I had one conversation with Gracie when I tried to reach out to her, to really understand her, and she pushed me away. The worst thing was that she basically stated that my mother was her confidante and the person she turned to. Also, over the last few weeks I have asked Lila to lunch several times only to hear that she is too busy. She was apologetic and very nice about it, but the message remains the same. My brothers and sisters call me only when they need something: money or advice. The gulf that lies between us is based on the fact that I have more than each of them. I have more money than Meggy and Theresa, and more family than Pat and Johnny. I don’t look down on them because they have less than me, but nonetheless that reality sits between us and keeps us from being equals. And my mother . . . I admit I haven’t tried to reach out to my mother. My mother is seventy-nine and I know better than to try to convince her to change her ways.
No one is prepared to deal with me as directly as Vince Carrelli. Whenever I am bored at work, or at home preparing a baked potato for myself for dinner, my hands drift to my short hair, and my mind drifts to Vince. I picture him standing in the barbershop, framed by the big window and Main Street behind it. I see his deep brown eyes, his square fingers, his uncertainty. Apart from his hands, Vince is a smaller man than Louis. He is less confident, less indomitable. I have always liked the look of Italian men. There is a warmth to them, to their eyes and to their skin, that is very different from the pallor and the fair eyes of the Irish.
You need a friend, I tell myself at the end of two hours lying on the motel bed staring at the ceiling. It’s all right to need something. It’s okay. You deserve this.
I pick the phone up off the bedside table and lay it on my flat stomach. I call information first and ask for the barbershop phone number. I ask the operator to connect me, and almost immediately the line begins to ring.
I hold my breath to block out the noise. What are you doing? I wonder. Who are you?
“Hello? Barbershop?” Vince says.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” I say. “I thought you might be gone for the day. I’ll call you tomorrow. Go back to whatever you were doing.”
“Kelly? Is that you? No—it’s not—I was just about to close up. I have a planning board meeting. With Louis. You’re not calling for an appointment, are you? I told you to walk in anytime.”
Foolish, I think. I am foolish. I am a fifty-six-year-old woman lying on a bed in a motel room calling a strange man. “I don’t need an appointment,” I say. “That’s not why I called.”
I hear him hesitate for a moment on the other end of the line. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“Everything’s fine,” I say. “Perfectly fine.”
“You don’t sound perfectly fine.”
“Well,” I say.
“I’m glad you called,” he says.
“Are you?” I hear my voice, as hard as nails, and shudder.
“Yes, this is like a dream, Kelly—it makes me happy. Please tell me why you called.”
This is not like a dream. This is nothing like a dream. This is my life, my blunder. I can only block his question. “Why did you want to talk to me?”
“This is a strange conversation,” he says. “Are you sure you want to know?”
I put my hand over my eyes, as if I am approaching a car wreck and don’t want to look. “Yes.”
“I’ve wanted to tell you that I have feelings for you.”
My heart threatens to leave my chest, it is beating so hard and crazily. I think that it is my good luck that women have a lower risk of heart attacks or I might have one now. I have wondered, when I thought about Vince and our meetings, if my memory exaggerated his intensity, his remarkable ability to say only what matters. But I’d remembered correctly. I had both dreaded and hoped this phone call would lead to this. I am alive in this moment. I am living.
“Let me explain,” he says. “I don’t want to scare you.”
My body is shaking on top of the green bedspread. I think, Maybe he means gratitude, or friendship,