Published in Upstreet<\/em> in 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the cramped staircase, Irene and Amy bicker over whose turn it is. Last weekend Amy took the smug family of four with the fair-haired children who wailed as she conveyed her regrets from the chef, who declined to make spaghetti and meatballs \u201cjust this once.\u201d Irene, however, suffered a double whammy yesterday evening: a gentleman\u2019s 80th birthday celebration (\u201cCan we have that without the peppers? And not too heavy on the cream?\u201d) plus a table of gnocchi-eaters and water-drinkers in town for a road race. Amy is up.<\/p>\n \u201cShit.\u201d She sticks her head into the main dining room and nods at the hostess.<\/p>\n \u201cGood girl.\u201d Irene pats her arm and trips back up the stairs, her clogs hammering at the treads like typewriter keys.<\/p>\n The subjects of their fight wait patiently by the hostess stand. He is thirtyish, smooth-skinned and a touch rumpled, with light-brown hair that bristles near his crown and lumps from a wire hanger in the shoulders of his corduroy blazer. The woman\u2019s hands lie folded atop her belly, an arcing dome pushing against her navy wrap dress. Amy watches from the stairs as the hostess presses the menus to her own abdomen, taut in clinging black fabric, and leads them with swaying hips to table seventeen.<\/p>\n Amy calculates and decides not to rush to them. She runs up the eleven steps to the upstairs dining room to take another order, then runs down to the kitchen to place it. She brings a wine list to the party of four in the corner and stands by as they debate Rhone versus Bordeaux. She conveys three complicated cocktail requests to the bartender before finally smoothing down her hair and greeting her newest arrivals.<\/p>\n \u201cGood evening.\u201d She offers a bare hint of a smile \u2014 this is not the Ground Round, after all. \u201cMy name is Amy. Can I start you off with something from the bar?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, no,\u201d the woman says pleasantly. \u201cNot for eight more weeks!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSir?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust water.\u201d He rubs at a patch of pink skin, newly shaven, near his jawbone. \u201cSolidarity, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSparkling or mineral?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTap.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGreat.\u201d She signals to the busboy, hovering at the edge of the room with pitcher in hand, fetches her drinks from the bar, and runs back up the eleven steps. Sabato Sera is in an old tenement in the city\u2019s Italian section, and the staircases are rickety and narrow. The owners like to say the design is authentic. Irene likes to say that one day, they\u2019ll all die in a fire like immigrants in a factory.<\/p>\n When Amy returns to the kitchen, Naj is waiting. Over six feet tall, the manager keeps his charcoal slacks and finely-woven shirts hanging in the coat closet, to avoid carrying them back and forth to the apartment he shares with a rotating cast of family members from Marrakech.<\/p>\n \u201cEh-mee,\u201d he growls. \u201cWhat the fuck you doing at seventeen?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNaj, I didn\u2019t even offer<\/em> them tap water.\u201d<\/p>\n He shakes his head. \u201cSo she is pregnant. Why he can\u2019t drink some wine?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe said it\u2019s to keep her company.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPah! Pussy-whipped. You get them out fast, Eh-mee.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo starter!\u201d he calls after her. \u201cNo dessert!\u201d<\/p>\n At table seventeen, the couple\u2019s hands are linked across the table, he tenderly circling her palm with his thumb. When Amy clears her throat the woman snatches her hand away and buries it in her lap. Her husband\u2019s empty fingers fumble for the menu lying across his place setting. He has questions, he says: where do they get their shellfish, and are the eggs in the carbonara pasteurized? A shadow creases the center of his forehead.<\/p>\n \u201cOrder whatever you want,\u201d his wife says. \u201cI keep telling you, it\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I want to be able to share with you.\u201d He turns to Amy. \u201cYou can ask the chef for us, can\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n Amy has worked at Sabato Sera since the day after her college graduation three years ago. She knows who provides the fish and meat and produce, when each pallet was delivered, and if Naj took the best cuts home. She tilts her head winningly. \u201cOf course!\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ll go speak to the chef right away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGreat,\u201d he says. \u201cIn the meantime, I think we\u2019re ready to order some appetizers.\u201d<\/p>\n They ask for the buffalo mozzarella sampler and the stuffed figs. On her way to the kitchen, another server crashes through the doors, a plate of grilled calamari held aloft. The sight of each whorled leg, pebbled and shiny with olive oil, makes her stomach churn. She pushes into the heat and steam toward the back door, and sticks her head into the cool air of the alley.<\/p>\n Irene is leaning against the brick wall, a cigarette in her left hand and a bottle of very good Italian wine in her right. \u201cMy last group at forty-two left me the rest of this. You want a sip?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, thanks.\u201d Amy looks at the label. It\u2019s a Barolo from Piedmont, one she has wanted to try.<\/p>\n \u201cThat diet, still? You\u2019re so good.\u201d<\/p>\n She has been refusing alcohol and seafood for weeks as her strange, changing body rejects them, protecting her as if it mattered. This has unfortunately coincided with an uptick in business, and Naj, feeling beneficent, has treated them to the remains of the day\u2019s oysters at the end of more than one night. Amy had her first oyster on a Saturday evening, six months into her job. Although she didn\u2019t enjoy it, the pleasure of telling her disgusted parents about it prompted her to try another, and later, another, until she grew to like the cool pulsation on her tongue.<\/p>\n \u201cThe diet\u2019s not so hard,\u201d Amy lies. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know how much longer I\u2019m going to stick with it.\u201d Even as she says it, she can count the two weeks remaining to the very day. After, the price rises, as does the risk.<\/p>\n \u201cI could never.\u201d Irene tilts back the bottle. \u201cGod, this is good. You\u2019re sure?\u201d<\/p>\n Amy nods.<\/p>\n \u201cMore for me, then.\u201d She takes a long swig and rolls the Barolo juicily around her mouth before swallowing. Amy lets the door swing shut and heads back into the clatter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The party of six orders with the abandon of an expense account. They have two rounds of cocktails before the man at the head of the table asks to see the sommelier. On the stairs, the two twenty-dollar bills she keeps folded in her sock rub uncomfortably against her flesh. Hands full, she leans against the banister and shifts the money around with her opposite toe. The sommelier passes on his way to the cellar, and he whispers the price of the wine they have ordered. After delivering a platter of starters to another table she looks for Naj to share the news. He is by the hostess stand, peering unhappily at the floor chart.<\/p>\n \u201cThe group at twenty-five just ordered three bottles of the Spinetta.\u201d<\/p>\n Naj brightens. \u201cReally? Very good.\u201d<\/p>\n He checks the wine list to confirm the markup, and Amy takes advantage of his happy distraction to shift her cab fare into her other sock. She doesn\u2019t carry a wallet to work, preferring not to leave it in the staff room, and her black trousers don\u2019t have pockets. Steve would pick her up, of course; he is bewildered by her recent withdrawal. But since everything has been confirmed \u2014 not merely her condition, but her decision \u2014 she cannot trust herself to speak to him, which means the last train back to the suburbs and her parents\u2019 house. A taxi in an emergency.<\/p>\n Naj nods as he reads the figure on the menu. \u201cIt will make up for pussy-whipped at seventeen.\u201d He leans in. \u201cI saw starters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJesus, Naj. Should I tell them we\u2019re out of appetizers?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d He snaps the menu shut. \u201cDon\u2019t tell them about souffl\u00e9, either.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple is wiping their plates with crusts of bread on her return. \u201cThat was delicious,\u201d the man says.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so glad you enjoyed it,\u201d Amy says. She answers his earlier questions about the shellfish and the eggs, and asks if they\u2019ve decided on their entrees.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to have the rabbit pappardelle,\u201d the woman says. \u201cEven though I know it\u2019ll give me heartburn!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt might be worth it,\u201d Amy says. \u201cIt\u2019s one of my favorites.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs rabbit okay?\u201d the man asks. His eyes are a soft brown, ringed with blue-gray circles. \u201cI mean, is it safe and everything?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHoney.\u201d The woman places her hand on his forearm and tries to smile. \u201cYou\u2019re being silly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just saying, there are additional risks, particularly in the case of a geriatric\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t say that!\u201d<\/p>\n Her black brows knit and release in a spasm of anger. The man shrinks from her wife\u2019s cry, retreating into folds of corduroy. Amy takes a tiny step back. \u201cYou\u2019re out of water. I\u2019m so sorry. Let me take care of that for you.\u201d<\/p>\n The busboy follows her to seventeen and fills their glasses. The man\u2019s head is bowed, his eyes fixed on his thumbs, crossed one atop the other. The woman looks at Amy and forces a laugh. Her belly fits neatly under the tabletop.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s our first, and he\u2019s nervous. But I\u2019m only thirty-seven. Technically, the doctors classify expectant mothers over thirty-five as geriatrics<\/em>, which is ridiculous, right? I mean, do I look geriatric to you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course not,\u201d her husband says, head down.<\/p>\n She laughs again, a series of hollow peals from high in her throat. Amy does not laugh with her, because she assumes the man is paying for dinner. Instead she presses her lips together and makes a sympathetic face before asking for his order. She has a feeling that it will be osso bucco, which takes twenty-five minutes. It is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each guest in the party of six plunges into his plate as soon as it is set down, not waiting for fresh pepper or grated cheese. When she asks if everything is all right, the man at the head of the table nods with a face packed full of meat and sauce. They have spent close to seven hundred dollars. She signals to the busboy to refill their water glasses, and starts to hum as she reaches the stairs. Irene meets her at the bottom.<\/p>\n \u201cLook at them. Not here, go by the bar. Tack-y.\u201d<\/p>\n Amy sneaks a glance at her couple. The woman\u2019s head is tipped back, her eyelids half-closed. Her chest rises as she inhales, and falls as she releases a sigh that makes other diners turn to look. When Amy scuttles over to the bar, she sees what was concealed by her vantage point at the foot of the stairs: the woman\u2019s left shoe is off and her foot is in her husband\u2019s lap. He kneads her sole with his thumbs, shoulders rounded in concentration.<\/p>\n Amy gapes. She cannot remember actually witnessing a foot massage outside of the movies; her parents, the only real couple she knew for the first eighteen years of her life, watched television at night in separate recliners set too far apart for her mother\u2019s leg, dotted with freckles and webbed with veins, to stretch between them. An elderly woman, waiting for the coat-check girl to retrieve her wrap, follows Amy\u2019s gaze and clucks. \u201cHow inappropriate.\u201d She purses her lips. \u201cSomeone should speak to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Naj, thankfully, is not nearby. Instead of seeking him out, Amy goes back to the upstairs dining room to deliver the bill to the group of six. They are already pushing back their chairs and brushing crumbs from their shirtfronts. The man picks up the small black folder and stuffs some money into it. He waves away her offer to get change and wishes her a good night. They lumber off. She lets the busboy begin clearing the plates before picking up the check. The bill has indeed come to just over seven hundred dollars. He has left her fifty.<\/p>\n Amy presses a fingertip into the corner of each eye before any tears can come. The hostess, being judicious, will not give her another large group tonight, She will have only tourists, the groups of two or three who order the cheapest pasta on the menu and a single glass of wine each. She whimpers softly and tells the Moroccan busboy that she is going out for some air.<\/p>\n In the staff room, on the mobile phone tucked into her coat pocket, a message from Steve is waiting: he will drive her home after work. This is enormously kind, in a sense; her parents\u2019 house on the South Shore is forty minutes from his downtown apartment. However, his family lives three streets over from hers, and if he brings her back tonight he will spend the night at their house and participate in the Sunday morning ritual she has witnessed: a quick cup of coffee, hugs and handshakes in the Good Shepherd parking lot, and later, breakfast over the newspaper, with more coffee, and, because Steve has come home for the day, corned beef hash. His mother makes eggs the way each person wants them, even soft-boiled. How could someone from such a family cut short his first opportunity to start his own? Amy touches the bills in her sock again, and slips her phone back into her pocket.<\/p>\n Naj bursts into the room, filling the small space with his broad frame and his anger. \u201cShe is fucking barefoot in my restaurant!\u201d he shouts. \u201cAt the dinner table!\u201d Amy shrinks back into the corner. He points at her with a stabbing finger.<\/p>\n \u201cI tell you no starters, and then starters. I tell you get them out fast, and then osso fucking bucco!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe ordered it! I didn\u2019t recommend it!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou tell him we out!\u201d Naj pinches his face into a smirk and pitches his voice high. \u201c\u2018I am so sorry sir, but the kitchen just sent out the last one. May I suggest the tenderloin?\u2019 This is what you do! You lie!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll right!\u201d The familiar late-evening ache has settled into her lower back and her knees, and the humiliation of the fifty-dollar tip burns; it is too much for her to summon up rage. \u201cI\u2019ll make sure they don\u2019t get dessert.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am serious, Amy.\u201d Naj adjusts his shirt cuffs, which have slipped up, exposing dark, matted forearms. \u201cThey stay, maybe you don\u2019t come in next Saturday. Tuesday, yes? Doesn\u2019t matter if they stay all night, Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n Tuesday is restaurant purgatory, peopled with stingy diners and frantic wait staff, all bubbling with the false enthusiasm and desperate efficiency that they hope will propel them into a weekend shift. Amy forces herself to look Naj in the eye.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re leaving.\u201d She edges past him to the door. \u201cI promise.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cEverything was just so good,\u201d the woman croons. Her shiny, pointy-toed pumps lie abandoned by her chair. The name engraved on the leather insole is one Amy recognizes from celebrity style magazines. \u201cYou were right about the pappardelle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad you enjoyed it. And the osso bucco?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDelicious.\u201d Relaxed by the meal, he slouches expansively. \u201cReally filling, though.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so pleased you\u2019ve had a nice evening with us. If there\u2019s nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t eat another thing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cActually,\u201d the woman begins.<\/p>\n Amy begins to miss the sounds of Sabato Sera on a Saturday evening \u2014 the screech of forks against plates, the thump of large white platters set on smooth white linen, the laughter that pours out with the dregs of a bottle of wine \u2014 even now, as she is still among them. In this woman\u2019s contradiction lies the crisp quiet of a weeknight at the restaurant, a cache of crumpled bills growing at a frighteningly slow pace, the price of the procedure inching higher and time slipping away. She cannot bring herself to lie, as Naj would, and say that the kitchen has run out of dessert.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m in the mood for something sweet, I think.\u201d The woman blushes. \u201cThat souffl\u00e9 looks absolutely decadent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut those eggs aren\u2019t cooked!\u201d her husband exclaims.<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s having this baby?\u201d<\/p>\n The woman\u2019s shrill, sharp tone contorts her face in surprise; the words have not come out as she intended. Amy presses her palms together behind her back and prays, to God and the restaurant gods and whatever God Naj believes in.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he mumbles. \u201cHoney, I didn\u2019t mean-\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have no idea! All this time it\u2019s always been me. The temperatures, and the tests, and the waiting! Do you know how many months it\u2019s been since we started this?\u201d<\/p>\n His neck rash glows against his paling skin. \u201cSeven, I thought?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThirty-two! I have been counting every day of every month for thirty-two months! I have been working and working at this for almost three years! And now,\u201d she hisses, \u201cnow that it\u2019s all fine you want to be Mister Know-It-All, Mister Expert! It\u2019s too goddamn late for you to know everything now!\u201d<\/p>\n Her chest above the dress\u2019s neckline shines with sweat. Ashen, he darts his eyes toward Amy.<\/p>\n \u201cSouffl\u00e9, then. Two.\u201d He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. \u201cWhatever she wants.\u201d<\/p>\n His nervous chuckle pains Amy. She knows this is not a jest and he colors, knowing that she knows. The impulse rises from her deepest reserves \u2014 of pity or of self-preservation, she cannot be sure.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019ve got a craving, you\u2019ve got a craving,\u201d she says. Then, for the first time to anyone: \u201cI\u2019m pregnant, myself.\u201d<\/p>\n She steels herself against failure: a glance at her bare ring finger, a clipped offer of congratulations. Worse, more fury. But the woman clasps her hands together, eyes shining. \u201cOh, my.\u201d Her breathing slows and her face softens. \u201cAre you really?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am. But I haven\u2019t told anyone else here. I\u2019m not even supposed to talk about it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow far along?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTen weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re almost there. After twelve weeks you\u2019re safe. In two more weeks you\u2019re safe.\u201d She lifts the napkin from her lap and dabs at her chest, then dips the corner into her water glass and touches it to her temples. \u201cIt\u2019s an awfully long twelve weeks, though, isn\u2019t it.\u201d<\/p>\n Amy watches the man carefully. The gray shadows have redrawn above his eyes. \u201cYeah,\u201d he whispers, and reaches across the table to take his wife\u2019s hand again. She threads her fingers through his.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll just get you a dessert menu,\u201d Amy murmurs. \u201cIn case you want to see the other options. The panna cotta\u2019s quite good.\u201d<\/p>\n They are still holding hands when she deposits the printed parchment at their side. As they review the selections she checks on her few remaining tables, delivering digestives and teas and friendly banter as quickly as she can without seeming brusque. If she closes her tabs before eleven, she will be able to take the train home instead of a taxi; a cab has become an unaffordable luxury. Irene is at the bar, waiting for a drink order, when Amy goes to fetch a cognac.<\/p>\n \u201cDid you get rid of them yet?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think so.\u201d<\/p>\n If she has read the husband correctly they will decline dessert, hoping that it goes some distance to getting her off the restaurant floor, and into a chair at home with a cup of tea and a baby book. Naj will stand by the door as the husband helps the wife into her maternity coat, and wave goodbye to them as they walk out onto the cool cobblestoned street. The idea should be comforting, but it leaves her feeling shamefully sad, as if, upon opening a long-awaited birthday present, the item beneath the wrapping turns out not to be what she hoped for.<\/p>\n She makes a full circle around the room, stalling, and returns.<\/p>\n Table seventeen is empty. Amy steadies herself with a hand on a chair. She looks to both sides, thinking that perhaps she has made a mistake, that they are one table away, smiling in blue and beige with a credit card in hand. They are not.<\/p>\n Amy wonders if she should just leave now, sneaking down to the staff room and out the kitchen door. She steps closer to seventeen for one more look, even peering under the table to see if the woman has merely gone to the bathroom and left her shoes. Nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cMiss Amy,\u201d a quiet voice says. The busboy holds out one of the small black leather folders with \u201cSabato Sera\u201d etched on it in silver letters. \u201cFor you.\u201d<\/p>\n She opens the folder and relief courses through her in waves that make her tremble, so that a few of the neat green bills flutter to the floor. A tiny, precise script covers the back of the credit card receipt.<\/p>\n \u201cDear Amy,\u201d the note reads. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to keep you, so we got the boy to bring us our check. Take care of yourself and get as much rest as you can! You\u2019re almost there! Best wishes, Dell and Isabella Anderson.\u201d<\/p>\n One hundred and seventy dollars, all for her, is tucked in the pocket. The unexpected high after the undeserved low conquers her. In the middle of the floor, with customers on slurping up their last bites of panna cotta, Amy begins to cry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The night\u2019s take is impressive, and when the last diners are ushered out the door, Naj sets several bottles of wine, open but unfinished, on the bar. Amy gets herself a ginger ale.<\/p>\n \u201cEh-mee.\u201d Naj makes a sad face. \u201cYou are angry at me, I think?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, Naj. It\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do it for your own good, you see?\u201d He pats her on the cheek. \u201cThey spend no money, and they badly behaved too. We don\u2019t need.\u201d<\/p>\n The cooks are coming out of the kitchen, reeking of sweat and beer. A small group has gathered around Irene, who is seated on a barstool, telling the kitchen staff about the Andersons.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd she\u2019s got her shoes off,\u201d Irene says. \u201cAnd he\u2019s going, \u2018Oh, honey, you must be tired. Oh, baby, want me to rub your feet?\u2019\u201d She pauses and looks at her audience. \u201cOf course she does, after a day of getting manicures and giving the maid instructions!\u201d<\/p>\n The cooks relish bad behavior; Irene accepts their laughter with a wine-stained grin. \u201cProbably lousy tippers, too,\u201d she adds. \u201cRight, Amy?\u201d<\/p>\n The faces turn to her, sleepy with liquor. Amy thinks of the couple, probably climbing into bed now, to chastely cuddle while watching late-night television \u2014 or, perhaps unchastely, make love. She wonders if it is better or worse with the baby between them, or merely different.<\/p>\n \u201cNot so bad. I don\u2019t think they were that rich, though. He didn\u2019t look it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA professor, probably, and those guys make bank. It just goes to show money can\u2019t buy manners.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was kind of cute, actually,\u201d Amy says. \u201cYour feet get tired when you\u2019re pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n Amy shrugs. \u201cMy mom told me.\u201d<\/p>\n The cooks turn away, disappointed, and Irene begins to regale them with another tale from the floor. Amy takes a gulp of ginger ale and thinks of Isabella Anderson. Imagine living in fear from week to week, wondering if each exertion, each bout of nausea, signaled a calamity. She considers her own experience, carting dishpans heavy with china up and down the stairs, staggering beneath the weight of starch-laden trays. Yet her body has held fast to the life growing in her, strong and resilient. Her feet, in fact, are not particularly tired, no more than anyone else\u2019s at the end of the shift.<\/p>\n The word geriatric<\/em> lingers, its consonants stringy and thick like mucous. She wonders if Isabella was so brittle before she was called that and told that her life, as measured by her ability to make new life, was nearing its end. It could not be; the woman Amy had glimpsed barefooted, breathy, voluptuous in her pleasure had not always been so fragile that a prohibited dessert moved her to rage. Had the change occurred in this pregnancy, or in the thirty-two months she had spoken of before?<\/p>\n At the bar, everyone slides into the easy camaraderie of drunkenness. As the bottles empty, laughter will grow loud, and the distance between bodies, maintained out of professional courtesy, will disappear until someone is pressed up against someone else in the back hall. Then Naj will dim the lights and turn the key in the lock, and everyone will go, falling into taxis and speeding home in the early morning hours. This, too, she thinks could wear a person down \u2014 sitting impossibly erect on a barstool, wearing a tight smile as everyone laughs at a joke that becomes funny only after the third glass. But then, Isabella is never the sole sober one. Dell is by her side, a companion for the duration of the journey ahead. \u201cSolidarity,\u201d he\u2019d said, abstaining even as his wife urged him on.<\/p>\n Naj reaches across the bar with a bottle in his hand. \u201cCome on, Eh-mee,\u201d he cajoles, waggling it over her glass. \u201cJust a little.\u201d<\/p>\n Her phone vibrates in her coat pocket; Steve is calling again. Her fingers drift to the wad of cash in her sock; it is large enough to be very uncomfortable. How strange to think of her life\u2019s possibilities, so limited two hours ago and now splayed wide like the oyster shells she once adored. Amy smiles at Naj and reaches for her phone, signaling that she will just be a moment.<\/p>\n \u201cA drop,\u201d she whispers before she answers. \u201cI\u2019m celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n _____________________________________________________<\/p>\n JESSICA ULLIAN’s work has appeared in Meeting House<\/em>, Upstreet<\/em>, Slice<\/em>, and Slate<\/em>. A former journalist, she has taught fiction at Boston University and documentary theatre at Tufts University, and currently lives in Boston with her family. “Sabato Sera” originally appeared in Upstreet<\/em> in 2010.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SABATO SERA Published in Upstreet in 2010 In the cramped staircase, Irene and Amy bicker over whose turn it is. Last weekend Amy took the smug family of four with the fair-haired children who wailed as she conveyed her regrets from the chef, who declined to make spaghetti and meatballs \u201cjust this once.\u201d Irene, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3755,"featured_media":0,"parent":9,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/386\/revisions\/499"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}