“Why it’s Grand Central Terminal, or why people don’t call it that?”
He rolls his eyes. “I see you got the family wiseass gene. Why it’s called Grand Central Terminal, duh.” We’re traveling at a good clip now, and I’m looking forward to putting New York City in my rearview. Metaphorically speaking, of course, because I can only see what’s coming, not what’s behind me.
“No, of course I don’t know why. But maybe you’d like to tell me?”
“Well, first, that’s its name. Its real name. So that’s what everyone should call it. But that’s not the real answer.”
“I would hope not,” I say. “It’s not a very satisfying answer.”
“Be patient,” he says. “The real answer is that it should be called a terminal because terminals and stations aren’t the same thing. Terminals are the beginning and end points for trains, but stations are somewhere in the middle. Trains can stop and start there, but they can also go through. No trains go through Grand Central—they can only begin and end. Penn Station, on the other hand, is really a station—trains can go through there in all directions. But it’s also a terminal, because it’s the beginning and end point for certain trains.”
“Then why wouldn’t it be called a terminal, even though it also happens to be a station?”
“I guess because stations are more inclusive. Terminals only give you so many options, but at stations you can do just about anything.”
“Huh.” I think about it for a minute, what he’s trying to tell me, though maybe it’s just something to pass the time. “Where’d you learn all this, anyway?”
“From Dad,” he says. “You haven’t seen his trivia-buff side, but it’s serious. ‘Learning opportunities abound,’ he likes to say.”
It makes me think of my dad and his little life lessons. I miss him, despite all the mixed feelings I’m having. I’ve been away for nearly a week without talking to him, the longest we’ve ever gone without speaking. I’ve sent the occasional text, and apparently that’s enough, because after he tried calling a few times, he stopped and just texted back that he was glad I was having fun. I’ll have to text that I’m coming home tomorrow, but I don’t feel like doing that now. I’m way too focused on the bag I hold in my lap. I’m dying to know what’s inside, but I’m not about to look with Matt here. I need to be by myself.
“How are you doing with all this?” he asks.
“I’m pretty lost,” I say. “Jen helped put some of the pieces together, but I’m missing some of the really important stuff. I have to figure out who set my mother up, who’s been calling her. And how they knew about the letter.”
“Maybe that’s the best place to start,” Matt says. “You said Maddie’s the only person you told, right?”
I nod. “There’s no way she would tell anyone. She’s the one who insisted I couldn’t tell Dad.”
“Then there are only a couple of other options. I know you’re not going to like the first one, but is there any way your dad could have found out about the letter without you telling him?”
The image of going through the shoe box flashes in my head. If I was willing to snoop around his stuff, was I so sure he wasn’t willing to do the same? “You’re right that I don’t like it, but it’s possible,” I say. “What’s the other option, though?”
“Well, you said you asked your dad about your mom, even though you didn’t tell him about the letter, right?”
“Right.”
“Couldn’t that be enough? If he told someone else about that conversation, they might suspect you were asking for a reason. They don’t have to know about the letter to give your mom a warning.”
I have to think about that one. It’s possible that Dad could have told one of his friends at work that I was asking about my mother, when I never had before. Anyone at the station could have overheard him, and if what Jen told me is right, then this all started because there’s a dirty cop in Brooksby. It does make a certain kind of sense.
I tell Matt my theory, expecting him to nod along. But he frowns. “I’m with you on the possibility that this person found out from your dad,” he says. “And maybe it did happen at work, or somewhere else. But are you really so sure that it was some random cop overhearing him? For this person to have so much power over your mother, and so much power over your whole family as a result—don’t you think it could be someone a little closer to you?”
For that to be true, we’d have to be talking about one of Dad’s friends. That can’t be right. “I know all my dad’s friends. They’d never do anything like this.” Even as I say it, though, I think about Manny and the odd things he said before I left, how he’s always been kind of a dick. Could it be him?
“So you think it’s just some random person who works with your dad?” Matt asks.
It’s better than the alternative. “You don’t think?”
Matt stretches his legs until they practically hit the empty seat across from him. The train is way less crowded going back to New Haven. “We had a thing on the baseball team last year. Someone was stealing from the locker room. There were only two guys who could have done it, given the timing and all. One of them was our best hitter, one of my best friends, one of everyone’s best friends, really. The other guy was kind of an asshole, didn’t really hang out with anyone, was always making snide comments and trying to get with other guys’ girlfriends, that sort of thing. You see where this is going.”
“It was your friend and not the asshole,” I say.
“Yes, but we didn’t figure it out for a really long time. Really, we didn’t figure it out at all—we insisted it was the other guy until the real thief got caught in the act. We insisted on the reality we wanted, even though no matter what we did, we couldn’t find any evidence against the guy we didn’t like. And there’s more.”
“What else could there be?”
“We could have ended things a lot sooner if we’d actually looked at the facts. The asshole guy was rich—his parents totally spoiled him, and he threw cash around like it was his job. Like it would impress people. He didn’t need money, though we spent ages talking about how even people who didn’t need money sometimes used it as power, or to scare people—we came up with a lot of reasons why someone like him would want to steal from us, even when he didn’t need to.”
“And your friend?”
“His dad had just left and his mom had just gotten fired. We didn’t know that right away; he kept it hidden from everyone, even those of us closest to him. He was embarrassed. He’d rather steal from us than ask if we could lend him a few bucks. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, I guess.”
I’ve heard that expression before. I’ve always thought it was stupid.
“Anyway, if we’d done any research at all—asked questions, whatever—we could have solved the mystery quick. But we went with the outcome we wanted, and it took months until someone finally went into the locker room and found our star literally holding his wallet.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I ask. “You had to bust your own best friend.”
“Wouldn’t be a good story if it was anyone else, right?”
Matt’s a good storyteller.
“I have to go figure it out,” I say. “And I can’t assume it’s not someone just because I don’t want it to be them.”
“That’s up to you, cuz. You decide what you want to do. Just remember that avoiding an answer because it’s not one you want isn’t the best way to get to the truth. If the truth is what you want.”
“It is,” I say. At least I think it is.
19
I’m anxious to get back to the Lombardis’ so I can go through the bag, but by the time we reach Matt’s car it’s late afternoon, and when Matt points out that we haven’t eaten anything all day, I realize I’m starving. “I have a suggestion, but you need to hear me out,” he says as he drives out of the parking lot. “I think we should pick up food to bring home, for everyone.”
“Works for me,
” I say.
“That’s not all. I think you need to have a real New Haven experience, especially if you’re leaving here tomorrow. You missed out on some of the best parts of Nonna’s dinner.”
“The stuff I had was amazing,” I protest.
“You didn’t even eat the meatballs. They’re like ninety-eight percent protein and you still didn’t try them.”
“Bread crumbs.” But it sounds pathetic even as I say it.
“That’s what I mean. You let a teeny amount of bread crumbs keep you from eating the best meatballs on the planet. Don’t you think it’s time to maybe relax a little?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, at this very moment I’m driving us back to Pepe’s. It’s the best pizza in the world, and you sat in front of it and ate a fucking salad. It wasn’t even a good salad, because that’s not what Pepe’s is about. We love Pepe’s for the pizza and only the pizza, and if I get takeout from there and bring it home it will make the whole family happy and it will blow your mind with how good it is. If you eat it.”
“So I’m supposed to just give up everything I’ve worked for?”
“No, man, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’ve got this idea in your head that you have to eat this way forever, that you can never slip for a second or you’ll be immediately returned to where you were when you were what, twelve?”
“Fourteen,” I say.
“Maybe fourteen-year-olds can’t slip even once or everything goes to shit, though I doubt it. But you’re not fourteen anymore. You’ve been this model of discipline for years, but you’re also missing out on big stuff. You have to trust yourself a little, let go of some control. Sometimes you have to choose between what’s good for you and what might not be good for you but could be really amazing for you.”
Matt might think he’s talking about pizza, but I’m hearing something completely different. He might as well be Maddie, talking about me leaving Brooksby someday. Much as I hate to admit it, she was right about that. Going to New Haven is probably the best decision I’ve ever made, and going to New York made me realize there are places I want to see. Possibly even places I want to live. If she was right, maybe Matt’s right, too.
“Okay,” I say. “But can we get a regular pizza too, not just that weird clam one?”
“We can get both, as long as you promise to try both. I have to get the clam one—if I come home with pizza from Pepe’s and I don’t get the clam one, Mom might not let me in the house.” His voice sounds warm talking about Aunt Reggie; I hope that means he’s ready to let her off the hook.
As soon as we walk in the door and Aunt Reggie sees the Pepe’s boxes she raises her eyebrows at Matt and says, “One of those better be—”
“White clam,” he says, winking at me. “I know, believe me, I know.”
She frowns. “What’s Pack going to eat?” She looks over at me. “I’m sorry my son is so inconsiderate. We’ve got some salad stuff in the fridge.”
“It’s all good,” I say. “I’m going to try the pizza.”
“You sure that’s okay?”
Honestly, I’m not. I have no idea how my stomach will react to pizza and cheese after all this time. Hell, I’ve even been going easy on nightshades because Tom Brady’s nutritionist says they’re inflammatory, which means I’ve hardly eaten tomatoes. “I’ll be fine,” I say. “I used to love pizza. Too much, really.”
Aunt Reggie tilts her head and looks at me carefully. “You having this pizza is something of an occasion, isn’t it? Do you want to talk about it first?”
“Me and Matt covered it already. I just have to remind myself that eating pizza one time isn’t going to automatically change everything.” I know it on a rational level, anyway. The muscle I’ve spent years building won’t disappear, and if everything I’ve read is correct, my taste buds aren’t even the same as they used to be. Maybe I won’t even like pizza anymore.
“You’re an impressively disciplined young man,” Aunt Reggie says. “But perhaps instead of using that discipline for absolutes, like never having pizza again, maybe you can use it to set some boundaries that are more flexible. So you can enjoy yourself without missing out on important experiences.”
“You sound like Matt,” I say, and he punches me on the arm.
“Matty’s a pretty smart kid,” Uncle Mike says. “Chip off the old block and all that.”
We all sit down at the dining-room table and I take one slice of plain cheese pizza and one slice of the weird clam thing. I eat a bite of the cheese pizza first, so I can have my favorite food again and see if it’s the same as I remember.
It turns out that it is, and also it isn’t. I can tell right away that it’s really good pizza—the crust is perfect, and it has exactly the right amount of cheese and sauce and all that. But my taste buds really have changed, because I’m super sensitive to how sweet the tomato sauce is. I haven’t eaten sugar in so long that it’s obvious to me the sauce has some in it. And that pizza sauce probably always has sugar in it, but I never could tell before. It’s delicious, but not in a way that makes me think I’ll be running back to eat pizza every day forever until I’m my fourteen-year-old self again.
The clam pizza is a whole other thing. I’ve never tried anything like it, and at first I’m almost afraid to put it in my mouth. Despite being a New England kid, I’ve never been much of a shellfish eater; I can handle shrimp and once in a while when I was a little we’d have lobster on special occasions, but once I was off butter lobster seemed pointless, and I’ve never gotten into things like mussels and oysters and clams. Aren’t they basically marinating in their own piss? Gross.
But the clam pizza is the complete opposite of gross. It’s perfect. There’s no tomato sauce, so I don’t have to think about sugar; there isn’t even that much cheese. The clams are juicy and salty and the white sauce is some kind of magic I don’t even understand.
Matt watches me wolf it down and laughs at whatever expressions are passing over my face as I try to figure out why this pizza is so ridiculously good. “Told you,” he says.
“Don’t be smug,” Mia says. “Want another piece, Pack?”
I do, but this is where the discipline needs to kick in. “I’m good. I need to get my stuff together before bed.”
“You’re not leaving before breakfast, are you?” Aunt Reggie asks.
“I probably should. I start work Monday, and I told Dad I’d only be gone a few days, so I bet he’s freaking out. We’ve got some stuff to talk about, and I think he’s off tomorrow, so I want to make sure we have some time.”
“When we will see you again? This can’t be just a one-time thing.” She says it almost sternly, like she’ll punish me if I say no. I kind of like it. It reminds me of how Nonna was too.
“Of course not,” I say. “I’m so happy to have found you all. I just want—I hope—” How do I finish that sentence?
Aunt Reggie gets it. “You’ll talk to your father, and then you’ll be in touch. Okay? You’re welcome anytime. I want you to know that.”
“You have to come back,” Mia says, all serious. “I don’t like very many people, you know. I wasn’t sure I’d like having a new cousin.” She stops, then looks surprised when everyone starts laughing. “What?”
“You going to finish that thought?” Matt teases.
Her brows furrow, then she puts it together and rolls her eyes. “It’s obvious.”
“I knew what you meant,” I say. “I wasn’t sure I would like having cousins either. But I do. A lot.” I’m trying to figure out what else I want to say when the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it!” Mia yells.
“Hold on, honey,” Aunt Reggie says. “We aren’t expecting anyone, so how about I come with you?” They get up from the table while I fight the urge to have one more piece of clam pizza. The sooner I go upstairs, though, the sooner I can start looking through the duffel bag Jen gave me. I know I should save it for when I get home, when I can truly explore i
t in private, but I don’t think I can wait any longer.
When I hear the voice at the door, though, I know I will have to wait, and that waiting is the least of my problems.
Dad is here.
Part III
20
“Where’s my son?” I hear Dad say.
Aunt Reggie starts to answer, but he’s already barreled past her into the dining room, where the rest of us are still sitting. “What are you doing here?” I ask. I have no idea how he found me, but the fact that he’s here makes it seem possible I have less privacy at home than I thought.
Dad looks down at the table, with the near-empty boxes of pizza and bottles of soda, clearly trying to process what he’s seeing. “I’ll be asking you the same question in the car. We’re leaving now.”
“Joe, sit down and we can talk about this,” Aunt Reggie says. “Have a slice of pizza. We haven’t seen you in a long time.”
The expression on Dad’s face is one I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. I’m not sure if it’s hatred or fury or some combination of the two, but his eyes look like they could shoot lasers and his teeth are gritted and he’s turning so red I can feel the boil coming off him. When he opens his mouth I nearly wince, expecting him to explode, but his voice is creepily calm. “It’s been a long time for a reason. I don’t know what you did to get Pack here, but this little visit never should have happened, and it’s never going to happen again.”
Everyone falls silent, though tears start streaming from Mia’s eyes, and it looks like I’m finally about to get to see Matt yelling. Uncle Mike stands up. “Joe, I understand why you’re upset, and maybe you’re not ready to hear from us. I hope you’ll listen to Pack, though—he has a lot to tell you, and perhaps you’ll be a little more forgiving when you hear what he has to say.” I guess Aunt Reggie must have filled him in on our conversation.
“And we’re not giving him up, either,” Aunt Reggie says, putting her arm around me and squeezing my shoulders. “He’s an adult now, so if he wants to come visit, he’s welcome anytime. He knows that now. Don’t you, Pack?”
Questions I Want to Ask You Page 16
