Julie looked carefully over the text she was about to send, having learned the hard way that it is essential to keep your story straight when you maybe embellish things a little. “We are absolutely devastated that we can’t make it to the graduation party! It would be so wonderful to see everybody – it’s been too long. But Aldo has an audition. The timing is just awful. He got a role – just a bit part, nothing to get excited about YET. He’s so thrilled, you’d think he’d never been in a movie before! I have to say I think he’ll be perfect! If he gets it, he’ll play a gangster – no lines. He’s in a card game. Can’t you just see it? Anyway, actors who don’t audition don’t get roles. It probably won’t lead to better things but, who knows? Anyway, sorry, we just can’t possibly make it. Really, so, so sorry!!” She hit the send arrow.
It seemed pointless to tell Aldo about the excuse she had made. She was sparing him the long drive. It bothered her a little that what she had written wasn’t technically one hundred percent accurate, but what difference did it make when she was going to get him a role and what she wrote would soon be true? She had that much confidence in him. Every day she sorted through audition calls and found ones that were right for him. If he had tried, he could easily have gotten a bit part and maybe even been spotted by Scorsese. But no, he had no interest, so far, in acting and wouldn’t even try. What a waste. Of course, it was possible that his talent didn’t extend to acting, but how would he know if he didn’t even try? She was sure that given enough time, she would get through to him. Although it was much more plausible that she would be the one with the acting career, she wanted Aldo to have the glory.
It was her customers who had started the whole acting thing. Almost every night at Chiro’s when she took their orders she was asked if she was an actor or dancer or grad student. Was it her fault that patrons, especially tourists, expected that a young server working (only temporarily!) in a Chelsea trattoria, would be headed for a big career? She could see how disappointed they were when she told them no, she was none of those things. It started to feel like she was letting them down. It started to really bother her. Then she thought she could give them a little lift if she was able to tell them she was an acting student, at least. That’s what motivated her to take an acting class. That’s really all it was. No one but Aldo knew about it. It was the kind of thing you couldn’t tell people back home without them thinking you were full of yourself. The instructor turned out to be an uptight wannabe who took out her frustration on her. She told Aldo she dropped out because she didn’t want to be in a profession where her looks would be exploited – which was kind of true.
When a customer asked her what play she had been in, she was ready with a vague answer. It was safest to name a play that had closed two or three seasons ago.
“Oh, I saw that! Were you in the wedding scene?”
She would wink modestly and say, “It was a long time ago. Our specials today are . . . ”
It was more challenging when they took her for a grad student, but also more gratifying to be seen as smart, so when she was asked what she was studying, she would say, “Oh, it wouldn’t mean anything to you, it’s in the bio-tech field.” She had to entertain herself somehow; it was kind of fun to expose them without their knowing it for the shallow slugs they were.
She didn’t give Sharon another thought on the long subway ride home with take-out and a ripped-off bottle of Chianti for Aldo. She read a back issue of New York magazine for theater reviews and studied the science course descriptions in the Colombia University catalogue.
“What are you doing risking your job for a bottle of this cheap shit?” This was how Aldo thanked her.
What kind of Italian doesn’t like Chianti?
When they first met – alright, that was in high school, but still – he made the most of being the Italian Stallion of their blonde town. His grandfather was actually from the old country. Of course, when they moved to the city there was nothing at all exceptional about Aldo being of Sicilian heritage. Oddly, he didn’t seem to feel the least bit diminished by losing his identity.
“There was a time when you would have said, ‘Thanks for the wine, Babe.’ By the way fanculo!”
“I’m guessing that means ‘fuck you’?”
***
That night she had to endure another session at a tiny table at the club where Aldo played. Tommy, one of Aldo’s Lyft co-workers, was enthusiastic and loyal to Aldo, but probably had no idea what he was listening to.
She swished the dregs of her drink and informed Tommy that bands like this, Miles Davis rip-offs, were as common as herpes. Arlo was destined for greater things.
When the set was over and Aldo joined them, Tommy told him: “She dissed your band, Bro.”
Aldo shrugged. “It wouldn’t bother me except she knows what she’s talking about.”
“You tellin’ me this little small-town cutie here knows shit about jazz?”
“Taught her everything I know and then she kept going. Beautiful and smart.”
“I don’t believe you, man,” Tommy said, grinning, still wanting to start trouble.
“And that’s not all. Ask her a question about biology or a medical term. Broadway directors. Playwrights. Go ahead I’m telling you, she’s a walking-talking Jeopardy contestant. She buys textbooks from college bookstores, man.”
“I’m spotty smart,” she said. “And look at where it’s gotten me.”
“I don’t care if I’m not very good,” Aldo said with that exasperating contentment of his. “I just want to play, and I’m getting better. Back home, I’d be a big fish.”
“Why don’t you go back?” Tommy asked.
“Julie wants to stay.”
On the walk to the subway, she knew Aldo was high from playing and hopeful about his prospects with her later. Everything was so simple and straightforward for him. This was when she should tell him she was done with the city and its impenetrable membership codes and screeching garbage trucks and constant reminders of what is wonderful and not yours. He would be thrilled at her change of heart, but it would be an admission of failure. And, while she was at it, she should also warn him that some misunderstandings about him had been spreading back home. But instead, she blurted: “You got less applause than I get when I walk across the street.”
Then she sobbed.
He took her in his arms. “You know I would gladly give you whatever talent I have, don’t you? Tell me you know that.”
“I know, I know,” she said.
***
Wouldn’t you know Sharon was so, so, understanding about their missing the graduation party. Then she had to go and ask what were the names of those movies Aldo had had been in. Why did Sharon have to go and make such a big deal about it? But she was prepared. Two months ago, she had spotted a film where a guy who resembles Aldo walks off screen in a glamorous hotel, and a second where all you get is the back of an actor on a diving board who could have been Aldo if you didn’t look too closely at his ass.
She sent Sharon the names of those movies and added: “He actually had a line in the first movie and he was in three scenes in the other one. You have no idea how much ends up on the cutting room floor! We’ll have to wait JUST A LITTLE LONGER! till we see Aldo on-screen speaking lines. Still, he can put those bits on his resume and the roles will keep coming. You never know.”
That should have been the end of it, but no, Sharon goes and tells all their friends, even the ones who had ghosted her long ago. They still had nothing going on in their small lives. According to Sharon, they wanted to convey their congratulations to Aldo on gaining ground in such a competitive field – like they would know what they were talking about.
They wanted his email.
“I can’t be giving that out right now. He’s really swamped! Blame it on me, if you like, but in the business he’s in, someone’s got to run interference.” The tone was much more in-charge than anyone back home would have expected from her, and she was proud of it. It was stupid, but she couldn’t help feeling proud of Aldo, too, and what he would become – proud in a strictly metaphorical sort of way, of course.
That night, Aldo was all cheery. “Sharon’s kid is graduating. Do you believe it? I picture him at like thirteen. Didn’t she text you? Can’t wait to see everybody.”
“You mean you said yes without asking me?” She knew she could make this into an argument and get him to back out of the trip. She astonished herself at how she could come up with a solution just like that.
“We haven’t been home in ages. Babe, I know how you feel. If you don’t want to go, it’s OK, I’ll go by myself.”
Of course, his going alone was out of the question. She needed to be there to defend herself against any misunderstandings.
On the drive to the graduation party, she told Aldo, “Just so you know: I don’t want you to laugh in Sharon’s face if she comes up to you and asks about the movies you’ve been in. She actually believed me when I told her you got some roles. Not that it couldn’t be true if you went for it. But anyway, I guess I overestimated Sharon. She’s not the brightest bulb and she ended up taking the joke way too seriously and before I knew it, she went all over town telling everybody!”
She gave her best version of a lighthearted laugh and waited for Aldo’s reaction, but none was forthcoming.
“Just so you know.”
When he finally spoke, he said, “They’ll never buy that.”
She knew she was in trouble when Aldo was the one who had the better grasp of people’s gullibility.
Just when you would have thought Aldo would take pity on her and help her evade the horrible, soul-crushing humiliation she was about to face, he said, “Babe, this is going to be hard, but maybe it will teach you a lesson.”
“. . . About?”
“You know what about.”
Was he referring to the time she told him Lawrence Bean, the famous fashion designer, flirted with her at Chiro’s? Aldo didn’t know who Bean was, Googled him, and found he’d been dead for six months. Well, who could blame her? The guy looked exactly like Bean.
She tried to come up with a better story about Sharon’s misunderstanding, but there was no time: the string of parked cars on the newly-mown lawn signaled the end of the line.
She waited as long as possible, her hand on the door handle, while Aldo searched his pockets and the backseat for the graduation card with the check in it. She had a brilliant impulse: to look for the card herself, find it, hide it, and tell Aldo they absolutely could not show up at the party emptyhanded and would have to leave. But Aldo found the card right in his pocket where it had been all along. It seemed entirely suitable that at that moment Sharon would come prancing toward them in chunky sneakers and a black dress that was wrong for this event, but well-suited to the funereal dread in her heart.
It was the usual scene: the teen cousins brooding together, Aldo’s dad in saggy shorts, the same old red-rimmed vintage tablecloth on the same outdoor table surrounded by the same kitschy kitchen chairs. But today it seemed new. Maybe it was the bright summer light. Maybe it was because now that a return to this life was impossible, it took on the glow of the unattainable.
Everyone wanted to know how it was going in the city. This was the kind of opening she usually welcomed, but now that she wanted nothing more than to kiss off the city, she struggled to find anything worth telling. Anyway, she was about to be exposed, and like it or not, the city would be the best place to hide for the rest of her life.
The moment of reckoning finally occurred, much later, when Sharon cornered her and Aldo in the kitchen. By then, given the tokes she had taken in the breezeway, she just wanted to get it over with. They were standing by the kitchen table piled high with chicken bones and wilted paper plates. Oddly, it didn’t bother her, this homey mess. The table had on it another of Sharon’s red-rimmed tablecloths. This one was much too big for the table and went all the way to the floor. She had the absurd thought that this would be the perfect place for someone to hide.
They went through the usual blather and she had the fleeting hope that Sharon would not even mention Aldo’s movie career, possibly to avoid the appearance of gushing. But no, she did eventually get around to it.
“So, tell me, Aldo, what’s it like on a movie set?”
“Hmmm. I can’t say I know.”
He said nothing more and first Sharon’s and then Aldo’s eyes tracked over to her. How could he abandon her like this? Just as she was about to give a feeble explanation that would deceive no one, Aldo spoke over her in a decisive way she had never seen before.
“See, I did go for a couple of auditions. Julie was so proud of me. I made more of it than it was. I couldn’t let her down, I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I lied. You know how much I love her. So, then, well, it started to get bigger and bigger. I’m such an asshole!”
Sharon didn’t seem to know how to take this. She went from smiling like she had just caught a joke, to upset that she had been lied to.
“To tell you the truth,” Aldo continued haltingly, “I think it has something to do with this empty feeling I get sometimes. Sometimes I feel kind of invisible.”
She knew immediately how to play this. She touched his lips ever so slightly to silence him and gave him a long, soulful look.
“We’re working on this,” she confided to Sharon in a stand-by-your man tone.
She told Aldo, “I know how much you love the city and the jazz scene and all of the excitement and opportunities we have there, but really, sweetheart, look around, see all the kids playing, and your uncles with their cigars pinching their wives . . .”
Sharon practically teared up at that one! And amazingly, so did Aldo. He was blinking back tears so realistically!
“You’re right. It’s time to come home.” He spoke with a little catch in his throat that would have broken the heart of the toughest Don. Her happiness, her shock, that they would be coming back home wasn’t quite perfect; it came with a certain unease now that she saw that Aldo was a good actor after all.
He grabbed her, held her close, and she whispered in his ear: “Thank you. Lesson learned.”
He released her and ducked away, but when he got to the screen door he paused as though he needed to gather courage to face the people outside or as though he suddenly realized he had left something important behind, his wallet or his sax. A chill came over her exactly like when she was startled on the street when he turned and looked at her. Was he going to take back what he had told Sharon? Was he going to expose her? He had just shown so much of that old confidence that had thrilled her so long ago, but it was replaced, now, with doubt, uncertainty, maybe even dread. Maybe it was the panic he must have seen in her face that got him to turn back to the door and go outside. Maybe his hesitation was just to stop and savor the beautiful life they were about to enter.
When he was gone, she told Sharon, “I’ve been trying harder than you’ll ever know – but since he’s shared this with you – well, I’ve been trying to bring him back home, here, where he belongs. But he had all these big dreams and he didn’t want to hold me back.”
“Hold you back? From. . . ?”
“Finishing my masters at Columbia.”
*****
John Swartz most recent published works include a full-page feature article in the Valley News, which serves the Hanover and Lebanon NH area and Dartmouth College and a piece in The Sun magazine. He has completed a novel that is searching for an agent, and has another under development.
