Coda 02 -A to Z

quickly put her hand back in her lap. “Angelo, I’m sorry. I was so—”
    “Keep your fuckin’ apology,” he said, interrupting her, “and your excuses too. I don’t want ’em.”
    “Okay,” she said, nodding. “I deserve that.” She fidgeted some more. “Angelo, I know I have no right to ask this of you….” He made a snorting sound, but she sped up, talking fast so she could get it all out before he said anything else. “I would really like a chance to get to know you.”
    “What the fuck ever.”
    She blinked at him for a moment, confused, obviously unsure whether his answer meant yes or no. When he didn’t elaborate, she tried again. “Your dad never found you?”
    “No.”
    She sighed. “He never found me either. I looked for him, but….” She shrugged. “Both of my parents are gone now, so if you have any grandparents left, they would be on his side.” Angelo just stared at her, his face blank.
    She apparently decided to give up on him for the moment and turned to me. “Angelo works for you?”

    “Yes.” I smiled at him. “He’s my best employee.”
    It had the effect I was hoping for. I actually saw a little crack in his stony expression—just a tiny ghost of a smile in his eyes as he glanced at me.
    “That’s good,” she said. She glanced around the apartment and saw the box on the kitchen counter. “Are you moving in or moving out?”
    Angelo waited, looking at me like he thought I might answer for him. I just kept smiling at him, and he finally sighed and said to her, “Moving out.”
    “Where to?”
“Coda. In the mountains.”
She smiled nervously. “That sounds wonderful.”
“We’re leavin’ in a few days.”
    I wasn’t sure he realized what he had said, but I saw her eyes go a little wide, and I knew what was coming. “You’re married?” she asked hopefully.
    “Close as I’ll ever be.”
“That’s wonderful!” she said, smiling. “Do you have kids?” “Fuck no.”
    Between his harsh answer and the venom in his voice, her smile disappeared in an instant. “I see,” she said quietly. She seemed to ponder it for a minute as she looked down at her hands in her lap. Then she apparently decided to let it go. She looked back up at him with a nervous smile. “I’d like to meet her.”
    A heartbeat of silence, and then he said stonily, “You already did.”

    She looked confused, and I could tell he was enjoying it. “I haven’t met anybody.”

    “Sure you have,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s Zach.” “Oh.” She looked over at me, uncertain, and said, “Well, I realize he’s your friend. But that’s not what I meant.”

    “I know what you meant,” he said.

    “But”—her cheeks were turning red—“I meant, a woman. A girlfriend or a wife.”

    “ I know what you meant! ” he said, louder this time. “But—” she began but stopped short, and her eyes got wider as it started to sink in.

    He leaned closer to me, looked right at her, and said definitively, “ It’s Zach! ”
    She looked positively alarmed now. Her eyes were huge, her face was flushed, and her hands were fluttering nervously all around like some kind of strange leashed butterflies. “Well, no. I mean, that can’t be….”
    Suddenly Angelo stood up. He grabbed the hair on the back of my head, pulled it back and kissed me, hard. It wasn’t a long kiss, but certainly longer than she probably wanted to see. He caught me completely off guard.
    And then just as quickly, he let go of me, slamming his hand down on the table as he leaned aggressively toward her. “Is it crystal fuckin’ clear now, or do you need to watch him fuck me too?”

    Her jaw dropped, and I stood up and laid my hand gently on his shoulder. “Ang—”

    “No, Zach! She wants to know me? She better fuckin’ deal with it.”
    “But Angelo,” she said quietly, “it’s a sin. It’s not natural.” Tears ran down her cheeks, and she wiped them away quickly. “It’s wrong . God said—”
    “Fuck you, and fuck your God too,” he snapped. “Neither of you ever done shit for me.”

    She sat there for a minute, staring at the table. Then she took a shaking breath and said, “I think I should go.”
    Angelo straightened up then and looked down his nose at her. “Go ahead,” he said icily. “Leave. Again . Only fuckin’ thing you’re good at, isn’t it?”
    She closed her eyes, caught her breath like she had been slapped. He leaned back against the wall and glared at her.