Page 37 of Wish I Were Here
“I’m starting to see that.” He grabs his glass and tosses his drink back.
Barbara appears in front of us. “Another one?”
A warm glow has started to take over my limbs. Maybe Luca is right. I needed that. Maybe we can just stay here doing shots and not thinking about my life falling apart. “Yes, please.”
She grabs the bottle and refills our glasses.
“Oh, and one more thing.” Luca cocks his head and gives Barbara his charming smile.
Barbara looks at me with a good-natured roll of her eyes. “Here we go…”
“Would you mind terribly if we asked you to call back to Uncle Vito? We need to talk to him.”
Barbara makes an exaggerated cringe face. “His card game is about to start.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“You know he doesn’t like anyone to interrupt his card game.”
I look nervously at Luca. “Maybe we should come back later?”
Luca shakes his head. “It’s important.”
Barbara sighs like,It’s your funeral. I drink my second shot.
“Okay. Foryou, Luca, I’ll ask him.” She moves across the bar to pick up an old-fashioned phone on the wall. People around here are awfully amenable to doing favors for Luca.
“I guess this card game is really important to your uncle Vito?”
“It’s been going on every week since Barbara’s been plying me with whiskey.”
“What if he says no to meeting with us?”
“Uncle Vito won’t say no.” Luca bends an arm, resting it on the bar in front of us, and a branch of autumn leaves sways on his bicep. “We’re family.”
I wish Dad and I had the same understanding when I asked him to help me get my birth certificate back. Then maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in a smoky bar contemplating tracing a finger along the lines of my doorman’s tattoos.
But then again, I think, as the low tones of the saxophone vibrate in my chest and Luca leans closer so I can hear him over the noise,maybe this isn’t so bad after all. The warm glow spreads wider.
A moment later, Barbara stands in front of us. “Okay. Vito says make it quick.”
“Thanks, Barb.” Luca takes her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “You’re the best.”
We weave back through the crowd and enter an unmarked door on the other side of the room. It swings shut behind us, taking the light from the stage and the noise from the band with it, and when it hits the frame with a loud clang, I jump. Luca reaches out and grabs my hand, and I hold on, staringdown a long, narrow hallway. Smoke curls in front of the dim overhead bulb like fog rolling in. At the end of the hall, I can make out the vague shapes of a beaded curtain swaying from a slight breeze. Luca tugs me forward, and the smell of smoke is stronger back here, more pungent than the cigarettes out in the bar. Cigars, maybe. I clutch Luca’s hand tighter, stumbling to a stop.
“Luca, are you sure this is a good idea? I know Uncle Vito is family and all, but this looks like the kind of place where people get whacked.”
Luca’s shoulders shake with laughter, but I stay frozen. The closer we get to meeting this Uncle Vito, the more my nerves are stretching thin. After a moment, my anxiety seems to register with Luca, and his smile fades.
Turning to face me, Luca takes both my shoulders in his hands. He’s only inches away, and his eyes find mine in the semidarkness. “Catherine, I promise you, I won’t let you get whacked. Can you trust me?”
No.
Luca is the last person I can trust, and not just because he shows up late and loses my dry cleaning and spills coffee on me when I step off the elevator. It’s because even in the back labyrinth of this dingy, smoky bar, with something that screamsdangerlurking behind that beaded curtain, I want to lean into him instead of pulling away. I want him to wrap those painted arms around me. And this is so unlike me that I reallydon’tknow who I am. I’ve completely lost my identity in ways that have nothing to do with my Social Security number.
“Catherine?” he prompts.
“Okay,” I whisper, because the truth is that whatever is behind that curtain seems safer than staying alone in the hall with Luca.
