Heart and Soul

by Sally Mandel

  “Bess is in love,” they said. “Bess is in love.”

  And that’s how it all began.

  Chapter Two

  Whenever anything important happened in my life, the first thing I did was spill it all to Jake Minello and my sister Angelina. Strangely enough though, I didn’t feel like telling anybody about this thing with David. I thought about him constantly and in silence for three days, which for me was the equivalent of about thirty years. But by Saturday, it was getting too heavy to hang on to by myself. I hopped on the Long Island Railroad for the hour-long trip past everybody’s backyard barbeques and August-fried gardens.

  Rocky Beach isn’t rocky unless you count the veteran’s memorial boulder in front of the bank, and the beach is a mile from town. Jake told me the name came from a Native American word—roshibak, or something like that, but he was probably bullshitting me, which was one of Jake’s primary forms of entertainment. Anyway, the first thing I always did when I got off the train was to stop by the firehouse. It’s not that I was wild to see my father, who’d been working there for twenty-five years. Our relationship was what I guess you’d call contentious, but the other guys felt like family. I had a Jewish boyfriend once who every time he walked into his apartment touched this thing called a mezuzah, a religious decoration nailed to the door frame. Stopping by the firehouse was my way of tapping the mezuzah. It made me feel more like I was home than when I was home.

  “Yo, Bess, whassup?” Corny O’Halloran was six-four and three hundred pounds. Unless he was off somewhere fighting fires, he sat by the door reading James Joyce, drinking tea from a china cup, and dunking a doughnut with his pinky sticking out. Corny thought my father didn’t put enough emphasis on education (zero isn’t a lot) so when I was little he used to make me repeat the multiplication tables and the state capitals. I love it when they do state capitals on Jeopardy. I absolutely rock. Anyhow, if I got everything right, Corny would fish into his shirt pocket and reward me with toffees that were very excellent at yanking out loose teeth. When I got older, I started baby-sitting for his daughter Mary Louise, who had cerebral palsy. It was hard work, and sad. I didn’t like getting paid for it but Corny insisted. What I did was recycle by buying presents for Mary Louise with the money. Corny never found out as far as I know.

  “You’re always a knockout,” Corny said. “But I’ve gotta say, today you look like you swallowed a beauty pill.”

  I felt different, that’s for sure, and it was on the tip of my tongue about David when my father ambled in from the bunk room, rubbing his face, which meant he’d been sleeping and would be crankier than usual. Suddenly my stomach felt like it was trying to digest a rock, and talking about being in love was the furthest thing from my mind.

  “Did you get me the aftershave?” he asked, ruffling my hair, which always made me feel six years old and just about as helpless.

  “Well, hello to you too, Dad,” I said.

  “You know what, Dutch?” Corny said to my father. “You’re a pain in the rectillium.” He rolled his eyes at me and went off to the kitchen, where life begins and ends in any firehouse. My father’s nickname refers to the fact that his mother was Dutch. Looking at his square blond face, you’d never guess there was even a teaspoon of marinara sauce in his blood.

  He pointed a finger the size of a cigar at me. “Hey, I’m working six days a week here,” he said. “You got nothing better to do so far as I know.” He started leafing through the Daily News that was always on the table.

  “One, you’re not working, you’re napping,” I said. “And two, last I knew there’s a Duane Reade in Elmont.” The rock in my stomach melted into lava and started to bubble. I hated to let him see he was getting to me. It gave him too much satisfaction.

  “Don’t go getting high and mighty on me, girl.” He picked up another chair like it was made of toothpicks and set it down so he could put his feet up. He hadn’t given me more than a glance.

  “Three, I’m not living at home,” I said. “I don’t have to do your errands anymore.”

  He finally looked at me out of his beefy face. I had to admit he was physically imposing in the bulky menacing way of your basic albino grizzly bear.

  “You watch your mouth,” he muttered. “And tell your mother I’ll be home about four.” He opened the newspaper to Ann Landers and made a show of ignoring me. I stood there for a minute, trying to figure out why his favorite column usually featured complaints about people like him. It was hard to remember that once upon a time we had been capable of having fun together. Then I took the aftershave out of my bag, plunked it down on the table, and left. He didn’t thank me.

  It was a tribute to how far gone I was that I’d only made it a few steps when I forgot about being pissed at my father and started daydreaming about David Montagnier again. I was taking a bow with him from the stage at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. We were holding hands and David was giving me a private signal, squeezing my hand in the “shave-and-a-haircut” rhythm which he probably doesn’t even know about since he was brought up in France, or so my extensive research told me. But suddenly somebody grabbed me from behind. I figured it was Dad so I swung around, ready for trouble.

  “Uh oh,” my sister said. She had an armload of books. “I guess I know where you just were.”

  “When they build the asshole museum, he’ll be the star attraction.”

  “You’ll be out of here by then.” Angie’s conversational style took some getting used to. I knew she didn’t mean I’d be gone by the time they built the museum, only before Dutch got home at four o’clock. Angie made leaps and didn’t bother to fill you in. She paid me back for the effort to keep up by supplying me with vocabulary words. She fell into step with me as the noon whistle blew. It used to be a B-flat but over the years it had slipped down to an A. These days they could tune an orchestra to it.

  “I don’t know how you stand living with him,” I told her.

  “Oh, I was found in a basket,” she said. Meaning that Dutch considered her an outsider because she didn’t look like anyone else in the family. Mumma and I and all the cousins were brown-eyed with brown hair but Angie had silky black hair and gray eyes. Her skin was pale. It was true that my father pretty much left Angie alone, which sometimes hurt her feelings, but she was better off looking breakable. Dutch was the kind of bully who only picked on people he knew could give him a contest, like me. There was nobody else who came in for anywhere near the same kind of shit I had to put up with.

  As usual, being around Angelina had already calmed me down. For being only eighteen, she was a very wise person. The need to tell her about David was suddenly physical, like when you have a tickle in your throat and absolutely have to cough it out or you’ll choke to death.

  “Angie, don’t go in yet,” I said. “I’ve got something to say.” I reached for her books. She never looked as if she was strong enough to lift a paper towel. “I’m in love. I’m crazed. I’m a total goner.”

  She was silent for a moment. I appreciated her grave expression, her instant understanding that this time I wasn’t kidding around. “Are you going to tell me who with?” she asked.

  “David Montagnier,” I said.

  “Not the real one,” Angie replied, with such total confidence that I burst out laughing.

  “Oh, he’s real all right. He has beautiful feet.”

  “Already?”

  “No, I haven’t slept with him. We played two-piano stuff in his apartment. Honey, it was way better than sex.”

  She looked at me in disbelief. Her Bess professing that anything was better than sex?

  “Are you two just going to stand out there?” Mumma yelled, leaning out the front door. “Lunch is ready!” She wore her old faded apron, a housedress, and beat-up slippers. I was irritated already. This was not the ’fifties. This was not Iran. She should go back to school already and become a person.

  “Coming!” I called back. And she should tell my fath
er to go fuck himself.

  “You can’t leave me in suspense,” Angie said.

  “We’ll walk to the beach after lunch,” I said. “Is Jake coming?”

  “He’ll be sweaty.” Meaning he’d be stopping by after his jog. Jake had free reign in our house. His favorite towel, the big wraparound one, was kept laundered and ready on a peg in the bathroom so he could shower after his runs.

  We hurried up the crumbling steps. It was a two-family house that we shared with the Schultzes in a long-term relationship that resembled a good marriage, better than either of the actual unions on either side of the front porch.

  Mumma was dragging a big platter of ziti out of the oven. “Jesus, Mumma,” I said, “it’s only about four hundred degrees in here. You couldn’t throw together a little Caesar salad and call it a day?”

  We kissed right on the mouth, which is another Stallone thing. We all do that, even Dad when he isn’t in a piss-poor mood. Then I held her away to check her out. Same brown curly hair, brown eyes, and suntanned face. As usual, she seemed blurred, out of focus. Sometimes I thought she’d decided to be a symbolic Italian mother instead of a real person.

  “Come sit down, girls,” she said. “We’ll have a nice ladies’ lunch.”

  We sat at the cramped table in the kitchen. Angie was shooting me wide-eyed looks as I rambled on about running into Pauline Sabatino in Bloomingdale’s, which was only the sixth time she’d ever been to Manhattan. We were both thinking about David Montagnier but I was certainly not going to mention him to my mother. She didn’t get the music thing, but she knew a star when she saw one and David definitely qualified. First thing, she’d be on the phone to all her relatives in Sheepshead Bay.

  “Have you played in any concerts this week?” Mumma asked me. She wasn’t really interested, but it was nice of her to make the gesture.

  “No, nothing much going on,” I told her, and tried to look enthusiastic about the ziti she’d heaped on my plate. It had olives in it, which she knew I loved, but the view from David Montagnier’s window was floating in front of my eyes. I blinked to make the picture go away. Angie was gawking at me with a face full of questions.

  “You look flushed, Bess,” Mumma said. “Have you been wearing sunblock? I could swear you’re running a fever.”

  The front door slammed. I felt my stomach lurch with the thought that my father had come home early, but then a familiar voice called, “Bess? You here?”

  I smiled at Angie. “Nope!” I yelled back. So much for the ladies’ lunch.

  Jake appeared in the doorway, half-naked and dripping wet from a run on the beach. He was medium height with a great body, the sight of which ordinarily produced a little electric buzz in my most important spots. It interested me that I didn’t feel it this time. He bent over to give me a kiss, also on the lips but with a little lingering, semifake groan like he couldn’t tear himself away. We’d been doing this routine since seventh grade, and except for once, it never went any further. Jake and I did better as friends. I wanted to tell him then and there: Jake, you’ll never believe, something huge has happened. Mumma handed him a plate, pressed him into my father’s seat, and went down to the cellar for more soda.

  “You in love or what?” he asked me.

  I gaped at him. “What makes you say that?”

  “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “Shh,” I hissed as Mumma emerged with a six-pack of Coke.

  Jake reached out and gave me a pinch at waist level. “Putting on a little weight?”

  “Fuck you,” I said genially. My mother used to nag me about my language but she gave up when she realized she couldn’t compete with the guys at the firehouse.

  “Do you get any vacation this month?” Mumma asked Jake. He was working full-time in construction and taking courses for his master’s in education at the state university. Jake was the kind of person who could teach a mathematical idiot—me—to understand calculus. Patient, clear, and in no rush.

  “Yeah, today,” he said with a grin, and then looked pointedly at Angie. “So?” he said.

  “What?” she said.

  “So have you heard anything, dummy?”

  Angie shot him a look that said, Shut up.

  “About what?” I wanted to know.

  “The SATs,” Jake said.

  “Which SATs?” Mumma asked.

  A tiny smile fought with the irritation on Angie’s face. The pale pink spots that showed up on her cheeks were her definition of a blush.

  “You aced ’em,” Jake guessed.

  “725 in math and 760 in English,” she admitted, almost as if she was ashamed of herself.

  I got up out of my chair and scooped her into a hug. “You genius!” Out there on Planet Montagnier, I’d forgotten all about my sister’s scores.

  Angie shoved me back in my chair and said, “It’s not a good idea.”

  I knew what she meant but Mumma needed help. “To tell Dutch,” Jake explained.

  There was silence while this sank in, and then Mumma said, “I suppose that would be best.” My father wanted Angie to go to computer school, where with her brains he thought she’d have the best chance at making big bucks. Angie wanted to study literature. Those test scores were going to rock my father’s rowboat till it took on water.

  After lunch, Mumma told us she’d clean up if we wanted to go to the beach. “I don’t have anything to do anyway,” she said with a hint of resentment that annoyed me. I knew there was no point in offering to help her because she’d only refuse.

  From long habit, the three of us always walked in the same pattern, me in the middle, Jake to my right, and Angie to my left. We’d been doing that for so many years that if somebody switched positions, we could hardly talk to each other. Heat was shimmering over the sidewalk. Weeds looking for water pushed up through the cracks and fried. My blood was boiling anyhow from not talking about David. I felt bad enough that I’d been so preoccupied I hadn’t remembered to ask Angie about her SATs. I figured as soon as we put some space between us and Mumma, I’d be spilling my guts about David Montagnier but for some reason, I couldn’t. It was almost a mile to the beach and whoever was brave enough to be out on their tiny patch of lawn waved or said hello. Funny about Rocky Beach. I’d lived there all my life and part of me felt completely at home. But my musical side, well, that was a different story altogether. There was only one person who truly understood what I was all about, which was Mrs. Fasio. And, of course, the entire population of Rocky Beach thought she was a freak. So I waved back and thought, Nice to see you, but you don’t know me.

  “Angie, look up in the sky tomorrow,” I said. “I’m getting a skywriter to put your scores up there.”

  “It’s nice,” Angie said, “but your news is better.”

  I threw Angie a look that said not yet, so she didn’t object when I turned to Jake and said, “Maybe I won’t be quitting music.”

  He grabbed a hunk of my hair and tugged. “Whatever you say, Stallone.” I knew he didn’t buy it, but at least he wasn’t nagging me. As I said, he could be patient.

  The sand was jammed with weekenders, so we walked down to the jetty, where you could sometimes actually see Brooklyn, if that’s what you were inclined to look at. There wasn’t anybody else around except for a couple of surfers who were trying to hitch a ride on the dinky little waves. I didn’t realize it then, but after seeing beaches all over the world, there’s still nothing that can compare to that hundred-mile curl of surf on the south shore of Long Island.

  Anyway, we sat on our driftwood log and as usual, Jake started tossing stones into the water. He had some arm. The damn things went halfway to Bermuda.

  “My guidance counselor says NYU will give me a scholarship,” Angie said. I held up my hand to slap her five but she just threw me a pitiful look.

  The thing about my sister was, she didn’t act like a high-school kid. She was a solemn little thing with eyeballs that looked like they c
ould tell you the secrets of the universe. So when she turned and wailed in this MTV-type voice, “I know Dad’s not going to let me do it. My life is so over!” I had to chew a hole on the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.

  But when I saw her eyes start to fill up, battle mode kicked in. “The sonofabitch will let you do it,” I said.

  “We can work out a plan of attack,” Jake said, Mister Practical. “If it doesn’t cost him anything, we’ll find a way to make him go for it.” I put my arm around Angie and gave her a squeeze. She looked fragile, but I could feel her wiry strength.

  “The scholarship wouldn’t pay for everything,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, Ange,” I said. “I’ve got a little trust fund going for you.”

  She looked at me like I was nuts.

  “No big deal,” I said. “I’ve just been setting aside a little every week. I figured I’d surprise you at graduation.” I’d only managed to sock away about fifteen hundred dollars, but it was something.

  “I’ve seen your black sweater, Bess,” Angie said. By which she meant I needed a new one, which I couldn’t afford.

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “The money’s just sitting there.” I figured I could maybe shoehorn in a bartending job. It meant getting no sleep but what the hell, I’d do plenty of that when I was dead.

  We sat and watched the sea lick the shore. It amazed me that even Angie’s crisis hadn’t taken my mind off David Montagnier. His music played in my head like a soundtrack and the minute I let my mind drift a little, I was drawn to him again. I could see him standing all in white in the doorway of his apartment with the sun streaming in behind him, lighting him up like an angel.

  Jake flung another stone, and with his eye on its trajectory, he said, “So, Bess, are you going to tell me or not?” I knew I wasn’t getting off the hook any longer. Besides, I’d always told him everything there was to tell in my life including the episode where I took the rap for Pauline when she started a fire in the girls’ locker room. By accident, but she was already on probation and would have gotten chucked out of school. I only got a month’s community service and a couple of bruises courtesy of Dutch.