Page 32 of Best Things in Life

“I don’t care about his money and family influence. Not really. My mom cares about that but only because she doesn’t have to put up with the shit that comes with it.”

“And by shit, do you mean Bigs?”

She laughs.

“I have to tell him, but…”

“I’ll tell him with you,” I say. She rolls her eyes, but I see the relief. And the reluctance.

“It’s okay. I can handle it,” she says. “I really don’t want to see you get hurt—no matter how exciting it would be to see two macho hockey players fighting each other over me.”

I laugh. “News flash, Cookie. He’s going to come looking for me and we’re going to have it out either way. Either you can be there when it happens and throw yourself between us to stop the bloodshed, or you can hide and hear about it later and visit one or both of us in the hospital.” I sound calmer than I am. Because I’m only half kidding. Except the bloodshed is a euphemism for the end of a friendship and possibly the creation of a giant fissure on the team. Guys will take sides.

“We can’t cause a scene at my Zia Rosaria’s fucking funeral,” she hisses. I hear someone coming down the stairs, which will bring our conversation to a close.

“We’ll wait until afterward. Before we get back to campus.” Because in spite of my earlier statement that I’ll ruin the team, I want to keep the collateral damage to a minimum. Not that having the two co-captains of the team hating each other’s guts and becoming mortal enemies who want to rip each other’s heads off won’t have an effect on the team. It could split us in two and I’m afraid there won’t be many guys on my side. I don’t even want to think about what Coach will have to say about it when he finds out. Because he will.

He’s always preached about women being problematic. Always held up the creed that you can’t even talk to a teammate’s girl let alone lust for her or sleep with her—even if all we did is sleep. Or that was almost all we did.

Her family floods the kitchen and I make another pot of coffee. When Sarina’s uncle Joe comes in the back door, he embraces me like he’s my uncle too.

“So glad you stayed for the funeral, Nate. Made the sacrifice.” He punches my shoulder. “And you came to the wake too, not like the other—”

“Never mind, Joe,” Mrs. Torini says. She gives me a nod and I know this isn’t easy for her having me around because I broke her daughter’s heart. Plus Mom told me Mrs. Torini has not only been impressed with Bigsby’s money and influence, but also the fact that he’s a good, safe boy. Mom’s words, not mine. We had a mini argument after that about why I’m so unsafe and I want to smile, but my chest tightens when the front doorbell rings. There’s only one person coming to the house who would ring the doorbell. Bigs. Mr. Torini gets the door and escorts him back to the kitchen, where the rest of us are putting the finishing touches on our coffee to go. I steel myself to stay cool, reminding myself that I’m on his territory even though it feels so much like mine.

His eyes hit mine like a punch, accusation solid enough to draw blood, then he flicks his gaze to Sarina. Tension makes Bigs look a lot like his old man, stiff and formal. He goes to her, separating us, sweeping her away from me with one arm.

“I’m so sorry, Sarina,” he whispers as he extends one arm around her shoulders in a half hug. Sarina is silent and stiff in his arm, not hugging him back, barely meeting his eyes. I feel the same guilt she feels like it connects us in an invisible force shield protecting us from Bigsby’s threatening intrusion. Mr. Torini clears his throat, the rest of us remain silent and still.

“It’s time to go,” Mrs. Torini says and she leads everyone out the back door, relieving some of the awkward tension strangling the room.

At the funeral mass, which is oppressive by nature in the big, dark, overly ornate St. Anthony’s church in Revere, Massachusetts, I sit in the second pew with Uncle Joe. He feels like an old pal since he whispered to me on the way here his thoughts on Bigs.

“This guy’s a real ass missing the wake and showing up for the funeral like he’s a casual acquaintance. But I never did like him.” I keep control of my smirk, barely.

But it’s hard to feel anything but uncomfortable at the funeral sitting behind Bigs and Sarina as he holds her while she weeps for the loss of her kind old aunt. Luckily this is a formal affair and the only one who speaks about Zia Rosaria is the priest. What he says is sad and true: we’ve all lost a generous soul and dear relative/friend.

The incense chokes me as much as the depressing atmosphere, dark sadness curtaining us as we finally march from the enormous church down the center aisle behind the casket with priests and altar boys rattling their caged candles spewing smoke and sorrow.

When we get outside, I watch Bigs get in the limousine with Sarina and her family while I stand on the sidewalk, left out. Fuck. The sense of last night slipping away like it never happened, as if it was no more than a dream, a lost moment in time, strangles me. My chest tightens. Joe puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Nate. I saw the way she looks at you. You got this.” I nod and some of the tightness eases because his observation dispels the sense that last night wasn’t real. But I still have Bigs to deal with. “Let’s go.”

I ride with Joe to the cemetery, a familiar place even if the only times I ever come here are to bury old family members still immersed in old traditions. And those traditions do their job, imparting comfort in the form of ceremony, the last rite of passage in this life.

Fuck, I’m turning morbid and I need to escape the sadness, so I think of Aunt Rose herself, her bright smile and kindness, her teasing when Sarina and I were young. She had us pegged from the start as a couple who would end up together some day. It’s funny that even though I thought of her teasing as funny and hopeful but suffocating back then, now I’m back to thinking of it as just funny and hopeful. Damn, I’ll miss her.

It’s a shame she’ll never get to see us married—wait—what the fuck am I thinking?

As her ornate casket is lowered into the ground and the sun shines, I touch my hand to my lips for a kiss and then pass it to her as a goodbye. The chorus of soft weeping from the women comforts me, but I keep my eyes averted from Sarina because I can’t bear to look at her in Bigs’s arms, can’t bear to see the sorrow on her face and not be able to hold her and share her sadness. At least not for now. But there’s no fucking way he’s leaving here today without me making it clear where I stand with Sarina, before he know I’m fighting him for her. I pray to God that Sarina still feels the same way she did last night, that she wasn’t temporarily reverting to old feelings because she was vulnerable. As the funeral party breaks up, I take a deep breath then walk back to the car with Joe. We head back to Sarina’s family’s house where they’ve invited everyone to come and celebrate Rose’s life.

* * *

The drinking starts immediately when we walk in the back door and I follow Joe to the liquor cabinet in the kitchen.

“I’m playing bartender,” he says. “What’ll you have?” I almost tell him to pour me a whiskey, but I shake my head. I need to have the talk with Bigs as sober as an Amish farmer. Most people arrive through the front door and the house fills up. Sarina and her family come in through the back door. Bigs is the last one in and he meets my eyes, face grim, and I’m not sure if it’s left over from the cemetery or if it’s aimed at me.

The question is answered when he heads straight for me and takes me by the arm, leading me from the now crowded room, leaving Sarina to help with food prep like the pro she is.