The Orange Blossom Special (6 page)

The heat, that's what this must be about, she thought, rubbing her fingers over the nubby terrain of her arms. The books never mentioned the humidity. Tessie constantly felt as if she were wrapped up in a coat that was too heavy. It made her steps cumbersome and her
thoughts sluggish. The air in Carbondale was brisk; it didn't try to sink you. Here the heat took root and strangled everything in its path. Staying cool was the biggest accomplishment. They had fans in every room, but fans just moved the hot air around. Sometimes Tessie took three cold baths in one day.

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror dabbing Calamine lotion on her skin. “Look at this,” she said to Dinah, who had just woken up. “All over me, just like the measles.” Dinah considered the little eruptions and saw the tension in her mother's face as she tried to keep from scratching. “Don't I look attractive today? How ever will I go to work like this?” Dinah wondered if it wasn't as obvious to her mother as it was to her: it was the cat, scratching back. What Dinah didn't know was that the night before, Tessie had placed a piece of paper in the Jerry Box. “Should I tell Dinah the truth?” she had written in a shaky hand. Now the answer was written all over her.

“Dinah, honey,” she said, rubbing the Calamine into the crook of her arm. “We should talk about what happened last night.”

“Forget it, Mom. I've got to get ready for school.”

Suddenly Dinah couldn't wait to get to homeroom. She knew Eddie Fingers would be in his seat when she got there. Without realizing it, Dinah had come to rely on him. She felt safe in his presence and took comfort in their silent dialogue.

When she got to her seat, Eddie was waiting. She flashed him a quick four.
What about the cat?
He considered her message before responding. For the first time, he used all six fingers on his left hand to signal back. Maybe he smiled, Dinah couldn't tell. She carried the number six with her through Phys. Ed, through Civics, English, and to the cafeteria. As she was looking out the window of Mr. Nanny's Geometry class, the six words revealed themselves to her:
The answer is clear as glass.

It made her smile to hear her dad's voice as she played the words over in her mind. That afternoon, she and Crystal walked home together. “My mom ran over a cat last night,” she said.

“Did it die?” asked Crystal.

“I'm sure it did. The weird thing was, she drove off real fast and pretended like it didn't happen.”

Crystal bit the inside of her lip. “My mom's like that too, you know, doing one thing and saying it was something else.”

Dinah felt the warmth of relief flood her belly. She had told Crystal a forbidden secret. Crystal understood, even made it sound as if Mrs. Landy and her mom had something in common.

The answer is clear as glass.

Crystal. That's what was clear as glass.

“T
HE BARON'S COMING TODAY
,” said Glenn Bech Jr., handing Tessie a bunch of carnations for her desk.

“So that explains the suit,” she said.

“And the haircut,” he answered, wiggling his ears.

Ever since she started her job, the Bech family, owners of Lithographics, would tease her about her flat
a
's, and ask her to pronounce words like
pajamas.
“Pajaahmahs,” she'd say, purposely stretching out the second syllable. Then she'd poke back: “Well, at least I don't have that Florida y'all drawl.”

Only one month into the job, Old Man Bech had said to her, “Just call me Glenn, and my son here Glenn Junior. Don't you think that will be easier all around, Tess?” The Bechs were part of the business elite in Gainesville, yet they made her feel as if she could match up. No one had ever called her Tess before. It sounded efficient yet familiar. She liked the sound of her own voice on the phone, “Lithographics. How may I help you?” But her favorite thing was having her own desk. At Angel's, she was on her feet all day. Some nights,
she would hobble home and collapse on the sofa. Jerry would pull out his mother's old white enamel basin and fill it with warm water and Epsom salts. “We've got to find you a sit-down job,” he'd say, taking one foot at a time in his hands and kneading her toes. She hoped, somehow, he could see her seated at her gray metal desk with the words
Mrs. Lockhart
engraved on the plastic nameplate in front of her.

T
WICE A YEAR
, the Baron would come from Fort Lauder-dale to get programs printed for his Jai Alai games in Dania. Dania Jai Alai was Lithographics' fastest-growing account, with all the snowbirds eager to throw money at one of the few legal gambling joints in the South. The Baron, whose real name was Barone Antonucci, was an older man with tight gray curly hair, slightly thinning on the top, dark pitted skin, and black narrow eyes that seemed to take everything in but let little out. On this day, the second day of Tessie's rash, he walked through the door wearing a gray sharkskin suit, a royal-blue shirt, and a thick ID bracelet with the initials B.V.A. engraved on it. Everything about him defied you not to notice him.

“Well hello, you must be . . .” the Baron squinted at the nameplate before him. “. . . Mrs. Lockhart. Barone Antonucci. Nice to meet you.” He paused for a moment, taking in the sight of the funereal white carnations and this slight woman who resembled Joanne Woodward with mosquito bites. “Looks like you had a roll in a patch of poison ivy.” He winked as if he were part of the joke.

“No I didn't really,” she answered. “It's the heat. This heat . . . how do you people stand it?”

“Our people are hot-blooded. We can stand anything,” he answered. “How long have you been here?”

“We moved here three months ago.”

“It gets easier,” he said. “You'll see. Do you know where I can find Junior and Senior?”

“Oh, you mean Mr. Bech and Mr. Bech?” she asked.

“Yes and yes.” His laugh was deep and sharp.

She picked up the intercom to call them. The Baron stood over her with his hands at his sides. She noticed how his dark fingers curled as though he were carrying heavy valises. While they waited for the Bechs, Tessie tried conversation. “You've come all the way from Fort Lauderdale?”

“Did indeed,” he said. “Your joint makes all the printing plants in South Florida look like crap.”

“That's so nice,” she said, wishing the Bechs would hurry.

“Especially now.”

“I suppose so.” Oh God, where were they?

Finally, the Bechs appeared.

“Well, if it isn't the Glenns! How you guys hanging?”

“Long time, no see,” said Glenn Jr. “How the hell are you?” As the two men pumped each other's hands, the Baron's ID bracelet made a chunky noise.

“All the better for having met your new gal here. Now you take care of that heat problem,” he said, with another wink.

“Thank you, I sure will.”

The three men disappeared into the office. Tessie went to the ladies room to put some Calamine on her stomach. She pulled a cigarette from her bag. Where do men like that get their confidence? she wondered, taking a long drag on her Marlboro.

When she returned to her desk a few minutes later, she found a piece of paper neatly folded on her chair. Vellum. Expensive. She knew that. There was a silhouette of a man in the right-hand corner. Feet together, he was jumping into the air about to hit a ball. She recognized the
cesta,
the carved basketlike racket strapped to his forearm,
from pictures she'd seen of Jai Alai. “Dania Jai Alai,” read the embossed letters next to the figure, and under that, in the inverted handwriting of someone in a hurry: “Have lunch with me today, Mrs. Polka Dottie. I promise it won't be too hot. BVA.”

As she studied the note, her heart started pounding, her face flushed, and all hell broke loose inside of her. She raked her nails over her screaming skin until the angry pinpricks swelled into hives and her body turned crimson.

Who does he think he is? she thought, tucking the note into her purse.

Ten minutes later, after the Glenns had walked the Baron to his green and white Impala, Tessie's phone rang.

“Lithographics, how may I help you?”

“For one thing, you can meet me for lunch at Sundowner's in fifteen minutes.”

Tessie was silent as she collected her thoughts. “Oh, thank you, but I already have an engagement.”

“With whom? The crocodiles in Alley Pond?”

Tessie was so startled at having used the word engagement, she didn't even hear the Baron's answer.

“Well, it's not an engagement, really. It's just that I said I would meet a friend.”

“Okay, Dottie,” he said. “I'll call you soon and we'll make our own engagement.”

“Yes, well, thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

The phone went dead.

Three days later, a letter landed on her desk. It was addressed to her and had the word
personal
scribbled in the bottom left-hand corner. Tessie recognized the heavy paper and the busy backward handwriting. Inside, there was one sheet of paper with no greeting, just
the following words. Tessie made sure no one was watching when she read them to herself in a faint whisper.

Last night I took a walk along the beach. The setting sun cast a golden glow across the water. From out of nowhere a little girl in a purple pinafore and a flowered scarf on her head came to me.

“Mister,” she said. “Won't you buy some of my magic shells?” I said to her, “What do your magic shells do?”

She said to me, “They make sad people happy and sick people well.” I thought about my new friend Dottie with the mean rash all over her body and said, “I know somebody who needs to feel better so I'll buy your shells.” I threw in an extra five to make sure the happy part was covered. Here they are. I hope they do the trick.

When Tessie turned over the envelope, fragments of shell fell onto her desk. She wondered how a man who looked like Caeser Romero and wore a gold pinky ring with an opal came up with such a sweet story. That night, she slipped a note into the Jerry Box. “There's a man,” was all it said. The answer came back in the next day's mail. Again, the heavy envelope, the zigzag handwriting.

I went back to the beach last night. Our little shell friend was there again. “What've you got for a guy with a big fat crush on a woman who doesn't even know he's alive?” I asked her. She pulled out a cigar box and opened its lid. Inside were little creatures in the shape of an S.

I ended up shelling out (no pun, ha ha) ten bucks for a handful of seahorses.

“Whatever you ask for will come true,” she promised.

That you'll have lunch with me was what I wished for. Just lunch. How bad could it be? June 4. Noon at Sundowner's.

“Just lunch. How bad could it be?” She could hear Jerry's voice. It was funny to think that he and Barone Antonucci might be in cahoots. I can't do this, she thought. What would we talk about? He's a dangerous man. It's more than a month away. He'll forget by then. Besides, what would I wear?

B
ARONE ANTONUCCI WAS
raised in a household of boys who were never expected to be any more than a lot of trouble. Their father, Christian, had worked his way up through the restaurant supply business. For thirty-two years he got up every morning at 5:30 and took a trolley half an hour from Bay Ridge to Red Hook, where he reigned over Peerless Restaurant Supplies, an old warehouse full of cast-iron fryers, ceramic plates, and stemware with names like the Salud Grande martini glass. Christian always told his boys that he could walk into any restaurant in New York City and spot his butter dishes or table settings right away. “I've laid the groundwork,” he would tell his sons. “All you guys have to do is not screw it up.”

Barone was seven the first time his father came across the book he used to sketch close-ups of things like his own hand or his sleeping brother's face. Christian noticed the thick black pad that was stuck in the middle of a pile of comic books when he came in to say good night to the boys. “What have we here?” he demanded, pulling the book from the stack. Christian didn't like surprises; he knew what was best for his boys and what course their lives should take. He sat on Barone's bed studying the drawings. He licked the tip of his index finger to turn the pages, making sure none of them stuck. The last
picture in the pad was a still life of Mrs. Antonucci's apron hanging from a hook behind the kitchen door. Barone had sketched it while he kept his mother company one night as she cooked.

“Why'd you draw this one?” Christian asked, his thick finger jabbing at the image of the apron. “You think that's pretty?” Barone answered tentatively. “I liked the colors. I liked how the apron looks like a shell.

“What are you, a little faggot or something?” Christian slapped Barone on the side of the head. “Drawing is for sissies. Aprons are for sissies. There are no sissies in the Antonucci family. You get that?” Christian smacked him on the other side of the head for emphasis.

Barone absorbed his father's blows. “That didn't hurt,” he said, as if asking for more. But Christian just stood up, dropped the sketch book to the floor, and walked out of the room. After that, no one in the Antonucci family ever mentioned the word
drawing
again, and Christian fell back to his assumption that his boys would follow him into the restaurant supply business.

Every now and again Barone's mother, Dora, would obliquely ask him how his work was going. “Good,” he'd say, not bothering to mention that by eighth grade he was doing oil on canvas and by his freshman year he'd decided that he was going to become a painter and live in Paris. All through high school, he worked for his father and stashed every penny he earned in the brass safe box that his grandfather had given him on his confirmation. By the time he was seventeen, Barone was five feet nine inches, four inches taller than Christian. On the night that he announced to his parents that he was going to Paris after graduation, he watched his father's face turn the color of a rainy day. “Is that what you call work?” he shouted. “Over my dead body, no son of mine is going to be some highfalutin artist.” He balled his fist, getting ready to strike. But Barone grabbed
him by the wrists and pinned his arms to his sides. “There'll be no more of that,” he said, leaving red handprints on each wrist. One week later, he sailed for Paris.