Justin practiced his usual charm on her. I sometimes think she called to talk to him, judging by the giddiness that was ever present in her voice whenever Justin finally handed over the phone. That was just Justin’s way, I supposed. Even I had been charmed by him from the moment we had met in an improv class four years earlier. At the time, we were both just starting out in acting, Justin having given up a career behind the camera when the feature-length film he’d directed won a lot of buzz on the festival circuit and a prestigious award but ultimately no distributor. He claimed that he wanted to expand his horizons now that he had realized just how hard it was to get a movie out there. I wondered at that, since it seemed to me that it was just as hard to get yourself out there as an actor. But Justin seemed happy enough to take a union job as a grip for a production company based out of Long Island City, which gave him the kind of flexibility he needed to pursue acting.
Our improv teacher had paired us together, me being the only student without a partner when Justin straggled in, even later to class than I had been. I was a bit scared of working with Justin, who, with his dark blond hair, green eyes and tall good looks, was just the kind of babe I avoided. After all, a good-looking man—and an actor to boot—was bound to be cocky. So you can just imagine how I felt when the instructor led us in our first theater game, which required me to stand with my back to Justin and allow myself to fall straight back into his arms. “To build trust,” the instructor had explained. And build trust it did. From the moment I felt Justin’s firm grip beneath me after those first spine-tingling moments in midair, I knew instinctively he would always be there for me. In the years that followed, he had been. Like when my old roommate threw me out of our apartment two years ago to make room for her new live-in boyfriend. Justin had opened his two-bedroom to me without batting an eye, though my mother had batted hers a bit about my having a male roommate. She got over that right after I dragged Justin home for dinner and he easily won her over. Justin and I have been living together ever since.
“This Sunday?” I heard Justin say now, “Oh, Mrs. Di, you’re torturing me. You know I’d never turn down your manicotti, but Lauren’s coming to town.”
Lauren was Justin’s girlfriend, of the past three years, though their cumulative time spent together was probably more like three months. Lauren was a stage actress who always found herself in some leading role or another, but, somehow, never in New York. Currently she was doing Ibsen in, of all places, South Florida.
“Yep, gotta do the girlfriend thing this weekend,” Justin continued with a chuckle. “But Angela’s not doing anything, as far as I know. Hang on a second, sweetie, I’ll let you talk to her. You take care, Mrs. Di,” he finished cheerfully, handing me the receiver now that he’d managed to sew up my Sunday plans.
“Hi, Ma,” I said, sliding awkwardly from the arm of the sofa onto the seat cushion and sending a poof of dust into the air.
“Angela!” my mother shouted in my ear, as if surprised to hear my voice. I honestly believe she thought it was a miracle I wasn’t gunned down on a daily basis, living as I did off of Avenue A. The only thing Ma knew about Alphabet City was the bloody battles featured in the movie of the same name, which my brother Sonny had deemed it necessary to show her, just days after I had moved in with Justin.
“What’s up, Ma? How’s Nonnie?” Nonnie is my grandmother, who lives on the lower level of my mother’s house in Brooklyn, which is as good as living with my mother, judging by the amount of time she spends in my mother’s kitchen.
“Nonnie’s fine. In fact, she’s looking forward to seeing you this Sunday for dinner. Sonny and Vanessa are going to be there!” my mother informed me, as if my arrogant brother Sonny and his obscenely pregnant wife were some kind of enticement.
I gave a silent inner groan. Once Ma got it in her head that her family was coming together for Sunday dinner, there was no excuse, short of emergency brain surgery, that could get me out of going. “Family comes first,” she was fond of saying to me and my brothers. And I knew she was right. Only it made it difficult sometimes to compete in New York City, where it often seemed as if no one had parents at all.
“You’re bringing Kirk, right?”
“Um, he’s going out of town for the weekend,” I said.
“Oh, yeah?”
I could tell by the impressed tone of her voice that she assumed it was on business. And since Kirk did make semifrequent trips to see clients, I decided not to burst her bubble just yet. After all, Kirk had met my family before. Hell, he was practically an honorary member. The creep.
“Listen, Ma, I gotta go. Justin brought home this…couch,” I said, glancing down at the worn fabric once more, “and we need to move it out of the hall.”
“A couch? I thought you just got a couch.”
“We did. Justin is starting a collection.”
She laughed, as if anything Justin did was perfectly delightful. And as I clicked off the phone and glanced over at the cradle across the room, which there was no way in hell I could reach with this monstrosity in the way, I decided to summon my perfectly delightful roommate, who had since disappeared into his bedroom, probably to watch the Yankees game.
“JUSTIN!” I bellowed loud enough for the whole floor to hear.
“What’s up?” he said, popping his head out of the bedroom, a puzzled frown on his face. As if I were disturbing him.
“What do you mean, what’s up?” I said, slapping my hand on the couch and sending another load of dust into the air.
“Sheesh, I didn’t realize that couch was so dirty,” he said to my chorus of sneezes.
“Apparently there are a lot of things you don’t realize,” I said in frustration. “Like that we already have two couches. Like that I have to schlep out to Brooklyn Sunday night and still be up at five on Monday—”
“But you never go to bed any earlier than midnight. Even when you’re home.”
“That’s not the point!” I shouted.
Startled, Justin simply stared at me. “What is the point, then?”
“The point is…the point is…” My throat seized, and suddenly I burst out with, “Kirk is going to see his family this weekend.”
“So why didn’t you tell your mother that you’re going with him?”
“Because I’m not going with him.”
“Oh,” he replied, and I could tell by his confused expression that he still wasn’t getting it.
“He didn’t ask me to go.”
“Oh,” he said, his tone implying that it all made sense to him now.
“Shouldn’t he have asked me to go?” I asked, clutching the phone receiver in my lap.
Justin seemed to consider this for a moment. “Did you want to go?”
I sighed. “That’s not the point.” Maybe men were thicker than I realized. “The point is, we have been dating almost two years and I have yet to meet his parents, despite the fact that he has been to my mother’s house in Brooklyn more times than I can count.”
“Brooklyn is a lot closer than—where’s he from again? Brookline?”
