Page 20 of We Could Be So Good
“Thanks, kid.”
Sal gets up and joins the old men on the lawn, and Andy is left not knowing what to say about any of that.
***
When they sit down to dinner, fifteen people crowded around the table, Nick and Andy wind up wedged together in a corner.
“Whatever you do, donotstop eating,” Nick warns.
This, as it turns out, is not a hardship. There are noodles with tomato sauce, which is ordinary enough, but this sauce is spicy and filled with green things and tastes different from any other tomato sauce Andy has ever eaten. There’s also meat, rolled up and filled with cheese, and several vegetable dishes that Andy can’t identify but that he eats anyway. A few loaves of crusty bread get passed around the table, too. And there’s wine—so much wine.
No fewer than six people ask Nick when he’s getting married. And Nick, for some reason, seems unable to deflect. Andy’s seen Nick brush that question off a dozen times and his inability to do so now makes Andy wince. Nick’s discomfort is obvious and Andy doesn’t understand why his family keeps pressing the point. Well, that isn’t true—they probably do it because they want Nick to be happy, and marriage seems like a good indicator of happiness. Andy understands that; God knows he does. But feeling Nick go tense beside him makes Andy want to yell at all these nice old Italian people.
He’s so wrapped up in Nick that he almost forgets his own troubles, until one of Nick’s aunts points a fork at him and turns to the man sitting beside her. “His girlfriend left him for a heart doctor.” Sonowshe speaks English?
The man looks appraisingly at Andy and shrugs. “A heart doctor, though,” he says in a tone that suggests that getting jilted in favor of cardiologists is all anyone can expect. That maybe Andy should have considered medical school if he didn’t want to get jilted. That Emily did what she had to do, because who could turn down a heart doctor?
He starts to laugh. He had known that eventually he’d find the whole affair with Emily—well, not acutely painful, at least. He just wasn’t expecting it to happen a mere forty-eight hours afterward.
“The liquor’s finally gone to your head,” Nick says as Andy hides his face in his napkin and tries to stop his shoulders from shaking with laughter. Under the table, Nick pinches his leg.
***
By the time they get back on the subway, Andy isn’t steady on his feet. Not even close. “Come on, lightweight,” Nick says, steering him toward a seat at the end of a mostly empty car.
Andy sits but Nick stays standing, his hands in his pockets, facing the subway map. “I grew up here,” he says, pointing to a spot east of what Andy thinks is Prospect Park. He doesn’t have his glasses on, so it’s anybody’s guess. “Flatbush. They only moved out here a couple years ago when my brother got promoted to detective. It’s his house.”
If Nick is in a mood to talk about his family, Andy is going to take advantage of it, but figures he has one, maybe two questions before Nick clams up again. He has to choose his questions wisely.
“Your family kept asking why you don’t have a girlfriend,” Andy says. “They don’t know?”
Nick gives him a sharp look.
“Sorry,” Andy says, holding his hands up. “I’m never sure whether I’m supposed to pretend that I don’t know.”
Nick sighs and sits beside Andy. “No, don’t pretend. I’m not used to talking about it, that’s all. I feel like cops are going to jump out from under the seats or something. Anyway, no, my family doesn’t know. And they won’t. They aren’t— It isn’t an option.”
“I’m sorry,” Andy says, for lack of any better ideas.
“They’re never going to let it rest. They’re never going to get a clue and stop asking. And if they do get a clue, that would be worse.”
Just lie to them the way you lie to everyone else, Andy wants to shout. But maybe lying to your family is a bad idea; Andy wouldn’t know. “I’m glad you don’t go too often, then,” Andy says, and it must sound more fervent than he intended, because Nick’s expression goes all baffled and dopey the way it does whenever he has to deal with the fact that anyone gives a shit about him.
Andy yawns. It’s the middle of the afternoon, but he’s fading fast. The wine made him sleepy, and now the rocking of the subway car is threatening to knock him out.
“Go to sleep.” Nick’s voice is little more than a whisper.
For a crazy moment, Andy’s tempted to put his head on Nick’s shoulder—something he’s never done to anyone in his life. Nick’s had a bad day and Andy wants to make it better, but obviously snuggling on a train—or anywhere—isn’t going to fix anything. This is what too much day drinking will do to you, he supposes. He tips his head back against the window and closes his eyes.
Chapter Four
It occurs to Andy late on Monday afternoon that he probably ought to spend the night at his own apartment. He isn’t feeling fragile—honestly, he hasn’t since Saturday—and there’s no reason for Nick to keep putting him up.
“I should have taken my suitcase this morning,” Andy says as he watches Nick clean up his desk, going through his usual end-of-the-day ritual of separating pens by color and tucking books and files into drawers, aligning the typewriter so it’s parallel to the edge of the desk. Andy just leaves everything piled exactly where it is—he’ll only mess it up again the next day.
“Huh?” Nick jams carbon paper into the wastebasket.
“Do you want to bring me my suitcase tomorrow? Or should I pick it up now?”
