A Way to Get By (16 page)

CHAPTER 30

Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway

EDDIE

Wednesday, July 13

1977

T
he Mets were down 2-1 against the Cubs when the power cut out. At first, Tony thought it was just our building but a quick look down the street proved it was our entire grid.

  
We immediately lit a bunch of extra candles in the dining room and tried to appease our guests with some free drinks. But after a solid hour of darkness, most of them cut out anyway. We settled the tabs of our remaining tables and twiddled our thumbs, waiting indefinitely for something,
anything
to happen. We came to the realization that even if the power came back anytime soon, the night would be a bust; it was already after ten. Tony closed up shop and sent the staff home.

   The phones were down, too, so we couldn’t even check in with the girls. I followed Tony back to his house figuring we could weather the blackout together, and as expected, my brilliant wife had the same idea. Her Pinto was already parked in the driveway.

   And thank God, the lights were on.

   We went inside and were greeted with Brenda and Ginny, curled up on the couch together, glued to the TV.

   Brenda didn’t even look up to announce, “They’re rioting!”

   “Who is?” I asked, kicking off my shoes.

   “The people in New York. They’re breaking into stores and stealing stuff.”

   “And they’re setting fires,” Ginny added helpfully.

   Tony handed me a beer as I asked, “So you girls never lost power?”

   Brenda broke her eyes from the screen to kiss me hello. “No, we did. Why do you think I’m here? I left straight from work the second the lights went out. I was too scared to go home.”

   Ginny explained, “We were out for about an hour. Everything just came back on a few minutes ago. But New York still has nothing. The whole city!”

   “Well, I’m glad you were both together through it.” I looked around the room at the still-burning candles before my eyes landed on the TV. “Jesus! Where is that?”

   We all took in the images on the television, rabid New Yorkers running out of a broken storefront window, their arms loaded with electronic equipment.

   Ginny slapped a hand on the coffee table. “Told you! We’ve been watching this in shock for the past ten minutes.”

   “I think it’s Chinatown,” Tony said, squinting his eyes at the screen. We could barely make out the details in the dim moonlight… until the camera switched to a shot of a car being flipped into a bonfire in the middle of the street. “And that’s Riverside!”

   I refused to believe it. Riverside was a pretty nice area. “Riverside? No way.”

   Brenda raised her brows as she bit on the edge of her thumbnail. “You think people will do that here?”

   Tony attempted to allay her concerns. “Nah, I can’t imagine. Our lights already came back on. Speaking of… I’m going to turn the air back on. It’s a scorcher.”

   Ginny gave a shrug. “Sorry. I shut everything off when the power went out.”

   “Yeah, but what if Son of Sam uses the blackout to go on a killing spree?” Brenda asked, not letting go of her worries just yet. “I knew I should have dyed my hair blonde! Virginia, why did I let you talk me out of it?”

   “Brenda,” Ginny laughed. “You’re getting crazy, here. Son of Sam is
not
coming to New Jersey!”

   I plunked myself down on the couch next to her, trying not to laugh at my wife’s irrational fear. “Gin’s right. Besides, I don’t care if he
is
targeting brunettes. Don’t you dare go blonde.”

   Bren stopped biting her nail to thread her fingers through mine. She rested her head against my shoulder as I threw an arm around her, settling us back against the couch.

   Just the simple act of touching her allowed her muscles to relax against me. I loved how Bren always made me feel like a superhero. It’s like her brain was constantly bouncing off the walls inside her head, imagining the worst. The only relief she could ever attain was when I was wrapped around her. I lived for those moments when she’d just give herself over to me, trust that I’d take care of her, make the monsters go away.

   I kept her safe.

   “Alright. Enough with the TV. What do you say to a game of cards?” Anthony suggested, rubbing his hands together confidently.

   The other night, he’d taken me for a cool ten bucks. But tonight, I planned on earning every penny of it back. “I say deal ‘em up!”

CHAPTER 31

After So Much Time

BRENDA

Sunday, October 2

1983

“I
feel like an idiot! What are we even doing here?”

   Virginia and I were laughing hysterically as we attempted to negotiate the roller rink on our rented skates. She had a death grip on the wall as numerous teenagers zoomed by, showing us up something fierce.

   “Oh, come on! Roller disco is cooool! It’s what all the kids are into these days,” I yelled over the blaring music. Donna Summer was the categorical queen of my world.

   “We’re not kids anymore!”

   “No shit, Sherlock!”

   I don’t even know how we ended up at the roller rink. Originally, we had hit Willowbrook Mall in a quest for new dress boots. After we struck out at Kinney’s
and
Thom McCann, we mutually agreed to give up the hunt and have a little fun instead. On our way out to the lot, I saw United Skates of America, and pretty much threw the suggestion out there as a joke. Ginny dared me, I double-dog dared her, and before we knew it, we were wobbling around on our fluorescent orange wheels, trying not to break our necks in the process.

   “C’mon,” I said. “Stop relying on that thing and let’s skate, for godsakes. You can do this!”

  
Virginia’s eyeroll preempted her wary release of the wall. I held my arms out to her but I wasn’t necessarily any more surefooted than she was. We each took mincing steps along the floor, hanging onto each other for dear life.

   Before long, we started to get the hang of things. Michael Jackson’s “PYT” piped in, and we actually attempted to dance a little bit as we cruised. Just when I thought we had a decent rhythm going, some jackass in rainbow suspenders brushed by me and I lost my balance. Out of pure instinct, I grabbed onto the nearest thing to stop my fall—which just so happened to be my best friend—and the two of us went tumbling to the ground.

   We were lying in a jumbled heap in the middle of the rink, cackling uncontrollably. “Are you okay?” I asked.

   “Yes. We’re fine.”

   “Speak for yourself. I’m gonna have the hugest bruise on my butt tomorrow!”

   That set us off on another fit. We must have looked ridiculous, and we were probably creating a huge nuisance for all the skaters forced to detour around us. But we were laughing too hard to care.

   Finally, Virginia caught her breath and met my eyes with a sheepish grin. “I wasn’t speaking for you. I was speaking for me… and whomever is currently occupying my belly right now.”

  
It took an extra second for her words to register. Once they did, my smiling ceased immediately as I stared at my best friend in shock. “Wait. Are you pregnant?”

   “I am.”

   My mouth gaped open as I threw my arms around her. “Congratulations!” I cried ecstatically before a horrible thought crossed my mind
.
“Oh God! Do you think you hurt the baby when you fell?” I put my hands on her stomach and attempted an amateur and completely ridiculous perusal of her tummy region.

   Virginia slapped my hands away, laughing. “No, Brenda. It doesn’t work like that. Besides, I’m only a couple months along.”

   “A couple months? You kept this to yourself for a couple months?”

   “Well, as you know, the last round of IVF didn’t take. But this one did. I wanted to be absolutely sure this one was the real deal before we spilled the beans.”

   Oh, I knew all too well. Virginia and Anthony had been pumped up all spring, so sure that their baby dreams were only a simple doctor’s visit away.

   After the procedure, Virginia kept a calendar on the wall, marking off each square with a big, red X, counting down the days until they could hear word if it worked.

   They were heartbroken when it didn’t.

   When they first started to explore the idea, I was shocked to find out how much it cost. IVF wasn’t cheap, and my friends weren’t exactly rolling in the dough. I had asked Beau to loan me the money but before he could even refuse (which he did), Ginny told me Anthony would never accept it anyway. He ended up taking out a second mortgage on their house to cover the seven-thousand-dollar cost of the procedure. Twice, apparently.

  
“Well, it would seem you two bought yourselves a baby!”

   “That’s what the doctor said!”

 
We picked ourselves up and resumed skating, albeit it with a bit of extra care. I practically glued myself to Virginia all afternoon,
hovering like a rabid junkyard dog
over the body of my best friend. She wasn’t going to lose this science-baby on my watch.

CHAPTER 32

Through the Long Night

EDDIE

Tuesday, February 28

1978

“J
esus! I’m freezing!”

   Brenda shivered under the blankets, snuggling up against my side in order to try and steal some body heat. I put my arm around her and settled us into the undulating waves of our mattress. Normally, there was a heater option that made it seem as though we were floating on a raft in a tropical ocean. But because our electric had been turned off earlier in the afternoon, our waterbed was acting as more of an unofficial initiation into the Polar Bear Club.

   I smoothed a hand across her flat stomach and dipped my face next to her ear. “I know a way we can get warmed up.”

   She nudged my head away. “No Eddie! I’m angry right now.”

  “Why are you angry?” I asked, furrowing my brows.

   “Because I’m wide awake at midnight in this horrible apartment freezing my butt off! How could you forget to pay the electric?”

   Truth was, I didn’t forget. The money just wasn’t there to cover it yet, and I thought I had another few days to try and talk my way around the shutoff date. Even still, I’m sure PSE&G knew as well as I did that the money wasn’t going to magically appear even if they gave us an extra
week
.

   I felt sick looking at my poor, freezing wife. She deserved better than this. She deserved better than
me
. I gave her a friendly shove before whipping off the covers. “Come on. Get dressed. We’re getting out of here.”

   Brenda screeched from the new blast of cold hitting her skin but she followed my lead and put on a second layer of clothes before we made a break for the ‘Stang. It took three tries to get the engine going but finally the old hunk of junk turned over, and I blasted the heat as we drove the few miles to Tony and Ginny’s.

   As expected, the lights were still on in their living room window. Tony and I had just closed up shop at the restaurant an hour before, and it always took a while to wind down from the night. Anyone who’s ever had a job in the food industry can testify to the natural high a person gets working a late shift. You’d think we’d be ready to crash at the end of a long night. Truth was, that’s when we’d more often than not start the party, grab a few drinks, and not be able to turn in until closer to dawn.

   At a more decent hour, we’d just let ourselves in. But seeing as it was after midnight, we knocked on the front door instead. The curtains split as Tony peeked out the window to see what sort of maniacs would be paying a visit at one in the morning. When he saw it was us, he opened the door and just shook his head.

   I smiled, rubbing my hand along the length of Brenda’s arm in an attempt to warm her up. “Hi, Mr. Leone. Can Tony come out to play?”

   Tony opened the door wide as his smile grew even wider. “Lemme guess. No heat in the apartment?”

   “Anthony, you’re psychic!” Brenda shot back as we made our way into the house. Truth was, this wasn’t the first time we’d needed a warm place to crash.

   He called up the stairs for Ginny, who immediately put the coffee on as Tony dealt the cards on the living room table.

   Hours later, my wife and I were cozied up in our friends’ guest bedroom, toasty warm and highly caffeinated. I smiled contentedly, thinking about how we’d managed to turn a frustrating night into a fun one. My complaints were none and my gratitude was plentiful. It was far from a dream life but it was
our
life. I had a good job and a warm place to sleep, even if the bed wasn’t my own. I had two of the best friends a guy could ask for and a beautiful wife who was madly in love with me. I didn’t need anything more than that.

   Even though I was experiencing this big, significant moment, I didn’t know if Brenda was as okay with the recent turn of events. I figured I’d better check. “Are you warm?”

   I tightened an arm around her as she curled in closer against my side and rested her head on my shoulder. “Yes.”

  “Are you tired?”

   Bren shot a wicked grin at me as her hand slid down the front of my flannel pants.

   “Not at all.”