sliding it expertly down the counter to Leron, who blasts it with the sprayer and racks it so they can get back to their game.
Roz and Jacquie have settled into the break room— Roz smoking, using her coffee saucer as an ashtray. She’s complaining about her middle daughter bringing her boyfriend home for Christmas. This is the daughter in Florida who got in a bad car accident, stopped drinking and found religion. The boyfriend’s part of the church and twenty years older. “I don’t know,” Roz says, “he’s nice, but he’s nice all the time . It’s kinda creepy.”
“That is kinda weird,” Manny says.
“You don’t know,” Jacquie says. “Maybe she needs that right now.”
“Well, I don’t,” Roz says. “It’s my vacation too. I don’t need Jesus ruining it for me. How ’bout you, you going anywhere?”
“I might go down to the city for a couple days. Depends on what I get.”
Manny can counter with Bridgeport, but doesn’t, imaginingJacquie at Rockefeller Center (not Rodney, just Jacquie), watching the skaters circle under that funky gold statue of the guy lying on his side and the big tree with the GE building behind it, where they make Saturday Night Live . His abuelita took him once when he was little; he still remembers the flags and the glass elevator that went down into the ground. He wanted to skate, but the line was too long, and he didn’t know how anyway.
“Hey,” Roz asks him, “you making the lunch schedule next month?”
“No one’s talked to me about it, so I’m going to say no.”
“So where all are you looking?” Roz asks Jacquie.
He’d meant to just breeze through, and now, standing there while they’re sitting, he feels like an intruder on their conversation. No one’s manning the host stand, and he uses it as an excuse, ducking through the swinging door into the empty dining room, where the candles waver on the tables and Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell are harmonizing—“Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.” The lights blink around the live tank, the tinsel and the marlin’s belly echoing their colors. Outside, the walk is still pretty bare, just a downy layer he can see through, and while the odds are against it, Manny takes some minor satisfaction in knowing that they’re ready if somebody comes.
No one does, giving him time to miss Eddie (he still has his Powerball tickets—or ticket) and to fret over whether Dom snuck anything out while he was in the mall. He paces the main room and back into the foyer, glancing out at the parking lot, rehearsing what he might say to Jacquie if he gets the chance to be alone with her. Every pair of headlights could be Rodney, come to take her away forever, unless he does something, but what can he do or say that he hasn’t tried already?
The worst thing is that at heart he knows she’s right, that what he wanted was childish and impossible, and that he was lucky just to have her for even a little while. He’s never seen himself as the kind of person who’d throw away everything for an entirely new life, and that’s what both of them would have had to do. Jacquie understood that—from the beginning, it seems, so that throughout their time together she had to remind him this was just temporary, even when she wanted to believe in it herself. For once in his life he was the dreamer, forcing her to be the responsible one, and naturally she resented it, attacking him when they should have been happiest, confusing him, making him think their problems were all his fault when he was willing to give up anything to be with her. Now he realizes how crazy that sounds—and how cruel, with the baby on the way and Deena relying on him—but he’d really believed it then, and would have gone through with it if Jacquie hadn’t thought it all out for both of them. And while she was right—is right— sometimes he wishes she hadn’t. Sometimes, selfishly, he wishes she was so lost in him she wouldn’t have been able
Roz and Jacquie have settled into the break room— Roz smoking, using her coffee saucer as an ashtray. She’s complaining about her middle daughter bringing her boyfriend home for Christmas. This is the daughter in Florida who got in a bad car accident, stopped drinking and found religion. The boyfriend’s part of the church and twenty years older. “I don’t know,” Roz says, “he’s nice, but he’s nice all the time . It’s kinda creepy.”
“That is kinda weird,” Manny says.
“You don’t know,” Jacquie says. “Maybe she needs that right now.”
“Well, I don’t,” Roz says. “It’s my vacation too. I don’t need Jesus ruining it for me. How ’bout you, you going anywhere?”
“I might go down to the city for a couple days. Depends on what I get.”
Manny can counter with Bridgeport, but doesn’t, imaginingJacquie at Rockefeller Center (not Rodney, just Jacquie), watching the skaters circle under that funky gold statue of the guy lying on his side and the big tree with the GE building behind it, where they make Saturday Night Live . His abuelita took him once when he was little; he still remembers the flags and the glass elevator that went down into the ground. He wanted to skate, but the line was too long, and he didn’t know how anyway.
“Hey,” Roz asks him, “you making the lunch schedule next month?”
“No one’s talked to me about it, so I’m going to say no.”
“So where all are you looking?” Roz asks Jacquie.
He’d meant to just breeze through, and now, standing there while they’re sitting, he feels like an intruder on their conversation. No one’s manning the host stand, and he uses it as an excuse, ducking through the swinging door into the empty dining room, where the candles waver on the tables and Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell are harmonizing—“Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.” The lights blink around the live tank, the tinsel and the marlin’s belly echoing their colors. Outside, the walk is still pretty bare, just a downy layer he can see through, and while the odds are against it, Manny takes some minor satisfaction in knowing that they’re ready if somebody comes.
No one does, giving him time to miss Eddie (he still has his Powerball tickets—or ticket) and to fret over whether Dom snuck anything out while he was in the mall. He paces the main room and back into the foyer, glancing out at the parking lot, rehearsing what he might say to Jacquie if he gets the chance to be alone with her. Every pair of headlights could be Rodney, come to take her away forever, unless he does something, but what can he do or say that he hasn’t tried already?
The worst thing is that at heart he knows she’s right, that what he wanted was childish and impossible, and that he was lucky just to have her for even a little while. He’s never seen himself as the kind of person who’d throw away everything for an entirely new life, and that’s what both of them would have had to do. Jacquie understood that—from the beginning, it seems, so that throughout their time together she had to remind him this was just temporary, even when she wanted to believe in it herself. For once in his life he was the dreamer, forcing her to be the responsible one, and naturally she resented it, attacking him when they should have been happiest, confusing him, making him think their problems were all his fault when he was willing to give up anything to be with her. Now he realizes how crazy that sounds—and how cruel, with the baby on the way and Deena relying on him—but he’d really believed it then, and would have gone through with it if Jacquie hadn’t thought it all out for both of them. And while she was right—is right— sometimes he wishes she hadn’t. Sometimes, selfishly, he wishes she was so lost in him she wouldn’t have been able
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