Six
MY SECOND ENCOUNTER with Michael Andretti happened today at my grandmother’s house. She had a family barbecue, and because it was hot we were able to go swimming in the pool.
I spent the whole morning looking at him. He looked at Mama. Mama looked at me. Then he would look at me. I would look at Mama. She would look at him.
In different circumstances, I’d be amused.
I was in the water at one stage when Robert came from behind and shook my shoulders, pushing me down under the water. We struggled for a while until my grandmother told us to behave.
While we were splashing water into each other’s faces I saw Mama go inside and two minutes later Michael Andretti followed. I pushed Robert down and managed to crawl out.
“Jozzie, grow up,” Nonna Katia instructed.
“Oh, great. He tries to drown me and I have to grow up,” I said, trying to wrestle the towel from her as she tried to dry me. Robert followed me out of the water and gave Nonna Katia a smacking kiss before running away. I watched her beam after him.
“Don’t tell me. He’s a good boy,” I said, walking away.
They were in the kitchen. I stood outside the door with the towel and then sat on the step. I felt guilty listening to the conversation, but personally I don’t know anyone who’d walk away if someone was discussing them.
“What do you think I’ll do, Christina?” I heard him ask. “Fly into a rage and demand to see her? Do you think everyone wants a son or daughter? Do you think I’ll pretend that I wanted her from the beginning?”
“I’ll think and pretend no such thing,” I heard her say frankly, before she turned on the tap.
“I don’t want her,” he said flatly.
I cringed and wanted to walk away then, but couldn’t.
“I do not want to see her. I do not want to love her. I do not want a complication in my life, Christina. I’ve worked for fifteen years to get where I am, and I don’t want this in my life now,” he stated in a clear, no- nonsense tone.
“Don’t you dare call my daughter a complication,” she said coldly.
“Because we have nothing to do with you, Michael. It’s us who don’t want you complicating our lives, so stop implying that we’re out to ruin everything for you. Get married, Michael. Forget Josie and have other kids.
Ten of them if that will make you happy. Forget everything that happened eighteen years ago but the fact that it was your choice.”
I could hear the tremble in her voice. Not that it was so noticeable, but I know Mama’s normal voice so well that any change is noticeable. I stood up and looked in to see her holding a shaking hand to her head. He was rubbing his face as if to wipe away the problem. Somehow I knew I was the problem.
“Just don’t come back here one day wanting to get to know your daughter, because you won’t be allowed,” she added quietly as I sat back down outside.
“What does your mother know about this?” he said.
I figured out that I was supposed to be the “this.” I had been called worse in my life, so I tried not to let it offend me.
“She doesn’t know who Josie’s father is. Maybe I should tell her who you are, Michael. Then you’d really have something to be paranoid about.”
I heard him sigh, and somehow I felt sorry for him.
“What do you want from me, Christina?” he asked in a tired voice.
“Nothing. All I can say is I’m glad that your family moved away, Michael. I’m glad you left me high and dry. I’m glad you were a coward, because if you hadn’t run I wouldn’t have a daughter today.”
“So I’m a monster now?”
“You’re the father of the person who is my life. You can’t possibly be a monster. I just pity you because you haven’t been able to share that.”
“Do me a favor, Christina,” he said. “Don’t pity me. My life lacks nothing.”
“Then go, Michael. Forget you ever spoke to me. Forget you ever saw her. You did it once. I’m sure you can do it again.”
There was silence and then a sigh. I don’t know whose.
“Do you need money?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I can set up a fund for her.”
“I needed money eighteen years ago, Michael. Today I need nothing but peace of mind,” I heard her say in an angry tone.
“It’s too late. Seventeen-year-olds don’t need fathers.”
“Oh God, Michael. I’m thirty-four years old and I need a father. I can’t even begin to think of what my daughter needs.”
I didn’t want to listen anymore. I walked back to the pool and sat on the side with my young cousin.
Mama came out a few minutes later carrying a tray of coffee. He followed a few minutes later. That’s when I discovered the fourth member of our staring act.
Nonna.
I saw her look from Michael Andretti to Mama. Then she looked over at me. Her mouth was open in surprise and her eyes had narrowed, and at that moment I knew that she knew.
Later, he went back inside.
I don’t know what possessed me to walk in after him. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to him either. He had poured himself a glass of water and was walking around the living room, where he touched the photo frames perched on the cabinet.
Nonna’s living room cabinet is cluttered with photos of the family, including ancient ones from Sicily. I can hardly remember posing for the half a million she has of me.
He looked up at the tapestry on the wall and then over to the other side of the room where there was another cabinet of ornaments. He touched everything he passed, almost like one of those people who test for dust. He sat down on one of the black leather chairs and closed his eyes.
His hair was cut extremely short and around the ears. I suspected that if I took after him in the hair department he would have to keep it that confined.
My type of hair on a man would look chaotic, especially on a barrister. He had dimples, which really pisses me off because my mother has high cheekbones and I’ve inherited neither. But he wasn’t smiling; the dimples were part of a grimace.
It was his build that impressed me most. Because he was stocky. Not round or anything. Just very sturdy and no taller than five foot ten. But he looked so strong and I actually pictured him picking me up as a child and that really got on my nerves, because I didn’t want to picture him in such an affectionate way.
“My grandmother doesn’t like people in the living room when she’s having a barbecue outside.”
He looked around in surprise and then nodded, standing up and moving toward the door. Intending to walk past me without a word.
“Oh, get real,” I said scornfully.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Say something to me.”
He stopped and gave me that tilted head look again. “What would you like me to say to you, Josie?”
“I don’t know,” I said, confused. “Just something. But I don’t expect you to walk past me as if I don’t exist.”
“I’ve spoken to your mother about this situation . . .”
“Stop being polite. You’re making me puke. Be angry or be rude to me, but don’t be polite,” I said angrily.
“Okay then, what do you want from me?” he asked, adopting my attitude of confusion.
I shook my head and we both looked ridiculously confused.
“I never thought meeting you would be this boring. I thought we’d put our Italian emotion into gear and scream the place down. I never expected indifference.”
“I hate to tell you, Josie, but I wasn’t aware of your existence until very recently, so I haven’t had time to think about this.”
“Firstly, my name is Josephine. Only people close to me call me Josie, and secondly, I’ve known about you for a lifetime, so I have had plenty of time to think about this.”
“And what do you think about it, Josephine?”
“I think you got off too easy. Nobody gets to yell at you and call you names or kick you out of the house. My grandmother thinks you’re the second coming of Christ. But if Robert or my uncle knew about you, they’d smash your head in for what you did to my mother. Maybe I should tell them all who you really are so you won’t be Mr. Wonderful anymore.”
“And you? Are you going to smash my head in?”
“Don’t you mock me. Don’t you dare make fun of the way I feel about my mother.”
“I have no intention of making fun of the way you feel, Josephine. But what happened between your mother and me was a very sad situation eighteen years ago, and I think considering the circumstances things turned out pretty well.”
“You should be a politician. They’re all full of crap too.”
“I think we should both go outside before we say something we regret.”
“You’re a liar,” I whispered angrily. “You said you haven’t a thing to say, but I reckon you’ve planned out everything you’ve said so far. You’re full of bullshit clichés.”
“And I think you’re going too far.”
“Who cares?” I shrugged. “I can go as far as I like with you and there is nothing you can do. I mean, are you going to act all fatherly and discipline me?”
He was angry now. I could see it in his eyes and the way his mouth tightened.
“Listen, I have the right to think this out clearly before I let you into my life.”
“How dare you think that I want to be in your life! I don’t want you anywhere near us, especially my mother. If she cries in the next couple of weeks and I find out it’s because you’ve hurt her, you’re in big trouble.”
“Okay,” he snapped back. “A promise. You keep out of my life, I keep out of yours.”
“Let’s shake on it.”
He had a hard handshake, yet very shaky, and I could see that he was upset and again I felt sorry for him. At that moment we were both being unrealistic, because I honestly wanted to see him again. But then again I didn’t.
“Have a good life, Mr. Andretti,” I said to him.
He nodded and we tried avoiding each other’s eyes for a while, before he walked out.
Mama asked me about him that night.
We were sitting in front of the television pretending to watch the news.
We were still in the same clothes from the barbecue and I noticed that her nose was sunburnt.
I ignored her when she first asked me about him.
“Come here,” she said, patting the carpet between her outspread legs.
I sat between them and she wrapped her arms around me. We seemed all brown legs and brown arms.
“If you want to know what I think of Michael Andretti, I think he’s a lovely man. Very talented by the looks of things, and he should go far,” I said stiffly.
“Oh, really?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“You spoke to him today, didn’t you?”
“You did too, didn’t you?”
“I asked first.”
I shrugged. “We made our positions clear.”
“Knowing Michael’s tact, I’m sure he told you he was glad you weren’t in his life.”
“I told him the same.”
“Are you upset?”
“Don’t be silly, Mama. I just hope he doesn’t go around upsetting you.”
I pretended to be interested in the scene on television.
She pulled me back and held her cheek against mine.
“You’re not so tough, Alibrandi. I can see through you.”
“I can see through you too, Alibrandi. I’m thinking the shithead is probably going to want kids now and why not then and you’re thinking he will marry someone else one day and why didn’t he come back to marry you?” I said. “All I can come up with is that women keep their brains in their heads and men keep theirs in their pants.”
She laughed and hugged me closer. “It’s his loss, kiddo.”
I turned around to try and look at her.
“It was so weird, Mama. I had it planned out so differently in my mind. I think it was too neat and tidy.”
“Things don’t turn out the way you expect them to.”
I took her hand from around my chest and played with the ringless fingers. “Can you answer something for me? The truth. By eliminating me out of the picture you won’t hurt me, okay? I just want you to tell me how you wanted your life to turn out when you were seventeen.”
“Josie, I like my life . . .”
“Mama,” I sighed, closing my eyes. “I’m not saying that you don’t. I just want to know what you dreamt of when you were seventeen. I dream of being successful and of falling in love with someone with money. Of someone loving me. Of having two children. One boy and one girl. What did you dream of?”
She smiled and sat back. She kind of reminded me of Anna. Such pensive, peaceful people. How Mama could have come from Nonna Katia and Nonno Francesco and borne a child with my personality confuses me.
“I dreamt of marrying a man who didn’t necessarily have to have money, but who would take care of me. We’d talk a lot. Talk so much. We’d have four children. I wanted lots of girls. I love little girls.” She smiled. “The most important thing was that he would like me and my children would like me. That’s what I dreamt of, Josie.”
“Was the man Michael Andretti?”
She nodded.
“What a simple dream.”
“Simple dreams are the hardest to come true.”
I shrugged and she entwined her fingers in mine.
“How about pizza?”
“Pan-fried,” I insisted.
“Supreme with pineapple.”
“Mama, we’re Italians. Italians don’t have pineapple on their pizza,” I said in disgust.
She laughed and reached across for the phone while we continued arguing about the pizza.
