“Somebody would’ve noticed,” Nicky said.
“Maybe,” Hortense said, not meaning it. “Eventually somebody would have noticed the phone wasn’t answered and the telegrams weren’t sent or received and then and only then would there have been a search for my mortal body.”
“Mr. Mooney was very nice.”
“He can be,” Hortense said, though it had been years since she had a warm feeling for her husband. He had good qualities, but over time he’d become critical and occasionally unkind. Hortense had learned to tune him out like the office radio when the boys switched the station from her favorite blues to pop.
“Did Mr. Mooney change?”
“Every husband is nice at the start, if that’s what you’re asking. Everything is fine until you disagree or start asking questions when prior to that, you didn’t have any. So being agreeable when planning a wedding or a honeymoon isn’t an achievement, that’s just somebody behaving a certain way to get what they want from you. A person’s true nature emerges over time.”
“I’ve been seeing Peachy since before the war,” Nicky said, rearranging the pencils in the cup on the spare desk. “We’ve been true blue for seven years.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to marry her.”
“Don’t have to. Want to.” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open to a picture of his fiancée.
Hortense felt for the reading glasses that dangled around her neck on a silver chain. She held them up to her eyes, peering critically at a cheesecake shot of a very slender Peachy—too skinny, in Hortense’s opinion—on the beach in Wildwood Crest. Peachy was so thin, the leg openings on her one-piece bathing suit stood away from her scrawny thighs, which looked like two straws floating in a vanilla milkshake.
“That’s my Peachy,” Nicky said proudly.
“I remember. She came in here once, a few years ago, with her parents. They rode in the sedan.”
“That’s right. They went to visit relatives up in New Haven. Wanted to impress them.”
Hortense nodded. “She had her own mind. Told everybody where to sit in the car.”
Nicky put the wallet back in his pocket. “I like feisty.”
“Until you don’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll get tired of the very thing you love about her.”
Nicky was used to Mrs. Mooney’s pronouncements. This time, however, he wasn’t going to let her ruin his mood. “I’d like you to get to know her. I’ll bring her over to your house sometime.”
“The last thing I need is a couple of Italians disrupting my street. Folks would run around in circles like Henny Penny.”
“You could make us dinner.”
“Not going to happen, Mr. Castone.”
“Even when we set the date?”
“Not even then.”
“I want you to come to the wedding.”
“We’ll see.” Hortense made the possibility sound like a flat no.
“You never come to our parties.”
“It wouldn’t be comfortable for me or for you.”
“Because you’re colored?”
Hortense nodded.
“You use that as an excuse for everything,” Nicky said.
“Well, look at me. It happens to be true. Besides, boundaries make a life. Rules make a day. Structure matters in three arenas: society, architecture, and girdles. Anything worth building needs bones.”
“I’m not asking you to build the Main Line Bridge, I’m asking you to come to my wedding.”
“And I told you I can’t.”
“I consider you part of my family.”
“Well, I’m not.”
Nicky laughed. “You’re a heartbreaker.”
“I was once,” she said wistfully. “I know a little bit about romance and marriage. I wouldn’t stay away from your wedding just because of my color, though that’s a factor. And it’s not because you all are Catholic and I’m not, though that can be a factor.”
“What is it, Mrs. Mooney?”
“I won’t say.”
“Why not?”
“I only go to weddings when I believe they’ll stick.”
Nicky’s face fell. After a moment, he asked, “Do your feet hurt?”
“Why do you ask?” Hortense looked down at her shoes.
“You must be in some terrific pain, or you wouldn’t be taking your bad mood out on me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you didn’t want me to be happy.” Nicky rolled up the napkin, catching the crumbs, and dusted the desk with the napkin before putting it back into the lunch bag.
Hortense didn’t see a grown man before her, but the boy she remembered in his youth. Nicky Castone was her favorite of the Palazzini bunch, even though no one had ever asked her to choose. She sighed. “It’s not that. Forgive me. I have been surly lately. I don’t know what it is, I find fault with everything. I got a malaise. It just showed up unannounced like the bunions that arrived on my forty-second birthday. If you must know, everything hurts. I’m at that age. It’s probably a good idea not to tell me any happy news because I’ll find some way to pull it apart thread by thread until you’re left with nothing but an old rag where you once had a yard of fine silk. That’s just me. I’ve seen too much and I know too much, so I’m a little bitter, I guess.”
“Just a little,” Nicky said quietly.
“Love, well, that’s a fragile romantic dream, a journey that begins in a humble rowboat for two. You set sail when the water is calm, and later it turns choppy as the wind begins to blow and a storm kicks up and you realize there’s a big hole in the bottom of the boat that you didn’t see when you got in, but now you’re out in the middle of the ocean and you’ve started to take on water and it’s dark, there’s thunder and lightning, you didn’t pack any food, or a flashlight or a horn, all you got is love, and it’s not enough. You’re going to sink. You turn on each other. You forgot why you got in the boat in the first place. All you saw in the beginning was the endless blue and the bright sun and each other and you were blinded. Love is a doomed journey with all the good stops up front.”
“Maybe you’re growing new bunions. Ever thought about that?”
“I forget that young people still want to take the trip, so I come off a little skeptical sometimes. I don’t ever want you to think I don’t want you to be happy. But if you think Peachy DePino is going to make you happy—”
“I do!”
“You may want to get down on your knees in a dark room and pray to the sweet Lord Jesus in heaven that He shows you a different path, because the road you’re about to go down is not going to take you home. And everybody wants to get home.”
“I want my own life. My own home.”
“Of course you do. But you also have to be careful. Contemplate, Nicky. Contemplate.”
“Seven years is not long enough to make a cautious decision?”
“Fifty years may not be long enough in some cases! You see, I can spot compatibility. It’s a gift. I know, on sight, who should go with whom. I can pair off people who belong together. I envision a kind of Noah’s Ark, except it’s for people looking for love, not animals seeking shelter. I can be anywhere—walking down Thompson Street, sitting on a bus going local on Broad—and I can look into any crowd and find two people who’ve never met but should.”