Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

Wade sounds wistful. He has a way of talking that makes Tina feel secure, as if she’s in the hands of someone who has things sussed out. Who knows which path the world is going down and has prepared himself. He doesn’t have Bobby’s hard-charging physicality. His masculinity is more subtle, but he can protect and provide.

That’s what Tina really meant earlier when she told Stephanie he was different. She doesn’t think of Bobby every time she looks at Wade. The few other guys she dated or considered dating — the city workers and the union members, the business owners and the blue collar drinkers, all the Staten Island boys who lived their entire lives on a slab of land large enough that they forget it’s an island — all those guys, they were just bad copies of Bobby. Inadequate copies. He was the absolute best possible version of that man, the absolute best. To try to love some lesser version of him would be the greatest insult to his memory she could imagine. If she wanted to feel love (and she was still young and wanted to love and be loved in return), she needed to meet someone who didn’t feel like a cheap imitation of her dead husband.

But how do you do that when all you meet is thirty tiny variations on the same theme? The same bodies sustained by pasta and bread and meat; thick of neck; firemen and cops and sanitation workers, and the occasional accountant or lawyer thrown in for good measure; Italian or Irish or maybe something else but not likely; good men mostly, solid, dependable men who work hard and don’t expect much of the world, but men who you look at across the table and think only this: you are not Bobby. You will never be Bobby.

You don’t. So she stopped trying. Until her dead husband’s older brother called her and said, I have someone I’d like you to meet, and she demurred, and then he said, He’s a widower, his wife was killed in a car accident three years ago, and she thought, What the hell, and so they had one dinner and he made you laugh with his unexpected sarcasm and old-fashioned manners, then they had another and he made you laugh again, and then they had a few more dinners and then he met your kids….

“Have you spoken to Peter lately?”

Wade’s question suggests news of some kind.

“No, not really. Why?”

“I think he and Lindsay are going through a rough patch.”

“Bullshit. The Stepford couple?”

“I think so.”

He sounds grim, like a doctor giving an unfavorable prognosis. Tina wonders whether Gail knows. Peter’s the successful son, lives in Westchester, partner at a law firm. Gail always jokes that he’s gone lace curtain, but she’d be crushed if something actually impinged on his perfect life. Marital problems are for people like Stephanie and Vinny, not Peter and Lindsay.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s not that. I just hope I didn’t put too much on Gail’s plate today. And Peter’s the golden boy, never does anything wrong.”

He reaches over and grips her hand.

“Sorry.”

Stephanie’s teasing has stuck in Tina’s head; she was trying to turn this into something base, something vulgar. Not sex but money, Stephanie rubbing her fingers together. Tina looks out the front windshield and sees the blue span of the Verrazano approaching.

“Do you care if we don’t go to Per Se?”

“I guess not but…”

“Get off at this exit. Here. Now.”

The urgency in her voice surprises her.

“Jesus.”

He swerves toward the Lily Pond Avenue exit, cutting in front of a low-slung Camaro. Tina watches the car’s passenger window slide down. A Hispanic teen in a Yankees hat nonchalantly gives them the finger as the car reaccelerates away from them and climbs toward the bridge.

“We have to cross over. Go back the other way. Make a left here.”

Wade makes the left and after a few hundred feet, he pulls onto the shoulder, puts the car in park, and turns on the blinkers. They are parked underneath the on-ramp to the bridge, a half mile of quasi-tunnel. A few cars zip past, but the traffic is light.

“Where the fuck are we going?”

His usually placid face is curled with annoyance. Tina hasn’t ever seen him angry. She unbuckles her seat belt, leans over, and kisses him, shoving her tongue into his mouth. His anger fades and he responds in kind. She pulls away, a little, so their eyes are inches apart.

“Only to get the best fucking pizza in the world.”

She kisses him again, closes her eyes, and lets the world narrow to the entwining of their tongues.

* * *

Denino’s is packed. A throng of people stand in the crammed entryway, waiting to be seated. Families spill into one another at long planks of connected tables. Crews of oversize men squeeze into booths. A large group of teenagers sits in prim tribute to times gone by: girls on one side of the table, boys on the other, the space between them heavy with hormones. Old and young, sweaters and jeans, earrings and chains, pitchers of beer and soda, silver plates with bubbling pies, the air thick with the smell of garlic and oregano. A raucous, semicommunal pizza party; every soul in the room content.

Tina and Wade slide past the crowd in the hall. The woman at the hostess stand — ancient, white-haired, Italian — gives Wade the once-over before taking his name. Wade navigates them to an empty stool at the bar, turns it so Tina can sit, stands next to her as they wait. He orders a pitcher of Bud. Every few minutes the music stops and a name is announced. Esposito, party of four. Esposito, party of four. The bar is packed. A few of the guys glance at Wade, scoping the jacket and tie. He stands out, no doubt, tall and upright in a room of stocky and hunched, but if Wade feels out of place, he doesn’t show it. Tina is overdressed as well, but no one seems to notice or care. When the pitcher arrives, Wade has to take out his wallet to pay. Tina can’t help thinking that Bobby would have had a twenty already in hand.

Crowley, party of eleven. Crowley, party of eleven.

“So this is the famous Denino’s,” Wade says as he fills their glasses.

“Peter used to talk about it, I guess,” says Tina.

“Oh, just a little.”

“It’s not Per Se, I know.”

Wade loosens his tie, unfastens the top button on his shirt.

“That’s okay. After the make-out session in the car, White Castle would have been fine.”

Tina laughs, feels giddy. She nearly crawled on top of Wade in the car and got the act itself over with, out of the way. Another obstacle removed. But she held back, a grown woman’s urges losing out to the vaguely virginal desire to mark the first occasion as special. The truth is that he does it for her, excites her in that way, in a way that no one since Bobby has, even though it’s for different reasons. She reaches a hand over, puts it on his chest.

“I feel like I’m back in high school or something.”

“Shit, I wish I knew you in high school.”

She laughs again. Wade flashes a thin, crafty smile, satisfied that he can amuse her.

“No, you don’t. I was a prude.”

Donato, party of six. Donato, party of six .

Tina finishes her beer. Wade refills her glass. A few minutes drift by. The smell of the place has woken her stomach. She’s hungry, hasn’t really eaten all day. The beer is already affecting her, her mind is floating alongside the hum of the room.

Alderson, party of two. Alderson, party of two.

“That’s us.”

They walk back to the hostess stand, Wade holding the half-empty pitcher and their glasses. The ancient woman walks them to a small booth, does a perfunctory wipe of the tabletop, and drops a stack of paper plates and silverware on the table. A waitress in a black T-shirt comes over. Wade defers to Tina.