A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself

by William Boyle

  Used to be, back when Lucia was little, Adrienne would thwack her with a wooden spoon when she wasn’t listening. Five times over the years, Adrienne’s slapped her. She’d say, “I’m gonna slap the shit out of you,” and then she’d do it. Lucia remembers each time perfectly. Two of the times, Adrienne broke a nail and got even angrier.

  She swears that if she ever has a kid, she won’t hit her. Or him. She doesn’t really think about having kids, though. She doesn’t imagine wanting boys or girls. Other girls in her grade talk about it. Pass notes. Play games. You’re gonna have a baby with Vinny. A boy. Black hair. Ugh. Teenagers dreaming of wanting kids; she doesn’t get it.

  It hasn’t been easy, growing up with Adrienne. It’s made her heart hard. She can feel it in there, like concrete. All those nights Adrienne left her alone in this apartment or that apartment, thinking she was asleep, while she went out to a bar or out to Richie’s car or wherever. Six or seven years old, being alone like that night after night, it wrecked her. She’s jealous of kids with sweet mothers, nice mothers who just fold clothes and make big dinners and spit on their thumbs to clean guck off their kid’s face; it sucks Lucia got dealt this angry bitch from the bottom of the deck.

  But she’s learned a lot over the years, knowing she can depend only on herself. She’s learned how to be tough, how to survive. She stopped crying at some point, and she started dreaming of escape.

  When she was about eleven, she started keeping a spiral notebook where she’d copy down information about houses she liked in the real estate section of whatever newspaper was around. Some of the houses were in the city; some were in the suburbs. Didn’t matter. The joy was in imagining a house of her own, a place away from the burden of Adrienne.

  Still, whatever’s happening between Adrienne and Wolfstein now, Lucia’s sure Wolfstein can take care of herself.

  In her room, Lucia sits on the bed, dirty yellow sheets braided around her, stuffed bears tossed to the floor. She’s got a Derek Jeter poster on the wall. Yankees ticket stubs taped to her mirror. A boombox on the nightstand with a broken CD player. She never takes care of her CDs anyway. She’s only got a few she bought at Best Buy: Mariah Carey’s The Emancipation of Mimi, Destiny’s Child’s #1s, and Mary J. Blige’s The Breakthrough. That last one she actually stole, on a dare from her friend Jessica Ruiz. Put it under her shirt and just walked right out of the store.

  She can hear a plane in the sky. They’re always loud and low over Throggs Neck, headed to nearby LaGuardia in Queens.

  The front door slams, and she assumes her mom is back inside. Meaning nothing too bad happened with Wolfstein, just Adrienne firing a warning shot.

  So much of Lucia’s time in her room is spent just staring at the ceiling, glancing at the Jeter poster, or occasionally riffling through her CDs and reading the liner notes. Sometimes she considers her stuffed bears as the gallery of embarrassments that they are. She tried to throw them out when she was twelve, but Adrienne rescued them from the garbage and set them back on her bed. “I spent a lot of money on these fucking bears,” she’d said.

  When she hears the door downstairs again, she wonders if Adrienne’s going back out or if someone else is coming in. Marco, maybe? Last time he came in like this, at nightfall, half-loaded, Lucia had to listen to them have sex on the couch. The radio couldn’t drown it out. Marco was grunty. Adrienne sounded ridiculous, like she was amazed by some dumb guy in a funny hat making balloon animals on the street.

  But it’s not Marco. She can hear a voice now, one she recognizes immediately. Other than Adrienne’s, it’s the voice she knows best in the world: Richie’s. She gets up and leaves the room, creeping down the hallway to the top of the stairs.

  “Baby,” Richie says to Adrienne in the kitchen, “it’s so good to see you.” She tries to remember the last time Richie was here. Maybe six months ago. Begging. Making promises.

  “You can’t just charge in here,” Adrienne says.

  “Didn’t I get you this place? Didn’t I set you up nice?”

  “How long you gonna play that card?”

  “One call, I could’ve gotten you the boot whenever.”

  “Now you’re threatening me? That’s how you want to start this?”

  Richie’s voice goes hushed. “Listen, I’m sorry. I lost my patience.”

  “Get off me,” Adrienne says.

  Lucia edges down a couple of steps and sees them tangled together by the dishwasher, Richie’s hands inside Adrienne’s now fully unzipped jacket. Richie’s wearing a striped mesh pony shirt that clings to him, rumpled chinos, and gladiator sandals. He hasn’t shaved in days. His hair—what’s left of it—is puffed up. His big forehead glistens with sweat. He’s licking his lips.

  “This is all I wanted,” he says. “These right here, these are what I dream about.”

  “Get your hands off me.” Adrienne’s calm for someone being fondled like fruit at a market.

  “You don’t like that? You don’t like my hands on you? You used to love these hands.” He pulls away and holds up his beefy hands. “These hands right here, they used to work magic on you.”

  Adrienne zips up her jacket. This time all the way. “What do you want, Richie?”

  “‘Oh, Richie! I love your big hands on me. Oh, Richie!’” Richie says, doing his best girly voice. “That was you. I’d put my hands on your tits and you’d melt.”

  “Yeah? Tell me more, Romeo.”

  “Come on, you don’t remember it?” He’s close to her again, brushing back her hair, whispering against her neck. “Tell me you don’t remember it.”

  “You’re looking for a piece, that’s why you’re here? I’ve got a boyfriend.”

  “I know all about Marco. Where you find these bums? You know what your old man used to say to me?”

  “Don’t talk to me about Vic.”

  “Vic, he’d be sitting in repose—in a barber chair or at Caccio’s with an espresso—and he’d say, ‘My daughter, she’s got the worst taste in guys. Put five good ones in front of her, she’ll pick the pants-shitter.’” Richie laughs, nuzzling her neck.

  Lucia wonders if that’s in reference to her father, if he was a pants-shitter. She’s asked Richie about her father a few times over the years, but he’s always brushed her off, said she was an immaculate conception and he was like Joseph and just don’t you fucking worry about it.

  Adrienne picks up the thread: “And Vic didn’t even know about our thing. He didn’t know you popped my cherry at fifteen.”

  “You were a beautiful girl,” Richie says. “You are a beautiful girl.”

  “I’m not a girl anymore. I’m getting old.”

  “You still got the body of a girl.” His hands are on her hips now. “You drive me crazy, A.”

  “What do you want, Richie?”

  “I’ve got plans.” Richie steps back and goes over to the counter. A loaf of Arthur Avenue bread—fresh that morning—pokes up from the wicker basket there. Richie rips off the heel and starts gnawing on it.

  “What’d you do, come in your pants?” Adrienne asks.

  Lucia winces.

  “I didn’t come in my pants, sweetheart,” Richie says. “I’m trying to keep my head here. I’m telling you I’ve got plans. I want you to be part of them. You and Lucia.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying opportunity is knocking. I’m saying I’ve come to an impasse. I’ve been taken advantage of one too many times. Passed over one too many times. You look down your nose at Richie Schiavano for long enough, Richie Schiavano’s gonna get to thinking. And Sonny and Crea, they don’t think I know, but I know.”

  “Richie, what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking, sweetheart, about making a move. There’s a sit-down today. Nick Minervino and Ice House Johnny are delivering half a rock to Sonny Brancaccio. Nick feels Sonny’s owed over the Bay Ridge situation, and he’s aiming to square things before there’s a war between the families. An honorable move, b
ut I’m owed, too, the way Crea, that fucking psycho, has treated me. I’m sick of it, A. Getting cut out like this. Vic always said in his later years that everything was falling apart. He’d seen what we’ve become now, I don’t even know what he’d think. Chaos. Guys playing video games all day. Crea’s nephew robs a bus full of kids in Canarsie. Catholic kids at camp. Takes their lunch money and their watches. No class left. No one like Vic.

  “So what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna infiltrate this sit-down, and I’m gonna get what’s mine. And I’ve got my suspicions about Sonny’s involvement with Little Sal’s hit on Vic. Crea was behind that on some level, I’m sure.” Richie puts a last hunk of Italian bread in his mouth and chews it noisily.

  “You’re crazy,” Adrienne says.

  Richie goes over and puts his hands on Adrienne’s cheeks, squeezing. “I’m gonna run away. Go somewhere good. Bring my camera, take some pictures. I got a Nikon F5 35 millimeter from Scrummy’s nephew. He stole it from this guy in Williamsburg. Sells shit on eBay, this guy. Has a whole apartment full of cameras and record players and typewriters. Maybe the fucking Canadian wilderness is where I want to go, who knows? Take some pictures, that’s my goal. I already got my bags packed. They’re in the trunk of the Caddy. I want you to come with me. You and Lucia. Be a family. What do you say to that?”

  “You’re gonna knock off these guys by yourself?” Adrienne asks. “How you think that’s gonna turn out?”

  “They’re a mess, A. Like I said, this isn’t the world Vic knew. You blow on these guys hard enough, they fall over. Except for Crea. He’s fucking nuts with that sledgehammer he carries around, and he’ll be on my tail, but I can run faster. He’s a psycho, but he’s not blessed in the brains department.”

  Silence for a minute or so after that, Richie just stroking Adrienne’s cheeks with his thumbs.

  Lucia leans back against the wall, wondering whether her mother’s really considering this. Going on the run, living like crooks. What Richie’s talking about, Lucia’s heard rumblings of. The Brancaccios. Papa Vic’s work. Richie’s work. But she’s never heard it laid out so explicitly. The motherfucking mob.

  Adrienne breaks the silence: “The Canadian wilderness?”

  “I’m just spitballing here,” Richie says. “New Mexico, maybe? Get some nice rugs. Live in a hut. Italy? Book passage on a ship like they used to do. Michael Corleone. I got cousins. In Naples, they’ll welcome us with open arms. You got ideas, let’s hear them. What’s important, to me, is being with you. I did a lot of soul-searching the last few weeks. What I came up with is you’re the one. Always have been. I’ve loved you since you were fourteen.” He kisses her nose.

  “I love you, too, Richie.”

  Lucia’s heart is racing now. What if Richie scoops them up and they do take off for parts unknown? What if he’s pursued by goombahs with guns and they all get shot to shit, buried out in a swamp? She doesn’t want to die like that.

  “You gotta think about it,” Richie says. “That’s fine. I get it. Big decision. You’ve got a life here. You says to me on multiple occasions over the years, however, that you’re sick of the Bronx, sick of Brooklyn, sick of New York. Am I right?”

  Adrienne nods. “You could’ve given me a little bit more time here.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. But this is a shot. This is the way it’s playing out.” His hands are off her face and moving down her body. He’s kissing her neck again. She’s backing up against the counter. He’s taking off his shirt. He’s unzipping her jacket. She’s sitting up on the counter now, tugging at the button on his pants. Her jacket is off.

  Lucia backs just far enough down the hall that she can’t see them anymore. Gross. So gross.

  The kissing noises are loud. Richie sounds like this pet guinea pig she used to have. Thing used to keep her up nights, the way it’d rustle through the paper bedding in the cage.

  Now Adrienne’s letting out soft little moans.

  Lucia puts her head in her hands.

  Then the sound of their bodies thwacking together rockets up the stairs. Richie’s grunting. Adrienne’s low moans are getting louder.

  Lucia closes her eyes so there’s no chance she’ll see anything, even by accident. Hearing is bad enough.

  It’s over fast. Richie finishes with a hoot. “I was so backed up for you, A,” he says.

  Lucia returns to the edge of the stairs where she can see them again. Richie is pulling up his pants. Adrienne, having barely broken a sweat, is back in her tracksuit already. She’s fixing her hair, adjusting her boobs.

  “I’ll be back later,” Richie says, putting his shirt back on. “Around nine. I’ll have a lot of dough with me. You wanna do this, be ready. How’s that sound? We could have a good life. A good new life. You tell the kid I said hey, okay?” He kisses her, and then he’s gone. Adrienne stands in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, chewing the polish from her long thumbnail.

  Lucia gets up and goes back to her room, shutting the door quietly behind her. She sits on the floor next to her stuffed bears, picking one up. It’s torn and frayed, eyeless, a little red hat drooping off the side of its head. It was a gift from Grandma Rena and Papa Vic when she was maybe four. Papa Vic died when she was six. She doesn’t remember him. She fingers the little notches where black thread was once sewn in the shape of eyes. This bear she’d named Giancarlo after a boy in her pre-K class.

  A knock on her door. Before she can say anything, Adrienne opens up and enters.

  “What do you want?” Lucia asks.

  Adrienne snaps back: “What’d you hear?”

  “I heard how gross you are.”

  “That’s not gross. That’s how adults show their love for each other. Besides, you shouldn’t be listening.”

  “You love Richie again?”

  “I’ve always loved Richie.” Adrienne sits on the bed. “You heard what he said? His proposition?”

  Lucia nods.

  “What do you think?”

  Lucia doesn’t say anything.

  Adrienne stares at the Jeter poster. “Jeter was DH yesterday. 0 for 5. Still batting .332. Mussina took the loss. I love Mussina. I had a poster on my wall, it’d be Mussina. He’s the hottest.”

  Lucia looks away from Adrienne, thumbing the bear’s eyeholes harder, until her fingers have torn through to cotton.

  Adrienne gets up and walks out of the room.

  Lucia feels as if she’s on an elevator, going down fast. Happened to her once at a building in the city. The buttons didn’t work. She was alone and touching the door, hoping the elevator would slow and it would open between floors and she could just crawl to safety without being chopped in half or something. The alarm wouldn’t work either. It was a tall building. More than twenty floors. She can’t remember why she was there. That’s what this feeling is like, a dropping in her gut. Weird thing is, she doesn’t remember stopping and getting out, which she must have done because she’s here and alive and didn’t bite it at the bottom of a desolate elevator shaft. All she remembers is the relentless falling.

  A little later, having barely moved, Lucia goes downstairs for a piece of leftover pizza. She finds Adrienne packing a bag and doesn’t say anything. She turns on the Yankees in the living room. It’s a replay of yesterday’s game. Lucia eats her pizza cold. It’s a piece of the Napolitana pie they got two nights ago from Patricia’s on Tremont. Her favorite. Sausage and broccoli rabe. She eats it over her hand.

  When there’s another knock on the door, she assumes it’ll be Richie again. Except, well, Richie came right in last time. When Adrienne opens up, it’s Grandma Rena. From where Lucia’s sitting on the couch in the corner, she can see Grandma Rena, but Grandma Rena can’t see her. Adrienne goes from calm to angry in less than a second. Before Lucia can even get up and show her grandmother that she’s there, that she at least would like to see her, Adrienne slams the door in her face.

  “You believe this?” Adrienne says. “My mother just showing up like this now?”
>
  Lucia puts the crust of her pizza on the arm of the couch and moves for the door. “I want to see her.”

  “Don’t go out there,” Adrienne says.

  “Why? What’d she ever do to you?”

  “Don’t worry what she did.”

  Lucia’s thinking Grandma Rena might just be her way out of this. “She never did anything to me. I want to see her.”

  “You’re eighteen, you wanna go see her, that’s up to you. For now, I’m your boss. And you listen to your boss.”

  “I can’t wait to be eighteen.”

  “It’s not as good as it sounds.”

  “You’re packing. Are we gonna go with Richie?”

  “Get that pizza crust off the arm of the couch,” Adrienne says. “And, yeah, we’re going with Richie, so go pack.”

  “We’re leaving for good?”

  “Why not? We’ve got nothing here.”

  Lucia picks up the crust and carries it into the kitchen, dumping it in the trash. She goes over to the front window and starts to push the curtain open, hoping for a glimpse of Grandma Rena out in the street.

  Adrienne storms over and forcibly clamps the curtain shut. “Get away from the fucking window,” Adrienne says.

  “I hate you,” Lucia says.

  Adrienne laughs. “Join the club.”

  Lucia goes back upstairs. The bathroom gives her a better view of the street anyway. She sees a nice old car parked out front, gleaming under a streetlamp that’s on even though it’s still light out. And she sees Grandma Rena going into Wolfstein’s.

  RENA

  Rena pees in the stranger’s bathroom. Nice woman, sure, but strange. Lacey Wolfstein. Strange name for a strange stranger.

  Adrienne.

  It makes her sick to think about Adrienne.

  And Lucia. Right across the street like that. So close. Rena’s the girl’s flesh-and-blood grandmother. She should be snuggled on the couch with her, catching up, pretending not to care about what happened with Enzio.