XV
Opera
“How much did you enjoy getting drunk?” I asked that question over and over again when I called Maria the next night. She didn’t seem to understand that with forgiveness came consequences. Like new-found distrust, for example.
Have you drunk anything since we last spoke?” I blared.
She said no, demurely. But occasionally she’d leap at me like an angry cat. “Why the hell did you get drunk?” she asked.
I thought about this for a while. I didn’t really know how to respond. I couldn’t very well say that it was because I’d never tried it, and wanted to see what it was like.
“I knew you’d gotten drunk Upstate, Maria. I was depressed about it at Rick’s party.”
“I thought that—” she cut herself off. “I thought that when I told you I didn’t do it that you believed me.”
“No, I didn’t. I was just waiting for you to find the right time to tell the truth. I—I really knew you had done it.”
“But”—she attempted to interrupt, but I wouldn’t let her.
“Please, Maria, just listen. You broke my heart with that news, you really did. I mean, to think that a girl with an alcoholic father would herself get drunk. It’s just—it’s just ridiculous. Your judgment is now in question.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” she said, as if she was a three year old kid apologizing for spilled milk.
“It’s okay,” I said, surprised at my ability to forgive her. But Maria thought I had forgiven her completely. In fact, I’d accepted her to be my girlfriend again under false pretenses, because in my heart I knew that I had only forgiven her to the extent that she would show how sorry she was for lying.
***
The next few weeks were good, but not as marvelous as the spring. Maria and I resumed going to Central Park as often as we could. We wrapped ourselves in blankets under the pine trees near the pond to protect us from the chilly fall gusts. The sweet scent of decaying foliage filled our noses as we hunkered amidst the piles of leaves by the pond, and kissed and hugged. We wrestled and skipped and pranced through those leaves almost as if we’d just fallen in love.
On many evenings we’d go back to Queens and drive all the way back to Fresh Meadows to eat at Angelo and Al’s on Fresh Meadow Lane.
Angelo, the owner, has known me since I was a kid. I remember going there even before elementary school. Mom, you never let me wander far, you were so goddamn paranoid. But I have to admit you always allowed me to walk across Utopia Parkway to Fresh Meadow Lane, to get a slice and a Coke from Angelo and Al’s, or play a video game at the candy store.
Like always, Angelo was generous with the toppings. I’d pile it all on: mushrooms, peppers, black olives, extra cheese, the works. We loved it so much that Maria and I ate at Angelo and Al’s for dinner almost every time we traveled to or from Central Park. The warm waft of their pizza crust and tomato sauce baking in the giant steel oven thawed us each time we stepped from the cold into his shop each weekend.
Sometimes we parked in Astoria and walked down Steinway Street before we went to Central Park. We never bought anything because we had no money. That was the wonderful thing about Maria. She didn’t need a four-course meal or a diamond ring to be happy. She was happy just being with me.
Whenever we were in Astoria, I’d see Cronin and Phelan’s, at the intersection of Broadway and Steinway, and crave a beer on tap. By that point, I’d tasted beer, whiskey, rum, white wine, malt liquor, and vodka, some with Kyle and Rick, but most within the lonely confines of my bedroom after dark. Beer was my favorite. I wasn’t an alcoholic, though, and wasn’t worried about becoming one, either. I tasted these drinks because I wanted to check them out, nothing more. And, the more I thought about it, the more I desired for Maria to sample them with me. I didn’t want to get wasted with her; I simply wanted us to experience something we’d both done separately but now could enjoy together. I remember thinking, A few beers and I’ll open up to her about mom’s drinking problem, and the stress about getting into the Academy, and all my strange dreams and fears. I longed to tell her so much. What were best friend for, after all?
But I couldn’t bear to watch Maria sit at a bar and drink. The idea alone killed me. So I continued to drink alone in my room, while talking to myself, and wishing I had someone to share the conversation with.
Though tempted to cheat again, I remained steadfastly faithful to Maria. I started to mature. I was a better boyfriend to her than I’d been before. Rather than demand that she compliment me each time we spoke on the phone, I’d praise her, regardless. Her happiness was slowly becoming more important than mine once again.
Maria was also maturing. She’d unilaterally turned down two invitations to two Halloween parties, even though her friends begged her to go. “They’ll be drinking there,” she’d say. And that was all I needed to know. For a while, it was as if Maria had never gotten drunk and lied.
At the lunch table each day in school there was nothing but laughter. As the passing days brought us closer to graduation, we treated each conversation as a waning treasure. Each member of The Family was confident about his future, as well as mine. Paul, Rick, and Mike talked about the Air Force Academy almost as much as I did. Kyle, always one step ahead of them, began calling me “Captain J. J., ” rather than Godfather or Boss.
We’d all taken the SATs and done well. My 1330 was the highest score. Actually, I tied Kyle. He received a 1200, too. When I revealed my score to him, he grinned with delight. I had studied every night for months, while he hadn’t even opened a book. I always responded to his haughty grin the same way: “Well, Kyle, at least I have a girlfriend!” But that didn’t phase him. “All I need are my left hand and my guitar,” he’d say.
Occasionally, we’d spend a Friday night drinking beer at Cronin and Phelan’s or Rockaway beach. I always kept my drinking in check. As Kyle puked his brains out after his tenth shot of the night, I’d sip a Coke and smile nonchalantly, proud that I could hold my liquor.
Alcohol was an anesthetic for me. I mean, thinking about not getting into the academy, and Maria’s lies, and all that shit. Well, it was just nice to get away from it all, and become comfortably numb. I never told Maria about any of the drinking, of course. If I told her, she probably would’ve started drinking herself.
***
On Thanksgiving Day, Maria and I went to the parade on Central Park West. I handed her the following poem as we exited the subway to view the giant balloons:
I’m in the palm of your hand. You don’t know how frail I am.
I have a growing pain inside. A weakness that I must confide.
If you only knew the helpless love I feel for you.
If you only knew how much I pray that you are true.
I’m in the palm of your hand. But you don’t seem to understand.
I am drowning in my shame. Because I know it’s me to blame
Time and again I say my love for you is real.
But that is nothing compared to the way I feel.
I’m in the palm of your hand. I’d walk away if I could only stand.
But I won’t even try to fight. Somehow I feel I’m placed just right.
So please be gentle and please handle me with care.
Only you can decide how long I remain there.
I’m in the palm of your hand…
She adored the poem. Actually, it was a song that I’d been working on since the summer. I sang it to her right there on the sidewalk, amidst thousands of people.
It was an exciting day. I’d watched the parade on TV every Thanksgiving since I was a kid, but had never seen it in person before. A pageant of multicolored balloons bobbed down Broadway. Maria and I stood with our backs to an apartment building and stretched our necks out to view Kermit followed by the Pink Panther, both old friends from childhood, hovering above. We stood for about a half hour, leering over the heads of hundreds of families, trying our best to see the balloons. We’d come all this way, and I really wanted Maria to see them up close. Growing impatient with the distance, my neck suffering from tremendous strain, I motioned for Maria to take my hand so I could guide her toward the curb.
“Wait,” she said, “I’m tiny. I can squeeze through. Let me lead the way.”
“Good idea.”
Maria reached behind her and grasped my cold, gloveless hand with her fuzzy mittens. She weaseled her way through the crowd’s crevices and reached a wooden blue barrier that read: Police Line. Do Not Cross. She stood behind me with her arms wrapped around my brown leather bomber jacket, and poked her head over my right shoulder to see the balloons. I leaned forward against the barrier, my nose just a few feet away from the balloons.
Closer, however, didn’t equal better. Not for me, at least. I was so close that I could see things I’d never seen on TV as a kid. Spider Man’s left shoulder was covered by a tacky blue patch which prevented his deflation before the admiring eyes of children. After the parade I found out that the patch had been his life support system since 1987, when the high-powered winds guided him into a lamppost and punctured his rubber skin.
Seeing that patch made me sad. I used to enjoy watching this parade on TV as a kid, I thought, as the aroma of lasagna and turkey, our traditional Thanksgiving combo, wafted up the stairs to my nose. It wasn’t Thanksgiving without that scent. It just wasn’t Thanksgiving without seeing those beautiful balloons.
As Snoopy, dressed as the Red Baron, drifted by, my sadness turned to rage. I was angry at those balloons. I remember getting angry at you, mom. I’d never savored a Thanksgiving turkey without first tasting airborne nicotine and tar. I’d never sipped a soda at Thanksgiving dinner without watching you sipping rum and Coke in our dining room.
Maria was oblivious to my thoughts as she gazed childlike at the balloons passing overhead. An hour went by when, finally, out of the corner of my eye I saw Santa’s sled drifting down the street.
I remember thinking about when I was a kid, just as Santa appeared on the screen, I knew guests would be arriving soon and lasagna was about an hour away. Adulthood seemed light years away back then.
When I’d left my house that morning, I’d smelled the lasagna baking. Sadly, everything else was different. I was still so jealous of Maria’s—I’m not sure what—I guess everything. I swear, worrying about Maria took up 95% of my waking hours. I had no outlet, no true leisure time. No time to just live in the moment, the Here and Now. Instead of sledding and watching TV on weekends I was studying and working, and trying to maintain my GPA. If I didn’t get into the Academy my life would be ruined. There was never anything earth-shattering about an elementary school book report, or having cookies and milk after school. Now my life’s happiness hinged on the Academy’s decision. And even if I got in, I still had Maria to worry about.
“I have to ask you about your vacation Upstate last summer,” I barked to Maria, trying to be heard above the crowd. I said it as if my decision to debate had already been made, my lines already written.
“Joel, we’re at a parade! I thought we went over this! You haven’t brought it up in days!”
“I know, but I just have to know this—did you enjoy getting drunk? What I mean is, are you not doing it anymore because of me, or because you just don’t want to?”
“I—I don’t know. If you don’t like it, then I don’t want to do it, baby.”
I exploded. “What do you mean? You mean that you want to? I thought you didn’t like it!”
“I didn’t like it! I just wouldn’t—” she cut herself off. “Why the fuck do you want to know? Jesus Christ! Right here at the parade! We were having such a nice time. We haven’t fought in days.” Her face looked as though she’d just been stabbed: snow-white, clammy, and cold. Her eyes squinted as if she were holding back an avalanche of tears.
“Can’t you just tell me?...I can’t believe this. You fucking bitch,” I said, just loud enough to be heard only by her. “Can’t you just answer the goddamn question?” A little boy behind her turned his head so swiftly that his earmuffs flung off and hit the pavement. Adults and children alike began to stare.
Without thinking, without giving any thought to where I was, I unleashed my arm like a limp lasso, swung my open hand, and whacked Maria’s face. Her head jerked. She looked at me for and instant before sprinting off like a runner at the sound of the starting gun. She squirmed through a crack in the police barricades and raced across Central Park West. She was so upset that she must’ve not been looking at where she was going, and she careened off of Santa’s sled and toppled to the pavement. It all happened so fast that nobody, not even Santa, had time to do anything. There wasn’t a cop in sight; the dancing snowflakes and reindeer just watched in horror.
I jumped the barricade and sprinted after her. I felt naked crossing Central Park West in front of thousands of people. I felt like lightening, I got to the other side so quickly. I was exhilarated, yet angry. Where is she? I thought. Masses of people leaving the parade and she’d just blended in with the crowd. To get to a lamppost I smacked a little girl’s balloon out of the way. I stood on its base and saw Maria making her way to the subway. She’s on her way home! I jumped down and jetted through a stream of people toward the corner.
Panting frozen air, standing at the top of the filthy, grimy staircase, I saw her. People were shuffling by, but she was sitting on the bottom step rather complacently.
In a flash, I jumped down the stairs like a super hero. Grabbing her left shoulder from behind, pressing my fingers through her bulging coat, her little face turned back toward me, almost in slow motion. She screamed.
I slammed the palm of my hand over her warm, wet mouth. I felt her teeth clenching beneath my fingers; for a moment I thought she was going to bite me. Kneeling down on the step beside her, I mashed my body against hers, squeezing her against the filthy tiled wall of the stairwell.
“Please, Maria,” I said, beginning to cry heavily, “please don’t make this happen. Please don’t ruin a good day.” She squirmed around like a gerbil in a vest pocket.
“I’m in the palm of your hand!” I screamed through my tears. My face was dripping—whether it was sweat and tears or tears alone I don’t know.
For those few moments in the stairwell, not another soul existed in the universe. I barely heard the footsteps of families walking down the steps behind me; nobody, thank God, bothered to wrestle me away for her. Thank God New Yorkers mind their own business, I thought. Had somebody tried to stop me, I’d of killed him, I swear.
“Remember the poem I just gave you! Goddamn, you buh—, please, please stop it. You’re hurting me so much. I—I’m sorry! I’m not perfect either, I swear I know that’s true.”
With that said, she stopped squirming. But she stayed crunched up against the wall in a little ball of coat and hat and pants. Pressing my face against her ear, I began to breathe hard. I thought I was having a heart attack and I probably was. I must get her back. I have to go home with her. She will come to my house for dinner tonight, just as planned. I wasn’t ready to give her up. I couldn’t.
Whispering roughly into her ear, I said, “I’m in the palm of your hand, I swear. I’m not perfect—you own me. You control me. You are my religion, baby. I need you. I’ll tell you everything right now that I’ve never told you before. Remember that girl, Rachel? I told her I loved her. Just once, but I didn’t mean it. And when I went out with Kyle last weekend, I got drunk. I didn’t mean to, I swear. I just—I don’t know—I just missed you so much. I know we’ve been getting along okay for a while, but it just hasn’t been right, you know? I miss you. I miss us in Central Park—remember when we went to Central Park last spring? I even think about us drinking together sometimes, you know, and it scares me. I just—I’m so sorry, Maria—I just want a girl who laughs for no one else. I want you to be mine. I love you, angel. I really love you.”
I continued to cry, using her hair to sop up the tears. My hands were so cold and chapped they were almost bloody.
“Why do you do this, Joel?” she wailed. “You’ve changed so much. We aren’t in love anymore, don’t you see that?” Forcing my body against hers as if I were one half of a vice and the wall the other, I clenched my teeth and—and growled.
“Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that again.” I wasn’t talking; I was snarling these words to her. It was an awful sight, now that I think back on it. Just terrible.
We remained there for a few minutes, against the wall, both of us sobbing, too exhausted to budge. Finally, I felt overpowered by her. I was on the verge of collapsing. I struggled to stand up, lifting Maria with me as if I was a human forklift. She clung to my jacket, but I wasn’t sure if it was to keep from falling or because she’d forgiven me.
“I’m sorry,” I kept repeating, “I’m so sorry. Let’s just go home and forget all about this. Please. I promise it’ll never happen again.”
Silently, Maria descended the staircase, allowing me to follow close behind. Not a word was spoken on the subway back to my car.
We went back to my house and had Thanksgiving dinner with my parents like nothing had ever happened. Creepily hushed by the day’s events, neither Maria nor I spoke to one another the rest of the day. Luckily, she spoke to everyone else as if we’d just returned from a fun-filled morning at the parade. I knew she wasn’t happy with me. But she was back by my side and that’s all that mattered.
Maria gave Thanksgiving new meaning. I was so thankful for her, because she loved me even though I was imperfect. But she was perfect. She was an angel. She was my guardian angel, and I had to use her strength to protect me from myself, and to get me through all of my worries.
As I drove her home in silence that night, I thought to myself: What kind of person is stupid enough to hurt his own angel?
***
If Thanksgiving was fucked up, Christmas was a nightmare. If I'd only put as much effort into my behavior as I did into the gifts I bought. As usual, there was a calm before the storm.
Roaming the gigantic, crowded Queens Center Mall several days before Christmas, numbed by sheer desperation, I explored store after store, aspiring to unearth a gift that would drive Maria's memories of Thanksgiving into extinction. Fortune struck me when I lumbered into a cruddy jewelry store on the basement level. A lot of the girls in her high school, I'd noticed, wore gaudy necklaces with something called name-plates. They usually read "Vito loves Domenica," or “Lakeesha loves Carlos,” or some shit like that. Picture a golden street sign dangling from a guinea princess's neck.
I'd always hated these things, not to mention the chicks who wore them. So, being the innovative guy that I was, I decided to do something a little different. I asked the Iranian guy behind the counter if he could carve out numbers instead of letters. About ten minutes later, after explaining in phonetic English the difference between numbers and letters, the guy finally said yes. One hour and eighty dollars, and seventy-eight cents later, Abdul handed me the result: the date Maria and I met—2-8-92—scripted in 18 carat gold, attached to a _____ gold necklace.
Fast forward to Christmas morning at Maria's house. Her parents are sitting on a new, plush green sofa in the living room—a gift, Maria said, from her dad to her mom—as Maria, pigtails and all, looking like a nine-year-old expecting Santa to appear, kneels anxiously beneath a garishly decorated Christmas tree. Before you could say Kris Kringle, shredded wrapping paper was spread before her and the “date plate”—my own personal invention—was on her neck. She was so happy she burst into tears. She adored it.
“Great gift, guy!” Mr. Della Verita said.
“Oh, Mah-Ree-Uh, it’s so beau-tee-ful,” Mrs. Della Verita prawned, her Brooklyn accent as thick as the olive oil in her baked ziti.
I asked Maria to wear it in school from now on and she said she would. Now everyone would know the day that we met. It would become the national holiday of a nation inhabited by two young lovers. Maria would wear it with pride, I knew, because that’s just the way she was.
But, as I said, I like to be innovative. In addition to the date plate, I'd purchased two tickets to the opera at Lincoln Center. We were going to see The Barber of Seville, or, as her father said, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, or something like that. Crouching beside Maria, as if I was about to ask for her hand in marriage, I handed her the pair of tickets. She smiled tranquilly and nearly strangled me with a hug. Her father placed his arm around her mother, all smiles, as if to say, Say hello to our new son-in-law.
Mission accomplished! Maria had never been to the Metropolitan Opera, I was certain, and this was a classy gift to show my cultivated side. I am grinning even as I write this because I really don’t have a cultivated side. Honestly, I didn't care much for the opera myself, but Maria did. In one of our many conversations, she'd mentioned that her father listened to Pavarotti, and that she'd grown to love opera. Bingo! I thought. A gift waiting to be given! Her father, watching intently from the sofa, had never given her something like this. Appearing suddenly disquieted, Mr. Della Verita stood up and peered in our direction, first at his daughter, then at me. He took a step toward us, remained still for a moment, smiled, and placed his giant calloused hand on my sweaty back. "You know how to give a gift," he said with a quick wink of his eye. I think Mr. Della Verita was happier with me that Christmas than Maria was.
As I said, mission accomplished.
***
We traveled into Manhattan a few days after Christmas. A fresh sheet snow covered the sidewalks and store canopies. Even rat-infested Colombian bodegas looked charming after a recent snowfall. The city streets, as usual, were concealed by brown slush that splattered pedestrians as cars whizzed by. Despite that, it was a magnificent New York winter day. The sky was a crisp sapphire and the sun was particularly radiant; it shone almost as brightly as it did when Maria and I went to Central Park during the spring. Skyscrapers sparkled. Blissfully gripping Maria’s hand, strolling down Broadway, I tried my damnedest to forget the drudgery of Thanksgiving. We skipped and joked and kissed as if we’d just fallen in love the day before.
So, listen,” I said, “halfway through the show, they’ll have an intermission. And then, right before the show begins again, they’ll flick the lights on and off, so everyone knows to go back into the theater.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Did your mother tell you, or something?”
“No,” she said, “I’ve been to the opera before. Just once when I was a kid.”
Burning with jealousy, sweat accumulated on my palm, allowing our hands to slip apart. She said it as if it weren’t a big deal, as if it didn’t mean a goddamn thing. That’s what made me even angrier than I already was.
Destiny handed me a choice: grab Maria’s hand, kiss her, and continue walking, or grill her like a cop would a thug. A millisecond later, the choice was made. “What the hell do you mean?” I blared. My voice echoed down the corridor of skyscrapers as if I was yelling into the Grand Canyon. “You said you’d never been to the Met before!”
“I never said that! Oh, Joel, please don’t start up again.” Her voice spoke for her eyes which spoke for her heart. She began to weep. But I couldn’t resist; in a sick sort of way, I was like a kid in a candy store, aching to grab every opportunity to question her.
But I was an angry kid. Eyeing the golden metal dangling from Maria’s neck, I saw my breath before my face, jetting rapidly in and out of my nose in columns like the smoke from a dragon’s nostrils. I hated Maria at that moment. She was Satan.
“Oh, great,” I said, “just great. Now what’s the fucking point of even going to see this thing?”
“I’ve never seen this opera before. I went to another one with my seventh-grade class over four years ago. I don’t even remember the name of it.”
“Don’t you understand? I wanted to show you something new today. I wanted you to experience something you’d never had before.”
She looked at me with this face that had “fuck you” written all over it. “You want to show me something I’ve never seen before, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said, hesitating. “Don’t you understand?”
“Well then why don’t you act like an adult? Stop acting like a fucking child! I’ve never seen that before!” She said it so smugly, and that’s what killed me so much. She didn’t have to say that, or say it in that way. She didn’t understand, and that’s all that mattered. I started envisioning her little goddamn elementary school friends, laughing at some goddamn opera, wondering what the fuck it was. I hated the opera already. And I hated every one of her goddamn little friends.
Well, as they say, the show must go on. And so did we. I dragged Maria down Broadway and entered the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center between 62nd and 66th streets. The beauty of the Opera House calmed me. A giant structure of glass and marble, it sat amidst the mammoth apartment buildings of the Upper West Side. I remember thinking that it looked like a jail for the rich, a massive marble jail with a colonnaded facade. Yellow flames of light were piercing the bars from within, beaming onto the elevated plaza, reflecting in a rectangular pool of water in the center. Standing not twenty yards from the front door, on the Broadway edge of the concrete common, listening to the din of the traffic behind me, I squinted intensely, striving to see what was inside.
Nothing.
The jail is flanked by two equally impressive buildings that didn’t look at all like jails, Avery Fisher Hall and the New York State Theater. As large as the plaza between them was, I felt ominously trapped, almost as if I were in an elevator stuck on the 13th floor.
Once inside, we quietly settled into our seats in the balcony and the opera commenced. I was so lost in confusion and despair and nausea, that the actual show is a blur. Nothing induces nausea more than knowing exactly how much you’ve fucked up, and precisely what you’ve done wrong, but being absolutely unable to reverse the inertia of your sin.
Fifty-nine bucks a ticket—a lot of money for a seventeen-year-old—and I have no fucking idea what The Barber of Seville was about. Based on the audience’s reaction—whistles, applause, cheers—the story line was gripping, the singing superb, Rossini’s music exhilarating. I don’t remember, however, whether Maria enjoyed it or not.
What do I recall vividly is the emotion I felt, sitting on the edge of the balcony section, way up high over the stage. It must have been five stories up, at least. Peering over the railing, I was as close to plummeting to the ground as I’d ever been. My mind and body separated and drifted through the air and left all reason behind. I ached to pull myself together, to tear my ass of the seat, and take a nose dive over the balcony, smashing head first into the expensive seats like a B-52 whose engine had failed. For the briefest of moments, as Maria watched the stage and as the thunderous orchestra synchronized with my drumming heartbeat, suicide at the opera was my perfect wish. For the briefest of moments, I’d be flying... flying... flying... feeling the greatest rush imaginable...unstoppable and purely free.
But I could hardly stand up. Perhaps it was the sheer brevity of that kind of moment which prevented me from fulfilling my craving. Or perhaps a real man would have faced the inevitable despondent reality of his existence and leapt over the side, putting an end to his misery.
Not me, though. Back then, I wasn’t a real man.
I started to cry. I didn’t have to cry, but I just forced myself to do it. When Maria didn’t notice, I cried a little louder. Then she noticed, I know she did, but she didn’t respond. What a bitch, I thought. What kind of person doesn’t feel sympathy when someone she loves cries?
Halfway through the intermission, standing in a broad, fancy room in front of a bar hocking champagne for seven bucks a glass in dead silence, I told her I was going outside, and that I didn’t want to see the rest of the show. I got outside and smoked cigarette after cigarette, all alone on Broadway. People kept looking at me as they walked by the theater. Maybe they were wondering what the hell a teary-eyed, disheveled teenager was doing smoking butts in front of the grandest jailhouse in America. I know what I was wondering. Hell, I was freezing my ass off out there, and she was in the theater, protected and warm, and she didn’t even bother to come outside and check up on me. Fucking bitch! Lonely on Broadway—that’s where I was until the opera ended. I figured if I looked really cold and depressed when Maria finally came out, she’d feel some goddamn sympathy. But she didn’t.
She met me outside; her stare was as icy as the air. “You missed a beautiful opera, Joel,” she said. We rode the R train back to Long Island City silence. I dropped her off at her house, got back into my car, and revved the engine. As she sprinted toward the door, frantically looking for her keys, I peeled out away from the curb. A worried neighbor peered out the window to see where all the noise came from.
I didn’t understand exactly why Maria had acted that way. Sure, I made a mistake, but why didn’t she empathize with my sadness? It was obvious, I thought. It was so obvious that it sickened me to think of her. She’s just like my mother, I thought. Driving along, down the jam-packed Grand Central Parkway toward Fresh Meadows, I realized that Maria could be a real goddamn bitch sometimes. Shit, she didn’t even bother to thank me for bringing her to the opera.
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