How to Love an American Man (26 page)

She continues giggling through the phone. It's probably been a very long time since my grandma has felt part of any occasion really important and joyous.

My head isn't pounding, and suddenly I'm dying for something to eat—just like that, I feel better. “But Grandma, I have my hesitations.”

“I'm sure you do, dear.”

“Right? Because I don't feel that he's been particularly . . .
forthcoming
about how he sees me.”

“Dear,” she says, “you've been through a lot with this whole situation, how can I explain what I'm thinking. . . . Let's put it this way: I think it's good that you'll have some time away from him.”

“ ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder'?”

“
Not
that as much as that it sounds like you have a lot of feelings to sort out. He's shown you that he's not someone who's going to move quickly, and I've said it before, that's positive. But with him being gone, you won't be able to throw yourself into the romance—”

“Which you've seen me struggle with way too many times before.”

“Well,” she says politely, “yes. Maybe this will give you a chance to—what would you say—process all this at a healthy pace.” She pauses a minute. “Although I will tell you this: something tells me that by your birthday, you'll have a better sense of where all this is headed.”

“Really, Grandma!”

“Your birthday, the holidays, right around then. Just take it easy. A day at a time. But I do see something between you two—and I'll tell you, so does he.”

If anybody knows what love looks like, if anyone knows the sensation of a male and female pairing well together, it's my grandma. She and I have both been sensing that there's something promising going on between Chris and me. I rest my tearstained, blazing cheek against the cool brick of the kitchen nook.
Grandma sees it too.
Mom gets back on the phone to apologize that there aren't any groceries for Celeste's arrival, but I tell her that we were planning to go to the market as soon as she gets in.

And around five o'clock, Celeste's Jeep rolls up my driveway. When I walk out to greet her, there's a note written on a piece of spiral-ripped notebook paper sitting on Mom's porch bench. The presentation's perplexing, but the message inside says it all:
In case your trusty computer dies this summer
, it says in careful print
, wanted to make sure you had this . . . minus the explicit lyrics
. There's a smiley face scrawled on the paper, under which is resting a CD case with the title scrolled in Sharpie, “Songs to Transport You.” It's the jazz CD that I burned for Chris last summer that he's just . . . burned for me? Lower down on the page he wrote,
It's been my sound track for more than one surgery. Thx and Love.

My confusion turns to shock, then to weak knees. As Celeste tries to maneuver her way into a spot in our driveway, I remember: for a second this morning I thought I'd heard a vehicle out here, and it startled me out of my romantic breakdown. My goodness, it was him! I'd been falling to pieces about him and
he'd been right outside.

Celeste slams her door shut and hugs me, backing up to put her hands on her hips. “The hair looks good,” she says.

“Thanks. It's growing in.” I'm still dumbstruck. “You know what, come here. You gotta see this.”

She takes the CD, turning it over until she realizes what it is. “And you thought he hated it. I need a copy of that, but call mine ‘Portofino Nights.' ”

On the way into town we blast the CD in my dad's car and ride with the windows down the way good girlfriends do. As we browse the aisles in the store, I fill Celeste in on the other latest in the Chris saga. I speak hushed as we hover in the tomato aisle. “So two nights ago he tells me that Giada and I could be sisters—”

“Oh boy, does he know the right thing to say.”

“I know! Okay wait, tonight: do we want to make dinner, or go out?”

We're at the register sliding grocery bags full of barbecue items up our arms when my phone rings. Celeste shuffles some of my bags out of my hands so I can dig through my purse. I stare wide-eyed at Celeste. “It's Chris.”

“Get it!”

“Hi, Chris.” I say it quietly in case anyone I know is close by the register.

“Hi. Did you get what I left you this morning?”

“Yes, I did! Thank you so much, how thoughtful.”

“You're welcome, I thought of it last night. I found the CD while I was packing. Listen, Kris, I'm wondering if you have a sec.”

I point toward my dad's car in the parking lot and Celeste pushes our cart through the sliding doors. “Well, I'm just finishing up at the grocery store and my friend Celeste is here, but, um, sure, I have a quick minute.” Celeste and I unload our bags into the backseat. Then I put my hand on her arm. She understands the gesture and stops what she's doing. “Okay, well exactly what is it that you need to say to me?”

He hum-haws around and I anticipate that he's going to say he wants to sit down with me before he flies out. Maybe there'd be time to have lunch together on the beach on Monday, after Celeste leaves, and we could share the bottle of wine I've been saving for him and something nice to eat, like sandwiches on baguette (from Paris in March, he wrote and said he was crazy for the baguettes and brie there) and strawberries for dessert (he said he'll think of me every time he slices a strawberry, after I showed him how the Italians do it: two cross sections into four sweet quarters). His next words over the phone catch my daydream from carrying me away: “I told you that I needed your help with my practice because you're my friend.”

“That's right, I am your friend.”

“And I told you that I wanted to leave my car with you all summer because you're my friend.”

“Okay . . .” I watch Celeste, who's watching my face fall. Carefully she drops her bags in the backseat and moves close to me.

“But, Kris, this one's really hard for me to say. I just left a meeting with Joe, and I've decided: I don't want you in my business.”

It's as though someone has pummeled into my stomach and taken me down, right there by the shopping cart shelter. I can't breathe. I stumble onto some words that must sound something like, “I'm not sure I understand what you mean,” but his response floats through one ear and out the other like nitrous oxide that's already knocked me out. The late-afternoon sun pounds down on Celeste's blond hair as she rounds the car and climbs in—it's really too beautiful a day for drama; why have I chosen today to let this man in—and because I can't independently think of anything else to do, I begin to follow her cues.

He knows I have a friend in town. Why did he have to get this off his chest right now? In my peripheral vision Celeste digs through my purse and places the car keys into my hand. I don't want to drive while I'm talking on the phone. I don't want to sit here either. I don't want to be having this conversation about staying out of the business of a friend who all but begged me to help him through a busy spell. My brain kicks in and I start my dad's car, carefully navigating the parking lot and into the road. He doesn't want me to take this the wrong way, he says, but I can't think of any other way he could mean it. He's not even giving me any reason; just those seven words.
I don't want you in my business.

I round the industrial park's sharp curve, and at the four-way stop with his old office on my left and my family's factory on my right, I allow the other cars to cross the intersection before I do. Kindness, I think. In my ear, he is still listening to himself talk. Kindness is what I rediscovered in my hometown. There's consideration among this community. The you-go-first, no-you-go-first kind; the old-fashioned kind of relationship between friends and families and husbands and wives where if you're suffering,

I am too; but if you're celebrating, please come around to our house for a champagne toast before you head to dinner. That kind of kindness. It's what's missing from this conversation: I feel like he's slapped me in the face, and he's not explaining why.

When we say goodbye and I finally unglue my phone from the side of my face, I take three seconds to recover. Then I raise my finger presidentially in the air and say, “Well, if he doesn't want me in his business, then he doesn't want me in his life, because the only time I'm in his life is when I'm helping him with his business.” Celeste operates in the loving and skillful manner that got us through my high-strung panics in college and Italy: she listens.

“He says he'll come by Monday with my paycheck, and then his assistant is going to leave his car with me after she takes him to the airport on Tuesday. And that's another thing!” From the passenger seat Celeste pumps her imaginary brake into the floor as we come upon a line of Saturday night traffic that's headed toward the lake. “He had asked
me
to drive him to the airport! And just now he says he needs the time to go over a few things in the car with his assistant. What the hell is that all about?”

“Maybe he . . . just needs time to go over a few things in the car with his assistant?”

I look at Celeste, whose intention is always this pure. When I returned to Italy after my grandpa's funeral, she let me sit in a parking lot in Parma and tell her the story of how he died. It was a Saturday night in early February and we were late meeting friends for dinner and shivering in the Fiat the family I worked for let me drive. Meanwhile Celeste had never met my grandpa before . . . but she cried with me. Her tears were silent and self-sacrificing. I could see her feeling my own pain. It was one of the most profound moments I'd ever shared with a friend—and I wasn't going to put her through more misery over another man I love during her visit to see me this weekend.

Oh Krissy, you have such an active mind:
I'd imagined everything, hadn't I? Or he had toyed with me, leading me on so I'd keep coming to work to help him. Is this what he does with women? Instantly I'm angry at my parents for encouraging me to be a friend to him, at my grandma for her ridiculous read on our friendship. He'd manipulated her too. Now that he doesn't need me anymore, he's cutting me out. Does he care about the impression he'll have left on my family when he leaves? Does he have no shame for what an asshole he's made himself out to be, to me?

I slam a case of Coronas on my brother's kitchen counter and furiously unload ingredients to grill pizza Margherita on his deck, which is just on the other side of the golf course from our house. Jeff is the only male I care to see tonight, and from the kitchen I can hear him and Celeste laughing on the deck. They are both so
easy
to be around! Those are the personalities I keep around; Emma, whose parents live next door to my brother, is the same way. I chop tomatoes and basil for the pizza sauce, deciding: I'm going to meet new guys this summer. We have Zach's wedding in August, and my friend Joy has been wanting to introduce me to an oncology resident in her med program. Months ago when she first proposed it, I laughed and rolled my eyes at her—“Darling, I seriously doubt there's a future for doctors and me”—but now I like the sound of someone whose job is to help patients cope with their cancer.

I'll call Joy when Celeste leaves. This summer I'm going to get better at bouncing back from amorous letdowns.

On Sunday evening Celeste and I line up wicker love seats with my parents on Dad's screened-in porch to watch
Father of the Bride
—and I laugh to look around and see all four of us cry when George Banks gives Annie away. Every time I've ever seen my dad cry, it's encouraged me about the sensitivity of the male spirit. In the back row of our makeshift drive-in theater, Dad makes us all laugh through our tears when he laughs at himself wiping his cheeks with his hands. I never saw Grandpa cry till he was dying. I wonder if Chris has ever cried at all.

M
ONDAY MORNING
we wake up early for a two-hour walk around the lake with my mom, and all seven miles consist of a full-on Chris analysis. “Terry, what do you make of the way he acts?” Celeste asks.

“He's so intriguing, and yet so unsure of what he wants. Such a beautiful man. It's a shame, really. He'd make an amazing father.” Ah, indeed I've pictured our children, their cheeks like apples, wide American teeth, light eyes, and dark, wavy hair that I get lost just daydreaming about. They'd be so curious and considerate, so incredibly self-assured. I've considered, however, that they'd probably have a father who would never be present for their games and recitals. I
could
do that on my own, but why in the world would I want to? If I have kids, they'll deserve a dad who was as present as mine always was.

When we get home, I have a text from Chris saying that he plans to stop by my house in the mid-afternoon. “Nice.” I toss my phone. “He's always so on-time and specific.” While Mom cooks spaghetti for lunch and Celeste showers, I don't know why, but I pull the pinkest, paisliest, spaghetti-strappiest sundress I own out of my closet . . . and iron it.

After my shower I slather on the beach-fragranced body lotion I bought in Italy (nobody does silky skin like the Italians do, for what it's worth) and put in tiny iridescent pearl-drop earrings that move with my hair. On my feet, little white flip-flops with baby rhinestones on the straps. Grandma once told me that the first instruction her mother-in-law gave her after she married my grandpa (I guess it was normal for mothers-in-law to dole out these instructions back then?) is that the days when you feel the least beautiful inside, like when you're fed up with your husband and the kids are being terrors—or in my case, when you're rabid-mad at the boss whom you've developed intense feelings for—these are the very days when it's most important to look beautiful on the outside. “How you feel inside is what you wear outside,” my great-grandma said, and I could hear it in her Roman accent. “But if you don't feel good, at least look good. Then you'll feel better.” And it's true, because when I fold my dress under my legs and slide my chair in to join Celeste and my parents on the back patio for lunch, I imagine I blend in with the breezy pink flower pots Mom has placed on the center of the table and around the patio furniture. In the middle of lunch Chris texts to say he's en route, and it's a French term that would typically warm me up . . . but not today.