Not Exactly a Love Story (22 page)

A quick one, two, three to the ribs, leaving me nearly breathless.

“We’re gonna do this often, Gold, have these little talks, you and me, anytime I think you need reminding. There’s a scientific word for that, right, Gold? I hear you’re real sharp in science.”

A sense of utter futility washed through me, leaving me weak and nauseated.

“What’s the word, Gold?” he asked, and I sensed it was a rhetorical question, because he landed another in my gut. I was looking at the floor again.

The double doors swung open as some guys charged in, coming from outside. I was aware of the doors, of cold air, of the charge coming to a sudden halt.

“The word, smart-ass,” Biff said, tapping me on the shoulder hard enough I almost fell to my knees. “What’s it called, you learning not to do something I don’t like?”

The one and only thing those self-defense books ever impressed upon me was how much power a fist could pack, not just a fist shoved straight out but one that is turning from a thumb-up position to a thumb-down position while it’s shooting forward. Something about that twisting motion increases the punch. That’s the kind of shot I directed at Biff as I came out of that crouched position. He wasn’t expecting it. And it landed lucky, not on the chin the way I planned but under it, fitting into the angle where chin meets throat.

The effect it had on Biff was astounding. He squawked, choked, and struggled to breathe, tears suddenly streaming down his face, and as he choked, he backed into the bench that ran along the row of lockers, tripping backward over
it with another weird squeal, continuing his fight for air, heels up.

I watched all this, not quite believing my eyes and making no effort to help him. I don’t think I could have helped if I had known what to do. I was entirely without emotion. And after a few seconds, he began to recover, which is to say, he started to breathe. Not easily, and not with complete satisfaction, but well enough that I was sure he would live.

I slid my foot a little way under the bench and tapped his leg with the toe of my shoe. “ ‘Behavior modification’ is the word you’re looking for,” I said.

I saw Mr. B sitting in his office as I went back for the last filing cabinet. I knew he’d been keeping an eye on me, and he’d probably followed Biff back in, entering his office from the hallway rather than the locker room. That he knew Biff and I had had a small altercation. That he hadn’t interfered—not when it looked like I might die, not when it looked like Biff might die.

He waved me into his office.

“I had to make a stand,” I said. I was testing my voice, my footing, testing reality. Found I was dry as a bone.

“You made a good one,” Mr. B said. “I knew you would. Better get some ice for that lip. Let me drive you home tonight.”

First stop, the drugstore. “Just want to pick up a card for your
mother,” Mr. B said. He also went to the supermarket next door and got her some roses, leaving me to think about whether I could still get Patsy a card. Slip it under her door.

It felt too risky, that’s what I kept coming back to. I regretted that I hadn’t given her a card at school. But now? What if she saw me cross the driveway? Even if she didn’t, it would be like drawing a dotted line with a big arrow pointing to me.

Mr. B surprised me when he stopped again to pick up three take-out meals from a place that advertised itself as a family restaurant. They looked happy to see him, called him Dom.

“This is where I ate while I waited for you and your mother to move out here,” he explained.

“Smells good.”

“Great meatballs,” he said. “You like spaghetti and meatballs? You could live on these meatballs alone.”

I had been thinking along other lines. First manicotti, now this. “You aren’t worried Mom will think you’re backing down on the home-cooked-meal stance? I mean, I’m all for what works—”

I just wasn’t looking forward to another argument.

“First, no. Your mom needs a little more help from me, is all. Maybe I should have known that would be true, all that time she spends on the train. And second, we don’t build relationships like we make a business deal. It’s give-and-take, and a lot of the time it doesn’t work out to be fifty-fifty. It’s always shifting.”

I didn’t have to come up with a reply, because the waiter came over to take our orders. “Three number fours,” Mr. B said. “And an extra side of meatballs.”

In the car, I put my face into the bag and breathed deeply of dinner. As if it was nothing to do with nothing, Mr. B said, “You shouldn’t worry about your mother and me. We’re going to do fine.” I was glad to hear he felt that way. I went on breathing meatballs.

Mom was in the dining room when Mr. B and I got home, standing on a chair to hang something up on the wall, and without looking in our direction she told me to hand her the thumbtacks.

“This worked for us once,” she said, “and it’ll work for us
again.” I saw that Mom had made yet another chart assigning chores, but the division of labor was better proportioned. Plus, if my olfactory senses could be relied on, she had a chicken in the oven.

“What happened to you?” she asked as she stepped off the kitchen chair. It was hide-your-horror, toned down about fifty percent.

“Nothing, really nothing,” I said, feeling, sad to say, a certain pride.

“He’s okay,” Mr. B said, from behind me. Had stopped to check the oven. “A drawer opened while he was moving the filing cabinet for me.”

“I’ve decided I like the bruised-and-battered look,” I said, to discourage Mom from looking too closely at this story. “I’m going to start talking like Marlon Brando. It’s bound to attract girls, don’t you think?”

“Is this your blood?” Mom had found a telltale blot on my shirt.

“Would it be better if it belonged to somebody else?” I asked her, and she laughed.

I felt fine, even better, knowing Mr. B had not started a phone chain—calling Mom, who would then call Dad—the minute I was out of sight.

Mr. B said, “Don’t start with the doctor business again.”

Mom said, “But there’s swelling, Dom.”

“Sure there is. That drawer clobbered him.” He looked in the oven again, and I caught a glimpse of foil-wrapped lumps.

“Stop opening the oven door.” Mom pointed to the table, at the salad. And a container of sour cream.

Actually, Mr. B looked like he’d died and gone to heaven. Roast chicken! Baked potatoes! And sour cream! Salad—well, yeah, salad. Ya gotta take the bad with the good.

“What’s that in the bags?” Mom asked.

“Sunday dinner,” Mr. B said. “It’ll reheat.”

Over the chicken, Mom made one more foray into overanxious-mother territory. “I think the swelling is worse. Dom, does he look worse to you?”

I reached for a second helping.

Mr. B looked at the chicken, making sure he’d find a third helping on the platter. “It’ll be better in the morning,” he said.

Probably because I looked unconcerned, Mom said, “You look like a raccoon with an underbite.”

“Don’t say that. I’m going to the dance tomorrow night, and I don’t want to look like I think the holiday is Halloween.”

“Taking that girl next door?” Mr. B asked.

“I’m going alone,” I said, “and I think she is too.” A silence followed. I couldn’t leave it at that. “It’s a little early in our relationship to go to a dance as a couple.”

Mom had a little announcement of her own. “I’m going back to work full-time next week. I’m not doing enough with the day or two I have free. And with some of the extra money, I can have somebody come in and clean once a week. Is that okay with you, Dom?”

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I was thinking about that.
For the housekeeping, I mean. Are you sure you want to work more hours?”

“To tell you the truth, I get a little bored with too many days off.”

Mom seemed to think she’d come to a momentous decision, and maybe it was. There was a part of me that wished she’d made this discovery sooner, with less upheaval.

But there was a bigger part of me that had already accepted that things had changed, and the changes were irreversible. I hoped they were going to be good changes in the long run. We’d just have to wait and see.

Mr. B helped clear the table. Mom said she would throw a coffee cake together so they’d have something to munch in front of the TV. She was talking about a boxed mix, of course, but Mr. B didn’t have a thing against it.

I went through a couple of boxes in my closet to find a Fonz mask Dad had picked up for two bucks in a costume shop a year or so ago. Marred only by a couple of hairline cracks, it was made from a super-flexible rubber with a thin cotton lining. It folded into a small bundle that I could stuff into my gym locker Saturday morning.

I decided to pull a bulky turtleneck sweater over my silk shirt to disguise it. The sweater wasn’t much, but if things went the way I hoped, we’d be in the dark, and the rough wool was a far cry from my actual costume.

* * *

“Tomasino.”

“I’ll meet you at the dance,” I said, wanting to get it out before my courage died. Good thing, because I regretted it even as the words were coming out of my mouth.

“What kind of mask will you be wearing?”

“Maybe you want me to wear a sign.”

“How will we meet, then?”

I was shaking all over. “There’s a room on the second floor. Right above the principal’s office.”

“I know where you mean. Textbooks go in there during the summer.”

I guess that explained all the empty metal shelving. I only knew the health-class movies Mr. B showed were stored in there. I said, “It won’t be locked.”

“That’s where we’ll meet?” Now she sounded a little shaky.

“Inside.”

“I don’t know.”

“At ten after nine, you go in. Alone. I’ll follow you in at twelve after.”

“How will I know it’s you?”

“Who else would be there?”

“Are we going to turn on the lights?” she asked.

“Hanging around with Biff is getting on your nerves.”

“Stop it. I just need to think this over.”

“Tomorrow night. Ten after nine. Okay?”

I halfway thought she wouldn’t go for it. A part of me was already feeling resigned, a satellite after all.

“You couldn’t just ask me to dance?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“You’ll be nice to me, won’t you?”

“We won’t discuss Biff at all.”

She sighed. “See you there.”

Click.

Once I’d hung up, I found myself too nervous to sleep. To stay in bed. Patsy’s room was dark, I saw when I looked out the window. But then, so was mine, and I pulled back quickly.

I imagined opening the door to the book room and finding half my class there, waiting to see an obscene caller. Maybe I should prepare a short speech. Maybe the principal would be standing there, clued in by an anonymous phone call made in a sweet, clear voice. Maybe she’d have the cops there and she would say,
That’s him, he’s the one
.

Stranger things had happened.

I dialed again, standing just shy of the window.

“Umberto?”

“I’m happy to say I’m not afflicted with it,” I said. Then added, “I just want you to know, you’re safe with me.”

“You called back to tell me that?” she asked in a voice that smiled. “You really are nice.”

“That’s what you said about Biff.”

“Not really,” she said.

If I’d even breathed, I’d never have heard her hang up.

A wave of nausea washed over me, knocking me back to the sandy beach of my bed. I didn’t try to get up again. Better to lie there with the water lapping at my sides.

I told Mr. B I was going running, but I had bigger things to do,
too. He had Saturday-morning practice, and we ate breakfast together.

“You know your mom and I will be out late tonight?”

“She told me.”

“Don’t forget your house keys,” he said. “And have a good time at the dance.”

Outside, Dad was parked at the curb. He got out of the taxi as I walked down the driveway.

“Hey, Dad, is something wrong?”

“Everything’s fine, Vinnie. Nothing to worry about.” I was already realizing that was true. He looked … happy. He held out a gallon-sized water-filled plastic bag. “I brought you a couple of fish. Canaries to your coal mine.”