“Come on, Moe, let’s just do it. We’re both high. We’re both a little drunk. I’m horny. You’re horny. We’re here. Let’s just do it. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”
“I can’t, Sam. I know me. I think I’m a little in love with you and if we do this, I won’t be able to turn it off.”
“Then if that’s what’s meant to — ”
“I’m leaving.”
I ran. I didn’t remember grabbing my coat, but I must have because when I was a few blocks away I noticed I was wearing it. I’d never understood what it meant when people said their heads were swimming. I did that night because, man, I was suddenly in the deep end of the pool. As I walked the whole way home, I felt pulled in about a million different directions. I wasn’t proud of myself. I didn’t feel honorable for turning Sam down. Mostly, I felt naive and stupid. I think I was nearly as angry with myself for not finishing what we started as I was at Samantha for starting it in the first place. I heard my dad’s voice in my head, droning on about all the things he should have done and the many opportunities he’d missed.
“I’m telling you, kid,” he’d say to me sometimes when we’d go out driving on Sundays, just the two of us. “There have been times in my life when things got served to me on a plate and for some stupid reason or other I didn’t help myself. When it’s lying on a plate for you, go for it. Take it. Take it! Don’t be like me. Don’t worry so much about who’s looking or what people might think. Take it. Because one day you’ll turn around and you’ll be old and full of doubts and questions. Sometimes I think that if only I’d taken it just one time, just once …” His voice would drift off and the car would go silent.
I never told anybody this, but I think of my dad as the King of Shoulda Done and Mighta Been. As I walked home that night, mostly I beat myself up for being his prince and heir to his throne. That was my greatest fear, I think, that I would be just like him, that the unifying principle of my life would be regret.
Standing in front of Sam’s old apartment, I wasn’t any more certain of what had happened that night or why it had happened. Thinking back on it, I wasn’t sure I believed the reasons Sam had given me for wanting us to be together. She’d kept subtly switching her reasons. First it was that our being together was inevitable. Then it was that we were both curious. Next it was she wanted to please me. Then it was that we were meant to be. Finally it was that we were drunk and horny. I think maybe I believed that last one most of all. Sometimes the lowest common denominator is also the most dependable. It seemed that she would have said or done almost anything to coax me into crossing that line. We’d never talked about it. The next time the three of us were together it was like old times. She knew I wouldn’t tell Bobby.
I walked up the brick steps to the brick and concrete porch and rang the bell. A heavyset woman in a house dress answered the door. In her early fifties, she was overly made-up, and her hair was so black it was almost blue. It was a pity because she had a lovely, kind face beneath the too-black dye job and clown mask. I didn’t know her name, but I had seen her many of the times I’d been to Sam’s place. I thought I saw recognition in her eyes too. Then I saw the sadness.
“You’re Samantha’s boyfriend, right?”
No. “Yeah, right. That’s me.”
“We never met, but I’m Mrs. Fusco. Call me Gloria. I used to see you and your buddy hangin’ around here with her all the time.” She held her hand out to me and I gave it a tender shake. “I’m so sorry about what happened … you know. I don’t believe a word of what they said about Sam. She just wasn’t that kinda girl.”
“I know, Mrs. — Gloria. I still can’t get over it. I think that’s why I’m here.”
“Come in. Come in …”
“Bobby,” I said. “Sorry, I forgot my manners.”
“That’s fine. I understand.”
Her house was full of fussy, ornate furniture with bright red and green suede cushions covered in thick, suffocating layers of plastic. Still, the rooms were immaculate and as orderly as a museum. She gestured for me to sit on the couch. In the hot weather, I thought, bare skin would stick to the plastic slipcovers like glue. You’d have to get peeled off to stand up. She offered me coffee to drink and I said that would be fine. I noticed pictures of a boy about my age — her son? — wearing Marine dress blues. Some were of him in green fatigues.
“That’s Rocco, my boy,” she said proudly when she noticed me studying the photos. Then her voice got brittle. “He’s in Vietnam. I hope he’s okay and that the damn war gets over soon.”
“Me too, Gloria. I mean that.”
“He volunteered.”
“That was brave of him.”
“It was stupid. I already lost his father. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if I lose him too.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I lied.
She handed me my coffee. “Thanks for sayin’ that. So what can I do for you?”
I told her the truth. “I’m not sure. We only had a short time together. It’s funny, isn’t it, how you can be so in love with somebody and not really know them? It was like that with Sam and me. So I guess now that she’s gone, I’m trying to find out who she was.”
Tears poured out of Gloria Fusco’s eyes, ruining her perfect mask. “Bobby, that’s so beautiful. What do you want to know?”
First I tossed some easy questions to her about what kind of renter she was. Was she friendly? Did Gloria like her? Stuff like that. Then I got around to asking how it was that Samantha came to rent the apartment from her in the first place.
“She didn’t,” Gloria said. “Her father rented it for her. Paid a month’s deposit and a year’s rent in cash.”
“Her father? What was he like?”
This was the first question that made Gloria squirm a little. Then when she answered, I got that her discomfort wasn’t about the question itself but about what she had to say. “Her dad wasn’t a very nice man. When I got to know Samantha, it was hard for me to believe such a hard, crude-talkin’ man could have been her dad. If I didn’t need the rent money so bad, I wouldn’t’ve rented to him, daughter or no daughter.”
“Crude-talking?”
“When he found out I was a widow …”
“I understand. What did Sam’s dad look like?” I asked, as a throwaway question.
Gloria frowned. “He looked as hard as he was. Short and nasty, with that pasty complexion and the map of Ireland on his face. He had these cold, gray eyes and a crooked mouth. The first thing I thought when I met Sam was that she must look and be like her mom. She sure was nothing like her father.”
My head was swimming again. I’d never met Sam’s father, but I’d seen more than twenty photographs of him, and the man Gloria Fusco just described wasn’t Sam’s dad. Sam’s dad was tall and kind of regal looking. He was a state trooper, so I was sure he could be belligerent when he had to be, but I couldn’t ever see him being described as short and nasty. And then there was the map of Ireland thing. I looked more Irish than Sam’s dad, and I didn’t look very Irish. What about the fact that Samantha was buried in the New Lutheran Cemetery in Koblenz, Pennsylvania? There were probably more Jews in Ireland than Lutherans. It didn’t add up.
“When Sam died,” I said, “I didn’t really have anything of hers to hold onto. I mean, I have some snapshots and stuff, but no clothes, nothing that smells like her perfume.” That got Gloria’s waterworks going again. “Do you have any — ”
“I’m so sorry, Bobby, but the cops and FBI just came and took everything from her apartment. The furniture and everything.”
“That’s okay. I under — ”
Gloria cut me off. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God. I completely forgot something in all the excitement. Come on with me.”
I followed Gloria up the stairs to the second floor and into a small, empty bedroom. She pointed at a short rope hanging down from the ceiling. “Can you grab that, Bobby?”