“Hey, sweetie,” Chas says to her.
“No, wait, I’m going next.” She slides out of the booth. “Chuck, finish my margarita.” She heads to the bathroom, calling back to me: “I’m such a lightweight!”
“How’s Zosia?” Chas asks.
“She’s delicious.”
“I’m converting to Judaism,” he tells me.
“You are?”
“Yeah.”
“You are.”
“Monday I begin instruction with the Janowsky family rabbi.”
I suddenly get it. “You’re getting married.”
He nods. “Next August somethingth.”
“You’re a devout atheist.”
“It means something to her. Kids and everything. It’s okay. I like Jews.”
“What does your therapist say?”
“He approves. Well, he did. I’m not seeing him anymore.” He pours half of Missy’s margarita into my glass and the rest into his. He raises his glass. “L’chaim.”
We drink, and the salt burns my lips. Missy returns.
“Mazel tov,” I tell her.
“Oh. . ” She slides in next to him, smiling, and slips her arm into his. “He told you. I wanted to tell you. . ” She playfully punches his arm. “I’m so excited. I can’t wait.”
“I bet. . well, indeed, a big, fat, hairy mazel tov.”
“Thanks,” they say together. He takes her lovely hand and she lifts her head to kiss him, perfectly on the lips, her white throat delicately arched. I think, unwelcomingly, of the last time I went down on him, my desperate, inelegant head-bobbing. Give me a chance, I want to say, one chance to do it over. I’ll do it right this time, be everything you want, all of it, achieve everything, for you.
“OKAY, ARE YOU ready for this?” LouAnn asks. She is calling from her office; she is just off the phone with the police. “Claudio Marcelo Petrello, he’s thirty-one, he’s from Argentina, he’s here illegally.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, wait. He’s Italian, and they told me his parents, or maybe his grandparents, I don’t remember, were fascists who fled Italy after the fall of Mussolini’s regime.”
“What? He told them that?”
“That’s what the cops just said.” Six hours earlier, at 2:57 AM, we had awakened when a police helicopter, two black-and-whites, two squad cars, two plainclothes detectives, and four uniformed cops stormed our building. I’d grabbed Zosia, put on her little sweater, and taken her into LouAnn and Bev’s place to watch from their balcony overlooking the street. Other people in our building were on their balconies, too, in bathrobes and slippers, hiding their faces in curtains and shadows, still terrified. When they looked up and saw us, they’d waved, given us thumbs-ups. This morning Mrs. Steinman posted a “Thank-You” card on the bulletin board.
“You know how he got in the building? He had a fucking key. He’s a delivery guy for The Wall Street Journal.”
“A paper boy?”
“He’s been here every night for five months, delivering the paper to Mr. Weiner on the second floor. And they asked him why he did it, right? He said he was mad the elevator wasn’t working that one time. That we were too cheap to fix it.”
“Sure, that makes sense.”
“He’s already out on bail. Fifty grand.”
“I’d like to rip his throat open. Stone him to death. Something biblical.”
“Me, too. Oh, and get this, the cops almost missed him. They were just going to wait until 3:00 AM and then leave. He showed up just in time.”
CHAS ANSWERS THE phone.
“Hi, it’s me,” I say.
“Hey,” he says exuberantly. “So, so? What happened?”
“Is Missy home?”
There is something in my voice; his voice drops, subdues. “No, she’s out. I can talk.”
“Tell me you’re madly in love. Tell me you’re blissfully happy. Tell me she’s everything you’ve ever wanted.” I stop, awaiting a sentence.
He breathes, carefully. “Yes, I’m madly in love. And I’m blissfully happy. And no, she isn’t everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“What isn’t she?”
“She isn’t. .”
“What? What? What isn’t she? Tell me.”
“It’s not what she isn’t. That’s okay. What she is works. It’ll work.”
“It’ll ‘work’.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t understand. I don’t get how you can say you’re madly in love, but she’s not everything you want, and then wrap it up with ‘It’ll work’.”
“I’m ready for it. What works for me is different now, I’ve changed a lot. It’s the right time.”
“You’re sitting down, that’s all.”
“What?”
“The music’s fucking stopped, and you’re tired, and you just want to sit down.”
“I have to go.”
We both hang up.
CLAUDIO MARCELO PETRELLO, at his arraignment, hears the felony charges dropped to four counts of vandalism and four counts of defacement of property. They are all misdemeanors, with the slim possibility of a few months in county jail, or a few hundred dollars’ fine, but, the city attorney whispers later to us, he will most likely receive a suspended sentence and probation. His bail is reduced to five thousand dollars, to the delight of his family members gathered in the courtroom, a schlubby, thick-necked mother and father and siblings. All of this is due to the fact that Claudio has no prior offenses, and there was no one-on-one threat of physical violence to anyone, and no permanent destruction to the building. It was all superficial, the damage. A trial date is set for next month. The Petrello family dances out of court; LouAnn and Bev, Mrs. Steinman, Mr. Weiner, some other residents and I are seated in the back of the room, trying to be invisible. We still feel afraid. But Claudio does not even glance at us; it is entirely possible, we realize, entirely probable, that he has no idea who we are.
“This is it?” says Mrs. Steinman. “This is the worst that happens to this man?” She is furious, tearful.
“Well,” says LouAnn, “at least we can start sleeping at night.”
“Maybe we can get The Wall Street Journal to reimburse us for the video equipment,” I say.
“I want an explanation for this,” says Mrs. Steinman. “I want this man to look me in the face and tell me why. Why he would do such a thing. I don’t understand.”
LouAnn shrugs. “Maybe we’ll hear it at the trial. Maybe it’ll make more sense.”
A FEW MONTHS later, Missy calls.
“Hi, honey,” she says. “God, we haven’t talked to you in so long! How is everything?”
“Fine,” I say. “How are you doing?”
“Oh, Chuck’s working crazy hours, you know. Oh, and he’s running for City Council, did we tell you that?”
“Ah. Great. Landslide. He’s on his way. He’ll rule the world.”
“I know,” she says proudly. “I’m trying to help him as much as I can. I’m working part-time at his office. And, doing all the wedding stuff, you know. There’s so much to do, it’s great, it’s keeping me busy. The invitations go out next month. Is there anybody you want to bring?”
“Zosia?”
“Oh, I wish. No dogs allowed,” she says with a laugh. “It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be amazing.”
“Oh, I bet.”
“That’s actually why I’m calling. I’m trying to decide what to get Chuck for a wedding present, and I figure you know him so well. . I know you’re really busy, but would you go looking with me? I have a couple of ideas. . ”