Anyone But You (10 page)

Though he detected the heavy note of cynicism in my voice, Benny let it slide. He picked up a bushel of red peppers and carried it back to the front of the kitchen. I knew what the future really held for Benny and Stella: It was going to end in a broken heart. I hated to think of her getting hurt. But get too close to the sun, and you can’t avoid getting burned.

Two weeks and three days later, it happened, just as I predicted. Sunday was the one day of the week Antonio’s was closed, and after morning Mass at Our Lady of Pompeii, Benny took off to meet Stella for their date at the Lincoln Park Zoo. I didn’t expect to see him again that day, but at three o’clock in the afternoon, as I sat on our shaded front stoop in my trousers and undershirt to cool off in the sweltering July heat, he came ambling down Taylor Street. The familiar smile that was usually plastered across his face had made itself scarce. Despite the stagnant, humid air, he had both fists shoved in his pockets and looked downright despondent as he approached. Noticing me, he startled momentarily, appearing to compose himself.

“Heya, Chief!”

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Nah.” He shook his head and shrugged, then glanced up and down the street, attempting an air of nonchalance. The leaves from the poplar tree overhead cast dappled shadows over his face.

“Where’s your girlfriend? I thought you were spending the day with her?”

“It ended up being too hot and crowded at the zoo. The cages were smelling a little ripe.”

“So did you go somewhere else?”

“Nah.” He waved his hand as if swatting away a gnat. “Remember how hot it was that summer at the fair? It feels that hot today.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I agreed. “So where’s Estelle?”

“I told her we needed to cool things down.”

“So did you go to the lakeshore or something? Bet it was crowded
there
.”

“No. I mean, I told her we needed to take a break. From each other.”

A strange mix of fury and relief washed over me, but I wasn’t about to let it show.

“How’d she take it?”

“She didn’t say anything. There were tears. Lots of tears,” he said, shaking his head and staring at the sidewalk.

“Wow, Ben. I don’t know what to say. I thought you were really in love this time.”

“I was.” He shrugged. “It just didn’t seem … right.” I knew Benny like the back of my hand, but I couldn’t get a good read on the look in his eyes. “You know me, Nick,” he continued, pausing only to clear his throat. “I love garlic, but eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I start to get a foul taste in my mouth, you know what I’m saying?” Comparing Stella to a hunk of garlic seemed callous, even for Benny.

“Time to cast the old fishing line back into the murky deep,” I said, “see what else is out there?” Benny pursed his lips and shrugged again, not looking at me.

“I suppose so. Anyway, she’s just a broad. No sense getting all twisted up over it. I just hope she’s okay, is all.” Though Stella’s star had briefly shone again in my celestial orb, I expected that not even St. Anthony, patron saint of lost items, would have been able to find her again now that Benny had decided he was done with her.

• • •

For as lousy as I remained at interacting with women my own age, two-year-old Carmen seemed to think I was the bee’s knees. Antonio’s widow, Vera, occasionally brought the cherubic tot by the pizzeria for a visit, and I’d entertain her with sophomoric funny faces, juggling acts, and “disappearing thumb” tricks. She loved that I called her
principessa
and secretly handed her bits of pizza crust long after her mother had told her she’d had enough. One August afternoon before the dinner rush, Vera came in looking frazzled.

“Uncle Nick, she’s all yours,” Vera sighed, gesturing to Carmen, who stood dawdling at the doorway. “We missed the first train because she had to stop and pick dandelions.”

“Come here, little lollygagger,” I said, kneeling down to let Carmen leap into my arms. “You’re not giving your
mammina
a rough time of it today, are you?”

“Yes, I am,” the little girl proudly proclaimed.

“Get all your misbehavin’ out of the way while you’re still young and adorable,” I teased her. “Once you’re in school, the mean nuns aren’t going to let you get away with it. Well, unless you’re like your Uncle Benny.”

“Why?”

“Because he can charm the pink off a pig.”

“Why?”

“Never mind about that. Just keep on being cute is all I’m saying.”

“Why?”

“Because ….” I glanced at Vera.

“Yes, it’s incessant,” she confirmed. “Like a persistent little woodpecker hammering at my soul. If you can find a way to stop it—even for a little bit—you’ll have saved me from the brink of insanity.”

“Oh, I think I’ve got an idea,” I responded. I cupped my hand in front of Carmen’s ear and whispered into it.

“Yes, yes, yes!” The little girl began galloping around the room.

“How about I steal this little lady for thirty minutes or so?” I asked Vera.

“Be my guest!” she responded.

“Okay,” I chuckled. “Benny’s in the kitchen. Tell him I’ll be back before four.”

Rather than stoop, hunch-shouldered, to hold Carmen’s pudgy little hand out on the sidewalk, I swept her up onto my shoulders for a piggyback ride. The late summer day was pleasant, reminding me of the Irving Berlin tune “Blue Skies,” which my mother always hummed on afternoons like this. A grimy-faced newsboy on the corner handed out broadsheets faster than he could collect two cents from each customer. The cover of today’s
Daily Tribune
was all about the Atlantic Charter that President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had hammered out. Everyone was desperate to know (some fearful, some hopeful) whether FDR would lead us into England’s fight against Hitler and that fascist pig, Mussolini, who had brought no end of suffering to so many of our relatives back in the mother country. As an American of Italian descent, I hated the dictator, both for his Nazi alliance and for the police state Italy had become under his regime. Unfortunately, some people assumed that I and every other Italian-American tacitly supported
Il Duce,
as he was called. Anti-Italian sentiment was nothing new, but in recent years, the tone we encountered outside of our close-knit neighborhood was one of mistrust and downright hostility. The increasingly grim news coming out of Europe, coupled with the escalating tension at home, made even today’s blue skies feel downright foreboding. Nevertheless, I had a two-year-old to amuse for the next thirty minutes, and there was no use dwelling on anything other than happy thoughts as I attempted to edge out Mickey Mouse on her list of favorite known entities.

“Candy! Candy! Candy!” she trilled when I finally set her back down on terra firma in front of Queenie Mab’s Candy Shoppe and Soda Fountain. A leather strap of sleigh bells affixed to the door jingled as we entered the colorful shop, which smelled like a mixture of sugarplums and furniture polish. Wrought-iron chairs with heart-shaped backs flanked small wooden tables atop the black-and-white mosaic-tile flooring. Along the back wall, two soda jerks in white aprons and white paper hats scooped ice cream and mixed phosphate drinks behind an imposing oak counter. Directly in front of them—wisely marketed directly at child’s-eye level—candy in egregious quantities was piled in tilted wicker baskets: peppermints and peanut butter kisses, saltwater taffy, and Snaps licorice, to name just a few.

At the cash register, pecking at the buttons with vampish red fingernails, stood Queenie Mab herself, the store’s proprietress. Though I’d never seen her before, she bore an exact likeness to the cartoon drawing that accompanied her sign out front, down to the same white ruffled blouse and black pencil skirt that barely encased her bustling backside. Her graying hair was piled into a bialy-sized bun on top of her head, from which small corkscrew tendrils attempted a desperate escape.

Sizing up Carmen and me, Queenie’s lips, which were painted red to match her nails, turned from a pucker to a barely perceptible sneer. Instead of taking our order, she ambled slowly to a box near the window and began counting white paper doilies. The two soda jerks a few feet away pretended not to notice us, as well.

“Excuse me,” I said, to no avail.

“They don’t have any
ears
,” Carmen noted, more perceptively than most toddlers might.

“You’re right, sweetheart,” I said, perturbed, but trying not to show it. “Come on, let’s pick out what we want.” I ushered the little girl over to a shelf with glass jars of stick candy. As Carmen marveled over the vibrant colors spiraling like mini barber poles, I glanced back to the counter and saw that Queenie was now helping another customer. Ordinarily, I would have turned on my heel and walked out of the place, but I wasn’t going to let that racist old biddy disappoint Carmen’s sweet tooth.

I let the little girl pick out two sticks—one for now and one for later when Vera would need another dose of quiet serenity—and we headed back over to the counter to pay. This time, instead of ringing me up, Queenie nodded to the customer standing in line behind me.

“Can I help you, miss?” she asked, pointedly pretending not to see me.

“Yes,” said the woman’s voice over my left shoulder. “Three malteds, if you please. And whatever else the gentleman who’s standing right in front of you is purchasing. He’s with me. And he’s treating.”

I slowly turned around, startled by the request, and was further surprised to discover who the voice belonged to.

“Stella!” I said.

“Stella!” Carmen echoed distractedly, still staring with longing at the candy.

“Stella?” Estelle repeated the nickname with a puzzled look on her face. “Good heavens, no one’s called me that since I was a little girl!”

“What are you doing here?” I wondered, rifling through my pockets for change, which I slid across the counter to Queenie.

“What any woman does when she gets thrown over by a boy,” Stella replied. “Gorging myself on sugar.” I smiled stupidly and cursed the fact that she’d just made it impossible to dance around the delicate topic of her and Benny’s break-up. “I should be asking
you
what
you’re
doing here,” she continued. “Isn’t half of Chicago lining up for your pizza?”

Before I could respond, she was already down on Carmen’s level introducing herself. “Do you want a malted milk, my little love?” she asked. “Come with me, I can explain to you all about the dangers of spending time with handsome Italian boys.” She flashed me a quick smirk, then led Carmen to a table with two chairs and pulled an empty seat from a nearby table next to it, as well. The little girl immediately began peppering Stella with questions, and as I took a seat beside them, it dawned on me that I’d suddenly become the third wheel to an impromptu ladies’ luncheon. Only after Queenie delivered our tray of chocolate malteds did Carmen, kneeling on her chair to achieve enough height to reach the towering straw, stop talking.

“What a sweetheart,” Stella said.

“She’s a cute kid,” I agreed. “She’s practically family to Benny and me. I mean … Oh gosh, sorry.”

“You can say his name,” she sighed. “Oh, Nick, I just really don’t know what happened.” Tears started to well up in her eyes, and I prayed she wasn’t about to treat me like the priest in some romantic confessional. “I’m not going to cry,” she assured me, though she already had. “It’s like his feelings for me changed overnight. I had absolutely no warning.”

“I wish I knew what to say,” I said, honestly. “If it helps at all, he really did seem to care about you.”

“I thought so, too! It doesn’t matter now.” She dabbed the tears from her eyes with the lower end of her palm. Carmen, sipping from her straw, suddenly took notice.

“Aww, do you have a boo-boo? Let Uncle Nicky kiss it and make it better!” Stella and I exchanged timid glances, followed by awkward laughs.

“Anyway, let’s talk about something else,” my blushing counterpart finally said, smiling sweetly. “And call me ‘Stella’ again. I like the sound of it.”

• • •

Three weeks later I was elbow to elbow with Benny in our restaurant’s kitchen when I explained to him the good/bad news as delicately as I could.

“So you really don’t mind?” I asked, nervously.

Benny stood at the prep counter, mincing an onion. With the knife in his hand and his curly hair looking comically unkempt in the heat of the kitchen, he looked apt to initiate a murder spree. Had it been any guy other than my best friend, I’d never have chosen this moment to reveal that his ex-girl and I were an item of late, and I certainly wouldn’t have stood within arm’s length to do it. Yet when he didn’t answer right away, I took a step back, just to be on the safe side.

“You’re okay with Stella and me?” I said, rephrasing the question.

“Of course I’m okay with it,” he answered, wiping his eyes with the corner of his apron. “This onion. Yeesh. You take over. I need a break.” He reached over and passed me the knife, and I took his spot at the counter. “Besides, I already knew,” he said. He rooted around among the crates, pulled up a hothouse tomato, and began tossing it from hand to hand.

“What do you mean, you
knew
?”

“C’mon, you think I’m stupid, Nick?” He shook his head. “We’ve been friends since before you even cared two figs about girls.” He smirked and tossed the tomato at me without warning. I caught it with both hands, and the knife clattered to the counter. “You’ve been floating around with that stupid grin on your face for the better part of a month,” he continued. I felt myself blush to the roots of my hair. “Even a complete dunderhead would’ve guessed you were mooning over some doll.”

“But
Stella
—I mean, Estelle?” I quickly corrected myself. “She’s not just any doll.”

“Stella. I like that,” he said, appearing thoughtful. “It suits her. And I should know more than anyone that she isn’t just any doll. But,” he added quickly, “if you’re worried that I’m upset because I’m … because I dated her, then stop worrying, kid. It’s water under the bridge. The past is the past, all that stuff.”

“Are you sure, Benny?” I said. “Because it’s important to me that you’re okay with this.” This was true, but only up to a point. With or without Benny’s blessing, now that I had Stella, I knew I would never let her go. I was on cloud nine, but it could be a definite ten or eleven if I knew with absolute certainty that Benny could be happy for us.