Hello Beautiful

“Start every game. I’ll be part of the best five. When NBA scouts come, they’ll see me play.”

“That’s fun,” she said. “I’ll cheer for you.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

“Have you told your parents about our engagement yet?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t. I should, I know. But”—he hesitated—“I don’t think they’ll be interested.”

Julia gave a smile she knew was too tight. He’d been avoiding telling his parents for weeks. She believed it was because he was embarrassed to tell them that he’d asked an Italian American girl from a poor family to marry him. He’d told her enough about his upbringing that she knew his father had an impressive job and his mother didn’t need to work. They probably had airs and expectations for their only child, but William wouldn’t admit this, and she wouldn’t state her fear outright. Now she said, in a tight voice to match her tight smile, “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re your parents.”

“Listen,” he said, “I know it would be strange not to invite them to the wedding, but I don’t think we need to invite them.” He saw her face and said, “I’m just being honest. I know it’s unusual.”

“You’ll call them tonight,” she said. “And I’ll be on the phone with you. I’m charming. They’ll adore me.”

William was quiet for a moment, and his eyelids drooped in a way that indicated he had gone far away from her. When he looked up, he regarded her as if she were a problem he needed to solve.

“You love me,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, and the word seemed to settle something inside him. “Okay, let’s do it.”

An hour later, sharing the hard wooden stool in the old-fashioned phone booth in his dorm hallway, they called Boston. William’s mother answered the call, and William said hello. The woman sounded surprised to hear from him, though she was polite. Then Julia spoke — her voice sounding overamplified to her own ears, as if she were speaking through a megaphone — and William’s mother sounded far away. She said she had something in the oven and it was nice they were getting married, but she had to go now.

The entire call was finished in less than ten minutes.

Julia gulped for air when she hung up the receiver, winded from trying to reach, to touch, the distant woman on the end of the line.

When she could speak, she said, “You were right. She doesn’t want to come.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know that’s disappointing to you. Your vision of the wedding had everyone there.”

Julia was pressed against William on the tiny seat. The hallway booth was warm. The temperature and the disappointment and Julia’s sympathy for this boy rose inside her — this boy who deserved parents who kissed his cheek the way her parents kissed hers. They had planned not to have sex until they were married, though they had come close to breaking that resolution once or twice. The remote woman on the phone had handed William off to Julia in a way that felt as significant as a wedding vow. She needed to take care of him; she needed to love him, with every part of her. In fact, she had to, right now. She was flushed, her skirt was twisted around her waist because of the seating arrangement, and she needed to be closer to him in order for anything to be all right.

She said, “Can we have privacy in your room?”

His roommate was gone for the summer. William nodded, a question on his face.

She took his hand and led him down the hall, into his room, and locked the door behind them.

Sylvie

August 1981–June 1982

The Lozano Library overlooked a three-way intersection in the center of Pilsen. Sylvie loved every inch of the spacious library and the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that showed whatever light and weather the city had to offer. She loved how the library welcomed everyone and how the librarians dutifully answered every question presented to them, no matter how arcane or ridiculous. Sylvie had been working in the library since she was thirteen; she’d started by shelving books and now, at the age of twenty, she bore the title of librarian’s assistant.

Sylvie was shelving copies of What Color Is Your Parachute? when Ernie, a boy her age with a dimple in his chin, smiled his way into her row. They had gone to high school together, and he sometimes stopped by after his morning session of electrician school. After checking that no one else was in sight, Sylvie stepped into his arms. They kissed for about ninety seconds, making two slow turns down the aisle with his hand on her lower back, and then she tapped him on the shoulder, and he was gone.