Olive Branches Don't Grow on Trees (15 page)

“Well
sure, that would be nice and easy and comfortable. But what is more important
to you?  Having a comfortable evening out or having your dream of going to
Berkeley come true?”

There
was a brief silence, and she knew that with these final words, she had won, and
Vince looked up at her with relenting eyes and said, “Well, alright
then.” 

**********

Silvia
was surprised to find herself waking up at seven in the morning so she could
get to work early.  Having always had a problem with punctuality in the
past, she managed to get to work on time every day since she started her candy
store job.  Today she was even going in early.  Maybe it was a new
leaf, or maybe an increased sense of responsibility that was growing inside of
her.  She wanted to be a good example to the employees as the store
manager, and she even took interest in boosting the sales.  She never imagined
that she would have cared if she received a shipment of blue whales instead of
gummy bears, but she did.  In fact, she cared so much that when she did
get a box of blue whales instead of the gummy bears she had ordered, she called
the distribution center and practically screamed at them for messing up, and
demanded that they send a box of gummy bears to her store location
immediately.   

As
she loaded a bin full with gourmet jellybeans, a mother and three children came
in.  These kids were especially cute and well behaved, and two of them
were carrying child-sized instruments with them.  The mom appeared to be
particularly strict, letting them each have only five candies.  One of the
children required assistance in getting some candy, as she was too short to
reach the bin that contained the lemon drops she wanted.  Seeing this,
Silvia ran over and helped her get out a small scoop of five candies.  The
little girl shyly said thank you to Silvia and walked over to stand by her
mother.  They were so amazingly well behaved that they seemed like they
were from a few generations in the past. 

Not
all children were sweet and cute.  They sometimes were rowdy, demanding,
or whiny.  Some threw tantrums with shrill shrieks.  Candy was the
last thing the rambunctious and hyper kids needed, and Silvia felt tempted to
tell their mothers how their kids might be better off with carrot sticks and
grapes.  But she held her tongue.  Besides, such advice would not be
the best thing for business.  When the not-so-sweet and happy kids came
into the store, all Silvia could think of was how much happier they would
probably be if art was a part of their lives.  Of course, she could not
possibly know that art was not already a part of their lives.  She just
assumed that they were leading art-free lives and wanted, very badly, to fill
this void.  She thought that the challenge of working with the more
difficult children might be even more rewarding than working with the easy
ones.

She
could not wait to tell Donna about this latest realization.  She imagined
Donna smiling proudly at her and then asking if she had had a chance to check
out any teacher certification programs.  She imagined Donna trying to
convince her to attend school somewhere in the area as she had previously expressed
her concern about her daughter’s inability to stay still.

Silvia
knew in her heart that her mother was right.  She might move to Portland,
get another dead end job, and again put off getting into a meaningful career.
 She was starting to see the senselessness in her continual relocating and
how much time, money, and energy had been wasted on all her moving.  The
starting over had been hard and stressful.  She saw herself pushing a big
box full of her stuff up a five-story walk up in Brooklyn.  She remembered
being so broke in Tucson that she lost weight from not having money to buy
food.  She saw herself being lonely, depressed, and freezing in
Chicago.  She remembered living in a slum apartment in Philadelphia that
was right next to some of cities worst housing projects.  It had been
hard.  And despite all of the many and varied experiences all of her moves
had given her, they had really only held her back.

In
part, she wanted to settle down simply because she was tired.  Tired of
moving from place to place like she was an outlaw; tired of sleeping on a futon
mattress on the floor; tired of not having enough money to shop anywhere else
but Goodwill and the Salvation Army; tired of being afraid to establish
relationships because she would be leaving soon; tired of living in places with
five or six other roommates.  She wanted to sleep on a bed and not a futon
on the floor.  She wanted to shop for clothes in real shops.  She
wanted to live in an apartment by
herself,
or with one
other roommate at the most.  She wanted a cat, a boyfriend, and a place to
call home.  

**********

As
she got off the old rusty elevator on to Cosmo’s floor, Silvia smelled
something baking and the aroma was intoxicating.  Tired and hungry after a
long workday, she was delighted when Cosmo came to the door with a plate full
of fresh baked ricotta cookies.  She wasn’t surprised that he had baked
such good cookies himself.  Whatever Cosmo did, he did great.  He
said that the tree bark cookies she had brought over to his apartment inspired
him.  She bit into one of his cookies.  They were even more delicious
than they smelled.

“These
are fucking amazing!  Is there anything you can’t do Cosmo?” she said,
buttering him up for the favors she was about to ask of him.  She had two
things on her agenda:  Getting him to go to the reunion and getting him to
drive with her to Portland.  She did not really expect to achieve the
latter at this time, but the former objective was definitely going to be
accomplished tonight.

He
smiled and stood tall releasing, for a second, the hunch that had become a part
of his lanky body.  He then walked into the kitchen to get the teakettle
screaming on the stove. 

“Tea?”
he asked Silvia, getting out a box of Earl Grey.

“Yeah,
thanks,” she replied, sitting down at his kitchen table.

“How’s
everything at home?” he asked as he prepared their tea.
“Dad
still crazy?”

“The
other night he and Vince were fighting.  He said Vince was giving him a
bunch of crap about buying some plastic bags.  Dad’s itching for a fight
all the time, and here Vince goes giving him shit about plastic bags.  You
know Vince though, with all the causes he’s got going.”

“Yeah,”
Cosmo said, like he understood completely. “I’m sure he considers plastic to be
evil.”

“Right,”
she said as though she did not also oppose the use of plastic bags.

“Somehow
I managed to reconcile them,” said Silvia, with a look on her face like she
could barely believe that she had accomplished such a feat.  Then she
thought of a way she could nicely transition into persuading Cosmo to go to the
reunion.

“Every
time Dad gets mad at Vince,
which
is like every day,
he threatens to not help him out with his tuition, and Vince gets all panicky
and depressed.  So I explained to Vince that Dad is more edgy than ever
because Mom isn’t around and that he really wants to get Mom back, but he’ll
never admit that.  I told Vince that having a party for him for his
graduation would be an opportunity for Dad to try to get Mom back, or at least
impress her with his fatherly generosity by paying for the whole thing.”

She
said all of this very quickly, hoping that Cosmo would not readily recognize
the illogical nature of this plan.  But of course he did.  

“That’s
insane!” he blurted out, followed by, “And what makes you think that Mom wants
to get back with Dad?  She seems happy for the first time in years.
 Why would she want to go back to that miserable bastard?  And what
makes you think that Dad’s going to pay for a party?  
Unless
we have it at McDonald’s.”

“I’m
not sure that Mom wants to get back with Dad, or that it’s the best thing for
her, but Dad doesn’t know that.”

“So,
you’re going to lie to Dad?”

“No.
I’m not lying,” she said. “I’m just going to convince him that if he’s going to
get Mom back, giving Vince a party would be a great opportunity for him to do
so.” 

Cosmo
looked back at his sister disapprovingly and said, “What about Vince?  He
hates being the center of attention.” 

“Yeah,
but I explained to him that if Dad has an opportunity to get Mom back, he might
be in a better mood and stop threatening to not help with his tuition.” 

“Jeez,
you really got it all planned out,” he said with a tone of cynicism. “And
what’s your plan for me in all this?  Where do I fit in?”

Silvia
looked back at him as if she had no plans for him and innocently said, “No plan
for you, but why wouldn’t you want to be there knowing how comforting your
presence would be to our little brother?  Knowing how he looks up to you.”

Cosmo
looked back at her like he knew exactly what she was doing, and said, “So I
show up because I’m the good older brother, huh?”

“Yes,”
she said, remembering that she could never lie to Cosmo or fool him in any way
because he knew her too well.

He
rolled his eyes, gave a small laugh and said, “And just where do you plan on
having this party?”

“Well,
first I should say that it’s really not going to be a party.  It will just
be our family.
 
I’ve just been calling it
a party for convenience sake.  Sometimes I call it a family dinner.” 
Although she could not fool him, she also knew that she had to refrain from
using the word reunion.  

But
Cosmo did not seem too interested in her tangent on semantics and he simply
repeated his question. “Where are we going to have this dinner?”

“I’m
not sure.  Some place near home.  Some place...”

“Cheap,”
said Cosmo finishing her sentence.

“Yeah,
some place cheap,” she said as if to satisfy her brother. “Dad always mentions
some place called Russo’s.  Says the owner couldn’t make his whole legal
fee years ago, so now Dad can eat there free whenever he wants.  He’s
always offering to bring me there for lunch.  I don’t think they’re very
accommodating to vegetarians though.”

“Russo’s
Bar and Grill?” said Cosmo, humor in his voice.

“Yeah,
I think that’s it.”

“Yeah,
they’re sure not accommodating to vegetarians.  It’s a biker bar!” 
He was fully laughing now with his biggest, heartiest laugh.  He then got
slightly serious and said, “But it is good to know that the barter system is
still in use.” 

“What
about the Central Cafe?” said Silvia, not laughing at
all.
“We drove past it on our way back from an AA meeting.  It looks pretty
nice and unassuming.  Not too pricey.”

“AA
meeting?
  You and Dad?” he nearly spit the
tea out of his mouth from his urge to laugh.
“Oh what the
fuck.
 This is too funny.  You got to spread this stuff out,
Silv
.”

“What’s
so funny about getting Dad to go to an AA meeting?  I happen to think it’s
pretty great.”

“It
is.  It is.  I’m sorry.  It’s just funny, is all.  Picturing
Dad sitting in one of those meetings where everybody introduces themselves as
drunks.  Hey, he didn’t introduce himself like that, did he?” He then
began to impersonate an imagined version of their father:  ‘Hello I’m
Frank Greco and I’m an alcoholic.’”

“You
know, you should take it easy on him,” she said.

“Why
should I do that?” he said, turning serious. “He’s treated me like crap my
whole life.  And why are you defending him all of sudden, anyway?”

“I’m
just trying to have compassion for people lately.  That’s all.”

“Okay,
Gandhi,” he said smirking, “why you’re giving all this compassion away to
everyone, I wish that you’d fucking send some my way!”

“Why
should I?”

“Because
I spent my whole life being on the top of Dad’s shit list for no apparent
reason.  That’s why.”

“So,
you turned out okay,” she said.  And it was true.  He turned out
fine.  But she also knew that he probably would have turned out a lot
better had their father treated him differently.  He probably would have
finished school for one thing.  Despite his brilliance and his ability to
do anything and everything great, he lacked confidence. 

“Yeah
sure, I turned out fine.  But I could have turned out a lot better if he
hadn’t called me a fail....” 

Silvia
stopped him before he could go any further.  She knew what he was about to
say, and she knew that what he was about to say was true, but she was also very
aware of the damaging effects of blame.  All that blame did, in her view,
was to give the blaming person, in this case Cosmo, a way out of taking
responsibility for his own problems, and therefore, a way out of making his
life better.

“Cosmo
Greco, I thought you were you’re a bigger person than the type who sits around
and blames other people for their problems.”