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As Carmy predicts, the spaghetti is too soupy. Mikey was right about one thing though, the smaller cans do taste better, and the staff at The Beef scarf it down like it’s the first thing they’ve had all day.
There’s a lot of laughter involved. Playful insults are passed around the table like a bread basket or a shaker of parmesan. Carmy likes watching other people eat his food more than he likes eating it himself. He stays by the sidelines, observing as Richie monologues and Tina tips her head back in laughter. Tomato sauce smears the corner of Marcus’s mouth and Ebra makes sure to point it out. Sweeps balls up a napkin and throws it at him. It lands in Marcus’s plate of garlic bread, much to his chagrin.
Carmy chuckles to himself, chin lowered towards his chest like he’s sharing a secret with his sternum. Across the table, his eyes catch Sydney’s. Her presence centers him, like he can be sure his feet are on solid ground whenever she’s nearby.
Pete has his arm around Sugar as they bicker light-heartedly. Meanwhile, Angel, Manny, and Fak help themselves to seconds. Carmy doesn’t need any more reassurance than that. It’s a good meal, even if it’s an oversauced mess, and for once, he feels loved, right where he’s standing.
Watching everyone eat makes Carmy crave nicotine. He leaves through the back of The Beef, palming at the pack of Sapphire Blues in his apron pocket. He lights up, leaning against the brick exterior of the restaurant. The slow pull of tobacco calms him down and evens him out. It’s been this way since he was eleven and stole his first pack from Mikey’s gym bag.
He’s smoked it halfway to the nub when the back door swings open. Richie steps outside, the cherry of his cigarette already flaring. He’s carrying two beers and a bottle opener.
“Hey,” Carmy says as he flicks ash onto the pavement. The door closes with a rusty clang.
“Yo, cousin,” Richie says. “Thought you might want one of these.”
Richie uses the bottle opener to jimmy the cap off the beer then hands it to Carmy.
"Thanks."
Carmy takes a sip. He savours the hoppy fizz of it on his tongue, scratchy and leavened from the cigarette smoke.
Mikey always smoked Sapphire Blues, so Richie smoked Sapphire Blues, and Carmy smoked Sapphire Blues too. Smoking is just something people in food service do. A dirty habit maybe, but cigs are as consistent as the kitchen. Reliable, ceaseless and uncomplicated in their ceaselessness. Smoking is something to pass the time until time passes you.
Carmy wants to laugh to himself. It is a strange sensation, smoking the same brand of cigarettes as his dead brother. Richie must feel similarly. Carmy takes a drag and breathes in bits and pieces of them. Memories, blurred around their edges, too hard to place. He tastes forgotten childhood summers, birthday party barbecues, fights he used to have with his mother about being too shy to talk to other kids. Carmy smokes and most of all, he remembers his brother. His eyes, how they would glint with mischief as he told yet another story about him and Richie getting into trouble.
“I never thought it would be him,” Carmy says. “Him, of all people.”
The change in topic is sudden, but Richie doesn’t even flinch. Carmy doesn’t need to state who he’s talking about. It’s already understood.
Carmy watches Richie’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallows hard. “Neither did I, man.” He takes a sip of beer, swipes his tongue along his bottom lip. “Neither did I.”
“He was so fucking annoying, y’know?” Carmy says and laughs, choking back something that might sound more like a sob. “He was so...” A pause; it hurts to say, “alive.”
Richie stares down at the pavement, sucking at his teeth as the word hangs in the air. He stubs out his cigarette.
Carmy knows he should shut up. Richie hates this kind of talk. It’s too morbid, he says. Normally, Carmy would agree, but reading Michael's letter has him loose-lipped and craving acknowledgement, even the reluctant kind. For the first time in a while, he’s okay with being vulnerable. It makes him want to cut open his stomach with a kitchen knife and bare his guts for all to see.
“Sometimes I wonder,” Carmy says, brushing his mouth with the lip of the beer bottle. He laughs at the back of his throat, but nothing he’s about to say is very funny. Maybe he just can’t believe he’s saying it. “I wonder–I don’t know–maybe they got the wrong brother.”
Carmy puts his cigarette back in his mouth, worrying it at the tip. There’s a moment of silence, pained, then Richie smacks him across the face.
The feeling is like the snap of a rubber band against Carmy’s cheek. His cigarette falls from his mouth with the shock of it. It stings like hell, but the pain is measured, like Richie’s holding back.
“What the fuck!?” Carmy shouts, disbelieving. He scrambles, his hand coming to cradle the side of his face. “What the hell was that? Cousin–”
“Shut the fuck up, Carmy,” Richie says. He has a finger in his face. His other hand grips the front of Carmy’s t-shirt. He pushes Carmy up against the brick exterior of The Beef. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Richie–”
“Don’t say shit like that. Don’t–”
Richie’s voice breaks. Something passes over his face and he lets Carmy go. Carmy backs away from him, but he isn’t afraid of Richie lunging again. The air between them grows quiet and tense. Richie reaches down and picks Carmy’s cigarette off the pavement. He puts it in his own mouth, takes a drag, then hands it back.
“You think no one gives a shit about you,” Richie says, blowing smoke. “Well, it’s not true, Carm. Too many people give a shit, okay? In my God’s honest opinion. So you better start acting like it. You hear me?”
Carmy is too stunned to speak.
“And call your fucking mother for once, will you?” Richie says, looking at Carmy with eyes the same colour as his pack of cigarettes: sapphire blue. “Capiche?”
“Capiche,” Carmy says and shirks away from Richie. “Jesus, dude.”
“Look, sorry for hitting you. I just had to get serious there, y’know.”
Carmy readjusts his t-shirt, scoffs lightly. “You’re the opposite of serious, Richie.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Richie replies. “But you’re all I got, remember?”
Heat blooms on Carmy’s face. “Yeah, yeah.”
He waves Richie away then tucks a wayward strand of hair behind his ear to make himself look preoccupied. He desperately needs a shower. His pits are sweaty, his muscles are aching, and he swears that kitchen grease is baked into his hair. The early spring air is cool against his bare forearms. Goosebumps form over his tattoos, making his hair stand on end.
Everyone is finished eating by the time Carmy and Richie go back inside. They help Angel and Manny with the cleanup, collecting their dirty dishes and stacking them at their station. They scrub and mop the floors, sort the money, recycle the piles of empty tomato cans.
“Not to say I told ya so,” Richie says, wiping tomato sauce from a dish, “but I told ya so. Everyone loves the fucking spaghetti.”
“Shut the fuck up, Richie,” Syd bites back.
Everyone laughs, but Carmy is still reeling, silently hoping there isn’t an angry red mark burgeoning on his cheek. Syd looks at him funny but ultimately keeps quiet, like she knows not to say anything. Carmy is thankful for that. Right now, he’s thankful for a lot of things.