, kind of.
James rubs his face. His hand absentmindedly goes to my lower back. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Clarissa. She’s going to a new extreme. She ran over my bike the other day.”
Michael looks at me. “You know about this broad? That’s what this rat bastard gets for sticking his Johnny Mulligan where it don’t belong. Least I got something beautiful out of it. He’s just got an even bigger fuckin’ mess. When she started calling here, I went to give him a piece of my mind.”
“So all she wants is money in exchange for not telling the world that you’re an ex-juvenile delinquent who has temper tantrums?” When I say it, it sounds so simple.
“I don’t have temper tantrums,” James says, having a tiny tantrum.
I look at the gorgeous brothers in front of me. Someone belches across the room. A patron grumbles that the baby’s giggles are making his beer taste flat, to which Michael responds, “Then turn ya hearin’ aid off, ya cranky ol�
� basted.”
“My dad used to say that the truth always comes out,” I tell them. Granted he was lecturing me for stealing toys from the neighbor’s yard. “Even if you give her what she wants.”
Michael slugs his brother playfully. “What she wants is a ride on his tiny Irish cock.”
“It’s not tiny,” I say, then wish I could bite off my own tongue and then swallow it so I can never speak again.
Michael hollers and punches his brother on the shoulder. James leans over and kisses my cheek.
“See?” I say, swallowing my embarrassment. “The truth ends up out one way or another. James, you have nothing to hide. Plenty of people use stage names.”
Michael sets a beer in front of me. “Yeah, like fuckin’ strippers and shit.”
I wiggle my eyebrows. “Weren’t you talking about putting a naked chicken on the menu?”
James jabs his fingers in my side and I collapse in a fit of giggles.
“She’s right, Frankie. This broad is just gonna get worse and worse. Trust me. I know about crazy biddies.”
“I don’t doubt you for a minute,” I say. “Go to any Michelin star restaurant in the city and you’ll hear all kinds of sob stories about growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, backpacking broke through Paris to get all the best recipes, learning how to cook in the California wilderness. Your creation story is your own. You can’t let her scare you into hiding yourself, unless that’s what you actually want to do.”
He nuzzles my ear. “Says the girl who wants to leave me high and dry.”
“What city do you hear this at?” Michael says.
“New York City,” I say defensively, knowing he’s going to bust my chops. “The best fucking city. Ask anyone, anywhere.”
“Not here, it’s not,” one of the old men down the bar mumbles.
“Whatever. New York even has the best state motto. Excelsior. Do you know what that means?”
“Oh that’s the state motto?” Michael looks clearly unimpressed. He slaps his brother on the chest. “Hey Frankie, do you know what the state motto of Mass is?”
Luck on the Line Page 23
