BY ROBERT IULO
Previously published in Hypertext Magazine. Copyright is held by the author.
FRANCINE AND I were never introduced. We always knew each other. We were the same age and lived on the same side of the street long ago in what used to be Manhattan’s Little Italy. My earliest memory of Francine was her playing with a doll on the front steps of her building. She played alone because no other girls her age lived on our block. Her father was “away,” a neighbourhood euphemism for prison, and her mother left with another man. Francine was raised by her grandmother in a one-bedroom apartment.
***
We were 11 when I walked out of my building that evening after dinner and found Mott Street quiet and empty. It was November and already dark at six o’clock, but the weather was still warm. I saw Francine down the street, drawing something on the sidewalk in the light of a lamppost. I walked over to hang out with her until some of my friends came out and saw she had a piece of chalk in one hand and a bag of potato chips in the other.
She’s always eating, but boy, is she skinny, I thought. I asked, “What are you drawing?”
“A potsy game. Want to play?”
“Not me. Boys don’t play that game.”
“You don’t have to act tough. None of your friends are around. Come on, play. It’s fun.”
She had been eating potato chips and holding her chalk with the same hand and had gotten some white dust on her cheek. I rubbed it away with my hand. This was the first time I had ever really looked at her, and I thought, Boy, is she pretty.
I quickly took my hand away and said, “Tell me how you play, and I’ll think about it.”
It involved a lot of hopping on one foot through the boxes she had drawn. I didn’t want anyone to see me doing this, but I couldn’t get myself to refuse her. After a few tries, we were hopping at the same time and suddenly found ourselves face-to-face in the same box. With both of us standing on one foot, we lost our balance and held onto one another to keep from falling. It didn’t take long to regain our footing, but we stayed like that, holding one another a little longer than we needed to.
* * *
We were 13, and it was Sunday morning. When I knew the eleven o’clock mass was almost finished, I went to the church. Francine was walking out. She was nearly as tall as I was and slender, with dark eyes and straight black hair.
“Hey, Francine, who said the mass?” I asked.
“Father Masarone, why?”
“My mother asks me just to make sure I went to church. What colour vestments was he wearing?”
“Are you kidding me? I didn’t notice what colour he was wearing. Don’t tell me your mother asks you that too?”
“Yeah, sometimes she does.”
Francine said, “Well, if I didn’t notice, you can tell her that you didn’t either.” She thought for a moment and said, “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. I just got out of mass, and you’ve got me helping you lie to your mother.”
She turned her back and walked away.
That wasn’t the reaction I had hoped for. My clumsy attempt to start a conversation and maybe hang out with her for a while came to nothing. I went about it all wrong, and Francine was gone.
***
We were 15, school had just let out, and Francine and I were talking, not about anything special, just talking.
I said, “How about walking me? I need to get a sweater. You can help pick it out.”
“Sure,” she said, and we went to a store I liked on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Francine didn’t leave the block much and was looking around like a tourist, but it didn’t bother me. It was good to see her enjoying herself doing something as simple as going shopping. As soon as we entered the store, she found a sweater she liked and held it up in front of me to see how it would look.
“It’s so beautiful I’d wear it myself,” she said.
“I’m not sure,” I said, “it looks like it could be a girl’s sweater.”
“How can you say that? It’s perfect for you.”
I took it to the cashier and paid for it. When we got outside, I handed Francine the bag. “Here, it’s for you,” I said, “I got it in your size.”
“You mean you’re giving it to me?”
“Yeah, but don’t tell anybody. This is just between us.”
I knew she liked pretty things and couldn’t afford them. I just felt like doing something nice for her, something to make her happy. But I didn’t want it to get around that I might like Francine. Where we lived, everyone knew everyone else’s business. That would mean people teasing us about making plans for a wedding.
Francine smiled and said, “OK, thanks.”
***
We were 17, the night before Easter, when I told my mother I was going to midnight mass. I didn’t. Instead, I met some friends, and we decided to take a walk through the Village. On Sixth Avenue, we bumped into another group of guys about our age. We literally bumped into them, and neither side would back down. As soon as we started to square off, a police car stopped, and two cops lined all of us up, facing a parking lot fence. They began to search us and ask our names and addresses. While waiting for my turn to be frisked, I felt someone behind me grab my arm. I thought it was a cop, but I instead heard Francine say, “Just start walking.” Two cops and eight young punks on a crowded sidewalk: they didn’t miss me.
Francine said, “I went to midnight mass at Our Lady of Pompeii with some girls from school, and we were on our way for coffee when I saw you. I told them to go ahead, and I would catch up. I didn’t want them to see that I even knew a juvenile delinquent like you.”
“Come on, Francine, don’t say that. I wasn’t doing anything, and those other guys started it. Let me walk you to where your friends are having coffee.”
“Don’t worry about that. You can walk me home instead.”
She spent so much time caring for her grandmother that she didn’t do much for herself. It bothered me that I ruined her night out with her girlfriends, and I wanted to make it up to her. All she wanted was for me to walk her home. It was a warm spring night, and we took the long route back to the block.
***
We were 19 when the invitation to a friend’s wedding saying “and guest” arrived. I took someone I had been dating because I thought she might enjoy an Italian wedding. I hadn’t expected to see Francine at the reception, but she was there as a guest of the bride’s cousin. We said hello and were talking when the photographer, who was taking a group picture at the table near us, said he wanted us in his shot. Then others started crowding around us to get into the picture. When the photographer said, “Come in closer,” Francine held my arm, and I put my hand on her waist and pulled her against me. I could smell her perfume and feel the warmth of her body next to mine. I hadn’t expected to see her, and suddenly we were closer than we had been for a long time. It was good to be together. He took his picture, and then it was over. But like another time, we continued holding one another a little longer than we needed to.
My date said I was in an odd mood that evening. I didn’t try to explain.
***
We were 21 when some old friends and I went to a new restaurant on East 50th Street. As we passed through the bar on our way out, we saw Francine there with a date. We all had known her for a long time and stopped to catch up.
She was even more beautiful than I’d remembered. Whenever I caught her eye, she looked back briefly and then shyly turned away. Francine had always been so easy to talk to, and now I couldn’t think of anything to say to her. After a time, my friends and I left, and I didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye. As we walked to the corner to get a cab, I tried to come up with a reason to return to the restaurant. Maybe I could pretend I forgot something, but then what about her date?
In a way, I was glad she was with someone who seemed like a nice guy, and I didn’t want to interfere. At the same time, what I wanted was an excuse to be with her a little longer. It was a crazy idea. I put it out of my mind and got into the cab.
***
I was 25 when Vinnie and I met at Café Roma on Broom Street. He and I saw each other every day growing up, and although we went separate ways, still got together once or twice a month. We’d often include other old friends, but not this time. Vinnie arranged it for just the two of us.
“I got some bad news a couple of days ago,” he said as he stirred his espresso.
“Yeah, what was that?”
“Francine is dead.”
That stopped me. I hadn’t seen her for a long time but often thought about her and what she might be doing. Now she was dead. How I regretted letting so much time go by without attempting to contact her. I had waited, always thinking that we’d see one another again someday. Suddenly, it was too late.
I got myself together and said, “I guess she didn’t die of old age. Tell me what happened?”
Although we never spoke about it, Vinnie knew I had feelings for her. He asked, “You really want to know?”
I knew it was going to be bad. I hesitated and then said, “Yeah, I want to know.”
“A while back, she met up with some low life. He told her that with her looks, she could make a lot of money working as an escort. All she had to do was go to dinners and other events with businessmen when they came to New York. One of those businessmen strangled her and threw her out of a hotel window.”
I was as stunned that Francine had become an escort as I was by her violent death. Who could have convinced her to choose a life like that? Why would she have agreed to it?
Jesus, I thought, what a terrible end for her.
I said, “Is that it, or is something being done about this?”
“Some of the boys are looking into it,” he said. The subject was never brought up again.
***
That was all long ago, and sometimes I wonder what might have been if our lives had taken a different turn. I’ve aged, but Francine hasn’t. I can’t imagine her ever being older than she was the last time I saw her. So much time has passed, but whenever I think of her, which is often, she’s still young and beautiful. Francine and I were never introduced, and we never said goodbye.
***
Robert Iulo began writing after retiring from a career with the City of New York. His work has appeared in journals and anthologies, including Atticus Review, Gastronomica, The Baffler, Puppy Love, and others. He’s had a special feature published in The Mississippi Sun Herald about his volunteer work on the Mississippi Coast after Katrina.