Chapter Nine
Demonstration of Eating, Licking and Drinking, by staff photographer Herman Eckelmann: Pictures of Earth
There were regulars that summer. The Gandolfo family, with their usual order of two extra-large Arturos.
The dry yellow grass of their front yard was littered with every outdoor toy imaginable: plastic slide, playhouse, water table, trike; T-ball stand, half-inflated kiddie pool filled with a murky soup of Barbies and pine needles and floating insects.
“Pizza!” one of their boys would yell before I even rang the bell, and they’d all come press their faces against the screen door.
There was also Mrs. Lee, one extra-large Giorgio.
Her TV blared the Hallmark Channel whenever I came, families rejoicing in Christmas miracles or romance, snowy trees and jingly sleigh bells when it was eighty degrees in the middle of summer.
She always forced a crinkly five-dollar bill into my hand.
There were Bud and Greg, a medium Giorgio and a medium Maurizio.
When I arrived, the table on their front patio, with its rows of string lights, was already set for two with a bottle of wine.
And there was my favorite regular. I always went there last, though lately you only ordered when your mom worked late at Mystic Minerals.
“One Roma, sir,” I said that night.
“The Roma. A classic. Though the Margherita is my real favorite.”
“You know you don’t have to keep ordering just to see me, right?”
You grabbed the box. “Are you kidding? I’m totally hooked. I love this pizza.” But you set it down. “And I love you,” you said.
Okay, it wasn’t what I expected, or rather, it wasn’t when I expected it, you telling me you loved me when I still smelled of onions and peppers from prep, wearing my shorts and my Papa Angelo’s T-shirt, the Roma sending out an aroma—whiffs of garlic and oregano right through the box. But I was so happy.
It was real. “I love you, too,” I said.
“I love you,” you said again. You were grinning. “I’ve almost told you that, like, five thousand times.”
“Same.”
“Why didn’t we just…?”
“Not sure. Too s—”
You kissed me. “I woo oo,” you said, your lips stuck on mine.
“I woo oo, too. Oh mch.”
We were such goofs. We laughed. Your laugh went right inside my mouth, and mine yours. It was weird, but great. I was just a balloon, lifting skyward. You stepped back. “Now that I started, I can’t stop.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Oh my God, Frank!” you groaned. “Don’t look so sad. This is a celebration.”
“He feels left out!”
“Come here, boy.” You lifted Frank up. Took one of his paws and danced with him.
“ ‘Keep on riding, riding, riding,’ ” you sang as Frank’s tongue lolled.
By now, I knew that this was the “Frank and Jesse James” song, the one Frank was named for.
I had learned pieces of all your lives. How you guys always had about two squares left on a toilet-paper roll whenever I went to pee, and how Janite splurged on DOGTV for Frank to watch when you were both gone, and how she taught you to drive in Palo Alto with her old stick-shift car you had to push down a hill and pop the clutch in order to start.
You kissed Frank’s cheek. You were so happy, too. You were a balloon going skyward. Frank squirmed free, but once he was on the floor again, he kept jumping up on us, catching our mood, his toenails scratching my knees.
I changed into my bathing suit, and we went out to the end of the dock. We brought the pizza and a bottle of A us leaping up in heart-pounding panic, trying to get my bra back on in a flurry, my face flushed and my hair all smooshed up; you stammering a casual, guilty Hey, Mom!
My own house was out of the question. My mom—who still didn’t know about you but seemed to suspect someone was in the picture—was usually there, and so what were our options?
Where could we even go? I was already getting worried about fall and winter, since we’d spent so much time outside these past weeks.
Where would we get together, even just to hang out?
When the rain started to pour and it got dark by four, you’d have to come to my house eventually.
You straddled a giant fallen tree and held out your hand to help me over.
Your pack slid down your arm, and stuff fell out: your water bottle, a couple of protein bars, bags of snacks, a few foil-wrapped condoms. My confidence was slipping, too.
It seemed important not to show you that, though.
This is hard to explain, but sometimes I could see how much your capability mattered to you.
When you were in charge, your mistakes could make your mood drop.
I wondered if this was a bad idea but kept my mouth shut. I swatted away a mosquito making a meal of my neck.
But then the trail widened. We were at a clearing, a private, mossy glade surrounded by ferns and huckleberries. It was sun-dappled and cool, and I felt relief. Relief from the heat, but also from the weight of your plan going well, because it was. Look, it was going perfectly.
“This is so pretty!”
Your eyes danced, pleased at making me pleased. You laid out the blanket. “Come over.”
“It’s something out of Disney. Bambi’s forest,” I said. Maybe not entirely. I saw a couple of beer bottles near a log. The stub of something that might have been a joint. Kids probably came here to get high.
I wished I wasn’t so sweaty, and had worn cuter underwear. I felt suddenly nervous as I sat beside you and unlaced my boots and took off my socks, my bare feet ecstatic to be free again. “How did you know about this place?”