A Winter in New York(76)
“Ornaments?”
I fetch the whisk and hang it on the tree, then step back. It spins slowly, catching the daylight, a solitary splash of color on the mountain of greenery.
“You know what this means,” I say.
He groans. “Please don’t say we have to go back to the Christmas store.”
“We have to go back to the Christmas store.” I rub my hands together like an excited child. “I’ll get my coat.”
* * *
—
MY LIFE FEELS LIKE a Coney Island roller coaster at the moment, a series of euphoric highs and stomach-plummeting lows. Today I’m flying high, sweet as you like, because Gio and I have spent the afternoon dressing the tree and eating panettone from a little bakery he knows over on Mulberry. I had a moment as we walked back home weighed down with Christmas bags. Gio was a few steps ahead of me on the sidewalk, hunkered inside his navy reefer jacket, panettone wrapped with brown paper and string dangling from one hand, Christmas decorations from the other, and the weatherman finally made good on his promise of snow. Gio turned back to look at me, fat white flakes settling on his shoulders as he cast his eyes toward the skies, and I clicked the shutter on my internal camera to save the scene forever.
“It looks like you bought everything in the shop and threw it at the tree,” he says, when I finally declare it to be perfect.
“I love it,” I say. “It’s the best tree in the history of Christmas trees ever.”
It looks insanely festive, a blaze of vintage-colored lights—pinpricks of rose pink, apple green, candy apple reds. I completely lost my head in the Christmas store earlier, bought far too many tree ornaments, and I’m not one bit sorry, because my tree looks like something from a child’s drawing. From my own wistful childhood drawings.
I cook pasta for dinner, and afterward we lie on the sofa and bask in the fairy-light glow, the TV on low and snow falling steadily outside.
“Heavy snow at the Monday Night Motel,” he says.
I adjust my head on his chest. “Maybe we’ll get snowed in.”
“Maybe,” he says, even though we both know it’s coming up to the time for him to leave. Bella’s at the cinema, and he’s walking over to meet her at ten to make sure she gets home safe in this weather.
“It feels like Christmas already,” I say.
“You do have the best tree in the neighborhood,” he says.
“Thanks to you.”
I’m deeply comfortable in Gio’s arms, even though I’m always subconsciously aware of a quiet ticking clock in my head. It was there long before my New Year’s cut-off date. It’s there when I’m awake and features in my dreams when I sleep, eerie dreams where I stand and stare at the clock face and realize that the quarter-hour markers have been replaced with words. LIAR in black capitals at quarter past, SECRET printed at the half-hour point. Adam’s name marks quarter to, and a tiny faceted ball sits ready to drop at midnight. The hands spin in both directions, fast and out of control. It wouldn’t take a psychiatrist to analyze the meaning behind my dreams, the portent of danger that runs like the San Andreas Fault beneath my precarious life.
Before Gio leaves, we make love—and it is love even if we haven’t said the words aloud—on the sofa by the haze of the tree. I used to grumble about this sofa, but if Bobby ever asks me if I need it replaced, I’ll say no, because it’s the keeper of my secrets and the custodian of some of my best memories now. This one in particular.
* * *
—
SNOW CHANGES EVERYTHING, DOESN’T it? The Narnian view from the windows, the muffled sound of the world, the conversation on the streets. New York has become an even more magical place for me this week. I went to the park across the street this morning to make fresh footprints in the overnight snowfall. I stopped to listen to the busker for a while; she’s in fine voice these days and reached out to touch hands when I dropped some money in her plastic tub. It’s too wet out there for upturned hats this weather.
I spent a couple of hours at the gelateria yesterday morning, helping Sophia out behind the counter. I go every now and then, not for the recipe anymore, as there’s little call for gelato while the city dithers under this deep freeze and the family waits for Santo. I go because I love being there, because Sophia has become one of my favorite people, because the Belottis make me feel as if I belong. I have a coffee mug with my name on it. Maria sometimes sends recipes she thinks I’ll appreciate. Bella played the piano yesterday, Christmas carols that rendered the atmosphere almost unbearably sweet as Sophia, Gio, and I slid homemade cannoli and tender sugar-glazed Italian cookies into green-and-white-striped paper bags. An illicit tray of small shots of Pascal’s limoncello sat on the counter for the customers as they waited in line, designed to keep tempers calm and the till ringing.
I’m sure the Belottis suspect there’s something happening between Gio and me, and I appreciate that none of them have asked directly, although there have been moments when Sophia has seemed as if she’s bursting to. They know Gio well enough to understand that he’s someone who needs to do things to his own timescale, and for my part I’m relieved to just keep things in precarious balance for as long as possible. I wish with all of my heart that this was an uncomplicated love affair, but it isn’t. Gio has his baggage, and I drag my invisible suitcase of secrets behind me like a lead weight. It’s going to burst open one day and spill my dirty underwear in the street for everyone to see, but for now I just want to take joy from the simple things as the calendar flips from day to day. Tomorrow will take care of itself.