The Girl I Didn't Marry

by Annabelle Costa

  Chrissy is sitting with another girl who introduces herself as Ashley. Ashley is more fair and dressed better, but Chrissy is prettier, although in a bit of a tomboyish way. I put my tray down next to them, focusing my energy on being just interesting enough that they’d want to eat with me again.

  “What do you go by?” Chrissy asks me, her big brown eyes full of curiosity. She acts like she’s interviewing me. “Do people call you Jessica?”

  “Jess, usually,” I say. “Or Jessie.”

  “And where did you say you’re from?” Chrissy asks me.

  “Milwaukee,” I say. When they both look at me blankly, I add, “It’s in Wisconsin.”

  They’re still looking at me blankly, but I’m not sure how to be more descriptive than that. “It’s next to Michigan and Minnesota and Illinois…” More blank stares. “We’re about a hundred miles from Chicago.”

  “Chicago,” Ashley repeats, and both girls nod like they get it now.

  “Jessie,” Chrissy says, “I love your hair.”

  I touch my hair self-consciously. I noticed when I walked into Mrs. Leary’s homeroom that I was the only one with blond hair in the whole room. In my class in Milwaukee, at least half of the kids had blond hair—around there, practically everyone is German like me or else Polish. But I’ve noticed Bensonhurst is more of an ethnic area—mostly Italian, my dad told me. The lightest hair anyone in homeroom had was dirty blond. It made me feel like an albino.

  “Thank you,” I mumble.

  Chrissy smiles at me. “Can I braid it for you? I’ve got hairbands in my pocket.”

  I look over at Chrissy’s lunch, which has gone untouched during our conversation, and it seems like she has very little interest in eating it. I can’t blame her though. It’s breaded fish, but inside the breading is some kind of congealed cheddar cheese. Fish and cheese aren’t supposed to go together, and this food is aggressively proving that. If Ashley and Chrissy want to spend lunch period doing my hair, that’s fine with me.

  “Go for it,” I say.

  Chrissy is arranging my hair in some kind of elaborate French braid when I see him. Him, meaning the handsome boy with the dark, dark eyes who was staring at me so intently when I was giving my terrible speech this morning. Now that Chrissy has gotten out of her seat, I see the boy again, sitting two tables over from mine. When he notices me looking at him, he quickly looks away.

  If a boy looked at me like that back home, I would have told on him. But this boy doesn’t look like any of the boys back home. I don’t know if it’s a Brooklyn thing, but I never saw a boy that cute in Milwaukee. Or ever.

  “There’s a boy who keeps looking at me,” I tell the girls.

  Ashley raises her eyebrows at me. “I bet lotsa boys are looking at you. They love new girls.”

  “Yeah, but…” I sneak a glance at the cute boy again. “Don’t be obvious about it, but he’s sitting two tables over. Got dark hair, wearing a blue T-shirt.”

  Both Ashley and Chrissy turn their heads in unison and look over so blatantly that I want to hide under the table. People aren’t so subtle around here, I’m realizing.

  “That’s Nick Moretti!” Ashley exclaims.

  “Nick Moretti,” Chrissy repeats and smiles secretly.

  Ashley wags her finger at me. “You want to stay away from Nick, Jess. Everyone knows his dad’s in the mob.”

  I frown at her. “The mob?”

  “Like he’s a gangster,” Ashley says. “Like, you know, Al Capone. Or the Godfather.”

  “That’s just a stupid rumor,” Chrissy snorts.

  “It’s not a rumor—it’s totally true,” Ashley insists. She glares at her friend. “Just because you think he’s cute, that doesn’t make it not true.”

  “Nick’s a little more than cute,” Chrissy says.

  I look over at the table again and catch Nick Moretti staring one more time. But this time, he doesn’t look away. Our eyes meet, and I can actually feel my heart speed up in my chest.

  Chrissy’s right—Nick’s a little more than cute.

  _____

  I have been walking for twenty minutes now and I’m lost.

  I thought I knew how to get home. I practiced it once with Mom, and I thought I had it down. She asked me if I wanted a ride home today, but I insisted that I could do it myself. It’s only a ten-minute walk. I’m fourteen years old—I could handle a ten-minute walk on my own!

  Except I must have gone straight when I was supposed to go left, or right when I was supposed to straight, or maybe I went in the wrong direction altogether. And now I have absolutely no idea where I am aside from lost.

  This wouldn’t have happened in Milwaukee. I know every inch of that city. There’s nowhere I can’t get to on my bike. I wish I had my bike now. My parents said they didn’t feel comfortable with me riding it around here. Too many cars. Except every other kid in the school hopped on their bikes at the end of school and rode home.

  At least it’s not very cold out and my stupid itchy sweater is keeping me warm. The French braid that Chrissy did during lunch has been coming apart all afternoon, and my hair is now mostly loose around my face. The wind intermittently lifts it in the air, which feels nice.

  I could enjoy the walk if I wasn’t so frustrated about being lost. And also a little scared—this neighborhood is really seedy. I passed a filthy homeless guy lying on the sidewalk who reeked of urine. He asked me for money, and when I said I didn’t have any, he asked me if he could touch my hair. I started walking faster after that. But I think I’m just making myself get more lost faster.

  I need to find a payphone. I can call my mom and ask her to come rescue me. I didn’t want to do it, but I don’t have much of a choice.

  I see a payphone at the corner and dig a quarter out of my pocket. I’ve got one quarter, two dimes, and one penny—that’s all the change in my pocket. On top of that, I’ve got four dollar bills.

  I stick my quarter in the payphone. I’ve only used a payphone a few times in my life, and I don’t exactly know what I’m doing, but I figure it can’t be that hard. Except when I dial my home number, all I hear in the receiver is silence. It’s not ringing. I think this stupid payphone is broken.

  Great.

  I slam down the receiver and keep walking. The neighborhood I’m in is looking increasingly sketchy, but I’m not sure what to do. I see three teenage boys up ahead. Maybe I should ask them for directions home. It’s clear at this point that I’m not going to manage to wander home without help.

  “Hey, honey,” the tallest of the boys says to me as I approach them.

  Another boy snickers, “Nice ass.”

  Now I think maybe I shouldn’t ask them for directions.

  “I never seen you around here, baby,” the other boy says to me. “You new in town?”

  I get this sick feeling in my stomach. Something in my brain is telling me to run, but my legs are frozen.

  The tall boy saunters over to me, grinning. “You got pretty hair.” He reaches out to touch my hair and I jerk away, horrified. My reaction makes the other boys laugh. “What are you so scared of, baby? We’re just looking to have a little fun.” He looks me in the eyes for a split second before I look away. “Don’t you like fun?”

  “I have to go,” I croak, backing away from them.

  I turn to leave, but there’s another boy behind me. They’ve surrounded me. Oh my God, I can’t get away from them. Even one of them is stronger than I am, but I have no chance against all three. There’s nothing I can do—I can fight but I’ll certainly lose.

  The tallest boy creeps closer to me, a terrifying glint in his eye.

  Chapter 3

  Jessie

  I feel the tall boy’s hand on my sweater and I jerk away. Again, he laughs at me, “What are you so scared of? I told you we’re going to have fun.”

  Could I run? There’s no way. They’d catch me. Could I scream and get someone’s attention? I glance at the windows of a nearby building, which are all boa
rded up. Who in this neighborhood would stop these boys from doing what they want to do? The bum who wanted to touch my hair? Nobody, that’s who.

  “Hey!” The voice comes from all the way down the block, but it carries loud and clear. “Hey, assholes! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  They back away from me, if only to see who’s yelling. I look down the block and blink a few times because I can’t even believe it.

  It’s Nick Moretti.

  He’s walking with his bike, striding closer to us every second. His eyes are pools of darkness, staring at the tallest of the boys. He’s got to be at least a year or two younger than that kid and a couple of inches shorter, but he doesn’t look scared at all. Nick walks right up to the kid and glares at him.

  “You leave her alone,” Nick snaps at the tall boy. “You got me?”

  “Look who it is!” The tall boy flashes a toothy grin. “Nick Moretti! ‘Sup? How’s your brother doing? He in juvie yet?”

  Nick doesn’t flinch or budge. “Shut up, Mike.”

  The tall boy, apparently named Mike, pats my ass affectionately. I flinch, and I can see Nick’s hand ball into a fist. But still, he just stands there, his dark eyes staring down the older, bigger boy. Mike is the one who hedges first.

  “Relax, Nick,” Mike says. “We were just joking around with the new girl.” He smiles at me, “Isn’t that right, new girl?”

  I don’t say anything.

  Nick shakes his head in disgust at the older boy, and then jerks his head in my direction. “Let’s go.”

  I follow him blindly. Really, I have no reason to trust Nick more than those other kids, but somehow I know that he’d never do anything to hurt me. After all, he just saved me. Plus, I might be a little prejudiced based on the way he looks. Up close, Nick Moretti is even more handsome than he was across the length of the classroom. Every time he glances at me to make sure I’m following him, I get that fluttering in my chest.

  We walk next to each other, him leading his bike along next to him, not saying a word. When we get to the end of the block, Nick focuses his dark eyes on me and says, “Where do you live?”

  I tell him my address and his eyes widen. “Well, what the hell were you doing in this shitty neighborhood?”

  “I got lost.” I shrug helplessly. “What are you doing in this shitty neighborhood?”

  I wonder if he was following me.

  “They got a good arcade,” he says. “I was meeting my friend there. But then I saw those assholes giving you a hard time. So I stopped.” He motions to me and we both turn left. “And now I’m going to walk you home.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say, even though I’m desperately glad he’s here and I’d probably cry if he left me. “Just point me in the right direction.”

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m leaving you alone here,” he says.

  The neighborhood may be terrible, but I feel a hundred percent safe with Nick Moretti by my side.

  “I’m Nick, by the way,” he says.

  I suppress the urge to say “I know,” and instead say, “I’m Jessie.”

  “You’re new.” He kicks his sneaker into the sidewalk as he acknowledges this piece of information. He’s got expensive-looking sneakers. Air Jordans. “Where you from?”

  “Milwaukee,” I say. Then I remember how confused Chrissy and Ashley got, and I add, “It’s in Wisconsin. The Midwest.”

  He raises his eyebrows, which are as dark as his eyes. “What’s it like there? Is it a lot different than Bensonhurst?”

  “Yes,” I answer quickly. “Totally different.”

  “How?”

  I don’t want to start complaining about how much I hate it here, so instead I say, “It’s colder there.”

  Nick raises an eyebrow. “Colder? Sorry to disappoint you, but it gets pretty cold here in January and February.”

  “Not like in Wisconsin,” I say. “It’s really cold there. Like, they have to close school sometimes just because it’s cold. Not snow—just cold.”

  “Close school because of the cold,” he muses. He smiles at me and it makes my heart do a little flip. “You know, I think you’re just a bunch of wusses out in Wisconsin.”

  I laugh. “You know another thing that’s different here? You guys all have accents.”

  He blinks at me. “Accents? What are you talking about, Jessie? I don’t got an accent. You do.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “Come on.”

  Except maybe I do. Maybe to him, I have a raging accent. Either way, he doesn’t seem to mind.

  “Also,” I add, “you guys don’t have Friday fish fries here.”

  He looks at me blankly. “Friday… fish fry? What the hell is that?”

  “It’s great!” I smile as I conjure up memories of years of fish fries. “Every Friday night, we’d go to a restaurant and they’d have this fried fish meal.”

  “We got fried fish in Brooklyn,” Nick says. “We got it at McDonald’s.”

  “Yeah, but this is different,” I explain. “It comes with, like, French fries or potato pancakes, a little cup of tartar sauce, a little cup of cole slaw, some lemon slices, and a slice of rye bread. It’s sooo good.”

  “I’m sure there’s a place here that can make you up some fried fish and French fries.”

  “But what about the rye bread?”

  “There’s a Jewish deli two blocks over.” He points off to the right. “Don’t worry, we got good food here. And better pizza, that’s for damn sure.”

  He could be right. I loved the local pizza place in our neighborhood in Milwaukee, but we got delivered pizza two nights ago that was way better than Sammy’s Pizza at its best.

  Nick turns a corner and I finally recognize the neighborhood as my own. I want to fall to my knees and kiss the ground. I didn’t think I’d ever make it back here in a million years. Nick is officially my hero.

  “That’s my building up there,” I tell him, pointing to the short, ugly brownstone that I now call my home.

  “Okay,” he says, but he keeps walking next to me.

  “You don’t have to walk me to the door,” I tell him.

  “I don’t have to,” he concedes, “but I’m gonna.”

  I don’t object further. I let him walk me to the steps of my building. Apartment 2A is where I live these days. I’m almost embarrassed for him to see. I wonder what kind of place Nick lives in. If his dad is some big important guy, he probably lives in a place a whole lot nicer than this.

  “Thank you,” I say to him.

  “No problem,” he says.

  “I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be fine,” I add.

  He frowns at me thoughtfully. “I’m gonna walk you home again tomorrow.”

  I squeeze my fists together. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He shakes his head. “It’s not safe for you to be wandering around here. I’ll walk you till you know the way.”

  I don’t suppress a smile. “Okay. If you don’t mind.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Jessie,” Nick says. And even though he has an olive complexion, I swear I can see him blush.

  I stand at the steps to my building, watching as Nick hops on his bike and peddles off in the direction of his own house, wherever that is. I’m glad he’s going to walk me home tomorrow—it’ll be a relief not to have to worry about getting lost. After a week, I’m sure I’ll have the hang of it though, and we can go our separate ways.

  Chapter 4: 1994

  Nick

  That firm, loud knock—three times.

  It’s the cops.

  It wakes me up from almost being asleep. I sit bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding. It’s not for me though. It couldn’t be. I done nothing wrong.

  I crack open my bedroom door so I can hear my father’s voice from downstairs: “What can I do for you, Officer?”

  “Antonio Moretti lives here?”

  The cop at the door is lookin
g for Tony. That’s not a surprise. They come here all the time looking for Tony. The surprise is that they gotta ask that he lives here. Yeah, he still lives here since the last time they came looking for him.

  “Can I please ask what this is about, Officer?” Pop asks.

  Pop is always real nice when the cops come around. That’s another one of his words of wisdom:

  Always be respectful to the police. After all, they’re men with guns on their belts.

  I crawl out of my bed and slip into the hallway so I can hear better. Whatever it is Tony did, I want to know about it. At some point in the future, I’m going to be convincing my father that I’m the better man to take over his business, even though Tony’s older. This is going to be my ammunition. And also, my compensation for the shit I’m going to hear when everybody knows about this at school tomorrow. Nobody will say it to my face, but I know what they’re thinking.

  “Antonio attacked another kid this evening,” the cop says in a low voice I can barely make out. “And the kid is alleging that Antonio had a knife.”

  Pop takes a step back. Through the gap in the bannister, I can see the surprise on the lines etched in his forehead. “Tony stabbed him?”

  The cop shakes his head. “No, just beat him up pretty bad.”

  “So…” I can see the wheels turning in my father’s brain. “We don’t know Tony had a knife. It’s just this other kid saying so.”

  The door to Tony’s bedroom opens up. He comes out, crouching low to the ground until he’s next to me. Tony’s sixteen now—a year and small change older than I am. Not even two years from the point where he’s going to get charged as an adult. He’s an inch taller than me, with wavy hair like Ma has, rather than straight like me and Pop.

  “Aw, shit,” he says when he sees the cops. “It’s like I can’t even take a shit without them coming to arrest me.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s all you did.”

  “Listen, Mr. Moretti,” the cop is saying downstairs, “there are other witnesses who saw your son with a knife.”

  “A knife, Tony?” I roll my eyes at him. “You stupid or something?”