The Real Thing (12 page)

“No more questions?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I'm finished.”

“I'm not,” he says, scooting even closer. “You did not answer my question.”

“Because I shouldn't answer your question, Dante,” I say. “Really. It's
non importa.
”

“My question or your answer?”

Shoot. “My answer. It won't mean anything.”

He slides next to me, our legs touching. “Try me.”

Can he feel my sweat? “Okay. For what it's worth, Dante, I find you . . . you're . . . you.”

This has to be the
dumbest
thing I have ever said.

Dante laughs. “You cannot speak? Ha!”

Deep breath. “What I meant to say is . . .” He's nudging me with his leg. I like it. It is a sexy leg, and he has another one just like it. “What I mean to say is that I like you.”

He sits back and squints. “You like me?”

“Yes,” I say more confidently. “I like you.”

He frowns. “Do you normally like who you interview?”

I laugh and shake my head. “I hardly like
anyone
I interview.”

He turns away and crosses his arms. “And yet you do this for a living?”

I know it makes no sense. “Yes.”

“Hmm.” He nods. “Why don't you like the people you interview?”

A fair question. “Because they're usually fake.”

“Ah.” He turns to me smiling. “So I am not fake.”

“No,” I say. “Like I said, you're you.” Ah. Now my other quote makes sense.

He nods. “Hmm.” He squints at me again. It is so cute! “This is not some new trick to learn all my secrets?”

Damn, he's sharp! I take a deeper breath, because I'm getting deeper into this man. “No. I came to write a story about you, and . . . I, um, like I said . . . I like you.”

“What do you like about me?”

The tips of my fingers are sweating. They usually don't sweat like this unless I'm finishing an awesome story. “You're . . . you.” Quit repeating that, Christiana! “I mean, you don't change. You're not fake. So many of the people I interview put on a show for me. You don't.”

He nods. “Oh, but I am stubborn, yes? How can you like that?”

I laugh. “I'm pretty stubborn, too.”

He squeezes my leg. “I have noticed.” He reaches by me and takes my paper and pen. “Now I interview you.”

“What?”

“
Che.
When you do not understand, say ‘
che.
' ”

I blink.
“Che?”

“Bene.”
He licks the top of my pen.

I feel a bit moist.

“First question: What is your favorite color?”

He's so cute. “Green.”

“Ah.
Verde.
The color of money.”

I shake my head. “The color of life.”

“Oh. Better.” He writes it down on a blank sheet! “How tall are you?”

“Five seven.”

He squints. “I thought we were the same height.”

I smile. “You slouch.”

“True.” He writes it down. “Your weight?”

“What?”

“Say ‘
che
.' ”

He smiles. “I want to know your weight. I held you in the water, but water makes you weigh less. I'm thinking maybe . . . one thirty, one thirty-five.”

In my dreams. “You're right.”

“Bene.”
He writes it down. “What is your degree?”

So formal! “I have a BA in journalism from Columbia.”

“
Impressionante.
Impressive. You are very athletic. What sports did you play?”

I want to play some sports right now, and they don't involve his hands on that tennis ball or his tongue on the tip of my pen. “Um, none really. I trained with my granddaddy. I work out when I can.” Which is practically never.

“You are very fit.”

He stares at me. “How old are you?”

“Guess.”

“Stand up.”

I do.

He looks me up and down and all around, even instructing me to turn around once. “You may sit.”

I sit.

“You are twenty-five.”

I hate to burst his bubble. “I'm thirty-five.”

“No,” he says. “I have already written it down. I cannot change what I have written.” His eyes become slits. “No more than you can change what you have written.”

Whoa. He got me good.

“You are now twenty-five. You do not wear a ring.” He pauses. “This either means you are not married or you have taken off your ring to flirt with me.”

“I'm not married,” I say quickly.

“
Bene.
Are you seeing anyone?”

Just the man in front of me. “No.”

“Have you ever been married?”

“No.”

“Close to being married?”

“No.”

He sighs. “What do you have against marriage?”

So direct! “Nothing. Really. It just hasn't worked out that way for me.” Geez, I am so unquotable. A journalist should never do an interview.

“What was the name of your last boyfriend?”

I think a little and catch glimpses of a guy, but . . . “I can't remember. Howard something.”

“It has been that long?”

It's been so long I'm not sure what a penis looks like up close. “Yes.”

“But you are
bellissima,
so
erotica.
”

He's messing with all my
erotica
zones right now. “I've been busy.”

“Oh. So your career is most important.”

Dante would make an outstanding journalist. He's already catching me in little contradictions. “I've been at it for almost fourteen years, so right now it is.”

“Hmm.” He studies the notebook. “Where is your mama?”

Nice transition. “Heaven.”

“
Tristissimo.
Your father?”

I know I opened the door for this, but . . . “I don't want to discuss this.”

He sits back. “Oh, but you expect me to. I like you, too. I want to get to know you.”

He says it so matter-of-factly. “You . . . like me?”

“You are likable. Now tell me about your father.”

A pain shoots into my chest. “Only if you go first.”

“Ah,” he says, like the psychologist that I used to see when I was little. “So much
resistenza.
”

Resistenza?
It was more like futility because I didn't see the point. I had drawn a stick-figure picture of a scarecrow around Halloween, and my teacher had rushed my drawing to the principal the second I finished it. The principal then called me into his office and asked me, “Who's this?” I told him it was a scarecrow, adding, “It is Halloween, you know.” He pointed at one of the scarecrow's hands. “And what's this in his hand?” I told him it was the scarecrow's magic wand. “It's not a man holding a knife?” he asked. I shook my head. The principal then sent me to a shrink so I could deal with my “repressed issues.” I was five, happy and thriving with Granddaddy, and because of a badly drawn scarecrow, I had to listen to that asshole psychologist say “Ah” fifty times in half an hour, twice a week, for three months. I didn't think I had any issues. I just couldn't draw very well! “Are you sure it's not your . . .
father
. . . holding a knife?” I shook my head until my neck hurt.

But I don't want to think about any of that right now.

“My father,” Dante says. “Also not for story.”

“Fine.”

“My father never came home. He did not die in Vietnam, but he never came home. Mama waited for him. That is all I know.”

That's it? “You never wanted to find him?”

“No.” He leans forward. “He is not where he is supposed to be. I do not need to find him. Now you.”

I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to talk about the
other
scarecrow in my life. How can I answer this without begging another question? “My father is in heaven, too.”

He looks down. “Both your parents are dead?”

“Yes.”

“How did they die?”

I put this behind me so long ago, and now this man is bringing it all back. “Look, I'd rather not say, Dante. Please. Change the subject.” I ball my hands into fists.

He puts his right hand on top of my fists. “How old were you?”

I can't breathe, my heart is thudding, and I have to get out of here. “I was . . . I was two.”

He brings his other hand to my fists. “You do not remember them?”

“No, I don't!” I shout. I jump to my feet and run outside to the outcropping under the stars into the cold and I'm holding myself and weeping and rocking and I'm all alone again and I'm two years old and there's no one to hold me—

Dante's hands reach around me, holding my stomach gently. “
Mi dispiace
. I should not have asked.”

I turn into him and put my head on his shoulder. “I don't remember them at all, Dante.”

“Shh, shh. It is all right.”

He holds me for several minutes while I calm down, whispering, “Shh, shh,
bella,
it is all right.”

I wipe my face on my sleeve. “I only had pictures.” I tore up and threw away those pictures one very bad day when I was twelve. “And I didn't know how they died until I did a research paper on them in high school.”

Which is a very long time not to know.

“Granddaddy told me not to research them. He said it would only give me pain, but I had to, you know? I went to the library and found a single article buried in the back pages of the
Times.
”

My legs buckle, but Dante holds me up.

“The headline read,
MURDER SUICIDE IN RED HOOK.
My daddy killed my mama.”

“You do not have to tell me any more. Let us go inside where it is warm.”

He takes me by the hand and leads me back to the fireplace, placing me on the floor with my back to the fire. He hands me my tea, and I take a shaky sip.

“I wish I had not asked,” he says. “I am sorry.”

I put down my mug. “It's okay. It's obviously something that I need to spill out of me.” I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. “I still don't know why he killed her, even after all this time. I researched and researched, and I asked around, and I asked my granddaddy, but he wouldn't tell me anything.”

“He was protecting you.”

“I needed to know the truth, okay? The police officers and detectives I interviewed didn't know a whole lot either. My daddy killed my mama and then killed himself. That's all I know. As painful as that was to know, I still wrote it all up, footnoted it, and presented it in a detached, clinical way.” I close my eyes. “And I got an A. I got an A for writing about my daddy killing my mama and then himself.”

Other kids were researching crack, or rap, or legalizing marijuana, but no, I had to reach into the darkness and bring up some demons.

I look at the hands that typed that paper. “My teacher told me—with tears in
her
eyes, not mine—she told me, ‘If you can write about that, Christiana, you can write about anything.'”

“You are good at what you do.” He sits next to me and puts his hot hand on my neck. “You are strong because of it.”

“Trust me, I'm not. It's all an act.”

He wipes away a tear. “It is not an act. You are
coraggiosa
.”

“I'm not . . . courageous. When you asked me yesterday where my bags were, and I told you I didn't have any, I lied. I have plenty of baggage.”

“Ah. But no more than anyone else.” He rubs my back, and it feels so good. “You have a very strong back.”

What about my front? I want to ask. Oh yeah. He's already seen it, up close and personal—and dripping wet.

“Strong legs. Strong mind. Strong tongue.” He leans closer to me, his breath hot on my ear. “Carrying your baggage all these years has made you strong. You are a strong woman. You are not just a
corpo provocante
.”

I rub my back against his hand. “Don't stop.”

“Ah.” He slides behind me and massages my shoulders.

I am now officially wet. And hot. Though he's blocking the fire, I am feeling fire spreading through my entire body.

“I do not want you to leave tomorrow,” he says.

I will never leave if you keep doing this. “I have to go, Dante. My flight leaves tomorrow night, and I have to drive to Ottawa first, and—”

“Stay.” His hands slide to my lower back where he starts kneading my sore, sore muscles through my sweatshirt. I'm surprised he can't feel my sweat.

“Only if you don't stop doing that.”

He laughs. “You should be sore. You used muscles today you have not used in a long time.” His hands circle lower and lower, and when he gets to the top of my booty, I actually start to pant.

Against my horny judgment, and despite the tingling in my stuff, I get up and sit on another couch, a cool couch, the couch furthest away from his fiery hands. “So, Dante, if I stay, what will we do?”

He looks at his hands. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. I'm just afraid I might do something wrong if I let you continue.”