No Place Like Home (10 page)

“I did think so, once,” I admitted. “And this isn’t right for everybody, I know that. All I’m saying is that there’s a lot to be said for that web—I think people are very tribal and we have to find ways to create those tribes if we don’t have one.”

“I don’t have a tribe. Never wanted one.”

“You had Michael.”

A flicker of quick sorrow across those dark irises. “He was enough.”

To lighten the mood, I tossed my balled-up paper at him. “Come on, tough guy. I’ve got some pies to bake.”

FROM THE FALCONI’S MENU:

Lasagna—A Pueblo tradition since 1927! You’ve never tasted lasagna until you’ve had our special slow-baked pie made from a secret recipe passed down from father to son since 1902. You won’t be hungry when you walk away from this meal!

Chapter 7

I didn’t end up baking that particular apple pie that day, or even for a week after that. In truth, the budget was screaming and there were other pies that were cheaper to put together—and I hated being so limited by the cash situation.

It’s never easy to get a business going. I knew that. With the onset of warm weather, some of the business was also bound to drop off as people opted to skip dessert or maybe eat some ice cream instead of pie. I didn’t really have the delivery or storage capabilities for cold pies, either, though I could get away with a few now and then. The only answer was to build accounts, and I took advantage of the fact that Malachi was available to stay with Michael to get that in motion. Monday, after delivering the pies, I went to OfficeMax to get some materials printed, then spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday putting together a sales package. In attractive, professional folders, I assembled an informational piece about the business and another about myself and my professional credentials and a menu list. It felt incomplete, though I’d used the package to great effect in New York, and I finally sat down and wrote a friendly introductory letter emphasizing my connection to the community, to Falconi’s. Roots. Connections. Two degrees of separation. I ran the risk of some people remembering which daughter I was, and therefore losing some business, but I thought the gamble was worthwhile.

Thursday, I dressed carefully in a straight blue skirt, modest heels with a sling back, and a tailored cotton shirt. My hair went up into a French twist, and I put on the gold and diamond necklace Billy had given me when Shane was born. Standing back to examine myself critically, I thought it worked okay. The women would be glad I tried to hide my body, and they’d like that I didn’t bother with stockings in hot weather. The men would like the glint of diamond just barely visible above the neckline. Putting my hair up made me look reliable.

I clacked downstairs with my briefcase and stood in front of Michael and Malachi, who were reading in the shade of the front porch. “How do I look?”

“Like a secretary,” Malachi said.

I tsked. “Thanks. That helps.”

“It’s just right,” Michael said. There were dark bruises under his eyes and I wanted to just forget it all and sit with him. Impossible if we were going to be eating in another couple of months. “Need lipstick.”

“Ah! I almost forgot!” I dug in my bag and came up with a nice brownish berry, smeared some on, blotted it with a scrap of tissue. “Better?”

“Perfect,” Michael said.

“Take a letter, Maria,” Malachi sang. Then he grinned. “Just kidding. You look great. I’d buy all your pie.”

“Stop it.” I inhaled, tucked the tube back in my purse, and bent over to kiss Michael. “Be good,” I said, wiping a smudge of berry off his cheek.

“What about me?” Malachi said.

I clacked over to him, bent over, and kissed his cheek, too. “I’m not even going to bother to tell you to be good.”

His wicked hand touched the back of my knee. “Go get ’em, babe.”

It went pretty well—I covered the central and northside establishments during the low hours of late morning, timing things so I could meet my cousin George and a representative of the Dante Alighieri Society for lunch at Rosario’s. It was pleasantly upscale, filled with professionals availing themselves of the buffet. This was New Pueblo, catering to the money coming in to the west and, by virtue of expansion, making many of the wealthy citizens—a great many of them Italian, by the way—even wealthier. The Great American dream in action. I saw some of them, tanned from their cruises, in golf shirts and tennis bracelets, the women with acrylic nails, the men with very clean wrists. The menu offered goat cheese salads and veggie sandwiches along with lasagna and pizza.

I wondered how my catering plan would adapt to this new reality of the city changes and decided I’d play it by ear. In the meantime, the meeting with my cousin went well. Ellen Michelletti, the rep, was a smart, clear-headed woman who knew exactly what she wanted. I’d received the audience based on George’s connections and my name, but I also knew what I was doing and I could see that Ellen was quite happy with my answers. She promised to be in touch shortly.

I lingered in the courtyard, admiring the fountain tinkling in the midst of the shaded gardens, so that neither George nor Ellen Michelletti would see me get into that awful car. Or hear it scream. When the coast was clear, I pulled out my list and headed for the southside.

Old Pueblo. Or maybe traditional Pueblo. The difference was palpable as I stopped in one small establishment after another, asking to speak to the owner or manager. I introduced myself, pulled out the sales package, and saw the polite disinterest on the face of the listener—until I mentioned my connection to Falconi’s. Then they’d shake my hand, open the folder, and either flip through and consider the offerings or say they’d give me a call.

It was exhausting. My face hurt from smiling. My scalp was starting to prickle with the heat, and I was starting to fantasize with great detail about ice-cold margaritas. Sitting in my car, looking over the list, I saw that it was nearly four and I could probably call it a day. I’d signed one new client, with two more very serious contenders, and there would likely be more in a few days when I called to follow up.

One more. I drove to the last spot on the list, a family-run restaurant that had been in its spot by the steel mill for decades. A pair of girls were playing with Barbie dolls in a shady area behind a white picket fence, and some towels fluttered on a single clothesline strung between two elm trees.

I had to pause inside to let my eyes adjust. A young woman in a polo shirt and black pants approached me with a menu in her hand. “One?”

“No, thanks. I was hoping to be able to speak to the manager or owner.”

“This is about . . . ?”

I handed her one of the sale pieces. “I’m establishing a pie service to the area and was hoping to interest your restaurant in a trial. I have samples, testimonials, pricing details.”

Her lips turned down. “Okay, let me go tell him you’re here. Have a seat. Would you like some water?”

“Yes, please.” I settled at a nearby table. There was a bar, but this was a traditional establishment and I wouldn’t risk offending the owner if he was as traditional as his restaurant. There were three or four tables of early dinner customers, mostly old folks, and one young family with small children. Classical guitar music played over the speakers, and I could see the mountains through the big windows along the front. Excellent location, I thought idly.

The door to the back burst open and a stooped, aging man came out, my sales piece in his hand. Seeing the disapproval on his face, I stood, pasting a regretful, polite smile over my dismay. “No, thank you,” he said, and his accent was heavy. “We don’t got use for this here.”

“No problem,” I said with false cheerfulness, and reached for my folder.

He yanked it out of reach. “How can you come down here, to your father’s neighborhood, and act like this?” His brows were wild, laced with long, kinky gray hairs. Devil eyebrows.

I smoothed my skirt. “Thank you for your time,” I said, and walked out.

When I got home, Michael and Malachi were out on the porch. They’d spent a lot of time together out there, sometimes talking or reminiscing, often laughing; listening to music; even just sitting side by side, reading. Or at least Malachi read, from a big stack of paperback novels he had picked up one afternoon in town—thrillers, mainly, which seemed to fit. He sometimes read aloud to Michael, who had trouble focusing on the small print in books.

Shane, eager to show me that he wasn’t a complete idiot so he could get his freedom back, settled a little, even though I could see his restlessness in every movement.

Pueblo bored him. He’d never lived anywhere but a massive city, and the pace drove him batty, but at Michael’s suggestion, he turned his attention to his music, developing new pieces, getting things ready for audition purposes, sharpening his skills, so often through those long days, the house thrummed quietly with the low thud of electric bass. Sometimes, when we were lucky, his tenor sailed out around the music, clear and true as crystal. He had a voice for crooning Motown and it cracked me up to hear him put it to work on angsty teenage authority songs—but then again, who knew? One of those things he’d work out in time.

That afternoon, I found the taste of Abe’s apple pie clinging to the roof of my mouth insistently. Clouds were piling up to the west, covering the sun, and it seemed like a good day to bake. Putting Mellencamp on the stereo—hoping maybe that it would draw the somewhat slippery Malachi into my kitchen where I could flirt with him—I made the crust, which is the true secret of the taste of Abe’s pie, and rolled it out with my prized marble rolling pin on the wide counter.

I’d fetched Shane off the side porch, where he was listening to the other guys, and put him to work slicing apples as I crushed the secret ingredient of the crust—gingersnaps—into crumbs. He resisted leaving the company of the males, but it was a job he liked, peeling the skins off in smooth, long curls. “Mom,” he said, after a while.

“Mmm.”

“I been talking to Jimmy on-line, at the library.”

“Have you?” Jimmy Angelo was one of the old gang—a decent, solid keyboardist who’d sometimes played with the band and now made a good living doing various shows and studio work. He’d married two years ago and moved to Jersey, so I hadn’t seen him much in quite a while. “How’s he doing?”

“Good. Working a lot. Teresa just got promoted and said maybe she’ll think about a baby in a couple more years.”

I grinned, brushing flour from my hands. “That’s what he gets for marrying so much younger than himself.”

Shane didn’t look at me. “I was wondering if maybe, if I keep it together and show you that I’m not gonna do anything stupid if maybe—” He dropped the peeling into a paper bag, then finished so fast I could hardly make out his words, “—you might think aboutlettingme go to livewithhim for my last year of school.”

“Want to say that again?”

He took a breath, and I hated that he was scared to ask me, because that meant it was something he really wanted, and how could I let him go like that? A year early? Before I
had
to?

“Jimmy offered me a bedroom—they have an extra, you know—if I wanted to come back and get serious about the music. He thinks I’m ready.”

“I’m sorry, Shane, I don’t think so.”

“I
knew
it!” He slammed the knife down on the table. “You’re so overprotective it’s strangling me! I’m seventeen, Mom, not twelve. It’s not like I don’t know to take care of myself, and you know I’m not about to stay in any hole-in-the-wall town like this forever!”

“You don’t have to shout, Shane.” A familiar tension tightened my shoulders—Misunderstood Teen Versus Controlling, Short-Sighted Adult. “We can talk.”

“That’s what you always say, but it’s you who talks and me who listens.”

“I’ll listen.”

“No, you won’t. I can tell by the way you’ve got your mouth that you’re only gonna listen until I get done so you can say what you want to say.” He stood up, his eyes narrowing. “Let me save you the trouble, okay? You’re gonna say I’m too young, that I’ve just done something stupid and you can’t trust me, that you’ll worry about me.” He leaned on the counter, all six-foot-two, broad-shouldered man-child. I could see unshaved whiskers on his chin. “Did I miss anything?”

God, I knew that tone of voice. I’d used it so often, never understanding how much it would hurt. “Nope.”

“But the real reason you won’t let me go,” he said quietly, the bow pulled straight back from the shoulder, one eye closed to aim, arrow set to fly, “is that you don’t want to be alone.”

Bull’s-eye. I rolled the heavy pin over the dough and said nothing.

“Oh, forget it,” he said, and flung himself away from the breakfast bar. “You won’t listen to me. Cut your own apples.”

He stomped out the back door, and through the window above Saint Anthony’s head, I saw him stalking away toward the orchard under those heavy gray clouds. Wind tossed his long, glossy hair around.

“Thanks a lot,” I said to Anthony, and because I couldn’t do anything about the kid, I pulled a Sylvia trick: I turned his face to the wall. “Sit there and watch and don’t do a single thing to help, why don’t you?”

The CD clicked off, leaving the room quiet. From the porch, I heard Michael and Malachi’s voices, woven together in a slow, easy kind of conversation that carried quite clearly on the rain-scented breeze lifting the curtain. I settled on the stool Shane had vacated and started peeling the rest of the apples, listening to the brothers shamelessly as thunder rolled closer. It wasn’t a particularly interesting conversation—a discussion of current events, a slight tug of war over an issue in the news, then an easy move to a new topic. It was enough to reveal that Malachi, the big adventurer, was quite a bit more liberal politically than Michael. It was one of those odd little things that never failed to surprise me—my gay best friend, the ex-musician, who’d traveled the world and seen all kinds of people, was a fiscal conservative, mainly because he didn’t believe the government had enough intelligence to take care of anything and it was all best left in the private sector. Malachi, the one I would have laid money would be conservative, wasn’t. At all.