The Way of Beauty

by Camille Di Maio

  They stepped into a dim parlor. A burly man with sleeves rolled to his elbows sat surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  “Whaddaya want?” he asked.

  “Two rooms, please,” said Angelo, pulling out his wallet. “I’ve reserved them under the name Angelo Bellavia.”

  The man pulled out a file box and shook his head. “Ain’t got nothing under that name. And we’re all booked up.”

  Vera grew still. She had visions of them sleeping under the arches of Union Station.

  “But I wrote ahead three weeks ago,” Angelo protested.

  “That’s the postal system for you.” The man shrugged and offered no apologies.

  “Is there anything available? We could sleep on the couches over there.”

  “It’s against fire code. Ain’t nothing but one room, and that’s for married folks. And only ’cause we got a cancellation.”

  Vera’s heart stopped. It was one thing to sit on the train together. Another to have two rooms in the same hostel. But to share a room—nearly alone, save for a sleeping Will—she hadn’t envisioned this.

  “We’re married,” Angelo responded firmly. He took Vera’s hand and squeezed it. She hoped that her face didn’t flinch at this lie. What was he doing?

  But Angelo’s voice remained composed, though she felt his pulse racing through his tight grip. She didn’t need him to speak to know what he was telling her.

  Stay quiet. Let me handle this.

  “Then why d’ya want two rooms?” The man crossed his arms.

  “For the boy. I snore, and I don’t want to wake him. Big days ahead. Historic times.”

  The man pulled eyeglasses from the top of his head and peered at Vera.

  “I don’t see no ring.”

  Angelo continued the charade and didn’t slip out of character once. “She insisted that a plain aluminum band would make her happy, but I want nothing less than gold for my sweet wife. I just can’t afford that yet.”

  Wife. For a fleeting moment, she let herself indulge in the word. Because it wasn’t real. It was a means to an end. Surely it couldn’t hurt Pearl to pretend for a minute that this was true.

  “That’s all you got? No proof? We do not tolerate any tomfoolery under this roof. My wife and I are God-fearing people. Not that it’s my business who you go with, but if anything less than savory is what you’re after, there’s plenty of establishments that will welcome you.”

  “Please, sir,” Vera said, deciding to support the playacting. Because she understood now what Angelo was doing—keeping them off the street for the night. It was cold out there, and flurries were predicted. “My husband is telling the truth. This is our child, William. We’ve traveled here to celebrate the new president, God bless him, and our son is so tired after taking him around to see the sights today.”

  The man hesitated, drumming his fingers on his counter. Vera turned so that he could see Will’s peaceful face.

  He nodded. “I suppose that will do. Just make sure the boy stays quiet. We aren’t running a kindergarten here.”

  “Absolutely,” said Angelo. “He’s a good bambino.”

  Vera was certain she heard the man mutter the words filthy Italians under his breath, but as long as he would give them a room, it didn’t matter.

  The man pulled out a register, and Angelo wrote Mr. and Mrs. Angelo Bellavia.

  Vera’s heart raced at the idea of playing the role of Mrs. Bellavia in this farce. A silent send-off before she left him. The written record would probably be stored in an attic once it was filled, but she would know forever that somewhere, even under inches of cobwebs, she was listed as Angelo’s wife.

  She followed Angelo down a long hallway until they reached their room. The man had stepped in ahead of them and turned up the kerosene in a lamp near the bed.

  One bed.

  One. Bed.

  Of course that’s all there would be. This was a room for “marrieds.”

  She couldn’t put what she felt into words. But if she had to paint it, it would be full of blacks and grays. Or a green shade made ashen by mixing in something darker.

  She felt sick to her stomach. Was this a betrayal of Pearl? Did the sacrifice need to go so far as to sleep in the winter air? Did it count for anything that she and Angelo had not asked for this?

  “Look, darling,” said Angelo, never once betraying his part. But she knew him well enough to sense the tension underneath his words. “You can see the White House from the window. Won’t Will be excited to see that in the morning?”

  She avoided his eyes, fearing that she might confess the truth to the innkeeper in a rapid storm of apologies. She nodded instead and stepped forward to put the child on the bed.

  The man mumbled a few instructions—water closet three doors down, no unnecessary noise, don’t use too much kerosene.

  When he’d left, Vera collapsed on the bed next to Will, making sure to position him squarely in the middle. But she shot straight up when Angelo sat down on the other side while he removed his boots. Goose bumps ran up and down her arms.

  “Sorry about all that back there, Mrs. Bellavia.” He laughed but sounded nervous. “I didn’t think either one of us wanted to sleep out on the street tonight. Will you forgive me?” He lay down on his side, propping himself up on an elbow. But he didn’t look at her. He looked only at William, brushing the sleeping boy’s hair with his hand.

  “There’s nothing to forgive. I don’t think there was any other choice.” She knew her own voice sounded stilted. Would Angelo think she was angry?

  Or worse, would he suspect why she was uneasy with this dilemma?

  And lead us not into temptation. She didn’t go to church often, but she knew the prayers that everyone was supposed to know. It felt divinely unfair to be led right into the heart of the very thing she needed to resist.

  “You were masterful,” Vera said at last. She stood and walked over to the window. “As good as if you were an actor for a living instead of a newspaper salesman.”

  He hesitated before answering. “I convince people that they need the day’s news or a cigarette or chewing gum. I convinced him that we needed the vacant room that he had available. Sales.”

  She laughed. That was her Angelo. Always making light of something so as not to worry her. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “Call it anything else and I’d need to go to confession.” His voice lowered.

  She turned around and looked at him. “Angelo! I don’t want to do anything that gets you into trouble.”

  “It was a small thing, Vera. And a necessary one. I won’t go to hell for it. For other things, maybe, but not for that.”

  “I doubt very much that you’re heading in that direction. You’re—you’re the best man I know, Angelo.” She looked down at her hands. She couldn’t say that straight to his face.

  “Oh, Kid.” He sighed, growing even more serious. “You give me more credit than I deserve. I haven’t darkened the door of a confessional since—well, it’s been a few months.” He sat up and looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry. Vera. Not Kid. Sit down. Please.” He spoke the words slowly and then reached for her hand. He pulled her toward him, sitting up and moving over so that she could have a place to sit. But he left plenty of space between them, no longer confined by a second-class train car.

  “It’s okay.” She leaned on the bed’s edge just enough to support herself and clutched the coverlet. She wondered at his admission but didn’t press it. She knew Angelo to be a weekly attendee in the confession line, almost scrupulously devout, and thought it was odd that he had stopped.

  “No, it’s not.” He grew very silent, enough that she finally looked at him in the dim light provided by an outside streetlamp. He had the strangest expression on his face. Like he was in pain. “I didn’t realize, Vera. You’re all grown up. I’ve only begun to see it lately. Too—um, too late, perhaps. But there it is.”

  Her breathing grew labored, and her head hurt. He w
as so close to saying the things she’d always wanted to hear. But she didn’t want to hear them now. It would only make it harder. More confusing.

  He didn’t press on. Just left that small statement, that almost admission, hanging between them.

  “Don’t think anything of it, Angelo. When you see someone nearly every day, it’s difficult to notice the changes.”

  “Don’t be too nice to me. I don’t deserve it.” He was being unnecessarily harsh with himself. It wasn’t as if they’d sought out this situation intentionally. And they were two adults who were perfectly capable of conducting themselves appropriately.

  Yet here they were. She was sitting on a bed in a hostel room with a married man. One who had been as a brother to her despite her wildest hopes for more. She was the very definition of a libertine.

  “Pearl told me about Stephania.” Vera hurried the words out and regretted them right away. She hadn’t intended to bring up his sister or open an old wound, but she was desperate to say something that deflected from the path they’d begun to touch on.

  Because of Pearl. And Will. She had to put them first.

  “She did.” Angelo said it like a statement.

  He sighed. Not the sigh of a man tired after a long day but of a person carrying a burden for far too long. Vera saw tears well in his eyes, but he wiped them away before they could fall.

  She scooted closer, no longer thinking about what it meant to be a man and a woman sitting on a bed in a room far away from their home. She thought only of comforting her friend. For he was that above anything else.

  “Angelo,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. You don’t have to say anything.”

  He didn’t speak at first, and she watched his shoulders roll into themselves before straightening. He took her hand, and she decided to ignore whatever that implied.

  “You deserve to know. I should have told you before. But why tell that sadness to a child? And then here you are, no longer a child, so I suppose there’s nothing standing in the way of talking about her.”

  Angelo looked into her eyes, and Vera felt as if her heart might shatter. With love. With pity. With concern. With anticipation. It was as painful as it was pleasurable.

  “Stephania,” he said, and held her hand a little tighter. “Yes. I had a little sister. I suppose Pearl told you what happened.”

  “She—she did,” said Vera, not wanting to reveal too much and betray Pearl—even as she sat here with her husband. She understood the irony. “Pearl said that she drowned.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “It was all my fault. I was supposed to watch her. But she’d always been such a strong little swimmer. She said she was hungry, and a pretzel seller came by. He had only three left on his cart, and I knew that if I didn’t buy any for us right then, we wouldn’t have anything to eat until we got home.”

  He took a deep breath. Vera held on to his hand. It must be very difficult for him to talk about this. And it was the most vulnerable he’d ever been in front of her. “I told her to stay put, and she agreed. We were only a few feet from the shore, and the water came to just above her knees. I ran up to where we’d laid our towels to get the money, looking back with every step. But as I was giving the nickels to the pretzel seller, I couldn’t see her. The sun was just starting to set and it was right in my eyes, so I didn’t think much of it. I paid the man and ran back to the water, but she wasn’t there.”

  Vera felt her eyes well up. She looked at William. The thought that—no, it was too much to imagine. How had Angelo managed to overcome this?

  Because he’d met her. She’d become his new Stephania. His chance at redemption. If he could be kind to this other little girl, it might mitigate his guilt over losing his sister. She couldn’t resent him for seeing her in that way. It was only natural. It was the only way to survive.

  And for her, he’d become the family she was quickly losing—her mother to death, her father to illness.

  They’d needed each other.

  Angelo’s shoulders stiffened, holding back sobs. “She wasn’t there. She wasn’t there. I looked. I shouted her name. People were starting to watch, and several men raced into the water to help.”

  The air in the room seemed to grow thick, as if the past could conjure the ghosts who lingered in old buildings like this, whispering their secrets. As if the mention of death awakened them.

  Angelo pulled his hand away and crossed himself as Vera had seen Catholics do. Hand to forehead, heart, side to side. “I swear, Vera. I would do anything—anything—to take that day back. If I could only have gone in her place. Sent her with the money. Not gone to Brighton Beach at all.”

  Vera spoke softly. “Was she ever found?”

  Will shifted on the bed, curling into a fetal position in his sleep. It gave space for Vera to slide all the way next to Angelo. She had not forgotten who they were or where they were, but her friend was feeling broken right now.

  “Yes.”

  Vera’s heart ached for the pain he must have felt.

  He paused before speaking again. “Hours later. It was dark. So dark. Except for the full moon that cast a reflection over the water. That’s how we saw her. I ran in and I held her and her skin was so blue and she was so cold and . . .”

  He couldn’t speak anymore. He’d given way to a full cry. Vera moved in closer, pulling his head to her shoulder, casting aside all regard for boundaries. He was in anguish, and she had caused it by bringing the subject up. She brushed her hand across his back, up and down, smoothing out the ripples caused from his tears. They remained silent, and he grew still, resting against Vera.

  She was overwhelmed with love, more than she had been before. This was new. Not the love of an infatuated schoolgirl but of a woman who wanted nothing more than to take care of this man.

  He pulled away at last but remained close enough that there were just inches between their faces. She was finally ready to look into his eyes without hesitation. A girl would be shy. A woman would be steady. They held each other’s gazes and paused. Vera could feel a pull toward him, like a string connected them. She imagined kissing him. It would be so easy.

  “I’ve never spoken about this to anyone,” he whispered, moving closer.

  “You told Pearl.” She pulled herself back. Being alone in this room did not mean that everything else didn’t exist. But she didn’t let go of his hand.

  “Yes. Not as much as all that, though. Odd, how when I’ve said even a little bit about it, it was so factual. So clinical. I haven’t cried about this since that moment when I held Stephania in my arms on that beach. But you—well, I believe I can tell you anything.”

  Vera cleared her throat. “Pearl suggested that I came along and reminded you of her. Maybe it’s only that.” It was her duty to mention his wife’s name. It might be the one thing that would keep a space between them so that in this moment of tenderness neither did something they’d regret.

  Angelo reached for a lock of her hair from the bun that had almost entirely loosened. Vera froze, not knowing how to react. “You did. There you were with your hair in braids. Just like Stephania wore it. And your scraped knee. I guess helping you let me do something that I could no longer do for her.”

  “Did you call her ‘Kid’?”

  Angelo leaned back and laughed, and Vera was grateful. It was better when the tone was not so serious. Because she was afraid that her resolve had begun to erode.

  “No, ‘Kid’ was all yours. I called her bambina. It means ‘little girl’ in Italian. Or sometimes, cara betta.”

  “Dear one, right?”

  “You’re learning!”

  “You’ve taught me more than a few words over the years. I pay attention.”

  Angelo’s face grew soft. He looked down at their hands, one resting in the other. He entwined his fingers with hers.

  She didn’t pull away. This tug-of-war was agonizing.

  “It has been years, hasn’t it?” he whispered. “Where have they gone?”


  He looked in her eyes. She felt her cheeks flush and her chest grow heavy. Angelo leaned in until they were once again so very close. She’d heard love described as intoxicating, and though she’d never been drunk or in love, the word seemed to apply. She had to pull back.

  She started to just as he spoke again.

  “Where has the little girl gone who used to kick rocks with me and sample gelato and make up stories about the people walking into Penn Station?”

  “She’s all grown up now,” Vera whispered.

  “All grown up,” he repeated slowly. He raised a hand to her cheek and stroked it.

  Angelo was hurting too much after talking about Stephania to see the wrongness of this direction. She couldn’t be responsible for something they would regret.

  She didn’t pull away. But she didn’t get closer. It was as if her head were in conflict with her body. And her heart was stuck somewhere in the middle, paralyzing her.

  A light outside flickered and then went dark.

  “Vera,” he said.

  “Yes?” Flashes of nerves began to shoot through her body. How could something that would be so wrong feel as if it were supposed to happen?

  “I have something to tell you.”

  “Tell me, Angelo.”

  His lips brushed hers so lightly that it was not quite a kiss.

  Drowning. She was drowning. And the surface was getting farther away.

  “I’m not married.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Angelo!” Vera leaped off the bed. She could not believe that he had just spoken these words. He wasn’t married? She’d seen the ring on Pearl’s finger. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, Vera,” he pleaded, burying his face in his hands. “I’ve made a mess of things, and I don’t know what to do.”

  She wanted to go to him in his suffering, but she stayed rooted against the window.

  “Angelo, you are not making any sense. Of course you are married. Which makes this—” She gestured around the room and then crossed her arms around herself. She had to say the word out loud. To draw the line so thoroughly that they wouldn’t get within a mile of it. “Wrong. Or are you just telling me something you think I want to hear? Angelo, tell me!”