“Don’t!” Mira said suddenly. Ben stopped short. “Don’t bother. Francesca wants to leave.”
Eddie planted his fists on his hips. “Someone giving you girls trouble?” Eddie’s play at being his uncle Frank’s surrogate seemed stupid to Ben, the way Eddie pretended Mira needed a protector of her virtue when his own sister fooled around with everyone. Whatever myth Mr. Cillo had created about his daughters, it was contagious, because even the same boys who sneered at the Cillos’ untouchability upheld it. Mr. Cillo’s no-dating rule was an excellent excuse to avoid the ball-busting fail of asking out his daughters.
“Relax, no one’s giving us trouble,” Mira said. “Get me a Coke, okay?”
“You got it.”
As Eddie’s head disappeared inside the cooler, Mira held out a bill. Ben frowned, confused. The Cillo girls never paid at the snack bar. Not unless the manager was hovering, and even he refused Francesca’s money.
“You know Eddie won’t let me take that,” Ben said, low and conspiratorial. She had allowed him to speak that way to her: her gesture required it. He was grateful.
Mira pushed the wet dollar on him. “I want to pay like everyone else.”
Mira shifted from hip to hip, tangled in the damp cage of her father’s shirt. Ben took the dollar. That’s when it happened. Mira’s two fingers, reaching past where they should, a stroke on the inside of his palm. So light he thought he’d imagined it, but knew he hadn’t, because of Mira’s smoldering look after. He’d practically danced away, looked the fool, tacked the dollar right up on the cork board for anyone to ask about. A flash of amusement, a sly smile before she padded away without her Coke, leaving wet footprints on the cement. Ben’s elation dissipated into panic, and he sweated the rest of the afternoon, wondering if Eddie had seen any of it go down. Maybe for Mira, the thrill was in the risk of getting caught. Ben knew there were couples who purposely had sex in places like alleys and golf courses and the bathroom stalls at the boat club because it was more exciting. Getting caught became what Ben and Mira feared most. Because that would mean the end.
Ben conjured the feel of Mira’s fingertips grazing his palm, and the memory made a stir in his pants, luscious and sad. Around that same time, Mira was changing, all nervy jangle, her limbs spring-loaded. On a towel, her knees sliced at the air, discontented. Listening to her sister, she would thrust her long neck forward; the slightest sound or movement made her head snap. Coiled and constantly alert, it was as though she might leap from her skin, or from this world. In a dream, Ben had watched as Mira launched herself off the altar, her legs flush back, her popped throat bound for the sky.
“Dude!” his manager shouted, ducking in. Ben considered how easy it would be to take off his pimpled head with a swift kick of the door. Instead, he stashed his bag in a locker and picked through a mob of sweaty kids to reach the hinged half gate that led behind the counter. Eddie’s back was to Ben, operating the shake machine and pouring Goldfish into tiny cups at the same time.
Ben slapped an apron around his waist and cracked open a fresh mega-sized carton of Goldfish. “Help’s here!”
Eddie swung around fast. Always ready for a fight. The cousins and siblings shared the same loosely wired nerves. Where Mira displayed the genetic reactivity throughout her body, and Connie in her hair-trigger laugh, Eddie was known for snapping. He once smacked Steven “Piggy” Pignataro for cupping Connie’s butt when he was drunk, and Piggy still had to plug his ears when the T rumbled by.
“Geez, Benny, you took your time. Slap dogs on the turner and help me do drinks.”
Ben quickly glanced around the snack bar space, desperate for a flash of white. Would the note be the same size as the first letter? The same color? In an envelope again? He felt Eddie’s sharp eyes on him and turned fast, plugging in the relic electric turner. “Laidlaw didn’t even warm up the turner for us,” Ben mumbled, his face hot.
“Douche,” Eddie said, settling, turning away from Ben.
The lunch crowd came in waves, dashing Ben’s chance to search. They worked silently until the mob subsided, Eddie at the front end, taking orders and keeping the brats in line, and Ben working the back, pushing out hot dogs, Goldfish, and sugary drinks. Ben wished more than anything that he’d come early and beat Eddie and the crowds. The action seemed to taint the place, making any note Mira might have hidden impossible to find. He began to doubt he was right. Maybe he was reading too much into it, getting too technical: did Mira consider a palm stroke “being together”? Was it even worthy of a memory? What was? Ben snuck a look at Eddie. What if Eddie had found the note before Ben arrived and thrown it away? Or worse: what if he had it? Ben studied the back of Eddie’s short neck. He needed to get Eddie talking. He needed to know.
Ben waited until the last customer slapped away in her flip-flops.
“Yo, Ed. Can I ask you a question?” Ben said lightly, washing his hands at the sink to avoid his face.
Eddie turned and slumped against the counter, guarded. “Depends on the question.”
Ben dried his hands with a bar towel and softened his voice. “I was just gonna ask you how you were doing, man.”
Eddie folded his overdeveloped forearms. Fresh ink circled his bicep. The last time Ben had worked with Eddie, there was one star. Now, two new blue stars connected by swirls circled his arm.
“Three stars,” Ben said, pointing.
“Three stars together up in heaven now. Tight as they were in real life. They were saints, my cousins. Mio sangue. Don’t you believe anything you hear about them being depressed or nothing.”
“I don’t.”
Eddie went on as if he hadn’t heard. “They were fine. I mean, they were sad, about Concetta. We all were. Are. Devastated.” He rubbed the back of his neck and bulged his eyes. “But not enough to do that.”
Ben didn’t take offense to Eddie getting his back up. He knew there were lots of people interested in the accident for the wrong reasons. He needed Eddie to know he wasn’t one of them, but Eddie was too raw to remember that Ben was one of the good ones.
“Anyone who knew them knows it was an accident. It’s good your family’s got church and all. And Mr. Falso,” Ben faltered. “I mean, it’s got to help. To have a higher power, to look to, to look up to, when terrible things happen…”