“Was your dad at your house tonight?” asked Mary.
“No,” said Stefan. “He’s away for work.” Through the windshield, he glanced up into the sky, as if his father were hovering around them somehow. “He and my brother Teddy are actually flying home from Tokyo right now.” Mary knew that the elder Kelly brother had gone to work for their father while Stefan, apparently, had resisted that path. “They’ve been over there for a month.”
When the trio pulled up to the apartment on Boosk Avenue, Stefan took in the peeling structure. There were a half-dozen beat-up old cars in the gravel parking lot, and some of the tenants had wrapped Christmas tree lights around the insides of their windows. It was a dismal-looking place, especially for someone unaccustomed to dismal-looking places.
“It was really good to see you, Stefan,” said Mary, skilled at letting her stare linger.
“Yeah,” he said. “You, too.”
Mary reached for her door handle and gave it a pull. “Come on, Bunny,” she said to Hannah, who was watching quietly from the back.
“Here,” said Stefan, joining the girls in opening his door. “I’ll walk you in.”
The girls got out, and Stefan crossed around the front of the car to join them. When they reached the stoop, Stefan glanced back at Hannah, who had been trailing just behind. “So you’re going to be okay?” he asked. “You can get to Spillane’s in the morning?”
“It’s just a few blocks. Hannah and I can walk over there.”
Stefan nodded, then glanced at the dented mailbox unit.
“Thanks for everything tonight, Stefan,” said Mary, as she slipped the key into the front door and pushed it open with her hip. She ushered Hannah in ahead of her, flipping on the kitchen light, then turned back to Stefan. “It was good to see you again.”
Stefan nodded. “Yeah, you, too,” he said. And suddenly he looked to Mary like a man who was about to let it all crash against the rocks for her.
“Good night,” she said, moving to step inside the berth of the door and push it shut. But Stefan rested his hand against its glass, stopping it.
“Hey,” he said suddenly. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
Twelve
1982
Stefan came in the evening. He wore a camel-colored coat and smiled under the porch light. Mary opened the door, feeling the cold rush past her, breaking the apartment’s stale, warm seal. It had snowed that morning, and the brittle blades of grass stayed powdered with snow as crystalline ice floated lazily through the dark.
Stefan held her gaze before speaking. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said.
Mary smiled, her lips apple red, her black hair spilling over her white sweater.
Then Stefan leaned past her to get a glimpse of Hannah, who was standing behind Mary’s hip. “I’m told there are a couple of ladies here who’ve never had the pleasure of dining at Willy’s.” Willy’s was a Northton institution, a family restaurant that Stefan had suggested, intuiting perhaps that babysitters weren’t in Mary’s budget or her plan.
She nudged Hannah up in front of her. “What do you think?” she said, looking down at the top of her sister’s head. “You ready, Bunny?”
Hannah was wearing a red-velvet dress that Diane had bought on clearance years ago knowing she’d grow into it. She looked up at her sister, then at Stefan, and nodded—her eyes wide, her lips tight.
“Alright,” said Stefan, with a smile. “Let’s go.”
As they made their way down the concrete path windswept with snow, Stefan asked Hannah questions about Northton Elementary, where he had also gone to school.
“So you’re in kindergarten?” he asked, reaching to open the rear door to his car.
Hannah nodded as she slid in, nestling her hands beneath her bottom. “I have Mrs. Murphy,” she said.
Stefan groaned in sympathy. “Oh, man,” he said. “The Murph. She’s still around? Stealing joy from the hearts of children?”
And Mary watched Hannah’s face brighten as she looked at Mary, pleased that they now had a comrade in their dislike of the teacher.
He slid into the driver’s seat. “The Murph’s a legend,” said Stefan, buckling his seat belt and throwing his car into reverse, looking over his shoulder as he negotiated his way out of the spot. “I think she must be a hundred and sixty-three at this point.”
Winding from Boosk Avenue to Northton’s elegant downtown, they pulled up to an old yellow colonial, illuminated and bright. Outside was a green and gold carved sign. WILLY’S TAVERN. FINE FOOD AND SPIRITS. PRIME RIB. LOBSTER. CHOPS.
Stefan threw the car into park, looked at the sign, and smiled, his brow creased, realizing that he may have oversold the experience of Willy’s. “It’s kind of old-school. But it’s been around forever. And I grew up sawing through their prime rib every Sunday.”
Inside, Willy’s was dimly lit with floral wallpaper interrupting the dark-stained wood trim. It had the bustle and din of a well-attended pub, and everything seemed coated in a thick varnish of time and spilled drinks. Men sat at the bar in starched shirts, sleeves rolled up to their elbows, sipping from napkin-wrapped rocks glasses under Tiffany-style lights. There was a wonderful shabbiness to the place, a grand old rot that Mary had come to identify with the truly rich. The gentleman at the ma?tre d’ stand had a generous belly that stretched the confines of his blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt. He looked up from his seating chart and brightened as he saw Stefan.
“Master Kelly!” he said, fiddling with his cuff links.
They clapped each other on the shoulders, and pleasantries were exchanged. Stefan was urged to say hello to his parents. The ma?tre d’ was assured Stefan would.
When they took their seats at their table, leather-bound menus in hand, Stefan turned to Hannah. “Do you like Shirley Temples?” he asked.
Hannah looked at Mary, who said, “I’m not sure you’ve had one of those, Bunny.”
“We’ll get you one,” he said to Hannah, with a wink meant only for her. “My brother and I used to get them here all the time.” And Mary noticed the way his voice became quieter, if only by a shade.
The waitress came and went and brought a delighted Hannah her Shirley Temple, followed by a beer for Stefan, a club soda for Mary. And as Stefan took a sip, he looked at Mary. The restaurant hummed around them; waitresses in black aprons balanced food-laden trays as they wound through the tables. “So,” he said, as if that single word summed up the beauty and improbability and wonder of sitting there with her.
“So,” replied Mary.
And Stefan smiled, his eyes focused only on her.
“So you’re living in Boston?” Mary asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m in law school.”