“WHEN I TELL YOU TO look, open your eyes,” Gabriel says.
I take my hands away from my face and drink in Gabriel’s handiwork, the newly decorated living room and kitchen at 166 Perry Street. “Oh, my God-or should I say, Oh, my William Haines.”
“I knew you’d get it. I knew you’d see old Hollywood in the new decor!”
“I saw it immediately!” My mother beams from the kitchen. “Like bang! Bang! Bang!” She shoots an imaginary gun around the room at the window treatments, the paint, the re-covered, and sometimes replaced, furniture.
“Very elegant,” Tess comments.
“I’m gonna have you do my house,” Jaclyn promises. “I love the blue.”
“I’m so happy the Sisters Roncalli concur.”
“You’ve got a flair, Gabriel,” my mother practically purrs.
“Yes, I do. And I have the taste to back up the pizzazz. The blue, Jaclyn, is because this level is just a floor away from the sky itself. The sky was my inspiration. I want you to feel uplifted when you enter.”
The living room is wallpapered in cream with a black-striped border. Gabriel has positioned his zebra-print love seats in front of the windows. He created draperies that mimic stage curtains, opulent turquoise silk drapes with black silk braid tiebacks. He used Gram’s simple black onyx-based lamps to anchor the love seats. He took the old wooden coffee table and painted it with high-gloss black enamel. There’s a crystal vase filled with white roses placed artfully on the table.
He kept the farm table-but refinished the top, which now, instead of stained flat walnut brown, is rubbed through to show the natural woodgrain finish. He re-covered the seats on the twelve dining chairs with a calm but fun flowered chintz in sea green, sky blue, and beige.
The marble kitchen counter, which used to fade into the chrome stove behind it, pops against the new wallpaper. He recovered the red stools at the kitchen bar in black patent leather, using the same bronze studs from the old rendition.
Gabriel repeated the wallpaper in the kitchen area. He mounted the oil portrait of my grandfather making shoes in the shop (which previously hung in Gram’s bedroom) on the wall behind the table.
“I hope you like Gramps.” He points to the portrait.
“My father resembles Vincent Price in that painting. In real life, his features were not nearly as pointy,” Mom says critically. “But the gold-leaf frame is to die for!”
“Thank you, ladies. I know you’ve lived with the same old, same old for all these years, but I couldn’t take another minute of it.”
I take in the beauty of Gabriel’s work while I remember the way things used to be.
“What’s that look?” he says to me. “That wistful thing happening on your face. What’s that all about?”
“Was I wistful?”
“Terribly.”
“Well, I was just remembering what it was. And I guess I had a moment of sadness.”
“Then we’ll put it back,” Gabriel says, not meaning it.
“No. I love it. I am embracing change and all that comes with it,” I tell him. “I think it’s magnificent, and I can’t thank you enough for doing all this work.”
Gabriel exhales, relieved. “I was so nervous.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s your house.”
“It’s our house. You generously pay rent.”
“Better you get it than cousin Joey. He blows it at OTB on the horses. Besides, I’ve redone every rental I’ve ever lived in on this island, and why should this be any different?”
I roll back the gates on the windows in the shop, letting in the morning light. I’m about to sip my morning coffee when Bret sweeps into the shop. “I’ve got good news.”
Bret throws his valise on the worktable and opens it. “Or should I say: a great opportunity for you.”
“But we got the loan-I’ve already put the check in the bank. What could be better than cold hard cash?”
“I was in a development meeting with a group of investors that has come together to buy up companies on the cheap. This is the only good news in a recession-it’s a buyer’s market. Anyhow, I told them about you, and they’re interested in selling the Bella Rosa in their chain.”
“Who are they?”
“They’re a group that sells to major department store chains-like Neiman’s, Saks, and Bloomingdales.”
“I’ve heard of them,” I joke.
“They usually go for household name designers, but you’re an up-and-coming brand, at least, that’s how I pitched you. I showed them the samples and the portfolio, and they were very impressed. They wanted to know how far along you were in production.”
“Alfred and Roberta have been talking-they’re saying fall is a safe bet. We could have the order complete by then.”
“I want you to meet with them.”
“Absolutely.”
Bret sits down on the work stool and looks at me. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re different.”
“Me? Really?”
“Something changed,” he says.
“I had a love affair.”
“Who is the lucky guy?”
“Gianluca Vechiarelli. You met him.”
“But he’s in Italy.”
“He surprised me in Buenos Aires. And we had a great time-and then he surprised me again, when he broke up with me.”
Gabriel comes into the shop. “I know, I know. I’m up at the crack. Why? Because I’m on fire. Now that I’ve got the living room done, I’m doing the master bedroom. I have appointments at the D &D building-Scalamandre silk, by the bolt, on sale for a song. The only good thing about this economy are the deals.”
“What’s your vision for the master bedroom?” I ask.
“It’s gonna be an homage to Lady Mendl.”
“Whoever that is.” Bret smiles.
“I don’t have time to teach you.” Gabriel checks his pockets for his wallet and keys. He does this whenever he leaves the house. I know about Gabriel’s habits more than I would a husband, if I had one. “I’m tired of being the arbiter of taste for all those who know me.” He looks at me, then at Bret. “What’s wrong? I know why she’s sad”-he points to me-“but you?”
“I was about to tell Val when you walked in.” Bret sighs.
“You know it. You can always count on me.” Gabriel sits down on a work stool and props his face on his hand. “So?”
“Mackenzie and I are going through a tough time.”
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“She’s not happy.”
“Buy her a bracelet,” Gabriel suggests. “Those suburban housewives love a diamond tennis bracelet.”
“She has one already,” Bret says.
“Make it sapphires. Very hot gemstone right now.”
I glare at him. “Bret is serious.”
“I don’t know what to do. I thought all marriages went through these periods-and you know, you work through it and come out the other side. But she’s not content to ride it out.”
“Is she leaving you?” Gabriel asks bluntly.
“No. But she wants us to go through counseling.”
“That’s the kiss of death.”
“Gabriel!” I could kill him.
“Well, it is. If you’re going to unload in front of a third party, you probably have hit the rocks.”
“Ignore him. Counseling will help,” I assure Bret.
“How do you know?”
“It saved my parents’ marriage,” I remind Gabriel.
“Mac’s parents weren’t so lucky. They went to counseling. Then they divorced.” Bret’s eyes fill with tears.
I reach out and place my hand on his. “Now, come on. This will all work out. She’s not going anywhere.”
“I really love her. And I love my girls. I can’t imagine having them grow up with divorced parents. I can’t fathom that.”
“Then you work it out,” Gabriel says. “People hit snags every day…” He looks at me.
“And they bounce back,” I reassure Bret.
“Thanks guys,” Bret says. “I just didn’t see my life going this way. I thought we were better than this.”
“Trouble doesn’t know a stranger,” Gabriel says. “My grandmother used to say that in Italian, but I can’t remember how it went-but that was the gist. Bad times visit all of us. Just as sure as they come, they will go.”
“Thanks, Gabe.” Bret turns to me. “I’ll call you later.” Bret snaps his valise shut and goes.
We sit in the early morning quiet of the shop for a long while. Gabriel reaches across the worktable and takes a sip of my coffee. “You realize that out of everybody we know, we have the only marriage that’s working.”
“That’s because I give you free rein with the decorating.”
“Uh-huh,” Gabriel agrees.
“And I’m grateful for your cooking.”
“That’s true.” Gabriel looks off, out into the early morning light, and thinks. “And you know why we’ll last a lifetime and beyond?”
“I have no idea.”
“Because we have never ever had sex, and we never ever will. Our relationship is the most satisfying of all because we will never disappoint each other.”
I stand back from the mirror as June models the gift I bought her in the Palermo barrio in Buenos Aires. The box I sent from the hotel finally arrived. In the age of texting, old-fashioned mail seems to take a lifetime to reach its destination. “What do you think? Handmade.”
“I am loving this!” June buckles the low-slung belt of braided leather with a hammered silver belt buckle low over her tunic. She turns to see the view from the back in the mirror. “Is this sexy or what?”
“Very sexy on you.”
“You know, I’ve never been to South America. All my travels, and I never went there. I did Mexico. And a soft-spoken Mexican named Gordo.”
“So many countries, so little time.”
“And now I’m old. That bus is parked permanently. The battery is dead. And I can’t remember where I put the jumper cables.”
“I doubt that, June.” I pour a cup of coffee for June, and then one for me. “How do you think Alfred is doing?”
“I believe the affair has ended,” June says.
“Good.”
I have been playing catch-up in the shop for most of July and August. I haven’t had an in-depth conversation with my brother. We have so much to sort out about the business that Kathleen’s name has barely come up. “I think my brother realized what he had at home.”
“Maybe he did. You know, I’ve had a married man here and there. And there’s laws of the jungle where they’re concerned. Now, I say this as a free, single woman who was once upon a time involved with a married man-or twice upon a time, back in the day, and I’m not particularly proud of that. But in the case of a fella named Bob DuPont-not those DuPonts, I’m never that lucky-I learned from him that a married man doesn’t want to see himself as someone who is out there looking just for sex, even though the point of having an affair is sex, it’s exactly what you’re looking for. But we’re intellectual animals, and we like to think that there’s something more involved than the dovetailing of two libidos. But when the sex wanes-and it always wanes, honey, trust me-you have to justify the time spent. So you have a few dinners to wind down, some without dessert and some with ‘dessert,’ if you know what I mean. You have to shed tears of ‘poor us, had we only met in another time,’ but this conversation only happens after you know the affair is kaput. Then you feel cleansed. You are able to say good-bye and move forward. That’s what Kathleen and Alfred have done, I’d bet on it.”
“I hope so.”
“You know, I feel for your brother. It’s no secret that I’ve always thought he was a prig. He’s sanctimonious, and those are the first ones to fall. And when they do, they hit the ground hard, like a lead pipe. The pious types are tortured by their own weakness.”
“I’ve learned a lot about Alfred since he came to work here. For the first time in his life, my brother is making mistakes. It’s been painful to watch, but at least he’s learning from them.”
“Do you think his wife knows?” June asks.
“I told him not to tell Pamela anything about it-ever. No good would come of that.”
“You’re right. I am not one for true confessions-not ever. I think they’re cruel. Besides that, time is the only thing that can soften the impact of a hard fall. Always has and always will.” She sips her coffee. “So, what about you?”
“I’m trying to get over Gianluca.”
“Still? Have you written to him?”
I shake my head that I haven’t.
“Why don’t you try?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Sure you do.”
“No, June, I really don’t.”
“Why don’t you start by writing how you feel about him?”
“I don’t think he’d believe me.” During our fight, I flailed around, unable to express my true feelings. He stood firm while I grappled. This is the difference between an impulsive woman and a wise man. He knew what I was going to say before I said it.
“Of course he would. He’d believe you,” June assures me. “He’s in love with you.”
“He was in love with me. He was so furious with me that he got on a plane and went back to Italy. He crossed continents to get away from me.”
“You’re under his skin.”
“In a bad way.”
“That is yet to be determined,” June says. “You know, when you went with the chef, I was worried. Roman wasn’t as smart as you. Nice guy. Roving eye-I don’t blame him, he can’t help that, it’s in a man, or it’s not. But this Gianluca is different. He really understands you. I don’t think you should walk away from that so quickly. Why don’t you call him?”
“I’d just cry.”
“Then write to him.”
June goes to the desk and pulls typing paper off the printer. She grabs a pen from the cup. “Here.” She hands me the paper and pen, clears the corner of the cutting table, and kicks the rolling stool toward me. I sit.
August 28, 2010
When I write the date I realize the entire summer has passed without a word between Gianluca and me.
Dear Gianluca,
I don’t know if you remember me, but we were together in Buenos Aires in June and I made you so angry you got on a plane and went home. I think about you every day and feel terrible, then there’s the night, when I feel worse. I’m writing this letter to apologize for being such a fool. I never meant to mislead you or to hurt you, but I managed to do so many things wrong that I lost you. I hope that you’ve found happiness with a normal woman who treats you well. But if you haven’t, I know a real nut here in New York City who would give everything she has to see you again. I’m writing this on thick paper from the printer, because it’s an impulse letter and I’m not stopping to run up the stairs for pretty stationery. (At least I’m not writing to you on the back of a button order form or a water bill.) I remember how it felt when you held me the whole night through, and how I wished I could reach up and push the sun back over the horizon just to buy a few more hours of that bliss. But I can’t control everything-and maybe I control nothing. I only know that my heart is broken without you-and maybe sometime, if you can forgive me, you might think about coming home.
Love,
Valentina
This has been the summer of broken hearts (mine) and paint fumes (Gabriel’s). When Gabriel was done with the Re-Fabulous (as he calls it) of the second floor, he turned his attention to the roof. He allowed me to keep the tomato plants (mainly because we eat them), but everything else needed and received a facelift. Those items that could not be refurbished were banished.
He sanded the old wrought iron table and chairs and repainted them deep lilac. He made new seat cushions for the seats (Cecil Beaton-inspired, bold black-and-white stripes).
Saint Francis of Assisi got power-washed and painted eggshell white. He fixed the hose in the fountain-which my mother swears has been broken since 1958-and now free-flowing with sacred water once more, it is affixed with tiny pin lights (for night drama), and scattered with blossoms in the clamshell.
He even painted the old black charcoal grill a deep lilac to go with the furniture. “It looks like a spaceship for my people,” Gabriel said when he stood back and viewed his handiwork. “Italians?” I said. “No, the gays,” he corrected me. Our grill now resembles a giant L’Eggs egg, the container for fine women’s hosiery formerly found at D’Agostino’s on a spin rack.
The final and most dramatic touch looms overhead. Gabriel made (by himself!) an awning out of lavender duck cloth. He trimmed the Greek key edges in white, and stretched it across four brass poles, anchored into the roof. This canopy creates an al fresco living room. My mother is overjoyed-finally, she has access to a glamorous outdoor space worthy of the ritziest guests at the Carlyle Hotel.
I press the flesh of ruby red tomatoes. Gram would be so pleased. It has been a great summer for tomatoes. I sent her pictures of the harvest over e-mail, and she returned the favor by sending me a picture of Dominic standing at the base of a twelve-foot sunflower that he grew in their backyard in Arezzo. We have a healthy competition between our transcontinental gardens.
I pluck the ripe tomatoes and place them carefully in a basket. I’ve lined up four bushel baskets: one for Mom, one for Tess, one for Jaclyn, and one for Alfred.
The newly painted screen door snaps open.
“Hi.” Mackenzie looks around the roof. “Gabriel said I’d find you here.”
“Here I am. This is a nice surprise,” I tell her.
“Wow, what a burst of color up here. Lots of purple.” She comes out onto the roof, shielding her eyes from the sun that has begun its late afternoon descent over New Jersey. Mackenzie is dressed in black linen pants and a cropped white jacket with bell sleeves. Her tennis bracelet dazzles against her tanned summer skin in the late afternoon sun.
“Isn’t it great? Gabriel has redone the building. Except the workshop, of course.” I dig my trowel at the base of the tomato plants. The rich, dark earth turns easily. “Bret said you had a dinner date.”
“We’re going to Valbella on 13th Street.”
“It’s very romantic. Just the two of you?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She looks around the roof as though she’s searching for something she has lost.
“A little pre-back-to-school/end of summer celebration?”
She just looks at me without answering. This friendly visit is not so friendly. “Valentine, I know about you and Bret.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on,” she says impatiently. “I know he still has feelings for you.”
“Feelings?” Is she kidding? I hold up my hands in floral garden gloves with spores of plastic grips on the backside. “You could not be more mistaken. We’re old friends. And that’s it.”
“I’ve read the e-mails.”
“What e-mails?”
“Let me quote. ‘You’re the best, what would I do without you?’ You sign love-and x’s and o’s. I’ve seen them. I’m not stupid-those mean hugs and kisses.”
“But that’s the way I sign off-I do that with everybody. Customers even. I just sent a big round of XO’s to Craig Fissé at Donald Pliner. You can’t be serious.”
“Okay, fine, whatever. But you’re doing it with my husband, and I don’t like it.”
“I won’t sign my e-mails to Bret in that fashion anymore.”
“Whatever.” She looks away.
Her dismissive attitude annoys me. So I say, “Mackenzie, it’s impossible for me to be involved with your husband.”
“Impossible?”
“I’m in love with someone else,” I blurt. I have no idea where that came from. I’ve come to a place of acceptance about blowing my relationship with Gianluca. It’s almost as if the sadness of losing Gianluca for good walks with me through the ordinary business of my life, like an old faithful dog. I won’t tell Mackenzie that the love I profess is unrequited, and that I wait by the mailbox hoping Gianluca will write to me, or that I reread his old letters as though they’re still true.
“Oh.” She looks down at her bracelet, and spins it around her wrist by flicking the diamonds one by one.
Her nonchalance is a strange reaction, given the fact that she hiked all the way up to the roof to confront me about my internet x’s and o’s. “Mackenzie, you know good and well that I’m not involved with your husband. You know that he loves you and your daughters. What’s really going on here?”
“What do you mean?” she says.
“This phony thing you’re doing.”
The word phony catches her off guard. “Phony?”
“Trumped up. You know Bret is not interested in me. Besides, you don’t have the indignation of a woman scorned.”
“Look, I read the e-mails, and I’ve had my suspicions all along,” she argues.
“If there is a man to be trusted on the planet, it’s your husband. But you know that, because you’ve actually read the e-mails. Deep down, you know the truth. You know that they are entirely innocent. You want to tell me what you’re really doing here?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking me.”
“You’re looking for evidence against your husband. Why?”
Mackenzie does not answer me.
“If my e-mails are the most suspicious communication you’ve found, you got nothing,” I tell her.
I’m tempted to tell her how many women throw themselves at Bret, but I’m not going to engage this nonsense.
I continue, “You are very lucky to have married a good man who loves you.”
“I’m sick of hearing about how great he is. He’s not perfect. Nowhere close.”
“I didn’t say he was perfect.”
“We’re having problems, okay? But I’m sure you knew all about that, given how much time he spends here.”
“I don’t know anything,” I lie. “He only tells me how much he loves you and how proud he is of you and the girls.”
“Okay. Well, look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I accused you of something that you aren’t guilty of. It’s just that you two have a history, and I guess I just assumed that it was more.”
I can’t believe her tone of voice. She is actually disappointed that I’m not having an affair with her husband. She came up here looking for weapons of mass destruction, and all she found were tomatoes. Mackenzie turns to go. I stop her.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, and it’s really none of my business. But what you have-you know, a good man and two beautiful, healthy girls-it’s not just a given in life, it’s an actual gift. And sometimes we mistake a malaise for something worse. You shouldn’t do that. You earn your future happiness when you fight for it. He’s worth it. You’re worth it.”
“You’re not married. I don’t think you understand.”
I hold up my trowel. “Fair enough. I’m not a marriage expert. But I have been friends with your husband since we were kids. And out of all the women in the world, he chose you.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I chose him. I was twenty-eight. I wanted to be married by thirty. And I wanted a baby right away, so we had the baby. And then Bret really pushed for the second baby, and I went along with it. And now I’m a full-time mom.”
“But isn’t that what you want?”
“I miss the city.” Mackenzie goes to the edge of the roof and looks out over the Hudson River with the same sense of complete awe and peace that I do. If she could drink the river in, she would. She turns to me. “I miss conversations with grown-ups. I have them, but you know, I always feel like I’m cheating on my life. I’m torn every single day.”
“You’re tired. Chasing kids is the hardest work in the world.”
“I mean, I’m grateful for all I have. I am,” she says. “But the life I have…is not enough.”
“Does Bret expect you to stay home?”
“I don’t know. It’s how it’s worked out. We didn’t really talk about it.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I need a purpose. You know, something that I create. That’s all mine. Bret has a life. He goes off every morning to work, full of ideas. I remember having an idea! He’s challenged. I love a challenge. My husband goes to work, and he uses his mind. Since I quit working, I don’t use my mind. Where is my creativity?”
“You make things by hand, like those beautiful birthday party invitations. You’re a wonderful hostess. Your home is a showplace.”
“That’s the trick of it. I thought it mattered that I made the best cupcakes and knew the difference between Berber and sisal carpet. I thought it mattered that I run every morning and stay in shape-you know, to keep my energy up for this big life I’m leading.”
“But you are leading a big life.”
“It doesn’t feel like it. My life gets smaller every single day. I worked until a month before I had Maeve. I was supposed to go back to work after six months, and I just never did.”
“But you were taking care of a baby.”
“I’m not saying one is more important than the other. Of course the needs of a child are more important than any career. But just try and live it day after day. And see how you feel.”
“The definition of happiness is very personal. What might make me happy-”
“I’m not happy,” she cuts me off. “And maybe there are a million reasons why, but the truth is, I only need one to justify changing my life.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Mackenzie looks at me. “Besides, it’s too late. It’s just too late.”
“Why do you say that?”
She holds the screen door open. She shifts from one foot to the other, looking to escape. This conversation has gone too far, and she knows it. She did not plan to go down this road. “I’ve already seen a lawyer.”
“Does Bret know?”
She shakes her head.
“He’ll be devastated,” I promise her.
“These things happen.”
“They happen because you let them happen,” I tell her.
She looks at me. “I need to go.” The screen door snaps shut.
I go to the edge of the roof to catch my breath.
“What the hell was that?” Gabriel says. “She clomped down those steps like a show pony.”
“She’s dissatisfied with her marriage. With Bret.”
“Oh, please. We hardly know the woman. You recall we were shunned from the wedding. How dare she come up the stairs and dump all over you?”
“She accused me of having an affair with Bret.”
“I’ve always said you and Bret aren’t over.”
“Gabriel.”
“Sorry. I know nothing is going on between you two…is it?”
“No.”
“Just checking. After all, Bret is here, and it’s over with Gianluca. I don’t know what you do when I go off to work at the Carlyle at night. This place could be a love den, for all I know.”
“I get up early, work all day, go to bed early, and start over again.”
“No secret life?”
“There is one thing.”
“I knew it!”
“I wait for the mailman every day.”
“You love Mr. Vinnie?”
“No, I’m just hoping that one of these days, he’ll have something in his sack for me marked Italia.”
Gabriel thinks about this for a moment. “You know what it’s like living with you? It’s like watching a Bette Davis weepie.”
“Better than being in it, my friend,” I tell him.
Gabriel goes back inside. I till the earth around the tomato plants with the trowel. I pour some water from the can into the planter.
Marriages break up, and the excuse, at the heart of it, is “growing apart.” I pull back the leaves on the tomato plants, pulling off dead ones and making room for new foliage.
I can’t help but notice that the small buds of the new plants, created from the seeds of the older ones, are fresh and green, and grow hardy in the shade of the parent. If Mackenzie were a gardener, she would know that it’s the rare shoot that survives outside the nurturing of the parent plant-that it takes the strength of the whole to give way to a full harvest.
I Skype Roberta in Buenos Aires. The first face I see is baby Enzo’s, who sits on his mother’s lap. Roberta shifts her screen.
“He’s getting so big!”
“I can’t believe it.” Roberta smiles. “I spoke with Alfred. You know I had my doubts about taking on new product. We’ve been making men’s shoes all of these years. Why would we change? But I was walking around the mill yesterday, and I was thinking, the last time we grew the business, and tried something new was when my father started manufacturing. It was that long ago. And then, when you came to visit, and you had so many sketches, so many ideas-I thought, I’ve lost touch with the art of my work. So I went to my staff. And Sandra in cutting has always wanted to cut women’s shoes, and also to work with new fibers. She likes change. And then I went through and looked at each department. We can handle the work-and if we can’t, and if you decide that you don’t want to use us, we will still consider expanding our physical plant, and pursuing new business.”
“Good for you.”
“Thank you for giving me a push.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And no matter what happens, if you choose Caminito Shoes or not, we will always be friends.”
“And family.”
“And family.” She smiles.
The early morning sun fills the workroom with light. The work table is covered in small stacks of deep blue suede, a sea of pattern pieces pinned with sheer paper, and measurements marked by June.
I open the ledger on the desk and view Alfred’s report chronicling the comparables between Chinese manufacturers and Roberta’s factory. He has done his homework.
Our squabbling days are, hopefully, over. Maybe it’s distance from the end of the affair with Kathleen, or his efforts to get along, or mine, but whatever the reason, we are on the right track. June has been helpful-she doesn’t play referee, but she is the Common Sense Cop when we need her. Bret and Alfred have found a way to communicate. Alfred is no longer threatened by Bret’s ideas, and Bret has come to a place where he sees that Alfred, when he puts the company first, makes sound decisions.
This has been difficult for Alfred. I’m sure he wanted to focus on the big picture for the future of the shoe company, but I needed him to run the business on a daily basis. Bret is out in the world, and he knows how to raise money and find it in places Alfred would never have access to. A common goal will do that. It took all of us, becoming better listeners and considering one another’s ideas, to bring us to this morning, when we will finally choose the factory that will make the Bella Rosa.
Alfred pushes through the entrance, carrying two coffees from the deli. He’s learned the basic laws of life in our shop-whoever ventures inside from the outside is responsible for the coffee run. We’ve been so busy of late, the old pot on the cart in the back of the shop has been empty, and we rely on the neighborhood Greeks for our caffeine hit.
“Sorry for the early morning,” I tell him.
“The train was empty-it’s actually an easier commute.”
Alfred sorts through the paperwork sent by our cousin Roberta while I pull the box filled with Roberta’s samples of the Bella Rosa off the shelf to show Alfred.
Roberta made two dozen pairs of flats from the patterns we sent to her. I also bring down the box filled with the Chinese samples-Roberta’s competition. We asked Sung Ma Inc. to run the same pattern and assembly and price it out for us.
“The Chinese samples are solid,” I tell my brother.
“Are you leaning toward going with them now?”
“They do good work,” I concede. I have learned how to negotiate with my brother. If I came on strong and insisted we go with Roberta, he’d fight me. So I let him think that I have an open mind. I lift Roberta’s samples out of the box and hand them to Alfred. “But, I really like Roberta’s work,” I say.
“There is a delicacy to her stitchwork. The Chinese are bolder,” Alfred says.
“I’m sure we could have the Chinese mimic Roberta’s stitchwork, if we go that way. I would still like to do the finishing here-because I have more control-but Roberta’s finishing is fine.”
“Not great?”
“There’s a finesse to our finishing here-you know, the buckles are given an extra buff, I re-press bows when they don’t lie perfectly flat-but the general construction is excellent.”
“Maybe you could design embellishments that don’t require handwork to set them,” Alfred offers.
“Like a fabric buckle?”
“Yeah, something that can be stitched on. Simple.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say.
“Roberta’s company assembles some of the big names. She is used to high standards. You can tell her what you want-she’s used to the demands.” Alfred picks up a sample. “In the end, her overall technique really is the best.” He studies the seam along the heel.
“Well, you old pro.” I take the shoe from him. “I agree.”
“I’ve gone from a banker to a cobbler’s assistant in nine months. I think it’s apparent I’m a prodigy,” he jokes.
“Just ask our mother.”
“So it’s your call,” Alfred says. And this is the biggest change in him over the past few months. He actually defers to me. “Shall we go with Roberta?”
“Let’s do it,” I say.
“I’ll get the paperwork to Ray.” Alfred stacks the files for our attorney.
“How long will that take?”
“Quick turnaround. I made copies of these and sent them over three weeks ago when you were leaning towards going with Roberta,” Alfred says.
“Efficient. I like it.” I smile at my brother.
“I think this line is going to take off, Val.” If anyone had told me last February that Alfred and I would reach this point, this moment in our partnership where he could admit that we could make a go of this, I would have never believed it.
“Wouldn’t that be great? For us?”
“Absolutely.” My brother beams.
I hand the rest of the business files over to my brother.
“How are things at home?” I ask.
“We had a good break on the Jersey shore with Pam’s family. I really needed it-and she needed it. Things are much better. I owe a lot of that to you-for screwing my head on straight when I needed it the most.”
“Alfred, don’t give me any credit. You love your wife, and you got through it.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“And you won’t have to,” I tell him. “Nobody is more surprised than me that our situation here is working. And I owe you an apology. I didn’t think we’d make good partners, but you’ve been very generous with me. You let me do what I do best. I don’t know if I could have done it all by myself. You deserve whatever success we have as much as I do.”
“Fingers crossed,” he says. “I’d like nothing more than to fight with you over profit margins.”
“You’re on,” I tell him.
Gabriel enters the shop. “The apprentice has risen and is shining.”
“That’s what you call yourself now?”
“No, my master and mentor June Lawton calls me her apprentice.”
“Oh, please. She doesn’t care about your skills as a junior pattern cutter, she just likes to hear about your love life.”
“That too. I like to call it a combination of high brow artistry-pattern making-and down-and-dirty details of my life as a single man looking for love. There’s only so much excitement in cutting leather.”
“Can you count me out?” Alfred jokes, turning away from Gabriel and back to his work.
“No one ever counts you in, Alfred. Relax.”
June whistles as she pushes open the entrance door.
“Full staff meeting without me?” June asks.
“No staff meeting. Just paperwork. We’re going with Roberta.”
“Oh, you made your mind up when you were in Argentina.” June waves her hand at me. “No-brainer.”
“The Chinese were more expensive in the end-that really made the decision for me.”
“You see we finished cutting the rest of the samples yesterday,” June says.
“They look great.”
“Who are these for?”
“Bret needs them for the funding meetings-he wants as many prototypes on display as possible.” I turn to Alfred. “Did you send Bret the paperwork?”
“When I sent it to Ray, I sent Bret his own set.”
“I love synergy!”
“As a very wise person once noted, a fish rots from the head-having said that, it also thrives from the head. You’re a damn good boss, Valentine,” June says as she passes a stack of patterns to Gabriel, who sorts them.
“Don’t be so quick to give her all the credit. I like to give due to feng shui. That’s right-the upper levels of this building have been transformed. First we ditched the crap, and then I schemed the dream-the apartment has gone from deadly dull to dazzling, and ever since then, we’ve gotten lucky around here. Or am I the only one who has noticed?”
“It’s you, Gabe. All you,” I tell him. “And the ancient art of feng shui.”
I pick up the phone and dial Roberta. “Roberta? We’ve made our decision.” I look around the workroom at my co-workers, June, Gabriel, and Alfred. Then I say, “You got the job. It’s Angelini and Caminito from now on.”
“Thank you! We are very pleased!”
“Great. Alfred will be in touch shortly with all the details.”
“Thank you, Cousin.”
I hang up the phone.
“Congratulations,” Alfred says. “You did it.”
June and Gabe break out a bottle of champagne from the mini-fridge while Alfred goes on a hunt for plastic cups. I feel a sadness in my gut because this is a moment I have dreamed of, and worked toward, and I have no one to share it with. My eyes fill with tears of regret. How I wish I could go back to Buenos Aires and make everything right with Gianluca. I miss him. But he has not called or written to me, and while I may not be the wisest woman around, I’m astute enough to know when a man has moved on. My letter, filled with humor and hope, was not well received. If it had been, I would have heard from him by now. Silence is the most direct answer of all.
I check the clock. My Skype appointment with Gram is on. I turn on the computer and dial through. After a few moments, Gram’s face appears on the screen.
“Hi, hon! All’s well here in Arezzo. I’m going to miss Thanksgiving turkey, though.”
“You and Dominic can jump on a plane.”
“Why don’t you come and see us?” Gram asks.
“I can’t leave the shop right now. But if the Bella Rosa takes off, or the economy improves in the next couple of months-”
“Valentine, don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”
“Did you get the Bella Rosa sample that I sent? Roberta built the prototype.”
“It’s handsome. How do you like working with her?”
“On my end, it’s very easy. She’s built my shoe according to specifications. She beat the Chinese. But Alfred says she drives a hard bargain in the cost department.”
“That’s an Angelini trait,” she says.
“I need your stuffing recipe. Gabriel is cooking this year.”
“No problem.”
“Yeah, we’re having the whole family over-kids, parents, chestnuts on the roof-every dish and everybody but you and Dominic.”
“We’ll be there for Christmas.”
“I know. It’s just not the same. You know, Thanksgiving is your holiday-nobody will roast the chestnuts like you. Even Aunt Feen is coming over. I’ll hide the liquor.”
“I just called her.”
“How is she?”
“The same.” Gram sighs. “How about we have a mod holiday-we’ll Skype!” Gram says.
“Okay. Great.”
“Shall I e-mail the recipe?”
“Sure, sure. You can send it right to Gabriel.”
“How’s the roommate situation working out?”
“I love it. Gram, you won’t believe the changes he’s made. The house is beautiful.”
“He’s got the energy to do it. I never did.”
Before Gram met Dominic, especially in the years after my grandfather died, I noticed that it was all she could do to put in a workday downstairs and then go up the stairs for dinner. Toward the end, I took over most of the chores; I would do the shopping and the cleaning. But beyond a coat of fresh paint, in the same colors that had always been on the walls, we never did much to upgrade our living space. Now I understand why she kept the same sofa for thirty-five years. There wasn’t the time or energy to look for a new one. Making shoes takes stamina; the business takes its toll on our time and resources, and whatever is left goes to the essentials.
“You will love the new look,” I promise her.
“I’m sure I will.”
“So have you seen Gianluca?” I ask.
“Not a lot. He’s been traveling to Florence quite a bit.”
My stomach turns. I imagine Gianluca in his Mercedes with a willowy redhead draped across the front seat, one of those Italian girls who speaks four languages, gives a great neck massage, and makes a killer dish of linguine alle vongole.
Gram continues, “The tannery is busy. Gianluca’s always working, it seems.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I couldn’t sound less enthusiastic. “Has he asked about me?” It’s out of my mouth before I can take it back.
“Gianluca?” Gram leans in. “No, he hasn’t, honey.”
“Well, do me a favor. Don’t tell him I asked you if he asked about me.”
Gram looks confused. And she should. Gianluca accused me of being a child, and I sound like one. At least he didn’t burden Gram with the whole Buenos Aires saga-although part of me wishes he had.
“Okay,” she agrees. After a slight pause she continues, “I’ll get that stuffing recipe right out to you.”
“Thanks.”
The screen goes black like my mood. Gianluca has totally moved on. No agonizing and regret for him! How adult! Maybe he’s even checking in on Carlotta from time to time-after all, nothing like reigniting an old fire and basking in that familiar glow. This is going to be a lovely holiday season around here. Thanksgiving and then Christmas, with a fresh pine tree, and me-single, lonely me…pining.
I wake up to the scent of fresh sage, pumpkin, and bread baking on Thanksgiving morning. I’m about to roll over and go to sleep, when I hear:
“Val, time to get up! I need a pair of hands down here.”
I sit up in bed and look out the window. The treetops along the Hudson River Park have only flecks of gold left on their mostly bare branches. The gray river looks like a shard of hammered silver where the sun hits the surface. “Coming!” I holler.
Gabriel is in the kitchen, running the mixer. He wears a black-and-white bandana around his head. He turns the mixer off. “Do the table for me. I spent half the night glittering the place cards.”
Gabriel dipped miniature fresh pumpkins in orange glitter, then stuck a small green flag, on which he had written the guest’s name in calligraphy, next to the stem.
“My, we are fancy.”
“Is there any other way?” Gabriel goes back to fluffing his pumpkin mousse.
June made a tablecloth out of orange cotton, and trimmed it in white fringe. I center it on the table. Then I take the tray of pumpkins and place them one by one down the center of the table on either side. I set the table with Gram’s china, which Gabriel set out and counted.
“No kiddie table?”
“I don’t believe in them. Sitting at the kiddie table scarred me for life. I won’t visit that agony on your nieces and nephews.”
“Hey, it’s your party.”
“And yours,” he reminds me.
I unpack a large solid chocolate turkey from Li-Lac’s on Hudson Street and place it on a gold serving dish. I open a bag of orange, green, and silver foil kisses and surround the turkey. The details of the table design were decided on a legal pad a week ago. I follow Gabriel’s plan down to the placement of the last foil kiss.
“What time are we expecting the family?” I ask.
“Noon. They’re going to the parade till eleven. Then they’ll catch Santa in Macy’s Square, hop the subway to Christopher, up to the roof for hot apple cider and chestnuts, and downstairs for carving of the bird. We’ll eat promptly at one thirty.”
“You play serious ball, my friend.”
“Have to. I’m doing soufflés for dessert. Can’t have those sitting around like Barney, the Macy’s balloon, when he hit the streetlight on Broadway and deflated. Not a good idea.”
“I love you for many reasons, Gabriel. Your soufflés might be number one.”
“Thank you. I love being loved by you. And I hope none of your love affairs work out-ever.”
“Well, Gabriel. You don’t have to worry about that. I am destined to be alone. You know what gay men and I have in common?”
“I’m dying to know.”
“We were not raised for happily ever after. That’s another reason why you and I have the perfect marriage. You understand that. I’m going up to the roof to start the grill,” I tell him.
“That’s a good wife,” he says as I go.
I grab the large cast-iron skillet and head up to the roof.
Gabriel winter-proofed the garden, and instead of putting old feed sacks on the plants, he took muslin from the shop and draped it over them, tying the material at the base of the containers with enormous red ribbons. Everything that man touches turns into art.
I load the charcoals onto the grill. I take a long matchstick and light it, throwing some lighter fluid on the coals. They ignite into orange flames, the exact color of the stubborn leaves that remain on the top branches of the maple trees across the highway.
I lean over the roof ledge and look down the Hudson to where the river opens up into the Atlantic Ocean. Gianluca is just an ocean away, I’m thinking, as I watch the white caps roll out to sea. “Stop it,” I say out loud. Stop thinking about that man! He does not want you anymore.
“Valentine.”
My mother hauls a sack of chestnuts across the roof. “Yoo-hoo.” Mom wears a pumpkin-colored suit with matching high heels. A brooch in the shape of a turkey, made with chocolate pavé stones, shines in the sun. “I didn’t want to scare you. What are you doing? You’re looking off to sea like a besmirched scullery maid in a Philippa Gregory novel.”
“Actually, I am pining. I’m going to be alone for my entire life, Ma.”
“I promise you that will not be the case.”
“How do you know?”
“A mother knows,” she says definitively. “In the meantime, you and Gabriel have put together quite the holiday. The table looks gorgeous. We picked up Aunt Feen on the way in. She’s down in the kitchen grousing about the traffic. June is here, and she’s helping.”
“I’d better get down there.”
“Alfred called from his cell. He’s bringing the boys. Pamela is coming in from Jersey on the train.”
“Pamela didn’t go to the parade?”
“No. You know she hates crowds. She’s such a tiny little thing. She’d have been tossed to and fro.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Any deviation from Alfred and Pamela’s routine gives me a jolt of worry. Alfred assures me that everything is fine, but is it?
“What’s the matter?” Mom asks.
“I can’t shake him, Ma. The Italian.”
“I’m sorry.” Mom puts her arms around me. “Maybe you can go to Italy when you get the Bella Rosa launched. Maybe if you go there, Gianluca will listen to reason.”
“I don’t want to make a trip just to be rejected again.”
“Good point. Why don’t you invite him here for Christmas?”
“Because he’ll say no.”
“You don’t know until you ask.” My mother uses the same strategy she employed when I was sixteen and needed a prom date. She’d haul out the yearbook and paw through it, making a list of names just as she would from the phone book when the drain clogged and she needed a plumber. “Tell Gianluca that we’ll put on the dog for him. He hasn’t lived until he’s had the Roncalli Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.”
“What a lure,” I groan. “Hmm. Gianluca…please choose…me, a comely thirty-five-year-old or…a fish fry. Come one! Come all!”
“Hey, it’s the best I got,” Mom shrugs. “But Val…first we have to get through Thanksgiving. We could be in for a little tension at dinner.”
“Why?”
My mother lets go of me and pushes her Jackie O. sunglasses up the bridge of her small nose. “Tess and Charlie have been having a little ongoing argument about our family down in Argentina. And, well, it’s the race issue. Charlie feels that Tess shouldn’t tell the girls about the Argentinian side of the family.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Charlie feels it’s complicated.”
“You mean he’s prejudiced.”
“No, no, I don’t think that at all. It’s just new information. He doesn’t know how to tell his daughters.”
“You just say, we have family in Argentina and they’re black.”
“That’s what you would do, but the Fazzanis-you know how they are. Those people have airs. His mother wanted finger bowls at their wedding reception.”
“I remember.”
“They’re awfully proper for a bunch of carpenters from Long Island-but proper nonetheless. And small-minded. I cannot deal with pea brains, but in this instance, we have to.”
“Mom, I’m not going to hide my cousins.”
“I’m not asking you to hide them. I just would rather you don’t Skype Roberta in when Charlie’s around.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It is what it is.” My mother purses her lips together. “Give the man time to accept our new family.”
“I’m going to talk to Charlie.”
“No, don’t bother. Let it go.”
“I thought it was weird. Charlie’s been keeping his distance. I’ve hardly seen him-now I know why.”
“He doesn’t judge you. And he doesn’t blame you for going down there. Not entirely anyway. He doesn’t understand why you have to get into business with them.”
“I really don’t care what he thinks. Charlie can judge me all he wants. But I’m not putting up with this-and my sister knows better.”
“That’s her husband.” My mother throws her hands up. “We marry who we marry, and then we have to cope.”
“Then she better enlighten him.”
Mom shakes her head and goes back down the stairs. Something tells me this Thanksgiving won’t be a peaceful meeting like the one between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. I have a feeling this one could be war.