My Best Man (32 page)

In the meantime, my mother insists that Amity and I set a date since my birthday is approaching. “It’s best you’re married by your birthday, dear,” she tells me. She and Amity decide the ceremony should be October 18, the same day as my birthday, because they believe it would be so wonderful for me to link the two events forever. I agree. My birth and my death, so to speak. Playing this game, acting as if everything is progressing right on schedule with the wedding, is making me crazy.

Jacqueline is hanging out with us a lot since the mythical abortion. She and Amity are in this stirrup pants phase together now, Jacqueline taking the place of my mother and looking more like Laura Petrie than my mother ever could anyway.

In between flight assignments, since I’ve lost Nicolo, I sulk around the house. The girls try to include me in their shopping and eating ventures, but now I find it all insufferable. I’m not the same weak little wimp I was when I arrived nine months ago, and frankly, I’m getting bored with everything I found interesting before. It’s odd. I realize now that when I was in college my academics and friends were real, but I turned it all into a game. And now that I’m in the real world, everything is a game, and I have to find a way to make it real, which requires another game in itself.

Amity and Jackie insist on dragging me to the mall to see Gremlins, and I realize the escape of a film would be good medicine. We’re driving in Jackie’s Volvo to the mall, some innocuous song by some innocuous British techno band is playing on the radio, and I’m flipping through the Penthouse magazine that has now exposed Miss America’s clitoris to the American public.

“G’yaw,” Jacqueline says as she looks into her rearview mirror while I hold the magazine up in the backseat.

Amity turns around. “Can you believe Miss America’s snatch? It’s not very page antlike

“What does Emily Post say a page antlike snatch is supposed to look like?” I ask sarcastically.

Amity checks the shape of one of her eyebrows in the vanity mirror. “You know..” fluffy, ladylike, pink. With a little crown on it.”

“Do black women have pink snatches?” Jacqueline asks, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen one,” I say, defending my ignorance.

“You’ve never seen a black woman?” Jacqueline asks.

“Never,” I say, defending Jacqueline’s ignorance. I flip to another picture and hold it up.

“Look!” Amity screams, turning around. “She’s with another girl. Miss America’s eating her be ave

Jacqueline’s confused. “Her be ave

“Beave, beaver, beavaronie. She’s putting her tongue on that girl’s Libby!”

“Big deal,” I remark. “Maybe she’s hungry.”

“Or thirsty,” Jacqueline adds.

I can’t believe I’ve been one upped by Jackie.

Suddenly Amity turns glum. “I can’t believe she was ousted. There’s nothing sadder than a beauty queen taking a fall.”

Just you wait, Amity. Just you wait.

Amity is back on the fast track, smoking more pot than ever and increasingly flying around on coke. As pissed off as I am, I don’t want to see her disintegrate on drugs, so I try to caution her to cool it, but because I’m angry at her, it comes off sounding preachy, and she dismisses me and assures me that she’s totally in control. Though she’s seeing Kim again, she’s pledged he’s given up his gun and, better yet, is considering going back to his wife now that he has Amity on the side. She tells me she’ sencouraging him to reconcile since it would be much better for everyone involved. And somehow, she manages to continue seeing Thomas as well, because, “I just love his testicles they feel so European!”

One Friday night, when Amity is going out the door with Thomas, I ask what Nicolo is doing, and Thomas kind of mutters, “Not a whole lot.”

But Amity gets this concerned look on her face, the kind of face that Matthew used in the end and tells me compassionately, “Babe, Nicolo is dating someone.”

She’s so cruel. How can she tell me this? I want to die. There’s no way I’ll ever find anyone as good as Nicolo I know it. And now, I’ve lost my chance at a future with him, because I can’t help but assume that whoever he’s seeing is funnier and smarter and has a better body and isn’t engaged to a psychopath. “Good for him,”

I say, nonchalantly. “I’m dating someone too.” Amity’s eyes grow wide. “Who?” “You,” I answer.

Theresa moment of silence before we laugh, Thomas included. Of course he’s learned that Amity and I are engaged, and his European manner isn’t fazed by her taking him as a lover. And even though I’ve repeatedly encouraged her to share the whole story of our arrangement with Thomas, assuming he’ll pass it on to Nicolo, I’m sure Amity hasn’t just as I’m sure she doesn’t want Nicolo and me to be together.

“So what’s this guy like?” I ask, referring to Nicolo’s new companion.

“Just an average guy, no doubt,” Amity says nonchalantly.

“They’ve only been out a couple of times,” Thomas assures me.

I’m not reassured. “So what does he look like?”

“No one’s really seen him yet, because… Well, never mind,” Amity says. “Ready to go, Thomas?”

“Because why?” I ask. Come on, Amity. You’ve set me now finish.

“Well,” she says slowly, with a soft and compassionate look on her face, “from what we hear, the two of them never left the guy’s apartment, if you know what I mean.”

Ha! I sure do. If Nicolo’s already hopped into the sack with this guy it means he doesn’t feel about him the way he feels about me. I still have a chance. “I’m glad you told me,” I tell her solemnly. “It’s good for me to know.”

After they leave, I can’t stand it. I have to see Nicolo. I jump in my car and head over to the duplex he shares with his mother. Nicolo’s truck is gone, but I approach the door and ring the bell. It’s twilight, and the porch light wrestles control from the purple

Texas evenfall I wait for as answer.

“Buenas noches, seor Harry,” his mother says, opening the door. She’s stiff, formal.

“Buenas noches, seora,” I answer. “Nicolo estti aquf?”

“No, Harry.”

“Is he on a date?” I ask, unable to contain myself.

“Yes. They go to a movie. Amadeus.”

It’s a new film Nicolo and I planned to see together. “Can I come in?” I ask. She doesn’t answer. “He can’t force you not to talk to me,” I claim. “It’s time he understood my story. The only way is to tell you, because he won’t hear it from me. Please.”

She unlocks the screen door, allows me inside. “I am making

the dinner. You will have to talk to me in the kitchen.” I follow her into the kitchen, where an array of vegetables are cut and sitting next to the stove. She opens the refrigerator and unwraps a piece of meat veal, I think. “What is your story?”

I sit at the kitchen table. “It’s nothing compared to yours,” I admit, not wanting to offend her. “My family is very different from your own.” ‘

“Tell me,” she commands, cutting the meat into squares. She’s browning onion and garlic in oil, and the kitchen is coming to life. “My father died.”

“I am sorry,” she says coolly, placing the meat into the pan to sizzle with the garlic and onion. A minute passes while she turns the meat as it browns in the oil.

I exhale and take a long pause before filling my lungs again. “He was hard on me. Hard on my mother, my brother. I don’t think he was ever happy, at least not with us.”

She grabs the dish of chopped tomatoes and incorporates them into the pan, adds carrot slices, salt and pepper, and pours a broth over everything. Then she lifts the lid on a pot of thick white rice. Steam escapes, and she gives it a quick stir before covering it again, closing off the escape route. “Himself? Was he happy?”

“When he was younger, maybe. But as he grew older, I always got the feeling he wanted out of his skin. That he wanted to shed his body and fly toward the horizon and disappear inside of it. He was the strangest guy. So controlled, so tight, yet totally exhilarated whenever he got lost he loved being lost. And I couldn’t figure it out, because he planned everything down to the minute, every detail taken care of, leaving nothing to chance every day of his life. But every once in a while chance won out, and those were the times he was happy. When my mother, brother, and I were upset that the road on the screwy map didn’t exist and the ear was out of gas in the middle of nowhere and there was no food and no way to get help because we were in the French countryside and we

couldn’t speak French that’s when my father would relax in his skin, light up a cigarette, and sit quietly on the side of the road with a smile he never wore otherwise.”

Nicolo’s mother fills two small juice glasses with red wine, offers one to me, and sits at the table. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t, so I continue. “I always knew this about my father—that he respected, was even amused by, anything powerful enough to derail his force. That’s why I thought it would be OK to tell the truth about who I was. I thought he’d respect that I was changing his blueprints for me. Oh, boy, was I wrong.”

“Nicolo’s father never knew that his son is a man who likes men. He was disappeared before Nicolo spoke of it. I wonder how Gianni would react to this. He loved his manly sister, but perhaps it is different when it is your son, no?”

I refuse to cut slack. “It shouldn’t be. He should love Nicolo no matter what.”

Nicolo’s mother takes a drink of wine and slowly lowers her glass to the table. She sets it down without a sound, as if she’s well practiced at hiding her presence. “It is one of the worst things about losing him. I don’t know how Gianni would change. What he would think today. How he would look. My last memories of him are so sad. It was an awful time. The government was taking everyone. Teachers, students, priests, union leaders, journalists. Everyone knew what was happening, but no one would talk about it. People went on with their business as if all is well.” She takes another quiet sip of wine and lowers her glass. “When Gianni was taken, I went to our friend, who is a lawyer. But he would not help me. No one would. The lawyers are afraid they would be disappeared if they help. Gianni’s friend at the newspaper helped me with the habeas corpus document. I took it to the judge myself. He read it. He stared at me and said nothing.”

“This sounds like the McCarthy stuff that happened in America,” I tell her.

“Joseph McCarthy,” she says with contempt. “Yes. And Hitler. But we had lots of McCarthys and Hitlers.” She rises from the table and goes to the counter, where she takes two ripe peaches and cuts them into chunks. She transfers them into a bowl and pushes the bowl toward the back of the counter. She then slices the kernels off two ears of corn and cuts some potatoes, including a sweet potato, and adds them all to the pan. “They don’t know what they do to the family,” she says, slicing a piece of squash into chunks. “My dear Graciela was an artist,” she says through slightest tears while putting the squash in with the rest of the ingredients. “What do they want with an artist? A sweet girl who sells her little paintings down on the Caminito? What possible threat is she? After her father disappeared, she paints what she feels in her heart. She paints these people, los desaparecidos, as angels that sacrifice their lives for the rest of us. She paints them leaving their homes, their cars, their jobs, their families, to fly to heaven. For this they kill her.” She stands in the kitchen, shaking her head.

“If they killed these people,” I ask, “why are they called the disappeareds?”

She sits at the table with me. “I have no answer. I only know that Gianni and Graciela were killed because my brother told me so.” She takes the bottle of wine and refills our little glasses. “My brother was an officer in the navy. He had enough connection to know. He would not tell me how it was done. Only that it was. Nicolo will not forgive his uncle. He believes his uncle is guilty of their murders, even though it was not at his hands and he learned of it after. Guilty, because he does not speak. Does not speak to tell the truth and make a stop to what was happening to so many people.”

The garlic, onion, meat, and vegetables are creating a delicious scent of steam that mixes well with the taste of the wine. I want to take off my shoes, stay, and eat. “And you, Mrs. Feragamo? What do you think?”

“I think that my family has seen enough pain,” she says, stalwart. “I cannot allow you to hurt my son. I will continue to protect him.”

“How? He’s a grown man, senora.”

She stiffens, changes expression. “I do what I must. I think that you should leave,” she says, rising from the table.

Her word choice hits me. “How will you continue to protect him?” I ask, staying put.

“I will make sure he does not receive your calls . or your letters.”

‘

I spring from my chair. “Is that what you’ve been doing?” I ask incredulously.

“Yes, it is,” she answers, her head held high in a righteous pose.

“Those times I came to the house you didn’t tell him?”

“No.”

“And when I called?”

“No,” she answers, still in her pose.

“The letter did you send it back unopened?”

“Yes.”

“Nicolo never saw it?”

“No.”

“God, I can’t believe this!” I shout. “You sabotaged me. You haven’t even heard my story, and you sabotaged me!”

“I did what is right for my son,” she answers, resolute. “Now leave this house.”

I’m enraged. “What the hell are you trying to do? Disappear me?”

She looks horrified. “Leave now!”

“How dare you. What makes you any different than the Argentinean government?” She gasps, but I furiously charge on. “You think you know what’s best for Nicolo, for me? You think you can your own clandestine outcome?”

“Largo de aquf!” she hisses, running to the door. “Largo!” “No!” I yell, my legs shaking with anger. My face is white hot and my brow is twitching in spasms, but I refuse her order to leave. “I’ve heard your story. Now you’ll hear mine!”

“One minute then I will call the police!”

I spew it out fast and furious. “I’m from a very wealthy family. And when my father died, he put a provision in the will that I had to be married by my next birthday if I wanted to collect. It’s a lot of money. A lot. And I’ve decided I want it. Is there anything wrong with that?”