Chapter 7
7
LAMPWICK
“A lright, all done,” I say triumphantly. I look at Geppetto and motion to the marionettes on the workbench.
“You untangled them all? And your hands are not bleeding?”
I laugh as Geppetto picks up one of the toys. “It’s just wood and string.” I play with one in my hands, a tiny red-headed puppet.
“Hey, big things can come from wood and string.” We turn to see a smiling Pinocchio walking in from the backroom. He’s holding a basket of apples and one kitty cat playing with a ball of yarn.
“Look who it is. Hey, Arpeggio!” I coo. I pick her up and she refuses to part with her yarn. In the less than twenty-four hours I’ve been living with the Carlo family, I’ve grown close to the cat. “What brings you here?”
“Meow,” she says as I squeeze her lightly.
“I thought you guys wanted a snack. And of course, Arpeggio wanted to come.”
“ Grazie , Piccolo, but shouldn’t you be resting?” Geppetto shines one of the apples as he walks to the register. “I give you the mornings off to go out, be young, and have fun!”
“But how can I have fun without the person who makes me smile the most?” Pinocchio chuckles as he leans in to help Arpeggio get untangled from the yarn. I hold the kitty and grin.
“Arpeggio is an entertaining troublemaker that’s for sure,” I say through a laugh.
“Not her. You.” Pinocchio looks at me and my smile falls. His chiseled face is so close to mine. His round eyes have always been filled with innocent wonder, but now his jawline and neck are developed in the sexiest way. If I wasn’t holding the cat, I might even consider leaning my face toward his. If I kissed him right now, there is no way I would ever move on from him—a special kind of torture.
The crunching of an apple being eaten breaks me out of the spell. Geppetto, a few yards away, would probably not approve of me kissing his only son. So, I step to the side and place Arpeggio back in the basket. I take out an apple and gaze at some random spot on the wall, anything but my friend.
“Thanks, man. But you ought to take Arpeggio away. I won’t get any work done with her here.”
“But she misses you!” Pinocchio replies, leaning on a bench.
“And it’s a slow morning,” Geppetto adds. “The backroom is spotless because of you, Lampwick. You’re a hard worker.”
I munch and wave away the compliment. “Oh, stop,” I reply, mouth full of apple.
“He’s the best,” Pinocchio says. When I catch his gaze, I stop chewing. The affection in his eyes is undeniable, and it kills me. I’ll never be half the man he sees in me. I need to pump the brakes on this crush before it consumes me even more.
I wipe my lips on my sleeve and swallow. When I open my mouth, the sound of the entrance bell ringing interrupts me. To my left, a large man walks in, holding his hands like he’s trumpeting. He’s older with a dark beard and a wide stomach. The man is making musical noises, and we all chuckle. After a moment, I recognize him; he’s someone from my past, a person I hurt, but I’m not ready to apologize to him yet. So, I quickly skitter away before he opens his eyes.
“Here ye, here ye,” he announces with an overdramatic tone. I’m mostly hiding behind the doorway to the backroom, and I notice that Pinocchio and Geppetto don’t react. “Now introducing…the most beautiful woman in all of Collodi!”
The door rings again and a young lady enters, Pinocchio’s friend from yesterday. She’s wearing a red and yellow striped gown; in the large skirt, she does a little twirl. “ Buongiorno everyone!” she sings.
“Hi,” Pinocchio says, and Arpeggio meows.
“Look at you, Giovanna,” Geppetto says with a smile. “How bright and bubbly you are!”
“How can I not be when Papa hired the best dressmaker for me?” She does another spin and everyone hums in interest.
Is this what my friend likes? I try to decipher what Pinocchio’s thinking, but he stares neutrally at her.
“It looks marvelous,” Geppetto says.
“Indeed, Mrs. Santos does great work!” the older man, her father, adds.
Giovanna spins once more, then eyes Pinocchio. She, once again, has those eyes that sparkle with how much she desires him. He doesn’t seem to reciprocate or react, but that could be my delusional hope talking. The idea of him dating her sent a furious chill down my spine yesterday, and today is no different. Every instinct told me to lay claim on him, which is absurd because good boys settle down with pretty girls, not bad boys like me. Pinocchio is going to make a beautiful woman happy one day, and it makes me nauseous.
Like last time, I need to get out of here.
“I’m gonna take this one back to the house,” I mutter, hoping Giovanna’s dad doesn’t notice me. I pick up Arpeggio, and Pinocchio whips his head around like he wants to interject. Before he can stop me, I’m gone, dashing through the backroom. Naturally, my feet won’t let me leave, choosing instead to stop and step to the side, hopefully out of sight.
“Ssh,” I say to Arpeggio. She’s happily playing with her ball of yarn. She’s not eavesdropping and being a jealous, petty loser, like me.
“So, do you have something nice to wear to the Autumn Festival?” Giovanna asks.
“I don’t know,” he replies.
My heart pounds in my chest. The anxiety of getting caught listening and the need to know how this plays out clash in my heart, the latter winning. True, the thought of her kissing him makes me nauseous, but like a sea monster in the ocean, there are some fears that a man needs to face head-on.
“Maybe?” he continues. “I’m going to be working.”
“But at night, don’t you want to dance with me?”
“Um…”
“What’s wrong, you don’t think my daughter is great?” the man asks, loudly. I don’t recall him being so pushy, but then again, I hardly spoke to him all those years ago.
“She’s great, Signore Delluomo, but—”
“Very well, it’s a date. You young folks should be out having fun, girls and boys, together!” His words are upsetting, and I carefully stroke Arpeggio to stop myself from freaking out.
“It would be nice for you to get out some,” Geppetto adds. He’s not as passionate, but he’s still encouraging this weird matchmaking.
“If you think so, Papa,” Pinocchio says with all the enthusiasm of a wilted rose.
“Oh, it’ll be so fun!” Giovanna nearly squeals, and I can tell she’s hugging him. “We’ll be dancing together, and…”
I don’t stay to listen to the rest, opting to sneak out and finally walk to the house. Envy boils under my skin. I knew logically that Pinocchio would move on and find some perfect girl to live a happy, morally upstanding life with. I just didn’t think I’d have to see it.
Why did I think moving back to my hometown and spending time with my childhood best friend would diminish my feelings for him?
My memory brings me back to being ten years old. Pinocchio and I spent weeks playing in the Land of Toys. When I wasn’t ripping up his books to spit them at unsuspecting boys passing by, we quietly lay about. I always claimed those hours were just to recharge us so we could roughhouse more later.
But deep down, I think I enjoyed the quiet moments with my best friend, the talking puppet.
One day, we were sitting under a tree, in a comfy patch of grass. In the distance, other boys were playing games or setting off firecrackers in the midday, a comfortable soundtrack. I may not have been book-smart, but those moments were introspective for my childhood brain.
I looked to my right to see my buddy lying a few feet away from me. His tiny wooden lips weren’t pink or painted on. Still, his face looked smooth, and in retrospect, quite handsome. “I heard one of the boys saying he misses girls,” I said in a low tone.
“Oh?” Pinocchio looked at me.
“Yeah. I mean, there are a few girls here, but apparently there were more back in his hometown. He misses kissing them.”
“Oh, um…alright.”
I paused and looked him up and down. Being the unfiltered kid I was, I let the next question fly from my lips. “I know it’s mostly us boys here, but…do you ever miss the feel of a girl’s soft lips on yours?”
“Um…” The nervousness in his voice was undeniable.
“It’s okay if you haven’t, you know, kissed anyone,” I said.
“I have!” Before I realized it, his face changed. No way—his nose lengthened an inch.
We both sat up and leaned on the tree. He anxiously touched his tiny wooden nose stick, trying in vain to push it back in.
“What the…?”
“Um…it’s nothing.” His nose grew again, and I gasped.
“Sticks, why is your nose growing?”
“I’m, uh, not sure.” It sprouted further and I let out a surprised laugh.
“Wait, is it because you’re lying?”
“That’s not what’s happening!” And with that denial, his nose became even more massive. At that point, I was in full-blown hysterics. Pinocchio’s lengthy nose was about the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen, way more than the idea of a puppet boy coming to life.
After wiping the tears of laughter away, I noticed the shame on my friend’s face as he tried to push his nose back in.
“Buddy, is it permanent?”
“It…wasn’t last time.” With that, his nose quivered but didn’t grow.
“Why don’t you just start telling the truth? Maybe that’ll undo it.” I poked his massive nose and he flinched away.
“It’s not…I need to confess important truths. Something about me.” We both sat back down against the tree, and he sighed. Sure, he looked ridiculous, but a feeling I later identified as sympathy blossomed in my chest.
I didn’t want my friend to be sad. I only wanted good things for Pinocchio, an instinct I would hold onto for the rest of my life.
“Then let me ask you some questions. But you gotta be truthful, Sticks.” I wagged my finger to add some levity, and we both chuckled.
“Okay, so, let me ask you again. You ever kiss a girl?”
He huffs. “I was only crafted a few months ago,” he replied in an almost whine.
“Answer the question, Sticks.”
He looked down at his knees. “No.” With that, his nose shrank.
“Do you want to?”
What followed was a long pause as Pinocchio dwelled on the questions. “Sometimes yes. There’s no one I have a crush on, but…” He glanced at me. “I kind of want to feel what it’s like. I read about it in fairy tale books, all about the princes and the princesses kissing. It sounds magical.” His nose shrank, again and I smiled.
“Good job.” The wood on his face was almost back to normal size. One more question would do it. “I’m sure there’s someone you like -like.”
“Well, I love my papa, my pet cat, and my pet goldfish.”
“But that’s family. No girls catch your eye?”
“No. When I think about it, it seems…unnatural.”
My breath hitched at his confession. I didn’t want to admit yet that my feelings for girls were cosi cosi at best, just like his.
“So you’ve never like-liked anyone?”
“Really it’s just you, Lampo. I like you.”
I froze, like someone’s hand clenched my heart. Pinocchio wasn’t even looking at me, casually admitting his affection as he stared at the tree above. Of course, I had already experimented with kissing boys, which had led to violent results. But this new boy in my life, my puppet friend, awakened a new type of hope and fear in my soul.
It scared me how much I wanted him, even at that young age.
“You, uh…” I gulp. “Your nose didn’t shrink,” I said, almost robotically.
“Probably because it wasn’t a confession.” He smiled and tapped his long nose. “There isn’t anything surprising about liking my best friend. Oh, I know! I’ll confess to you, Lampwick, that I, Pinocchio, actually enjoy school, books, and learning!”
With that, his nose went back to normal. “Ah, much better.” He sighed in contentment, lying back against the tree. Meanwhile, anxiety stirred in my gut at the sheer thought of desiring my friend, the puppet boy.
I needed to say something, shift gears and change the subject. “Say, do you wanna go on a roller coaster with me again?” I asked slowly.
“Sure!”
“Awesome.” Without thinking, I leaned into his space. With my chest on his, I placed my hand on his wooden neck. Slowly, I leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on his lips. Where I thought he would put splinters on my face, his mouth was soft. He was warm and smelled like comfort. My best friend tasted sweet.
I pulled back and rolled over. “There. Now you know what it’s like,” I murmured with a smirk.
I had stolen a kiss, but I didn’t want to upset him, so I immediately stood.
“Wait…wh-what?” Pinocchio asked, stuttering in confusion.
“Come on, let’s go. The rides are waiting.” I waved him over and made my way down the path. Pinocchio gave chase as I dashed down toward the center of the Land of Toys. My lips tingled with the taste of him, and I knew, then and there, that girls weren’t it for me.
But Pinocchio would never want to date a boy, much less a troubled kid like me. So I vowed at that moment that being friends would be enough. Even if it hurt me, even if I never got over this stupid crush, I would stay just friends with Pinocchio. One stolen childhood kiss would be all I could ever have.