The Exceptions

by David Cristofano

  ONE

  Maggie Mullen swirls a glass of wine she started aerating an hour earlier, stares at me and laughs and says, “You’re so funny.” I can’t remember the words I just spoke, distracted with tidying up the kitchen of her father’s restaurant. “You can really make me laugh when you want to.” When you want to—the point of her statement. Over the last couple years, women have drifted in and out of my life, relationships where the strongest bond occurred the first days of our meeting and slowly dissolved over the course of weeks or months, where we shared a mutual warmth that I eventually chilled over like a berg of ice; Chuck’s daughter has yet to drift out, seems committed to trying to make something of our intense friendship. A decade ago she might have been my ideal companion—a soft-spoken, sweet-natured gal who inherited the bulk of her family’s Irish genes, down to the red hair and fair skin and a face that readily blushes and carries a perpetual smile. But I know now how this will go. Her words will reshape as they did for the three women before her, will shift from you’re so funny to you’re so distracted. Maggie and I are partners, in a sense. We open the place, close it down at night, are together through the full bell curve of activity that any successful restaurant experiences over a day’s time. She and I are not just friends; we possess a rhythm, offset each other’s abilities and deficiencies. We keep the tables full and the customers happy and the restaurant well reviewed while her father completes his long recuperation from back surgery. And every night after we step out the back door of the restaurant, I walk her to her car, where she leans forward and gives me a peck on the cheek and pauses, wonders if tonight is the night I will turn my face and capture her affection in the form of a kiss on the lips, take the first step toward a physical encounter that could lead to love.

  As I wind down the last few chores before we leave, Maggie picks up the bottle of Syrah and wiggles it a little as she catches my eye. I wave her off while wiping the counter. She stares at the wine like it has failed her, frowns as though I didn’t notice she was wearing a pretty new dress or had gotten a new haircut. She swirls the wine in her glass less vigorously, then gently empties the contents of her glass in the sink.

  Chuck and Maggie, this ready-made family for me to join, meet every requirement I could’ve wanted, a tidy package comprised of warmth and security and attraction. Yet the table of contents suggests more than the chapters provide.

  After Maggie steps outside, I set the alarm and lock the door. I walk her to her car, perform what has become the final task of my day. She stares at me a second longer than usual, feels like minutes. She stands on her toes and I can smell the wine on her lips as they meet my skin. And now I see: The offer of wine was not to loosen me; she required the loosening. This moment was planned if not practiced. She lets her peck linger a few seconds and exhales against my cheek, to which I cannot respond, feels as though I am about to cheat on my spouse. She drops her body back to the ground and gently turns my chin so I face her.

  “It’s okay to let her go,” she whispers, referring to April Martin, the wife who lived and died without a single breath, created to fill a gap in my fabricated life.

  But there was no April; she could’ve never been on my mind. That last image of Melody had recurred through my head instead, my final glimpse of her as she disappeared into the center of the Greyhound station. I tell Maggie, “I’ll never be able to let her go. She was the best part of who I was, of who I am. How do you let go of what makes you stronger?” She could never understand how the person I have become these last few years is a replica of my former self, made with better parts and stronger materials; Maggie would not recognize the cursing, smoking drunk with bloodied knuckles and a bruised body and an anger toward mankind, the man with a disbelief that anything pure and innocent and good could exist, could survive in this world. She slips her hands behind her back and cocks her head as I try to explain in the simplest terms: “Whatever it is you like about me, whatever you’re attracted to, it’s because of her.”

  My name disappeared from the news almost two years ago. Justice bored the media into not caring anymore. In fact, not much information surfaced at all about any of the families in and around New York, those few stories usually buried beneath the mire of reporting about terrorism and financial disasters and foreign affairs. And just like me, those few guys who got pinched seemed to show in one or two articles, then quietly vanished. Either the Times and the Post found no more information to report or stories about the Italian Mafia were not helping sell newspapers.

  And since I’ve been living in my little apartment in the Villages, I have never again seen the name Bovaro in print unless used loosely in reference to me. Peter’s chain of candy stores most likely remain in operation—and thriving. I hope he’s saving his money; someday all that sugar is going to riddle him with decay. I know, even in my seclusion, that my father is still the balance and power in the operation; when Pop passes and Pete inevitably takes the reins, I give my family one year before my brother bullies his way into territory that my father had respectfully left to other crews.

  But with all their flaws, with our entire combined corrupted DNA, I miss my family more than I’d imagined when I bolted from New York so abruptly. My first Christmas alone was the most difficult. I recalled the tables so brimming with food you could barely find a spot for your wineglass, remembered the camaraderie as we seemed to eat and drink for days on end, shared unusually carefree moments with the outer edge of the family—the wives and children and outcast crew members. That week between Christmas and New Year’s Day felt as close to normal as our strange unit ever could. We would toast one another around the table at the start of our Christmas feast, would give thanks and honor those the way most do at Thanksgiving. I wondered what was said when the chain stopped at my empty chair, at my obvious absence. I wondered if a toast was made, if they hoped I was surviving.

  Each year, I raise a glass, pray they’re surviving, too, then try to sleep straight through to December 26.

  I still miss the subtle things about my family that I’d overlooked, that I’d taken for granted as I lived as one among them. I miss the way Pop would put his hand on my neck and rub it when we walked together, then ruffle my hair like I was an eight-year-old instead of his grown son. I miss how Pete would opt to give me a quick hug when we saw each other instead of a handshake or a what’s up, instead of nothing at all. I miss the beauty of hearing the Italian language every day, its sweeping flow and gentle lingering vowels, how its structure and sound could make the most violent and hateful things sound as sweet and soothing as a lullaby. I miss being around people who would lay down their lives for one another, no matter how terrible and flawed they are. I miss being recognized, being called by my name, being able to share a memory from prior to three years ago.

  But for all my longings, for these things I miss and wish I could bring back into my existence, they had to be surrendered, were far easier to surrender than what still, to this very moment, occupies me, possesses me less like a demon than an angel: memories of Melody, from my first sight of her as a child to the way it felt when we let go of each other in the bus station. Every woman is compared to her, ranked in order of similarity, noted as poorly drawn knockoffs of a perfect work of art. I’ve memorized not only every conversation, every possible word, but the way the words were pronounced, the direction the corners of her mouth turned as she spoke them, how many times she batted her lashes when she told a story, when she looked directly in my eye, when she could not face me. She is my favorite movie; how I long for a sequel.

  For everything I have given up, I still miss nothing more than I miss Melody.

  TWO

  Today ends the same as any other day, can be differentiated from two days ago or four days ago or six months ago only by the clothes beneath my apron, by the specials fading on the board in front of Mulleno’s. The kitchen is still hot on this Thursday evening at just past ten-thirty, steam rising from sauces and boiling water. Though the kitchen is te
chnically closed, I plan to spend the night experimenting with a potential new offering: braciole. I finish wrapping thin slices of boneless beef round in plastic wrap, then pick up a rubber mallet and gently pound the meat as close as possible to one-eighth-inch thickness. The art to braciole, a traditional Sicilian dish that my mother had perfected by the time she was a teenager, is getting it to roll up evenly and stay together while being browned. Braciole is like a big Hostess Ho Ho, except the chocolate is beef and the creamy filling is a mixture of Pecorino Romano and parsley and garlic. My goal is to test it out this evening, and if a success, order the ingredients next week and have it on the menu one week after that. Once I’ve finished the browning, the meat has to cook in a sauce of tomato and basil for some time—enough time for Maggie and me to go over the day’s numbers.

  I cover the beef rolls with a sheath of prosciutto and tie them with kitchen twine, heat a long turn of oil in a large pot, and just before the oil begins to smoke I start browning the first set. I wipe my hands on my apron and quickly walk out to the bar to find Maggie and see if she knows where the order sheet for our produce distributor disappeared to; I need to determine if we’ll get enough artichokes for stuffing for one of tomorrow’s specials.

  The bar is quiet, holds three couples in golfing attire throwing back a few after what must have been a late afternoon tee time, which became a late dinner and nightcaps. Three men sit at the bar, evenly spaced like birds on a wire, heads cocked up and to the side, staring at the highlights of a golf match on a widescreen television in the corner.

  “Hey, Mag,” I say, touching her lightly on the back, “you seen Atlantic’s order sheet?”

  She reaches up to a top cabinet and struggles to slide a pair of whiskey bottles beyond the edge of the frame. “Next to the printer in the office,” she says as she grunts. “I put it over where—”

  “Johnny?” says a voice from the bar.

  “—the other statements are from last month. We need to talk to Atlantic because there’s a discrepancy on the last—”

  “Little Johnny, that you?” I flinch, struggle so desperately not to turn. I clear my throat and lick my lips, pretend the name means nothing to me, that the term Little Johnny is as inconsequential to me as it is to Maggie.

  “—invoice. We were being charged the same price per pound for asparagus as we were for Vidalias.”

  “Johnny, that’s gotta be you,” the man at the bar says.

  Maggie doesn’t even glance toward the bar. I stay locked in her direction, my face now coated in sweat though I’m so far from the heat of the kitchen. I swallow, twice. “By the fax, you said?”

  She closes the cabinet, drops back to steady feet, stares at me, and smirks. “I said the printer.”

  “Sorry,” I say, wiping my brow. “Um, which one?”

  She folds her arms, narrows her eyes. “We have more than one printer?”

  “Right, okay.” I slowly turn in a semicircle in the opposite direction of the bar and begin walking out with all of the natural movement of a robot.

  “Johnny Bovaro, I can’t believe my eyes.”

  I freeze; the Bovaro is a showstopper. I turn my head toward the bar, but from the corner of my eye: Maggie’s attention goes to the man, then to me.

  I look at this gentleman in his early seventies, a small-framed fellow with an unusually large bald head adorned with oversized spectacles. He lifts his beer glass to his mouth, condensation rolls down the side and drips on his shirt as he polishes off the remainder. I’ve never seen this guy before, not even around my old neighborhood. Someone as oddly and memorably proportioned would have quickly acquired a nickname: Nicky Toothpick, Sal “Spider” Salzone. Ted the Head.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, fingering my own chest, “were you talking to me?”

  He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, opens his wallet, and drops a five on the bar. “Wait’ll I tell the boys who I saw today.”

  My mind floods, and through the water I search for a single fish. Though I’d never be concerned with being taken out by someone in my own family, this guy might be from a different crew, might pass along the information to others and topple the apple cart I have so carefully arranged, throw my name into the news, news that Melody would eventually see, indicating that nothing is what she thought it was—again—that she is not forever safe, that she will again have to run. His utterance of my last name unlocked and opened a box filled with secrets, poisoned the air to the point I can no longer breathe here, and I will have to move on.

  I will have to disappear.

  I glance over at Maggie and realize this will be the last glimpse I’ll have of her, of this place: the final memory.

  I wish I could stop the sweat. I give it one last shot. “I’m afraid I’m not—”

  “Do me a favor,” the man says as he turns to leave, “give your babbo my best.”

  I watch him walk away, grab a stack of cocktail napkins and run them over my forehead and neck. When I twist and look at Maggie, her gaze is one of bewilderment and disappointment, her face pale, her mouth ajar and asking no questions. She knows that I have, best case, lied to her about who I am; worst case, lied to her about who I am and potentially put her in danger, put her father in danger.

  I back out of the bar as I eloquently offer, “Um.”

  I walk into the kitchen and pace around it, confused and disoriented. I try to recall the procedures, the secure and unstored number to dial should I ever get spotted, the name of my handler. I haven’t contacted anyone in the longest time.

  I stare at the pan and turn the braciole as though I can somehow work my way through this. The meat sizzles and the oil spits and burns my wrist as I try to make some sense of what is happening. The adrenaline rushing through my veins now feels as if it’s of some other variety from what propelled my hunting down of Melody all those years; this is an imposter.

  I know I’ve got to go.

  I’ve got to run.

  I undo my apron and toss it on the prep area as I bolt for the back door of the restaurant.

  I try to recall the number for paging my handler: 904-568—No.

  I cannot comprehend the wake I’m leaving behind, cannot yet fathom the people here I will miss as well: Chuck and Maggie and the kitchen staff and the regulars who always wanted to visit with me when I had the time. I’ve betrayed them all. Could I have remained Michael Martin, I would have been just a man starting over. Now that I’m Jonathan Bovaro again, I’m nothing more than a liar, a phony.

  904-856—No.

  When I left New York, it was by my own hand; I knew what was being surrendered. This time it’s unexpected, feels as unsure and disturbing as being woken up in the middle of the night and told the house is on fire. How could Melody have done this so many times? How did she survive?

  As I open the back door and step out to the loading area, I glimpse the future: Chuck returning early from his recovery, Maggie telling him the story of how I was a man they never really knew, how a stranger called me a different name and I ran from them without saying goodbye, how I vanished. And we never heard from him again.

  904-658—No.

  Through the dark and humid night air, I plunge my hands into the pockets of my pants, dig for my keys and my cell phone at the same time. And just as I reach my car, I hear a familiar voice—but instead of nails on a chalkboard, it’s like nails digging into my skin.

  The voice says this: “Who you calling, Johnny?”

  I stop, shoot a look back at the rear door of the restaurant, then back at the man. “Agent Douglas,” I say, trying to understand exactly how his timing could be so right. Or so wrong. I wouldn’t say the last three years have been good to him, but they’ve changed him. His hair is very short now, and he somehow managed to move ten or so pounds from his gut to his chest. I might have doubted his identity at first, but his voice is permanently recorded in my memory.

  He opens the back door of an SUV. “In.”

  I jog up, get in and slid
e across the seat, steal a glimpse of the back entrance of the restaurant again. Sean closes the door and gets in the driver’s side. The only signs that this is some official event are the black color of the vehicle and the weaponry and gauges in the interior. Other than that, little else gels. There are no marshals, no one else with us at all. Sean is unshaven, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans like he just finished weeding his garden. He drives away slowly, waves other cars in front of him as we limp out to the quiet town center.

  I look over my shoulder, out the rear window of the car. Though it’s hard to see through the heavily tinted windows, I see Maggie finally emerge from the back door of Mulleno’s and stare at my abandoned Hyundai, then around the area for me.

  Just before we turn and drift away, she drops her head and goes back inside.

  Right about now the braciole is setting off the smoke alarm.

  THREE

  Sean doesn’t bother to raise the divider as he drives us out to Route 301. I’ve run the scenario through my mind enough times to come to only one possible conclusion:

  “So,” I say, “someone recognized me in the Villages, you guys were somehow tipped off, and then you rushed down here to snag me before anybody—”

  “I don’t think rush is the right word, Bovaro.” Sean looks off to his left. “You mind if I pick up a burger real quick?”

  I must be on a different plan than the one used for Melody. I lean forward. “I’m thinking… you might want to get me a little farther away first?”

  He pulls into the drive-thru for a McDonald’s that’s minutes from closing, puts his window down and orders, turns back to me. “You want anything?”

  I sit back, wave my hand.

  After he pays and pulls out, I say, “You have no business pretending to be a marshal, not even at Hallowee—”

  “No one wants you, Johnny.” He brings a handful of fries to his mouth. One misses, falls to his lap. “Let me rephrase,” I think he says, “no one wants you dead.”