No, but there’s something you need. “I had somewhere I wanted to take you.”
“I thought we were on for Friday. My turn.”
“We are. This is something else.”
“Something else . . .” he repeats, his voice wary. “Could we possibly do this ‘something else’ tomorrow?”
Damn. “No. My boyfriend’s flying in tomorrow, so . . .”
“Oh. I didn’t know he was gone,” he says, his voice tight. “Will Friday be okay, though . . . for our Thursday outing?”
“He’s flying to Chicago Friday morning for an evening performance.”
I wait through a long pause, not sure what else to say. “How soon can you be ready?” he finally asks.
I look at my clock. Ten thirty. “In an hour, maybe.”
“Tell me where to meet you. I’ll be there at noon.”
“Argo Tea,” I say, pulling myself out of bed. “See you in a few.”
I TAKE HIS hand and tow him from Argo Tea to the subway, but I don’t tell him where we’re going. As we jump on the D train, he’s got that playful look that he always has when he’s waiting to see where I’m taking him. He’s still into it when we change over at Broadway to the F train, but when I stand at the Second Avenue station and pull him up, his expression turns instantly wary.
“Where are we going?” he asks with a tinge of panic in his eyes. It’s the first time on all our trips that’s he’s wanted to know.
And I know why.
“I think you need to see it again, Alessandro.”
He stiffens, but I pull him forward before the doors close. I don’t let go of his hand as we climb the stairs to the street. I don’t let go as we move slowly along Houston Street and turn up First Avenue. Through the thin leather of my glove, I feel the heat of his palm, and I know he’s scared.
So am I.
We turn onto Second Street and his feet slow and stop as we pass a sign on the side of a building across the street for the Catholic Big Sisters and Big Brothers Center. As we stand here, two black kids push through the doors onto the sidewalk, talking trash.
“You should check it out,” I say, nudging Alessandro forward.
He’s watching after the boys with a distant look in his eye. I wish I could jump into his brain and know what he’s thinking. Finally, he drops his gaze. “I left the Church.”
“Just because you’re not a priest doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want your help,” I say with a wave of my hand at the door.
His expression darkens as his whole body tenses. “No. I left the Church.”
And now I understand. “You’ve . . . you haven’t gone back? At all?”
His face pinches as he lowers his gaze. “I can’t. I don’t belong there.”
“Alessandro,” I say, squeezing his hand.
He pulls it away, refusing to be comforted. Instead, he spins on his heel and stalks up the sidewalk in the direction we were going. I’m a little surprised he doesn’t head back toward the subway. I catch up as he moves purposefully toward the destination neither of us really wants to see, but both of us need to. I don’t try to hold his hand again, and he keeps a safe space between us.
We weave up Avenue A and turn the corner onto East Fourth without speaking, and Alessandro’s hurried pace finally slows as we reach the building.
Someone’s given it a face-lift, adding white stucco and blue trim to the first story of a building that was always just grungy brick. It still looks sad.
I’m staring at it, my guts in a knot, when I feel Alessandro’s fingers thread into mine. When I glance his direction, he’s staring at it too, the skin around his eyes pulled tight. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows the emotion I feel forming as a lump in my own throat.
There’s no markings on the building to indicate it’s a group home, but there weren’t then either. I start across the street and Alessandro moves with me. It takes me a long time to lift my finger to the buzzer.
It’s a full minute later when a Latina girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, opens the door. “What?” she says, chomping on gum and planting one hand on her jutted hip.
“Um . . .” I swallow. “Is this still a group home?”
She spits out a bitter laugh. “You our new counselors?”
“No.” I glance back at Alessandro, whose expression is stone. “We used to live here . . . a long time ago.”
A cynical smile curves her lips. “Back to relive the best years of your life?”
My stomach clamps. “Is there a chance we could come in?”
Alessandro’s grip on my hand tightens to the point I’m afraid he’s going to break something, but I don’t shake him off.
She swings the door wide. “Knock yourselves out,” she says over her shoulder, already disappearing down the hall to the kitchen.
I breathe deeply to settle my nerves and notice the sickeningly familiar stench that hangs in the air—the unmistakable scent of hopelessness. “It hasn’t changed much.”
We step through the door into the hallway, and when my eyes focus in the dim light, and I see the hole in the wall near the door, I flash to Lorenzo putting his foot through the wall in nearly the same place one day when he was fighting with Ms. Jenkins.
“It hasn’t changed at all,” I amend, closing the door behind us.
Halfway up on the right, I see the door to the basement. Alessandro follows me as I pull it open and start down the stairs. The deeper we descend, the more it smells like mildew, dirty laundry, and stale cigarette smoke. When we get to the bottom and flick on the rec-room light, I swear it’s the same furniture—the saggy brown couch and sticky blue chair.
Alessandro is frozen next to me, his eyes locked on a brown stain on the filthy carpet next to the couch. His olive completion has gone gray, and he looks like he’s going to be sick.
“Breathe, Alessandro,” I say softly.
His eyes flick to me, as if I’ve broken whatever spell had him locked there. He hauls a deep breath, holding it for a second, before exhaling slowly through pursed lips.
I squeeze his hand. “Are you okay?”
He nods, but his expression says otherwise. “A lot happened in this room.”
My eyes slide to the couch and I see the clear image of a scrawny girl with reddish black kinks draped over a long, lean boy in dirty jeans, with messy black hair. I shake the image away as tears pool in my eyes. “Yeah.”
He lets go of my hand and moves slowly around the room, stopping once near the corner where he always sat with his sketch pad, noticing too much. He moves to the couch and looks down at it a long moment with moist eyes. “I really believed I loved you.” His eyes lift to mine. “I never would have done . . .” His face pinches as he trails off. He turns and drops onto the couch with his forehead in his hand.
I move to sit next to him, my insides clamped tight. “What happened was as much my fault as yours. I was scared, and alone, and I just needed to feel something.”
He hauls a deep breath and lifts his head, gazing at me with pleading eyes. “I’m so sorry, Hilary. For Lorenzo. For me. For everything.”
“I know. Me too.”
He loops his arm around me, and I rest my head on his shoulder. And I hope this time, he doesn’t see my tears.
ON THE WAY back to the subway, I steer him down Second Street, past the Catholic youth center. I walk him right up to the door and open it, then nudge him through. “Talk to them.”
He catches a corner of his lower lip between his teeth and fixes me in his anguished gaze. But then he turns and moves deeper into the room, to a nun who’s tacking a paper to a corkboard near the door. “Hello,” he says in a slightly unsteady voice. “I was wondering if you were in need of volunteers.”
I step back onto the sidewalk and wait. Fifteen minutes later, he comes out. He presses his lips into a line and nods, like some really difficult task is done. When he slips his arm around my shoulder and guides me up the sidewalk, I lean into him.