Page 6 of A Winter in New York

“My kind of show,” Charlie said, holding his smoke to the waiting lips of a girl leaning against him. “Hey, isn’t that your brother?”

Felipe followed the direction of Charlie’s nod and lifted his hand in greeting. Viv took advantage of the distraction to tip the disgusting contents of her glass into a huge potted plant behind her and then turned back to find herself face-to-face with a stranger.

“This is my brother, Santo. I got all the looks, obviously,” Felipe said, droll. “Santo, this is Vivien. She’s from London, don’t you know?” He delivered the last line in a terrible English accent, making Viv sigh and roll her eyes as she stuck her hand out on impulse.

“It’s just Viv,” she said, gazing up into Santo’s face and liking what she saw there.

His surprised gaze held hers as his fingers closed around her hand, and Viv floundered for something else to say as she registered the warmth of his touch, the slant of his cheekbones, the dimple in his chin when he smiled.

“Hi, just Viv,” he laughed and glanced at her empty glass. “Can I get you another drink?”

Relieved to find Felipe had already turned away to talk to someone else, Viv nodded. “I’ll come with you to the bar.”

—

Santo wasn’t a fanof these kinds of places. He’d made an exception to come and meet Felipe’s latest band since they were playing so close to home, even though he knew he’d feel awkward the entire time among the groupies that hung around them like cigarette smoke. It was neither his fault nor Felipe’s, they were just very different people. When the Belotti family gene pool had been divvied up, Santo had been handed steadfastness and loyalty while Felipe got flippancy and skittishness, his calm and serious approach to life serving only to highlight his brother’s caprice.

“What would you like?” he said, turning to look at Viv, already feeling like he’d phrased the question too formally. He’d happily take a little of his brother’s ease with girls right now, for sure.

“White wine, please,” she said, shooting him a shy smile.

He ordered himself a beer too, and then he didn’t know what to say or do so he just met her smile with one of his own.

“I’ve never met anyone with bluer eyes than you,” he said, without thinking. “Like the sky on the brightest day of summer.”

She stared at him. “That’s the best thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He found that hard to believe. Viv was one of the most arresting people he’d ever laid eyes on in his life. It wasn’t just those bluer-than-blue eyes and her unusual heart-shaped face; she was a good foot shorter than him but seemed to crackle and fizz with more than her fair share of energy.

“Are you younger or older?” she said, nodding across the club toward Felipe.

“He’s two years older than me,” Santo said. “Not that you’d guess, huh?” He gestured down at his short-sleeved striped shirt. He’d tried to wear his coolest stuff and still wound up feeling like someone’s dad when he’d made his way through the club in search of his brother.

Viv tipped her head on one side and studied him. “I like it. It reminds me of a deckchair on Southend beach.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but the fact she’d said she liked it was enough.

“How about you?” he said. “Brothers, sisters?”

She knocked back half of her wine and shook her head. “Just me on my lonesome.”

“Your mom and dad must miss you a lot,” he said, thinking of his folks back at the gelateria, how much they missed Felipe even though they had Santo around to take the sting out of their eldest son’s wanderlust. “Although sometimesFelipe makes me wonder if I might have preferred to be an only child too,” he said, a laugh in his eye and a teasing grin on his face.

Viv drank the rest of her wine and slid the empty glass onto the bar, then looked up at him with a ponderous expression on her face.

“Felipe is nice enough, but he was wrong earlier,” she said. “He didn’t get all the looks.”

Okay, so that was an unexpected turn. He liked that she kept him on his toes. “Another drink?”

She shook her head and laughed, her dark hair bouncing around her jaw. “Better not, Louis will kill me if I forget the lyrics.”

Stunned as he was by her, Santo had somehow forgotten she was in the band. “Do you ever get nervous before you perform?”

She shook her head. “Never. This is what I love to do, and I do anything I love with my whole being. Will you stay to watch? This is our last show in New York. We head out for the rest of the tour in a couple of days, so you should help send us off with a bang.”

He’d actually planned to duck out before the show because it wasn’t his sort of music, but he was surprised to find himself wanting to hear her sing, to stay in her addictive orbit a while longer. He thought of Maria, the girl from down the block he’d been dating for the last few weeks, who’d let him kiss her at the movies just three nights ago and had invited him to lunch this coming Tuesday with her mother. He’d never been someone to lead girls on—that was Felipe’s ball game. In truth, he hadn’t had many girlfriends, he was always too busy at the gelateria, but Maria was starting to feellike someone he could see a future with. Still, no promises had been made, and now his head was full of blue-sky eyes, his palm still electrified from the touch of Vivien’s hand.

“Sure, I’ll stay,” he said, as if there had been any chance he might not once she asked.

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