Free The Witch of Little Italy by Suzanne Palmieri Page A

around.”
    “What’s an intersession course?”
    “A class you can take over winter break. He’s down a few credits for graduation.” Her words were coming out fast, panicked small talk driven by the fear rising inside her the closer they got to the one-way street where the gate to her dorm quad was located.
    “He scares you?”
    He sees me.
    “Let’s just go. Okay? Park here…”
    She thought she’d get an argument about double-parking, about breaking rules. Cooper would have lectured her as he drove in circles through the maze of downtown New Haven getting more and more annoyed until the traffic actually became Eleanor’s responsibility. As if she’d conjured it up just to screw up his life. But she was with a different man now, and he thought double-parking with the hazard lights blinking was a fine idea. “Works for me,” Anthony said, throwing the car into park. And then he rushed around to get to her side before she could open the door herself.
    “This way, m’lady, your palace awaits you.”
    “Prison’s more like it,” said Elly, looking up at the imposing buildings. Elly often thought the rest of New Haven, the neighborhoods flanking the city center, could crumble away and still—the majestic, medieval Yale would rise, untethered to Olympus, back to the cold gods of academia that created it in the first place.
    Anthony stuffed his hands in his jean pockets and huddled down in his black leather jacket. “It’s cold here! Where to?” His breath came out in puffs of warm mist in the frigid air. His black hair fell in his eyes. Elly fought the urge to push it aside like Barbra Streisand pushed Robert Redford’s in The Way We Were.
    Seeing Anthony up close and center in the world she’d existed in for so long without him was dizzying. She cleared her throat and motioned forward with her arms. “Through these gates and then to the right. It’s not far.”
    Anthony started walking, but Elly stood still. One hand on the hood of Uncle George’s car. She didn’t want to leave the safety of it. It was cold here. So cold she thought the world would crack and she’d be left behind. All alone. Again.
    Anthony turned around and held out his hand. “You comin’?”
    Elly walked toward him and hesitantly took his hand. “Don’t let me go. Okay?”
    “Never.” He walked her to the gates and Elly swiped a student card to unlock them. As the gates clanged closed behind them, she held his hand a little tighter.
    “You did good, you know.”
    “What?”
    “Coming here. This isn’t a small thing. Yale is a big deal. You gotta be some kind of smart to come here,” he said.
    “Yale is Carmen’s idea. Only the best for her,” said Elly.
    “You didn’t want to come to school here?”
    “No.… Well, I don’t know.” Now amid the snow-covered trees and high buildings, time seemed to stop. The car and the busy streets a million years away. “This way.”
    Elly’s dorm room at Yale was beautiful. Seniors got their pick and if the outside of Elly’s building looked like a palace, her room could have belonged in a museum. Exposed stone walls, leaded windows, wide planked wood floors, and even a fireplace. Anthony marveled at his surroundings.
    “It doesn’t work, the fireplace. And it’s really cold in here in the winter.” She opened up a large closet door and pulled out some bins and boxes. “Let’s start with the art supplies, canvases, and the books. The rest I can live without.”
    “You always this prepared?” asked Anthony.
    “We never really stay put, Mom and me.”
    “You must think it’s crazy, me livin’ in that building my whole life.” Anthony was already loading books into boxes.
    “No. I think it’s amazing,” she said, the idea of staying put in one place for so long, of wanting to, made hot tears burn behind her eyes.
    Anthony sat on the floor next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “Now, what’s all this? Are you afraid still? It’s gonna be okay.