Ready for You (8 page)

She tried to look out the window, but she couldn’t see anything. A light breeze ruffled the edge of the curtain, as gently as the way Rocco had touched her cheek after dinner at his house that night. She inhaled. She was grateful someone wanted her. She was grateful for her boys. She was grateful for her health. She was grateful Phil was a decent man, a good father. She blew the breath slowly out.
Time to get the boys ready for bed.

Danny was cranky and it took twice as long as usual to get them settled into their bunk beds. She brushed back her hair and trudged into the living room. Phil glanced up from his computer and unplugged an earphone.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. “
You watching
something?”

“A movie.
You want to join me?”

She shook her head and plopped into the chair at her desk, an old oak roll top. She pulled out a notebook and pen and wrote.

Two hours later, Phil snapped shut his computer. “I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”

“Not yet, goodnight.”

He raised his hand and walked into the hall. She closed her notebook and stowed it in a drawer. She stood and stretched. She probably should keep those notebooks locked up. If her mom came over, she might find them. Sometimes her mom pretended to help clean when really she was being nosy.

Her purse hung on the hook. She rifled in it to find her phone. She often forgot to turn it off. It rang and she searched frantically, hope swelling that it was Rocco. It was.

“I saw you,” she said without any polite preamble. She jogged into the laundry room and closed the door with her foot.
Nothing.
“Outside my house earlier.”

“Yeah.”
His voice was raspy and harsh. “Are you coming to my mom’s party?”

“I doubt it, unless you want me to.”
Please say yes.

“I do.” She smiled, even though his voice didn’t match his words. “But I want you to bring your husband and sons.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why?” She slid down the wall and hugged her knees with one arm.

“I need to see you with them. I remember what it was like. I can’t do this.”

“Sabrina told me your divorce--”

“I know what she told you,” he growled. “I tried to tell myself it was okay. I tried to tell myself we all turned out okay. But you don’t know what we went through, what I put my son through, what he did because I wasn’t there. Maybe it would have been different if--”

“You don’t know that.”

“No one knows. But we both know what we’re doing is wrong.” He almost whispered it, as if he, like she, didn’t really want to hear that.

“We could just…you were right, about Phil and Suzy. They had lunch today. We can be friends, okay?
Neighbors?”
She gripped her legs tighter.

He blew out a breath, almost a snort. “No.” His phone clicked. He’d hung up.

Chiara looked at the screen of her phone. She slid it shut. The phone thudded onto the sisal rug as she buried her head between her chest and knees. She covered her neck with her arms, like she did during an earthquake. Things had shifted, but no real harm had been done. She just had to put a few items back on their shelves, back into their proper places. Too bad there wasn’t insurance for your heart. She’d have to pay for the damages herself.

Chapter Ten

Chiara didn’t bother mentioning Mrs. Buffone’s party to Phil. She took her walks near the boy’s camp the next two days instead of near home, where she might see Rocco or be tempted to walk by his house and remember.

Her mom phoned but Chiara didn’t return her call, not wanting to admit even to herself that she wouldn’t go to the party, that she would never kiss Rocco again, never even talk to him again. She went through the motions of her days, even more hollow and alone than she had been before they met. Now she knew something else was possible for her, something she had denied the very existence of. She had let hope bang open the door and now it hung, tipsy, off its hinges.

As she shook her head at herself on Friday evening, the boys watching PBS Kids while she threw a frozen pizza from Trader Joes in the oven, the phone rang. She hadn’t been answering it, but she did this time. It was Isabella, sounding glum.

“Matt and I had a fight,” she said.

“Again?
Want to talk about it?”

“Same old, same old.
Look, I already told Mom and Mrs. Buffone I’d be coming to that party tomorrow. Mom says you won’t return her calls. I take it you’re not going?”

“No.” Chiara hugged herself with her free arm.

“Don’t want to talk, huh?”

“Not so much.
Nothing to talk about, anyway.”

“Come to the party with me,
So
?
Pleease?
Maybe you can help me keep Mom’s questions to a minimum.”

“Sure, because she loves to grill me more than you.”

“Because you’re easier to break down,” Isabella said. She was infuriatingly right most of the time.

“Shut up.” Chiara paced a few steps before peeking in the oven.

“So, will you? I like the Buffones and it’s good for me to get out, you know, and Faith will be there and maybe I can go over some things with her too. Will you?”

Chiara sighed. “I’ll need to talk to Phil. I doubt it, though.”

“Call me back on my cell, okay?”

“I hear his car now. I’ll call in ten.”

“Kisses, best big sister.” No doubt Isabella had her biggest shit-eating grin on.

“Sure, you little brat.”

Isabella blew a raspberry into the phone and hung up. Chiara smiled, though the little
crease
in her forehead pushed out.

After greeting the boys, Phil came in and kissed her cheek. She was a nose wrinkler too; she hated his patchouli spice scent. The usual pleasantries exchanged, Phil sniffed.

“Frozen pizza?”

“I thought we’d have a salad.”

“I wish you’d warn me. I could’ve picked something up.”

The only kind of salad Phil liked was Cobb or spicy Asian fusion. “Isabella called. She wants me to go with her to a party tomorrow. I told her probably not. I figured you’d want us to do something with the boys.”

“Actually, and not that you’re not welcome to come, but I’m sure you’d rather go with your sister…Suzy invited the boys to go swimming at her house this weekend. Her nephew, he’s seven, is visiting…” Phil said as he bent over to stare into the refrigerator.

“I see.” Visions of Phil divorcing her, taking the boys, living at Suzy’s spacious upper valley house, herself alone, inhabiting a studio apartment, or maybe at her parents’ flicked through her mind like a movie on fast forward.

She clutched her forehead and squeezed before she started at the faint burning smell. She pulled out the pizza, not burnt, but Danny might complain about the darkened edges.

“Well, what do you and the boys want to do?” she said as she placed pizza and broccoli on their plates.

“I’ll ask them,” Phil said. He grabbed
an ale
and put a frozen shepherd’s pie in the oven while Chiara chopped apple for her salad. He called the boys to dinner and sat with them at the table.

Chiara listened with one ear to their conversation. Of course, the boys began to chatter excitedly about the day.They loved to go swimming and they’d met Suzy’s nephew at the company picnic. Apparently, they liked Suzy too. Chiara rubbed her stomach before assembling her salad, her favorite mixture of baby lettuce, apple, walnuts, dried cranberries, and a sweet poppy seed dressing. She placed it on the table.

“Salad again, Mommy?”
Max asked. “You eat a lot of salad.”

“I like salad,” she said. “Well, it sounds like you want to go to Suzy’s tomorrow. Do you want me to come?”

“Yes,” Max said.

“Dad says Aunt La wants you to go to a party?” Danny said. “She might get lonely without you, but we’ll have Dad.”

“Oh, okay,” Max said. He was usually swayed by his brother’s quiet pronouncements.

“I’ll call her, then.
If you’re sure.”
The three nodded and went back to eating and chatting.

Chiara called. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go. Rocco basically told her not to, unless she brought Phil and the boys. But if she and Phil were really going to split, she might as well grab what she could. But she wasn’t going to let Isabella know that.

“You’ll go!” Isabella got excited easily.

“Maybe.
Or maybe I should go with Phil and the boys.”

“And leave me by myself?”

“There will be plenty of people there.”

“True. Oh, I bet that cutie Rocco will be there. I could give my flirting skills an airing. ‘Course I could do better with you on wing. What can I do to get you there? How about I take you shopping in the morning?
A new dress?”

Chiara’s stomach knotted so tightly she felt she’d done that torturous new abs routine her Jazzercise instructor threw at them last week. No way would she let Isabella go alone now. “It’s a deal. What time?”

“The party starts at two, so maybe 10:30? We can shop, have lunch, and we’ll still have time to beautify. It’ll be like the old days, when I’d help you get ready for a date.” Isabella laughed.

Chiara smiled a tiny bit. Those were the days of giggling and too much makeup, whispered secrets and groaning over boys. Boys who turned out to not be worth the time or thought they’d innocently given.
“Sounds good.
See you then.”

The next afternoon, Chiara followed Isabella to her car. “Thank goodness Phil and the boys are gone,” Chiara said. “If Phil saw me in this dress…I can’t believe I let you talk me into it.”

“Your husband is a freak, and not in a good way, if he wouldn’t want to rip that dress off you. You look fantastic. Maybe you’re right, though. How am I going to get Rocco to look at me with those boobs peeking out?” Isabella laughed as they eased into the car.

Chiara looked down and tried to pull the halter neckline over more, but it wasn’t budging, not that way. “He knows I’m married.”

“Doesn’t stop a guy from looking.”

“Why did I let you talk me into this?”

“Because you know that dress looks great. Hot pink is one of your best colors. You’re like an Italian Marilyn Monroe.”

“I’m dressed all wrong. This is a family birthday party. Turn around, I want to go home,” Chiara said as Isabella made a right onto Oak.

“No way.
I need you to keep Mom away from me. You know she’ll be all over me about Matt. Thirty and not married, she’ll say, when is he going to put a ring on that lovely finger? You know how she is.”

“She’ll be too distracted by my hoochie mama dress to notice Matt’s absence.”

Isabella laughed until tears sprang into her eyes.

“Nice of you to laugh at my pain.”

“Oh, come on, you’re used to it. At least Santo and Bitchy Bobbie won’t be there. Imagine what she’d say about your dress.” Isabella snickered.

“And Santo would be right behind her with his raised eyebrow and disappointed head shake. Ugh. I’ll never be able to wear this again. What a waste.”

“Yeah, I guess. You sure won’t be wearing it on your trip to the milquetoast in-laws next month. So much color and olive skin would burn their retinas. But, really,
So
, you know you love it and you know you look gorgeous. Celebrate, huh? Where’s that crazy girl you used to be? It’s okay to let her come out and play sometimes.”

She died with Jenny. Or maybe she got buried alive and was still trying to claw her way out. “Is this medical advice or little sister teasing?” Chiara said as they parked down the street from the Buffones’.

“Neither. Come on, there’s a party waiting for the Vitale sisters.”

Chiara laughed and strode to the house, arm in arm with Isabella.

Mrs. Buffone stood in the living room, surrounded by friends when they walked in. No male Buffones in sight; Chiara breathed in relief. They placed their gift bags on a small circular table in a corner, greeted Mrs. Buffone, who remarked how lovely they looked, and made the rounds in the living room. Chiara’s mom raised an eyebrow at her, but no comments yet, since they were chatting with a few old acquaintances. Directed by her grandma, Sabrina led Chiara and Isabella into the kitchen, where the men were working.

“Grandpa, Grandma wants you to join her,” Sabrina said before walking back down the hall.

Chiara’s palms prickled as Ray Junior, Rocco’s son Shawn, a smooth looking man in his sixties or seventies, Mr. Buffone, and Rocco turned to them. While they said their hellos, Rocco took her in with a flash in his eyes. He might as well have drawn her to him and kissed her because she felt the same pop in her stomach and deep pull as if he had. He was her favorite types rolled into one: Italian, construction worker, ball player, just the kind she used to get googly eyed over in her teens. The older man, his uncle Rob, took Chiara’s hand and kissed it, complimenting her. Rocco turned a twinkling eye on Isabella.

“Where’s the boyfriend?” he asked her. “Is he real or did you make him up to keep the men away?”

“Uncle Rob,” Shawn said, “Chiara’s husband is real, so lay off.”

“You see what disrespect I have to endure from these young men?” Uncle Rob sighed. Chiara had to think of him that way, he was so like her own uncles. She laughed. He shrugged and followed his brother, Mr. Buffone, to the living room. Shawn and Ray went back to the stove.

Isabella moved closer to Rocco and smiled. Did she just bat her eyelashes? Chiara ground her teeth.

“I’m not telling,” Isabella purred.

“Like mystery, huh?” Rocco said.

“You know us Italian women, full of sultry intrigue.” She slid her hand onto his arm.

Chiara dug her nails into her palm, slippery and hot.

“You need a man who appreciates you,” he said in a low voice.

Chiara swallowed the scream in her throat.

“True. It’s too late for Chiara, but I’m free to do who…” Isabella coughed delicately. “What I want.”

Rocco
laughed,
the same laugh he’d used on her. Chiara clasped her hands to keep from smacking Isabella, or belting that grin off Rocco’s face, or both.

“Dad, we need to set up those drinks,” Shawn said. Rocco and Isabella followed him out.

“Do you need any help?” Chiara asked Ray.
“Seems you’ve been deserted.”

“Thanks, most everything’s ready. I’ll catch him for dish duty later. That brother of mine, he doesn’t have much stick to it, except when it comes to unzipping, his mouth and…” He turned and his neck reddened, as if he’d just realized he wasn’t talking to one of the family.

Chiara smiled in understanding, though her insides screamed in agony. “I hear you. Isabella’s the same.
Younger siblings.”
She shrugged.

“Yeah.
Oh, Sabrina,” he said as his niece ambled in. “Will you take Chiara around, maybe get her a drink?”