Chapter 3 #5
“Chickadees,” she said. “Maybe sparrows.”
“Sparrows. Right. Yeah.”
She put the camera to her eye.
“What’s her last name?”
“Huh?”
“Whoever’s room you’re coming from. What’s her last name?”
I swallowed. “What are you talking about?”
She pulled her head back from the camera and stared at me. A prison spotlight couldn’t have made me feel more exposed.
“Guys never remember a girl’s last name. You don’t remember hers, do you?”
She held her gaze for a long, sad moment.
“Oh, Alfie,” she said, putting her eye back behind the viewfinder. “You break my heart.”
?
That conversation stayed with me for days, as things did anytime Gianna seemed disappointed in me. It’s like that old song, if something is wrong with my baby, something is wrong with me. I score that as another entry in The Truth About True Love.
Later that week, I was in my room with Elliot, consumed by this funk, when I asked him, “Hey, do you remember that party where I met Maisie?”
“The one from Scotland?”
“Ireland.”
“Right. Ireland.”
“Was that a Friday or Saturday?”
“Friday, February third.”
“Wow. You sure?”
“I remember ’cause it was Pete’s birthday. Why?”
I didn’t bother to answer. Instead, I whispered the word twice and landed back at that party, with a red plastic cup of beer in my hand. I looked at the crowd. I looked at the beer. I saw Maisie approaching and heard Elliot holler, “This is my friend Alfie! He needs sex badly!”
Before she could say anything, I yelled, “This is my friend, Elliot, he’s totally wasted!” Then I lowered my voice to Maisie and said, “I don’t really need sex.”
“Too bad,” she said.
I took an awkward sip of beer and excused myself.
I went home a few minutes later. I didn’t sleep with Maisie, or any of the other girls in the repeated weeks that followed.
It didn’t really change things. It didn’t make me a virgin again.
I was just trying to feel better about myself.
And to be better for Gianna. Not that she knew anything about it.
?
Summer came, and once again, Gianna and I were three thousand miles apart. I called her in California, just to say hello, and she mentioned that she was coming to visit her roommate in early August.
“Can we please get together?” I asked. “I promise the car won’t break down this time.”
She half laughed and finally agreed. “But if you stand me up, Alfie, I will never speak to you again.”
We arranged to meet on a Tuesday at noon. The plan was to walk around downtown Philadelphia, maybe get some pizza.
Two days before our rendezvous, they started talking about the weather. A huge storm was coming. A hurricane moving up the coast. I didn’t want to know. I saw this day as a chance to clear the slate with Gianna, away from school, away from other friends or guys she knew. Nothing could interfere.
The night before, my father watched the TV news and said, “This storm is a whopper. They’re saying we might get five inches of rain. Make sure you don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t,” I lied.
Now, these days, Boss, I follow weather all the time, especially if it’s going to be rough and I need to secure the beach house.
Put up the storm shutters, check the caulking.
It’s part of my job. You even joke about me and rain, how I sit on the deck and stare at it, getting soaked.
You once said “Alfie, you must be part frog.” I guess it looks that way.
But back then, when I was twenty years old, wind, rain, lightning, they were just annoyances. If you wanted to do something fun, you found a way. And meeting Gianna was more than fun. It was going to be the day I told her how I felt.
?
I got to the city early. The air was thick, and the wind was already swaying traffic lights. You could feel the dark, looming clouds ready to explode.
Gianna and I had arranged to meet on the corner of Eighth and Market Streets, by a department store called Gimbels.
I chose that spot deliberately, because her birthday was the following day, and I wanted to get her a present.
A taxi dropped me off an hour before our meeting, and I went in and started wandering up and down the aisles.
There were few customers. I guess the storm had scared most people off. Searching for the right gift, I entered the women’s clothing area and flipped through sweaters and blouses. Then I realized I had no clue what size Gianna was and would inevitably pick something wrong or insulting.
So I moved on to the perfume section, where a bored worker offered to spray my wrist with fragrance.
I realized I also knew nothing about perfumes.
Or body sprays or eau de toilette, whatever that was.
So I followed a sign into the jewelry section and perused the glass cases of rings, watches, necklaces, and bracelets.
“How much is that one?” I asked the saleswoman, pointing to a simple shiny stone on a gold chain.
“That’s half a carat, bezel set,” she said, pulling it out. “Very nice. It’s two thousand.”
She must have seen my Adam’s apple jump up my neck.
“Maybe something simpler?” she said.
“Yeah,” I rasped.
“What does she like? The person you’re getting this for?”
I thought for a moment.
“Animals.”
The woman smiled as if I were pathetic.
“The only things we have with animals are for children.”
I nodded, as if that were obvious. Then I said, “Can I see those?”
Five minutes later, I had what I wanted. Or rather, what I could afford. Just then a voice came over the loudspeakers: “Gimbels customers, we’re sorry to announce that we will be closing in fifteen minutes due to the oncoming storm. Please make your final selections.”
A nervous energy spread through the place.
Salespeople put away displays. The scant customers headed for the exits.
I looked at my watch. Still twenty minutes before I was supposed to meet Gianna.
I didn’t want to get soaked before she got there, so I waited by the front, just inside the huge revolving doors, which kept spinning even when no one was going in or out.
I guess they were on some kind of timer.
Outside, the rain had begun, and it was coming down in veils. The sky was occasionally shocked with lightning, and when the thunder burst, I could feel the rumbling even inside the store. Of all the days, I said to myself. I began to think Gianna showing up was a pipe dream.
I watched most of the employees leave through a side entrance by the customer service desk. Soon I was alone. I checked my watch again. Five minutes until our meeting time. The sidewalks were empty. Howling wind rattled the large windows.
I saw a bus splashing through the streets.
It stopped on the corner. I whispered to myself, “Be on this bus. Be on this bus.” And when it pulled away, as if someone up above had heard me, there was Gianna, wearing jeans and a yellow blouse and holding a handbag over her head against the downpour.
My heart jumped. She darted toward the store and I tried to get her attention, but the rain kept her from looking up.
I saw her shoot her gaze left and right, searching.
When she finally looked straight ahead, I windmilled my arms, and she smiled at me.
Even getting wet, handbag over her head, she smiled.
It’s something I would always love about her.
She jogged to the door, her sneakers splashing the pavement.
I motioned for her to come in, because at least it was dry, but then I remembered they were closing and I didn’t want us to get locked inside, so I jumped into the revolving door just as she pushed in to join me.
As we circled each other we made the goofy “oops” face.
And then, at that very moment, all the lights inside Gimbels went dark and the revolving doors jammed in place, with me in one pocket and Gianna in another. She pushed. I pushed. They wouldn’t budge.
“Alfie?” her muffled voice said. “What’s happening?”
?
Our best choices often come when we have no choice.
My mother used to say that. That day at Gimbels, Gianna and I tried pushing, slamming, even kicking at the doors that trapped us.
Whatever had made them spin was now shut off.
And with the store empty, yelling for help was fruitless.
Eventually, Gianna plopped on the floor, and threw her hands over her knees.
Then she started laughing.
She shook her head and laughed some more so I laughed and then she laughed harder and we kept going until all the anxiety had been released. Finally, with her voice thinned by the glass, I heard her yell, “Oh, God, Alfie, why do I hang out with you?”
“Because I’m fun!”
“Yeah, right!”
“Come on! What could be better than this?”
“What could be better than this?”
“Yeah. What could be better than this?”
Outside, the rain was pummeling the sidewalk so hard it splashed back up like ricocheting bullets. The wind blew trash and newspapers up the streets. Lightning kept flashing, as if someone were messing with the world’s electricity. And there we were, trapped inside the most unlikely of shelters.
“How long do you think it will last?” I yelled.
“What?” she yelled back.
“The storm!”
“What about it?”
“How long do you think . . .”
I stopped and shook my head. Didn’t matter.
“Come closer!” she hollered as she shifted nearer the pane.
I reluctantly did the same. I was always self--conscious about my face being too close to people.
But Gianna, up close, was flawless. Not a blemish on her skin, her teeth perfectly spaced, her lips glossed with a shade of red lipstick that was seductive even through dirty glass.
“This reminds me of Africa,” she said. “Remember when it would rain like this?”
I could hear her better now.
“Yeah,” I said.
“It used to scare me,” she said.
“Not me. I loved it.”
“Really?”
“My mom used to take me outside and dance in it.”
She laughed. “No way!”
“She was like that.”
Her expression softened.
“Do you miss her?”
“She died a long time ago.”