Always Universe
Always Appologize First
By Missy

SERIES: Always Apologize First

UNIVERSE: Always...

AUTHOR: Missy

EMAIL: lasfic@yahoo.com

PART: 1 of 1

RATING: R (Adult thematic material, language)

PAIRING(s): L/L; S/C; R/S; F/E

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Myself  so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine.  Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

 

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: Romance

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: California, Post-I Do, I Don't

SEQUEL TO: OldTimeFan's Ever After, Always A Bridesmaid, Always Prepared, and Always a Mess.  Fifth in this continuity.

Spoilers For: OTF's Ever After, I Do, I Don't, Always a Bridesmaid, Always Prepared Always A Mess

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Lenny and Laverne deal with the ramifications of their drunken sprees; Carmine Meets the Folk.

NOTES: Please read the entire series, or this won't make sense.  Fifth in an open universe.  To apply, send along story idea or fic sample to my email above.

 

***

 

"I Rely Upon The Moon and Saint Christopher to Be My Guide" - MCC, The Moon and Saint Christopher

 

***

 

Her side of the bed was cold.

 

One little scrape against the icy sheets and Carmine Ragusa was wide-awake and in a sitting position.  Frantically, he looked to the left and to the right, trying to locate his bride - an empty room and late morning sunlight served as his only greeting.

 

What time was it?  He searched out his alarm clock, finally locating it beneath Shirley's passport on the side table.  Temporal relief filled him at the sight of the time - 12:35.

 

12:35?

 

He immediately checked the bedside table for any messages and found none.  If The Ronco Singing Telegram Service didn't call by seven, then there would be no work for the day - and Shirley left for work every morning at eight AM, so she would have cheerful taken the message.   The stress he had helped Shirley shrug off the night before began to mount onto Carmine's shoulders as he raked his fingers through his unruly hair - he would need to tender a resignation letter to his soon-to-be-ex-employer by the end of the week.  He put that thought aside, deciding he wanted Shirley's help in typing the document up. 

 

A quick look around the apartment told Carmine that she had been busy that morning; the apartment looked a little less dusty, a little cleaner, and something in the air smelled good.  She had also begun to pack up his closet, which stood ajar and half-empty at the other side of the room adjacent to a stack of sealed boxes.  Finally, he noticed a note on white paper - her best hostess stationary -  written in flowing script and propped up against salt and pepper shakers on the kitchenette table.  He lurched out of bed and headed over to it, unfolding and drinking in the words of his wife.

 

Dearest, it read.  Started packing your things- could you please finish for me?  We need to have everything but the essentials crated up and sent by freight to New York about four days before we arrive.  I guess that we should sell the furniture for extra profit, and so we won't have to drive it across the country.   Breakfast is in the stove - your favorite, egg whites and toast with banana.  When you're done, be a dear and go over to my place and bring back the rest of my things?   Especially Boo Boo Kitty?  I'll pack what you bring tomorrow when I get home from my shift.  I don't want them to be in Laverne and -fingers crossed! - Lenny's way.  And I tried to call your parents but according to your first cousin Tansie they're with your second cousin Marko in Cutter's Elm.  So I called mother - she's coming for dinner tonight at around six.  Bringing home takeout and a million hugs and kisses.  SWAK, Shirley.

 

Carmine chuckled as he laid aside the note.  A lesser man would have felt somewhat emasculated at knowing his wife would be the one bringing home dinner, but he was proud of Shirley's drive.  Lord knew one of them needed to possess it - and he had always been the one lacking in that department.  The examples of her effort lay all around him - for instance, he would have given up on getting in touch with his newly-retired and now vagabond folks after the first connection refused to pan out, but not Shirley.  Thanks to her, he knew they would be out of reach for awhile, and he felt a little lighter.  Carmine was painfully aware of the fact that he was a mamma's boy - and his mother, with her perfect cooking and intensely scrutinizing ways, always made Shirley feel like the second-best woman in his life.  He would have to send Marko the biggest sampler the Swiss Colony sold this Christmas as a thank-you. 

 

Carmine smiled to himself on thinking of Marko - the man he'd learned everything about surviving the streets of Milwaukee from, and part-owner of one of the best offshore casinos in the state of Wisconsin.  Their branch of the family had always been particularly close, and he always treated Carmine's parents like royalty when they visited. 

 

But his family, Carmine finally realized, were not their current problem.  As he tried to make the various cardboard boxes look more presentable, he once more marveled at Shirley's life force.  It sure as hell made his dingy bachelor's quarters seem like heaven - albeit a temporary one, he realized sadly.  Shirley had already indicated to him that she would put in her notice this day with Bardwell’s and be gone, and then it wouldn't be long before they had their real first place in New York and he was auditioning again.  After that, all he needed was one good break with benefits and she could quit working and start taking care of their house, just like she'd always imagined she would...

 

Carmine staggered into the shower and smiled upon seeing her damp robe hanging beside his on a wooden peg behind the door.  He had always imagined himself a confirmed bachelor - a stud with an eye for the ladies.  Never had he pictured that married life would make him feel so good.  Grinning like an idiot, he turned the hot water on until steam filled the room, then began the process of cleaning himself after the previous night's lovemaking while whistling "High Hopes".

 

His pleasure increased with Shirley's song on his lips.  Who would have suspected that little Shirley Feeney had so much zest in her?  Shirley Ragusa, he corrected himself.  And zest, he added mentally, was putting it mildly.  He floated along on those happy thoughts until reality once more disrupted him daydream.

 

Dread visited him abruptly as the significance of Shirley's note filled his mind.  Today he would have to confront Lilian "Barb" Feeney, the woman who had never failed to suggest he was a no-good hood out to steal her daughter's virtue.  The woman who glared at him during their last meeting and wondered out loud when he would make good on the promise ring he'd given Shirley in eighth grade while he turned beet red and launched into an impromptu mambo lesson.

 

Carmine wondered to himself if the loud, happy, close-knit Ragusa clan had always made Shirley feel as awkward as the estranged, mostly-miserable, separately-cheery-but-collectively-near-moribund Feeneys had made him feel.  The only thing the two families had ever shared was the courtship of their middle children.  Anthony, Carmine's father, had worked double-shifts at the fish cannery while his mother Donna pulled down decent money coat checking and taking tickets at the New View.  Between them, the clan of six had never neither starved nor gone cold - and in the process they had instilled in their sons and daughters a lifetime's worth of self-confidence.  Neither of them had problems working long hours to make ends meet if it meant having free weekends with the children -  even if that meant the older children were forced to watch the younger ones after school, and the babies were entrusted to the care of several older neighbors.  It was the rest of the neighborhood who had problems with the latchkey Ragusa children - especially Lillian, who believed it was the woman's duty to maintain a home and only thus, and refused to work even during Jack Feeney's frequent and unexplained disappearances on leave.   He recalled that they spent many an afternoon over at Lenny and Laverne's building, trying to avoid Shirley's mother while enacting an eight-year-old's idea of courtship rites with her beautiful blue-eyed daughter.  Carmine smirked and remembered what changed his ideas about courtship - a trip to Tijuana at fifteen with his football buddies.  Another thing to avoid telling Shirley about.  Not that his batting practice had helped, since Lillian always managed to find them and drag Shirley off in the nick of time - at least until she turned seventeen and there wasn't anything she could do to keep her B plus averaging, morally obedient daughter home.  At that time her marriage was one of the walking dead, and she was trying to salvage her reputation.

 

Carmine shook off those old memories and climbed out of the shower, remembering that the heating bill needed to be very low for the month if they wanted to have money left to ship their possessions.  Fastidiously, he spent nearly an hour grooming his hair and dousing himself in cologne, then rifling through his unpacked clothing for something clean and presentable.  At the bottom of the closet,, he discovered and settled for a light blue turtleneck and pressed jeans, donning them over the boxer shorts he'd neglected to wear during the past two weeks.  When he put them on, Carmine had a fleeting and odd worry about dinner - should he make something?  What if take out wasn't impressive enough?  When the hell did he start thinking like a housewife?  Carmine shoved aside the nattering thoughts and concentrated on eating breakfast instead.

 

He opened the oven to discover Shirley had placed a clean dishtowel over the plate, protecting it from the hot coils set to produce heat on the lowest gas mark.  He flicked off the oven and then withdrew the dish and settled down at his kitchen table, consuming the meal with agonizing slowness, being careful not to spill on his turtleneck.  From banana to toast he progressed, drinking in the middle a huge class of cold milk, then rinsing the plate and left it to dry in its sink-side rack.

 

With enough free time to fill two days, Carmine decided to get his chores finished.  The sooner he got Shirley's stuff out of the way, the sooner he could start hauling all of the packed boxer into the hall utility closet, so from the pile of collapsed boxes on his kitchen chair Carmine selected six large and one small one, then carried them in his arms to the unlocked door.  He crossed the way in two strides and knocked his special knock.  Twice.  Nothing. 

 

God.  He rolled his eyes at the silence that followed.  How stupid - he'd forgotten that Laverne was at work!  Glancing at the floor, he tried to remember where the girls had hidden their spare key but nothing came immediately to mind.  A devilish thought arrived instead.  Reaching into his back pocket, he found and then searched through his wallet until he laid fingers on his trusty standby - an old hairpin he'd filched from Lucile Lockwash years ago.

 

As he picked the lock, Carmine reminded himself to hide this little part of his adventure from Shirley.

 

When the door slipped soundlessly open, Carmine noticed immediately how quiet it was inside.  Had he ever seen Laverne's living quarters completely empty before?  He could never associate her with such tomblike silence  - he associated Laverne and Shirley's domicile with laughter and noise as it buzzed with the sound of the latest record, the roar of the girl's current argument, the sound of the tv blasting away the opening theme to Sea Hunt.  Even during his lonely house-sitting experience when they had been out of town he hadn't experienced true gloom or silence - Lenny and Squiggy had been there.  He snorted at the memory of the Duke of Squiggman.  Had they ever been there!

 

Quickly, Carmine entered the living room and went to pitch the boxes unto what should've been the girls' empty side chair.  He stopped cold in mid-motion at the sight of a fuzzy, dark head lolling over the side of the easy chair.   With Fists balled, Carmine approached the sleeping form and got a good look at who occupied its' seat.

 

He nearly rocked back off of his heels.  Sonny Saint Jacques, his old roommate - the bastard who had skipped out on Laverne, his maintenance duties and the rent after one big tempestuous argument.  Putting aside his anger, Carmine knew two things - something had gone wrong between Laverne and Lenny the night previous, and Shirley would scream if she could see all of the pomade his old roommate had trailed over the back cushion of her favorite piece of furniture.

 

Alarmed though he was,  Carmine decided to get Sonny up and out of there before Lenny managed to stumble on the scene.  He pressed a not-exactly kind hand to his roommate’s shoulder.   "Sonny!  Get up!" Carmine urged, using a normal conservative tone.  A loud snore was his answer, so he unliberated his other hand, tossing the boxes to the sofa behind him.  "SONNY!" Carmine yelled, shaking the muscular stuntman with both hands until he jiggled like an earthquake victim.

 

That did the trick; instantly, the stuntman's reflexes kicked in and Carmine dodged an errant fist to the face. Unfortunately, his shoulder was not spared that fate.  Sonny's dark eyes flew wide open and he nearly jolted forward out of the chair, smacking into Laverne's end table.  He managed to use Carmine's body to right himself, yelling all the while,  "I'm up!  I'm up!"  Carmine stopped his shaking, but Sonny didn't release the turtleneck.  It took a good minute for Sonny to ease his grip eased on Carmine's clothing, his eyes flashing angrily.  "Geez, Ragusa -what the hell are you doing here?" Fear entered his eyes abruptly.  "Where is Shirley?!"

 

Carmine blinked uncomprehendingly at his old roommate.  "I don't even get a 'hello'?"

 

Sonny once more grabbed and shook Carmine hard, and the Big Ragoo felt his teeth rattle violently inside of his skull.  "What the hell is wrong with you?  Christ, for someone who's been going out with the girl for five years, I thought you'd be worried."

 

Carmine rolled his eyes.  "Get your hands off me, meathead," Carmine said jocularly, trying to make the tone between them as light as it used to be.   "What's wrong with Shirley?  You didn't see her this morning?"

 

"You don't know," Sonny's skin went alarmingly pale, and Carmine felt his stomach drop into his knees.  He's got to be crazy.  Shirley was fine last night, he reasoned to himself.  The police would have knocked on their apartment door and summoned him if something was really wrong...

 

But getting new IDs and credit cards proclaiming her status as Missus Carmine Ragusa was one of the forty million untied ends that needed to be shored up by the end of the week.  If something had really gone wrong, all of her identification listed Laverne as her technical next-of-kin.  His heart sped up wildly.  "What happened? "Carmine managed to ask. 

 

Sonny took a deep breath.  "Shirley didn't come back here last night."

 

Carmine squinted at him.  "Come back?  Here?"  Sonny nodded.  "Why would she come back here?  She was with me."

 

Sonny's face split in a wide grin.  "Hey, congratulations!" The slap he delivered to his ex-boxer friend's sore shoulder didn't hurt THAT badly, Carmine reasoned as he gritted his teeth.  "I gotta give you an 'a' for effort, Ragusa.  I never thought you'd wear Shirley down!"

 

Carmine grimaced.  "I didn't."  He held out his left hand, upon which gleamed the brass band he had purchased to match Shirley's at the Last Hope Pawn Shop back on the Strip.

 

Sonny blinked uncomprehendingly at Carmine's ring finger. "You mean Laverne didn't make it up?  You married Shirley?"

 

"It'll be three weeks on Saturday," Carmine grinned, stuffing his left hand into his back pocket. 

 

"Hey, congratulations," Sonny muttered.  "I'm getting married myself in awhile!" He groped for his wallet and opened it, flashing Carmine a picture of a large-breasted blonde in a low-cut cocktail dress.  "Her name's Gwendolyn,"  Sonny explained.  "I met her on a commercial shoot last year."

 

"What was the spot for?" Carmine chuckled.  "Eveready Tires?"

 

"Hey, that's my girl you're talking about," Sonny groused.  He peered up the staircase.  "Did you see Laverne leave?" Carmine shook his head, and Sonny's face turned minxish in it's curiosity.  "I wonder if she's up yet." 

 

Carmine noticed that Sonny didn't seem as anxious as he might to avoid his ex-girlfriend.  "Laverne's been gone for hours.  Shirl told me she'd get here by seven so they could catch the bus for Bardwell’s, and she would have gone home and gotten me if she couldn't wake Laverne."

 

"Oh well," he shrugged, standing up.  "Shirl will take care of Laverne - Lord knows she always did.  Well,  I've got a shoot in Sedona to get to before sunset."

 

"Yeah," Carmine muttered distractedly.  "It was nice seeing you, Sonny."

 

"Likewise, Carmine." he was already halfway to the door before the question came to Carmine's mind.

 

"Hey - where did you and Laverne meet up last night?"

 

"Sinbad's."

 

Visions of the sleazy dive bar danced before Camine's eyes.  He'd gone there with Sonny when he'd been on the outs with Shirley and picked up a redhead whose name he could not recall.  While Carmine had never felt guilty about that - after all, he knew the girls had gone there occasionally, too, when they were especially desperate - he had never exactly been proud of his carousing, either.

 

Sonny let out an unattractively mean chuckle.  "Christ, no wonder she was drunk out of her mind last night.  Has she ever spent more than a week without her best friend?  No ring at twenty-eight, no career to speak of - the poor girl finally hit the bottom of the barrel!"

 

Carmine resisted the urge to sock his old friend in his too-handsome face.  "Was she really that drunk last night?"

 

"Sloppy drunk!  That's why I didn't think you were really married - hey, you know Shirl left Boo Boo Kitty behind?"  Carmine sent the lug what he hoped was his most threatening glare and he instantly began to back peddle.  "I slept down here in the chair, 'cause I thought Shirley would be coming home.  What I was trying to do was wait up for her but I ended up sleeping through the night." Sonny explained, then surged on in his best lecturer tone.   "Shirley should have been with her last night anyway, Carmine.  It isn't safe for single gals to get drunk in the Valley alone nowadays.  This town's getting crazy lately with all of those anti-war people down in San Francisco migrating up here, and it'd be easy for someone as naive as Laverne to get hurt."  The words "Laverne" and "naive" did not register together for Carmine, but he stayed silent and continued to listen.  "Besides, she's getting a little too old to be getting sloshed every night.  Yesterday, she fell right off her stool and onto the floor in front of the whole bar.  Wouldn't've been a big deal if it was Walk The Plank night, but..."

 

"Didn't they stop that?" Carmine asked idly.

 

"Yeah, court order, but never mind.  I had to carry her to bed when I got her home." Sonny shook his head, his obvious sense of superiority galling to Carmine.  "Laverne's a nice girl most of the time; she can be fun, she's independent, and she can hold her liquor with the best of 'em, but when you get her pissed off it's like her mind stops working.  I swear to God, it's like arguing with a cavewoman!  Heh, maybe I should've clubbed her last night..."

 

Carmine's fists balled up defensively.  "Hey, we call got our flaws..."  He frowned.  "Was she there with Lenny?"

 

Sonny gave Carmine a wide-eyed gawk.  "Lenny?  Lenny Kosnowski Lenny?"

 

"Who else?  They've been going out for two weeks. "

 

Another mean chuckle.  "It all makes sense now.  if I were dating Lenny I'd be getting drunk every night, too.  What was the stupid slogan he made up about beer with Squiggy?"

 

"'All my women drink Shotz,'" recited Carmine from memory.  “‘it dulls the pain'."  But he refused to alow Sonny to get away with another derisive snort.  "Lenny's a nice guy," he said, keeping his tone even and choosing to ignore Sonny's many slights against Laverne - if he didn't, they would end up in a fistfight. 

 

"Especially when compared to Squiggy," said Sonny, an air of superiority now unchecked in his voice.

 

"No, he's a nice guy..." compared to you, Carmine thought, but didn't articulate the thought.  "Compared to most guys," Carmine finished.  "Sometimes he's TOO nice of a guy for someone who's spent most of his life as a doormat."

 

"Just the kind of guy Laverne likes, a doormat," Sonny snickered, walking over and putting a brotherly arm around Carmine's shoulder.  "I hope they make up, 'cause God knows they're perfect for each other!  She likes wearing the pants and he likes walking around on a chain!" Sonny started to walk back toward the middle of the floor, dragging Carmine along.  "You know, I think that was why the thing we had broke up.  Laverne just didn't know her place!"

 

"Her place?" Carmine gritted.

 

"Yeah!  You know, my mother worshipped the ground my father walked on.  Always had a clean dress on, greeted him with the paper, and spent the night rubbing his feet.  In the beginning, Laverne seemed like that kind of girl.  You know how hard it is in Hollywood to find someone who'll light your cigarette and bring you your slippers and stay home with your babies?"

 

"Yeah, they call them 'the help'".

 

Sarcasm, typically, went right over Sonny's head.  "So I overlooked all of her problems 'cause she seemed like a wholesome girl, the kind you take home to mamma.  Whew!  One night alone in my apartment and...she didn't seem so nice," Sonny shook his head.  "So damn aggressive!  I had to cut her off at third when I found out she was a virgin.  Not that she cut herself off with anything else.  Must've learned that from Shirl!"  Carmine felt vaguely nauseous as Sonny's don't-you-know-it-buddy poke of the elbow and grin and regretted ever sharing any details of his life with this loser.  "After that, she started showing her true colors!  Meeting me in old dirty sweatshirts.  Taking me to football games and refusing to let me pay for her ticket!  Laughing that annoying little nasal laugh of hers that came out of nowhere!  I swear, Carmine, she used to have this little sweet laugh.  Then I take her to a revival of Some Like It Hot one night and she lets out this SOUND!  I tell you, it's a good thing I broke up with her while I still could, 'cause I don't have any of those problems with Gwendolyn!"  Sonny's features re-arranged to make a sort of wistful grin.  "She's perfect from foot to toe, and she even agreed to give up modeling to stay home when we get married.  I woulda never gotten that with Laverne.  She's a work horse.  Can't imagine her staying home and vacuuming the drapes..."

 

Carmine knew too well that what Sonny said was partially true; Laverne wasn't June Cleaver, despite her avowed dreams.  Even if she was right for Lenny, she was more likely to end up finding a career than spending all night darning his socks - she was too energetic, too much of a realist to live in a non-stop dream.  But his ex-best friend had no idea that he'd been going out with the false Laverne - the Laverne Shirley liked to call 'The Other Laverne'.  A creature she had invented and exposed every man she encountered on the first few dates to - a ladylike, overly-polite, mock-Sandra-Dee false personality that she used to hook them and keep them interested while revealing her real self in easy-to-swallow chunks.  Carmine knew it was why Laverne had more one-night-near-flings and "buddies" than relationship, between her natural aggressiveness and her false personality.   Men never did take to being lied to, but they were willing to put up with them for a little while to get what they wanted, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.  If she managed to keep them interested for a month or more, the guys she dated accepted her rough-and-tumble nature; some of them found it arousing, and a a scant few were repulsed.  Her most successful relationships came attached to her truthfulness - Norman, Fonzie, Randy.  "If I remember right," Carmine said coldly, "she broke up with you.  The whole building heard you calling her a tease..."

 

Sonny blushed at the memory.  "We were that loud?"

 

"Shirl and I could hear you from the laundry room," Carmine enjoyed informing him. "Forget it.  The past's the past, right?  Don't you have to be in Sedona?"

 

"Yeah." Sonny recognized the chill in Carmine's voice and slipped his arm off of his shoulder, immediately moved to make himself scarce.  "Good luck with Shirley.  You're gonna need it."

 

That was it.  "You don't need luck when you're already lucky, 'cause Shirl made me the most fortunate sunuvabitch in the world when she agreed to marry me.  And," Carmine uttered sharply.  "I didn't marry her just to get into her pants."

 

"Right.  Is there any other reason to marry a woman?" Sonny responded - and from the empty expression on his face, Carmine knew he wholeheartedly believed that Squiggy-like sentiment.  "I'm just giving you fair warning - Shirley's a nice girl, but she always seemed a little...frosty."

 

Carmine resisted telling Sonny just how un-frosty Shirley could become with the right motivation.  "I happen to have been in love with her since we were twelve."

 

"It's a hell of a way from twelve to thirty," Sonny insinuated.

 

Carmine jerked the door open.  "Too long.  Goodbye.  Good luck with Goldylocks..."

 

"Gwendolyn."

 

"Like I give a shit," Carmine said, beneath his breath while wearing the sort of false smile Shirley used on visiting Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 

"Wait!  I wanted to invite you to the wedding!  It's gonna be on Malibu at Steve McQueen's place in July." 

 

"I'm going to be in New York in July."

 

Sonny grinned.  "Hey, Laverne was right about that, too!" He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card, handing it to Carmine.  "When you hit the city, give me a call so I can update my file-o-fax!"

 

Carmine nodded, smiling blandly.  "I'll see you around."

 

"Sure, sure.  And like I said: good luck."

 

Carmine shut the door on his old roommate, before he could give in to his primal desires and punch him right in the jaw.  Stomping upstairs, he marveled at the nerve of his old roommate while carefully transferring Shirley's wardrobe to a white crate.  Love!  He snorted at the idea of Sonny being in love, or knowing what love was - all of the things he had said aloud to Carmine about Lenny and Squiggy being emotionally slow could be said quite easily about Sonny himself.    In the beginning, Carmine had tolerated his roommate - he didn't have any friends and needed any kind of masculine support he could find.  But after living with Sonny for a month he began to notice sides of the stuntman he liked less and less, and he had eventually cringed when Laverne had fallen for the cheap stuntman.  But ultimately, his passivity won out - it was none of his business and didn't interfere.  In the week between Sonny and Laverne becoming an item and Sonny showing Carmine Burbank's best pick-up spots,  Carmine realized his friend was more likely to fall in temporary lust with the easiest piece of ass in the room than be a stable life mate for the girl he'd known since the age of four.    Sonny had changed when he believed Laverne was "the one", but it was an amount of time that was a blip on the radar compared to his time with this Gwendolyn girl.  It had comforted Carmine and kept him quiet about Sonny's previous slutty period.  After all, Laverne's life was - as she had often proven - her own to live.  For the millionth time in his life, Carmine would pay for such softness when Laverne went into a state of near-catatonia for four days after Sonny split the scene.  The guilt had nearly eaten a hole in his gut; Laverne was like his baby sister, and watching her suffer made a festering wound in his conscious.  But what could he do?  The girls wanted their independence, and Laverne got enough personal interference from her father in the love life department.  Why should he have gotten involved?  Carmine started stuffing his wife's underwear violently into the corners of the box, forgetting about rightness and order.  What the hell had convinced Laverne to go out with Sonny again, especially when everything between her and Lenny seemed so...

 

Lenny.  All thought of finishing his packing that afternoon fled.  Shirley could handle Laverne - she had years of practice in that - but if Squiggy wasn't with Lenny than the blond was alone and by himself in their apartment...probably with a full liquor cabinet.  A drunken Lenny could do insane things - he recalled with a shudder the wild look in his eye as he drag-raced his father's busted-down Pontiac up and down Saint Claire Avenue on their graduation night.  When Lenny had nothing to lose, he played with fire.  And if he had truly lost Laverne, the woman he had been in lust with since the age of thirteen, something horrible might happen.   Something involving knives or fire or large bodies of water or tar pits....

 

Carmine finished packing the drawers and carried the two full boxes to the bed, picking up the one thing he knew Shirley really wanted and placing its weighted bottom on the center.

 

"What do you think?" Carmine found himself asking Boo-Boo Kitty.  "You think Lenny wants company?"  He didn't have time to question his own sanity, not with an apartment to clean and six hours to go until Lillian was scheduled to show up.

 

But he already knew what the right thing to do was, even as he placed the boxes into the utility closet and carried Boo-Boo Kitty back to their apartment, leaving him on the bed.  His task completed, Carmine turned and pointed his sneakers toward Lenny and Squiggy's place.  He was a nice guy, he admitted to himself with a wince, and so was Lenny.  And nice guys should always stick together, he reasoned as he knocked on the door. 

 

 

***

 

Laverne DeFazio sniffed around a stuffed up nose and scratched her beet-red eyes along the back of her sleeves.  She looked up into the rotund and openly shocked face of her patron and said in a sarcastic, piping tone, "welcome to Bardwell’s.  Is your package pre-boxed?"

 

The woman opened her mouth, closed it, then turned to Shirley and handed over her oversized stuffed bear.  "Could you wrap it in blue?  It's for my grandson."

 

Laverne watched Shirley give the woman her most professional welcome-to-Bardwell’s smile before taking the bear over to the wrapping table.  "I'm sure he'll adore it."

 

"Yes, yes, I hope he will."  She watched Laverne nervously while the girl stared back numbly.  "Do you have any experience with children?" She asked Shirley, turning tactfully away from Laverne and addressing her friend with a voice blandly pleasant.

 

"No, but I hope to soon," Shirley returned, carefully dropping the bear in a plain white box before taping down the lid with a thumbnail-sized piece of Scotch Tape. 

 

"Are you pregnant?"

 

Laverne masked a smirk at Shirley's wince.  "No, but I'm a newlywed."  She unspooled a bit of plain blue wrapping paper and snipped it off with her happy-first-year-of-employment-anniversary-gift from Bardwell’s - monogrammed scissors.

 

"Congratulations."

 

"Thank you," Shirley didn't notice as Laverne mimed along the last sentence mockingly.  "It will be three weeks on Saturday."

 

"I remember being a newlywed," the older woman rhapsodized.  "I was nothing but burned stove tops and stained rugs, but the time I spent with my husband before the children was the best years of my life."

 

Shirley obviously didn't believe the sentiment, but she smiled politely and nodded her head.  "I'm certainly enjoying mine," she replied, snipping a corner off of the paper and folding the paper down neatly.  Laverne felt a bitter rancor within her belly as she ducked down and began to busy herself re-organizing a bin of ribbons, ignoring a renewed throbbing in her head. 

 

Typically, whatever she did to try to take away the pain of life only made her waking hours worse.  She tried to seduce the man she was in love with and failed.  Frustrated with her loneliness and inexperience, she tried to throw away her virginity on some loser at a bar where there were no takers - though, to be fair to herself, she had been too drunk to make her best pass at anyone.  Then she tried to get a goodbye bang out of her ex-boyfriend.  That this effort was unsuccessful only called up gratefulness as she recalled the mildly repulsive Sonny Saint Jacques and his nattering in the car about Gwendolyn, the walking saint he was going to marry.  Then she had tried to settle for simply obliterating her mind with sleep and alcohol, but the coup de grace to that folly was awakening in the morning tasting vomit and with a pounding headache as Shirley shook her hysterically, afraid that her silent body was dead and cold.

 

Laverne shoved at the bows, trying to make the green ones stay with their partners.  Explaining to Shirley why Sonny was snoring in her easy chair had been an impossible task in her post-hangover morning, so she simply endured her best friend's fussing as she helped her dress and brush her teeth and walk to the bus stop.   The weight of Shirley's condemnation and concern was nearly too much for Laverne to bear.

 

While they were alone in the back of the shuttle headed downtown, she asked how Lenny was and Laverne sank into self-indulgent tears, tears that refused to completely leave her be even five hours later.  Now she alternated between bouts of rage and regret - missing Lenny and wanting to pound his face in.

 

Laverne could smell herself through the salty veil of tears  - the stink of a dirty barroom floor that her usual dousing of Tabu couldn't cover up.  She felt Shirley's eyes upon her - concern painfully plain as she carried the wrapped box to their customer.  "That will be a dollar."

 

Laverne felt another wave of disgust at what she felt was Shirley's appraisal.  Who could blame her for being disgusted?  Everything Shirley did was done to perfection!  She looked perfect, she smelled perfect - always of Jean Nate and baby powder - she had a perfect relationship with her perfect husband the perfect dancer and would be moving to perfect New York with him in a perfectly long month.  Shirley was leading a charmed life, and her best friend was a mess kneeling on the floor with a hangover, her mind and soul ravaged, pretending to organize bows. 

 

Now Laverne understood what she felt.  Guilt.  She should feel happy for Shirley, but couldn't conjure the emotion through her misery. 

 

I'm never gonna be happy again, she thought dramatically.

 

"Goodbye!" Shirley chirped.  "Thank you for shopping with Bardwells!"  Laverne knew the woman had cleared their station when Shirley's features fell into a countenance of worry.  "Vernie, can you stand?"

 

Laverne jerked herself into a standing position, her rage boiling over.  "I'm fine," she snapped.

 

"No, you're not," Shirley whirled around to confront her friend.  "What did Lenny do last night?" she reproved.

 

"It's what he didn't do," Laverne snapped.

 

Awareness dawned rapidly in Shirley's eyes.  "He's just waiting for the right time," Shirley said kindly.

 

Laverne laughed bitterly.  "When is the right time, Shirl?  When we're eighty?"

 

Shirley blinked at her.  "Even Lenny has more sense than to wait until he's eighty to marry you."

 

Laverne's eyes bugged out.  "What?"

 

Shirley's pale features drained of all color.  "What...what didn't Lenny do for you last night, Laverne?"

 

Her friends' words bounced off of Laverne's shoulders.  "Marry?" she whined.  "How do  you know he was gonna ask me to marry him?"

 

"He asked me for your hand last night," Shirley smiled at what had to be a poignant memory.  "Tell me what happened."

 

Her demands meant nothing to Laverne at the moment.  "He was gonna...we were....Oh, geez!" tears flooded her eyes, misery caving back in over her soul.

 

Shirley knew, as she always seemed to, what was actually wrong.  "You tried to pressure him for sex."

 

Laverne glared at Shirley through her tears.  Actually hearing Shirley say 'sex' was more irritating than what she was suggesting.  "You know how stupid that sounds? Lenny's the one who's been after me to vo-deo-do-do for years!  I start to go after him and he has a breakdown!" She rocked back and forth on the heels of her feet.  "What's wrong with me, Shirl?  Me and Lenny had a great thing going and I blew it."

 

"You didn't blow it," Shirley said comfortingly. 

 

"Yes, I did!" She blurted, rubbing her pounding temples.  "Why the hell won't he touch me with the damn lights on?  We never would've fought if he just..."

 

Shirley pressed forward, stroking Laverne's neck.  "Laverne, you need to think - really take a deep breath and think.  Do you love him when you're not in bed?"

 

Laverne nodded.

 

"Do you love what he does for you in bed?  Whatever he's done?"

 

One more nod.

 

"Do you enjoy spending time with him?"

 

Another nod.

 

"Do you have a lot of things in common?  Do you feel comfortable with him?  If he was completely incapacitated and you couldn't do it no matter what, would you still want to be with him?"

 

Laverne felt everything inside of her quiver as she realized she did.

 

Shirley sighed.  "Well, I'm sorry.  You did blow it."

 

Laverne's lip began quivering.  "Come on, Shirl.  Sing 'High Hopes or something!  Ain't you supposed to tell me everything's supposed to be all right?"

 

"Maybe it won't be," Shirley said harshly.  "Vernie, I'm going to be direct with you; you might have lost Lenny this time.  I know you think of him as this sweet, gentle, faithful kind of puppy dog of a guy, but he's already put up with a heck of a lot of garbage from you, and I wouldn't blame him if he couldn't stand any more." Laverne felt her mouth gaping open at Shirley's crispness. 

 

"Garbage from me?!  Was I the one chasing him around the Royal Cactus?"

 

Shirley winced at that memory.  "Yes, and he's been chasing you since he stopped finding girls 'icky'.  That's almost twenty years of effort for nothing..."

 

"Yeah, like what Carmine put up with..."

 

"I wouldn't say that was for nothing."  Laverne's blazing eyes rested on the plain band on Shirley's left hand and the tiny diamond shining above it.  Shirley noticed where her eyes lay and put her hand into the pocket of her coat.  "Why does sex have to be so important to your relationship, anyway?"

 

"ARE.  YOU.  CRAZY?" Laverne cried out.  "Sex is one of THE most important things in the WORLD to me!"

 

"But why?  Beyond the obvious physical desires, why can't you wait?"

 

She sputtered.  "Because I've waited forever!  And I've wanted to forever!  And now that I've finally figured out that I want it to be with Lenny he won't go all the way with me!  He's right there, Shirl!  What I want is right there, and he won't do it!"  Laverne rubbed the warped velvet "L" on her breast and looked off miserably into the distance.  "You know my worst nightmare is being an old virgin alone in an apartment with a cat."  Actually, the very worst nightmare - life as a virgin spinster with Shirley - would never come true now.

 

"Well, look on the bright side - you don't own a cat."

 

Laverne glared at her, the green of her eyes bright with malevolence.  Shirley shrunk back a little, continuing, " I'm just trying to see things from Lenny's perspective.  He's acting with nobility, and that's a rare thing for him.  Can't you tell he's in love with you?"

 

"I know he loves me!  I love him, too!  But I don't want him to be noble just to spare me from something I want to do anyway!"

 

Shirley crossed her arms over her chest.  "No, you want him to do what you want to do."

 

"For about a week, it was what we both wanted to do," Laverne said dourly.

 

"Lenny is a traditional sort of guy," Shirley shrugged.  "He wants to treat you well.  Why can't you sit back and let him love you the way you deserve?"

 

"You think it's that easy, don't you?  You think you can look down your nose at me and tell me I'm a bad person for wanting to do it before I get married!  You think I should ignore what I want and do what HE wants" Laverne stood up, ignoring the pounding in her head. "You're such a goody-two-shoes hypocrite, Shirl!"

 

"Hypocrite!" Shirley gasped. 

 

"Hypocrite!  If Lenny was a doctor or some big fancy millionaire you'd be telling me to jump him before he found someone better, but 'cause he's Lenny, you think I can cocktease him to death and he'll still come back for me, no matter what!  I thought you were on my side, Shirl."  Laverne snarled.

 

"You told me waiting made you feel like a lady!"

 

"Yeah, you know what that's called, Shirl?  Lying!  I'm a great liar!  Wanna watch me lie some more?  I'm really sad you're gonna be in New York in three weeks!"

 

Shirley's mouth gaped open, but her blue eyes were flashing.  "Do you hear what you're saying?  You're so furious at Lenny for refusing to deflower you it's made you deranged!"

 

"Deranged?  You wanna see deranged?"  Laverne grabbed one of the rolls of gift wrap.   Running in a circle around Shirley, she wrapped the thin paper around her friend until Shirley was left hopping in a pink-flower spattered cocoon.  Then Laverne seized the waving tips of ribbon from their unspoolers and tied them around Shirley's squirming body until she looked like a victim of a particularly colorful game of cowboys and Indians.  "I'm gonna take my break."  She smiled crudely, taking her purse from under the counter and leaving Shirley to try and then fail to keep her balance as a raft of customers entered the department.

 

"Welcome to Bardwell’s," Shirley said, as she tumbled to the floor beyond Laverne's sight.  "Please wait for a moment while I find my scissors..."

 

***

 

"Go away!"

 

Carmine rubbed his aching shoulder, then leaned close to the door to yell,  "Lenny, I ain't gonna leave until you let me in!" 

 

"What do you care?  When did you EVER care?" he sobbed. 

 

"Lenny, I don't have time for this!"  Carmine's answer was a harsh sobbing sound - proof that Lenny had gone from a state of ecstasy to hysterical sorrow in less than twenty-four hours. 

 

The dancer groaned and glanced at his watch.  1:30, which meant he had been begging Lenny to let him in for at least forty minutes. In that time, he'd managed to worm out of Lenny that Squiggy had gone off on their route alone that morning - or so Lenny presumed, because Squiggy was not there when Lenny woke up sick to his stomach at ten in the morning.   Carmine knew that there was no way he could leave Lenny alone, and for the  millionth time that afternoon he cursed Andrew Squiggman for being so absorbed in his own drama with Rhonda to take care of his weaker roommate. 

 

"Lenny, I ain't leaving you alone today.  I know Squiggy's got knives in there, and I don't trust you..."

 

"You think I'm crazy!" Lenny cried out in a braying voice that only supported Carmine's opinion.

 

"You tried to kill yourself when Karen left you!"

 

"I did not!  I went to the tar pits to say goodbye and...you don't care!  Why am I telling you this?"

 

"Hey hey, why do you think I don't care?  We've been friends for almost twenty years."

 

"Yeah - I still got marks on my nose from when you slammed your locker on my face."

 

Carmine remembered that and stifled a laugh.  "Squiggy and Hector never complained about it.  What can I do to make it up to you?"

 

"You can say you're sorry."

 

Lenny's injured tone made Carmine a little apprehensive.  "I didn't treat you too well when we were kids.  I'm sorry.  But If you don't let me in, I'll break down the door!"

 

The sobbing became louder just before the door was wrenched open.

 

Carmine looked into the darkness at the wreck that was once Lenny Kosnowski and felt a wave of rare pity.  The blond boy stood leaning against the door frame, wearing half of the suit he'd been sporting the night before - alarmingly missing were his jacket and pants, but, to his relief Lenny still sported underwear.  His nose ran down over his lips in thick clear sheets, nearly reviling his eyes for wetness - eyes that were more pink than blue at the moment.  The cast of his pale skin looked greener than usual, and he sported a full day's worth of beard.  Carmine remembered that Lenny's first instinct in pain was to express rage - then self- pity, finally turning so maudlin that he could make himself sick.  Clearly, he had reached stage three.  .

 

"Lenny -" Carmine began.  In response, the taller man pitched himself into Carmine's unwilling arms, sobbing ardently onto the top of his head.   Carmine stood frozen still, wavering between disgust and pity.  All of that washed away as the rank smell of mescaline and vomit washed over his nostrils. 

 

"Have you been drinking?" Carmine asked, but Lenny did nothing but sob in the comparative safety of his arms, rocking back and forth, completely out of control.  "Len, if you don't calm down, I'm gonna have to hit you."  Gradually, his shoulders stopped shaking, but his breathing didn't quite steady.  After what felt like a year, Lenny shifted away, rubbing his eyes and nose against the sleeve of his once-clean shirt.  "What happened last night?" Carmine wondered.

 

Lenny sniffled.  "I blew it, Carmine.  It's all over between us."

 

Carmine grasped at straws, hoping a little guy-to-guy humor might make him laugh.  "I didn't know we were dating."

 

That sort of moronic joke would normally earn Carmine a chuckle, but the blond regarded him with the saddest eyes he'd ever seen.  "Between me and Laverne, you moron!" 

 

Carmine gave Lenny a pass on that, relieved to see a little fire in his soggy eyes.  "So?  You always fight.  It ends when you give her a pink belly, she gives you an Indian burn, and you laugh about it and watch some TV.   And now that Laverne's crazy about you, you'll probably get more than an 'I'm sorry' kiss...." Carmine remembered the million and one "I'm Sorry" kisses he'd shared with Shirley and drifted off on that memory for a moment.

 

"Was!  She was crazy about me," Lenny corrected softly.  "Me and Laverne had a fight last night."

 

Carmine peered up at him.  "What about?"

 

Lenny looked conspiratorially to the left and right.  "You promise you ain't gonna tell no one?"

 

"Who would I tell?” Carmine grumbled.

 

Lenny leaned in alarmingly close and whispered in a voice two tones higher than the one he'd been using, "she wanted to do it, and I said no."

 

The idea of Lenny turning down sex - heck, any guy with a sex drive turning down sex - made Carmine laugh dismissively.  "You sure that mescaline didn't finish erasing your brain cells?"

 

Lenny blearily glared down at Carmine.  "Laverne does that to a guy.  You're lucky I can still talk," he huffed.  His head thudded against the doorframe.  "I really did.  I wanted to, but I just...I couldn't let her.." he groaned.  "Last night was gonna be the night!  I was gonna propose!"

 

Carmine was quickly taken aback.  "Isn't that going a little fast?  You and Laverne just started going out..."

 

"We met when we were four years old.  She knows everything there is to know about me already."

 

"You ain't making sense, Len.   I know for a fact you've wanted to go all the way with Laverne since we were old enough to know what 'all the way' is..."

 

 Lenny shook his head violently, nearly swaying off of his feet.  "You don't understand!  She has to say she'll marry me first!  If she marries me, it means she really loves me - and if she really loves me, what I look like don't matter, and if she don't care what I look like than it won't matter if she can see me naked and..."

 

Carmine watched Lenny babble on inefficiently about nothing, as typical of him.  The word "naked" sparked Carmine's memory.  That concern was nothing new - Lenny's aversion to nudity had always been a commonplace fact.  In high school he had pulled every trick in the book to avoid being seen without a shirt on.  He'd go to parties at the lake in Hawaiian shirts so distracting that no one thought it odd that he wouldn't go swimming.  He had showered full-clothed in PE class, another quirk that made him the laughingstock of Fillmore High.  It wasn't anything Carmine found uniquely bizarre, compared to the other, weirder things he and Squiggy did during their common years together.  But why wouldn't he want Laverne to see him?  Laverne, who he'd had an unconcealed crush on long before he himself had stopped thinking of girls as weird, icky things?  Laverne, who he trusted not to really hurt him, despite their mutual teasing?

 

Finally Lenny went pale and silent, having run out of air.  Before he could continue, Carmine interrupted, "you need to sit down.  Come back to my place, I'll make you lunch."

 

The look of disbelief in Lenny's eyes told Carmine that he really had flipped.  "When did you turn into Betty Crocker?"

 

A sarcastic answer could have been drawn from Lenny's curiosity, but the boy had suffered enough, even in Carmine's estimation “I ain't Betty Crocker just 'cause I cook.  Even an idiot like..." Normally, he would have said 'Squiggy' or 'Lenny', but he quickly stopped himself, "...Bozo the Clown knows how to open a couple of cans and put them on the stove."

 

"Squiggy doesn't let me open up cans.   He thinks I'll cut myself."  Lenny continued, "and Emma wouldn't let me light a match until I was fifteen.  But," he boasted, “I figured out how to get around them, and I've cooked a lot since then.  I even taught Squiggy everything he knows about a stew pot!"

 

Carmine knew too well and too much about Lenny's overprotective big sister - and too well what Squiggy knew, thanks to the shared wall of their apartment.  "Come on.  I'll make you grilled cheese and tomato soup."  Those were comfort food that he rare indulged in himself but kept around on days of misery.  Carmine hoped briefly that he had remembered to buy the fixings during his last shopping trip - and that the cheese hadn't turned moldy.  He could just scrape it off, he supposed...

 

Lenny took a moment to consider his offer, and then finally surrendered.  "Wait a minute."  Carmine watched from the doorway as he turned inward to the apartment’s floor, bending down, his hands scuffling through the various mounds of unidentifiable refuse on the floor.  After a minute, Lenny finally stood up unsteadily and donned his red-and-pink checked bathrobe over the dirty suit shirt.  Silently, Carmine turned around and walked back to his apartment, the heavy sound of Lenny's dizzy step behind his. 

 

Carmine walked without stopping over to the refrigerator, wincing as the unkind squeal of the heavy steel hinges protested his activity.  He remembered the heavy, frustrated pounding he'd given the fridge after his near-marriage to Shirley and wondered if they could manage to sell it before it fell apart.  Routing through half-dried lettuce heads, he found what he searched for - a pile of American cheese and a stick of butter.  Closing the door more carefully, Carmine carried them back to the counter and reached into his bread box, pulling out an only slightly-stale loaf of Sunbeam, untwisting it open with his free hand as he reached over to the range and turned the gas mark to 'low'.   He pulled down an iron skillet from the drying rack and placed it over the heat, then chopped off a pat of butter and let it melt - while waiting, he found and opened a can of tomato soup and turned another burner to 'medium'.   He made short work of pouring the red liquid into a sauce pan and putting it on the heat.  As the butter began to splatter he spared a thought for his clean shirt, and Carmine tied Shirley's apron over his turtleneck before bending to the task - guessing that she had gone to her apartment to get it, found Sonny, and then made the hastiest retreat possible so she could figure out what to do.

 

Carmine came abruptly back to he here and now as he heard Lenny's low sniffling in the background.  Ultimately, Carmine had two options - he might ignore Lenny's misery, feed him and try to shuffle him back to his place in short order.  That would leave him time to prepare for Lillian’s arrival and give him the mental space to make his best presentation to a woman he desperately needed to impress, but it would be cruel and possibly result in a still-distraught Lenny doing something horrible to himself.  The second option was to pry the truth from Lenny and try to solve his emotional woes - which might take forever.  It was a risk, but the one Carmine knew he would take to cushion his guilt.

 

The only question he could immediately think to ask revolved around that one thing Lenny had uttered during his babbling, the only thing Carmine thought might keep him from Laverne's bed.  "Why don't you want anyone to see you naked?" To cushion the bluntness of the question, he avoiding looking at Lenny as he said this, facing the kitchen window as he spread a slice of bread with butter.

 

The room was silent, but for the heavy sound of Lenny's still not-quite-normal breathing.  When there was no immediate answer, Carmine began to worry.  He slapped a piece of cheese onto the bread and started to turn around when Lenny suddenly spoke.  "You don't remember."

 

The heavy, dull tone of his friend's voice made Carmine realize that whatever had happened was a serious sort of trauma.  That forced Carmine to think, forced his mind to scour the past, but the only thing he could recall was that Lenny had been in an automobile accident when he was an adolescent.  "Is it like what happened when we were twelve?"

 

His entire body went still.  Carmine noticed the tension in Lenny's shoulders, the sudden intake of his breath.  "Yeah.  Carmine, don't you remember how bad I was hurt?" his tone was self-depreciating instead of accusatory.

 

Carmine forced himself to go back to that time - the time of Lenny's brief local fame and the bus accident that had given their entire group their first taste of mortality.  He had been doing what they all did every school day - waiting for the bus at six am that took all of them three miles away to Lincoln Junior High.   All of the kids in Lenny's building gathered at the same stop on the corner of Jane Street and Saint Claire Avenue, across the street from a city bus shelter.  On that particular day, at a time when parents were absent and kids were trusted to police themselves, one of the younger kids had run out into the street after a ball.  Lenny, in his typical altruism, had gone after the kid.  He had just pulled him (or was it her?) back onto the curb when another bus - the one the grown-ups used to get to work, the one they used to dream about riding because it was so big and shiny - experienced brake failure, striking  Lenny and dragging him under the bus' carriage.

 

He had been dragged all the way to the next block before the screams of the children stopped the vehicle.

 

Carmine remembered many of the specifics - all of them gleaned from local papers, which he read in open-mouthed horror.  Lenny was the first person he'd ever known to have suffered a serious, life-threatening injury, and it temporarily shook him out of his young and even then ingrained sense of complacency.  The details flashed back to him in threads: three broken ribs from the initial impact- one through his left lung, which collapsed and had to be inflated at the scene - severe road rash along his entire backside from hips to shoulders.  A broken left arm.  Miraculously, there were no head injuries, no spinal injuries - thanks largely in part to both the speed of the bus at impact and the fact that his sneakers and the sleeves of his jacket had gotten caught in the bus' underpinnings, boosting his head from the ground and keeping his legs and arms free of scarring and burning.  The overheated engine block had burned his chest and stomach to the second degree.

 

Lenny had screamed for his mother over and over again until they gave him drugs and put him out.  A lot of the guys Carmine used to hang out with found that funny and didn't hesitate to use it against him when he went back to school, yelling "mommy! mommy!" in whinnying voices while Lenny hurried past and Squiggy threatened to clean their clocks.

 

Carmine felt a twisting, sickening sense of shame at that memory.  Funny how the details were so sharp for him and he hadn't witnessed the accident.   Carmine's personalized recollection of the day was that his bus was late, and the poker game his parents had entered into with Laverne's father that night.  He listened at the door to his room alongside his other brothers and sisters as Frank explained that Laverne had seen the entire accident - but she kept acting like nothing was wrong.  He thought that made her tough.

 

It was the behavior Laverne had indulged in at Randy's death, at her mother's death.  She was tough all right, because she worked through the pain by never thinking of it.  By pretending it didn't happen.  Shirley had a term for that, memorized from her psychotherapy books, but Carmine couldn't remember it.

 

But then, Lenny had done the same thing.  He never talked about his accident after it happened, preferring to go through life making up excuses and putting on acts.  Two weeks after the accident, Carmine's mother had gathered up himself, Shirley and Laverne and sheparded them all into Lenny's hospital room, and to Carmine he seemed abnormally jolly and too excited about staying in the hospital.  It was the only visit Carmine remembered making, and the only one he could think of Shirley and Laverne making - only Squiggy came to see Lenny every day, bringing him his remedial reading homework and staying out of typical stubborn loyalty.   It was what bonded the boys together in their nest of obsessive closeness - Lenny would never forget that sense of love, that expression of loyalty.

 

Carmine had resented every instant he stayed there.  He reminisced that he had given Lenny a chocolate bar and wished bitterly he could have kept it.

 

That visit had been Carmine's placebo against the realities of life.  So little had changed after Lenny's accident -Carmine only remembered there being more adults keeping an eye on the mass of kids waiting every school day - which made it was possible to go on as if it had never happened.  In Carmine's young mind, he had rationalized that Lenny was fine - so fine that he believed the boy was faking it - and so nothing bad could happen to him if he avoided taking risks.  It put his life on premature cruise control and sent him into his teenage years a bit of a faceless hoodlum.  It was a state he had remained for a very long time.

 

At last, Carmine gathered the whit to respond.  "It was bad.  I remember how bad it was," he explained, slapping two pieces of cheese onto the bread and adding a dollop more of butter to the final slice.

 

"You weren't there." Lenny said his voice completely without emotion.

 

"I wasn't," Carmine said.  "Not until after it happened.  But...I read how bad it was."  Carmine swirled the butter around in the sizzling skillet, suddenly very absorbed in the milky bubbling that preceded the sandwich being dropped into the hot fat. 

 

Suddenly, Lenny was filled with emotion.  "You don't know what I look like, Carmine!  I'm disgusting!  I'm...I'm..." Carmine's jaw dropped as Lenny yanked open his robe and pulled up his tee shirt.  Once Carmine realized he wasn't on the receiving end of some kind of bizarre pass, he took a look at Lenny's chest.

 

His ill feelings increased in volatility.  Lenny's body was covered with hundreds of irregularly-shaped scars - the stretched-out marks of the snaking pipes of the bus.  Silently, he turned around, showing him a back that was covered with similar faded brown blotches - where they had lain skin grafts upon his back.  He thought dazedly that Lenny must have gone through a lot of pain.  Why hadn't he shown any when they visited him?  Without looking at Carmine's expression, Lenny pushed down his shirt and tied the robe tightly around his midsection.  "You think Laverne would want to be with a guy like me when she could have someone like Sonny?" he asked, his voice guttural.

 

Awkwardly, Carmine turned away, flipping the sandwich over, then turning off the heat on the bubbling tomato soup.  "Sonny's out of the picture.  Even if he were..." Carmine couldn't bring himself to reveal Sonny's whereabouts last night - and it was Laverne's place to tell Lenny.  "Sonny's a jerk.  You're not."  He went back to the stove and flipped the sandwich out of the griddle, placing it on a paper plate and chopping off the crusts with his pancake turner.

 

"I should be in love with Amy," Lenny said quietly.  "If I loved Amy, I wouldn't have to show her nothing.  We could just sit around and eat pizza and make out..."

 

Carmine shook his head at Lenny's innocence.  Despite the depth of his like in Amy, Carmine knew someone like Lenny - someone basically functioning, with the needs of a man - could never have a satisfying marriage with an innocent like Amy.  Instead of correcting his mumblings, Carmine just poured the soup into his "I Lost My Ass In Vegas" mug and brought it over to Lenny with the sandwich, placing it on the table before him and then returning to the counter, grabbing a pile of chinette and some plastic silverware and placing them at a chair at the end of the table.  Though he couldn't efficiently clean the apartment, Carmine reasoned, he could at least get ready for the meal to come.

 

He noticed Lenny's quivering lips as he returned.  The blond gave a miserable look to the sandwich and began to cry again.

 

"What?" Carmine whined.

 

"You cut the crusts off!  Laverne eats her sandwiches with the crust off!" Then he began to bawl.

 

"Hey, cut it out!  How're you going to get Laverne back if you're a basket case?" the wailing became louder.  "Kosnowski, wouldya suck it up!"  He punched Lenny in the shoulder, and Lenny sank down against the table, weeping into the greasy bread. 

 

At least it can't get any worse,  Carmine thought to himself as he turned off the oven.  His less-than-optimistic nature waited for Squigy to burst through the door, but nothing happened. He sighed in relief and began to wash the dishes.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lenny pick up one of the plastic knives he'd put down and begin to bring it toward himself. 

 

Carmine dashed across the room, grabbing Lenny by the wrist.  "She ain't worth it, Len!" he blurted out, not quite meaning the statement but lost in a state of desperation.

 

"Huh?"

 

"Don't kill yourself."

 

"WHAT?!"

 

Lenny struggled to get back the knife, throwing Carmine off-balance and whacking his sore shoulder against the counter.  The mug of tomato soup splashed over with the impact, dribbling across Carmine's apron and leaving a conspicuous stain at the crotch of his pants. 

 

"Are you crazy?" Lenny panted, putting down the knife.

 

"Me?" Carmine gasped "You were trying to.."

 

"Cut my sandwich?"

 

"Oh..." Carmine looked down at himself and groaned in dismay.  "Len, does it look like I peed myself?"

 

"Nah," Lenny gave him a genuine smile for the first time that afternoon.  "It just looks like you got a wet spot."

 

Carmine held his shaggy head between both hands, groaning at the mess.  Because God definitely had it in for him that day, the doorbell rang.  "What is that supposed to be?" he asked the ceiling as he got up to answer it.  "Sarcasm?" 

 

The person standing there was precisely four hours too early and exactly the last person he wanted to see at that very moment, but Carmine ratcheted up the Ragusa charm to a megawatt level and held out his arm. 

 

"Mother Feeney!  Come in!  May I take your coat?  Would you like some coffee?"

 

"Hello, Carmine.  I'm not wearing a coat."  A fact that Carmine only realized as he allowed her into the room.  Barb gave Carmine a bland smile as she entered and looked around.  "What a charming little apartment," she said.  Her eyes lingered on the clothing and open closet.  "It has a lived-in, homey feeling," she added, in a tone that Carmine prayed wasn't facetious. 

 

His stomach began to clench as pasted on his most professional grin.  "Let me give you a tour.  That's the kitchen...that's the bedroom....the bathroom's there...here's the kitchen...."

 

"What's that?" wondered Barb, indicating Lenny, who sipped his soup. 

 

"That's a Lenny," Carmine said.  "He was just going..."

 

"Oh, he shouldn't go on my account..."

 

"But..."

 

"Let him finish his lunch."

 

Carmine tried to will Lenny's movement toward the door, but the boy smiled happily at Barb.  "Thanks, Shirley's mom." he said, and continued eating.

 

"Now I remember you.  Hello, Igly.  You look very..." she considered her words.  "European."

 

"I should.  This robe was made in Paris, Wisconsin."

 

Barb sat down beside Lenny and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.  The chicly made-up woman looked not a day over fifty-five in Carmine's estimate.  Carmine gave her a respectful once-over.  He would be a damn lucky man if Shirley looked as good at that age.  Barb was so preoccupied with Lenny that she didn't notice his deconstructions.  She leaned closer to him and wrinkled her nose on inhaling.  "Why does the kitchen smell like a cheap Mexican floozy?"

 

"That's me," Lenny admitted.

 

"You've been drinking?  What's wrong?" Barb asked, leaning away from the stench of the booze.

 

"He's going through a break-up," Carmine explained. 

 

She patted his hand.  "You poor child!  Do you want to talk about it, dear?"

 

"Well," Lenny said, between little sips of soup, "I - was - gonna - marry - her - and - she - kicked - me - out - and - I - couldn't - give - her - Grandma's - ring - and - now - she - hates- me!"

 

"What sort of cold-hearted tramp turns down a family heirloom?"

 

"You shouldn't call Laverne a tramp," Carmine said, earning him a stare that would have frozen a river of lava.  Deciding he couldn't win for losing today, he walked to the kitchen and began to put together a few cups of coffee.  He plugged in his ancient electric coffee pot and poured some of the freeze-dried blend into the pot, running a cupful of water into the interior and setting it on medium.

 

"Laverne?  Shirley's Laverne?" Lenny nodded his head and Barb sighed.  "I had a feeling this would happen one day."

 

Carmine paused by the cabinets, two of Shirley's best teacups in his hand and pivoted around, confusion on his features.  Barb noticed his expression and and sighed.  "I watched you children play together for years.  Lenny liked yanking Laverne's ponytail and you pulled the tail off of Shirley's Boo Boo Kitty more times than I could count.  That's how an eight-year-old boy says 'I like you'."

 

While Carmine winced at the memory and started mentally urging the coffee to brew faster, a fresh trail of tears dripped down Lenny's chin.  "I forgot that," he admitted.  "I love her so much, Missus Shirley.  How'm I supposed to live without her?"

 

"Who's to say you have to?" Barb asked.

 

Lenny went quiet, sniffling and rubbing his eyes.  With nothing else to do, Carmine grabbed a jelly glass from the cabinets and ran Lenny a fresh glass of water.  He crossed the room and handed it to him.  "Drink this," he demanded of the blond - and he did so, quietly, his eyes disturbed.  Lenny then began to pick at his sandwich, eating it bit by bit.  Carmine returned his full attention to Lillian.  "Can I get you anything, Mother Feeney?"

 

"No thank you," she said coldly. 

 

"I got some coffee on the stove..."

 

"I really couldn't," she peered at the oven.  "I would love something to nosh on, though.  Is dinner still very far off?"

 

Carmine felt his face freeze in a rictus of a smile.  "Shirley's bringing home dinner.  Nosh?"

 

Barb's eyes turned colder.  "She said she had to work, but you weren't."

 

"That's right.  Where did you learn what noshing is?"

 

"I was expecting a warm dinner..."

 

"The Chinese food will be warm!" Carmine promised.  "Noshing!"

 

"My next door neighbor is a wonderful Jewish woman.  She makes great kugel."  Barb's eyes dipped down Carmine's body, resting on the florid apron he still wore.  "I must say, Carmine, that you've changed since you moved to California."

 

Clenching his jaw, Carmine untied the apron and slung it over the counter, the anger he'd been storing up since talking to Sonny earlier in the afternoon exploded forth.  "Just 'cause Shirley's the woman doesn't mean she has to cook three square meals a day AND work AND clean our house.  I've got ten fingers and two hands and can take care of myself."

 

"But Shirley should be home, taking care of this house - it's what she's always wanted!"

 

"More like what you always wanted her to do," Carmine muttered.  As soon as the words exited his mouth, he scrambled to balm them by segueing into a new subject, "If I get an Equity role in New York, Shirley should be able to stay home.  But right now, we're going to have to work to pay off the bills we're going to pile up from the move.  It's going to be hard for awhile, Mother Feeney..."

 

Barb glowered as he used the name again.  "Please, stop calling me that.  And you should be out there working today..."

 

"I've got a job.  It's not the steadiest one, but it pays pretty well - and in a couple of weeks, I'll be a real actor, just like I've always wanted to be."

 

"Yes, Shirley told me all about the auditions you've arranged.  She's very proud of you - but she was proud of you when you were bouncing between being a wedding singer and a boxer."  His mother-in-law's frosty tone told Carmine that she was anything but proud of him.

 

Carmine turned a deep shade of red.  "I know I'm not perfect, and maybe I didn't treat Shirley as well as I could have sometimes, but it ain't like Shirl's a saint!  We have pasts, Mo - Barb.  We're working to get over them and make a future together."

 

His words seemed to have an impact on her.  "I will admit," Barb said quietly, "Shirley could have married someone far less reputable."

 

At that point, Carmine's front door pivoted open, admitting Squiggy to the room. 

 

***

 

Laverne ran blindly down Bel Aire Avenue, tears obscuring her path as she traversed the nearly empty streets.  Even without the gift of sight she kept moving, mindlessly, until the toes of her high heels caught in a crack in the pavement as she reached the end of the block.

 

Lying in the gutter, too stunned to move, Laverne desperately tried to get hold of herself.  After a moment of stunned motionlessness, she lifted up on her hands and knees, then carefully into a sitting position, rubbing a bloody scrape she'd gotten during her fall.  Laverne glared miserably at her legs - her pride and joy, and they were starting to look like they belonged on a masochist. 

 

"Laverne?"

 

As she followed the familiar voice, Laverne was able to make out a lithe, tall blonde form above her, hair nearly bleached to clarity beneath the bright California sunshine.  "Rhonda?"

 

The actress bent down, nimbly avoiding the refuse of the gutter as she helped Laverne to her feet.  "Did you twist your ankle?"

 

Laverne tried it out - her feet were in fine shape, but the heel on her left pump had broken right in half.  "Fuck!  I just finished paying those off," she muttered beneath her breath.  It felt so wonderful to curse out loud because she so rarely allowed herself to -  Shirley seemed to reprimand her for any words uttered over four letters, and she would never dream of cursing in front of her Pop.  Lenny and Squiggy and Carmine tolerated and encouraged it, but she was ever aware that it made her look like a smaller person, so she avoided the indulgence. 

 

Lenny.  She staved off another round of sobbing with desperation.

 

Rhonda's amused expression as she indulged Laverne's cursing seemed to ameliorate some of the pain they mutually faced.  She shifted up onto the curb with Rhonda's help, then reached down and broke off the other six-inch heel. Finally, she slipped her feet back into the pseudo flats. 

 

Rhonda had opened her purse and handed Laverne a tissue, sitting by quietly as she blotted her face - when Rhonda spoke again, the words were not directed to anyone in particular, and eerily clairvoyant.  "Who knew those boys were so good at breaking hearts?"

 

Laverne glared into the distance.  "Lenny don't have a heart to break," she said facetiously.

 

"Lying does not become you, Laverne," Rhonda stated.  "Lenny's heart is huge, and Rhonda is jealous of its breadth."  She seemed to be thinking of someone else - Laverne knew who, but would not hurt Rhonda by speaking Squiggy's name out loud.  But then she said, "Perhaps what Rhonda has with Squiggy won't last the test of time.  But what you have with Lenny will."  Laverne gave her friend the most condescending, disbelieving look she could manage with a face that still attempted a rebellion into grief.   "If you could only see the way he looks at you - and the way you look at him."  Rhonda turned herself around, the sunlight making her blouse transparent.  Laverne realized her actress friend had not changed her outfit since Shirley and Carmine's party - and that she had neglected to wear underwear.  "Rhonda would give anything to have a man look at me that way."

 

"You gotta be blind.  Squiggy thinks you walk on water."  Anyone who lived within a mile of their bedroom would think she does, too, Laverne grimaced to herself.

 

Rhonda gave a miserable sort of laugh.  "What Rhonda has with Andrew is...indefinable right now.  But it's worth working on."  She pulled the strap of her purse up her arm and stood up.  "I'm going home to discuss this with him now."

 

"Don't you got some audition?"

 

Rhonda shook her head.  "Rhonda haven't heard from Ralph since last week," she shuffled her feet up the curb.  "The Barton project's stalled."

 

"Hey...if there ain't no movie, then you and Squiggy..."

 

Rhonda turned around, favoring Laverne with a parting grin.  "Rhonda knows.  Isn't she silly for not even caring any more?"  She strolled out into the hot sunshine.  " I'll see you back at Laurel Vista."

 

Laverne, who considered Squiggy one of the more regrettable persons she'd ever met in her life, couldn't fathom Rhonda's devotion as she waved limply back.  Alone again, Laverne turned and began walking in the opposite direction.  She couldn't go back to Bardwell’s and make up with Shirley - not yet - and she didn't want to go back to Laurel Vista and confront Lenny. 

 

Instead, she took a right into an open cafe, her purse already snapped open.  Calming her empty stomach seemed to be the most reasonable option offered to her for the time being, and the smell of fresh hoagies made her mouth begin to water...

 

***

 

"You!" Squiggy yelled.

 

"You!" Lenny yelled back as he stood up.   

 

They approached each other warily, like tigers staking their territory, and then simultaneously began to quarrel, their words intermixing in an orgy of volatile noise.  Carmine barely kept up with the rapid babble of language, but understood that Lenny accused Squiggy of leaving him alone, while Squiggy accused Lenny of wrecking things between him and Rhonda.  Then all fire somehow ceased, the words becoming statements of anxiety instead of anger.  Their expressions becoming simultaneously hangdog before they reached for each other at the same moment, participating in a jerky handshake and yelping out a simultaneous, "stu-pid!"

 

Barb shared an amused look with Carmine.  "Are they part of some sort of secret society?"

 

"Yeah - the Royal Order of Dorks," he placed a full teacup of coffee before Barb and placed another before his own place, slouching into his seat.  "Guess the fight's finally over."

 

"What were they fighting about?"

 

"I promised Squig he could have half dibs on everything I own," Lenny smiled, too fondly.

 

"Yeah, and I'm holdin' him to it," Squiggy added.

 

Lilian looked so utterly nauseated that Carmine instinctively moved closer to the wall, afraid of being barfed on.  "That's horrible!" she protested.  "It's white slavery!"

 

Squiggy frowned.  "Does that got to do with the Emancipossum Locomotion?"

 

"Igly, you've earned everything you've got," Barb announced.  "I know you've been close to Squiggly for years..."

 

"California’s a communion property state!" Squiggy cried out.  "That means I get half if he leaves me!"

 

"Only if you're married." Barb said, her credulity strained to a near physical pain.

 

"They might as well be," snorted Carmine.

 

"Knock knock."  Carmine glanced over his shoulder to see Rhonda Lee occupying the doorway.  Her eyes were sad, her outfit the same as the night before.  She seemed only to see Squiggy - and he seemed only able to see her.

 

"So," Squiggy said, swaggering over to her, "your cabbie made a u-turn at Atlantis and brought you back."

 

"I never went further than Sepulveda Boulevard," Rhonda retorted.

 

"Yeah, so, what do you want?"

 

Rhonda glanced over at Carmine, a look of mild surprise on her face - as if she had expected cordiality from the man she'd argued with the night before.  "Rhonda left a sweater in your apartment, and she needs it for a reading tomorrow..." she glanced over Squiggy's head to Barb.  "Hi ho," she gently pushed Squiggy out of the way and held her hand out to Barb.  "Rhonda Lee: actress, singer, dancer, monologist."

 

"Monologist?" Carmine asked.

 

"I'm diversifying."

 

"Oh, you're the Rhonda Shirley speaks of," conspiratorially, Barb leaned in and whispered, "is it true you know Jimmy Stewart?"

 

Rhonda grinned.  "We go to the same hairstylist."

 

"Jimmy Stewart needs a hairstylist?" Barb seemed somewhat crestfallen.

 

"We all do, honey," Rhonda smiled.  "Someone's got to touch up the roots now and again."

 

"Speakin' of touching roots," Squiggy leered, but Rhonda pressed him coldly back toward the doorway.  Typically, Squiggy never held a grudge when sex was in the air.

 

"I'm still angry with you,"  Rhonda snapped, then smiled her most professional welcome-to-Hollywood smile for Barb and Carmine.  "It was a pleasure meeting you..."

 

"Barb Feeney."

 

Recognition sparked Rhonda's features.  "Shirley's mother!  You should be very proud of your daughter - she's done very well in this town for someone who's so pale and short..."  Barb's features sharpened, and Rhonda began to withdraw back into the hallway.  "Are you coming, Andrew?"

 

"Keep your pants on!  You busy tonight?" he addressed Lenny, "I was hopin' we could go to Sinbad's, to celebrate our newfound hatchelorhood."

 

Lenny shook his head.  "I ain't a bachelor."

 

"So why'd you drink yourself to sleep last night?  Cause you was happy or something?"

 

Lenny shook his head, then held it between his palms.  "I'll see you at the apartment."

 

"So that's how you wanna play it?" Squiggy remarked.  "Suit yourself!  Double the broads for me!"  He strolled over to the door, where Rhonda waited.

 

"Goodbye, Squiggly," Barb dismissed him.

 

"Hello," Squiggy shrugged, trailing Rhonda back to the apartment and leaving the door wide open.  Carmine grumbled to himself about people being raised in barns as he left the table, walked over to the door, then shut it.  He shot a furtive glance toward the clock.  5:15, it read, and he felt only relief at this passage of time.  He'd been alone with Barb and Lenny for hours now.

 

"You don't mind me stickin' around for dinner, do you?" Lenny asked abruptly.

 

"Uh..."

 

"Oh," Lenny recognized the evasion in Carmine's tone.  "I'll go to Sinbad's then.  Maybe it's Walk The Plank night..."

 

"They shut it down," Carmine muttered.  "Lenny, don't go.  Whenever we have Chinese, there's always leftovers.  If there’s a leftover, Shirley tries to feed the strays back in the alley and these toms scratched her up..." Barb glared at him so fiercely that Carmine stopped talking in mid-sentence. 

 

"Aww, you're a swell friend," Lenny grinned, and Carmine was relieved to see him express something beyond rage or tears.   With that, the room settled into a comfortable silence.

 

It was breached a moment later by the regular thumping of a bunk bed against the apartment’s northernmost wall.

 

Barb frowned, trying to track the sound.  "Is someone hammering a picture onto a wall?"

 

Lenny and Carmine shared a panicked gaze.  "Did I ever finish giving you that mambo lesson I promised you back in Milwaukee?" Carmine asked, his tone raised to nearly mask the banging nearby, which was rapidly increasing in frequency.

 

"Why no, but I'm not wearing heels..."

 

Carmine rushed over to his stereo, putting the first record he could lay hands on upon the turntable.  He cranked up the volume with a quick flick of his wrists, flooding the room with the sound of Tony Bennett singing "April Love."  He grabbed Barb up from her seat and began instructing her in the dance at top volume.  The music was wrong for the dancing, but it was loud and it served its purpose.  Lenny was howling at the sight they made, but Carmine was too busy to care.  They whirled blindly about the room as Carmine put a mental hex on Squiggy's stamina, praying he'd be finished by the time the song's three-minute running time had expired.  Before his feet could fall off from exhaustion or Squiggy finished breaking down his rickety bunk bed, the door opened and Shirley entered their midst.

 

Carmine nearly dropped his mother-in-law to the ground as he hastened over to his wife, embracing her fiercely, ignoring the burning sensation of hot tinfoil scorching his flesh through the paper sack she held. 

 

Finally, beneath the timpani pounding on the record, he heard her protesting, "Carmine, you're squashing me!" he lightened his grip and she whispered, "when did mother get here?"

 

"At two," Carmine whispered back. 

 

"I'm sorry, darling," she whispered.

 

"Not your fault." He took the paper sacks from her and carried them over to the table allowing Lenny to help him divvy up the food containers on the table while Shirley to embraced Lillian.

 

"You look wonderful," said Barb, holding Shirley at an arm's length.  "A little thin..."

 

"Mother..."

 

"But you do have quite a glow," she said meaningfully, and Carmine could feel the accusation in her voice without turning around.  He walked over to the turntable and tentatively lowered the volume of the stero - mercifully, Squiggy and Rhonda had finished their rendezvous and conversations could now continue at a normal level.

 

"Mother!  I'm not..."

 

"You're not?  Oh!  Oh no, I wasn't thinking about THAT....you look like a happy bride."

 

"It must be that.  I've had one heck of a bad day, and I definitely don't feel like I'm sparkling." She dropped her purse on Carmine's side table, then took off her Bardwells' jacket, folding it neatly in half before dropping it over the back of the unoccupied chair.  "Laverne and I fought, and then she took a long lunch and I had to deal with peak hour business without her..." she seemed to notice Lenny for the first time and quieted.  "How are you, Leonard?"

 

"I think I got a blister on my big toe..."

 

"How do you feel?" Shirley quickly corrected herself. 

 

He glared at her.  "Like your best friend grabbed my heart outta my chest and made it into kielbasa."

 

"She seems to feel the same way about you."

 

"Nah."

 

"She was a positive wreck at work," Shirley proclaimed.  "Drunk as a skunk," as she bent over Lenny to retrieve some egg foo young, she wrinkled her nose.  "She wasn't the only one, I see."

 

"Shirl..."

 

"Leonard, your body isn't a trash bin.  You know better than to drink Squiggy's uncle's mescaline."

 

"Trust me, Shirl - this," he gestured up and down at himself, "is a total trash bin.  And if Laverne feels so bad, why ain't come to tell me?"

 

As if by magic, Laverne appeared in the still-open doorway.  "Shirl?"  Her eyes locked upon Lenny.  "Len..."

 

He stood up.  "Vernie..."

 

She shuffled into the room, and Carmine instantly noted the weariness in her features and the cuts on her leg. 

 

"I..." they said together.

 

"Mother," Carmine heard Shirley saying, "would you like a spare rib?"

 

Barb stared at Laverne, nodding her head without paying true attention to her daughter's words.  Shirley bowed her head, opening paper and Styrofoam and tin containers which Lenny and Carmine had already arranged on the table and emptying them into serving dishes as Carmine brought them from the kitchen. 

 

Lenny and Laverne entered into an impassive sort of silence.  When Laverne spoke, her tone was expectant, "Are you gonna say you're sorry?" Laverne asked.

 

"Sorry?  Why should I be sorry?"

 

Carmine winced at this precisely wrong thing to say.  Laverne glared at Lenny.  "You said I was ugly!"

 

"I never said that!"

 

"Maybe not, but I could tell it's what you meant!"

 

"You said stuff you didn't mean.  Can't I say stuff I didn't mean?"

 

"I meant everything!  How can you do all that..." she looked over at her avid audience and self-censored, "stuff with other girls and not me?"

 

"'Cause!" Lenny cried out, obviously uncaring of who heard him now, "they didn't mean anything to me, Vernie!"  His hand went automatically to the breast pocket of his shirt, and then hesitated to lie flat against his chest.  "I don't wanna fight any more.  I almost drank myself to death over you last night..."

 

"I ain't the first girl you did that over.  Did Karen mean nothing to you?" she mocked.  "You were gonna move to New York with her, you call that nothing?"

 

Lenny's face turned an unbecoming shade of ash.  "Some of them...I hoped some of them might stay...but all it took was one time and they...they...."

 

"What?  They didn't meet up to your oh-so-high standards?"

 

"They left," Lenny said softly.  "They looked at me and they ran."

 

"You're full of it," Laverne uttered.  "There ain't nothing wrong with you!"

 

"Yes there is!" Lenny said in a near-wail.

 

"Stop trying to protect me!  Just say it!  You think I'm ugly!  You think I'm disgusting!"

 

"Why do you keep saying that?  You're beautiful!"

 

"For a circus freak, maybe."

 

Lenny glared at her.  "I'm getting tired of people putting words in my mouth!"

 

"Then maybe you shouldn't make it so easy for them, you big dope!"

 

Carmine felt Shirley's hand press against his.  Over the chow mien, he gently squeezed her, his eyes telling her that it would never be the two of them sharing such a volatile argument.

 

"You think you know what I'm thinking?" Lenny snapped.  "Say it, then!"

 

Laverne's eyes were a cyclone of anger.  She snarled as she began to say, "we're..."

 

"Good thing you still don't lock your doors."

 

The entire group pivoted around to face Sonny Saint Jacques as he crossed Carmine's threshold, Laverne's navy blue handbag in his grasp. 

 

Lenny grabbed Laverne by the arm, snarling, "what's he doing with your bag?"

 

Laverne gave him a superior smirk.  "Who do you think I was with last night?"  She yanked herself free of his rough grasp, standing between Lenny and the doorway.

 

Carmine instinctively reached out for Lenny as released her, swaying on his feet from the shock.

 

"Laverne," Shirley said, rising to her feet, "this has gone far enough.  I won't have any more lies spoken in this house!  Tell Lenny the truth, NOW."

 

All superiority fled from Laverne's expression.  Sonny, as usual, filled in the blanks where they weren't warranted as Lenny clenched his fist and began to advance on him threateningly.

 

"We didn't do anything," he said quickly.  "I met up with Laverne at Sinbad's and she was too drunk to get home by herself, so I took her back here.  I'm an engaged man, and Gwendolyn doesn't like three-ways." He smiled placidly when his joke got no response.  Quickly, he switched subjects.  "Congrats, Shirley.  Did I tell you I'm getting married soon, too?"

 

"Thank you," she said, and Carmine noted the tension in her frame as she sat down beside him to eat.  And that she didn't press for further information on the "wonderful" Gwendolyn.

 

"She's terrific - perfect cook, wants kids, Mormon." At the mention of his religion, his eyes turned heavily to Laverne and she colored and turned her eyes from him.  One of the many differences between them had been their faiths, and her refusal to convert from the Roman orthodoxy.  "Everything a wife should be."

 

Laverne's downcast expression said it all.  "Everything I'm not."

 

Sonny smiled kindly.  "We had quite a ride, DeFazio."

 

"That's all I was to you: a ride."  It  was a statement Sonny didn't refute.

 

"Hey, some girls are like merry-go-rounds.  Some girls are like the monkey bars.  And some girls," he gave Laverne a meaningful look, "are like bumper cars.  Hit and run.  Am I right Car-" his speach was cut off as Lenny pushed Laverne gently aside and reached over to wrap his hands around Sonny's neck.

 

"If you keep saying rotten stuff like that about Laverne, I'm gonna break you in half.  Got it?"  Lenny's tough words were quickly nullified when the stuntman sucker-punched him in the gut to break free of his grip.  Laverne bent down to Lenny, wrapping an arm around his body as he hunched in pain.

 

"I think you'd better leave," Carmine told Sonny flatly.

 

"Gladly," Sonny retorted.  He looked backward, into the apartment; at the people he had once considered friends.  "What the hell do I need with you people anyway?  You're all crazy!" 

 

"I'd rather be crazy than a jerk!" Laverne cried out to Sonny's retreating back.  In the stillness that followed, Barb shook her head in silent amazement, Carmine leaned against Shirley for comfort, and Laverne held Lenny against her, stroking his hair as he worked through the pain.  A long silence followed as they tried to absorb what had occurred.

 

"I was right," Barb broke the stillness, "Shirley could have married someone far more troubling."

 

Shirley smiled pridefully at Carmine, giving his hand another squeeze. 

 

"Len," he heard Laverne say quietly.  "I'm sorry I spoke for you.  I was so busy worrying that you didn't want me that I didn't even think to ask you why you did what you did.  Can you forgive me?"

 

"Yeah.  I'm sorry for saying mean stuff about you.  But Vernie..."

 

She placed her fingers against his lips.  "I love you.  I'd love you even if we couldn't do it."

 

"Really?"

 

She nodded.  "Uh huh.  I love you all the way, Lenny. And I'm sorry, Shirl," Laverne added.  "I went a little crazy and you got caught in the crossfire."

 

"I'm sorry, too," Shirley smiled.  "I should have given you better advice."

 

"Good, everyone's sorry.  Now who wants an egg roll?" Carmine said, trying to jolly away the dark mood of the night.

 

Laverne and Lenny got to their feet, chuckling happily as they settled down in the folding chairs on either side of Carmine and Shirley.  "Am I still your girl?" Laverne asked hopefully as Shirley handed her an egg roll.

 

"Always," Lenny confirmed.

 

The meal passed happily, with laughter replacing the day's tears quite easily.  It was all wonderful, Carmine thought to himself - his dingy apartment, the scratchy old Tony Bennett recording of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" playing through his cheap speakers, even the greasy vittles from Wong Foo's.  The food proved so delicious that every plate was spotlessly cleaned before it was tossed away into the garbage. 

 

"No leftovers," Shirley said disappointedly as she ran the disposal..

 

"Don't worry.  Someone'll feed Big Joe," Carmine retorted, thinking of the biggest, fattest cat the alley had to offer.

 

Shirley's features turned downcast.  "It's so sad.  He only has one eye and the other neighbors won't feed him..."

 

"Because he scratches," Carmine whispered.  He grinned over her head as Laverne took a deck of playing cards from her purse and began to deal them.  "Look at them..."

 

"Yeah," Shirley grinned.  "Gee, I'm glad everything worked out all right." She glanced quickly down at his crotch.  "Carmine, you have a little spot..."

 

He leered.  "What are you doing looking down there?"

 

She blushed.  "It's my wifely duty to make sure you're...presentable."

 

"Ahh..." He moved to place his hand in a place that was just as improper when he noticed Barb watching them.  She winked and his hand dropped to her daughter's waist.  "Want some...coffee?" he asked his wife.  Shirley nodded, and he turned away from her, handing over a tea cup and pouring it full, then refilling his own mug.

 

"You want us to deal you in, guys?" Laverne asked.

 

"Sure," Carmine said, and he handed Shirley the pot of coffee to carry in.  She flitted around the room, playing proper hostess with her sugar and cream caddies while Carmine peeked at his hand.  Straight flush - his luck was starting to look up. 

 

But he played badly - very badly.  Gin was never his game, and he bowed out after losing his shirt in potato chips in the second hand.  Lenny, who had far too much practice playing by himself, managed to hang with Barb, Laverne and Shirley, but was ultimately beaten by Laverne's trump suite.  Unsurprisingly, she continued to be the night's card sharp - and after two rounds Shirley tired of defeat and "noticed" that it was eight o'clock.

 

"I'd better start out for Malibu before it gets too late," Barb proclaimed, gathering her purse - Carmine noticed to his shame that he had never asked to hang it up for her.   She hugged Lenny, then kissed Laverne and her daughter.  "Shirley, I'll cable your brothers for you."

 

"Mother, that's awfully expensive."

 

"You and Carmine have enough to worry about.  It's my due as mother of the bride," she smiled and Shirley nodded her yes as she started gathering up the discarded cups.

 

"Carmine,"  said Barb, crossing the room, "would you walk me to my car?"

 

Surprised by the request, he nodded his head, then rose automatically to open the door for her.  Following Barb obediently down the stairwell to the apartment’s vestibule., they exited into the balmy California evening.  When they were alone out on the walkway Barb said aloud, "my daughter loves you."  Her tone seemed to suggest that she noticed that for the first time.

 

"I know that," passionately, heedlessly, he surged on, "it's going to be a hard life for us, Barb.  I'm going to do everything I can to make it easy on Shirl.  I know a singer's career don't make for security, but I'll make sure she never goes hungry a day in her life, and I'll keep a roof over our heads.  No matter what, she's gonna be taken care of."

 

"I know she will  be.  Even if you couldn't take care of her, I taught Shirley to be willful in her strength," Barb said.  "May I be honest with you?"

 

Carmine braced himself.  "Yes."

 

"I came here today expecting a disaster.  Shirley's always fantasized that being married - especially to you -would be magically perfect .  I don't know how she got that idea - the model her father and I gave her to follow proves that it's never easy to hold a marriage together, even if you're in love," Barb added, not the least bit bitterly. "I know you went into this marriage with no illusions about my daughter, but I'm sure she had many about you.  But she seems to have released the dream already - she doesn't expect you to be perfect anymore."

 

"How can you tell?"

 

"She didn't make you change your pants."

 

Carmine blushed and went back to the previous statement.  "My parents worked four jobs to keep me fed.  I'm used to a marriage being give-and-take." 

 

Barb acknowledged this.  "I'd forgotten how it was in your house.  You were a nice family - I will admit I didn't approve of your mother working at the theatre, but she took wonderful care of you.  It's never easy to be working-class, but they did the best they could."

 

"I know.  I'm very proud of them."

 

"May I confess something?  I admit that I had this picture in my mind of you the way you were in Milwaukee - glib, with a roving eye - but you're not that boy anymore."  She shook her head.  "I thought you'd behave...well, the way Igly and his girlfriend were behaving.  But your marriage seems so...calm.  Placid.  Nice.  I never had that with Jack."

 

If Barb could've seen them back in Vegas...Carmine smiled warmly and shook away the wild images of Shirley running behind his eyes.  "Do we have your approval?" he asked as they reached her car.

 

"You do," Barb patted his hand, then dug into her bag and found her keys.  "My Shirley is a terrific girl.  She never stops dreaming but she's a practical." She tossed the bag to the passenger's seat before sitting down inside.  "That's exactly what I think you've always needed in your life, and I think you know that." He did.  Barb buckled her belt and started the ignition.   "I only wish you would have waited and let us give you a proper wedding..."

 

Carmine bit back the truth about their near-ceremony - he knew Barb hadn't been invited down for it because she was sure her mother would object.  "I'll see you on your moving day, Barb."

 

She beamed.  "Take care of her.  And be well."  She squeezed his hand over the rolled-down window.   "Don't make me wait too long for a grandchild!" she ordered, letting him go and turning into the street before speeding away.

 

Carmine stood open-mouthed on the curb for a long minute, astonished by the woman's boldness.  He was still a little stunned by the time he got back to his apartment and found Shirley standing at the head of the stairs. 

 

Her kiss was a comfort.  "What did she say to you?"

 

Carmine smiled.  "We have the Barb Feeney seel of approval."

 

Shirley's blue eyes widened but she said nothing. 

 

"I know.  She said we seemed very stable."

 

"Stable is the last thing I feel right now," Shirley leaned against his chest as they walked arm-in-arm back to the apartment.  "Gee, I'm tired."

 

"Me too."  He agreed, hugging her.

 

She looked up at him.  "Too tired to..." she walked her fingers up his chest.

 

He arched his brow.  "We don't have to do it every night, Shirl."

 

Impishly, she dimpled.  "I know.."  She stroked his chest before breaking their embrace, allowing him to open the door.

 

His will began to crumble when he noticed the apartment was empty.  "What happened to Laverne and Lenny?"

 

"They went back to our - her - place," Shirley smiled, entering their home and heading for the bed.

 

"Guess they finally have it figured out.  It took them awhile, but they're on the same page."  He locked the door securely behind him.

 

"I hope so.  And I hope they never fight again!" Shirley danced over to the record player, removing Tony Bennett from the turntable before spreading her skirt primly across his bed.  She noticed Boo Boo Kitty upon the mattress and patted the black velvet cat, giving him a brief hug and placing it aside before Carmine joined her on the mattress.

 

"And if they do, I hope that we never get caught between them."

 

He took and squeezed her hand.  She squeezed back.  Suddenly, Laverne and Lenny faded from memory.  "Speaking of being on the same page..."  She wrapped her arm around his neck

 

Carmine took her lips with his, making any further unspoken thoughts between them a completely moot point.

 

 

***

 

Laverne groaned into Lenny's mouth as his hand explored the back of her Bardwells uniform.  She leaned away from him, divesting herself of the coat before taking him back into her arms.   Breathlessly, she clutched his long body to her own, feeling every bit of fat and muscle on his frame against her as they wrestled on her couch - where they had blindly plunked down upon entering her apartment five minutes ago.  They had linked lips without discussion, not indulging in a single extra word since leaving Shirley and Carmine's place.  In Laverne's opinion, that was just fine - she was not in the mood for talking.

 

Abruptly, Lenny released her, sitting back, panting.  Before she could ask him what was wrong, he leapt off of the couch and took her hand, pulling her alongside him and up to her bedroom.  He only let her go at the threshold, and then she walked over to her bed and sat down.  The living room lights cast a dim glow into the darkened privacy.  They locked eyes, caught in a momentary standoff. 

 

Then he took a deep breath, reaching over and flicking on the bedroom lights.

 

She grinned like a Cheshire cat, holding out her arms as he joined her on the bed, pressing her down with his weight as he lay her crosswise across the narrow mattress, his body between her spread legs.

 

For a long moment they kissed, hand in hand, eyes closed.  Laverne could feel her heart beating wildly in her chest and hear the blood rushing in her head - everything below her navel felt like it was on fire.  She wrapped her left leg around his hips, grinding herself shamelessly against the growing bulge between his legs.  Lenny moaned ardently into her mouth, pulling away from her form, panting desperately.

 

"Vernie," he said huskily, "if you wanna break up after this, I won't fight you."

 

Laverne stared up at him in confusion.  He wiggled off of the bed, then began to undress in the slowest manner possible. 

 

Patiently, Laverne watched as his robe hit the floor.  He hesitated, his hands on the top button of his shirt.  Closing his eyes, he began to unbutton it, then shucked it off carelessly.  To her amazement, he took off of his boxers next, and then his hands fiddled nervously with the hem of his tee shirt.

 

"Len..." she reached out to touch him, but he flinched.  "Lemme see you.  Please."

 

His eyes opened halfway, anxiety reflected within them.  It seemed to take an inordinate amount of willpower for him to finally remove this last barrier between them and straighten up for her gaze.

 

Laverne stopped the gasp welling within her throat.  It all came back to her in a flash - the bus...Lenny's screaming...the horrible stench of his burning flesh...the sad-eyed boy in the hospital bed trying to make her laugh by putting Jell-O down the back of her shirt.  

 

The accident.  His accident.

 

She snapped out of her reverie as he made a charge for the door, tears pouring down his face.  Refusing to let another misunderstanding draw a wall between them, Laverne threw her arms around Lenny's torso and plied every inch of his scarred back with kisses. 

 

"Oh God, Len!" she moaned in near-hysteria, the day's emotions finally catching up with her.  "God, I've been such a bitch to you!"

 

Bizarrely, he turned around to comfort her.  "It's okay...hey, it's really okay!  I never talk about the accident, 'cause I kinda like pretending it never happened, either.  The less you talk about something, the less important it is.  Carmine didn't remember it happened at all..."

 

She was implacental.  "But I was there!  How could I forget that?"  She began kissing his chest, her burning eyes rubbing against his chest hair.

 

His voice came out in a husky gasp.  "You blocked it out.  You do that when you're scared.  Remember how you were when Randy died?"

 

The specter of death twisted her stomach.  "You could have died, too!  I could have lost you before I had you!"

 

"But I'm not dead, Vernie.  I'm right here."  He brushed her forehead with his lips.  "And don't call yourself a bitch.  Nobody talks about my best girl like that."  She lifted her teary face to meet his gaze and smiled at his warm grin.  Lenny squeezed her against him gently.   "You don't think I'm disgusting?"

 

Laverne shook her head.  "There's nothing disgusting about you."  She gently stroked the distorted, faded scar on his left pectoral, enjoying the gentle bristle of his invisible chest hair against her palm.  "Those other girls were dummies.  They didn't know what they had with you."

 

He exhaled a breath he seemed to have been holding forever.  "You're the only one who matters.  You're the only one I love..." He bit his lip, then abruptly sank to his knees, holding both of her hands in his.  "Vernie..."

 

She knew what he was going to say, what he was going to do.  "Len, don't."  His face went alarmingly pale and a whine formed on his lips.  She stopped it by sinking to her knees in front of him.  "I think we oughta be face-to-face this time."

 

He smiled through his tears - the last ones, she promised herself, she would allow him to shed.  For a long moment they knelt together, holding hands.  She cleared her throat when her knees began to ache.  "You got something to ask me, Len?"

 

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, reciting, "Laverne Marie DeFazio, I love you to the moon and back.  Will you marry me?"

 

She answered him with a deep, long kiss.  When they parted, his eyes opened and he smiled quizzically.  "Is that a yes?"

 

"That's an 'I do."  He seemed even more confused.   "Yes, Lenny, I'll marry you.  I'll wake up with you every morning; I'll go to bed with you every night.  I'll have babies with you.  I'll grow old with you.  And I'll never leave you."

 

His fierce embrace cut off all air.  When he released her, he stretched around her body on his hands and knees, reaching his discarded shirt and pulling a small velvet box from it.  He flipped it open and she gasped at the glittering ring inside.

 

"How could you...."

 

"It's my grandma's."  He watched her with glowing eyes as she took it from the box and carefully slipped it onto her left ring finger.  "The only piece of Kulakowski jewelry she saved before the Revolution."

 

She stared in amazement at her finger.  "It fits perfect."

 

He touched her hand.  "It ain't the only thing that does."  He kissed her tenderly and she lost herself in the strength of his arms for a moment.  He began to press her backward, until they were sprawled together across the floor.  To her great reluctance, she broke their kiss.

 

"We can't tonight."

 

He gave her a sour look.

 

"We still don't got protection."

 

His glower immediately dissolved into a glorious smile.  Fumbling for his robe, Lenny reached into the pocket and pulled out one tissue-wrapped rubber.

 

"I thought you didn't have any!" she panted.

 

"Not in that suit, I didn't.  Squig makes me keep a couple in my robes, back when we was 'entertaining'."  he actually made little finger quotes in the air.

 

"Len?"

 

"Mmm?"

 

"You're a genius for a guy who's fallen off of a roof a bunch of times.  And you're all mine."

 

His grin was heartbreakingly beautiful as he kissed her open mouth.  She tasted the salt of the Chinese food in his mouth, and a certain creaminess she could not discern.  He had lowered his mouth to the curve of her neck while his hands began to unbutton her blouse when her ears began to pound. 

 

She chuckled.  "You got me so going so crazy!  I can hear my heart pounding."

 

"Laverne!" a masculine voice bellowed nearby.

 

She chuckled.  "You sounded just like my Pop when you said that..."

 

Lenny froze.  "I didn't say anything."

 

The pounding became fiercer - and it wasn't emanating from her body.  "LAVERNE!" Frank DeFazio bellowed downstairs. 

 

They were apart and struggling to right themselves in an instant.  "Do you want me to hide?" Lenny worried, as he wrapped himself in the robe.

 

"Stay here, I'll get rid of him," Laverne said.

 

Lenny nodded, scrambling over to the bed and trying to seem very calm while he dove under the covers and knocked over her beside lamp.

 

Laverne rushed downstairs, wrenching open the door just as Frank let loose with another top-volume "Laverne!"

 

"Hi Pop," she smiled, rubbing her ear.  "What do you want?"

 

He glared over her shoulder.  "Where is he?  Where is the bum?"

 

"Which bum?"  She wondered, as he shoved into the apartment.

 

"KOSNOWSKI!" he yelled.  "Get down here!  Now!"

 

"Lenny?  Why would Lenny be here?" Laverne laughed, a little too falsely.

 

Frank began to pace, his words coming at top volume.  "Me and Edna were closing up shop for the night.  She's emptying the register and she sees Lenny's wallet on the reception desk.  She says I should take it to him right away 'cause it's got his license in it.  Fine; I go to the moron's place, but he ain't home.  Instead, I talk to the other moron.  He says to me, 'he's with Laverne.'  Then he puts his hands on my shoulders and says, 'you know, Jay, we're gonna be in-laws soon - why don't we invest in a little capital-letter venture'?  I say 'whatt're you talking about?'  He says 'you mean Len ain't gotten off of his kiester and admitted he's goin' out with your little girl?'  So I call him a liar, and he says he's got proof..."  Frank reached into his back pocket.

 

"Aww, Pop, don't believe Squiggy.  He's...Squiggy.  Don't you want a beer?   A nice, cold beer?" Laverne asked, handing her Pop one of the two unopened bottles she had taken out but not consumed before going to Shirley and Carmine's place.

 

"Squiggy ain't the liar."  His free hand came out of his back pocket, and Frank unrolled a scrap of black fabric, holding it up to the light so that Laverne could see very clearly.  Her bra.  The one with the red L on the right breast.  The one Lenny had taken off of her during the course of one of the few evenings they'd had a make-out session at his place.  The one she'd been missing for the past week...  "What've you got to say for yourself?" Frank asked.

 

She looked from the bra to her father's face.  "I was looking for that," she said feebly, then waited for some sort of verbal blow which never came.

 

Instead, he smiled at her.

 

And shattered the bottle of beer with his iron grip.

 

THE END

 

SOUNDTRACK:

1: It's Late: Rick Nelson

2: You're So Vain: Carly Simon

3: Girlfight- Brooke Valentine

4: Closer To Fine - Indigo Girls

5: Penny Lane - The Beatles

6: Mary Chapin Carpenter: The Moon and Saint Christopher

7: Sylvia's Mother - Dr. John

8: Shed Your Skin - Indigo Girls

9: I Say A Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin

10: Papa Don't Preach - Madonna

To "Always A Mess"

To "Always a Challenge"