That's Amore by Wendy Markham

Author:Wendy Markham [MARKHAM, WENDY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781455522330
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2012-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

9

The sky over Queens hangs low and threatening as Daria steps off the elevated subway platform on Saturday morning, the Rolling Stones blasting over her iPod earphones. She found that if she cranked the volume enough, she didn’t have to listen to the annoying little voice in her head.

The one that keeps trying to warn her that she shouldn’t be doing this. She should be back at Tammy’s, packing a suitcase and daydreaming about… cactuses or something.

As she descends the steps from the elevated platform, Mick Jagger sings in her head about not getting any satisfaction.

Yeah, Mick, buddy, I know how you feel.

She’s dressed warmly in suede sheepskin-lined surfer boots she bought in Australia, jeans, her down jacket over a fisherman’s sweater, and a matching cream-colored knit hat. Still, the wind seems to go right through her, gusting and blowing a discarded supermarket flier around her feet as she emerges onto Thirty-First Street.

The desolate day reminds her of the lone winter she spent in New England.

After graduating from college in Boston, she moved up to Bar Harbor for a summer job at a children’s camp, then fell for a local lobsterman and stayed till the following spring, when they broke up.

Just one in a long series of short-lived relationships—most of them, she has to admit even now, more fulfilling than her marriage.

Which begs the question…

Why am I bothering to do this today?

Ralphie Chickalini is another Alan.

That’s why she thinks she’s so drawn to him.

Why you think you’re so drawn to him?

Hello? What about that kiss?

All right, so maybe it’s not all purely in her head; maybe she really is drawn to Ralphie. It’s human nature to want what you don’t have, right?

And anyway, she once convinced herself she was crazy about Alan, too, right?

Yes… but not like this.

With Ralphie, it’s a matter of chemistry, too.

That’s still not enough to justify a relationship… not that she even has one with Ralphie. Or is going to have one with Ralphie, ever.

She’s bought her plane ticket back to Arizona. One way, of course, departing from JFK first thing Monday morning.

So no matter what happens in the next few hours, there’s no risk of Daria making the same mistake with Ralphie that she made with Alan. After she sees him today, he’s history. Just like Alan, in a way—only without the lawyers and paperwork.

It doesn’t mean she’ll be alone forever—not that she believes in forever—or even for much longer.

When she gets to Phoenix, after she’s found a new place to live and settled into her job, she’ll start dating again. Who knows? Maybe she’ll even fall in love. For real, this time, with someone who has everything in common with her.

Unlike Ralphie Chickalini.

Rounding the corner onto Ditmars Boulevard, she glances down the block toward the pizzeria. Looking over her shoulder in the opposite direction, she can see the steeple for Most Precious Mother. Again, she marvels that Ralphie and his family have lived and worked and socialized within a three-or-four-block radius for so many years.

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