Chapter 15
Justine found Kenny sprawled on the living room sofa, watching television.
Staring at him made her aware that he was growing up right in front of her eyes.
He’d grown several inches since the beginning of the year, his voice was deeper, and his body was filling out.
When Francis had asked if Kenny was physically a man, she had acknowledged he was, because several months ago, when she’d stripped the sheets from his bed, she saw stains she knew was semen.
She waited a few weeks before approaching him with what she’d discovered, and Justine was more embarrassed talking about it than her son.
He told her he’d read about puberty and what he had to expect and that even at twelve, if he had sex with a girl, there was the possibility that he could get her pregnant.
He wasn’t ready to become a father, because there were a lot of things he wanted to accomplish before assuming that role.
Kenny got up, turned off the television, then returned to the sofa. “I know you want to talk to me about Mr. Dee.”
Justine met a pair of eyes that were so much like her own. “Yes, I do.”
Kenny lowered his eyes as he stared at his clasped hands. “I’m sorry if you felt I was out of line for telling him he could date you.”
Reaching over, Justine covered his hands with her own. “I don’t ever want you to apologize for saying what you feel, because it’s coming from your heart. Now, tell me why you want me to go out with Mr. Dee?”
“First of all, I like him.”
“And not because you know that he likes Black women?”
Kenny bit his lip. “That, too. But Mom, it’s more than that.” He told Justine about the incident at the D’Allesandro home when the ex-convict cousin had disrupted Sunday dinner and Francis’s reaction to his cousin’s racist tirade.
“He banished his cousin from his family because of what he’d said about you and Ray?” she asked.
“Yup,” Kenny said. “And don’t forget that Frankie is half Irish. If Mr. Dee was willing to stand up to his cousin for me, then that makes him okay in my book.”
Justine gave him a sidelong glance. “Okay enough for him to take your mother out?”
“You never go out, Mom. You go to work, then come home to cook, clean, and type. When was the last time you went to the movies? Or out to a restaurant to eat?”
She wanted to tell her son she couldn’t remember.
She’d gone to the movies when she was a girl living with her mother in the Bronx, and it was so long ago she could hardly remember which ones they were.
And forget about eating in a restaurant.
Takeout joints weren’t restaurants with tablecloths and a waitstaff.
Typing had opened doors for Justine she knew she never would’ve been permitted to enter without enrolling in college.
Not only was she exposed to disciplines she would eventually take as a college student, but also to lifestyles granted to a select few when she typed a manuscript for an aspiring writer who’d grown up on Long Island’s Gold Coast. His fictional novel had pulled back the curtain he’d created about a young immigrant man who had fallen in love with a girl from a wealthy family and was forced to learn how to navigate a new world where social etiquette had become a priority for acceptance.
She had lived vicariously through the protagonist when he was forced to learn the protocol of which fork to use at a formal dinner, or when to wear a white or black tie.
Typing for others had offered her an education she didn’t have to pay for but paid her.
Precious Boone may have altered the course of her life, but Justine had to thank her and her mother for providing her with the opportunity to attend secretarial school to develop skills that afforded her the opportunity to earn extra money.
“It’s been a while, Kenny,” Justine admitted.
“That’s why you should let Mr. Dee take you out.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“What is there to think about, Mom?”
She gave him a look that said he’d crossed the line in challenging her. “That’s enough, Kenny.”
Kenny unclasped his hands and sat up straighter. “Why do you always shut me down when you don’t want to hear the truth? You know you spend too much time alone, and what’s going to happen when I go to college? Will you still be here in this apartment growing old and alone?”
Justine’s hand curled into tight fists to keep from slapping her son.
How dare he talk to her about her life, when she had sacrificed everything to raise him—alone.
She’d lied and continued to do so about his existence and a world she created where she could continue living a lie that had become so real she didn’t have to think of what to say.
“What you don’t know is that I’ve had to go through a lot of shit to get you to where you are today.
” Justine knew she’d shocked her son, because she rarely cursed in his presence.
“So, don’t you sit here and tell me what I should and should not do when it comes to my life when I’m responsible for you and not the other way around.
If I decide to go out with your Mr. Dee, then it will be my decision, not because you want it for whatever your reason is.
And if I decide not to see him, then that’s because I have my personal reasons for keeping him at a distance. ”
“Is it because he’s White, because you’re always talking about what White folks are doing to our people?” Kenny continued, refusing to back down.
Suddenly it hit Justine that Kenny was right, because most of her conversations with him were a recap of the nightly news with reporters talking about the Vietnam War or the Civil Rights Movement, unaware that as a teenage boy, he shouldn’t be bombarded with the horrors going on in the world when his focus should be going to school and hanging out with friends, regardless of their race or religion.
She’d made a grievous mistake when exposing her teenage son to events better left for adults.
Perhaps if she hadn’t moved from Harlem, then Kenny would have been exposed to the demonstrations boycotting F.W.
Woolworth because of their White-only lunch counters in Southern cities.
Justine was raising Kenny in a racially diverse neighborhood, where he attended school with kids from different races and ethnicities.
“It has nothing to do with him being White or Italian, Kenny,” she said in a softer tone. “Frankie’s uncle is a nice man, and I like him and—”
“Like him enough to let him date you?” Kenny said, cutting her off.
“Why are you like a damn dog with a bone, Kenny?” she countered angrily, “That won’t let it go?”
“And why are you cussing so much, Mom, when it’s something you never do?”
His reprimand suddenly hit Justine. She’d preached to Kenny that folks used profanity when they couldn’t come up with the appropriate word for something.
But she wasn’t about to apologize to him, not when he continued to challenge her.
And as a child, that was something Justine refused to accept. She was the adult, and he wasn’t.
“I’m going to say this, then this conversation is over,” she stated firmly.
“If I decide not to go out with your Mr. Dee, it has nothing to do with his race, because it’s Black folks who have hurt me far worse than Whites.
That’s something I will tell you about in the future.
Right now, we’ve agreed to be friends like you, Ray, and Frankie.
He will come here to eat, and if I feel comfortable enough with him, I will go to his place for dinner.
Our friendship will never lead to marriage, because that’s something neither of us want. ”
Her explanation seemed to please Kenny when he flashed a wide grin. “That’s cool.”
Justine leaned over to kiss his cheek, then pulled back at the last moment. He wasn’t a little boy who enjoyed his mother hugging and kissing him, but a young man capable of making her a grandmother.
“Yeah, real cool,” she said, smiling. “I’ve got more typing to do before I turn in for the night.”
“Don’t stay up too late,” Kenny teased.
She smiled. It was something she always told him. “Same to you.”
Justine moved off the sofa and walked to her home office.
To say the day was filled with surprises was an understatement.
First, there were the annoying telephone calls from Norman Robinson, then Frank’s unannounced arrival with a typewriter she’d been coveting for a long time.
Then her invitation for him to share dinner with her, his request to take her out, and her ambivalence in giving him the response she knew he wanted.
And in the end, they had agreed on friendship, because there was no place in her future where she could envision spending it with Francis D’Allesandro.
He would become someone just passing through her life, and it was impossible to predict whether she would be left with good or bad memories of him.
What had really thrown her for a loop was her son questioning her about her life.
That he was concerned she was going to grow old and be alone.
She hoped to grow old, and even if she ended up alone, she hoped to spoil the grandchildren Kenny would give her.
She wanted his life to turn out differently from her own when he’d fall in love, marry, and have a family where she would be able to spoil her grandbabies.
“Are you certain you want to work with me in the store this summer?” Giovanni D’Allesandro asked his son.
Frankie stared at his father. “I told you before that’s what I want to do, Poppa. Why are you asking me again?”
Gio shared a smile with his wife. “Because I’ve decided to close the store for two weeks and take your mother and the girls to Italy for vacation.”
Frankie slowly blinked. “What about me?”
“You can stay with your Nonna if you want, or come with us.”
Suddenly it dawned on Frankie that his father was joking with him. There was no way he was going to take his family to Italy and leave his son behind. “I think I’ll go with you guys.”
Kathleen rested a hand on his back. “There was no way we were going to leave you here. Remember when we all went to the photographer to have our pictures taken because I said my mother wanted updated pictures of her grandchildren?” Frankie nodded.
“That’s when I had him take photos for everyone’s passports. ”
Frankie recalled his father telling his wife that the store was losing money; since the supermarkets opened, he’d lost a number of his customers.
The ones that had elected to shop with him were the ones to whom he’d extended credit.
He had kept a running tab of their purchases, and whenever they received their paychecks or government checks, they would pay their bill.
And unlike loan sharks, his father didn’t charge them interest.
“Aren’t you going to lose a lot of money if you close for two weeks, Poppa?” he asked.
Kathleen stared at her husband. “You need to tell him, Gio.”
“Tell me what, Mama?”
Gio cleared his throat. “I’m planning to close the store for good when we come back.
I’ve finally convinced your mother that we should move out of this apartment and into the brownstone with Nonna, because now that she’s having another baby, this place is too small for five kids.
Nonna is giving us the top-floor apartment with five bedrooms.”
Frankie felt a fist of fear squeeze his heart. He didn’t want to move, because he didn’t want to leave his friends. “Where will you work, Poppa?”
“I have a cousin who has a butcher shop on Second Avenue.”
“What about my friends Kenny and Ray?” Frankie asked, as he struggled not to cry. If he was moving to a new neighborhood, then he would have to go to a new junior high school.
“They can always come over on weekends. There will be enough room in the apartment where they can spend the night.”
Knowing he wouldn’t have to lose contact with his friends made Frankie feel a little better.
Moving across town meant living in a larger apartment, seeing his grandmother every day, and his extended family for dinner the first Sunday of every month.
Knowing he was going to visit Italy for the first time was beyond exciting.
Realizing it would be his first time on a plane and meeting relatives he never knew were things he was looking forward to.
“I hope Mama has a boy, because I don’t need another sister.”
Kathleen rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not what you need but what the good Lord gives us.”
“Your mama is right,” Gio said. “All children are gifts from God.”
Frankie wanted to tell his father that his daughters were probably from the devil because, despite the threat they would have to go to parochial school, they’d continued to fight with one another.
Things were happening that he hadn’t anticipated when Ray told him that he and his siblings would spend the next two summers in Puerto Rico, so his parents could work more than one job to save enough money to buy a house in the Bronx.
Now his family was moving across town while Kenny would continue living in an apartment half a block from Central Park.
Frankie knew he would miss walking to school and sharing classes with Kenny and Ray.
However, he knew they wouldn’t lose touch with one another because not only were they friends, but also blood brothers.
They’d sworn an oath to stay together, regardless of where the road of life would take them.
“When are we leaving for Italy?”
“The middle of July,” Gio said. “When we come back the first week of August, I’ll start packing up the apartment for the move.
I want everyone moved in before the Labor Day weekend.
Meanwhile, your mother will see that school records will be transferred to your new schools.
It’s going to take a while before I sell out everything in the store, so I’ll be back and forth until that’s done.
What I don’t sell, I’ll give away to some of my most loyal customers. ”
“It’s going to be a wonderful start for this family when we move into our new place with enough room for everyone,” Kathleen said, smiling. “And come Christmas, not only will we celebrate the birth of baby Jesus, but our own little blessing.”