It’s one of those bright blue-sky days, the kind that looks warm through the window and then you get out there and find yourself in need of a warm jacket. And preferably a scarf. I have both of those things as I put my best foot forward and try to project New Yorker confidence, striding with my hands in my pockets and my head high. It’s not much of a walk, twenty minutes or so, but it’s wide, bustling streets and cluttered sidewalks, snatches of conversations, truck horns, street art, and kids on skateboards weaving either side of an old woman pulling a shopping trolley. It’s alive, a sense of forward travel that gives me a low buzz of nervous excitement. I almost reach for my cellphone to video call Bobby just to show him where I am, and then I change my mind. I can tell him later. I see Katz’s coming up on the corner in the distance and I instinctively twist the heart-shaped ring on my wedding finger for comfort. My mother gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday, sliding it from its forever spot on her hand to its forever spot on mine. She was a bit of a magpie for jewelry, the more bohemian the better, but the signet ring never left her hand until the day she gave it to me. All of her rings hold a special place in my heart, but this one is a little extra-special.
“Come on, Mum,” I whisper. “Let’s go in.”
I queued to get inside the first time I came here, but when the guy in the entrance held out a ticket to me I lost my nerve and turned around. This time I smile as if I know what I’m doing. I don’t, but I’ve looked it up enough to know it’s going to be hectic and I need to hang on to my ticket as if it’s made of pure gold. I hesitate once inside because, genuinely, it’s kind of mind-blowing, especially on my own. I’m glad I’m early, at least: it’s just before ten in the morning and, thankfully, quieter than the last time I was here. It’s just how you know it’s going to be inside, no frills, and neon, faded memorabilia and multiple queues, a sense of chaos and order running hand in hand. I follow the guy in front as he seems to know what he’s doing and find myself in line at a cutter station. I don’t mind the wait. The smell in here leans heavily toward savory; if a caveman ever found himself unexpectedly defrosted and in NYC this place would draw him in like catnip. I listen to the guy ahead of me rattle off his order and scan the menu quickly—if there’s one thing that’s valued here, it’s knowing what you want when it’s your turn upfront. I twist my signet ring again, repeating “half pastrami on club” until I’m there and say the words clear and loud, earning myself an efficient nod from the woman wielding the knife in front of me. The cutter stations are exactly that: places where the meat gets sliced and loaded on to bread—and, oh my sweet Lord, is there a lot of meat. She spears a sliver of pastrami for me to test as she builds my sandwich, her experienced hands a blur as she slices and fills my order. The pastrami is something else in my mouth as I wait, melting to nothing but flavor. And then I’m done and moved aside, tray in hand as I weave toward the back and find myself a table.
Coming here was never about the food for me, but now I’m actually sitting with this gigantic sandwich in front of me, it momentarily becomes so. I’ve worked in kitchens all of my adult life, but I’ve never been called upon to serve up a sandwich with proportions like this. I can’t help myself snapping a shot of it for the food file in my phone, then I count the meat layers: eight, I think—there might even be a sneaky ninth. I don’t think my mum ever actually came inside this place, and she certainly wouldn’t have eaten anything of this magnitude. She floated barefoot through my childhood on a diet of Marlboro Lights and here-and-there meals, often sitting beside me and picking at my dinner plate rather than serving herself. As an adult looking back, I realize now how tight money was for her, and I wonder if she sometimes missed meals to make sure I didn’t.
A woman sits alone at the table marked as the one used in When Harry Met Sally, and I wonder if she sat there purposely. She flicks the page of her book as she eats, absorbed in her story, and I find myself hoping she knows exactly which table she’s sitting at and not giving a hot damn. I pick up my sandwich and people-watch, letting the hubbub move around me as I eat, soaking in the noise and the movements. As expected, the sandwich is as epic in deliciousness as it is in scale, and I take this moment alone to give myself a mental once-over. A year ago I felt hopeless, trapped in a controlling relationship, and going further back again, I was floundering around in the murky jaws of grief. Adam found me there and reached out his hand, and I clung on because someone, anyone, felt better than no one. I didn’t realize how wrong I was until I was in way over my head and couldn’t see a clear way out.
A nearby customer knocks an empty soda bottle on the floor, and the clank is enough to jolt me back from those unwelcome memories. I take a few deep, calming breaths and remind myself where I am now. I’m here in New York, sitting in the legendary Katz’s Deli eating eight or nine layers of histrionically excellent pastrami, and I’m free to paint my background colors any which way I choose. I close my eyes for a second and mentally add a splash of Katz’s red and biscuit beige. That’s really what lies at the heart of my discontent yesterday: it reminded me how it feels when someone makes you feel as though you’ve done something wrong when you haven’t, just to distract you from their own mistakes—a lesson I learned the hard way. Gio wasn’t to know that, and of course I realize it wasn’t his intention and I understand he has his own agenda and emotional flashpoints, but he will always have his family and Bella to turn to when he needs them. I don’t have that kind of safety net, so I have to hold myself together instead.
* * *
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WEDNESDAY MORNING FINDS RAIN battering my windows and me unwilling to leave the sanctuary of my bed, my get-up-and-go got-up-and-gone. I haven’t heard from Gio, but then I haven’t made contact either. He doesn’t know my address, but Sophia has my cell number if she, or he, wanted to get in touch. I’m not surprised by the radio silence—I’ve been the one doing all the running, after all. It’s been a really complicated few weeks, an emotionally draining merry-go-round. I feel as if I’m constantly trying to balance doing more good than harm to the Belotti family. It’s so difficult being obscure with the truth regarding the recipe, but at the end of the day my loyalties lie firmly with my mother. I’ve squared it with myself by holding fast to the fact that I’m trying to honor her memory by helping Santo’s family without compromising a secret that’s stayed buried for more than thirty years. And that’s felt okay, in the main. I’ve nudged Gio closer and closer to the recipe, but the more time I spend at the gelateria, the more compromised I feel on a personal level.
I hate, hate, hate the lie about Adam’s death. I wish with all my heart I could rewind the clock and have a rerun at that bookstore encounter—I’d suck those words back in quick smart. Yes, I might sometimes, privately, inside my own head, tell myself that my ex is dead. It’s an ugly admission to make, even silently, and I judge myself harshly for it. Not because it’s wrong to wish harm on Adam—frankly, that man deserves whatever is coming to him. It’s the detrimental effect on my own mental health that bothers me, that the only way to keep putting one foot in front of the other every day is to lie to myself and others about his demise. How could Gio even begin to understand that? There isn’t a scenario where I can unpick that lie and come out of it with a shred of dignity or self-respect. Gio will hate me when—if—he ever finds out, and justifiably so—from his perspective, at least. Life has dealt him a very different set of cards and he will play his hand accordingly. I remind myself that I’m a decent human trying to do a decent thing, and then shove my head under my pillow and block the world out for a while.