The Last Romantics(64)

“Come outside, asshole,” Joe said then, and Donny whistled.

“No,” Luna whispered to Joe. “Don’t.”

“You better fuck her good. For her, you gotta be a man,” Donny said, and laughed.

Joe swung, but he was not a fighter. He didn’t gather himself or aim or steady his breathing; he clenched his hand into a fist and directed it with all the force of his six-foot-four frame into Donny’s head. They stood two feet apart, the distance of sparring boxers, and had the fist landed, it would have toppled Donny. But Donny ducked smoothly away from Joe, the smile never leaving his face. Joe’s weight followed his fist, and the momentum turned him fully around and then slammed him down toward the floor, where he sprawled on his back, his arms and legs tangled in fallen barstools.

“Joe!” Luna screamed, and the entire bar hushed. She crouched to him. “So stupid! You are so stupid!”

“I’m calling the police,” said the bartender. “Miss, get your boyfriend out of here.”

Donny was backing away into the crowd. As he did, he locked eyes with Luna and nodded. A sense of futility gripped her then, the idea that she had already lost. Donny knew the truth: he was all she deserved. She was a twenty-five-year-old bartender, alone, her apartment so small, her tip money sucked away by rent and drink and clothes and food. Maybe Luna would return to Donny after all. The familiarity, the comfort, the ease of giving in. Maybe she would disappear just like Mariana.

Joe pulled himself up to standing, and Luna slapped him across the face and left the bar. When he followed her outside, she slapped him again, first across the face and then against his stomach, his shoulders and chest, not with her full strength but hard enough.

“Why did you do that? Who do you think you are?” she shouted. Dimly she was aware that a restless Saturday-night street crowd was watching them with the halfway interest of people who are drunk and bored and waiting for something better to happen to them.

“Stop it, Luna,” said Joe, holding up his hands to shield himself. “I’m sorry. It’s just— The way he looked at you. I couldn’t help it.”

Luna stopped hitting.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

*

The elevator deposited them at the penthouse floor. Wall sconces made of smoky glass and shaped like flaming torches lined the elevator landing. Luna’s heels clicked on pale gray marble, and she wondered why Joe had never brought her here before. Joe took her hand, and she leaned into him. The scene with Donny faded, a reverse Polaroid of an image undone. With the warmth of Joe’s arm around her shoulders, the night seemed to Luna like a hurricane, some natural disaster that neither could be blamed for, that together they had survived.

Joe opened the door, and they stepped into darkness. He didn’t turn on the lights. The far wall was all window, and the bright gray of night light filled the room, reflecting off the television screen and the glass of photo frames lining a bookshelf, so that for an instant the room seemed full of winking eyes. Luna’s sight adjusted, focused, and there they were: framed photos of Joe’s three sisters, Renee, Caroline, Fiona, and their mother, Antonia, whom they all called Noni for reasons that Luna still did not understand. Photos of children, too, Joe’s nephew, Louis, and two nieces, Beatrix and Lily. Twins, he’d told her.

It was only then that Luna noticed the piles of clutter crowding the floor and the tabletop, the boxes stacked against the walls. Oh, she thought, so this is what he’s been hiding. She said nothing about the mess and went straight for the photos.

“Who is who?” she asked. “Tell me.”

Joe picked a frame off the shelf and angled it for Luna to see. Here Joe was younger, thinner, his hair thick and brown. “This is Renee, the oldest,” he said, pointing to a tall, slim woman with bare shoulders, even teeth, a wry smile. “Caroline, middle sister. She’s the one with kids.” Caroline was pale, with pink cheeks, a bright orange shirt, mouth open as though she was laughing or calling out to the photographer. “And here’s Fiona, the youngest. She writes that blog I told you about.” Fiona’s hair reached to her shoulders, curly and a rich dark brown, and her face was plump, her body easily double the width of Renee’s. “She’s lost a lot of weight since then,” Joe said. “She’s almost a different person now. I haven’t looked at this in a long time.” He said the last almost to himself and tilted the picture more toward the light. “This was Louis’s birthday, I think. Louis, my nephew, Caroline’s son. This was his fifth—no, sixth birthday. The twins were still toddlers. We were all back in Bexley.” He started to place the photo back on the shelf, but Luna stopped him.

“May I?” she asked and he handed it to her.

“Sure. Let’s go sit on the balcony. Light’s better out there anyhow.” He took her hand and carefully led her through the mess of the room, out the sliding glass doors, and into the cool, fresh night. “I’ll make us some drinks,” he said, and turned back inside.

Luna studied the photo in her hands. The sisters. She was younger than them all, though in this photo Fiona seemed about Luna’s age. There was something in Fiona’s stance that interested Luna, a forcefulness, an aggression, and also a sadness in her eyes. The other two—Renee with her confidence and polish, Caroline with her kids and long hair—seemed members of distinct female tribes that Luna had seen before: women with money and careers, women with children and husbands. These two would undoubtedly decide that she was too young or too poor or too something for Joe. Only Fiona seemed like she might accept Luna.