Bridge of Sighs

just smiled and said she was already a Brownie, but later she admitted the real reason was that her parents didn’t have the money for the Brownie uniform. The uniforms weren’t even required, but Kaylene’s dad didn’t want her to join if she couldn’t have what all the other girls had. I’d been saving my allowance, so I begged your grandparents to buy Kaylene a uniform when they got mine. We were the same size, so it would be easy. At first they refused, since the uniform cost more than I’d saved, but when they saw how heartbroken I was they said they’d make up the difference if Kaylene’s parents said it was okay. I knew from the start they wouldn’t hear of it, but I think they appreciated the gesture and remembered it, too. And the licking Gabriel got was so bad because it was me he kissed, not some other white girl.”
    “He
kissed
you?” I said, astonished.
    “It was a very foolish thing to do. He came right up to me on Hudson Street, about half a block from the Four Corners, and kissed me, right in front of everybody.”
    “Why?”
    “Because by then he was about your age. Because boys get crushes. Because his sister and I made fun of how little he was, and he wanted to show me he wasn’t. All kinds of reasons, Louie. Don’t just stand there frowning at me. Use your imagination.”
    Actually, I
had
been using my imagination. What I wanted was to stop.
    “Think of it. Taking a belt to an eleven-year-old,” she said, shaking the memory off. Then she looked at me again, and it was her turn to frown. “Also, you needn’t look so surprised that someone other than your father might’ve wanted to kiss me, okay?”
    “But—” I began, then stopped, realizing that no matter what I said, it would only make things worse.
             
     
    O NE DAY, returning from Whitcombe Park, I found my parents engaged in what even they would have been hard pressed to call a discussion. In fact, they were so involved in it that they seemed not to notice, or care, that I’d entered the room.
    “Well then, you’re just going to have to return them
un
signed,” my mother was saying. There was a thick sheaf of documents on the table between them. “I’m not risking this house, nor will I risk Lou’s college.”
    For his part, my father looked like he had the morning when we returned Bobby Marconi to his father with his wrist broken. “So what do you want me to do, Tessa? If I don’t do this, what am I
supposed
to do?”
    That slowed my mother down, but it didn’t stop her. “For a year I’ve been telling you this day was coming,” she said. “
Over
a year.”
    “That ain’t what I’m saying,” he told her, even more hangdog now. “What I’m saying is, what’s a man like me supposed to do? It’s
us
I’m doing it for.”
    This slowed her even more, though of course she wouldn’t give in. “But don’t you see, Lou? You keep saying it’s for us, and maybe you even believe that, but it’s not true. This is about you and your pride. It’s about being able to brag down at the diner, like you used to brag to Mr. Marconi, like you brag to everybody. What are you thinking, Lou? That you’re the first man to lose a job? You’ll find another. Losing a job doesn’t mean you go out and risk everything we’ve got left on a doomed corner market that’s really nothing more than a bookie joint.”
    “I ain’t gonna make book over there, Tessa. You know I wouldn’t do that.”
    My mother let out a gasp of pure exasperation, then let her head fall forward onto the kitchen table so hard that the salt and pepper shakers jumped. She let it rest there for several beats before finally raising it to look at him again. “Yes, Lou, I know you aren’t going to make book over there. I know that. But the fact is that the book’s the only part of Ikey’s business that’s
worth
anything. What do you think’s kept him in business this long?”
    “You know how sick he’s been—”
    “No, I don’t,” my mother interrupted. “Just because somebody says something doesn’t make it true, Lou. Don’t you
know
that? He’s been telling you he’s sick because he wants you to buy the store. He doesn’t want you to know the truth, which is that he’s not making a go of it because it can’t be done. Tommy Flynn’s been trying to sell his store for two years, and he’s got twice Ikey’s business. There used to be two dozen corner stores in Thomaston. More, probably. Now there’s six. What