Page 52 of We Could Be So Good
“Why?”
“I’ve been at the paper a year. I’ve already spent too long at the city desk. When I get back, there’s an office on the seventh floor waiting for me.”
Hearing Andy say those words aloud feels like a door slamming shut and it takes all Nick’s effort to sound unworried. “I figured.”
“You did?”
“I mean, we knew you weren’t staying at the city desk. It was only supposed to get your feet wet, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Andy says glumly.
This conversation has gone wrong, somehow, and Nick desperately wishes he could see Andy’s face. “When are you coming back?”
“Sunday morning.”
“I’ll see you then. Wait, no. Dammit. I told my mom I’d visit her this Sunday.”
“Do you want company?”
“Really?” What Nick actually should be asking is whether it’s a good idea for them to see one another for the first time after all this in front of twenty elderly Italian immigrants, but he doesn’t want to be presumptuous.
“Give me her address.”
Nick does, and also reads out his mother’s phone number. “Do you remember how to get there?”
“Not even slightly.”
Nick tries to come up with a route that will give Andy at least a fighting chance of not getting lost. “Go to the Prince Street station. You remember where that is? You go to the Chinese restaurant Linda likes and you keep walking for two more blocks. Get on the train that saysFourth Avenue.” From across the line, he hears the scratching of Andy’s pencil.
“Got it.”
“We’d better hang up before you have to explain a five-dollar long-distance call.”
“Probably.”
“Andy?”
“Yeah, Nick?”
“I’m really glad you called.”
“Me too.”
Nick sits on the floor, holding the phone long after the line goes dead.
Chapter Twelve
Nick tries to look calm, because if his brother realizes how well he’s succeeding in pissing Nick off, it’ll only encourage the bastard. They’re sitting on the back steps, side by side, so at least they don’t have to look at one another.
“It’ll toughen him up,” says Michael. “He needs it. It toughened you up, after all.” He lets out a crack of laughter. “You were such a crybaby, even worse than Sal.”
Nick lights a cigarette and doesn’t bother offering one to his brother. Maybe getting beaten up after school did toughen Nick up; he doesn’t know. He does know that at some point he just stopped talking about it. They had all been living in that shoebox of an apartment in Flatbush and nobody was getting any sleep because Sal had colic. Nick getting beat up was small potatoes.
His mother was waking up at dawn to scrub floors at the hospital and he didn’t want to bother her. Johnny, his middle brother, was already off at the seminary. And Michael was around, but he was married with a baby of his own and working godawful hours trying to support his wife, child, mother, and brother. His idea of dealing with Nick’s complaints about getting beat up was tosmack him around a bit himself. So, yeah, Nick learned to keep his mouth shut.
“You learned how to defend yourself,” Michael goes on.
Maybe that’s true, too. Nick can hold his own against most people in a fight. But Nick gained thirty pounds and six inches his first year of high school. That was why nobody tried to pick fights with him anymore, not because he was good with his fists. The same thing might happen to Sal, but looking at him now—all skinny arms and legs—Nick wouldn’t put much money on it happening anytime soon.
