“Of course.”
Standing in the doorway, she watched as his eyes traveled over every surface in her office, stopping when he got to her Miro lithograph.
“You like Miro?” he asked, sounding surprised.
Theresa didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted as she nodded. “Do you?”
“A great deal.” He continued surveying her office, then became aware of what he was doing and stopped. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “You have such an interesting office, so many books and things, I couldn’t resist checking it all out.”
“It’s all right.” She took a step toward him. “What can I help you with?”
“After we left, it dawned on me we’d forgotten to give you some info we’d brought with us about Butler Corporation and its most recent acquisitions.”
“Oh. So you stopped back with it. How nice.” Theresa smiled again, this time to hide her disappointment. Business. He’s only here on business.
Sitting down, Reese opened his briefcase on his knees and extracted the paper in question. Theresa feigned scanning it, even going so far as nodding her head thoughtfully. Who was she kidding? There was no way she could concentrate with him watching her. She put the paper down on her desk.
“I’ll be sure to share it with Janna,” she said. He smiled. She smiled. Then an awkward silence descended. Theresa, never good with uncertainty, rushed to fill the vacuum.
“So, you’re entering the family business?” she asked.
Surprisingly, Reese seemed grateful for her interest. “I’m sure you could tell at the meeting this morning how enthused I am about it.”
“You don’t want to be a lawyer?”
“That is exactly what I’m saying.”
“Then why are you?” Theresa wondered aloud.
“Why am I what?”
“Why are you a lawyer?”
Reese sighed, leaning back in the chair as he wearily ran a hand through his hair. “Because that’s what good blue bloods do. They become politicians or lawyers.” He looked embarrassed, almost furtive, as he quietly confessed, “What I really wanted was to be a photographer.”
“You’re kidding. I wanted to be a writer,” Theresa blurted, wondering if that was the sort of thing you should confess up front to a virtual stranger who could possibly give you three beautiful, towheaded children and a summer house on the Cape. Well, hell, he’d just told her what his dream had been, right? The polite thing to do was reciprocate. She could see his interest was piqued.
“So why didn’t you pursue it?” he asked.
Theresa shrugged, feeling self-conscious now. “I still write for myself. And PR allows me some creativity in terms of writing press releases, which I enjoy.” She cast around for the right words with which to explain why she wasn’t this month’s selection for Reading with Ripa. “But when I graduated from college, no one bothered to tell me there wouldn’t be a job waiting for me at The New Yorker.”
Reese laughed appreciatively. “I hear you. The same people didn’t tell me that when you get a poli sci degree at Harvard, you don’t go on to become Ansel Adams. Or if you try, it’s certainly not going to provide you with a living wage.”
Theresa scrunched up her nose. “Not a very fair world, is it?”
“No, it is not.” Curiosity informed his face. “What do you like to write?” Against her will, Theresa could feel her cheeks turning crimson.
“I’ve embarrassed you,” Reese noted softly. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s all right,” Theresa hastily assured him. “It’s just been a long time since anyone has asked me about my writing. It caught me off guard.”
“Tell you what,” Reese proposed. “I’ll tell you what I like to photograph, and you tell me what you like to write.”
“Deal.”
They laughed together then, the easy laughter of two people who feel completely simpatico. God help me, Theresa thought. He’s handsome, artistic, smart . . . After swapping artistic confessions, another small, strained silence descended, but this time it was Reese who ended it. “I guess I should be going,” he said with what sounded to Theresa like reluctance.
Give him your phone number. Now. Theresa’s brain urged action. But she remained frozen. Scared.
Reese tugged uncomfortably at the collar of his shirt. “So, um, as my uncle said, if you and Janna have any questions, feel free to give us a call.” He fumbled for a card in the breast pocket of his blazer, a move Theresa found charmingly inept. “Here,” he said, handing it to her with a shrug. “Call anytime.”
“I will. I mean, if I—we—have any questions.” Give him your damn number! her brain howled at her. She flashed a quick smile, glad he couldn’t read her thoughts, and showed him to the door.
“Can you find your way out?”
“I think so.”
“Enjoy the rest of your afternoon,” Theresa said, thinking, Just give him your number, fool!!!
“You, too,” he answered. He walked halfway up the hall, then stopped and turned around. Theresa held her breath. Please ask me out for coffee, pleeeeasssee.
But whatever it was he planned to say, clearly he thought better of it. Looking sheepish, he turned back around and continued down the hallway.
Two days later, Theresa found herself enjoying a crisp, fall breeze as she descended from the subway platform atop the Eighty-sixth Street station and walked east to her parents’ house on Bay Twenty-sixth Street. Before leaving Manhattan, she had gone crosstown to Balducci’s to pick up the special Pernigotti soft nougat her father loved. It was out of her way, but Theresa didn’t mind, since it seemed to make him so happy. If she couldn’t please him by marrying a nice Italian boy and having kids, at least she could bring him his favorite Italian candy.
Going to dinner at her parents’ house always made her anxious. It wasn’t that she didn’t love seeing them, because she did. And you’d never hear her complaining about her mother’s food; it was the one time each week she actually enjoyed a home-cooked meal, being somewhat immune to the kitchen herself. But it was hard to see the robust man her father had been wasting away with cancer. Hard, too, to deal with her family’s unwillingness to validate all she’d achieved professionally. Deep down, she knew they were proud of her. She just wished they’d throw her the occasional bone by coming out and telling her so, rather than teasing her in a way that made her feel defensive.
Still, it felt good to be out walking her old stomping grounds. All over Bensonhurst, families were preparing their post-Mass, Sunday afternoon meals. Theresa passed house after house that looked just like her parents: small brick homes with wrought iron fences and postage stamp-sized front yards. Theresa liked the way each house strove to make itself unique, whether by painting the fence, creating an ornately sculpted topiary, or putting a statue of the Virgin Mary or St. Anthony on display. Her parents had broken with tradition somewhat, their front yard featuring a row of waist high, perfectly shorn hedges and a statue of St. Francis, whom her mother loved because of his kindness to animals. When Theresa was young, the statue had mortified her; she saw it as proof of her parents’ failure to fully assimilate despite being second generation Americans. Now it comforted her in an odd way she didn’t really want to think about.
Rounding the corner of her parents’ street, she recognized her brother’s Explorer parked outside their house and frowned with disapproval. Phil lived ten minutes away, tops. Why couldn’t he, Debbie and the kids walk over? It was gorgeous outside, a perfect day for a stroll. But she knew her brother: If she brought it up, he’d accuse her of being a “wacko environmentalist.” That was the problem with Phil—with all of them, actually. They couldn’t understand why anyone would think differently than them, never mind lead a different kind of life.
Passing through the gate, Theresa walked the six steps up to her parents’ tiny stoop and pushed open the front door, which was never locked on Sunday. There in the living room, her father sat in his Barcalounger watching the Giants game
, a canister of oxygen on the floor beside him.
And on the couch were her brother, Phil, and Michael Dante.
Theresa stared at Michael, dumbfounded.
“Um . . .” She struggled to find her voice. “No offense, but what are you doing here?”
Michael looked to his left, then to his right, then back at Theresa questioningly. “Are you talking to me?”
“Who are you, Travis Bickel?” She turned to her father. “Dad?”
“Mmm?” Her father’s eyes, huge and distorted behind his thick glasses, were glued to the TV set. “Your mother and I invited him,” he replied distractedly.
“What?” Theresa spluttered. “Why?”
Her brother shook his head disapprovingly. “Whatever happened to ‘Hello, how ya doin’,’ maybe taking your coat off?”
“Butt out,” said Theresa.
Phil nudged Michael in the ribs. “Nice girl, huh? Talks to her brother like that.”
Michael’s hands went up in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, I don’t want to get in the middle of anything here.”
“Too late,” Theresa mumbled. Grim, she slipped out of her coat and hung it on the coat rack by the front door. Then she sidled over to her father’s chair. “I bought you some nougat,” she cooed.
Her father glanced up into her face appreciatively. “Cara mia. How sweet.”
Her voice dropped down to a whisper. “But you’re not getting it until you tell me what he’s doing here.” She jerked a thumb in Michael’s direction.
Her father looked back and forth between her and Michael in bewilderment. “You two know each other?”
Oh, that was rich. That was good. She turned to Michael with what she hoped was a storm brewing in her eyes. You are going to rue the day you ever cooked up this little scheme, Puckhead.
Michael obviously had no trouble reading her expression, because he volunteered to answer the question—fearful, Theresa assumed, that if he didn’t come clean she would soon divest him of more than his teeth.
“Theresa’s agency is putting together the PR campaign for Dante’s.”
Theresa’s father nodded, impressed. “Is that so?”
“Yes, it is,” Theresa replied. “Now tell me why you invited him.”
“Because he’s a very nice boy,” her father declared. “He stopped over here at the beginning of the week with some food from the restaurant for us and wanted to know all about how I was feeling. They noticed we hadn’t been to Dante’s for a while.”
“So—?”
Her father shrugged. “It was your mother’s idea. Ask her.”
“Fine. I will.”
She spun on her heels and was heading toward the kitchen when Phil called out her name. “What?” Theresa snapped, stopping dead in her tracks in the dining room, where the table was all set and ready to go.
“Hand over the nougat.”
Doubling back to the living room, she fetched the bag of nougat from her purse and hurled it at her brother like a baseball. “She’s got some temper on her, that one,” she heard him say to Michael as she disappeared into the kitchen.
The tableau greeting her was one she’d seen a hundred times before: her mother standing at the counter, arranging the ingredients for the antipasto on a platter with the precision of an artist, while her sister-in-law, Debbie, stood at the kitchen table, putting together a salad. Farther down the table, Theresa’s niece, Vicki, and nephew, Philly Junior, ages seven and nine respectively, sat coloring. Baby Carmen, three months old, sat gurgling in a baby seat on the floor. When the two older children spotted Theresa, they jumped up and ran to embrace her.
“Aunt Theresa! You’re here!”
“Aunt Theresa, you look beautiful!”
“Hey, rugrats.” She leaned over to kiss both of them and without prompting, slipped off the phalanx of silver bracelets encircling her left wrist and handed them to Vicki. This was their own little tradition: Whenever Theresa came to Sunday dinner, she would give her bracelets to Vicki to wear for the duration of her visit. The little girl loved slipping them on and off and playing with them.
“Hey, Ma.” Theresa gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, doing the same with her sister-in-law.
“Did you meet Michael?” her mother asked, glancing slyly at Theresa out of the corner of her eye.
“Ma, I already know Michael. He’s a client.” She was working hard to keep the annoyance she was feeling out of her voice.
“He’s single,” her mother continued, rolling up a piece of cappicola and putting it on the plate.
Theresa looked at her sister-in-law imploringly, but it was clear she wasn’t going to get any assistance from that quarter. There was only one possible rejoinder. “So?” It was pathetic, but right now she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“So he’s nice. And Italian,” her mother practically sang.
“So?” Theresa repeated.
“Forget it, Ma,” her sister-in-law called out to Theresa’s mother. “She don’t wanna hear it.”
“No, I don’t,” said Theresa. “Did it ever occur to you two busybodies that I might not want to go near a professional hockey player with a ten-foot pole?”
“I don’t know why you still act like it was such a trauma,” said Debbie offhandedly as she sliced a cucumber. “I mean, it’s not like you were actually raped.”
Vicki looked up from her coloring. “Mom, what’s—”
“Nothing,” Debbie cut in. “You just concentrate on your coloring.”
But to Theresa, who felt as though her sister-in-law had just kicked her in the teeth, it was something. She crouched down beside her niece, stroking the girl’s thick brown hair.
“Vicki, would you and Philly mind going into the living room to play for a few minutes? I need to talk to Mommy and Grandma privately.”
“Ooookay.” Vicki huffed, reluctantly picking up her coloring book and crayons as she followed her brother out of the room. Theresa waited until she was certain they were out of earshot before sliding into the chair Vicki had vacated. Debbie was family. They’d known each other for years. So why was she so worried her voice might crack with anger?
“What you just said really hurt me, Deb.”
“But—”
“Let me finish.” Theresa could feel the walls of her throat closing in. Please, God, she prayed, let me be able to get the words out without crying. “Have you ever had a man force his tongue into your mouth when you didn’t want him to?”
Debbie was silent.
“How about having a man grope your breasts against your will, or stick his hand up your skirt to try to shove a finger inside you?”
“Theresa.” Her mother’s voice was anxious.
“That happened to me,” Theresa continued in a quivering voice. “I was also punched in the face and called a bitch and a whore. But according to you, none of that counts.”
Debbie’s eyes darted away as her face colored red with mortification. “That’s not what I said.”
Theresa began to tremble. “No, but it’s what you implied, whether you realize it or not.”
“Cara.” Theresa’s mother’s voice was gentle as she approached her from behind and placed two loving hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “No one doubts that little Russian farabutto hurt you, or questions why you might have a hard time trusting. But Michael’s not like that.”
Theresa turned to look up into her mother’s eyes. “How do you know?” she asked plaintively. “He brings you a plate of ziti and you know his life story?”
“I just know,” her mother insisted stubbornly.
“Well, I don’t,” Theresa replied. “And I would appreciate it if you quit playing matchmaker.”
Her mother muttered something under her breath—a prayer for Theresa’s obstinate soul, no doubt—and doubling back to the stove, handed her the now completed plate of antipasto. “Would you bring this out to the table and call the men into the dining room?”
“Sure.”
; Theresa took the tray and did as her mother asked, gratefully accepting her sister-in-law’s apology on her way out of the room. She went to help her father out of his chair, but he was already being aided by Michael, whom, she noticed, took the not-so-subtle opportunity of sitting down right across from her at the table. Maybe her mother was right, she thought, as her father led the family through saying grace. Maybe Michael wasn’t “like that.” But Theresa wasn’t about to risk finding out.
“So, Ter,” said her brother, heaping his plate high. “Did you know Michael plays for the Blades?”
“No, I didn’t,” deadpanned Theresa. “I just moved here from Mars. Tell me more.”
“He’s a successful, famous athlete but he still lives in Brooklyn,” her father added, his eyes flashing with significance.
“Maybe he’s not successful enough to afford the rent in Manhattan,” Theresa pointed out coolly.
“Or, maybe he hasn’t forgotten where he comes from,” said Phil.
“Whoa, folks, please,” Michael appealed as he looked around the table. “Let’s get off the subject of me and talk about something interesting here, like who’s going to make it into the Superbowl.”
Theresa’s family seemed to take the hint, and for that she was grateful. Talk of football led to talk of individual players, and Michael had her family laughing until they damn near cried telling them about the time he and some of the Blades tried to take on a couple of the Giants in an impromptu touch football game.
Was he always this entertaining or was he putting on a show for her approval?
Whichever it was, she was forced to admit he seemed able to hold his own on any number of subjects and appeared to have a never-ending supply of amusing stories, which he told with great flourish. He also appeared to be an all-around good guy, even going so far as letting little Vicki crawl all over him during dessert, despite her mother’s protestations. Even so, it creeped Theresa out that he was even here. It was like one of those bad, B-grade horror films where someone seemingly innocent worms his way into a family, only to turn around and dismember them in their sleep a few months later.
Every once in a while, Michael’s eyes would seek hers for some kind of confirmation, which Theresa would pointedly ignore, giving him the look Janna had chris tened “The Ball Shriveler.” She wanted to make her displeasure at his presence clear. It was icky. Deceitful.
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