Something She's Not Telling Us - Darcey Bell Page 0,43
learned from her grandparents—is the secret of domestic bliss. Her grandparents are regular gold mines of good advice. She cooks well, mostly Italian food she learned to make at a cooking school run by Tuscan grandmas.
On the way to the circus, in the car that Ruth organized, Rocco felt doors swing open before he and Ruth and Daisy bothered to knock. By the time the performers finished their opening parade, strutting around the ring, Ruth was beaming. All through the show, she was in another world, high in the stratosphere. She’d looked more sparkly than he’d ever seen her. He couldn’t stop looking at her.
He wants Ruth to be happy. He’s never cared about someone else’s happiness before. It’s a new experience that he’s not entirely sure he likes.
RUTH’S BIRTHDAY FALLS on a Wednesday, so Rocco can stay in the city if he drives upstate the next day.
He asks Ruth how she wants to celebrate. He likes it that she doesn’t expect him to guess her secret birthday desire. He’s seen women get furious because he wasn’t a mind reader. Ruth will be twenty-four, eight years younger than he is. He’s glad that she doesn’t seem to care about the difference. She pretends they’re the same age.
Ruth wants to go out to dinner. And she’s found a restaurant, a collective in East New York that grows vegetables on the roof and trains neighborhood kids for careers in food service. It’s community-based, affordable, delicious, serving the neighborhood. Rocco’s dream restaurant.
The place is called There Is Such a Thing as a Free Lunch. Ruth says, “Let’s not judge it by its name,” just as Rocco is getting ready to judge it by its trendy name.
They agree to meet there at six. Rocco offers to pick Ruth up in Union Square, near her office, but she says the rush hour traffic will be terrible. It will be much faster if she takes the train. Rocco admires the fact that she’s got the energy to trek out to East New York by subway.
When Rocco wakes up, sunlight is streaming into Ruth’s apartment. She’s left for work. He decides to buy her flowers and surprise her at her office. He knows that she’s working with a bunch of frat-boy sadists. Twice she’s burst into tears describing how they treat her, and though he’s offered to punch them out, they both knew he was joking.
Now he thinks it might be helpful to show the frat boys that Ruth has someone in her corner, a boyfriend who brings her flowers.
Charlotte would be happy to put a great bouquet together. For free. But he decides not to ask her. It’s not that he doesn’t want his sister to be happy for him, or that he wants to waste money. It’s about privacy. He doesn’t want Charlotte charting the progress of his emotional life, especially if his relationship with Ruth doesn’t last.
Rocco drives out to the Park Slope Greenmarket and buys an armload of flowers. Then he layers the flowers in a cooler and drives to Union Square. He parks in a garage—he’s living large, it’s Ruth’s birthday!—and walks to the office building where he’d left her with all that kale the day they met.
In the small foyer, a middle-aged black guy in a short-sleeved shirt stands behind a counter. The doorman watches Rocco look for STEP on the letter board on the wall. The businesses are listed alphabetically, and he looks from Sayers Inc. to Title Research International. No STEP, nothing like it. Rocco knows that start-ups sometimes operate out of other offices. He asks the doorman, who says there’s no business like that in the building. All the firms listed have been there forever, and the management company doesn’t permit subletting office space.
Rocco takes out his phone and shows the doorman the picture of himself kissing Ruth—the photo Tengbo took in the market.
“No, sir, I never saw her before.”
“Can you take another look?”
“Sir, please. I would tell you if I had seen that girl, but I’m sorry, I haven’t.”
Rocco says, “Okay, sorry, I must have the wrong building.”
“I don’t work here every day.” The doorman’s trying to make Rocco feel better. He sees the damn bouquet! This poor slob is bringing flowers to a girl, and he doesn’t even know where she works.
“That must be it,” Rocco says. “I’ve got the wrong building.”
“No problem.” The guy thinks a moment, as if deciding whether to say more.
“I heard from the janitor that something happened here last week. Ambulances