Engaging Men (27 page)

Once outside in the cool night air, I felt better. Never again, I thought, glancing back at the crowd still clawing to get in the door. There was a reason I didn’t go to clubs anymore, I realized, heaving a huge sigh of relief at the thought of Kirk, sleeping peacefully at home, like I should have been, right by his side.

But I had other things to deal with right now.

“Let’s get a cab,” I said, dragging a sleepy-eyed Michelle to the curb and raising my hand in the air.

Once we had settled into the back seat of the taxi that rolled up moments later, I quickly rattled off my address.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Michelle said, “I have to go home.”

“Just crash at my place,” I said, glancing at the cabbie, who

was peering at us somewhat impatiently through the opening in the plastic-glass divider.

“No!” she cried. “Frankie would kill me.”

I sighed. “Okay, but are you gonna be all right going home by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said sleepily, waving a hand in my face and slumping down farther in the seat.

“She’ll be fine, miss,” the cabbie agreed, his eyes roaming greedily over all that flesh falling out of Michelle’s dress as she slid still farther down.

Yeah, right. I sighed again, realizing I couldn’t leave her at the mercy of this guy, who was leering so much he was making Michelle’s little friend, Jose, look like a Boy Scout.

It looked like we were both going to Brooklyn.

Thirty-five dollars poorer, I was standing on the doorstep of Michelle’s lovely three-bedroom abode in Marine Park, ringing the doorbell at two-thirty in the morning. Apparently, not only had Michelle lost—or spent—whatever money she had stuffed into that minuscule evening bag she carried, she’d lost her keys, too.

Suddenly I saw the lights flick on in the living room and the door swing open to reveal Frankie Delgrosso, in a T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants that had seen better days. His hair was considerably thinner and he looked a lot…puffier than I remembered him, though he still had that same handsome face, which was looking none too happy at the moment.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, glaring at Michelle, whose sleep-slackened features snapped to attention at the sight of him. “Don’t tell me you lost your keys again.”

She averted her eyes, looking a little like a ten-year-old child who’d just been caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. Frankie should only know where those fingers had been tonight.

“She had a little too much to drink,” I said by way of explanation.

He looked at me as if suddenly realizing I was there. “Hi, Angie. How are you? Long time no see, huh?”

I smiled. It had been a long time. Probably since the wedding. “How you doing, Frankie?” I asked, leaning in to receive the sloppy kiss he planted on my cheek.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said, studying Michelle, who was moaning wearily as she eased herself down into a sitting position. “I hope she didn’t ruin your bachelorette party.”

Bachelorette party? I thought, realization dawning. So that’s how Michelle had gotten herself a night out in New York City. God, why couldn’t she just tell him the truth?

As I glanced down at her, I realized Michelle probably hadn’t uttered an honest word to Frankie since the day she said, “I do.” And even the truth in those words was debatable, judging by her little tryst in the bathroom stall tonight.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Frankie said, smiling down at me now. “So little Angie DiFranco is finally gonna settle down.” He laughed, as if the whole idea amused him. “We didn’t think you’d ever get married!”

I laughed, too, somewhat halfheartedly, as I carefully tucked my ringless left hand behind my back. “Yeah, well, we all gotta do it someday, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, resignation in his tone as he turned his gaze to Michelle, who had curled herself up in a ball to sleep right there on the brick stoop. Frankie leaned over and picked her up easily, throwing her slack form over one shoulder. Then, ever the host, he turned to me and said, “You wanna come in?”

“Oh, no…I’m just gonna head over to my mom’s to sleep.”

“You sure?” he said, looking out onto the darkened street. “It’s late. I can call you a car.”

“Nah, that’s okay,” I replied, too embarrassed to admit that this little trek to Marine Park had wiped my wallet clean. “It’s only three blocks.”

I realized, after Frankie had slammed the door shut and left me to my fate, that three blocks was an awfully long way to walk at 2:30 a.m. on a Friday night in Brooklyn. There was no one on the streets.

But this was my old hood, I thought, feeling a little better as I passed the familiar brick houses on the way to my mother’s block. I even found myself stopping before a house that used to be as familiar to me as my own. Vincent’s.

Funny thing was, it was still his house. After he had gotten married, he had happily moved into the upper level with his wife, having no qualms about spending the rest of his days mere steps away from the parents who had raised him in their image. I looked up to the third floor, saw the flickering blue haze of a television set lighting up the front bedroom and was certain that was Vincent’s bedroom I was staring up at. He had been just as much a night owl as I had been back in the days when we were dating. Apparently he still was, I thought, wondering if his wife stayed up with him or if she was simply snoozing comfortably beside him.

I wondered, too, if he was happy. And I decided he was. After all, this was all he ever wanted—to get married, have a houseful of kids and a solid paycheck, I thought, my eye wandering to the Brooklyn Union Gas van that sat at the curb.

I had always yearned for more.

Have you gotten it? a little voice prodded.

“Of course!” I said aloud, my own voice echoing back to me in the quiet night and startling me, reminding that I was on a very empty street, not a soul in sight.

So whom was I trying to convince?

“Angela!” my mother shouted at me when she found me standing on her doorstep.

“Hi, Ma,” I said, as if dropping by in the middle of the night were a normal thing.

“What happened?” she cried, grabbing my face between my hands and staring into my eyes. “My God, are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” I insisted, stepping out of her clutches and into the front hall, where I glanced at my reflection in the long mirror that hung there. My eyes were bloodshot, my cheeks pale and my lips drained of whatever color I had dabbed on them hours earlier. No wonder Ma was worried. I looked like hell.

She hugged me fiercely, as if I had just emerged alive from a car wreck. And in truth, I felt like I had. My body ached with exhaustion from too much salsa dancing, and all that alcohol I had drunk was already starting to throb at my temples.

“Have you been in a fire? You smell like smoke!” she said, pulling back and studying me as if looking for third-degree burns.

“No,” I said, somewhat guiltily, realizing what she smelled was the stink of cigarette smoke.

Of course, that was the next conclusion she drew. “Oh, Angela, please don’t tell me you’re smoking again. Think of your father, may he rest in peace. What would he say?”

“Ma, he can’t say anything! He’s gone, for chrissakes!” I said, then immediately felt bad when I saw the sadness that lit her eyes.

“Say may he rest in peace,” she insisted, invoking the old superstition that said you could do the dead eternal damage if you didn’t wish them peace every time you uttered their names.

“May he rest in peace,” I muttered, hating myself for half-believing her crazy superstitions.

“Now tell me what the hell you’re doing here at—” she looked at the clock on the mantel in the living room “—almost three in the morning!”

“I went out with Grace and Michelle and—”

“Michelle?” she said. “Where was Frankie?”

“Home,” I replied. “It was girls’ night out. We just went out… dancing.”

“Oh,” she said. “You went out in Brooklyn?”

“No, no,” I said, getting tired of this interrogation. “In the city. Downtown. Michelle had a little too much to drink, so I wanted to make sure she got home all right.”

“Is that right?” she said, surprised. “That doesn’t sound like her. I hope you didn’t influence her.You know, her mother always worried about her hanging around with you and Grace. You two were such a handful when you were younger!”

“Me and Grace?” I said, suddenly wanting to let her know just what kind of influence Michelle had been acting under tonight.

Fortunately, my mother saved me from disgracing Michelle forever. “You want something to eat? Come into the kitchen, I’ll make you some pastina.”

Once I was seated at the table, a bowl of steaming pastina before me, I was suddenly very glad to be in Brooklyn. God, I hadn’t had pastina in such a long time, I thought, spooning up a mouthful of those buttery noodles with gratitude for my mother’s culinary expertise. It really was a simple dish-—-just tiny noodles, butter, maybe some milk. But it was heaven.

Of course, it was a little hard to enjoy once my mother finished washing out the pot she used and sat down across the table from me, staring hard.

“So where’s Kirk tonight?” she asked.

“Home,” I replied. “He had some work to finish up before we…before we go away,” I finished, not wanting to invoke the name of Newton and all that it implied. My mother had already made clear during a recent phone call how she felt about this little foray to Kirk’s parents’ house, right down to the plane ride, which scared her even more than it did me, since she’d never stepped on a plane in her life.

Thankfully, she let it slide. “So it was just you and Michelle and Grace?”

“And Grace’s boss, Claudia.”

“Do I know her?” Ma asked, as if it was still her business to make sure I wasn’t hanging out with the wrong crowd.

“No,” I said, “But she’s…okay. She owns an apartment on the Upper East Side,” I added, trying to find Claudia’s one redeeming quality. After all, owning real estate in New York City was no small thing, even if you had gotten it because your husband felt guilty about dumping you for someone twenty years your junior.

“How’s Grade?” my mother asked next, her face creasing in a smile.