A Little Too Much

Chapter Twelve

I’VE LEFT THREE voice mails for Brett in the ten days he’s been gone, and he finally called me back at two this morning. He was in a crowd somewhere, but between the loud music, the fact that he was drunk enough that he was seriously slurring, and the woman whining that he should hang up and dance with her, I couldn’t catch where. I’m not even sure what city he’s in.

The thing is, what bothers me about that whole scene isn’t the fact some chick (and probably more than one) is obviously making moves on Brett. What bothers me is that I really don’t care. I wanted to feel angry or upset when I hung up. I even went out to the living room and kicked his couch, but the only thing I felt was a sharp pain in my foot—which still sort of hurts as I walk into the Argo Tea.

I know I really need to stop whatever I’m doing with Alessandro before it turns into something I can’t stop. But every time I open my mouth to say something like, “I can’t hang out with you anymore,” something else comes out, like, “Tell me about Rome.” So, as we hop on the A train, which is standing room only at lunchtime on a Saturday, I still haven’t said anything. I justify it by telling myself I’m not taking an insane risk. My secret’s safe and we’re just exploring the city. I’m having fun . . . more than I have in a long time.

It’s amazing how a person can convince themselves of almost anything. Even when that anything could cost them everything.

When we get off one stop later, at Forty-second, I take the long way past the bus station, leaving Alessandro wondering if we’re bussing it for a minute, before heading down Eighth Avenue toward Thirty-ninth. When we take the right on Thirty-ninth, he looks at me and smiles. “The flea market.”

I shoot him a glance. “I’ve heard Hell’s Kitchen is the best. Cool vintage stuff.”

His smile pulls wider. “Good choice. I’ve never been.”

It’s warm for late November—almost seventy. After the cold snap we’ve had for the last few weeks, the streets are crowded with people basking in the sun, soaking up the last bits of warmth before winter hits for real. Many are in sweaters or sweatshirts, but there’s the occasional T-shirt or tank top. I picked my favorite light sweater—white with silver threads through it. It’s got an open neck and is snug without being tight. Alessandro is wearing khaki cargo pants, black army boots, and a snug black T-shirt. And those arms are truly spectacular—lean and long and muscular and totally hot. Watching his biceps strain the fabric at the hem of the short sleeve, I can’t deny the little part of me that’s dying to run my fingers over those muscles to see if they feel as solid as they look. I want to trace the veins to where they disappear behind brushed cotton.

We cross Ninth Avenue and the market is laid out in front of us. There’s an old metal Coke sign hanging from the canopy over a booth just ahead with a wooden rocking horse below it, and in the booth across the row, I see vintage clothes hanging on racks. Suddenly I feel like a kid in a candy shop. I’m not much of a shopper, but for some reason, vintage stuff gets me all giddy.

We walk all the way to the end to get a feel for the place, and it’s packed full of people wending between the booths, same as we are.

“So I guess this isn’t exactly undiscovered either,” I say, lifting a vintage black fedora off a hat rack and trying it on.

“But you are discovering new things,” Alessandro says, gesturing to the hat.

“Old things,” I counter, looking at myself in the mirror on a table next to the rack.

He moves behind me and smiles into the mirror from over my shoulder. “Old things that are new to you.” He gives the back rim a flick and it drops over my eyes.

And I realize that’s him—something old, from before, that I’m discovering all over again. I lift the hat off my head and drop it on his, taking the opportunity to really look at him. My eyes devour his face; from the dimple at the tip of his chin, over his full red lips and his straight nose, up the curve of his cheekbones to those amazing gray eyes, where my gaze stalls. He’s so similar to the boy I knew, but so different.

When I realize we’re just standing here staring at each other, I clear my throat. “The gangster look works for you.”

I lower my eyes away from his to the table and they fall on a pair of white silk gloves—the kind they used to wear that go up past your elbows. “Oh my God. These are so cool.”

Alessandro pulls the hat off and puts it back on the rack. “Try them on.”

I slip one glove on and turn my arm side to side, admiring how the white silk pops against my mocha skin. “I have to have these.”

“Then you should buy them,” he says with a smile.

I bring them over to the vendor, a woman with tattoo sleeves. “Nice ink,” I tell her when I notice the pattern is mostly vines and butterflies.

“Thanks,” she says. “Back at ya. Does that go all the way around?” she asks, looking at the butterflies at my left collarbone.

I lift the hem of my sweater, exposing the trail of butterflies over my right hip. “To here,” I say, pointing lower, at the front of my hip under my jeans. I flick a glance at Alessandro and see him looking at my ink. There’s something in his gaze, like he wants to reach out and touch the butterflies on my hip, that sends a pulsing ache through my belly. Will I ever tell him what they mean? That he was the inspiration? Probably not. I force myself to breathe. “So, how much for these?” I ask, holding up the gloves.

“Twenty,” she says.

Stick my hand in my bag and fish for money. I come out with a fistful of bills and count them. “I’ll give you thirteen.”

She looks like she wants to counter, but after a beat she smiles. “I like you, so okay.”

I hand her money and slip the gloves into my bag. “Thanks.”

“You come on back. We’re here every week,” she says, pocketing the cash.

I can’t stop the smile. “I will.”

Alessandro grasps my elbow and veers us toward a hot-dog cart. “Do you still eat hot dogs?”

“Sure,” I say a little warily. Did I eat hot dogs before? There’s the tickle of a memory, but I can’t get a grasp on it.

He buys two hot dogs and two Diet Cokes and we go to the condiment counter, where he loads one with mustard and relish, then hands it to me. As I watch him squirt catsup on his, the tickle is there again, and then it all comes back in a rush. It was a few weeks after Alessandro and I’d started sleeping together.

“That is just wrong in so many ways,” I said as he sat next to me at the dinner table, the catsup bottle making farting sounds as he squeezed the last of it onto his hot dog.

He looked up at me and a smile curved half his mouth. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”

I scrunched my face at him. “I am never trying that. Catsup on hot dogs is gross.”

“You’re gross,” a whiny female voice said from across the table.

I looked up, and the white girl, Trisha or Hannah, was glaring at me. She was pressed into Lorenzo’s side, and I couldn’t see what her hand was doing, but it was moving in his lap. Lorenzo smirked and tore a hunk off his hot dog with his teeth, then chucked the rest at Alessandro. “You want my leftovers, bro, take them.”

Shame nearly choked me.

But then, so subtly that no one else noticed, Alessandro wove his fingers into mine under the table and made everything okay.

“Hilary?” he says, pulling me back to the present. He’s moved away from the counter toward a bench. “Would you like to sit?”

I nod and move with him, sinking into the seat before my knees give out. “Thanks . . . for the hot dog.”

He nods slowly. “Are you okay?”

I shake off the memory and try to pretend I haven’t lost my appetite. “Yeah. This is fun.”

His eyes scan the market. “It is. We’ll have to put this on our list for re-dos.”

“Re-dos?”

His gaze finds mine and he smiles. “For when we’ve seen everything else.”

“Re-dos,” I say with a nod. “Sounds like a plan.”

His eyes slip to the open collar of my sweater. “Tell me about your tattoos.”

I take a bite of my hot dog. “What about them?”

“I couldn’t help noticing the other night that there are a lot of them. Do they have some significance?”

At the memory of him slipping on my jacket on opening night, I shudder. “They just remind me to stay free . . . to follow my own path.”

He fixes me in his intense gaze. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my path over the last year. It’s not always as clear as you hope it’s going to be. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life adrift.”

I nod, ’cause not too many people know that better than me.

He stares at his hot dog for a minute. “When our grandparents brought us to Corsica, Lorenzo was all I had left. We were supposed to look out for each other . . . have each other’s backs.” He rakes a hand through his hair and his gaze drifts out over the vendors. “I let him down. When he needed me, I wasn’t there for him.”

“You can’t blame yourself that he got himself killed, Alessandro.”

His tormented eyes find mine. “I can. I do. I could have stopped him. If I’d stuck by his side . . . if I’d had his back . . .”

“You’d be dead too,” I finish for him. “You weren’t going to change him. Lorenzo did what he wanted to whoever he wanted and didn’t give two shits about anyone else.”

His hard expression cracks and he drops his forehead into his hand. “But I’m just like him. I thought the Church could save me. Surrendering my life to the priesthood . . . it was my sacrifice . . . my way of atoning for past sins. But then I met Lexie, and she turned everything on its head. She brought out all my impulsiveness—my lack of self-control. No matter how hard I tried to pretend that everything was fine and I belonged in the priesthood, when I saw how easily I was drawn off course, I couldn’t deny the truth. I was there for the wrong reasons. I thought if I wrapped the beast in God’s clothing, maybe that would tame it. I was wrong. It’s still here, deep inside me. Nothing has changed.”

“You’re not a beast, Alessandro.” I know this for a fact. He might not have always lived on the straight and narrow, but he was kind and tender, and he cared about other people. He cared about me in a way no one ever had before. “Have you at least forgiven yourself for me?”

His gaze burns through me. “No.”

I lower my lashes. “Why not?”

I hear him take a deep breath. “No matter what I convinced myself I felt, there is no excuse for what my brother and I did to you. You were a child.”

I lift my eyes back to him and see him supporting his head in one hand, elbow on his knee. “So were you, Alessandro. And are you hearing yourself? What Lorenzo did or didn’t do is not yours to feel responsible for. You can’t carry his guilt on your shoulders too. That’s too much for one person.”

His head snaps out of his hand. “But it is my guilt. All of it. I never once stood up to him, or told him what he was doing was wrong. I never once tried to stop him from doing any of it.”

“Because he would have beaten the shit out of you if you tried. Lorenzo wasn’t a good person. You are. I get that he’s dead, and I’m sorry, but just because he isn’t here to make amends, don’t put it all on yourself. Don’t make his burden yours. Because, unless he changed way more than you did, I can tell you, if he was still here, he wouldn’t be losing sleep over any of it.”

His face crumples and he lowers it into his hand again. “I’m not a good person, Hilary. I’m not who you thought I was. I knew what he did to you. He bragged about it to Eric and me. I saw you cry. And instead of helping you, I . . .” He lifts his tortured face and looks at me. “I’m no better than he was.”

I stand and throw my trash in the can next to the bench, then look down at him with my hands balled on my hips. “If you want to sit there feeling sorry for yourself, there’s nothing I can do about it, but I suggest you get over yourself and see things how they really were. You want perspective? I’ll give you mine. You did help me. You helped me finally feel something after years of being numb. You helped me find happiness in the middle of my own personal hell. You helped me understand what lo—” I cut off mid-rant when I realize what I was about to say. “I think if you really look back on all the wrong you believe you did, you’re going to realize it was Lorenzo who did it. And until you can let go of his, you’re never going to be able to forgive yourself for yours.”

I turn and march back toward the flea market, but Alessandro has my arm before I get five feet. “Hilary, wait.”

I spin. “For what? For you to finally decide you’re not the devil incarnate? That could take a while.”

He breathes a sigh. “I know some of what you’re saying is true. I just need to sort through some things. But thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything you just said. Knowing how you feel helps.”

I feel all my frustration and anger run off me like melting ice. “The only thing I couldn’t forgive you for was leaving me, Alessandro. As far as I’m concerned, nothing you did while you were here needs forgiving.”

He closes his eyes and when he opens them, they’re moist. “Thank you.”

We just stand here staring at each other for a few long heartbeats, then I loop my arm through his elbow and start toward the booths. “Come on. Treasures await.”

We wind back through the market toward the subway, but just as we get toward the end, a coffee table in a booth with beat-up furniture catches my eye. It’s huge and clunky, all thick legs and a solid top, and totally ugly, with nicks in the wood and cigarette burns in the dark, chipped finish. But maybe because of all that, it has so much character that it almost seems alive, like it will just start talking any minute and tell us its life story. And just looking at it, I know there is one and it’s super interesting.

“How much for the table?” I ask the long-haired guy at the booth.

He eyes Alessandro and then me, sizing us up, no doubt. “Sixty,” he finally says.

I scrunch my face at him. “You’re joking, right? ’Cause it’s worth, like, five.”

He barks out a laugh. “This is antique. It’s worth hundreds.”

“I don’t think circa 1964 qualifies as antique,” Alessandro says from over my shoulder.

I shove him. “Butt out. I’ve got this.” I turn back to the vendor. “Ten.”

“Thirty,” he counters.

“Fifteen.”

He looks at the table and then at me. “Twenty-five, and that’s a low as I can go.”

I stick my hand in my bag and dig past my new gloves for everything I can find. I come out with a ten, eight crumpled ones, and a handful of change. “I’ve got”—I count out the change—“twenty-one sixty-three. Take it or leave it.”

He holds out his hand. “I hope you enjoy your new coffee table.”

I grin and hand him the wad of money . . . and then realize I have no way to get this sucker home. I look at Alessandro with wide, what-have-I-done eyes.

“Am I allowed to butt back in now?” he asks with an amused smile.

“What was I thinking?”

“That you needed a coffee table, obviously.”

“Yeah . . .” I say, looking back down at it. “But now I’ve got to get the freaking thing home.”

“We’ll manage it.” He casts a glance over the flea market. “Have you seen enough?”

“Considering I just spent my last twenty-one dollars, yeah.”

He spins and grabs the front end of the coffee table so it’s behind him. “You get the back.”

I loop my bag over my neck so it doesn’t slide off my shoulder and scurry around to grab the other end. I stagger like a drunken sailor as we start up the street. “Shit. This thing weighs a fucking ton.”

Alessandro glances over his shoulder at me. “It’s a quality piece of furniture. You have a good eye.”

I don’t know if he’s messing with me or what, but I’m too busy trying not to drop my end to give him a hard time. People don’t start to look at us funny until we’re half a block from the flea market, where walking down the street carrying a clunky wooden coffee table isn’t an everyday occurrence. He starts to steer us around the corner onto Eighth.

“Go straight,” I say. “If we go another block to the Times Square station, that will get us closer to the apartment without having to transfer.

We jostle our way through the thickening crowds and when we get to the subway, Alessandro stops at the top of the stairs and sets his end down. I look into the pit, sure we’re screwed. “Will they even let us do this?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?” he answers. “I’m going to tip it on its side,” he says, lifting his end again. “You ready?” I nod and we turn it so the legs are sticking out the side. “Can you hold it like this while I get myself situated?” he asks.

I don’t have a clue what “situated” means, but I say, “Got it,” anyway.

He shifts to the underside behind the front legs and turns his back to me, hooking one hand under the bottom edge. He raises his other arm over his head, grabbing the top edge as I hold the table steady. “You okay back there?” he asks, craning his neck to look at me over his shoulder.

“Did you used to be a furniture mover or something?”

He starts slowly down the stairs and I keep his pace. “European apartments tend to be tight, and there are generally no elevators, so you learn to be creative.”

And now people are looking at us like we’re crazy. Everyone coming up from the subway has to squish to the side of the stairs so we don’t take them out with a table leg, and there’s a flood of people behind us that pushes hurriedly past once we get to the bottom.

We put the table down and I look at the gates. “Now what?”

“You’ve got your MetroCard handy?” he asks, flicking his out of his back pocket.

I dig mine out of my bag and hold it up.

“If we flip it legs up, you won’t have to hold it so high to get through the turnstile.”

He looks so serious, as if we’re doing brain surgery or something, and it suddenly strikes me as funny. I crack up.

“You have a lovely laugh.”

Something in his voice makes me stop. When I look at him again, his face has gone from dead serious to soft and slightly amused.

There’s a rush in my stomach, a sudden whirring of butterflies, but I shut it down. “Let’s go,” I say lifting my end of the table.

No one tries to stop us as we wrestle it through the gates and onto the subway platform, then set the table on its legs next to the wall.

I sit on it and lean against the tile wall as we wait, rubbing my sore palm on my jeans. “Thanks for doing this,” I tell him.

He sits next to me. “My pleasure.”

I think about what I told him that night after Club 69—that I’d never needed him—and wonder if he knows it’s a lie.

When we hear the train in the tunnel, we slide off the table and pick it up. But when the train gets to the platform, I see it’s packed.

“We should wait for the next one,” Alessandro says, starting to lower his end.

“Uh-uh,” I say and push him backward toward the door.

At first, most of the people standing in the door don’t move, like if they ignore us, we’ll go away.

But I’m not going away.

I shove the table and Alessandro staggers back into the crowd, bumping hard into a skinny guy with his nose in his iPad. Eyes widen behind him as the people there realize we’re coming whether they like it or not, and they press deeper into the car.

“I’m going to turn it on end,” Alessandro says, lifting his end higher. “When you’re in, set your end on the floor.”

The doors start to close on the table, but I don’t back off. Alessandro angles the table up so it doesn’t take so much room, and when I’m in, I set my end down. He tips it the rest of the way up so it’s standing on end and I’m trapped in the cage of its legs. It’s only now, when I’m smashed into the bottom of my new old table that I realize there’s a lot of gum stuck here.

At the next stop, we’re able to slide the table away from the door as people get out and make room. As we wrestle it out through the crowd at the Seventy-ninth Street stop, a middle-aged woman with a Macy’s shopping bag gets caught in the legs and we bring her with us onto the platform. She glares as she steps back onto the train just as the doors swish closed.

We haul the table up the stairs the same way we brought it down at Times Square, but when we reach my building we find out that it barely fits through the door. We have to do some fancy dancing, twisting and turning it around the corner of the door frame.

It’s only when we wrestle the table out of the elevator, wrangle it into my apartment, and set it down in front of the couch that I realize how huge it actually is. It takes up almost the entire space between the couch and the wall where the TV is mounted with just enough room to walk between them.

“It fits,” Alessandro says, and I can see him biting back the laugh.

“It does. It’s perfect,” I say a little defensively, sweeping some dirty dishes off the couch and dropping them in the sink on top of other dirty dishes. I come back and sit, kicking my feet up onto my table.

Alessandro slides in next to me on the couch. “Well, then, it was a productive day. I’ll have to think of something equally as productive for Thursday.”

“Next Thursday is Thanksgiving.” I don’t mention that Brett’s coming home. I don’t even want to think about it. “Can we do Friday? Or maybe Saturday? I just have to be home by fourish to get ready for work.”

He nods. “Friday then. Argo Tea? Eleven?”

“Done,” I say, standing and moving to the kitchen. I scrape some more dishes from the counter into the sink. “I feel like I owe you dinner.” I went shopping Tuesday, so I can probably pull something together.

“Thank you for the offer, but I already have dinner plans.”

“Oh.” I can’t explain the sudden wash of cold I feel. He said he wasn’t with that girl he fell in love with, but it never occurred to me until this second he could be seeing someone else. I start to ask who, but realize that’s none of my business. “So . . . something to drink?” I pull open the fridge door and peek inside. “I’ve got Diet Coke and . . .” Nothing. All I drink is Diet Coke. “Um . . . water, I guess.”

“Coke is fine,” he says, settling into the couch.

I pour two glasses and bring them to the couch, handing one to Alessandro.

He takes a sip then leans forward to put the glass on the coffee table. “This table looks a little like the one in my grandparents’ living room.”

“In Corsica?”

He nods. “It’s been there since I can remember. I think Pépé might have made it. I never asked.”

“Made it? Really?”

He nods. “That’s what he did for a living.”

“Do you miss them? Your family?”

He sips his drink and settles deeper into the couch, looking at me. “I do.”

I take a long sip so I don’t have to look at him. “How long do you think you’ll stay here before you go back?”

“I don’t have any definite plans, but I don’t anticipate leaving in the near future.”

Something in my gut loosens a little. “I think I might paint it,” I say, setting my glass on the table.

He leans forward and brushes his fingers over the surface. “Or you could refinish it. This is a nice piece of wood with a bold grain. It would look great if you stripped it and put on a fresh coat of varnish.”

“I don’t know how to do that. Painting is easier.”

“It’s up to you, of course, but if you wanted to try stripping it first to see what’s under all these layers, I could help you.”

He’s way too good at stripping away layers and seeing the stuff underneath. He does it with me every time we’re together. “Maybe I’ll just leave it be.”

“As you wish.” He finishes his Coke and sets the glass down. “So, Friday, then.” He stands. “I really need to go, but I’ll call you with details.”

“Sounds good. And it better not be the Empire State Building.”

He smiles and moves to the door. “I promise to choose something less ‘lame-o,’ ” he says, making air quotes. But then he hesitates with his hand on the doorknob. “I had a really nice time today.”

“Me too.”

He nods and pulls the door open, heading to the elevator. I stand here for a minute, watching him, but then decide that’s awkward, so I close the door and pretend I’m not listening for the elevator door.

After he’s gone, I sit on my table and think about all its layers. My fingers trace gouges and scratches and I just know it’s been through a lot. What if all those layers on the outside are the glue that’s keeping it together?

I decide not to let Alessandro strip off any more layers. But maybe I can help him strip a few of his own.