Free The Side of the Angels by Christina Bartolomeo, Kyoko Watanabe Page A

doesn’t have a gun. He’d piss in his pants if he ever saw a gun. He just has a tiny member and a great, big SUV.”
    â€œWell, it’s a bad habit. Every housewife is packing a pistol lately.”
    â€œWhich is why you tailgated that guy who cut you off at the GeorgiaAve. exit the other day and got out and yelled at him at the first traffic light until he cried.”
    Johnny has a wide, thin mouth and a long, easy grin that tilts up and sideways. When he smiled, I saw my father’s smile again.
    â€œLouise,” I reminded him. “You were going to put your cute little mind to remembering what set her off.”
    â€œHow should I know about Louise? I can’t do anything right with her these days.”
    â€œThe other night. Think back, Johnny. You can do it.”
    â€œWe went out to White Flint and got the shoes and I thanked her, and I even took her to dinner in Georgetown at that place she likes, La Pommette, and then we walked along the canal down by the lock where the touring barge is tied up, you know where that is.”
    I knew. It was a beautiful spot where the path wound down among maple trees and old row houses. Very secluded.
    â€œThen I asked her if she’d be a reader at the wedding and she said she hated getting up in front of people at these things. And I said, what about Cousin Andrea’s wedding, where you got drunk and tried to do the Texas two-step during the bride’s dance with her father? And she said, why didn’t I ever remember the times when she acted charming? Why did I only remember the times she made a fool of herself?
    And I said I thought she
was
charming at Andrea’s wedding, I even said adorable. Then she got really mad, said I was making fun of her and that she would prefer to be a guest at the wedding just like everyone else. And then she wanted to go home.”
    Poor Louise. Shopping for him as if she were his wife, eating dinner together in the gauzy light of La Pommette’s back room, strolling along the most romantic stretch of the towpath. Then being asked by Johnny not if she’d ever thought of him as more than a cousin, but if she’d agree to read from Kahlil Gibran at his wedding to Betsey. If he hadn’t been driving, I’d have slugged him.
    â€œJohnny,” I said, “did it ever occur to you that you could have, how can I put it, feelings for Louise?”
    â€œFeelings?”
    We were almost at the corner where Mass Ave. doglegs over to the station. There was no time to be tactful.
    â€œRomantic feelings. It’s not like you’re actually related, you know.
    Not blood related.”
    â€œAre you crazy, Nicky?”
    â€œJohnny, Louise is the only person you’ve ever really trusted one hundred percent. Even with me and Mike and Joey, you keep your guard up that one little tiny bit. I’m not blaming you. But Louise has always been the exception. So why are you planning to spend the rest of your life with someone else?”
    I almost said, “with someone as boring and stupid as Betsey,” but I didn’t want to push it.
    â€œLouise has always considered me like a brother,” said Johnny. “She’s never given me a second thought.”
    â€œA second thought? Louise would donate a kidney for you.”
    â€œA romantic second thought, I mean. Has Louise ever said anything to lead you to believe she cares about me in any romantic way?”
    â€œNo, but I know. I
know,
Johnny.”
    â€œExcuse me if I don’t want to bet my future on your woman’s intuition, Nicky. Besides, if I ever say anything to Louise and she looks at me like I’m certifiable, there goes our friendship. I could never hang out with her again.”
    â€œJohnny, you’re not going to be able to hang out with her much once you’re married to Betsey. You think Betsey’s going to let you out of the house every Wednesday night to watch
Law and Order
with Louise?