She’s headed back down the stairs when the front door opens and she hears Rosemarie Baldini’s voice. “Antonina Divino?” she says, as if she’s not a hundred percent sure. And maybe she’s not, with the hair. It’s been a while.
Antonina turns around. “Hi, Mrs. Baldini.”
“Your hair is pink.”
“It is.”
“What’re you doing here? Mikey’s not home.”
Antonina hesitates. She decides to tell the truth. Rosemarie could very easily open the mailbox, find the letter, and read what it says. “I was dropping a note for him.”
“You two keep in touch?”
“We don’t,” Antonina says.
“A note about what, then?”
“Just . . . it’s nothing. I wanted to give him some news. You can read it if you want to.”
“I don’t read my son’s mail.”
“I’m sorry I bothered you.” Antonina begins to walk back to the gate.
“Have you seen Mikey?” Rosemarie says, her voice turning desperate. “He went out early this morning and he hasn’t come back. It’s his birthday. His uncle’s coming over. I think there’s a girl. You two haven’t started up again?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Antonina says, leaving the yard and not looking back, figuring that Rosemarie will stay outside for a few minutes to keep an eye out for Mikey. She feels bad for Rosemarie, she does. Her husband killing himself. Her son a different breed. It’s like Jane. You can’t figure those things. Life just throws them at you.
Antonina wonders if Rosemarie will read the letter she wrote. If she does, she wonders what she’ll make of it.
At the corner, she turns left and is about to start for home when she sees Nick Bifulco hustling across the avenue to her. “What’re you doing here?” Nick asks, slowing to a stop in front of her. “Commiserating with Mikey, huh? I’m back to try him again, too.”
Antonina shakes her head and keeps walking. “He’s not around.”
Nick follows close behind. “Will you get a drink with me?” he asks.
She stops. “A drink?” she says.
“Sure,” he says. “We can go to Spanky’s Lounge. It’s right over here. They’ll serve you. I want to ask you a few things.”
And then, regretting her answer almost as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she says, “Okay.”
As she follows Nick toward Cropsey Avenue, headed for that shithole Spanky’s, she thinks, What’s the point of being young if you don’t do the stupid things you obviously shouldn’t do?
ROSEMARIE BALDINI
Rosemarie has the day off for Mikey’s birthday, but it doesn’t feel like a day off. She’s been cooking and cleaning and worrying. She’s not sure what time her brother, Alberto, will be over, and who knows what type of hot tamale he’ll bring with him? Last time the girl was some kind of dancer. And she can’t begin to guess where Mikey went this early, all dressed up. Must be a girl.
The visit from that Antonina Divino has her all mixed up too, coupled with the visit from Nick Bifulco the night before. Something’s going on, and she can’t piece it together.
She’s still standing at the front door, having watched Antonina walk away up the block. That pink hair. What a disgrace. And the way she dresses. Those big black boots and stupid overalls. Makes sense now, she guesses, what her son was drawn to. She’s another one who doesn’t seem to give a damn about fitting in.
Must be a girl with Mikey, but not Antonina. If it was her, that’s where he’d be in his father’s nice jacket, walking around with her, out for breakfast at the Roulette Diner.
Rosemarie opens the mailbox and finds the envelope that Antonina left. She goes inside and sits down at the kitchen table and turns it over in her hands.
She taps her foot against the linoleum.
She studies the way that Antonina has written Mikey’s name, looking for a clue.
What could be inside?
She knows opening it is wrong, a breach of privacy, but sometimes a mother has to do what a mother has to do. Sometimes, she reasons, privacy isn’t a right for a kid who needs help. Twenty-one today. Not a kid anymore. A man. But maybe if she’d breached Giuseppe’s privacy a bit more, she could’ve helped him see a way out other than suicide. Her concern leads her, fingers trembling, to rip open the envelope and read the note from Antonina.
She’ll admit, her first reaction is relief that Antonina is warning Mikey about Ava’s son, Nick. It seems that the main purpose of the note is to let Mikey know that Nick is a creep.
Beyond that, it doesn’t make much sense. That “night in the schoolyard” Antonina’s talking about—Rosemarie has no idea what this means. Mikey was seeing Antonina around the time Giuseppe died. In fact, he came home the very night Giuseppe went missing with a shiner, saying he’d been jumped in the schoolyard up the block by some guy from the Marlboro Projects. She remembers saying they should call the cops, but he played it tough, shaking her off, saying it was nothing, just a bruise, and the guy didn’t even get his money. Could that be the “night in the schoolyard” Antonina’s talking about? And who is “DP”? There’s so much she doesn’t know, so much she’s been shut out from knowing. If something had gone on that night, any impulse or inclination to find out what it was had been swiftly buried by Giuseppe’s disappearance.
Anyhow, Rosemarie has always known that Mikey has a life, maybe even lives, that she knows nothing about—especially up in New Paltz—and she wouldn’t be able to tell his life story to a stranger, not past the age of fifteen or so anyway. After that, it becomes totally blurry to her, so much information withheld, so many gaps and dark patches. There were times when she felt like people who didn’t know him at all knew more about him than she ever could.
She gets up and searches the junk drawer next to the fridge for an envelope. She finds one, its edges a bit crimped. She folds the note neatly, stuffing it inside the new envelope. She duplicates Antonina’s penmanship as best she can, writing MIKEY in big letters across the front. She tosses the original envelope in the trash and leaves the new one, containing Antonina’s note, propped against the glass bowl full of pennies and paper clips and used scratch-offs in the center of the table.
She goes over to the stove. She’s got the chicken parm and garlic bread in the oven, cooking at three-fifty. The gravy is bubbling on the back burner, blue flames glowing under the edges of the pot. The water for the ravioli is humming at a low boil on the front burner. When they’re about ready to eat, she’ll turn up the gas and put the ravioli from Pastosa in gently. But she’s not sure when that will be.
She goes into her bedroom and changes into nice clothes. A black blouse with gold sequins and black slacks. This is an outfit that she would wear to church. She wants to look nice for her son’s birthday. She looks around at the bare walls of her bedroom, at the string dangling from the light in the middle of the ceiling, at the smudgy mirror over her sewing table. The top of her dresser is also empty. A few months after Giuseppe died, she put away their wedding picture. She couldn’t look at it anymore. She also put away the handkerchiefs he usually kept folded and lined up there.
The bare walls tell nothing of her life. Other people—she’s been to houses like this—have their stories plastered on the walls. Weddings, communions, vacations, school pictures. She has all that stuff, but none of it is on the walls. Her photo albums are buried at the bottom of her bedroom closet. Pictures pasted to crumbling black pages. She can’t bring herself to look at them. It’s too sad, thinking about all she’s lost, about the possible futures that existed at the time certain pictures were taken.
Mikey, for instance, standing in the driveway on his first day of kinder-garten in his St. Mary’s uniform, smiling like he’d just won something, Giuseppe next to him, a proud father. That must’ve been 1978. She doesn’t even need to dig around in the closet to find the picture. It’s right there in her mind. Mikey is so happy. He could be anything. He could stay happy. Giuseppe looks like a different perso
n than what he’ll become. He doesn’t look like the kind of person who would ever leave this son of his. He doesn’t look like the kind of person who would throw himself from a bridge in desperation.
What will become of these photo albums when she’s gone? What will become of the house? Stop, Rosemarie. You’re only forty-six.
The doorbell rings. She sighs. She’s not even sure who to expect. She wonders if she’d even be surprised if she opened the door and the ghost of Giuseppe was there, soaking wet, blue in the face, begging for her to take him back.
She ambles out of the bedroom, through the kitchen, and back down the hallway to the front door. She opens it on Alberto, who’s looking less than dapper in cargo shorts and a tank top, the hair on his shoulders and chest matted with sweat. He’s holding a paper grocery sack in his beefy arms. Having been thrown off by Antonina Divino, Rosemarie remembers that she’d called him the night before to ask if he could lend her money to fend off Big Time Tommy.
“You’re early,” Rosemarie says. “And you’re alone. I thought you’d bring a new girlfriend.”
Alberto smiles. “I’m seeing a real class act. Madeline, her name is. She’s a regular at the Knights of Columbus dances. You’d like this one.”
“I’m sure.”
“Listen, Ro, I’ve got some bad news.”
“What is it?” she asks, the disappointment palpable in her voice.
“I can’t stay. I’ve got a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Mikey here? I got a present for him. And I got something for you. I forgot the pastries and cookies, though. I’m sorry about that, too.”
“Mikey’s not here right now.” She pauses. “You have to stay. Please. I made so much food.”
“I’m sorry, sis. I can’t.” He leans in and kisses her on the head.
The smell of her brother is enough to choke her. That awful cologne he’s wearing covering up the BO only slightly. “Come in,” she says.
Inside, he puts down the sack on the kitchen table. “Smells good in here,” he says.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Nothing’s ready, right?”
“The chicken parm only needs twenty minutes.”
“And Mikey’s not even here?”
Rosemarie shrugs.
“I’m in a rush,” Alberto says.
“I could make you a quick sandwich. Mortadella and provolone.”
“Forget it.” He reaches into the sack and comes out with a wooden device of some kind. It’s square with a small wheel that grinds back and forth through a notched groove by turning a handle. He puts it on the table. “That’s for Mikey’s birthday.”
Rosemarie picks it up and turns the handle. “What is it?” she asks.
“Bullshit grinder,” Alberto says, grinning. “Got it off a guy on Mulberry Street. Reminded me of Mikey.”
“Real nice you make fun of your nephew like that.”
“What? I figured he could grind his bullshit while he’s loafing on your couch. He’ll get a kick out of it.”
Rosemarie sets it back down.
Alberto takes a shoebox out of the sack next. “And I got something for you,” he says, plucking the lid off. Inside is a messy stack of twenties and a gun.
“What is this?” she asks.
“Some money to hold off Big Time Tommy. It’s only about five hundred bucks. That doesn’t work, you need it in a pinch, there’s the piece. It’s a Colt Anaconda. Won it in a card game.” He pauses. “I shouldn’t say that. I shouldn’t mention card games. I’m sorry.”
Rosemarie’s never seen a gun. “It’s loaded?”
“It is. I’m not saying go crazy. I just want you to feel protected. Hide it in the closet so Mikey doesn’t even know it’s in the house.”
“I don’t know.”
“Tommy starts pressing, he’s gonna stop being respectful because you’re a widow. Something unexpected goes down, I just want you to be prepared.”
Rosemarie thinks about it. Sometimes her brother does use his head. It’s not a bad idea to be prepared for the worst. She doesn’t have anything else in the way of protection, not an alarm, not bars on the windows, nothing.
“I don’t know how to shoot it,” she says.
“Just point it and pull the trigger and hope for the best. With Big Time Tommy, at least you got an ample target.”
She nods.
Alberto picks up the grocery sack, which still has a few things inside. He leans over and kisses Rosemarie on the head. “I’m sorry again, Ro,” he says. “Just watch your back. And tell Mikey I said happy birthday.” He rushes back down the hallway and out the front door and he’s gone as fast as he came, leaving her with a gun in the silent house.
AVA BIFULCO
The AC in Ava’s office isn’t working. She’s made her rounds. Now she’s sitting at her desk with the window open, doodling on a pad, craving a cigarette. She picks up the phone and dials Flash Auto. She wants to check on the Nova. She hopes it’s nothing too serious. Michelle puts Frankie on.
“The bad news is,” Frankie says, “it’s the catalytic converter.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ava says, scratching the pencil against the pad until the point breaks, her jaw tight.
“I know, I know. These things happen. It’s not a new car. The good news is your boyfriend bought you the Olds Cutlass Ciera in our lot.”
Ava’s taken aback. “My boyfriend?”
“Donnie Parascandolo. He came by and said it was yours, paid for and everything. Lot of people have big problems with Donnie, but he’s okay in my book. A solid individual. Loyal.”
Ava really could use a cigarette now. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Well, your admirer, then.”
“I don’t think I can accept a gift from him like that.”
“That’s between you two.”
“When’s my Nova gonna be ready?”
“Gotta order the part. Give me until tomorrow to get you an estimate, okay? The Olds you can pick up whenever.”
“We’ll see.”
“Okay there, Ava.”
Ava ends the call and sits back in her chair. She decides to take her smoke break. She lets Jada and Straleen know she’s stepping out for a sec and then goes to her usual dumpster spot and is about to light up before thinking twice about it. She heads for the boardwalk and finds an unoccupied bench and lights her cigarette. She really enjoys that first drag after such a hectic morning. These girls under her, they’re one worse than the next. None of them listen. Many of them are not polite, not to her and not to the residents. Others are just flakes. Rosemarie took off today for her grown son’s birthday, which Ava can’t wrap her head around.
She watches seagulls circling over the beach, hears their squawks. She watches the water, sees a ship out on the horizon that’s a dot. A small plane towing a banner passes over the beach. An ad for a radio station.
A guy sits down next to her. He’s wearing red shorts that are inappropriately short, mismatched sneakers, and a heavy jacket that’s blue and puffy. “Sweetheart,” he says. “Good morning.”
“I’m trying to enjoy my smoke here,” Ava says, thinking maybe she’s better off by the dumpster after all.
“Can I bum one?” he says.
“Christ. Fine.” Her pack is in her lap. She opens it and passes him a cigarette.
“Viceroys?” he says, smiling wide, showing gold teeth. “My old man smoked Viceroys.”
“I don’t want to be rude,” Ava says, “but this is my break and I’m trying to enjoy the quiet.”
“Sure thing. Got a light?”
She hands him her book of matches.
His first match gets snuffed out by the breeze. He doesn’t have any luck the second time either, the match sizzling between his fingers. He gets it the third time with a sigh of relief, stands, and hands her back the matches. He bows dramatically and sings his thank-you.
Ava watches as he struts away, puffing over his s
houlder.
She thinks about Don buying her this Olds. Going overboard with the Good Samaritan thing now. She doesn’t even know him. It’s weird, but it’s also romantic. She’s not sure that’s what he was going for, but what else could it be? You get into your forties and fifties and you start to want to just cut through all the bullshit. His thinking probably being that flowers wouldn’t get the job done.
Or maybe he’s been beaten down and rejected so much by people in the last few years that he feels the need to do wild, over-the-top stuff to make an impression. Thanks for dinner. Here’s an Olds Cutlass Ciera.
She should accept the car.
No, she shouldn’t. What would Anthony say?
Don’s off the force—where’d he get the money for the car?
And what would any of this lead to anyway? The way Don drinks. His background. She’s gonna what? Go to bed with him?
Her thoughts stray to Nick. She thinks about him knocking on that police captain’s door. To bother him like that. She doesn’t like what she’s seeing in Nick since this dumb script idea took root. She hopes he comes to his senses.
She stands up and walks out to the railing and looks down at the sand. Crinkled cellophane and a grease-stained paper plate blow past. She can’t remember the last time her feet were in the sand. She keeps the cigarette pinched between her lips as she reaches down and takes off one shoe and then the other. She’s sick of them. She needs better shoes. She sets them off to the side. She walks down the three steps from the boardwalk to the beach. Her bare feet feel good in the sand. She closes her eyes and takes a deep drag off her cigarette. More seagull squawks. The sound of waves rolling in at the shoreline. To hell with it. She grabs her shoes and walks all the way down to the water.
At Sea Crest, they’ll be wondering where she went. She doesn’t care. After this, she’ll walk to Nathan’s and get a hot dog and an orangeade and she’ll sit at one of the tables and just people-watch. Let them come looking for her. She’s so dependable. Too dependable. It’s her turn to be a flake.
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