Anyone But You (23 page)

Was the mislaid telegram really to blame? Not if I was being honest with myself. Stella loved Benny, just as the whole world had loved him. Of course I was saddened by the news of Benny’s death. Yes, I felt numb. But it wasn’t because he was gone. He had been dead to me the moment I realized he was capable of the most selfish act imaginable. Now, I only felt loss, sadness, and, I’ll admit it, anger. The fact that so much of my life had been spent worshipping at the feet of a man who had charmed even himself into thinking that he was a good person filled me with disgust. The guy whose catchphrase had been “trust me” had turned out to be the last person on the planet I ought to have trusted.

Stella was no better. The cynical side of me had one possible explanation for her having come round to the restaurant earlier in the week. Now that she was pregnant and alone, I reckon she took me for an appealing fallback plan, just like the last time Benny had ditched her. Nick Monte, forever doomed to be second at bat. It was a horrible thing to assume of a grieving widow, but I couldn’t help myself—if I thought the worst of Benny and Stella, they had only themselves to blame.

Ma turned the key on the side door leading in off the alley and walked through the short hallway into the kitchen, placing her pocketbook next to the toaster. She was wearing her black boiled wool pillbox hat, most unsuitable for May.

“Did you leave the groceries downstairs?” I asked her, rising to go fetch them. “I told you to just have them delivered.”

“I didn’t go to Goldblatt’s, Dominick.” She unpinned her hat and set it on the counter. Her eyes were red and puffy. “The church was more crowded than I’ve ever seen it—put even Christmas and Easter attendance to shame. People were spilling out onto Lexington Street.”

“Tell it to your coffee klatch—I’m not interested in hearing another word about it,” I groused, clearing my breakfast dish from the table.

“You most certainly
will
hear about it, young man,” she said, sounding more like her old, no-nonsense self than she had since my return. “I’ve been walking on tenterhooks around you for months, and it ends today.”

“Boy, maybe I ought to have taken my chances and stayed back in the prison camp,” I said, my face beginning to feel flushed.

“Just stop it. I’ve had enough of watching you drown in your own pity. It’s time to wake up. Life is for the living.”

“My apologies, Mother. Being starved, tortured, and written off for dead by everyone who’s ever known you does funny things to people.”

“Well, I’ve had enough of it. Enough of your anger, your bitterness, your sarcasm, and your moping around. You survived, whether you like it or not, and you should thank your lucky stars for it. How can you joke at a time like this? It’s like spitting on the grave of your father, not to mention your oldest friend.”

“Benny’s not my friend, but spitting on his grave? Now that’s not a half bad idea.”

“Shame on you, Dominick Monte!” she snapped. “Shame on you!”

“No, Ma!” I shouted back, rising from the kitchen chair. “Shame on him!”

I stormed out of the room and through the side door, descending the wooden staircase. Its creaky treads were too narrow for my size ten feet. I hated this new apartment, and as I started walking down the sidewalk, it occurred to me that I had no good retreat here. In my former life, I would have climbed out onto the fire escape after a row with Ma, or found sanctuary in Benny’s bedroom across the hall. Those obviously weren’t options anymore. I was in exile now, living a nightmare that felt as though it would never conclude. Ma wasn’t the first person to have told me to wake up and open my eyes. Benny had said that to me the day I met Stella. It’s what had convinced me to go up on that Sky Ride at the fair in the first place. Well, I’d woken up, all right. My eyes had been opened. And what I saw was heartache, disappointment, and the realization that the two people I loved most in this world had loved each other more.

Never again. I was never going to be able to reflect on my childhood with any sort of fondness. Recollections of my first love would only fill me with animosity, not affectionate nostalgia. Hearing the name Caputo was a curse to me now, and I vowed to make anyone and everyone who would listen to me understand that. People may have flocked to Benny’s funeral, but he was no saint. He was no friend. The world could sing his praises, but I knew the truth, and I would rather malign his memory than pretend to mourn his death.

I paused at the corner of Taylor and Lytle. My breathing was labored and I glanced toward the cerulean-blue sky as my eyes stung from the effort of fighting off tears.
Damn it, Nick Monte. Stop. Don’t you dare let him do this to you, too. Not after everything else. He’s not worth it.
He’d been my best friend when I was young and stupid and couldn’t tell the devil from a dollar bill. He was my friend once, but I would
never
call him friend again. Ever.

“L
ADYBIRD—ARE YOU DOING OKAY IN THERE?”
Chef asked, his voice gentle as he tapped on my bedroom door. I opened it and let him see the dress I’d finally chosen to wear, having already anxiously discarded a host of others that now formed a small mountain on my bed.

“Is the black too … I don’t know—
somber
?” I asked. “I’ve never gone to something like this before. I guess I still can’t believe it’s even happening.”

Sensing from my voice that I was in full freak-out mode, Chef placed one kitchen-scarred hand on my shoulder and kneaded it like the many hunks of pizza dough that came before.

“I know, kiddo,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “It’s beyond surreal. Don’t worry, I think anything you wear would meet Roman’s approval, and that’s all that’s important.” I sighed and walked to my closet to grab a purse.

“I just keep replaying that night over and over in my head,” I said, gazing blankly out the small dormer window that looked onto the street below. “I wouldn’t be here right now if he hadn’t ….”

“We’ll always be grateful,” Chef interrupted, refusing to let me dwell on the recent incident. “It’s why your parents—even your cousins—will be there today, as a sign of our family’s appreciation for what he did. Your folks have already headed over. I hate to rush you, but I think we should try to get there soon, too. Make sure things stay friendly.”

“I hardly think anyone would use a day like this as an opportunity to reignite the feud,” I said, blanching at my own metaphor.

“Normally I’d agree, but having Caputos and Montes in the same room together? It’s going to be more than a little tense. Who’d have ever thought it would take something so horrific for the families to call a truce—
if
you can even call it that. Just remember: Roman’s parents want this to be a celebration.”

I opted not to respond, certain that if I let myself register even an ounce more of emotion, the floodgates would open and my tears would float us all the way to Peoria. Instead, I glanced inside my purse to make sure I had everything I needed, including enough tissues to see me through this final goodbye.

Within the half hour, Chef and I had entered through Monte’s stained glass front doors, on which, hanging from a black grosgrain ribbon, was a sign that read, “Closed for a private event.” Once inside, a stoic-looking older man in a dark suit escorted us to a large room at the back of the restaurant normally used for weddings and birthday parties.

“Are you ready for this?” Chef whispered. He squeezed my hand as we paused on the threshold to take in the mostly unfamiliar faces, many of whom were engaged in hushed conversation.

“Um, I think so?” I replied in an indecisive mumble, trying to spot anyone remotely recognizable. “There they are,” I said, at the same moment realizing I’d been holding my breath. I slowly exhaled and tried to calm my racing heart. Aunt Val and my parents were standing with Roman’s parents, Joe and Peggy, at the far end of the room. Frankie and Enzo hovered just a few feet away, and it looked as though they were entertaining some of the smaller members of the Monte clan with their “how’d this quarter get in your ear?” trick. Chef’s initial fears aside, I felt a sudden sense of relief that my relatives had arrived first. I’d lately been so busy lamenting all the ways I didn’t fit in that I’d forgotten to appreciate how great it felt to know they were always there for me, including on a day like today. I remembered what my dad had been trying to tell me on the night of the fire. Now I truly understood.

I eventually noticed Ty slumped at the far end of a long table. He flicked his forefinger morosely at the leaves of a floral centerpiece. We hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk alone since he’d been released from the hospital, and I suspected he’d been avoiding me. Maybe a crowded room was the perfect place to start the conversation we so desperately needed. I left Chef with Carmen, who had just arrived in her Sunday best, and walked over to my cousin.

“Mind if I sit?” I asked him, as he glared sullenly into his water glass.

“Sure,” he said, finally meeting my eyes as I took a seat next to him.

“Your silence is deafening.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are, and thanks for that,” I said. “I know it can’t be easy. Even if Aunt Val made you come, I want you to know that—”

“No one made me come,” he said, stopping me mid-sentence. “He saved your life, Gigi. Don’t think that doesn’t mean anything.” Seeming to lose track of what he wanted to say next, Ty glanced intently over my shoulder. I turned to follow his gaze, as the other guests in the room murmured excitedly at the elderly man in a wheelchair who had just made his grand entrance. Over his lap was a wool blanket, and on top of that, his gnarled hands gripped a wooden cane.

“Grandpa Monte! What on earth—” Mrs. Monte’s hand reached up to cover her open mouth, but she dropped it again to utter a confused, “Roman?”

“Hey, Mom,” my rescuer of late replied, as he pushed his great-grandfather’s wheelchair into the center of the room. “Hope it’s okay that I brought one more guest. The nursing staff said it would be fine, as long as we kept him away from the Sambuca.” The old man glowered as a few people chuckled. Finding my face in the crowd, Roman raised his eyebrows in an “all systems go” sort of way, and I tentatively waved back. Here went nothing.

In the midst of all the confusion on the night of the fire, I hadn’t known until well after the fact that my erstwhile beau had escaped the building—with Sampson in tow—before the conflagration could claim either of them. Roman was treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation by another team of medics on the street in front of the building and was taken, by separate ambulance, to the same hospital where I had been admitted. Our parents encountered each other in the waiting room, and in her gratitude to Roman for saving my life, my mom had tentatively extended an olive branch to his mother. Mrs. Monte responded in kind by suggesting a détente in the form of a going away party for the Caputo family, hosted at Monte’s. And so here we all were, attempting to do the unthinkable: break bread with one another despite a history of acrimony and ill will that spanned beyond three-quarters of a century. Roman’s heroics may have saved my life, but it was hardly going to transform so much venom and hatred into instant sunshine and lollipops. My father and cousins had grudgingly agreed to attend this improbable soiree for my mother’s sake, and Roman said that many in the Monte family were similarly skeptical. Perhaps that’s the reason why he and I had decided to make this last-ditch attempt to end the hostility by addressing what had started it all. Great-Grandpa Monte was our unwitting pawn in all this, but now, seeing how frail he was, I fervently hoped we weren’t making a very grave mistake despite our very best intentions.

Roman wheeled his family’s patriarch over to me, and I bent down to say a tentative hello. Everyone in the room watched in quiet anticipation, but words eluded me. Dominick Monte, though he looked severe and intimidating, sensed my hesitation and spoke first.

“You must be Gigi,” he said. “Those eyes … I haven’t seen blue eyes like yours since … well, let’s just say it’s been a long time. Roman says you found something that belongs to me?”

“Yes,” I said, standing back up. “A letter. It appears to have been misplaced.”

“Letters gone AWOL. Wouldn’t be my first go-round with that,” he mused, more to himself than for anyone else’s benefit.

“It would be charcoal right now—and so would I, I guess—if it wasn’t for your great-grandson, sir,” I added, glancing at Roman with a faint smile.

“I’m not sure if running into a burning building
twice
makes him intrepid or an idiot. A little of both, I reckon. But for your sake—and your family’s—I’m glad he got you out of there.”

As my family and the Montes gathered around, I opened my purse and nervously pulled out the envelope I’d found in the old picture frame. I tried to hand it to Mr. Monte, but he refused to take it. “My eyesight isn’t what it once was,” he explained. “Why don’t you read it to me?”

“Aloud? Are you sure?” I asked. “It’s sort of private.”

“At my age, there’s not much you could say that would embarrass or shock me, young lady,” he grumbled. I looked at Roman who gave me an encouraging nod. Removing the letter from the envelope, I unfolded it, and after glancing quickly at the expectant faces of our two families, I took a deep breath and began to read:

I paused and looked at Mr. Monte. His hand trembled slightly as he waved at me to continue
.