My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

chance at a future with him, because I can’t help but assume that whoever he’s seeing is funnier and smarter and has a better body and isn’t engaged to a psychopath. “Good for him,”

I say, nonchalantly. “I’m dating someone too.” Amity’s eyes grow wide. “Who?” “You,” I answer.

Theresa moment of silence before we laugh, Thomas included. Of course he’s learned that Amity and I are engaged, and his European manner isn’t fazed by her taking him as a lover. And even though I’ve repeatedly encouraged her to share the whole story of our arrangement with Thomas, assuming he’ll pass it on to Nicolo, I’m sure Amity hasn’t just as I’m sure she doesn’t want Nicolo and me to be together.

“So what’s this guy like?” I ask, referring to Nicolo’s new companion.

“Just an average guy, no doubt,” Amity says nonchalantly.

“They’ve only been out a couple of times,” Thomas assures me.

I’m not reassured. “So what does he look like?”

“No one’s really seen him yet, because… Well, never mind,” Amity says. “Ready to go, Thomas?”

“Because why?” I ask. Come on, Amity. You’ve set me now finish.

“Well,” she says slowly, with a soft and compassionate look on her face, “from what we hear, the two of them never left the guy’s apartment, if you know what I mean.”

Ha! I sure do. If Nicolo’s already hopped into the sack with this guy it means he doesn’t feel about him the way he feels about me. I still have a chance. “I’m glad you told me,” I tell her solemnly. “It’s good for me to know.”

After they leave, I can’t stand it. I have to see Nicolo. I jump in my car and head over to the duplex he shares with his mother. Nicolo’s truck is gone, but I approach the door and ring the bell. It’s twilight, and the porch light wrestles control from the purple

Texas evenfall I wait for as answer.

“Buenas noches, seor Harry,” his mother says, opening the door. She’s stiff, formal.

“Buenas noches, seora,” I answer. “Nicolo estti aquf?”

“No, Harry.”

“Is he on a date?” I ask, unable to contain myself.

“Yes. They go to a movie. Amadeus.”

It’s a new film Nicolo and I planned to see together. “Can I come in?” I ask. She doesn’t answer. “He can’t force you not to talk to me,” I claim. “It’s time he understood my story. The only way is to tell you, because he won’t hear it from me. Please.”

She unlocks the screen door, allows me inside. “I am making

the dinner. You will have to talk to me in the kitchen.” I follow her into the kitchen, where an array of vegetables are cut and sitting next to the stove. She opens the refrigerator and unwraps a piece of meat veal, I think. “What is your story?”

I sit at the kitchen table. “It’s nothing compared to yours,” I admit, not wanting to offend her. “My family is very different from your own.” ‘

“Tell me,” she commands, cutting the meat into squares. She’s browning onion and garlic in oil, and the kitchen is coming to life. “My father died.”

“I am sorry,” she says coolly, placing the meat into the pan to sizzle with the garlic and onion. A minute passes while she turns the meat as it browns in the oil.

I exhale and take a long pause before filling my lungs again. “He was hard on me. Hard on my mother, my brother. I don’t think he was ever happy, at least not with us.”

She grabs the dish of chopped tomatoes and incorporates them into the pan, adds carrot slices, salt and pepper, and pours a broth over everything. Then she lifts the lid on a pot of thick white rice. Steam escapes, and she gives it a quick stir before covering it again, closing off the escape route. “Himself? Was he happy?”

“When he was younger, maybe. But as he grew older, I always got the feeling he wanted out of his skin. That he wanted to shed his body and fly toward the horizon and disappear inside of it. He was the strangest guy. So controlled, so tight, yet totally exhilarated whenever he got lost he loved being lost. And I couldn’t figure it out, because he planned everything down to the minute, every detail taken care of, leaving nothing to chance every day of his life. But every once in a while chance won out, and those were the times he was happy. When my mother, brother, and I were upset that the road on the screwy map didn’t exist and the ear was out of gas in the middle of nowhere and there was no food and no way to get help because we were in the French countryside and we

couldn’t speak French that’s when my father would relax in his skin, light up a cigarette, and sit quietly on the side of the road with a smile he never wore otherwise.”

Nicolo’s mother fills two small juice glasses with red wine, offers one to me, and sits at the table. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t, so I continue. “I always knew this about my father—that he respected, was even amused by, anything powerful enough to derail his force. That’s why I thought it would be OK to tell the truth about who I was. I thought he’d respect that I was changing his blueprints for me. Oh, boy, was I wrong.”

“Nicolo’s father never knew that his son is a man who likes men. He was disappeared before Nicolo spoke of it. I wonder how Gianni would react to this. He loved his manly sister, but perhaps it is different when it is your son, no?”

I refuse to cut slack. “It shouldn’t be. He should love Nicolo no matter what.”

Nicolo’s mother takes a drink of wine and slowly lowers her glass to the table. She sets it down without a sound, as if she’s well practiced at hiding her presence. “It is one of the worst things