Back Against the Wall - Page 54
“My stomach is growling,” she admitted. “I wasn’t very hungry at lunchtime.” She took her first bite.
“I wasn’t either,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I understood, you know.”
She was glad he didn’t comment.
The quiet felt peaceful as they both made inroads on their salads. She was the first to break it.
“Matt left a couple of grumpy messages on my phone. Which I deleted after listening to him complain about me not answering when he calls.”
“Great tactic to make sure you can hardly wait for his next call.”
She laughed. “Exactly.”
“Sounds like my mother, except she wields guilt expertly enough to get results.”
Intrigued, Beth said, “Really? Does she have a hold over you?”
“You mean, a deep, dark secret? No, thank God. But she raised us to live up to certain standards, and along the way I think we all internalized heavy-duty guilt as our punishment for falling short.”
She set down her fork and studied him. “What kind of standards?”
“God and family come first. I’m not sure in what order,” he said wryly. “This has not been a good week. She chewed me out Sunday for missing church—”
“Because of my call?” Speaking of guilt.
“No, the morning service had come and gone long before dispatch called me. I overslept, probably because I didn’t feel like going.”
“And why was that?”
He rolled his shoulders, his discomfiture plain. But he’d started this, not her. And…she wanted to know him. He’d hinted before at his mixed feelings about his family.
“I work long hours. Sometimes, I want to be alone. Or with a friend, or a woman—” he reached for her hand, seemingly not even noticing he’d done it “—not surrounded by thirty-five family members with eight conversations flying by, half of them including a Tony, will you do this? or Tony, Mamá said you could help me.” He shook his head. “I love them all, and I really don’t mind helping out. I just wish the demands weren’t so never ending.”
“You do have an awful lot of family.” All she had to do was mentally multiply what she had by ten to make her shudder.
He grimaced.
“If you moved a little farther away…”
“With my father gone, I can’t do that.”
“But she has all your sisters and their husbands. If they’re married?”
“Four are. The youngest is still in high school, and Isabel is in college.” His smile appeared. “The University of Washington. Mamá wanted her to stay closer, but Isabel is the smartest of all of us. She’s determined to be a doctor, and that’s the best place for her. Wakefield or Whitman College would have been great, but we couldn’t afford that kind of tuition. Anyway, I thought she needed to go away.”
Beth said, “I think it’s good for everyone to have at least a taste of independence.” She frowned. “What about your brother?”
“Also in college, at Central.”
Another state school, this one in Ellensburg, on the eastern side of the mountains, like Frenchman Lake, but a two-or three-hour drive away.
“Two of my married sisters are pregnant right now,” Tony continued. “Beatrix, who is closest in age to me, already has two kids. Eloisa has a three-year-old on top of being pregnant. My brothers-in-law are all good guys, but they work full time, at least, and all but one have their own families in the area.”
“Sometimes,” Beth said softly, ashamed but needing to say this anyway, “I wish I didn’t have any family. I know I don’t mean it. Think how lonely that would be. But for a week or two, or a month or two…”
He smiled again, squeezed her hand, then let it go so he could resume eating. “Maybe a year or two,” he suggested.
Beth giggled.
The pizza was fabulous, and they talked more as they ate, but less seriously. When she asked, he agreed that his given name was Antonio, as she’d suspected. They compared favorite and least favorite movies, TV shows, books, social media habits. Beth found his political views an interesting mix and teased that he must get paralyzed when it came time to make a decision about every vote. He didn’t disagree.
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