Anyone But You (12 page)

“He’s got a face, I’ll grant him that,” Chef said. He flipped a switch on our industrial-sized electric mixer, and the dough hook began to pummel a wet mixture of flour, salt, ice water, olive oil, and yeast into a sticky mass. The machine’s noise made it momentarily too loud to continue our conversation. Tapping his watch and smiling at me, Chef plucked a sprig of rosemary from a glass by the sink and handed it to me. I lifted the small branch to my nose and inhaled deeply. Eventually turning off the mixer, Chef used both hands to haul the dough onto the flour-sprinkled surface of the counter.

“Promise me you won’t tell my parents,” I pleaded with him, resuming our discussion.

“Oh,
bella mia
,” he sighed and shook his head, beginning to cut the dough into smaller portions using a blade-like metal scraper. “I don’t feel right about keeping things from your parents.”

“Please—just for a little while, until Roman and I can figure out some sort of game plan.” Chef looked at me with a resigned expression.

“I won’t say anything … for now. But who’s to say Ty won’t?”

“He’s furious with me,” I conceded. “And even more furious with Roman.”

“He’s worried about you. And I can’t say that I don’t have some misgivings about this myself. Your families are at war.”

“For no good reason.”

“I wasn’t aware that kissing a boy could cause amnesia. Need I remind you that the Montes have put us underwater in more ways than one?”

“I haven’t forgotten any of that. That’s what I’m trying to end. This back and forth tit for tat has got to stop sometime. The fact that nobody can even explain what first started the animosity is ludicrous. And now, because a bunch of stupid people had to do stupid things to each other, Roman and I have to sneak around like criminals.” My voice started to crack as I spoke, and I felt hot tears well up in my eyes.

“Oh, Bird,” Chef said, stroking my shoulder. “I know how profound this all feels, and I won’t for one second make light of what you’re going through. But you’re exhausted. A good night’s sleep will do you good.”

“It’s only that I finally found someone who truly gets me—besides you, of course. I know how crazy this sounds,” I said, sniffling, “but even though we’ve only known each other for a few hours, it’s like we’re meant for each other.”

“It doesn’t seem crazy, Ladybird. It’s just that—”

“Up until now, I’ve always followed the rules,” I said, interrupting him. “Can’t I have a say in my life, just this once?”

“Don’t cry, sweetheart. I hate not being able to fix this for you. But—” He drummed his floury fingers on the counter. “—I think I know someone who might be able to help.”

“S
ORRY, MISTER!”

A small boy, all elbows and knees, bolted past me wearing an elaborate feathered headdress that had slipped down over one eye. Following him were two even smaller cohorts, both of whom wore black construction paper Pilgrim hats. I grinned, remembering how Benny and I used to roam the busy sidewalks with similar abandon every Columbus Day. This beautiful, balmy October day couldn’t have been any more made to order for the community’s annual salute to the venerated Italian-born explorer. After dusting off the now scuffed toe of one of my newly shined shoes, I straightened up to survey the throng of revelers that swirled around me like confetti. Most lined the route of the parade as it flowed up Taylor Street, the hub of our city’s Italian-American community. I was headed downstream to meet Stella.

Pulling my pocket watch from my vest, I checked the time, then, out of habit, ran my hand over the engraved initials on the back. The watch had belonged to my father, and to my grandfather before that. The fact that my mother was meeting Stella for the first time today made me wish Pops could have been around to meet her, too. Stella … I can’t tell you how many times I’d pinched myself since that day at Queenie’s. Things had just clicked between us in a way that felt almost preordained. It was as if fate had been hatching a plan all this time to bring us back together (notwithstanding kismet’s accidental detour with Benny—but hey, not even destiny can be expected to bat a thousand). I peered through the crowd. Floral replicas of the
Niña
, the
Pinta
, and the
Santa María
floated past in the shadow of a benevolent brick sphinx, Our Lady of Pompeii. Although requisite Italian flags flew as far as the eye could see, far more people brandished the good old red, white, and blue. American pride trumped all.

“Nick! Over here!” I turned my head to see Stella waving at me. After threading our way through the crowd to one another, she raised up on the balls of her feet to kiss me, which always had the effect of making my inner Clark Kent feel as if taking flight might actually be doable.

“Hi there,” I said, putting her arm through mine. “Nervous?”

“A little,” she replied, “but you swore she won’t bite, so I guess it won’t be so bad.”

“It will be fine,” I promised, pulling her closer, “as long as you’re hungry.”

“Am I ever! I didn’t eat a thing this morning, on purpose.”

“Good, because that’s the only thing that might turn her against you: a lack of appetite for her cooking.” Stella laughed, but I noticed her brow furrow slightly. “Don’t worry,” I added. “I’m only joking. She’ll adore you, just like I do.”

“Well, the way you miraculously charmed my father the other day, I guess it’s only fair that I run the gauntlet, too,” she said. It was true—I had expected Stella’s old man to have marshaled me out of his parlor with a rifle after the way Benny had described him, but at our recent introduction, he’d been guardedly civil, if not congenial. As nervous and deferential as I’d been, her father must have viewed me as a marked improvement over Benny, a.k.a. “Mr. Smiles and Swagger.” I can’t imagine Stella’s parents were exactly thrilled that their daughter was dating an Italian, but they’d probably long since come to terms with what I was just beginning to understand: Stella was strong-willed and not liable to be talked out of anything.

“Your Pops? He’s an overgrown teddy bear,” I reflected. “It’s your sister who
really
scares the bejeezus out of me.”

Stella placed her hands on her hips in mock reproach, but her grin ceded my point.

A few hours later, Carmen was curled up contentedly in Stella’s lap, her head crowned with haphazardly pinned “Injun feathers,” and her chubby hand gripping a spoon with the last vestiges of gelato still clinging to it.

My mother smiled down at us from one end of the communal table that had been set up in front of our apartment building, where she was refilling old Mrs. Garcetti’s jelly-jar glass with homemade wine. The table had been piled high with plates of pasta, sardines, and other specialties lovingly prepared by the neighborhood matriarchs, but now that everyone and their twelfth cousin had committed that quintessentially Italian sin of gluttony, the remaining food would be sent over to the parish charity.

“I told you she’d love you,” I whispered in Stella’s ear, nodding toward my mother. Ma’s friendly and welcoming demeanor had surprised even me, considering that, until this day, she’d rudely referred to Stella as a “medigan”—a slang put-down referring to the fact that she wasn’t Italian. But upon meeting my shining star and seeing how happy she made me, Mother’s reservations vanished almost as quickly as her world famous cannoli.

A few yards away, Benny was playing catch with two of his younger brothers, but their diversion was cut short when the ball bounced off a plate of Mrs. Lombardi’s leftovers.

“Game called on account of meatballs,” Benny teased the kids, tossing his glove onto the table.

“Meatballs!” trilled Carmen.

“Careful, little one,” said Benny coming up from behind us and scooping up the little girl from her enviable nest. “You’ll get ice cream on Stella’s dress.”

“Stella doesn’t mind,” said Carmen.

“She minds. She’s just too nice to tell you so.” He set her down and patted her head. “Run along now, little chief. Go help your mama clear the table.”

“Hello, Ben,” said Stella, standing up to face him. “How are you?”

“Hey, kid,” he said, reaching out his hand to shake hers. “No hard feelings, right?” Stella gave him her hand.

“Of course not. It’s funny how things have a way of working out the way they’re always meant to.” She shot me one of her spine-tingling grins. “I hope we can all be friends.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, as if trying to change the subject. “Nicky tells me you two are going to the community dance tonight?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Great,” he said, turning to me. “Maybe we can go as a double date, then?”

I already knew that Benny had offered to take Carmen’s mother, Vera, to the dance—a thoughtful gesture considering the twenty-seven-year-old widow rarely got the opportunity to let her hair down any more. (I had ribbed my cohort earlier this morning about the fact that he was now only four dames away from dating his way to the letter Z.) Though I, of course, knew Benny’s feelings for Vera were strictly platonic, Stella was none the wiser.

“Sure, Benny,” I replied. “I mean, if that’s okay with Stella?” I glanced at my girl to gauge her reaction for any indication she might still be carrying a torch, no matter how small, for Benny. Would the thought of him with another woman elicit any green-eyed monsters?

“Why, of course—that’s a brilliant idea!” she said. The earnestness of her smile as she entwined her arm around my waist laid all of my lingering doubts to rest. Any feelings Stella had formerly held for Benny were—just like his—buried in the past.

“So, what do you think of Vera?” I asked Stella a few hours later as we stood on the edge of the VFW Hall’s “dance floor.” I handed her a paper cup filled with red punch. She looked up at the ceiling as though hoping to find the answer festooned along with the paper streamers that lightly swayed each time the doors at the end of the room opened from the outside.

“Oh, she’s lovely,” she said, taking a sip of her punch as she tapped one foot to the music, “although she’s … not at all what I expected.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” I teased.

“Well, I don’t know. I just thought she’d be more ….”

“More like you?”

“No. Well, maybe. I mean, people have types, don’t they?”

“I think it’s fair to say that
every
girl is Benny’s type,” I said. Watching the dance floor where he and Vera boogie-woogied to Count Basie, I turned my gaze back to Stella. Had I been wrong to assume that a part of her heart didn’t still belong to Benny? “In case you’re wondering,” I continued, “
I
do have a very specific type.”

“Is that right?” Stella said, coyly.

“Yes. Can you guess what it is?”

“Oh, I hate guessing games.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Just tell me.”

“Sharp as a tack, blonde hair, hydrangea-blue eyes, and, oh …” I put my hand level with the top of her head. “ … about this tall.”

“Oh, Nick!” She giggled and placed her cup on the table behind us before grabbing my hand. “Let’s dance.”

As we swayed on the dance floor to a slow tune, I held her close. Praying she felt as lucky to be in my arms as I did in hers, I whispered into her ear: “I mean it, Stella. You’re my type. Just you.”

“Lucky for you, I’m all yours,” she replied.

• • •

“Next stop, Halstead Street!” called out the conductor. I was standing at the back of an ‘L’ train car, one hand gripping the leather strap that hung from the ceiling; with the other, I nervously checked the inside pocket of my wool coat.

“You need to eighty-six that,” Benny said for my ears only, his gloved hand cupped around his mouth. “If there’s a pickpocket on this train, he’s already marked you a few stops back.”

“What?” I feigned innocence.

“You couldn’t be more obvious if you were flashing that ring on your pinkie like Bugsy Siegel.”

“All right. Point taken.” I fought the urge to pat the outside of my jacket.

“Just doing my job,” he said, barely restraining a smirk.

“Are you my best man, or my babysitter?”

“I won’t be either if you chicken out. Bawk-bawk.”

“Not a chance. Whether the answer is yea or nay, I’m asking her tomorrow night.”

The train lurched to a stop, and the doors slid open. As we stepped out of the car and onto the platform, I lifted my coat collar around my ears to block the gusty winds. Chicago in December really knew how to test your mettle. Yet despite the bleak, thirty-degree day, my heart felt warm and downright sunny as I imagined my future state of marital bliss with Stella. Assuming she answered correctly, that is.

“Don’t worry, pal,” Benny said, reading my mind. “She’ll say yes.”

The following afternoon, Benny grumbled as he lay on his back under the sink in our pizzeria’s kitchen. “If you think these old pipes are bad now, just wait till they freeze over this winter,” he sighed.

“Hell will freeze over before the pipes do,” I reassured him, handing a wrench down to him while dressed in my finest tweed suit.

“Since when did you become the eternal optimist? Oh, never mind, I think I know. Hey turn up the box, will ya?” Benny said, referring to the radio program
Spirit of ’41
.

“You missed the end under all that banging you were doing,” I answered. “
The World
Today
’s about to start.”

“I could tell them a thing or two about the world today,” he huffed. Granted, the news overseas was getting more disturbing by the day, but my usually jovial friend was crankier lately than I’d ever known him to be. Maybe the situation in Europe was worrying him more than I realized, but I suspected his problems might lie closer to home. I chose not to nag him for answers, figuring he’d talk when he was ready. Or maybe it was just that, on some level, I didn’t really want to know what was bothering him. It was my turn to be happy, damn it. My heart did somersaults in anticipation of my momentous afternoon with Stella.

The thirty-second advertising jingle concluded with a flourish, and then, rather than the opening of
The World Today
, the radio crackled as though broadcasting a particularly violent thunderstorm.