Anyone But You (22 page)

“Gigi?” Roman answered immediately. “Thank God. I was worried I wouldn’t get to say goodbye.”

“Hey, Roman,” I said, my voice shaking with excitement, “I found something you need to see. I think it might be important. Can you come over now?”

“Of course. Where are you?”

“Cap’s. Don’t worry, I’m alone. How soon can you be here?”

“I’m right down the street. Be there in a few.”

I set the phone down and picked up the envelope. It was almost weightless, yet it seemed to hold a lifetime within its small confines. Sampson must have sensed the urgency with which I’d spoken to Roman, because he’d bounded over and was prodding me excitedly, as if to ascertain that I was okay. In the process he upended a stack of old newspaper clippings I had already sorted into a pile on the floor.

“Sammy, watch out, honey—you’re like a bull in a china shop over here.” The words echoed almost in slow motion as I watched him back up gingerly at my command, just enough for his muscular tail to whack both of the candles that were propped on the box nearby.

I’d been trained in what to do in case of a fire, but as the piles of paper on the floor ignited I faced a disconcerting conundrum. The small blaze was just in front of the narrow aisle that led to the hallway, where the nearest fire extinguisher was located. Hopping over the flames to get to the hallway seemed the most obvious course of action, but then I noticed the still-full glass of water Dad had brought me earlier. Surely, this could quell the flames. I flung the contents of the glass at the growing conflagration, but the flames barely flinched. On the contrary, they seemed to increase in size. Sampson barked loudly and nuzzled the back of my knee hard, as though to march me toward the door, but the blaze was suddenly a few feet higher, feeding voraciously on paper and cardboard and …
the letter!
The envelope I’d discovered was lying on the ground just inches from the blaze. I felt the heat on my face as I bent to snatch it up, then hastily folded it in half and slid it into my back pocket. Unfortunately, there was no time to worry about saving any other mementos. The stockroom had become a perfect tinderbox, and, to my horror, my exit was now completely blocked. Pivoting on my feet, I rifled through a few nearby boxes on the floor, praying that we’d stashed some easily accessible tablecloths in it—anything with which I could smother the flames. No go. The fire was now triple the size it had been just ten seconds earlier. Samson was barking like a lunatic.

Call 911,
I thought to myself.
No. Get out of here, first!
I ran to one of the imposing barricades of boxes near the door and tried to dismantle it, but the boxes were heavy and wouldn’t budge. The smoke detector came screeching on as I looked to see if I could squeeze through any opening in the boxes and crates near the door.
Why wasn’t the sprinkler system activating?
By now, the fire had advanced to the pile of bubble wrap on the floor and was giving off black, smoky fumes. Coughing, I lifted my shirt to cover my mouth but my eyes were stinging. I tried again to topple over the boxes in my path. A faint cold thrilled through my veins, even as I felt the heat of the fire consuming my family’s cherished memorabilia. My lungs felt like they were equally ablaze with every hot and noxious breath I struggled to take.

“Gigi!” I heard Roman’s voice call from somewhere far away. Was it real, or only imagined? I was beginning to feel incoherent, the mental equivalent of wading through a bog. Yet one tragic thought crystallized like a frantic signal flare in my brain: This was goodbye. I reached down, feeling for Sampson, and that was the last thing I remembered.

Beyond that, there was only a stifling emptiness—a strangely placid in-between place where thoughts and time ceased. I was as good as dead. There was nothing here, except … words? They started faintly at first, then louder, more urgently.

“Miss! Can you hear me?” I awoke not in an instant, but in fits and starts, as if being hoisted by a rope out of a deep, dark well. Blinking my eyes, I was startled to find myself lying on the pavement in the alley about a block away from Cap’s, surrounded by a pair of EMTs and several other unfamiliar faces peering down at me with concern.

“Give her some room,” said the one EMT, his voice terse as he removed an oxygen mask from my face and handed it to his partner. In my dazed state, only one thing registered in my brain.

“Roman?” I said with a rasp, trying to sit up. The EMT put a hand on my shoulder and gently prevented me.

“Careful,” he warned. He was illuminated by flashing red lights that danced manically behind him. A crowd of people milled around in the periphery. I recognized a few as being other tenants of the building, residents who lived on the floors above Cap’s.

“What happened? Is everyone okay? Where’s Roman? He was supposed to be here,” I said in rapid-fire succession.

A middle-aged woman in a red dress who had been staring at me with concern turned to the man next to her.

“She must mean the boy,” she said gravely.

“What about him?” I wrestled my arm free from the blood pressure cuff the EMT had been trying to secure on me. The woman looked away, uncertainly, and nodded toward Cap’s.

“I was coming down the back stairwell when I saw him bring you out,” she explained. “He laid you on the ground, said something about a dog, and then bolted back inside.” She shook her head, aghast, and brought both hands to her mouth in consternation.

“If he’s not out by now, he’s a goner,” the man standing next to her bluntly observed.

I glanced down the alleyway and saw the lower portion of the building engulfed both in flames and an oppressive blanket of smoke. Picturing Roman somewhere in that hellish ruin sent a stabbing sensation ripping through my chest.

The ensuing minutes seemed like an eternity as firefighters, police officers, and EMTs swirled around me. Protesting, I was eventually strapped onto a gurney and swept into the back of an ambulance where, though safely out of the way, I couldn’t see anything. Hearing what was happening but being unable to see it was more terrifying than witnessing it with my own eyes. The only thing I
could
see was the ominous reflection of the flames on the glass window of the ambulance.

“Roman!” I tried yelling, but my voice was a hoarse croak that barely lifted above a whisper.

T
HE PLACE NEEDED LOADS OF WORK,
but I was up for the challenge. After all, what else was I going to do now that my life had been filched by my former best friend? Thanks to the recently approved G.I. Bill, easy money with laughably low interest rates flowed like cheap Chianti. Operating the pizza joint in Uptown had been the ideal dry run for opening up a bona fide restaurant, and besides, I had an agenda beyond merely making a living. So after hiring a crew to help me get my new venture off the ground, the first thing I did was put up the biggest, brightest neon sign I could fit over the street-facing front windows, with an appellation that was intended to taunt: Monte’s.

The location was only three blocks away from Cap’s on the Near West Side—exactly where I wanted to be. This wasn’t just about stealing Benny’s business or his thunder; I wanted my restaurant to serve as a constant reminder to him and Stella of their guilt and betrayal. No matter what trajectory the rest of their lives might take, Monte’s would be there, looming in silent judgment.

“Where do you want these, buddy?” Two uniformed deliverymen showed up at the front door, wheeling in dollies that held large metal file cabinets.

“Take them down the hall to the first room on the right,” I instructed. “My mother’s in there getting the office all set up. She’ll show you where you can put ’em. And don’t worry—her bark is worse than her bite.”

Ma had scarcely left my side since I’d tracked her down in Cicero following my ill-fated encounter with Benny and Stella. If she was religious before I left for the war, she now doted on me like I was the risen Lord. Though at times I could sense from the look on her face that she was concerned about my dark moods and single-minded obsession with outdoing Cap’s, she never voiced her reservations. The truth was, she was too overjoyed by my return from the dead to let any words of reproach escape her lips. For the first time in my life, I had a mother who was not only obliging, but downright obsequious. At times, I almost missed the old, overbearing Ma, but figured if anyone deserved to be kowtowed to, it was me.

“Excuse me, sir—I wanted to get your opinion before I painted any further.” A neighborhood bobby soxer who was studying art at a nearby junior college had jumped at the chance to paint a large mural on the dining room wall. I glanced at her handiwork so far. “Do you like it?” she asked.

“
Cherubs?
You’ve got to be kidding me,” I grimaced.

“You hate it,” she said, a note of disappointment in her voice. The smudge of dark gray paint smeared right between her two brown eyes made her look as though she’d just come from an Ash Wednesday Mass. Her hair was tied up in a polka-dotted kerchief à la Rosie the Riveter. I hated the cherubs, it was true, but she seemed like a sweet kid. And she
was
working for free, I reminded myself.

“If it was good enough for the Sistine Chapel, it’s good enough for Monte’s. I want this place to be a little slice of heaven, after all,” I said, trying to eke out an appreciative smile. “Now get back to work, Michelangelo.”

“My name’s Paula, but okay.” She grinned at me, then returned to sizing up her masterpiece.

About two hours later, I was in the kitchen on my back, fitting a P-trap to the bottom of the new industrial-sized sink, when I heard the distinctive sound of women’s heels on the tile floor.

“You still here, Ma? You ought to call it a day,” I said, scooting out from under the counter. “Oh.”

“Hello, Nick.”

“What are
you
doing here?”

“The young woman in the front said you were back here.” Even preceded by an ample pregnant belly, Stella was as beautiful as ever. The simple wool swing coat she wore did very little to conceal her condition, but she looked as radiantly wholesome as always. “I just wanted to let you know, after everything that has happened ….” She reached down and caressed her stomach contemplatively as she spoke. “Back when I first dated Benny, I used to call him Jell-O Head, because his curly hair had a life all its own. That hair was as animated and energetic as he was.’” She chuckled, still deep in thought. Jell-O? What on earth was she flapping her gums about? “When we thought you had died, he lost that particular verve. A certain stillness took over, as if all the vitality had been sapped from his body,” she continued. “A part of him died the day we were told you were gone. And another part of him died when you came home, and, well … the look on your face … I’m really not sure you understand how much he ….” She sighed. “Oh, Nick, you meant the world to him.”

“Yeah, well, talk about a funny way of showing it.”

Stella began to weep. More waterworks? For crying out loud. “I really don’t have anything to say to you, Stella.” I tossed my rag and wrench onto the ground and got to my feet. “If you’re mad about me opening up this place, well that’s just tough cookies. It’s a free country.”

“
Nick!
” Stella’s head reared back in horror as if what I had just said to her was a personal affront.

“Oh, come on. Don’t act all sad and sanctimonious with me. Just move on. You’re good at that.” Stella looked at me in disgust.

“The service is Friday morning at nine. That’s what I really came here to tell you. But please, do Benny and me both a favor and don’t even think about showing up. And don’t ever speak to me again.” She turned in disgust and walked back out toward the front. Confused, I slowly followed her into what would soon be Monte’s dining room and watched as she charged out the door and down the sidewalk. Paula, who was wiping her brush in a turpentine-soaked rag, joined me at the window.

“Poor lady,” she said, shaking her head.

“Hardly,” I scoffed.

“He was so young.” I took my eyes off Stella crossing the street and turned back to the young artist.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Her husband.”

“What about him?”

“You haven’t heard? Everyone within twelve blocks is talking about it.”

Between busting my butt to get the restaurant off the ground and losing myself for days at a time in the mental equivalent of black holes, I hadn’t exactly been front and center on the Taylor Street social scene. Needless to say, whatever Benny-related gossip was making the rounds hadn’t yet made its way to me.

“What about her husband?”

“Oh, I figured you knew him. Seems like just about
everyone
loved that guy, the way people have been going on and on.”

“Paula, what are you talking about?” I could feel my pulse quicken, and my knees felt like they might give out.

“That lady’s husband, Benito Caputo—he died.”

• • •

Hypertropic cardiomyopathy. That’s the long-winded medical name of the heart condition those Army docs had been so worried about. Benny had collapsed without warning on the kitchen floor of Cap’s restaurant. Ma had known for the past three days, only she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell me the news.

Reaching in my pocket for my father’s watch on Friday morning, I glanced at the time: half-past ten. The funeral service at Our Lady of Pompeii would have concluded by now. I’d forbidden Ma from attending, but that hadn’t stopped her from placing the newspaper obit directly next to the coffee pot before she left to run errands. (I’d stayed in bed until she’d gone to avoid any unsolicited discussion on the topic.) Though I barely skimmed the glowing remembrance, I couldn’t help but take ironic note of the wedding date listed for Benny and Stella: September 1, 1945. I’d been liberated from the camp on August 27, just five days earlier.

Months ago I had managed to get to the bottom of the missing telegram—the one that had made a mockery of my entire life by failing to materialize. Following persistent inquiries with the local Western Union office, the telegram was finally discovered wedged between the wall and a desk in the office, having apparently slipped there, unseen, instead of being routed on with all of the other outgoing messages. It had never been reported as undelivered because it had vanished into thin air. A single piece of paper, blown out of sight by the faintest breeze, had prolonged Ma’s anguish by four needless months, and had allowed an oblivious Benny and Stella to meet at the altar.