THE SIXTEENTH DAY . . .
(Saturday, June 27, just before dinner
shift)
CÉCE:
He comes into the
walk-in for take-out Parmesan and finds me having one of my
spontaneous meltdowns. I’m an ugly crier, face gets all scrunched
up. Mortified he’s seeing me like this. “I’m totally
PMS-ing.”
“I don’t
mind.”
“I do.”
He sits next to me on
the cheese wheel and puts his arms around me. He’s thin but really
strong. I bury my head in the space between his neck and shoulder.
“I think I’m getting snot on your shirt,” I say.
“A little snot never
killed anybody,” he says. “Not right away anyway.” And that’s the
exact moment I fall in love with Mack Morse. My mouth aches from
all the kissing this past week, like I’ve been doing push-ups with
my lips.
“I got six points
lower on my SAT II bio than I thought I would.”
“That’s better than
seven points lower. Better than nine lower too, for another
example.”
“Carmella was so
drunk last night she fell asleep on the toilet.”
“Better than wetting
the bed.”
I tell him about The
Anthony Nightmare.
Mack Morse doesn’t
tell me to stop crying or try to hush me. He doesn’t even say it’ll
be okay. He just lets me talk, and he listens to me. And he strokes
my hair.
“Three days, he’s on
that plane, and I’ll never see him again. I swear, I just
feel it.” I pull a slice of cheesecake,
and we split it. “That commencement scene was insane. The whole
place exploded when they called his name. They were cheering,
Cooooooch, and To-ny, To-ny, like at the
end of Rocky.”
“I heard of that
movie. I wish I could have seen it.”
“We’ll Netflix
it.”
“Tony’s graduation, I
meant.”
Somebody had to stay
back to line cook lunch. Vic trusted Mack enough to leave him in
charge. Here I am bitching, and I didn’t even think to ask him how
he made out. Holding down the fort at the Too isn’t easy when all
you have for help is Marcy. “How was lunch?”
“Slow. I think we
turned fourteen. One big take-out hit, though. Forty pies. Some
slow pitch tournament going on up at the reservoir
fields.”
“Did Marcy at least
spin a couple of the pies? No, because she was worried about her
nails. The cuticles. Getting flour in them. I’m gonna kill
her.”
“She was a bit, well,
blue today, I think.”
“She wants to jump
you, and she’s pissed you won’t look at her. Blue. You mean bitchy.”
“I’d never say that
about a girl. Come to think about it, I probably wouldn’t say it
about a dude either. Yeah, nah, I definitely wouldn’t. For a
dude who was acting nasty I would
probably say he was being a—”
“Mack?”
“Yeah?”
I know him two weeks,
and I feel compelled to tell him I love him. But that would be like
giving a guy a blow job on the first date. Must keep impulsive
psycho persona in check. Must. Not. Scare away this boy. “Kiss my
neck.”
He does.
“You know I’m
bananas, right?”
“My favorite fruit,”
he says.
We talk between
kisses. “Have no idea what I want to do with my life,” I
say.
“Because you can do
anything you want.”
“Yeah
right.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Right. Look at all the stuff you do so great. Doing good in
school. Looking after your mom. Being a good sister. A good friend
to Marcy, the best girlfriend to me.”
“You did not just
call me your girlfriend.”
“Pretty sure I did,”
he says. “You’re gonna draw blood from my neck, you bite any
harder. It’s got to be tough choosing from a ton of opportunities.
It’ll come to you, what you’re called to.”
“How ’bout you?” I
say. “Your dream life. What’re you called to do?”
“Tell you what, right
about now, I’m hoping it’s being with you.”
“Before I suck your
tongue out of your head, two questions.”
“Tell
’em.”
“1.a., do you or do
you not love cheesecake?”
“I love what you
love.”
“Totally correct
answer. 2.b., do you or do you not believe in ESP?”
“If you
do.”
“Has to be yes or
no.”
“Let’s say I have a
picture in my half a mind. I see you and me at the fun park, on
that freefall thing. If that comes true, then I guess I’m seeing
the future.”
“Can you read my
mind?”
“Oh, yeah, of
course,” he says.
“Then what am I
thinking?”
“Right now?” He puts
his hand up my shirt.
“You are a mind reader.” I pin him against the tiramisu
tray. The stickpin he gave me digs into my boob. I know this is
corny, but I’m never taking it off. I’m seeing stars, flashing
lights. A phone camera flash. Marcy jumps back from the
door.
“We just got
Facebashed.” I run to bitch her out, and I smack right into
Carmella, arms crossed, tapping her foot.
Mack comes out with
his hand in his pocket to hide his hard-on and ducks out the alley
door to where he keeps the delivery bike. “Sorry ma’am,” he says as
he goes.
“Sorry Ma,” I say as
I try to squeeze past her.
“Just a minute,
sister. C’mere.”
“I gotta fold
napkins, babe.”
“Don’t babe
me, chica. Look here.” She leans close
and looks into my eyes. She nods. “Okay.”
“Okay
what?”
“Let’s just keep it
that way,” she says.
“What are you not
talking about?”
“You know what I’m not talking about.” She grabs a rack
of pizza dough and swings it into the front kitchen.
I follow her, head
down.
“Slut,” Marcy
hisses.
“Not yet,” I
say.
“Prude.”
Vic’s reading the
paper. He puts it to the side, dips his head, and looks over his
glasses at me. “How’s the studying coming?”
“Huh?”
“Hello, the G and
T?”
“Yeah, no, good,” I
say. “Ready to rock.”
“Define circumspect.”
I shrug.
“Look it up.” He
winks as he heads out to the bar.
Now it’s just me and
Anthony. He’s got his arms folded and he’s nodding. “Better be good
while I’m gone, kid.”
“You practically
smashed us together in the first place, so shut the flip
up.”
He headlocks me and
knuckles the top of my head.
“I’m still not going
with you to the airport.”
“Yeah, you will.
After an hour’s worth of Ma’s begging and your repeated, adamant
refusal, you’ll fly out of the house as Ma is pulling out of the
driveway.”
“Will you stop being
such a dick? You’re hurting me.” I pinch his arm to free myself of
his headlock.
Marcy was right: Mack
pinches the inside of his wrist sometimes.
(Three days later, Tuesday, June 30,morning of the nineteenth day . . .)
“Céce Vaccuccia, you
need to stop hugging your pillow.” Anthony is at my door with a
basketful of folded laundry under his arm, rifling balled socks at
me. “I’m being generous, using the word hugging. Let’s go, breakfast is on the
table.”
“I’ll die if I have
to eat another slice of cornbread.”
“Then you’ve been
spared, because this morning she made corn muffins.”
A last sock ball
bounces off my head.
Total sex-dream
hangover. My tongue hurts, means I was glomming in my sleep. Alarm
clock says 7:30, and for a second I think it’s a school day, but
this is the day. He’s leaving this
afternoon.
He makes me go with
him to say good-bye to his teachers. They’re cleaning up, getting
ready for summer school, which is always crowded around
here.
“Oh man, another Vaccuccia?” Anthony’s English teacher says.
“Say it ain’t so.”
It ain’t so. I’ll
never fill my brother’s shoes.
Everybody tells him
they’re proud of him and praying for him. “Not that you
need prayers,” Mrs. Hardwick says.
“You’re going to be just fine,
Anthony.”
He’s going to be in a
war zone in six months. He has nine weeks of basic training, and
then they send him to San Antonio for specialized training for
sixteen weeks, unless for some reason he doesn’t make it through
boot camp, which is impossible. The guy runs a 4:30 mile and his
GPA was 98.61.
He signed a 68-W
contract: combat medic. My big brother. For all intents and
purposes a father to me, even though he’s only three years older,
thanks to the fact that my crazy mother is a loser magnet. In the
back of our fridge is this leftover takeout that’s been there for
three months, and that’s longer than any of Ma’s idiot boyfriends
ever hung around.
Here’s my problem
with the 68-Whiskey assignment: Take out the line medic, and you
cripple the platoon. 68-W’s get shot at a lot.
The airport is
mobbed. Mack and Ant do that man-hug thing: bang chests, pound
backs way too hard—guys are idiots. Next up is Carmella. She’s got
her head buried in his chest, and she’s bawling. He’s laughing as
he whispers something to her, and pretty soon she’s laughing. Next
up is me.
I am so out of here.
I turn away, but he pulls me back and swings me off my feet. He
throws me high, like when we were kids in the public pool, and he
taught me how to swim. He lets me drop, breaking my fall at the
last second. I’m trying not to be light-headed, but my stomach is
still floating up there, and I can’t help smiling. When he puts me
down, I shove him away and run for the parking lot. I am not saying
good-bye. If I don’t say it, maybe he won’t die.
I won’t even be able
to talk to him for the first couple of weeks, and then only for a
couple of minutes on Sundays, if the drill sergeant feels like
letting them use their phones. No e-mail either.
Ma hangs on to Mack’s
arm as we walk back to the Vic-mobile. He gets the door for her.
“Such a gent, Mack.” She settles in behind the wheel. She’s wearing
giant sunglasses, her hangover hiders. You’d never know she’s been
crying if you didn’t catch the tear splat on her boob. She’s
smiling, but her lips are trembling. “Your ESP giving you anything
on this one, babe?”
I hold her hand.
“It’s telling me everything’s gonna be fine.” I don’t tell her that
last night I had a vision. Anthony is walking through a busy street
and a car parked next to him explodes.
She nods. “We’re all
set, then.”
“Absolutely.” For the
next six months anyway. Till he deploys.
Ma turns the key and
the car won’t start. Mack notices she left it in gear when she
parked.
“Oh.”
Out on the highway,
we get stuck in standstill traffic, and the jets look like they’re
going to land on us. I climb out of the shotgun seat and swing into
the back to be with my boyfriend. He squeezes my hand. Having him
here, right now? I’m suddenly calm. I was spinning so fast when I
ran out of the terminal. But he’s given me something to focus on:
him. He’s clutching a bunched-up envelope. “Tony gave it to me,” he
says. “Feels like there’s a quarter in it.”
“Open
it.”
“Maybe I ought to
read it later.”
“I wanna see,” I
say.
He hesitates. He
pinches his wrist.
“What’s
wrong?”
He tears the envelope
and unfolds the paper, a blank page wrapping a thin chain and a
medallion. He spills them into his hand. The medallion is worn
down, but you can still make out the engraving, a peace
sign.
“He had that around
his neck for as long as I can remember,” I say.
“Mack?” Carmella
says. “Put it on, babe.”
He does.
Ma nods. “It looks
good on you.”