The Right Thing to Do Read online

  “Today,” Laura began when she saw there was nothing on the radio about the game, “Luisa from the old neighborhood called me. She has such trouble because of Millie, her daughter. You remember? The plain one?”

  “I don’t remember either of them,” Nino admitted.

  “You remember,” Laura insisted. “Luisa, the widow, who lived over the bakery. She had a boy, Frankie, and a girl, Millie.”

  Nino shrugged, glancing at the light reflecting from the white ceramic lamp on the end table. The lamp was always on, because the ground-floor apartment was so dark. Even in summer, Nino defended it: it’s dark, which is good, because that keeps it cool.

  “Let me begin at the beginning,” Laura said, sitting back in the wooden rocker that faced the sofa.

  “I don’t see why you should begin,” Nino said reasonably, “because I don’t remember who you’re talking about.”

  “They remember you,” Laura said. “Luisa wanted your opinion of what happened to Millie. She thinks,” Laura continued too foolishly innocent to take the doubt from her voice, “that you know a lot about life. If I don’t begin, then I’ll never finish.”

  Nino settled back, putting his feet on the sofa so that they would be sure to miss the hideous throw. “If she wants my opinion, I’ll give her my opinion,” he said.

  “Now Millie,” Laura began, “lived with her mother on Mulberry Street, over Grito’s bakery. Her father had worked for the post office, but while Millie was in the last year of high school, he died. Her mother had very little money, since all she had was the annuity she received from the post office. When Millie graduated high school, she had trouble finding a job because she was plain, shy, and she had no skills. So Luisa borrowed money from her Uncle Gabriel to send her to the Katharine Gibbs secretarial school. Millie didn’t want to go, but Luisa forced her. But Millie worked hard and when she graduated the school found her a job. Her mother said, ‘Millie, when you get paid, give me your salary and I will save some of it for you. Someday, when you get married, you can spend it on your apartment. I will give you an allowance each week.’

  “Just the mention of this made Millie mad. ‘You know I will never get married,’ Millie would scream. ‘I never even had a boyfriend.’ Now her brother, Frank, was going to the Delehanty Institute to be stretched, so he could pass the height test to be a policeman. Whenever there was a dance or a meeting, Luisa would tell Frank, ‘Take you sister! Introduce her to your friends.’ But Frank always refused. ‘It’s not my responsibility,’ he’d say. ‘It’s not my fault she’s ugly.’

  “But a girl Millie met at work invited her to her wedding. The bride knew, through her mother, a widower who was looking for a good girl to marry because he needed someone to care for his three children. The bride introduced them at the wedding, and to make a long story short, the man saw that Millie was simple and plain, and thought she would be perfect.”

  “So what was the problem?” Nino asked.

  “That’s what I’m getting to,” Laura went on uneasily. “When Millie told Luisa about him, she told her to forget him. She knew Millie was too lonely and nervous to take care of someone else’s kids, and besides, why should her daughter, just because she was plain, be a housekeeper for someone else’s family. But Millie was lonely and since no one else had ever bothered with her, she began to see the man secretly. To make a long story short, she took off hours from her job, and she sneaked around until she was fired. Luisa suspected something was wrong. So one day she followed her—”

  “You mean,” Nino interrupted, “Frankie didn’t do this for her?”

  “No,” Laura said. “You know how the boys are these days. He didn’t want to get involved.”

  Nino shook his head. Women were no good at these things, but what could they do when the men didn’t do the right thing? Frankie was old enough to look out for his sister, if there was no father.

  “So Luisa,” Laura continued, “followed her and caught her meeting the man on the street. Now Millie was high-strung. She had had . . . little breakdowns . . . before, but when Luisa caught her, she just blew up. The man said he would stand by her and told her to move in with him and his mother. He persuaded Millie that since his mother was there, it would be all right. He told her that if things worked out and she liked the children, they would get married. But”—Laura leaned forward—“I don’t think he really meant it. He really just wanted to see if Millie could run the family.”

  Nino nodded.

  “Things went well until one day when the man’s mother fell off a ladder while she was hanging the kitchen curtains. She was taken to Saint Vincent’s where they said she had a broken hip. Millie was left alone to take care of the children. They made her so nervous, they set off her condition. One day the man came home and found her screaming and throwing things. The children were hiding under the kitchen table and behind the living-room chairs. He couldn’t believe that even the policemen the neighbors called had trouble controlling her.”

  “What happened to her?” Nino asked.

  “The man was through with her. He could see she was no good with children. So he had the cops do what they wanted, which was to take her to Bellevue. Then he went to see Luisa and told her Millie was in the hospital and it was up to her to sign the papers. She gave him a piece of her mind. ‘I knew you would ruin her,’ she told him.

  “‘I didn’t ruin her,’ the man said. ‘I never even touched her.’” Laura paused, disturbed.

  “That’s a terrible story,” Nino said. He was wondering why she had told it to him, and whether she knew about Gina.

  “Luisa is very troubled about things she can’t figure out. She wanted to ask a man, but a priest wouldn’t know. So she asked me to ask you because she thought . . . in your line of work . . . you might have had the experience.”

  “Everything in the story is disturbing,” Nino agreed, flattered. “What is it particularly that bothers her?”

  “It’s the man, the widower. Do you think he is telling the truth when he says he never touched Millie?”

  Nino looked at Laura. “You mean, after all that, that is what bothers her?”

  “Yes,” Laura said. “Even I wonder. Do you think he touched her?”

  Nino thought for a minute. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

  The truth was, it was a big issue. It was one thing to take advantage of somebody’s trust to make them take care of a house and children, but another to use a girl for everything, without even marrying her. Nino knew what this kind of man was like—he probably didn’t touch her because he was touching someone else on the side, someone who was pretty, while the plain one at home did all the work. It bothered him that women were so dumb that they let men like this take advantage of them. There was no justice in it. It was true the women were the ones who took the beating. But it was, after all, their fault for not demanding marriage first, so at least they would have respectability. But some of them never had the stamina to hold out—not without a father making sure they did. After all, Millie got what she deserved. Still, it was sad. Millie had no father, and a brother who was good for nothing. Her mother tried, but what good are women in situations like that? Millie was simple and wrong, but she was, it seemed, not really perverse. Gina was another matter. She seemed so cold, so brittle, so much in control—not at all the type to get involved in such a lousy business. But how could anything be certain? Who is to say that she wouldn’t do something crazy even if she knew, clearly, that it was crazy? He looked at Laura appraisingly. There was something more to this. Why had she told him this story?

  “Why did you really tell me this story?” he asked Laura gently.

  “Luisa wanted me to,” Laura said, but she seemed agitated. She wasn’t that close to Luisa.

  “Isn’t there another reason?” he coaxed, taking her hand. “Yes?” he persisted softly. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. He could see her wavering. She would never learn to keep her mouth shut.

  “There was
another reason,” Laura began hesitantly.

  Nino waited, rubbing his foot against the back of the sofa.

  “It’s Gina. She’s . . . different lately.”

  “Different?” Nino prodded. “In what way?”

  “She’s more . . . mature. It’s true she’s working, but that’s not it. She’s away all the time. When she comes home at night, she’s always happy. When she goes out, she dresses so carefully. Even if I leave before her, I can see from how everything is left that she tries on everything before she decides what to wear. And . . . she doesn’t look like a young girl anymore.”

  Nino darkened. That he hadn’t picked up. This was the nail in the coffin. By the time anything hit Laura, it must be more obvious than the Empire State Building. What had made him so easy on Gina!

  “Do you think she’s involved with someone?” Nino brought out.

  “I found this,” Laura said, taking a photograph from her handbag. It was a color picture of Gina and that Alex at some kind of dinner party. They were sitting at a round table in a restaurant, with a few other people. The boy’s arm rested on the back of her chair. They were not looking into the camera. Nino shook his head. They were smiling at each other. Nino studied the picture carefully, as though it were a code, complex but not indecipherable. In a peculiar way the boy was attractive. He was elegant. Amazing what a suit and tie will do for anyone! His hair and beard were so perfectly clipped there wasn’t a hair out of place. He was fair; his intensely white skin made the yellow of his hair and beard seem even brighter. Gina’s profile was striking—her heavy black lashes, straight nose, and long dark hair were set off by a white silk blouse. Always in white, the little bitch! Her skin was rosy and olive. They made an interesting pair: his pallor, her darkness. They were, he concluded, a couple. The demure correctness of their clothes couldn’t mislead him. Look how casually the boy’s arm rests on the back of her chair, his hand brushing her shoulder. Look how easily she remains within his reach, looking up at him, amused. There was an intimacy there, a heat that had been satisfied. What a fool he had been to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  “How long have you had this?” Nino asked.

  “Four or five weeks.”

  “Do you know anything about this boy?”

  “Not really.”

  “What do you know?” Nino prodded, still keeping his voice low.

  “Just that she met him at work. That’s a luncheon they had for someone who left.” She pointed to the picture.

  “Did you question her about him?” Nino asked softly.

  “I thought she had a right to her privacy. The boy didn’t seem to mean very much to her,” Laura said lamely.

  “Did you expect her to provide you with films of the two of them alone together?” Nino demanded.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Laura whispered.

  “You must suspect something yourself. Is that why you told me that story about Millie and Luisa?”

  “You can’t compare Gina to Millie,” Laura said irritably. The trouble was, you could. It always seemed to come down to what a girl went through and what a man got away with. From the time you were born it was drummed into you. If the radio was on the Italian stations, you heard about it. If you wanted music, it was there. Her father had taken her to see Rigoletto, and she could remember every scene as though she had seen it that morning. The last act could give you nightmares. There was Gilda, kept too sheltered, and then taken advantage of by the worthless duke. There she was, dying for that skirt-chasing rapist while he sang about the fickleness of women. Every time she thought of it, it made her angry. It’s true nothing like that had ever happened to her; still, it touched something at the heart of things. There were people who went through life skimming the cream, and others who paid the price. The first were most of them men, the second were mostly women. The women in the opera had to die before the men would even realize their mistake. Poor Violetta, Gilda, Concetta’s pregnant young daughter. And all for what?

  The women went under because they were lonely and looking for something to give their lives some purpose, a cause that always seemed to take the shape of some Nino. Now she could see it. Not for nothing had she lived this long! Nino had always been so sure of everything, so solid. That was what you expected in a man. You married him and then—she shook her head—you had to live with him and you found out what it really meant. Nino made her feel lonely all the time. When you have to get along with a dictator, something inside you dies; there is never a free, easy, peaceful moment. What will he say? What will he do? If you go to the fruit store, you worry about getting back when he expects you and it spoils the conversation with women you meet. If you stay home, he crowds all your time, deciding what you should do, when you should do it, always interrupting with his needs. There was no closeness because he made himself such an object of fear it was impossible to be anything but angry or silent. That was just the way it was. But she hadn’t counted on anything going wrong with Gina. This boy was a mistake. He would shame them all. It was making her sick. She had done all she knew how for her. Now, in return for that, she was going to wind up wringing her hands, one of those mothers like Luisa who was always asking for sympathy.

  Nino, she could see, was brooding. He sat, too enraged and depressed for words. Whatever was happening, he would make worse. Some things were certain: the sofa he could never keep covered; the ball games that never ended; the men talking after the game, of scores, injuries, comebacks.

  “You,” Laura said suddenly, “you caused this. If you hadn’t hounded and humiliated her all her life, she wouldn’t be so rebellious. She knows what’s good for her.”

  Nino barely heard her.

  “You forced this on all of us, the way you behave. Who do you think you are! Bringing that letter to school, making fun of everything she wants to do. No wonder she kept everything to herself. Why should she give you any more ammunition than you’ve already got?”

  Nino stared, rage flowing from his filmy eyes.

  “You remember how my father tied my younger sister to the bedpost so she couldn’t go out when he was away for the evening? That’s what you did to her.”

  “I never tied anyone up. I am not like that,” Nino said hoarsely. “That is not civilized.”

  “No wonder she wants to be free,” Laura said in a strange, flat voice. “That’s what you did to me, too.” She could see Nino had tears in his eyes. What did it matter now? “You made both of us feel tied up. I’ve felt that way for thirty years.”

  “What you feel has nothing to do with me,” Nino said, speaking slowly, as if he could barely form the words. “You would have felt that way no matter who you married. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without being told.” He waved his arm, taking in the living room: the beige walls, the round Queen Anne mirror over the convertible sofa, the wedding picture of Laura in an elaborate lace and satin gown, holding a huge bouquet of calla lilies, Maria’s phonograph with three legs and a stack of books for the fourth. “I’ve given you a life,” Nino declared. “Without me, what would you have done? Who would have organized you, given you a purpose?”

  Laura began to cry.

  Nino pressed on. “You think you missed something. You didn’t. You, you, don’t you see, you did this to Gina because you were never at peace with yourself. You egged her on, encouraging her to do this, do that. You gave her your dissatisfaction with everything. You taught her to disrespect me.”

  “She didn’t need me to teach her that!” Laura snapped. “And I didn’t need you to tell me when to get up and when to go to sleep, when to eat dinner and when to go shopping. I could have figured those things out for myself!”

  “You infected her with a disease. Like smallpox,” Nino went on, ignoring her. “First you get one sore, then another, then you’re covered with them. This is the one we found out about,” Nino hissed, pounding the boy’s picture. “There may be others. With girls, rebellion always means the same thing.” He fell back, wea
ry. “Once it happens, there’s no going back to the way things were before. Like the stroke, it comes, takes a little of your sight, leaves you a little crippled, and goes. But there you are. Stuck for the rest of your life.”

  “She’s not sick, and nobody’s stuck for the rest of their life because of one mistake,” Laura protested. “Not if she’s not pregnant, she’s not stuck.”

  “No,” Nino said. “The fact that she did this means we’ve lost her. We failed; it’s as simple as that.” His voice trailed off. How she must have hated him to do this! How she must have been mocking him all the while, making a fool of him in bed with that . . . thing! “She betrayed me!” Nino brooded.

  “How could she betray you? You’re her father, not her husband! She must have been lonely, that’s all.”

  “She betrayed me,” Nino repeated, “and you, you helped her.” He leaned forward menacingly. “But now you’re going to help me. Because you need me to get her out of this and you know it.” Nino grabbed her hands. “If you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t have shown me that picture, would you?”

  Three

  She could see him in the distance, trying to hide behind a newspaper as he sat on the bench in front of the ruins of P.S. 5. For days she had caught glimpses of him reflected in store windows. Turning suddenly she had caught sight of him limping into a doorway or stepping back deeper into a subway car. He was unmistakably there now, waiting to see where she would go. He was still at it. Once or twice you could meet Nino by chance. But this was something else. I haven’t fooled him at all, she realized. How long had he been doing this, watching her drop off a weekly supply of unread books before, dressed demurely as a Catholic schoolgirl, she went to meet Alex and strip?