“Who’s your super?” Vin is grouching. “That light fixture is dangerous. Call him and—You know what? Never mind. I’ll come back tomorrow with my tools and fix it. Just don’t touch it in the meantime. Hey, Fabi, you like Messi or Reynaldo?”
Fabi jumps at being directly addressed by the frowning giant washing his hands at his Abuela’s sink. “Oh! Um. Messi.”
“Of course. He’s the greatest soccer player in the world. I would say in history but then there’s Pelé and Marado—”
“Maradona!” Fabi finishes his sentence, brightening up quite a bit. “Do you play soccer?”
“I did in middle school and my little brother did all through high school. But I didn’t keep up with it, so now I’m old and bad.”
This makes Fabi laugh.
“You have a soccer ball or should I bring one tomorrow?” Vin asks. “After I fix the light fixture, we can go down to the park and kick the ball around, if that’s okay with Abuela.”
It’s moments like these that put Vin’s young adulthood in context for me. He’s only six years older than Raff, but that means they were eleven and five when their dad died. Which means that Vin has spent a lot of time kicking a soccer ball around with a kid Fabi’s age.
“I have two soccer balls,” Fabi says quietly, his eyes going to his Abuela to make sure this plan is good with her. He’s already bouncing on his toes.
“Good luck,” says Esther to Vin. “He’s fast. Like a mosquito.” She does a buzzy-buzzy-mosquito finger as she walks over to Fabi and gets it stuck in his armpit, tickling him to within an inch of his life.
“Abuela!” he gasps, hysterical and weakly falling halfway to the floor.
“Wash your hands,” she says to him. “And you two, either make yourselves a plate or scram. I’m hungry.”
We give hugs and waves and excuse ourselves out the door, and Vin gives Fabi a fist bump.
I’m happy and overfull with things to tease Vin about. I poke him in the elevator. “You want me to go up there and talk to him?” I drop my voice low to mimic his.
His ears are pink again. But he puts his palms up and shrugs. “What?”
“Big Vinny DeLuca was gonna go up to the neighbor’s house and list his options for him?”
He’s laughing. “I wasn’t going tothreatenhim, I was going to negotiate quiet hours for her!”
“With that beard, everything is a threat.”
His hand goes up to his facial hair. “A little old lady can’t practice her trumpet because the asshole upstairs is making a big deal about it? Come on. You can’t tell me you weren’t mad about that.”
“Well, sure, but this is life in New York City. I was mad but I wasn’t about to go knock on the guy’s door.”
“Good.” He’s alarmed. “You should not be knocking on a stranger’s door.”
“You’re the only one who offered that!” I’m throwing up my arms, mock exasperated. I soften. “Thank you for helping her. You don’t have to go back tomorrow.”
He shrugs. “She’s your friend. And I want more horchata. It was good.”
We step off the elevator and back onto the street. I check my phone for train status. “Oh, it looks like the 4/ 5/ 6 is back up and running. We can catch it at 96th.”
He nods and we start strolling down Lex. There’s thetiniest little bubble of disappointment in my chest. I sort of wish I hadn’t checked my phone and we were retracing our steps across the park instead of walking to the train.
Walking with Vin through the park felt like a little vacation from our normal lives. I want more.
Fifteen
“So,” Vin says,clearing his throat as we walk toward the train. “You don’t like the beard?”
I turn toward him sharply. His hands are in his pockets and he’s not looking at me.
“Oh. I—”
