Anyone But You (15 page)

“I’ll worry about my taps, you worry about yours,” Benny said, forcing a chuckle. “Antonio’s is going to be just fine. I’ll put my kid brothers to work, and Vera’s offered to help out, too.”

“Don’t let Carmen get too close to the stoves. I’m always telling her she’s going to burn herself.”

“Nick, I’ve got this.”

“And look after Stella, too,” I said, more seriously now. “Especially, well … especially if—”

“If nothing,” Benny said, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. “Don’t be such a belaboring basket case.”

“Oh yeah? Well an ill-bred, indolent invalid like yourself shouldn’t talk.”

“At least I won’t look like a beetle-headed measle in that garrison cap you’ll soon be sporting.”

“You’re right. You’ll be more along the lines of a puny, three-legged miniature schnauzer.”

“So says the chicken-skinned, humped-back hobgoblin.” Benny’s voice started to crack as he said this. He feigned a cough and looked away. This was even harder than I thought it was going to be. I reached into the pocket of my overcoat and handed him a small brown paper bag that was folded over on itself.

“Hold onto this for me, will ya? Until I get back?” Benny took a glimpse inside at the bag’s contents.

“Whoa, Nick—are you sure?” He looked genuinely surprised.

“Positive.”

“Okay. But it’ll be here when you get back, safe and sound. Trust me on that.” Our eyes said those things that seemed fitting in a time such as this, even if we both knew it would be too hokey to put it into words. The bus driver shut the luggage compartment and gave me a nod as he walked toward the front of the bus. It was time. I extended my hand, businesslike, to Benny as people around us exchanged waves and hurried embraces with one another. The bone-chilling Chicago wind had picked up, and as it sliced across my face, my eyes started to water. A stint in the balmy South Pacific might not be
so
bad, I thought to myself. Where fate landed me from here was anyone’s guess.

“J
UST TO BE CLEAR—
you’re sure she’s not going to bludgeon me with a leg of prosciutto?”

“Uh … I don’t
think
so?” I conjectured, considering Roman’s question. “She tends to stay above the fray. You’ll see. And, besides, I’m pretty sure she would
never
want to waste perfectly good prosciutto.”

“Well, there’s that, at least.” I knocked loudly on the front door of Carmen’s apartment near the Medical District. An eternity seemed to elapse as we waited for a response.

“She’s a little hard of hearing,” I explained to Roman, rapping again on the door.

“That’s okay, I’m in no rush,” he said, enveloping me in his arms, his chest against my back. He leaned his head over my shoulder and kissed my cheek.

I laughed, and was about to kiss him again when I heard the deadbolt click. Roman and I moved apart and hastily composed ourselves as the door swung open.

“Gigi! What brings you over here?” Carmen asked. “Won’t I see you in a few hours?”

At her age, it was a sheer marvel the way she continued to bust her butt for my family at the restaurant when she ought to have rightly retired from Cap’s decades ago. But considering we were the closest thing she had to family—she had never married and didn’t have any relatives living nearby—Carmen took great pride and joy in coming to work every night and socializing with familiar faces, including the longtime customers who specifically requested her section of the restaurant. She was as much a part of the fabric of Cap’s as the pictures on the wall or the secret spices in my great-grandpa’s recipes. It pained me to imagine what would become of her if the restaurant left Taylor Street. Waiting tables made her feel like she still had something to contribute to Cap’s, and despite my mom’s best efforts to assign her less laborious tasks, Carmen always insisted she wasn’t ready to be “put out to pasture.” Nevertheless, Dad typically sent her home early most nights (with takeout containers of leftovers from the kitchen). While the spring in her step was a bit less, well, springy these days, it still impressed me the way she could remember not just so many of the usuals that our repeat customers ordered, but also personal details of their lives, from birthdays to grandkids’ names. That memory was exactly what I was hoping to mine with this surprise afternoon visit. Crossing the threshold of her apartment, I gave my coworker a quick hug, which brought me face to face with the Sacred Heart of Jesus picture hanging on the wall behind her. Whether it was the eyes that seemed to follow you wherever you went or the heart engulfed in flames, something about that image always unsettled me.

“I just thought I’d swing by, because there are a couple things I’d love to ask you about and, well, work might not be the right time or place for it,” I said. “This is my friend Roman, by the way.”

“Last night was so wonderful,” the wizened waitress gushed. “Father Vito can dance his pert little tushy off!” I raised my eyebrows and turned to Roman, whose face registered a similar mild astonishment. Carmen made the sign of the cross as if to absolve herself, then swatted her hand as if to change the topic. “Well, come in Gigi
and guest,
” she said. “Would you like a treat?” She produced a decorative glass bowl with colored hard candy in cellophane wrappers that probably hadn’t been touched for a decade.

“No, thanks, we just ate,” I said.

“Roman,” Carmen said thoughtfully, as if trying to put two and two together. “Roman, Roman, Roman … aren’t you a … ?”

“Monte?” I finished her question.

“Yes, ma’am,” Roman hastened to respond. “I’m the youngest son of Joe and Peggy Monte. Before you say anything, I just want to let you know that—”

“Are you sure I can’t get you a scoop of ice cream—maybe a Coke float?” Carmen interrupted. Ever with a sweet tooth, she was far more incredulous at our refusal than at seeing me with our sworn enemies’ son.

“No, thanks, Carmen. I brought Roman with me because, well, we were hoping you might be able to tell us a little something about the feud between our families. You’ve been working at Cap’s since Grandpa owned the place, right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And … ?” I asked, expectantly. Carmen smiled artlessly, clearly not picking up on my cues to dive right in with the answers we were looking for. “What I mean is, do you remember anything—anything at all—as to why Grandpa Sal started hating them?”

“Oh, it didn’t start with him,” Carmen replied. “He disliked that family from womb to tomb, God rest his soul.”

“You mean it’s been going on since
before
Grandpa? Any idea why?” I prodded.

“The mind is a funny thing,” she said. “Sometimes I can’t remember what I had for dinner two nights ago, but I can tell you exactly what I had for breakfast the morning we found out the war was over. It’s a matter of looking in the right file.” She knocked upon her forehead with her knuckles. “All seventy-six years are in here somewhere.” She winked and smiled at Roman with such evident enthusiasm that had she been sixty years younger, I might have called her out for flirting with my guy. After inviting us to sit down, she launched into a few interesting anecdotes about her childhood but revealed nothing specific about what caused the mutual hatred to flare up between our two families.

“The bottom line is, I was only a child when the trouble first began,” she finally responded. “Whatever caused such bad blood between the Caputos and the Montes wouldn’t likely have been appropriate for small ears. As I got older, well, no one dared mention the Monte name in passing. It’s not wise to open old wounds, as they say.” Her words hit a nerve. Were Roman and I snooping for the key to a box that was best kept closed?

“I know your families might not agree with me, but as far as I’m concerned it’s all water under the bridge,” she continued, smiling. “You seem like a nice enough young man, after all. And you’re certainly easy on the eyes! So the two of you are an item, I take it?”

“Uhhh ….” I stammered. Had there been a rock in her apartment I would have crawled under it.

“Not that it’s any business of mine,” she continued, with a twinkle in her eyes, “but I was beginning to wonder if Gigi would ever—”

“Okay, Carmen,
thank you
,” I preempted her, mortified.

“Since you asked,” said Roman, “we kind of are … an
item.
Or we’d like to be. But, as you can probably imagine, we’re not quite sure how we can get everyone else in our families on board.”

“Just be patient—only fools rush in,” Carmen responded. “You know I feel a very deep loyalty to your parents, Gigi, but when it comes to this feud, I have to admit I feel a lot more like Switzerland. I only wish I could be of more help, but I’m rooting for you, kids. I really am. Don’t let anyone else dictate your fate.”

“Easier said than done,” I sighed. It had been so long since Carmen had been my age that she must have forgotten, in some ways, how complicated it was to still be beholden to one’s parents. “See you down at Cap’s soon,” I said, scooting off her oversized floral sofa to say goodbye.

“Let me at least wrap up some peanut brittle for you two to take home with you,” she said, turning toward the kitchen.

“Please, Carmen, don’t trouble yourself,” I said, following her. She was already rooting through a cabinet in the kitchen when a photograph in her dining room seized my attention. In a stand-up frame on the shelf of a glass-fronted hutch, behind a menagerie of Hummel figurines and porcelain teacups, was the same five-by-eight picture of the beautiful young woman I’d seen in the photo at Monte’s.

As I stared in bemused fascination at the image, Roman came into the room and stood beside me.

“Carmen,” I called out, “who is this blonde woman in the photograph out here?”

“What kind of question is that, silly girl?” she shouted back while clattering through a drawer full of Tupperware containers. “Why, it’s your great-grandmother, of course!”

I turned to Roman and saw that he looked as wide-eyed as I felt. My dad’s grandmother had died before I was even born, and while I’d seen pictures of her (including some that hung on the walls of Cap’s), I hadn’t made the connection. In older age, she had white-gray hair, wore glasses, and was thicker around the middle. Certainly not the glamorous-looking woman in the picture! Carmen was now standing in the doorway leading to the kitchen. “That’s the one memento I asked to keep when she died,” Carmen continued, “because it’s exactly how I remember her looking when I was a little girl. Such a beauty … and a real spitfire, too—unlike that wet-blanket older sister of hers.”

Carmen appeared to be a bit misty-eyed as she gazed at the picture. “You know, your great-grandmother was the one who always warned me against getting married,” she said. “I never quite understood why, but she said it would only amount to heartache. I never met my Mr. Right in the end, so I guess I took her advice. But … I’m not sure she had it right.” There was a hint of regret in the old woman’s face, as if her mind (or perhaps her heart) was somewhere far away.

When Roman and I got back out to the sidewalk in front of Carmen’s apartment building, compulsory peanut brittle in hand, we couldn’t contain our excitement.

“Why would
my
family have a picture of
your
great-grandma?” he asked.

“This just took a very weird turn,” I agreed. “You don’t think we could somehow be related, do you?” We looked at each other in horror, but then Roman flashed a sardonic grin.

“I’m sorry, it’s just too ludicrous—like the plot of a really bad TV movie,” he said. “I mean, I
know
who my great-grandparents are, Gigi.”

“Okay, you’re right,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “But it’s still very, very strange. There’s obviously a connection there. Do you think your grandfather would know more?”

“My great-granddad, more likely.”

“Oh yes, your
bisnonno.
”

“Ah! We have a fast learner.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t speak much of the mother tongue in my family. I mean, you saw what
my
great-grandma looks like: as Presbyterian as they come.”

“And a hottie, too,” Roman remarked.

“Hey!” I teasingly punched his bicep.

“What? She is! Or, was, I should say.”

“So what do we do now?” I wondered. “Can you ask your great-grandfather?”

“Absolutely, but even if he remembers—and that’s a big if—he might be in no mood to dredge up the past where your family is concerned,” he said. “He lives at that nursing home over by the university. I’ll pay him a visit and see if he can shed light on any of this.”

“Great. I have no idea where this will lead, but ….” Suddenly the enormity of the situation hung over me once again. How long could I really keep my parents from knowing about Roman?

“We have to do
something
.” He finished my sentence before taking my hand. “I know. I feel the same way.”

“I should head back to Cap’s. They’ll be wondering where I am,” I said, after checking the time on my phone.

“I’ll walk you to the train station.” He pulled me closer to him. “On the way, we can talk. You promised to tell me the story behind your name.”

• • •

Back at Cap’s, I went about my daily prep work for the first time in a month, all while striving to avoid Chef’s impatient, searching glances. He was obviously dying to debrief me about my day, but attempting to fill him in as my parents scurried in and out of the kitchen and hovered near the pass-through would have been asking for trouble—as if I possibly needed any more. Besides, my dad’s stony demeanor reminded me that I had far more pressing problems than trying to broker peace with my would-be boyfriend’s family. An ax was hanging over Cap’s, and if it fell, the Caputo/Monte feud would be a moot point. With fate literally forcing my hand, I sent a short, but decisive, text. I still had hopes that if I followed every possible avenue, I might find one that led to a solution we could all live with.

I popped a piece of sourdough bread in my mouth, an old culinary trick to prevent tears, and proceeded to chop red onions. About midway through the task, my cell vibrated with a response. It was Perry—he was in the alley waiting for me. I chose a moment when Chef and Mario were mid-bicker to wipe my hands on a towel and sneak off.