when my father was six, he used a VA loan to buy the half that Leo, Starr and I live in now. When the Goodmans next door decided to move to Jersey in ’73, Nana and Leo bought the other side for my parents and sister, who was then a year old. The rationale was, since my father and grandfather were now partners in the shoe store over on Atlantic Avenue, why not live close to each other, too? I’ve often wondered how my mother felt about this arrangement, especially as she and my grandmother did not get along. Of course, my grandmother never got along particularly well with anybody, save for maybe my sister.
I pass Mrs. Patel’s, across the street and a couple houses down from mine, trying to remember when she first put up the plastic flamingo. Junior High, I think. Brightly illuminated by a pair of spotlights, he leans rakishly in her speck of a yard, still dressed in his Santa Claus hat.
The windows in both of our houses are lit up; a muted salsa beat throbs from the Gomez apartment, from what had been our living room when I still lived there. My gaze shifts to the other side, where I live now with my daughter and grandfather. And out of nowhere the thought comes, What if you never leave this house? What if you end up marking every season for the rest of your life by whatever outfit Mrs. Patel’s flamingo is wearing?
My blood runs cold. Home is all well and good, but your childhood home is someplace you’re supposed to be able to come back and visit, not rot in—
“Hey, you! You forget where you live or what?”
That’s Frances. Scardinare. Luke’s mother. Figures she’d get home the same time as me. Not that I don’t love Frances, but sometimes there just isn’t room in your head for anybody else.
But I smile anyway. Between Mrs. Patel’s spotlights and these damn halogens, the street’s lit up practically like it’s daytime. “Just trying to figure out if I’ve got the energy to haul my butt up these stairs, that’s all.”
“I know what you mean.” Frances passes her own stoop, her long, thin arms weighted down with several grocery bags. Let me tell you, when I hit my late fifties? I should look half as good as Frances does. Not that I will, considering she’s a good head taller than I am and has all this incredible bone structure. And legs. Even after six kids, she’s still a size ten. Without dieting. And since she started earning her own money selling real estate a couple years ago, she dresses well. Has her hair done at Reggio’s once a month, too, this really flattering, layered style that sets off her big eyes and high cheekbones. And somehow, it stays looking good between cuts. Me, my hair already looks like it’s growing out by the time I’ve tipped the shampoo girl.
Still clutching the bags, Frances holds out one arm for a hug, her wide mouth splayed in a huge grin. My heart does a little skip: when my mother died and my grandmother didn’t seem any too hot on the idea of filling the gap in my life, Frances did, like a mother cat taking on an extra kitten. The woman scares the snot out of me, but I would not have survived my teenage years without her. Or at least, I doubt anyone else would have.
She lets go, a frigid breeze toying with her dark hair. “Did you hear? Petie and Heather are finally getting married!”
Pete’s—nobody, but nobody besides Frances can get away with calling him “Petie”—the brother after Luke, a year younger. Heather Abruzzo was three years behind me, I think, but her older sister Joanne used to hang out with Tina and me from time to time when we were teenagers. “No! When?”
“June, when else—?”
My front door pops open; with an affronted, “Geez, finally!” my daughter shoots out of the house and down the steps to the icy sidewalk, fusing to my hip. I hug her back, noticing she’s in her nightgown and Elmo slippers.
“Get back inside, you’ll catch your death!”
Through her glasses, reproachful, and slightly pitying, brown eyes roll up to meet mine. “You don’t catch colds from the cold. You catch ’em from germs.”
I do know this, actually. But it’s unnerving hearing it from someone who’s still short enough to ride the bus for free.
“Maybe so.” I scoop her up into my arms—it’s like picking up a dust bunny, she’s so light—and kiss her on her cold, freckled little nose. I want to eat her up, even as the thought that we’re stuck with each other forever still gives me pause. “But you could get frostbite,” I say, “and that would be a lot worse, ’cause then your toes’d fall off.”
That gets a considering look. I can tell she doesn’t quite believe it, but is this really a chance she wants to take?
“Go back inside, Twink,” I say, putting her down, feeling like a fraud, wondering if I’d feel less like one if she’d been planned. If I could tell her the truth about her father. If I knew the truth about her father. “I’ll be up in just a minute, I promise.”
“Swear?”
“Swear.”
She trudges back up the stairs, a tiny, shivering figure in flowery flannel, only to turn and threaten me: If I’m not inside by the time the big hand’s moved to the next number, she’s coming to get me.
After the door closes, Frances laughs. Then she says, “You’re getting home kind of late, aren’t you?”
“It’s not seven yet,” I say, but she gives me this reproving stare, her mouth all screwed up, then sighs.
“You work too hard.”
“And you don’t?”
“My kids are grown. Or nearly.” Her five oldest sons are out of the house; the youngest, Jason, is seventeen and probably wishes he was. “It doesn’t matter if I’m not there to cook their dinner.” I laugh, and she rolls her huge, almost black eyes. “Okay, so maybe I never did cook their dinner, but at least I was there. And speaking of dinner—” she shifts her bags to one hand, flexing the fingers on the other “—we’re going up to Salerno’s, you and Leo and the baby should come with us. Our treat.”
Frances and Jimmy are always like this, wanting to take us to dinner, their treat. Of course, my grandfather is just as bad, which gets to be a major headache when he and Jimmy start fighting over the bill.
“Starr’s already in her jammies.”
“So she’ll get dressed again. It’s barely seven. What’s the big deal?”
“Leo did brisket.”
“Which is always better the next day, right? So come on, you look like you could do with a night out. And if you’re there, we might even be able to enjoy our meal without looking at Jason’s sulky face all night.”
An understatement if ever there was one. My needing a night out, I mean, although I know what she means about Jason’s sulking, too. Poor kid. Adolescence has hit him harder than all his brothers combined. Not that the Scardinare testosterone surges didn’t terrorize the neighborhood for several years—there was an eight-or ten-year period when there were at least four teenagers in the house at any given time—but I guess it’s harder on Jason, being the baby and not having his older brothers around all that much. He’s like a walking David Lynch movie—very dark, very weird, with lots of incomprehensible erotic undertones. If I hadn’t baby-sat for him when he was little, he’d probably creep me out.
To further complicate things, I think he has a crush on me. He’s over here constantly when I’m not at work, following me around, his big moony eyes peering out at me through his straggly black bangs, like prisoners who’ve lost all hope. Think Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, then multiply by ten. And like Cher, I want to smack the poor kid and yell “Snap out of it!”
But I don’t have the heart.
Then I remember, with a sickening thud, the main reason, or reasons, I can’t leave the house tonight: Tina. Whom I’m supposed to meet in a little over an hour.
“Mama!” Starr’s shrill little voice darts out from the doorway. Her hands are on her hips. “The big hand’s moved past two numbers! That’s ten