19. Keith #2
Not really something I’d ever had to do before in my life, but I could definitely see it happening more often now that I was merging into a very active family.
“Not bad, not bad at all,” Paulie said, high-fiving me once we’d finished three full games and people were starting to disperse. “You’re not bad, ya know? Maybe next time, we try soccer?”
“Don’t you mean football?” I asked, giving him finger guns, only for his face to remain completely straight.
“No. Soccer.”
“Right. Uhm, well as long as you don’t mind me having two left feet, I’m in.”
“Don’t worry about it. You don’t need a right foot to stand in the goal and take up half the space.”
“This is true.”
He gave me an approving nod before a buzz came from his pocket, and the way he lit up when he pulled it out and looked at it told me it had to be a romantic interest.
Was I about to learn some gossip? I could take it or leave it, but I knew Olivia would be quite proud if I learned of some secret, torrid affair that could distract from her own.
“Excuse me, it’s mi bella,” Paulie said, and considering he was the younger generation, I already had gotten the gist that he largely used Italian to say things to me without saying them.
“I know that means your girlfriend. Or a girl you’re interested in,” I said. “And go, see what she’s up to.”
He flushed at that, looking down at the ground and huffing a dry laugh before meeting my eyes. “I forget you and your mother aren’t like a lot of hu— other people I meet. You’re good folks.”
“Thanks, man, that means a lot.”
He headed off. I was about to follow him when there was another tap on my shoulder. I was getting used to physical contact being a method of getting someone’s attention, but my hackles rose slightly as I turned.
“Yeah?” I asked, recognizing Vinnie, who was a bit younger than Paulie but older than Rolando—he, apparently, wasn’t into dodgeball, because he wasn’t here.
“I don’t mean to tease, bro, but you are sweatin’! Why don’t we go on a chill walk? We can show you some cool spots in the woods while your face backs off from that bright shade of burgundy.”
If I wasn’t red already, I would have been at that. I’d been having so much fun that not only had I forgotten I was nearly forty, but also that I tended to imitate a tomato anytime I did anything too athletic.
“Fuck, is it bad?”
“If you’re not careful, you may end up in Auntie Tatiana’s marinara sauce.”
“Right, okay. Yeah, a walk sounds fine. Bring the ol’ heartrate down.” Besides, if I found a cool rock, I could always get it for Amanda. She loved things like that.
“Awesome! Antonio, Tony, Tonio, Anton, Tonino! Let’s stroll!”
If I felt old at how my knees were complaining as the game ended, I was doubly so as I joined a group of young men who had to be nearly twenty years my junior.
Some of them were definitely Rolando’s age, but some were likely in their early twenties judging by the rosy-red wine-glow to their cheeks.
I thought that was an exclusively Asian thing, but I’d heard through the grapevine that one of Olivia’s uncles liked to brew things strong and to avoid anything that Olivia herself didn’t give me.
Well, if I was going to be the old fogey in the group, at least I could keep an eye on some possibly tipsy young people.
“So, tell us how you met the frigid Olivia and thawed her heart,” one of them said as we walked along. Despite the good vibes I had been enjoying, my hackles rose yet again.
“I’m not sure I appreciate your tone about the love of my life,” I warned in a way that I hoped sounded both nonchalant and firm.
While I understood friendly ribbing between family members, there was a line, and I wasn’t about to let Olivia get disrespected by the people she put so much energy into taking care of.
“Oi, he didn’t mean anything by it,” Vinnie said, clapping my back a bit too hard in a way that reminded me of Riccardo, but it seemed much less good-natured.
“It’s just… you have to understand, Olivia has always been a bit different from the rest of us.
Untouchable. But now that she is with you, it’s like she’s turned into a whole different person!
She’s happier, we all can tell. And she doesn’t let everyone run her ragged trying to be the perfect helper for everything. It’s a good thing!”
All right, I supposed I could understand what he meant, and it pleased me that even young men who probably didn’t have the highest EQ in the world still recognized that I’d brought about a positive change in Olivia. Really, that was all I wanted.
“She does have a tendency to try to save the day all the time,” I admitted, smiling fondly as I recalled some of the incredible things she’d done for me when I had been worn out by a project that had gone over time or budget, or even when I was trying to improve my syllabus for my next workshop.
“Really, what I’ve learned with people like her is that, despite the fact that it seems like they often can do everything, what they really want is someone who will make it so they don’t have to do everything.
They want to be free to exist and not be the planner, the maker, the rescuer. ”
“You sound like my therapist,” another one of the young ones—Tony, I thought—joked, and I couldn’t tell by his tone if he meant it as an insult or a compliment.
“I’m sure your therapist is much more professional than I am,” I said.
“I would hope so, with how much my parents are paying her.”
“Well, I assure you, whatever it is, your health is more than worth it to your parents.”
He gave me an odd look, like that was the last thing he’d expected me to say, but his silence allowed me to catch movement in the corner of my eye, and I saw two others pulling a small bottle of booze from who knew where and chugging from it in turn.
“You want some?” one of them asked, and Olivia’s warning hung heavy in my mind.
“No, thank you. I’m not the biggest drinker. But are you supposed to be having that? You can’t tell me you’re all over twenty-one.”
While I wasn’t a stickler, I wasn’t about to be an enabler, and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if all of them were older than Rolando, who Olivia had been pretty upset about being over encouraged to drink during her previous birthday if I remembered that story correctly.
I was anticipating some pushback, but what I didn’t expect was for the group to burst into a smattering of laughter. Two of them clapped me heartily on the back. Was I going to have marks at this point?
“Friend, most of us have been having a glass of wine with our dinners since we were fourteen. We’re plenty old enough to have drinks at a family party. It’s not like any of us are going to drive anywhere.”
“And if I repeat that to Olivia, would she agree?”
A chorus of oohs sounded all around us, and it was like I was back in high school. Which made sense, considering the young men around me weren’t long out of their primary education. More and more, I was beginning to feel like a babysitter. Oh well. All part of being in a big family, I supposed.
“Are you gonna tell on us to our big cousin?” Vinnie teased, sounding genuinely delighted by the idea. “She’s a girl! She started even earlier than the rest of us.”
I was confused, but it was Antonio nodding gravely that let me know Vinnie wasn’t pulling my leg. “Girls mature faster than us boys, so they’re allowed to do things earlier.”
I supposed that was a more pleasant way to think about it than how that argument was usually used against women. I sighed and let my reservations ease.
“All right. Just don’t overdo it, okay? As big as I am, I don’t think I can carry you all the way back to the yard.”
“But you would carry me, your teammate, right?” Vinnie asked, batting his eyelashes at me. “We are brothers!”
“I think I’m about ten years too old and three shades too ginger to be your brother.”
“Adoption exists! And I mean brothers on the battlefield!”
“The battlefield of dodgeball?”
“Yes! You get it!” Another hearty clap, but this time on my chest. “Not as sacred as say, the soccer field, but important nonetheless!”
I played along, because what fun was there in ruining their joy?
Instead, I resigned myself to taking pleasure in the scenery and making sure they didn’t get up to no good as they got tipsier.
While I wouldn’t say any of them were particularly sloshed out of their minds, they were becoming more rambunctious, occasionally jumping up into trees or sprinting ahead so fast I had to wonder how many of them had track-and-field scholarships.