Kiss of the Wolf

by Jim Shepard

  They still had to deal with Todd’s confirmation party that night. Joanie’s mother was having it at her house: more room, she said. They got there early to help, and while Joanie dumped antipasto from plastic tubs onto a silver tray Nina saw a mouse under the refrigerator. This was the end of the world. They all had to hunt for the mouse. Together with Sandro they moved the refrigerator, banged around under the cabinets. Todd, of course, thought they should let it go. Nina, while she set the table, stayed upset about the mouse; for her it was One More Thing.

  Once everybody showed up, Todd got a watch, a cableknit sweater, and some envelopes. His father’s present had come in the mail a week early, no return address. There was a card taped to it made of a folded piece of paper. It said on the top, “Sorry to Miss the Festivities.” Todd hadn’t shown her the inside.

  It was a small party. Nancy, her mother, Elena, and Joanie’s great-aunt Clorinda, so old she never said anything. Sandro, Nina, Todd, Joanie, and the mouse. Like all Italian parties, it was planned for all rooms and stayed in the kitchen. Nina started them on the antipasto Joanie’d done a lousy job of arranging, and some spinach bread. The antipasto was good, but the spinach in the spinach bread wasn’t chopped up enough. Joanie worked on a piece for minutes. Todd sat around picking at things and waiting for his father’s phone call.

  Everyone knew his father was supposed to be calling.

  Joanie was spear carrier. Her mother was throwing the party, her son was guest of honor, her missing husband the offstage star. At one point her mother served more coffee by leaning in front of her while she was talking, like she was the ghost nobody could see.

  Everyone ate the olives and left the marinated vegetables. They lined olive pits up on their dishes like hotels in Monopoly. The spinach bread wasn’t going over. Sandro suggested Todd start the present-opening.

  Todd looked over the pile and opened Joanie’s first. A lightweight jacket for school. Purple and gold, Nike. He liked it, she thought. She’d had little energy to pick something out and had decided, anyway, not to play “Can You Top This?” with her husband’s mystery gift. Todd waited one or two presents more before pulling his father’s and a few others closer. That self-restraint constricted some part of her chest.

  Nina, meanwhile, went ahead with the mouse hunt. She had that look, like every part of her life had come apart and she wasn’t waiting any longer on this one. Sandro wanted to know what kind of cavone went exterminating when she had guests. He told her to get up and got on his hands and knees in her place, clunking around under the cabinets with a broom.

  Gary’s present sat there, the one everyone wanted opened, until Sandro, sweating and peeved, pulled his head out from under the sink and said, “Hey, open your father’s.”

  “Shut up, Sandro, why don’t you,” Nina said. “Let him open what he wants to open.”

  Sandro stood up and stretched, his hand on the small of his back. He was bald and the white hairs on top of his head waved like undersea plants.

  “You get it?” Nina said, meaning the mouse.

  “You mind if I take a leak?” he said. He went into the bathroom. On the way out, he made a stop at the stereo in the living room. Lou Monte came on. “Pepino the Italian Mouse.” Everyone around the table was quiet. Todd had his hands on his father’s gift. Elena chewed with her mouth closed. Sandro came back from the living room. Joanie heard a skittering under the cabinet and imagined the mouse trying to get a look, too.

  The present was in a square, head-sized box. The day it arrived, Todd wandered in and out of the kitchen, where they’d left it, checking it out from all angles. Now he had one hand on top of it, as if to see if it was warm. He pulled it closer. The sliding sound on the tablecloth reminded her of moving boxes, moving in.

  The phone rang. Joanie answered it. Someone for Bruno. Whoever it was, he sounded pretty unhappy. While Joanie talked to him Nina put a hand to her collarbone and threw Joanie a “That was close” look. Joanie crossed her eyes at her. Todd started working on the box.

  It was sealed with some sort of clear supertape. Nina got scissors.

  The phone rang again, this time for Joanie. She sighed and took it around the corner, with a finger in her ear. It was Bruno: something’d come up, he’d be a little late. Joanie wanted to say, We care. When she got off, the box was open. Todd was holding the thing up.

  It turned out to be a lacrosse helmet. He was controlling his face, but she could see he loved it, absolutely loved it.

  “Oh, that’s lovely,” Sandro said. Everyone was doing their “Great gift” murmurs.

  “What is it?” Nina said, like they’d found it under a rock.

  “It’s a lacrosse helmet,” Sandro said. “Don’t you know nothing?”

  “No, I don’t know nothing,” Nina said. “I should know an across helmet?”

  “It’s sports,” Sandro said.

  “Pardon me,” Nina said. “I thought it was olive picking.”

  Todd didn’t try it on. He was holding it by the facemask. He loved lacrosse and had wanted something like this for months; she could see it in his face. Before this second she would have been as likely to say he was interested in the Flags of All Nations, or dolls.

  Eleven years old: wasn’t that too young for lacrosse? Where’d he hear about lacrosse? Who played it?

  Things were awkward for a while. No one knew how enthusiastic to be. Nina refilled coffees.

  It took Todd some time to get to the next present. Nancy finally said, “You gonna open mine, or what?” and he set the helmet in his lap and looked over what was left. Nancy pointed hers out.

  A line had formed for the bathroom. Sandro picked up the lacrosse helmet and squeezed it onto his head.

  “Don’t play around, you’re gonna stretch it,” Nina said. She was broiling sausage and peppers. She had to check on them nineteen times, and Sandro had to move his chair every time she did.

  “What ‘stretch it’?” Sandro said. “It’s plastic.”

  Nina asked him if he was through with the mouse. Was she going to have to hire someone, thirty-fi’ dollars an hour? Sandro ignored her.

  Joanie took time out to track her feelings, like a little weather map. At this point she was hoping her husband wouldn’t call. She wanted it unanimous, what everyone thought of him. She wanted it consistent the way he treated everyone. She looked at Todd and his bad haircut and the little Band-Aid that wouldn’t stick on his hand and was surprised, the way she was always surprised, not by her own meanness but by its persistence.

  Sandro got back on his hands and knees with a Mother of God sigh and clacked around under the sink again with the broom handle. It was like he was trying to warn the mouse, not catch it. Nancy poured Joanie more wine, then sat back and made fun of her vacant expression.

  Joanie woke up and nodded. Nancy pointed to her gift, finally about to be unwrapped. Todd was working on it like it was a bomb.

  “You don’t have to save the paper,” Nancy said. “Really.”

  She was Joanie’s best friend. Joanie hadn’t talked to her at all about Gary’s leaving, and it had been two months. Nancy would come over and they’d go to a movie, split a Greek salad. Once, early on, Joanie had been crying upstairs, and Nancy sat in the kitchen and waited a half hour and then finally went home.

  Todd was holding up her gift: a book called Italian Folktales.

  “Oh, a book,” Nina said flatly. No one seemed to know what to make of her tone. Nancy taught at Stratford High with Joanie—English and history—and liked to give Todd books.

  “See if there are any stories about Mucherinos in there,” Sandro said.

  “That’s in the famous-crime-stories book,” Nancy said.

  “Take that off,” Nina said. “You’re sweating in it.”

  “I need this for the mouse,” Sandro said.

  The phone rang again. Sandro got it, in the lacrosse helmet. He clacked the plastic receiver against his earhole and kept going, “Hello? Hello?” like it was a vaudevill
e routine. It got a laugh.

  He said, “Joanie, it’s Bruno,” and handed her the phone. Joanie gave Nancy her “I’m not encouraging this” look.

  Nancy had gone out with Bruno for a little while, high school and afterward. She still had a thing for him. She was sitting here hoping he wouldn’t call. We’re all sitting around hoping guys won’t call, Joanie thought.

  “What’s up?” she said into the phone. “You hit another snag?”

  “I’m on my way over,” Bruno said. Something was being whacked behind him.

  “What is that?” Joanie said.

  “I don’t know,” Bruno said. “They’re screwing around. I’m over here by the deli. You want me to bring anything?”

  “We got everything,” Joanie said. “You’re missing all the presents being opened.”

  “I was over here, you know, I thought I’d call, see if you needed something,” Bruno said. “I’m five minutes away.”

  “What’s that noise behind you?” Joanie said.

  “I don’t know, these fucking guys,” Bruno said. The line went muffled, as if he’d covered the mouthpiece with his hand, and when he uncovered it, the sound was gone.

  Joanie shifted her weight. Todd was opening more presents. Somebody’d given him some kind of board game he wouldn’t play in a thousand years. “So you coming?” Joanie said in her “I’m getting off” voice.

  “Tell ’im we got the Great Mouse Hunt goin’ over here,” Sandro said. He was whisking around under the stove now.

  “Listen. Nancy there?” Bruno said.

  “Yes, she is,” Joanie said. Nancy looked up at her. “Wanna talk to her?”

  “Don’t bust ’em off,” Bruno said. “Her mother there?”

  “Yes, she is,” Joanie said. Elena was over by the door, hadn’t said two words all night. “You wanna talk to her?”

  “Yeah, give her a message for me,” Bruno said. “Tell her, ‘Mangia il gatz.’”

  “You tell her,” Joanie said.

  “I’m on my way,” Bruno said. He hung up.

  She came back to the table and sat down. Nancy was looking at her. Joanie shrugged.

  “Where’s the dog?” Nina said, like she’d just noticed the dog wasn’t around. “Why didn’t you bring the dog?” She was probably thinking of the mouse.

  “She ran away again,” Joanie said.

  Audrey’d had a tough last few months and had taken to running away after dinner for a few hours. Todd would go look for her, stand in the yard and wait for her to come back.

  Nina turned the peppers, which had to be done by now. “That dog’s gonna be out in the woods, she’s gonna be running around, she’s gonna get bit, she’s gonna get rabbis,” she said.

  “That’s rabies,” Sandro said. “Jesus God. Rabies.”

  Nancy laughed. Nina was used to it. Her husband said she butchered the language like Leo Gorcey. Bruno said she had her own way of communicating, and it didn’t work.

  “You are something,” Sandro said. “The other day she goes to me, talking about that poor chiboni who hit the kid, ‘Oh, baby. Nothing goes right for him. He’s got an albacore around his neck.’

  More people laughed, even Elena. “Nice image,” Nancy said.

  “You believe how fast they go on that curve?” Nina said. “Three times the car flipped. These people and that curve, it’s a sin.”

  “I think the parents are now ascared the guy’s gonna get sued,” Sandro said.

  “I’d sue ’im,” Nina said. “Three times the car flipped. They had to get that thing and tear the roof off to get him out.”

  “The kid was just walking there, too,” Elena said from over by the door. “Going to get ice cream. You believe that? It’s a shame.”

  “Her eyes’re open now,” Sandro said. “Her mother’s there every day, soon as the hospital opens.” He had his helmeted head on the floor next to the stove, and he seemed to think he saw something.

  “Three times that car flipped,” Nina said.

  “I went there and visited,” Elena said. “You go?”

  “I went there the second day, with the mother,” Nina said. “You believe the perfume she wears? I think she marinates in it.”

  “Ma,” Joanie said. “How about giving her a break? Her daughter’s a vegetable.”

  “Don’t talk that way,” Nina said.

  Joanie felt bad she’d put it like that. She’d been around Bruno too much. “They hope to God she’ll come out of it,” her mother said.

  “They don’t know,” Elena said bitterly. “Doctors.

  “I don’t believe that perfume, though,” Nina said. “And expensive. How could you spend so much on perfume?”

  “Ma,” Joanie said.

  “Hey, you ever see her?” Sandro said. He gave up and got back in his chair. He was trying to get the lacrosse helmet off. “The least she could do is smell good.”

  Nina took the pan with the sausage and peppers out of the broiler and dropped it on the floor. Everybody jumped. The peppers spattered over a big area and just missed Sandro’s leg.

  “Ho. Ho,” Sandro said. Everyone else made exclamations.

  Someone banged on the screen door. Elena always locked it when she visited: her cousin’s sister on Stratford Avenue, one day they walked right in.

  “What’s the deal with the security?” Bruno said from outside. “The Mucherinos sense trouble? Gangland hit?”

  “You’re not gettin’ in without a present,” Sandro said. He was lifting his feet so Nina could clean under the table. Joanie got a sponge and some paper towels and helped out.

  “Open the goddamn door I’m not gettin’ in without a present,” Bruno said.

  Elena got up from her chair and fumbled with the lock. Neither she nor Bruno said anything while she worked on it. At one point something clicked and she thought she had it. Bruno rattled the handle.

  Elena opened the door and stood back.

  “Mrs. DeFeo,” he said, exasperated. He was still standing outside, and she was still holding the door. “Good to see you.”

  “Bruno,” Elena said. She thought Bruno was hardworking but a pig. He shit on my Nancy, she had told Nina and Joanie.

  “Look at this, look at this,” Bruno said, coming in. “Howdy howdy howdy howdy howdy. Todd’s party. The party for Todd.”

  “J’ou bring a gift?” Sandro said. He still had his feet up in the air while Nina cleaned, and he looked like he was on a ride. Joanie told him to put his feet down.

  Nina finished. Joanie could see how upset she was: mice in the kitchen, no food, the kid’s father not even here, nothing going right. At the sink, rinsing out the sponge, Joanie said, “Ma, don’t worry,” meaning the spill.

  “Did I bring a gift?” Bruno said. “Is it out there on the step right now?”

  He looked at Todd. Todd shrugged, as if to say, I don’t know.

  “Did I bring a gift?” Bruno said, opening the screen door again. Elena was still standing beside him, waiting for him to settle somewhere before she sat down. “In terms of gifts, I think it’s time to visit Mr. Excess,” he said. He bent down for something right outside the door.

  He brought in a square box. It was wrapped in newspaper. Joanie had a frightened flash that it was another lacrosse helmet, that everybody knew about Todd and lacrosse but her.

  Bruno caught her looking at him. She thought, This guy. Why’s he so interested? Why’s he so hot for me?

  She inventoried him. He was no kid. He was no Mr. GQ, though he usually dressed better than the other guys at Goewey Buick, that was for sure. He had baby skin, but the kind of show-through beard where you had to shave five times a day. No gray. Nice mouth, but his face was jowly. Nice shoes always, Italian, very thin leather. When he stood around like now, he kept raising and lowering his toes, a little gesture of impatience you could watch for.

  She looked away and there was Nancy, taking in everything, as usual.

  “The kid is a football fan, the kid is a Viking fan,” Bruno
said while Todd unwrapped the thing. “Did I buy him a shirt? Did I buy him a pennant?”

  Todd pulled the box free of the paper. It was a football helmet, a Minnesota Vikings football helmet.

  “God,” he said. “It’s great.”

  “Real thing,” Bruno said. “The one they wear.”

  “Where’d you get that?” Sandro said.

  “Where’d I get it? I stole it from the locker room. I own the team,” Bruno said. “Where’d I get it.”

  “This must be helmet night,” Elena said.

  Bruno turned around and gave her a look. “They sell ’em in sporting goods stores,” he said. “You should see. It’s a sight to behold.”

  “Bruno, that’s too much,” Joanie said. “That musta cost a lot.”

  “You’re welcome,” Bruno said. Joanie’s great-aunt Clorinda was peering at him. He waved at her. “Bruno, have a seat,” he said. “Bruno, have some wine.”

  “Bruno, have a seat,” Sandro said. “Have some wine.”

  Elena’s chair was next to Nancy’s. Bruno sat in it like he’d paid for it. “How are you, Nancy?” he said.

  “Bruno, I’m fine,” Nancy said.

  “That’s good,” Bruno said.

  Sandro got up to get another chair. He told Elena to sit in his.

  He flipped the record while he was up. Because of the awkwardness of Bruno and Nancy together, everyone listened. Lou Monte again: “Please, Mr. Columbus, Turn-a the Ship Around.”

  “Lou Monte,” Bruno said when Sandro came back into the kitchen toting a chair. “Very, very classy. I myself prefer Topo Gigio.”

  “Mr. Sophisticated,” Sandro said. He got Bruno a glass.

  “I still need to have Wayne Newton explained to me, too,” Bruno said. He turned the glass upside down and cleaned it with his napkin. “Anybody have any ideas, please get right on it. I’m listening.”

  “Oh, I like him,” Elena said, from over by the door.

  Nancy sang the chorus of “Danke Schoen.”