The Side of the Angels Read Free Page A

because Johnny never forgets a betrayal.
    Johnny was in love with Louise, who is no blood relative of his. Johnny’s mother is our father’s sister, and Louise’s father is our mother’s brother. Louise was unaware of Johnny’s feelings, probably because Johnny had accidentally gone and gotten engaged to someone else and was due to marry her next June in a tasteful ceremony in some Connecticut suburb.
    That’s all of this generation that live here, although we have numerous cousins up in Boston and on Cape Cod whom we rarely see. And so, as I’ve said, Louise is the closest I’ll ever have to a sister. She knows what that means to me, and sometimes she trades on it—as she was about to do now.
    She refilled my coffee cup and gave me a second brownie.
    â€œHave you ever thought it might be time to do something about freeing a path for a man in your life, Nicky?” Louise said, as casually as she might have said, “Don’t bother to clear up, I’ll do the dishes later.”
    When Louise wants something from you, she always approaches the subject with a throwaway air and a deceptively mild directness. I took a wolfish bite out of my brownie and glared at her. She clasped her hands in her lap and gazed at a point just over my head, as if to encourage me to join her for a moment in reflecting on my priorities.
    â€œI don’t need a man in my life, Louise. I just got
rid
of a man in my life, remember? Having men in my life is what got me in the mess I’m in today.”
    Louise dropped the Buddha act.
    â€œWhat mess? You’re gorgeous, you’ve got a great career, a great apartment, great friends.”
    â€œIf my life is so great, then why are you so hell-bent on seeing me paired up?”
    â€œI don’t mean that you need a man in some
groveling
sense, like it’s a terrible tragedy to be thirty-two and single. All I mean is that it’s time to try.”
    â€œYou’re going to break into the chorus from
Georgy Girl
next.”
    â€œI just think you’ve felt bad about Jeremy long enough.”
    â€œFelt bad? That’s for when you miss a lunch appointment or tap someone’s bumper, Louise.”
    â€œYou know what I mean. He’s still looming way too large.”
    â€œMa put you up to this, didn’t she, Louise?”
    To my mother, my being unattached at this advanced age was a dire circumstance, as if I had leukemia. In fact, a life-threatening illness would have been preferable. In that case, she would be “poor Mrs. Malone, bearing up so bravely” and not the failed mother of a daughter who might now never get married. Sad, sad, sad.
    For years my mother had been trying to get me to young-adult dances at her parish, St. Ignatius, and when I got too old for those, to Catholic professional singles groups where I might meet some nice Timothy or Patrick who’d soon convince me that birth control was an invention of the devil. Now she was resorting to Louise and her half-baked clearinghouse for lonely hearts. She must be really desperate.
    I wasn’t ready yet to consign my romantic future to the tender but muddleheaded mercies of my cousin. I’m not gorgeous by any means, despite Louise’s encouraging words, but I get my share of Saturday night dates and sidewalk glances. What’s most noticeable about me is my hair. It’s auburn with gold strands twining through it, and it’s thick and long and wavy. Providence must have given me good hair to make up for my cup size, a B on a good day.
    My eyes, a legacy from my Italian grandmother Antonella, are so dark a brown they look black. My skin is creamy and pale and without a freckle, though on the debit side it’s a paleness with olive undertonesthat can look sallow if I wear the wrong color (Grandma Nella again). My legs are long and I’m five foot seven. I’m not every guy’s type—not like Louise, who has the classic