10. Regan #2
And then… and then I want her in other ways. Ways I’m not sure I completely understand as yet. But hey… treat life as it comes. That’s all down the road. I look forward to it. Meantime… well.. here we are. Just the two of us.
I clear my throat. Best to get the awkward question out of the way first.
“So, Maria,” I start, turning my most winning smile on. The one I reserve for special occasions. “This Anthony Moretti. Were you like an item or anything before… before your father…?”
“No.” She purses her lips, her brow wrinkling in a deep frown. “He’d tried, but I never liked him. Too smooth. Too oily.”
Fantastic. Just what I’d hoped to learn. And not only that, but I make a mental note not to overdo the smoothness or the oil. Time to change the topic. I want her in a good mood. Happy, and receptive, not angry or worried.
“We should get to know each other a little better.” I suggest as the lights change on the only intersection with lights in the whole town, and the Civic bucks a few times as she slightly overdoes it on the throttle.
“Sorry,” she says. “Still getting used to it.”
“You’re doing real good.” I encourage her softly. “Anyhow,” I continue. “Like I was saying, we should get to know each other a little. For example, what’s your favorite movie?”
“Huh?”
“Movie. You know… “Gone with the Wind, Lion King, Spider-Man – No Way Home, Mad Max: Fury Road…?”
“Oh. I see.” She thinks for a while. “Do you mean now, or when I was growing up?”
This is better.
“Both.”
“Oh, okay. Well, growing up, I always loved ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ Can you guess why?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I’m on a roll now. This topic is working out better than anticipated.
“It’s… well… it’s because of your mother.”
She smiles at me. A genuine smile, but with pain mixed somewhere deep inside.
“Yeah, you guessed it. As a little girl, I used to imagine I was Belle, and Papa was Maurice, Belle’s father…” She tails off, her eyes going distant as she recollects times past.
“And the Beast?”
“Oh!” She glances at me, blushing again. She’s so sweet when she blushes. Like the most delicate of peaches growing on a peach tree somewhere in a perfect orchard. “There wasn’t really a Beast… not like in the movie.”
“And now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, which movie is your favorite now—now you’re all grown up and mature.” I smile at her, to show I’m not being too serious.
“I guess… I guess I have lots of favorites. It would depend what mood I was in. What type of movie I wanted to see.”
“Yeah… that’s a good answer.” It was too. “Let’s say then, what movie would you want someone else to watch in order to understand you better? How about that?”
She pauses, and I can see her thinking. Finally, she looks up at me.
“Roman Holiday,” she says. “Starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. I watched it as a girl with Papa. Sunday matinee on television, curled up on his lap. Feeling safe and warm. He’d talk about Rome, and the amazing food there, especially the gelati—ice cream, I mean.
He said the flavors are to die for. And he’d describe the Colosseum, and the little back streets and the churches, and the Spanish Steps and the fountains…
oh, it all seemed so wonderful, compared to Brooklyn. A magical world.”
She sighs deeply, staring out at the road ahead of us, before turning and smiling at me once more.
“And Gregory Peck... well, he was the perfect gentleman. He looked after her… you know—treated her right. It was all so lovely. I guess…” she falters, looking up at me, her face blushing once again, just a little. “I guess I’m just a romantic at heart.”
I laugh. “Me too. I’ve always been a fool for following my heart. Ask Grant or Abe. They’ll tell you.”
“There’s a song by Bob Dylan. Perhaps you know it. My papa was always big into Dylan. Had all the records. I kinda grew up listening to Dylan. Anyway, it’s called “Brownsville Girl”—have you heard of it?
I shrug. “Might have done, but I can’t think of it.”
“Well… I used to lie in bed at night, and Papa would be downstairs, playing his records. And… and I used to think that Bob Dylan, when he wrote that song… well it’s silly really, but I used to think perhaps he wrote it for me.
Except of course he couldn’t have done, because he didn’t know me.
” She smiles at herself, as if dismissing her childish emotions. “Besides I was only a kid.”
“It’s not so foolish.” Gently, I place my big hand on her tiny one, where she’s resting it on the center console. “I think…” I muse for a moment, not knowing quite what to say, except how much I want to tell her how deeply her words have stirred me.
“I think I understand.”
I lean across and give her cheek a tiny, delicate kiss. She doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t back away either. And as for me… well… if this had ever been a game, it was no longer one.
We sit together in amiable silence for maybe four or five minutes, before Sandro stirs and coughs, and Maria withdraws her hand, but with a companionable smile.
A smile I doubt I will ever forget. A promise?
Maybe. A moment shared? That at least. And if that is all it ever is, it is still as precious to me as all the gold and silver and jewels in the entire world.