The Right Thing to Do by Josephine Gattuso Hendin

Author:Josephine Gattuso Hendin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781936932115
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Published: 2017-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

It is impossible to believe that Fabio was born: that he and his twin sister Lulu had twisted and narrowed in the birth canal of a bumpkin Chicago woman. For if his sister had become a true daughter of the South Side, Fabio was more a princeling than an ordinary boy, and grew into a man of extraordinary beauty. His face was as elegant as any courtier’s, his eyes fine as the most skillful of falconers. But it is difficult to know what Fabio saw, for he saw so strangely. And often he spoke words that were palpable—strange shapes unfamiliar as the pollen of the rarest flowers. Yet somehow they were recognizable, as fragments of dreams are. For what man in his sleeping or waking hours has not envisaged shapes in his soul that never appear on earth? And perhaps that is what beauty is: something secretly shining.

Alex took the page out of the folder, crumpled it, and threw it in the wastebasket. He could feel the pressure of being alone with her tonight. It wasn’t what he wanted. Maybe it was time to take her to Philadelphia. A little trip, a little distance—it would be just right.

“The bus,” he told Gina that night, “leaves at eight tomorrow morning. So pack tonight. In fact, I’ll help you.” His mother was so critical of how everyone looked. And it was getting cool enough to need to wear real clothes. He went to her dresser and rummaged through. He took out some blouses, selected what he wanted, and put back the rest. Then he looked in the closet for a moment. She had nice things. She had the clothes of a girl with money. You had to find out for yourself that her mother had made all of them from remnants. He picked out a burgundy mohair skirt and folded it into the bag. “You can wear this in the morning,” he said, pointing to a dress, olive green, with a narrow waist and full skirt. “All set,” he said.

“All set,” she repeated. It was all there; all she had to do was smile, and what would be the point of doing otherwise? What would be the point of preferring the blouses he had left in the drawer to the ones he had put in the bag? His eyes were soft; he seemed particularly vulnerable. Maybe he was afraid his parents wouldn’t like her. So was she—she wasn’t doing well with parents lately. But it seemed better not to say anything, and certainly not to ask whether he thought his parents would be difficult. By now she knew he hated complications; he just couldn’t deal with them. Mama used to say—the words ran through her mind—“Never tell a man your troubles, because you can be sure he doesn’t want to hear them anyway.”

Alex could walk through anybody’s mudfield and come out shining like a prince. And that was how he looked, even in the Port Authority Bus Terminal at eight the next morning, carrying her bag.

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