Small Mercies (5 page)

When they came downstairs, Wade was sitting on the couch, watching television with Bobby. He stood up, introduced himself to Stephanie. After she shook his hand, she touched the fabric of his tan blazer and gave Tina a knowing glance. “Cashmere,” she’d said. And then added, “Very nice,” in case her point hadn’t been caught.

“Sorry for what?”

“You know, the whole cashmere comment.”

He laughs. The jacket suits him. So do the blue tie and the BMW. He’s not trying to be something else. This is him. He has money, he won’t shove it in your face, but he won’t hide it either. He’s not ashamed.

“I’m sorry I’m a little distracted. She told me tonight that she’s having another affair. Well, maybe not an affair, but that she screwed around with one of her husband’s friends.”

“Wow, you had some day. How did everything go with Mrs. Amendola, by the way?”

She finds it endearing that he calls Gail Mrs. Amendola. She has to remind herself that Wade knows her, that they may have even met for all she knows. It’s hard to imagine that; they seem to belong to different worlds entirely. But she is his good friend’s mother. He’s probably heard Peter complaining about Gail for years. Sometimes she finds it comforting that they have this preexisting connection; sometimes it makes her uneasy. Tonight is one of the uneasy times.

He’s driving without her guidance, making his way to the West Shore Expressway. She would have taken Hylan, then Father Capodanno to the bridge, but what’s the difference? Six one way, half dozen the other.

“It went fine, I guess. I don’t know. She’s tough to read sometimes. Did you ever meet Gail?”

“Once. In college. At graduation. A few of the families went out to dinner. I doubt she’d remember. There were probably fifty people at the dinner. We were all at different tables.”

He pauses, glances over at her. He’s tucked his upper lip into his mouth, his bottom teeth are gnawing on the indrawn flesh. She doesn’t know all his ticks yet, but she knows this one. He’s hesitating, trying to decide whether to tell her something.

“Go ahead,” she says.

“Bobby was there too. I met him. I remembered that the other day when you told me you were going to tell Gail.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what, she thinks, sorry you met my dead husband before he was dead? Or my husband? Sorry you told me? Sorry you didn’t tell me sooner? Or just plain sorry? Probably the last. There’s no easy way to talk about this.

“That’s okay. He must have been what? A senior in high school?”

“I think so. I remember Franky was teasing him about his girlfriend.”

“You mean me.”

“I guess so.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I know.”

She does a few swift calculations in her head, trying to line up certain events in relation to this meeting between Wade and Bobby: before or after. She slept with Bobby for the first time in April of their senior year. 1993. April 16th. At her house. Her parents away for the weekend. Peter’s graduation was in the middle of May. When Wade met Bobby, Bobby was not a virgin. They’d already made love. For reasons she cannot fathom, this is important to her. Crucial. Her panic subsides.

“I remember Peter telling me that Bobby and Franky were pretty close. Closer than he was to either of them.”

“Yeah, Bobby and Franky were tight. They were always together. Franky kinda went off the deep end after Bobby was killed.”

How is Franky going to react to all of this? She’s been so worried about telling Gail, but Franky is a different story altogether. He sees every little thing as an insult when it comes to Bobby’s memory; this will be a mortal sin. She’s always sensed that Franky had notions about maybe taking his brother’s place. Never stated, of course. Just a sense. But Franky’s darker thoughts have a way of making themselves heard.

Not tonight. She will not worry about this tonight.

“I’m sorry, but can we talk about something else.”

“Of course . . . tell me about your friend’s affair.”

She gives him the condensed version of Stephanie’s story: the Jets game, the hairs in the sink, Stephanie screwing Tommy Valenti. Wade listens to the whole story before rendering his verdict. He doesn’t interrupt like Bobby would have, peppering the story with exclamations of “No shit” or “Get the fuck outta here.” She can’t help herself; she catalogs their differences.

“Well, you can’t argue with her logic.
Who
does shave to go to a football game?”

“She’s crazy, but I’m guessing she’s not wrong. Vinny’s a scumbag.”

She feels self-conscious, a little coarse, a little Staten Island, using that word. She reminds herself that Wade is a grown man who has certainly heard worse, no matter what kind of jacket he wears.

“He used to work on the floor of the stock exchange. He was a specialist; I think that’s what they were called.”

“Oh, Stephanie is married to
that
Vinny. The specialist.”

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

“I remember Peter telling me about it. How some guy he knew from Staten Island got jammed up in the specialist investigation and he had to get him a lawyer.”

“Yeah, Petey was too concerned with his own image to take the case himself. Can’t have the gindaloons from Staten Island roaming the halls at his precious law firm.”

Wade grimaces.

“I’m sorry, I know he’s your friend.”

“It’s okay. In fairness, though, it’s really not the sort of work he does. I don’t think he handles that kind of criminal stuff. Not for individuals anyway. And on top of that, it was probably best for Vinny to get a lawyer he didn’t know.”

That’s what Peter told Stephanie, but Tina always thought it was bullshit. An excuse not to deal with Vinny.

“How’s Vinny doing? Peter told me he didn’t end up getting indicted.”

“No, he didn’t, but there was another trial. The SEC, maybe? The whole thing ended up costing them a bundle. Vinny’s not even working now. I think he just day-trades.”

“I’m sure. Those guys had the rug pulled out from under them. There’s nothing left down there. They don’t need the Vinnys of the world anymore. All the exchanges, it’s the same thing.”

Wade sounds wistful. He has a way of talking that makes Tina feel secure, as if she’s in the hands of someone who has things sussed out. Who knows which path the world is going down and has prepared himself. He doesn’t have Bobby’s hard-charging physicality. His masculinity is more subtle, but he can protect and provide.

That’s what Tina really meant earlier when she told Stephanie he was different. She doesn’t think of Bobby every time she looks at Wade. The few other guys she dated or considered dating—the city workers and the union members, the business owners and the blue collar drinkers, all the Staten Island boys who lived their entire lives on a slab of land large enough that they forget it’s an island—all those guys, they were just bad copies of Bobby. Inadequate copies. He was the absolute best possible version of that man, the absolute best. To try to love some lesser version of him would be the greatest insult to his memory she could imagine. If she wanted to feel love (and she was still young and wanted to love and be loved in return), she needed to meet someone who didn’t feel like a cheap imitation of her dead husband.

But how do you do that when all you meet is thirty tiny variations on the same theme? The same bodies sustained by pasta and bread and meat; thick of neck; firemen and cops and sanitation workers, and the occasional accountant or lawyer thrown in for good measure; Italian or Irish or maybe something else but not likely; good men mostly, solid, dependable men who work hard and don’t expect much of the world, but men who you look at across the table and think only this: you are not Bobby. You will never be Bobby.

You don’t. So she stopped trying. Until her dead husband’s older brother called her and said, I have someone I’d like you to meet, and she demurred, and then he said, He’s a widower, his wife was killed in a car accident three years ago, and she thought, What the hell, and so they had one dinner and he made you laugh with his unexpected sarcasm and old-fashioned manners, then they had another and he made you laugh again, and then they had a few more dinners and then he met your kids. . . .

“Have you spoken to Peter lately?”

Wade’s question suggests news of some kind.

“No, not really. Why?”

“I think he and Lindsay are going through a rough patch.”

“Bullshit. The Stepford couple?”

“I think so.”

He sounds grim, like a doctor giving an unfavorable prognosis. Tina wonders whether Gail knows. Peter’s the successful son, lives in Westchester, partner at a law firm. Gail always jokes that he’s gone lace curtain, but she’d be crushed if something actually impinged on his perfect life. Marital problems are for people like Stephanie and Vinny, not Peter and Lindsay.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s not that. I just hope I didn’t put too much on Gail’s plate today. And Peter’s the golden boy, never does anything wrong.”

He reaches over and grips her hand.

“Sorry.”

Stephanie’s teasing has stuck in Tina’s head; she was trying to turn this into something base, something vulgar. Not sex but money, Stephanie rubbing her fingers together. Tina looks out the front windshield and sees the blue span of the Verrazano approaching.

“Do you care if we don’t go to Per Se?”

“I guess not but . . .”

“Get off at this exit. Here. Now.”

The urgency in her voice surprises her.

“Jesus.”

He swerves toward the Lily Pond Avenue exit, cutting in front of a low-slung Camaro. Tina watches the car’s passenger window slide down. A Hispanic teen in a Yankees hat nonchalantly gives them the finger as the car reaccelerates away from them and climbs toward the bridge.

“We have to cross over. Go back the other way. Make a left here.”

Wade makes the left and after a few hundred feet, he pulls onto the shoulder, puts the car in park, and turns on the blinkers. They are parked underneath the on-ramp to the bridge, a half mile of quasi-tunnel. A few cars zip past, but the traffic is light.

“Where the fuck are we going?”

His usually placid face is curled with annoyance. Tina hasn’t ever seen him angry. She unbuckles her seat belt, leans over, and kisses him, shoving her tongue into his mouth. His anger fades and he responds in kind. She pulls away, a little, so their eyes are inches apart.

“Only to get the best fucking pizza in the world.”

She kisses him again, closes her eyes, and lets the world narrow to the entwining of their tongues.

* * *

Denino’s is packed. A throng of people stand in the crammed entryway, waiting to be seated. Families spill into one another at long planks of connected tables. Crews of oversize men squeeze into booths. A large group of teenagers sits in prim tribute to times gone by: girls on one side of the table, boys on the other, the space between them heavy with hormones. Old and young, sweaters and jeans, earrings and chains, pitchers of beer and soda, silver plates with bubbling pies, the air thick with the smell of garlic and oregano. A raucous, semicommunal pizza party; every soul in the room content.

Tina and Wade slide past the crowd in the hall. The woman at the hostess stand—ancient, white-haired, Italian—gives Wade the once-over before taking his name. Wade navigates them to an empty stool at the bar, turns it so Tina can sit, stands next to her as they wait. He orders a pitcher of Bud. Every few minutes the music stops and a name is announced.
Esposito, party of four. Esposito, party of four.
The bar is packed. A few of the guys glance at Wade, scoping the jacket and tie. He stands out, no doubt, tall and upright in a room of stocky and hunched, but if Wade feels out of place, he doesn’t show it. Tina is overdressed as well, but no one seems to notice or care. When the pitcher arrives, Wade has to take out his wallet to pay. Tina can’t help thinking that Bobby would have had a twenty already in hand.

Crowley, party of eleven. Crowley, party of eleven.

“So this is the famous Denino’s,” Wade says as he fills their glasses.

“Peter used to talk about it, I guess,” says Tina.

“Oh, just a little.”

“It’s not Per Se, I know.”

Wade loosens his tie, unfastens the top button on his shirt.

“That’s okay. After the make-out session in the car, White Castle would have been fine.”

Tina laughs, feels giddy. She nearly crawled on top of Wade in the car and got the act itself over with, out of the way. Another obstacle removed. But she held back, a grown woman’s urges losing out to the vaguely virginal desire to mark the first occasion as special. The truth is that he does it for her, excites her in that way, in a way that no one since Bobby has, even though it’s for different reasons. She reaches a hand over, puts it on his chest.

“I feel like I’m back in high school or something.”

“Shit, I wish I knew you in high school.”

She laughs again. Wade flashes a thin, crafty smile, satisfied that he can amuse her.

“No, you don’t. I was a prude.”

Donato, party of six. Donato, party of six
.

Tina finishes her beer. Wade refills her glass. A few minutes drift by. The smell of the place has woken her stomach. She’s hungry, hasn’t really eaten all day. The beer is already affecting her, her mind is floating alongside the hum of the room.

Alderson, party of two. Alderson, party of two.

“That’s us.”

They walk back to the hostess stand, Wade holding the half-empty pitcher and their glasses. The ancient woman walks them to a small booth, does a perfunctory wipe of the tabletop, and drops a stack of paper plates and silverware on the table. A waitress in a black T-shirt comes over. Wade defers to Tina.

Tina orders: a pepperoni pie, another pitcher of beer. Wade removes his tie completely, tucks it into an interior pocket in his jacket.

“What kind of name is Alderson anyway?”

“High WASP. My father’s people came over on the
Mayflower,
but my mother was off the boat from County Leitrim. Came here by herself when she was nineteen.”