This very story was playing through his mind when Mr. Gin-gerella hollered his name. Thomas jumped out of his seat and hurried to the counter. “You with us tonight, Thomas?”
“Very much so, sir.”
“Good. Take this pizza to 47 Sharon Avenue. And these grinders to 86 Park Street. You got that?”
“Absolutely!” Thomas was already grinning.
He drove as fast as he could to Park Street, delivered the sandwiches, then headed across town to Amy and her mother. He parked the car and checked his watch. It was eight o’clock. Thomas combed his hair with his fingers and grabbed the pizza from the seat. Anna answered the door this time. “Hi,” she said. “Come in.”
Thomas walked in. He looked at the couch, where all his amorous inventions had been playing out all week, and looked back at Anna, at a real woman, who was smiling at him. “Where’s Amy?” he asked.
“She’s in bed. She wanted to stay up for pizza and the movie, but she was exhausted and fell asleep ten minutes ago. She’s had a cold this week.”
“Will she be sad to miss it?”
“There will definitely be leftovers,” Anna said, laughing. “She’ll be more sad about missing you actually. She thinks you’re very handsome.”
“Thank you,” said Thomas. “I mean, tell her thank you.”
The woman smiled. “I will,” she said. An awkward moment passed. “Here, let me take that pizza from you.”
Thomas handed it to her and then followed her as she walked into the kitchen. She took her wallet from her purse and handed Thomas some money. “Please tell Amy I say hello,” he said.
“Thank you, Thomas. I will.”
Thomas started back toward the front door through the living room. He walked to the front door and then turned to face Anna. “Tell your husband to save a piece for Amy.”
“Actually, I’m not married.”
“Ah,” said Thomas. “In that case, there had better be leftovers.”
Anna smiled. “Come back again,” she said.
“Keep ordering pizza,” said Thomas, and he walked out the door.
Santiago, Thomas said to himself the next day as he flipped through the pages of the telephone book: Anna Santiago. He found her name and circled the number in pencil. He reached for the phone, dialed the first three numbers, then hung up. He looked again at the name in the book: Anna Santiago. He reached for the phone again, held the receiver in his hand, and stared down at the number.
“Want me to dial for you?”
Thomas, sweating, looked up and saw Helen standing next to him. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” said Helen, repeating a phrase she had heard Thomas say to Charlotte when she routinely told him to get lost.
Thomas blew air through his closed lips. “I’m trying to ask this woman I met out on a date.”
“Is she really a woman, or is she just a girl?” asked Helen.
“Oh, she’s a woman all right. She’s got to be in her twenties, and she has a daughter named Amy.”
Helen squinted her eyes at her brother. “Is she married, Thomas?”
“No, Helen. She lives in The Flats with Amy. I’ve delivered pizza there, twice.”
“If she’s not married, how’d she get her daughter?” Thomas looked directly into Helen’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. “Maybe she’s divorced,” Helen offered.
“I think that’s probably it,” said Thomas. “I think she must be divorced.”
“What’s her number?” asked Helen.
Thomas opened the book to the page marked by his thumb and read the number to Helen, who picked up the phone. She dialed, held the receiver to her ear, then handed the phone to Thomas. “It’s ringing,” she said.
Thomas held the phone against his ear and listened—three, four, five rings. He was just about to hang up when he heard a voice on the other end. “Hello, this is Amy speaking.”
“Hello Amy, this is Thomas.”
“Well, hello, Thomas,” said Amy. “Are you bringing us pizza?”
“Not today, Amy. I’m not working tonight.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “My mom’s not ordering any. She says we’ve got to cut back or we’ll lose our waistlines.”
Thomas chuckled. “Hey,” he said. “Is your mom home?”
“Yes,” said Amy. “Would you like to speak to her?”
“Very much,” said Thomas.
Helen gave him the thumbs-up sign, and Thomas winked at her. He cupped his hand over the phone and asked Helen to get him a Coke in the kitchen. “Please put it in a glass with a ton of ice,” he told her.
“Hello?”
Thomas turned his attention back to the phone. “Hello, Anna,” he said. “This is Thomas.”
“Thomas,” she said. “What a nice surprise. How are you?”
“Fine, actually,” Thomas said. “I, uh, was thinking . . .”
“Are you working tonight?”
“No.”
“Will you come and have dinner with us? Amy would love it,” she said.
“That sounds great,” said Thomas. “What time?”
“Come about six. We’ll have a cookout.”
“Can I bring something?” Whenever the Thompson children went to a friend’s house for dinner or the night, Claire always sent a dozen cookies, freshly made popcorn, or, at the very least, a bag of chips.
“Just yourself,” said Anna.
“I’ll see you at six, then.”
“Good-bye, Thomas.”
Thomas hung up the phone and leaped out of his chair. He jumped around the living room, as if he were on a pogo stick, and then planted his feet firmly on the floor, so he could focus on beating his fists against his chest. He stopped when he saw Helen standing next to him with his Coke in her hand. “How long have you been standing there?” He cocked his head.
“Long enough.” Helen laughed.
Thomas laughed back. “Thanks for the Coke.”
“She said yes, didn’t she?”
“Yes, she did,” said Thomas. “I’m going over there tonight for dinner.”
“Will her daughter be there?”
“Yes.”
“I could come with you,” Helen offered, “to babysit.”
“You are an angel, Helen. I think we’re all set, though.”
Helen watched her brother spring up the stairs. Not until after he was gone did she realize she was still holding his Coke. She knew he wouldn’t miss it, hadn’t really wanted it, but she had been lectured by her mother often enough to know that she couldn’t waste it. So she took it to her room and slowly drank it while she braided pink, white, and yellow strands of gimp into a small bracelet for Amy.
CHAPTER 17
2003
In the morning, Helen woke early. Charles slept soundly as she rolled out of bed and quickly dressed. She went downstairs and made coffee and started the recipe for the cinnamon coffeecake her mother had made for them growing up. She had just finished the batter when Pammy, with the puffy eyelids of someone who needed more sleep, walked into the kitchen. “Coffee’s ready,” said Helen. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” said Pammy, taking her mug that Helen had set on the counter next to the coffee maker, then pouring coffee into it.
“You think a double batch of Mom’s coffeecake is enough?” Helen was looking at the recipe card, written in Claire’s handwriting, mentally checking off that she had added all the ingredients.
“Depends on who you’re planning on feeding,” said Pammy, taking her coffee out of the kitchen and closing the swinging door behind her.
Helen shrugged, added another egg for good luck, and poured the batter into two Bundt pans. She sprinkled the tops, which would become the bottoms, with a generous amount of cinnamon and then dolloped a mixture of melted butter and brown sugar on top of that. She put the pans in the oven and then refilled her mug with coffee and walked out to the porch to join Pammy. “How’d you sleep?”
“
How do you think?” Pammy shot back.
Her eyes were bloodshot—from fatigue? From crying? “I wouldn’t know, Pammy,” said Helen. “That’s why I asked. Seems like you could use a little more.”
“When I could have used the sleep was in the middle of the night. Yet, everybody decided they had to fuck at three in the morning.”
Helen was embarrassed. “I’m sorry if we woke you.”
Pammy sighed. “It wasn’t you, Helen. You were quiet and discreet—although I must admit I was surprised you had sex with Mom in residence.”
“Charles said the same thing.”
Pammy sipped her coffee. “It was Charlotte and Daniel, howling like wolves, who kept me up. And how many times can you say ‘oh baby’ before the other person tells you to shut the hell up.”
Helen laughed. “From what I could hear last night, I think Daniel set a new record.”
Pammy’s sour mood shifted, lightened. It wasn’t Helen’s fault. “And Charlotte. I haven’t heard her grunt and groan like that since she was screwing Rick Jones.” When they were kids, Pammy and Helen had routinely spied on Charlotte and Rick. More than once they had caught them “in the act,” as Pammy called it. And while most of the time Pammy had been able to shield her younger sister from full exposure to naked limbs and blended torsos, she had not been one hundred percent successful.
“Rick Jones,” said Helen. “Whatever happened to him?”
“After he got out of jail for those convenience-store robberies, he went for the big time—banks. Last I heard, he had taken up permanent residency at Somers.”
“What a guy,” said Helen, shaking her head.
“Charlotte dumped him before the poor kid was fingerprinted. I still wonder how they caught him. There was something in the paper about an anonymous tip.” Pammy looked into her sister’s eyes.
“No clue,” said Helen, who hadn’t told anyone about her conversation thirty years before with her father when they were fishing. Pammy had questioned Helen more than once over the years, but Helen had never confessed to confessing. Pammy moved the spotlight back to Charlotte.
“Can you believe she started dating Steve Johanson that very day? He was good-looking, but his younger brother, Michael, was the original stud.”
“He was,” said Helen. “I had such a crush on him.”
“You did not.”
“I did, really. I just never said anything to you because you were wild about him.”
“Did you ever tell him?”
“Pammy, I was ten at the time.”
“Did he ever marry?” asked Pammy.
“Four times and counting.”
“Charlotte should have married him.”
“She did, didn’t she?”
Pammy laughed. “Hey,” she said. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure,” said Helen. She sipped her coffee, which was still hot. Helen warmed her mug with hot water before she poured coffee into it, a trick her mother had taught her when Claire still liked her coffee scalding.
“Daniel’s coming on to me.”
“You already told me about the kiss.”
“What I didn’t tell you is what he did to me in the kitchen last night.”
“He kissed you again?”
“No, he came up behind me while I was washing dishes and started grinding his pelvis against my ass. He put his arms around me and told me he was horny.”
“No wonder he screwed Charlotte for an hour last night.”
“What the hell is he doing, Helen?” Pammy set her almost empty mug on the table next to her chair.
“He’s toying with you, Pammy. He knows he’s attractive and has a body most women drool over, and he knows you think he’s adorable. It’s called an ego boost.”
“Do you think he really wants me, or is he just fooling around?”
“If he wants you, it’s for bragging rights only. It’s not like he’s going to dump his forty-seven-year-old live-in for her forty-three-year-old sister.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Come on, Pammy.”
“Well, maybe he finds me attractive.”
“Undoubtedly, Pammy, but he’s not going to leave Charlotte, his meal ticket, for you.”
“I could pay for his meals.”
“Why would you want to? Unless you’re interested in working out in the gym all day and screwing all night, I can’t see why you’d want him.”
“He’s interested in philosophy,” said Pammy, wincing at the weakness, the neediness of her statement.
“He’s a dilettante,” said Helen. “He’s going to school so he doesn’t have to work.”
“You really dislike him, don’t you?”
“I don’t dislike him, Pammy. I don’t know him. I just see him for what he is.”
“I see some good qualities.”
“You’re reaching,” said Helen, “and you’re playing with fire. This isn’t high school anymore.”
“No,” said Pammy. “It’s more challenging.”
“What about Charlotte? Maybe she really loves him.”
“Charlotte loves herself, Helen. She’d find a new roommate within an hour.”
“Are you serious about this, Pammy, or are we just talking?”
Pammy hesitated. “I don’t know, Helen. Maybe it depends on what Daniel does. If he leaves me alone, I’ll leave him alone.”
“That’s big of you.”
“Look, Helen, you’re not the lonely one here.”
“And you’re not the selfish one, either.”
“Yeah, Charlotte’s got that department covered.”
“So let her have it, Pammy. Let her have him.”
Seconds later, Daniel walked down the stairs in his tight orange gym shorts and a white T-shirt, cut off to show several inches of flat, muscular stomach between its uneven hem and the waistband of his shorts. Pammy swallowed. “Good morning,” he said, bracing himself against the wall to stretch his legs. “Looks like a great day.”
“Yes,” said Pammy, turning her head and forcing her eyes to look out at the day through the screen.
“How’d you sleep?” asked Helen.
“Like a baby,” said Daniel. “There must be something in the air out here.” Pammy glanced at Helen. Daniel looked at Pammy and smiled. “I’ll be back in about an hour,” he said, walking out the front door. Pammy watched his perfect body jog down the road and disappear around the corner.
“So he’s got a nice body,” said Helen, standing. “So do I.” She turned around and shook her bottom at Pammy. Pammy laughed. “You want more coffee?” asked Helen, holding up her mug.
“Absolutely,” said Pammy, getting out of her chair and retrieving her mug from the table. “I have a three-cup minimum.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
They walked back into the kitchen, where the smell of cinnamon was so thick Helen thought she could taste it. She opened the oven door to look at the coffeecakes, to momentarily immerse herself in their aroma, and then set the timer for another ten minutes. Pammy refilled their mugs. “I’m just tired of being alone,” said Pammy, emptying the pot.
“I know that, Pammy.”
“But knowing it and living it are completely different.”
“I can empathize, Pammy.”
“I need more than that, Helen. I need someone to share my life.”
“You’ll find someone. Daniel isn’t that person.”
“Even if he leaves Charlotte?”
“Especially if he leaves Charlotte.”
CHAPTER 18
1973
Where’s Thomas tonight?” asked John Thompson as he sat down at the dinner table and noticed the empty chair.
“Come to think of it, I don’t know. Usually he informs me if he is going to miss dinner,” said Claire, handing the basket of rolls to Helen to pass to her father. “He did mention something about delivering pizza tonight. Maybe he went in early, took someone else’s shift. You know Thomas.” Claire speared a g
reen bean with her fork and then pointed it at Helen. “And I don’t want to hear one word out of you, dear Helen, about these beans. You are to put six of them on your plate, and you are to eat them without theatrics.”
Helen, who had already started plotting the demise of her beans, instantly reddened. It seemed to her that sometimes her mother could read her mind.
“We all know Thomas, seeing as how we’re related and all,” said Charlotte, slouching in her chair in an attempt to irritate her mother. “He’d deliver pizza to Mars for another buck.”
“Sit up, Charlotte.”
“He’s on a date,” said Helen. “Would somebody pass the potatoes?”
“A date?” said Charlotte, sitting up due to interest rather than compliance with her mother’s request.
“He took pizza to a woman’s house, and she asked him over for dinner.” Helen put a heaping scoop of mashed potatoes on her plate and then passed the serving dish to her father.
“A woman?” asked Pammy.
“Yeah,” said Helen. “She’s got a kid and everything.”
John and Claire put their forks down at exactly the same moment and looked at their youngest child. On the receiving end of her parents’ penetrating stares, Helen quickly realized she probably should have said nothing. She stuffed a large forkful of potatoes in her mouth, wishing she could, right then, be on that delivery truck to Mars. “Have you met this woman, Helen?” her mother asked.
Helen held up the index finger of her right hand. She swished the potatoes around in her mouth, buying time. Eventually, she had to swallow. “No.” Helen reached for her glass of milk. “Thomas told me about her.”
“Tell us about her,” said John Thompson.
“He said she was really nice.”
“Is she married?” asked Claire, who had not yet lifted her fork and was sporting a tight smile, unlike Charlotte, who was genuinely grinning at Helen.
“No,” said Helen. “Thomas said she was probably divorced.”
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