Miracle (The Pagano Family Book 6) (5 page)

All at once, Joey felt self-conscious. It wasn’t that big a deal. He’d figured out a schedule. So what? In that office, in that company, it was important, but it would take a lot of words to describe, and Carole wouldn’t get it.

He shrugged. “Good day at…work.”

“Excellent. Do you want to tell me about it?”

He shook his head. Talk therapy was not going to work for him.

“Joey. You were smiling when you sat down, and now you’re not. What happened in those few seconds?”

Again, he answered with nothing but a lift of his shoulders, and even that felt hard.

She set her pad and pen aside and leaned forward, crossing her arms over her legs. “Joey, we’re just getting started, you and I, and I know that you’re skeptical about what this can do to help you, but here’s one thing: It’s my job to be a good audience for you. In this room, you will find patience and support. If there is something you would like to say, then you have the entire session to say it. I will always listen, and I will never judge. What’s important to you is important to me. That’s how this works. It sounds like something good happened today.”

He nodded. “But too hard to…explain.”

She glanced at the clock on the wall. “We have forty-six minutes to kill. Why don’t you start at the end and tell me why it was good.”

He stared out the window, through the steaks of freezing rain, at the medical center across the street and thought about Carole’s question. Why was it good? Because maybe he’d saved the company money—maybe thousands of dollars. It was good because Luca and John had been impressed. They’d been
grateful
.

And he figured out a way to say all that.

“My…brothers… …saw me.”

When Carole smiled, just a small smile, one corner of her mouth turning up, he saw that she understood what he meant.

He still felt like a whiny little bitch for giving a shit what his brothers thought and for feeling so proud to be noticed for something like doing his damn job, but he supposed that if there was anywhere he could be a whiny little bitch, it was a shrink’s office.

Sitting back in the funky yellow chair, he took a slow breath and started the process of telling his shrink the story of the good thing that had happened to him that day.

~oOo~

That session with Carole was the first one that had felt like there might be something to this psychotherapy thing. His session with Evan kicked his ass—his chest ached after it, and he needed to use the cannula all the way through his session with Gayle—but it felt productive, too.

His session with Gayle was wall-to-wall frustration. He could repeat a word said to him, whatever it was. Even foreign words he didn’t understand—he could repeat their sounds right after he heard them. And he could write with much less hesitation. Sometimes, he still needed to find the word, but the act of writing, or typing, made his brain work differently, and he could find synonyms or just other ways of saying things more easily.

But Jesus, how he hated the flashcards. There was no feeling in the world like the helpless impotence of staring at a picture of something he knew, something easy, and having no fucking idea what to call it. Or having the word in mind and not being able to remember how to make the sounds of it.

Before, when he’d been doing better, he’d built up what he thought of—and what his therapist at the time had called—word chutes. Like with writing, when he could find replacement words or phrases, or just whole new sentences. He’d learned how to do that, how to see connections among words he knew. If the word he wanted wasn’t there or wouldn’t go, he could follow its chute to another word.

That had been fucking hard, building up all those ways of seeing words in his brain, not to mention using them, but it had worked. Sometimes it had felt like his brain was nothing but a massive spider web, with words crawling along the strands. But it had worked.

Unfortunately, it was like a new kind of language, and when he’d stopped working so hard, he’d lost it all.

And he wasn’t getting it back. Gayle’s approach was different, another new thing to learn. She was patient and nice, in a kindly drill sergeant way. But it wasn’t working. Everything else felt at least moderately productive, but not his words.

What he wanted most was to be able to talk like a normal person, and that was something he couldn’t have.

~oOo~

By the time he was at the front desk, paying his co-pay and confirming his next appointments, Joey had lost the good of the day. And once again, he hadn’t seen Tina here. Did she ever fucking work?

Why did he even want to see her? Wasn’t one humiliation enough? Yeah, it was plenty, and he needed to get the fuck out of this office. With a fresh sense of urgency, Joey finished up at the desk and headed for the door.

She came into the reception area from the therapy rooms just as he was turning toward the waiting room door. She had no big dog with her this time, and no mom, but she was holding the hand of a little boy wearing blue plastic glasses like tiny goggles.

She saw Joey and stopped. The boy looked up at her, his mouth open.

“Hi.”

Unwilling to trust his mouth even with a greeting, he nodded.

“I’m glad to see you.” The little boy grunted and tugged on her hand. Tina smiled down at him. “Okay, Milo. Let’s go to Mommy.” To Joey, she said, “Wait. Please wait?”

His head was bobbing up and down before he’d decided that he’d wait. When she went out with the kid to the waiting room, Joey stared at the closed door between them.

She was so fucking gorgeous. Those long bangs that fell into her eyes, that dark hair pulled back to show her small ears. Joey loved pretty ears. Weird thing to get hard over, maybe, but true. A nicely shaped ear, something he could suck on, maybe with just a simple little hoop through the lobe, or a diamond stud…God.

He shifted uncomfortably and adjusted his coat.

When she came back in, she brushed her bangs from her eyes with one hand. Her nails weren’t long, but they were polished a dark red that matched her lipstick. He liked that, too—when a woman’s nails were polished, especially in a dark color, she seemed to move her hands in a different way. More gracefully. Or it just seemed more graceful. And he loved red lips. He didn’t even mind getting it on him. Anywhere.

He was thinking far too much about Tina’s hotness. This was trouble from every direction. But seeing her, after that shitty session with Gayle, was making him feel a little better.

Before she could say why she’d wanted him to wait, he made a decision and endeavored to make it known. “Want to go for…pizza?”

Jesus fuck, he’d just asked her on a date. He had to shove his hand in his coat pocket before it slapped itself over his mouth. Too late now.

He was thirty-five years old, but he felt like some pimply asshole of a kid. Except that kid probably had more going for him than Joey did.

Her warm smile in response erased some of his anxiety and regret. But she said, “That would be wicked great, but I can’t tonight. I have plans.”

Of course she did.

She reached out and tried to take his hand, but he pulled it away before she could touch him. It was a reflex more than anything—especially with a woman he was attracted to. No touching, no mixed signals, no starting anything that wouldn’t get finished. No touching, period.

That encouraging smile faded out as she watched him pull away. “I’m sorry. Another time?”

Before his shoulders could lift, he made himself say, “Sure.” Not that he meant it.

“I’m glad to see you. I liked talking to you, and I wanted to see you again. I hope we really do have pizza sometime. Or tea again. Maybe in the Cove.”

This time he did shrug.

But Tina wasn’t dissuaded. “How about Saturday? I’m helping out at the market, but I’ll be done around six. If you don’t mind me smelling like salami.” The smile came back, this time at full wattage. “Maybe pizza is the best call—then I’ll just smell like everything else.”

She had a lilt in her voice that was positively sunny, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Now you’re…asking…me out.”

“Does that bother you?”

What was he doing? He was setting himself up for humiliation, that was what he was doing. But he’d enjoyed that afternoon at the coffee shop, and he enjoyed the hopeful light in her eyes now, like he was worth something to her. Like she saw him.

He could make sure it was just pizza, nothing more. He’d sit and listen to her talk about her life, and then he’d make sure that he moved first to shake her hand or something like that, and they would just be friends.

It had been a long time since he’d had a friend, too. That would be pretty nice.

Pizza wasn’t on his nutrition plan, but he’d figure that out later.

“M-meet you at…Santini’s?”

~ 4 ~

“Tina! Oh, thank God!”

Tina handed her leather jacket to the housekeeper or butler or whoever was standing before her with her hands out, then turned to the speaker of that frantic greeting.

“Hi, Gracie.”

As she and her friend did the quick ‘hi’ hug, Tina looked around and regretted her choice of outfit. She’d changed in her office before coming over here, and she’d thought she’d done pretty well with the ensemble. She’d been wrong.

For this Dean’s reception, where her professors, several bigwig administrators, and their significant others would be present, she’d selected one of the most conservative dresses in her closet. Most of her closet was black, with some dark red for variety, but this dress was, she thought, pretty safe: just basic black knit, a scoop neck and long sleeves, a mid-calf asymmetrical hemline.

Surveying the scene of sport coats and jacket dresses, she understood that she looked like Morticia Addams. Long, loose, dark hair and all. Shit, she was even wearing tights and wedge booties. The weather was too gross for pumps.

Even Grace, who normally dressed like she’d just gotten off the Greyhound from 1993 Seattle, was wearing a crème sheath with a Chanel-style jacket. And black pumps. Tina cast her eyes up and down her shockingly styled friend and lamented, “The fuck? Why didn’t I get the memo that I was supposed to be Jackie O tonight?”

Grace grinned at what she’d apparently taken as a compliment—and it really was; she looked good all cleaned up—and said, “Don’t worry. You look like you. And there’s an open bar. We’ll need it. The Korgen is already being a handsy asshat, and the dean hasn’t even made his remarks yet.”

Herman Korgen was the chair of their department and a well-known lech. He was good looking, in a tweedy, bespectacled, rumpled way, and he spoke with a faint accent of some kind, and he was famous and powerful in their world, so he didn’t have to work especially hard at it. He had serial affairs with graduate students in his department, and as soon as one ended, he was on the prowl for the next. By all accounts, he was an initially devoted lover who bored quickly and then set out to make it the woman’s decision to leave.

Academic departments were like small towns in the way they fed on rumor and gossip. Or maybe it was better to say they were like high schools, with little clusters of people in the hallways and common rooms, whispering together and collectively shunning the goat of the hour. Tina avoided all that as much as she could, but she was neither deaf nor friendless, so she knew everything that was going on, and everything that was being said to be going on.

She knew that Dr. Korgen was in prowl mode. Which meant that all single women at this party should have been wearing bulky sweaters and carrying pepper spray. The women in the grad program had a running line:
The Korgen has been released!

The way he behaved on the prowl was predatory, but not so outrageous that the administration couldn’t twist itself around to look the other way. He was a luminary in the field of rehabilitation therapy and had developed one of the most widely used methodologies for autism communication therapy. People paid him big sacks of money for speaking engagements and training seminars, foundations threw barrels of research grant money at him, and the university got a cut of it all. Plus the prestige of his name on their roster. They wanted him happy, and they wanted his ‘issues’ kept quiet.

The reason the great Herman Korgen hadn’t climbed higher than department chair was ostensibly because he was too important to take out of the classroom entirely, but everybody knew the real reason: it was his punishment for groping his students.

That was it. Otherwise, they left him to his proclivities and told those few female students who were willing to risk making a complaint that they needed to understand the world they lived in and toughen up.

So far, he hadn’t noticed Tina. She thought maybe she wasn’t his type, and she counted her blessings for that. Because her research into animal-assisted therapies intersected with his work, and he was on her dissertation committee. Not her director, thankfully. But he was involved and could fuck things up for her if he felt so inclined.

Which meant that she had to go make small talk with him. “I’d better get over there now, then, before he gets drunk.”

Grace made a face. She was Korgen’s type—she was everybody’s type: blonde and wispy. Especially tonight, dressed like Coco Chanel. “Okay. I’ve been ducking him all this time, but if we go over together…strength in numbers, right?”

“Right. Release the Korgen.”

Arm in arm, they walked over to the open bar, smiling and nodding at the people they passed in the vague way that said,
Hi. I see you’re talking so I don’t want to disturb you, plus you probably don’t know who I am anyway, but you’re important, so I want you to see me not ignoring you
. Tina supposed that all grad students perfected that smile-and-nod.

Like a watering hole on the African savannah, shared by predator and prey alike, one side of the bar was thick with grad students, while the other side supported only two men: Korgen and Cooper Frederick, the Dean of their college and the host of this soirée.

Tina picked up a glass of white wine that was lined up on the bar. Good enough. “C’mon. He’s with Coop. It should be safe.”

Grace picked up a glass as well and drank it down. “Ding. That’s three.” She picked up another. “This is four. Now I’m going to stop counting and trust you to keep me from ruining my life.”

Tina laughed. “I’m here for you. Let’s go.”

The Korgen was drinking some kind of whiskey on ice. Dean Frederick had a tall glass full of clear liquid and ice that could have been anything from water to moonshine. Both men turned as Tina and Grace approached. The dean smiled the vague smile that answered the grad student expression with
You’re familiar and I’m sure I’ve heard your name, but I’m too important to be bothered to remember it. Is there something you need, or are you simply here to bask?

The Korgen showed real interest in them, however, his eyes traveling slowly, ostentatiously, over their bodies, one by one. He finished his tour before he said, “Girls! How are you?”

Tina was twenty-eight, and Grace was thirty. Yet this man could call them girls, in an academic setting, and think nothing of it.

“Hi, Dr. Korgen,” Tina said with a polite smile. “And Dean. The party is lovely.”

“Yes, thank you. Elinor does love to entertain. I hope the weather didn’t cause too much trouble.”

“Ah yes! Valentina lives in…where do you live, love?”

The Korgen was already drunk, it appeared. Tina addressed her answer to the dean. “Rhode Island. On the coast. But I was at the RTC today, and I left my car there and took the T over.”

“She’s staying with me tonight,” Grace added. Tina fought and defeated the urge to roll her eyes and groan.

“Really?” The Korgen’s eyes glittered. “A sleepover?”

Dean Fredericks cleared his throat. “Yes, well. Herman, I see that Robert and Mary have come in. We should talk to Robert about the meeting this morning.” With his hand firmly on The Korgen’s shoulder, the dean smiled at the ‘girls,’ and Tina thought this smile was both more sincere than before and a bit apologetic. “There’s a buffet laid out near the fireplace. Please enjoy yourselves.”

As Tina and Grace nodded their thanks, Coop led The Korgen away from them.

“I’m such a dope,” Grace muttered. “We’re gonna have to keep our radar on all night now.”

“Yep. You could see the fantasy take shape in his head. He probably has us doing a naked pillow fight.”

“In pigtails.”

Tina shuddered and drank down her wine. “I need more.”

Grace tugged on her arm as she turned back to the wine line-up. “Somebody’s gotta stay sober, and I missed the exit.”

“Just one more, and then I’ll move to lemon water. You know, not driving tonight should mean I get to drink.”

Grace batted her eyes. “Sorry?”

“Sure you are.” Pizza with Joey Pagano would have been a much nicer way to spend this evening.

Saturday night. It was going to be a date, a real date, whether Joey thought so or not.

~oOo~

Corti’s Market had been first opened by Tina’s grandparents, more than sixty years earlier. Her father, Angelo, their third child and oldest son, had been expected to take it over, and he had. He and Tina’s mom had been in charge of the business Tina’s whole life, even before her Papa Corti died.

Her mother had been the lifeline of the place. Its heart. Her effervescent, assertive personality—quick to laugh and quick to shout—had been a huge draw for people to come in to buy their groceries and to lean against the meat case and argue everything. Politics, the Pope, baseball (call yourself a Yankees fan at your peril), world events, town gossip—Eugenia Corti had loud opinions about all of it and was happy to lean right back, making her points with flourishes of the red pencil she used to write orders down on the butcher paper.

Nothing about the market had changed in Tina’s life. They didn’t even have scanners at the checkout lines; the chimes of the old push-button registers—two of them—rang out all day. People who wanted convenience and speed went to the supermarket in Narragansett. People who wanted good, fresh food and camaraderie came to Corti’s.

Corti’s was still, and would hopefully always be, a family concern. They had employees, of course—checkers and stockers and delivery boys—but there was always a Corti on the premises when the market was open.

Early on, when Tina had still been in grade school and her brothers in middle and high school, their parents had understood that their oldest, Angelo Jr., was not a good fit for the business. They’d started grooming Matteo to take over. Tina couldn’t remember how Angie had taken that—whether he’d seen it as a slight or a relief—but she’d often wondered if that hadn’t been when, and why, he’d started getting interested in the Pagano Brothers.

Not that it was her parents’ fault that Angie had made the choices he’d made. He would have run the market into the ground. He wasn’t good at routine and drudgery, and running a market was mostly that. Matt, on the other hand, the quietest and smartest of them all, had a head for numbers and a knack for trends. He enjoyed routine. He’d keep the legacy going.

But their father had looked to Tina to fill her mother’s shoes. She’d been in the early stages of her doctoral work when the stroke had happened, and, once they’d understood that Genie would never be who she’d been, he’d made an emotional case for Tina to set aside her studies and come home to the family business.

She’d been brokenhearted, but she hadn’t even considered it. She knew what she wanted. With her mother so lost, Tina wanted even more to finish her research. Even though she wasn’t studying stroke patients directly, she wanted to stay in that world, to know all the right people, someday maybe to
be
one of those right people.

Her father had understood, and Tina had agreed to work at least two Saturdays a month at the market, trying to be what her mother had been to the Cove. She thought of it as ‘putting her Genie on.’

Tina’s mother had had her stroke at the market, right in the middle of a heated argument about Vatican politics. If she had died, it would have been the kind of story that fell on the sweet side of bittersweet, the kind they smiled when they told. It would have been the perfect way for Genie to have gone out, waving that red pencil and telling some friend ‘Ah, forget about it. What d’you know?’

Instead it was just a desperately sad story, because the end of her life was the worst horror for a woman like her. Such a horror that people couldn’t face it. No one came to see her anymore. No one did anything more than ask, uncomfortably, how she was doing. And Tina, Matt, their father—they all said the same thing. She was doing the best they could hope.

Tina thought that was a lie. The best they could hope would be for her mother to be allowed to rest while she was still remembered for who she really was, who she still was inside that frozen body.