The Christmas Kid

The Waiting Game

EVERYBODY AGREED THAT THE best fruit and vegetable store in that neighborhood was run by Teddy Caravaggio. In the summer, the stands and bins outside the store were plump with the products of the earth: oranges, grapes, apples, and melons, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and leeks. The garlic was moist and thick; the basil was always fresh. Teddy’s array of greens and reds and purples seemed lavish and extravagant on that avenue of redbrick old-law tenements.

His customers arrived from the farthest reaches of the neighborhood and some even came back after they had moved to Flatbush and Bay Ridge. When the A&P opened its giant store, Teddy continued to flourish, six days a week, from eight in the morning until eight at night. His prices were a little higher than they were in the supermarkets, but his goods had been chosen by a human hand, not hauled to market by a corporation. All the women of the neighborhood knew this and shopped at Teddy’s with a certain passion. All except Catherine Novak.

“The tomatoes at Teddy’s are beautiful this week, Catherine,” her neighbor, Mrs. Trevor, would say. “Jim would love them.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Trevor,” Catherine would say. “But the A&P’s more convenient.”

Nothing was made of this. In that neighborhood of working people, the few who took time to notice simply dismissed Catherine Novak’s little boycott as a mysterious failure of taste. They all kept going to Teddy’s. One reason for his excellent reputation was that Teddy gave his produce the kind of attention that could only be called love. Some of the women remembered coming into the empty store and hearing Teddy whispering to the tomatoes or the melons. And he gave the store his total attention. Altar boys, rising for the six o’clock Mass, could see Teddy arriving at the store in his old Plymouth to unload the boxes of produce. He’d already spent two hours at the market. Arguing, haggling, choosing. The store had his complete fidelity. He lived alone in one large room in the back, where he listened at night to opera on the Italian radio station while hand-lettering the small signs that he would place in the morning among his beloved parsley, plums, celery, and artichokes.

Nobody ever asked why Teddy Caravaggio lived alone; it was his choice, after all, like the priesthood, and his choice had certainly granted benefits to the neighborhood. In fact, nobody really knew Teddy Caravaggio outside the store. He was a thickset, blocky man, with black eyebrows and thinning hair. He never went to church, and had been too old for World War II and so was not a member of the American Legion or the VFW. Teddy existed only in the context of his wonderful store; he was what he did.

Then one morning in the fall of the year, Catherine Novak’s husband, Jim, fell over at his desk in a Wall Street brokerage house. He was dead on arrival at Beekman Downtown Hospital, and the news shocked the neighborhood. He was, after all, only forty-three, a tall, good-looking Swede. Cops, firemen, ironworkers, and longshoremen might die young, victims of the risks of their trades. Wall Street guys were supposed to die in bed. Even the low-level guys. The wake at Mike Smith’s funeral parlor was packed with mourners; the funeral filled the church; and everyone said that Catherine Novak and her three children faced the ordeal with courage and dignity. If they cried, they did not cry before an audience.

A month after the funeral, the VFW and the American Legion combined forces to throw a beer racket at Prospect Hall for the benefit of Jim Novak’s wife and children. The great hall was filled early, the beer flowed, whiskey bottles and setups crowded the tables, and the band played old songs. Catherine Novak sat with her neighbors at a table near the front of the hall. And then, a few hours after the racket had begun, Teddy Caravaggio appeared at the door. He was wearing a new blue suit and new black shoes. His face gleamed. His thinning gray hair had been freshly cut.

He entered the hall hesitantly, even shyly, and eased over to the crowded bar. The men didn’t know him very well, but the women started coming over, happy to see him. A few were surprised, because they knew that Catherine Novak didn’t patronize Teddy’s store, but they were pleased that he had come in a show of neighborhood solidarity with the grieving widow. He said his hellos, murmured his regrets, sipped a beer. And all the while, he looked through the gathering nicotine haze at Catherine Novak.

Just before midnight, he walked down the length of the hall, staying close to the walls, and came over to her.

“Hello, Catherine,” he said.

“Why, Teddy,” she said. “How nice of you to come.”

“Like to dance?”

She looked around uneasily, her hands moving awkwardly. The tables were empty as dancers moved to a tune called “It’s All In the Game.” She smiled, tentatively, and said: “Well, sure.”

They went out to the crowded floor and began to dance. Teddy moved gracefully, but maintained a discreet distance.

“I’m sorry what happened, Catherine,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do, you know, give a holler.”

“Thanks, Teddy.”

There was an uneasy moment. Then Teddy said: “I never thought I’d dance with you again. It’s hard to believe.”

“I never thought you’d talk to me again.”

“Me, neither.”

“You’re not angry with me?” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a little angry,” Teddy said. “But not too much. Not like I was.” He paused. “A long time ago.”

“Yes,” she said. The band ended the first tune, and started playing “Because of You.”

“I’m sorry Jim died,” Teddy said. “But you know, while he was alive he was the luckiest guy in the neighborhood.”

“Teddy, please don’t talk like that.”

“It’s what I believe, Catherine,” he said. “Sometimes I used to come home from the market in the morning, and I’d go out of my way just to pass your house. Sometimes I’d stop at the corner, and I’d look up. And the lights’d be on, and I’d say to myself, look, there’s a real life up there. They live a real life, Jim and Catherine, with kids making noise in the morning and bacon frying and the radio on and everybody getting dressed. I’d see Jim go past the store sometimes in the summer with the kids, and they’d have a baseball bat and gloves, and they’d be going to the park to play ball, and I’d want to cry. Sometimes I’d see you go by, too, with a baby carriage, or on the bus at Christmas, or in the car with Jim and the kids going to the beach. And I’d be sick for a day, or a week, or a month.”

She squeezed his hands. “Teddy, I—”

“Why didn’t you ever come to the store?” he said. “All those years, you never came, even once.”

“I thought that would make it worse. I didn’t want to hurt you, Teddy. I did it once. I didn’t want to do it again.”

“Well, maybe you were right. ’Cause you hurt me real good, Catherine. Worse than a punch. Worse than a bullet.”

“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing, and it was wrong for you.”

The ballad ended; an uptempo Lindy began. Catherine disengaged her hand from Teddy’s and started to walk off the suddenly jumping, pulsating dance floor. He followed behind her. At the table she turned to him.

“Well, thank you, Teddy, for the dance,” she said, forcing a smile. Her features had thickened in twenty-five years; her hair was scratched with gray. Teddy faced her, started to say something, then abruptly stopped. He looked around, as if certain that everybody was watching him; but the beer racket was roaring now, and nobody was looking their way.

“Will you at least come in the store once in a while?” he said.

“Of course,” she said. “I know it’s a wonderful store. Everybody knows that.”

“I gave it everything I had.”

“I’ll come by,” she said, and smiled. Looking directly at Teddy’s aging, decent face.

“Well,” she said. “Thanks again.”

He started to leave, then turned and took her hand.

“I told you I’d wait for you the rest of my life,” Teddy Caravaggio said. “And I did.”

“I know.”

His face trembled, he squeezed her hand, then released it and said, “I’m still waiting.”

Then he turned and walked away, his back straight, looking proud, easing his way through the crowd to the door.