Page 50 of Ricardo

Me: Physically, yes. Spiritually, I am being bullied by cardboard boxes.

Dante: Tragic. Do you need rescue or moral support?

Me: Define rescue.

Dante: Lunch. I’m starving and you’re probably eating crackers over the sink like a gremlin.

I look at the crumbs near the sink.

Me: First of all, toast.

Dante: So yes.

I smile down at the phone.

Me: Yes.

Dante: Twenty minutes. Usual place?

Usual place. Such simple words should not mean so much, but they do.

Me: Twenty minutes.

The restaurant is not elegant, which is exactly why I love it.

It is a narrow Italian place tucked between a dry cleaner and a bookstore, with red awning fabric faded by weather and a front window crowded with basil plants. The tables are too close together. The chairs wobble. The owner acts personally offended when anyone orders a salad without pasta, and the bread comes out warm in a basket lined with a towel that has probably seen more family arguments than most therapists.

Dante and I found it years ago when he came to Chicago to visit me, and we were both avoiding our families in different ways. He declared it the best place in Chicago because no one here cared who our fathers were.

When I arrive, he is already at a table near the back, wearing dark jeans, a gray sweater, and the kind of careless smile that has earned him forgiveness for things since he was old enough to talk.

He stands when he sees me.

For a second, I am twenty again and in Naples, sunburned and overconfident, following him down a narrow street while he promises he knows a place with the best sfogliatelle in the city. He did not know. We got lost for an hour. It remains one of my favorite afternoons.

Then he pulls me into a hug, and the memory breaks into the present.

“You look terrible,” he says against my hair.

I laugh, muffled against his shoulder. “Gee, thanks. I missed you, too.”

He lets me go but keeps his hands on my shoulders long enough to study my face. “No, seriously. Are we talking regular terrible, or I-should-be-concerned terrible?”

“Regular terrible.”

“Your regular terrible has range.”

“So I’ve been told.”

His eyes narrow slightly. “By who?”

I slide into the chair across from him. “Do not start.”

“I haven’t started. You would know if I started.”

“I’m aware.”

He sits, still watching me too closely. That is Dante’s problem. He jokes so people forget how much he notices. I used to think that was just charm. Now I understand it is an inheritance.