GABRIEL CHANGES INTO A SUIT for Thanksgiving dinner, or the Feast of the Cassoulets, as we referred to it during the preplanning stages. I throw on a skirt and heels, because wherever there are glittery pumpkins, dressy clothes are required.
Tess whistles when I enter the kitchen. “Put on the apron,” she says. “Cashmere is a bitch to clean.”
I throw it on. She gives me a pastry gun filled with cannoli filling.
“I made the shells myself,” Jaclyn says.
“They look divine.” I fill a delicate pastry horn with creamy filling. I take a bite.
“Excellent!” I tell them.
“Roll the ends in chocolate,” Jaclyn instructs. “I learned that from Giada De Laurentiis. She eats everything she makes on TV. How does she stay so thin?”
“I have no idea.” I shove the rest of the cannoli into my mouth and chew.
Tess places a bowl of dark chocolate curls on the counter. I pick up the horns and fill them, then roll the tip ends in the chocolate.
“Italians are the only people in the world who prepare dessert while they serve the main meal,” June says as she ladles mashed potatoes into a server.
“We like our sugar,” Jaclyn explains.
Aunt Feen is parked at the head of the table nursing a cup of weak tea, because that’s all my mother offered her. The new elephant in the living room of the Angelini family is Aunt Feen’s drinking problem. Our solution is to hide the hard stuff and hope she doesn’t notice. Alfred fills the crystal tumblers at each place setting with ice water.
Charisma, Rocco, and Alfred Jr. watch the recap of the Macy’s parade on TV in the living room, while Tom feeds baby Teodora a bottle. Charlie uncorks the wine. Dad carves the turkey on a cutting board on the counter. As he slices, my mother stabs the pieces and places them artfully on a tray festooned with spinach leaves.
“Chiara, call everyone to dinner.” My niece sits on a stool, playing with a handheld computer game.
She doesn’t look up at me. “Do you have a bell? Grandma Fazzani has a crystal bell with a little silver dinger.”
I look at her. “Yeah, I got a bell.” I take the computer game away from her and give my niece the egg timer shaped like a hen. “Crank it and ring it.”
“Nice attitude,” Gabriel whispers as he grabs the matches to light the candles down the center of the table. “Makes me happy my family is dead.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Well, they are dead. Can’t bring ’em back.”
“No, you can’t,” Aunt Feen bellows. “And you’re better off. I got a few relatives taking up space in the bowels of hell.”
It’s always fascinating that Aunt Feen pretends to be deaf when you want to send her a message, but when something is whispered, she gets it in total.
Chiara lets loose with the egg timer close to baby Teodora’s ear. The baby wails.
“Chiara!” Tess shouts. “You’ll make the baby go deaf.”
“Sorry,” she says, but the look on her face is anything but contrite.
“That’s the little devil who interrupted your coitus, isn’t it?” Gabriel says confidentially in my ear.
“The very one. That kid was on a mission.”
Dad takes his place at the head of the table, while Mom places the platter of turkey before her place setting, as she will serve it.
“I took a nibble of the stuffing, Gabriel-and it’s just like Teodora’s. You nailed it, seasonings and all,” Mom brags. “Savory. And light in texture.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel says proudly.
One by one, the family finds their seats as they check for their names at the place setting.
“Where’s Pam?” I ask Alfred.
“She’s upstairs. She has a migraine,” Alfred says, tapping his forehead.
“I told her to lie down in my room.” Gabriel places baskets of fresh rolls down the center of the table. “The serene green walls will cure whatever’s ailing her.”
“This year, we’re gonna join hands…,” my father begins.
“I am not holding hands,” Aunt Feen complains. “The Catholic Church went in the toilet when they started that-I don’t like it in church, and I don’t like it at dinner.”
“Okay, then we won’t hold hands,” Dad says.
“Wait a second, Dad,” I interrupt. “Aunt Feen, if Dad wants us to hold hands, we’re going to hold hands. He’s the head of this family. You’re our beloved great-aunt, but what he says goes.”
A silence settles over the table.
I bow my head. I close my eyes, and instead of picturing Jesus on his heavenly throne surrounded by a choir of saints, I see Gianluca. Our relationship may be as dead as the autumn leaves in the centerpiece, but the things I learned from him are very much alive. He would be proud that I defended my father and his role. Gianluca taught me that tradition isn’t something we do, it’s the way we are. And now that 166 Perry Street is my home and this is officially the first holiday where this is my table-and Gabriel’s-it’s my call. I make the rules in this house.
“Hold hands,” I say firmly.
“Aw, what the hell.” Feen grabs the hands of Gabriel to her right and Charlie to her left.
“Dear God, we want to thank you. It’s been a year of transmissions-”
“Transitions,” Mom corrects him.
“-transitions. We got my mother-in-law in the old country with a new husband. We got the grandkids growing healthy and strong, we got Aunt Feen on the mend from the bruising she took in Arezzo, we got an all-clear on my prostrate-”
“Prostate.” My mother sighs.
“And we got Gabriel handy with the paint can and the sponge, turning 166 Perry Street into a Phoenecian palace.”
My mother is about to change Phoenecian to the correct Venetian. I squeeze her hand so she won’t. Egypt and Venice are close enough. Mom takes the tip and leaves Dad’s vocabulary alone.
“What I’m saying, dear Lord, is that we are grateful. June, you’re a good Irishman, and we love to have you anytime-”
“You got it, Dutch,” June says, her head bowed.
“And we thank you for this bee-you-tee-full food and table, the Vegas pumpkins, the wine from your grapes, I got my eye on you, Aunt Feen, no fair guzzling. The last place we wanna celebrate this Thanksgiving is the emergency room at Saint Vincent’s-”
“I don’t want to be no trouble,” Feen grouses.
“So, dear Lord,” Dad continues, “we got another year under our belts. And we thank you for that. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost…Amen.”
“I’m going to check on Pamela,” Alfred says, as my sisters pass the platters. He goes up the stairs as we help the kids load their plates.
I fill my plate with turkey, stuffing, whipped potatoes, and green beans. I place my napkin on my lap. I listen while my brothers-in-law and father talk college football, and as always, the chatter loops around to Notre Dame, and will the Fighting Irish place in the polls this year. The number of the year may change, the children may grow older, and we may add in a new baby or spouse here and there, but every autumn, and every Thanksgiving, the talk turns to Notre Dame football and will they or won’t they.
Alfred returns to the table with a look of concern on his face.
“Is Pamela okay?”
He nods that she is.
But I notice that my brother isn’t eating. I’m not hungry either. Something is going on, something under the surface, looming in the depths. I can see the shadows. I can’t name the beast, but it’s there, lurking. I can feel it. And when I look at my brother, I know that he can too.
“Oh, Val, tell Feen about Buenos Aires. She hasn’t heard any details,” June says.
My mother kicks me under the table.
“It was really nice,” I say.
“That’s all?” Feen says critically. “I get on the bus and go gambling in Atlantic City-now that’s nice. But Argentina? That should be something more. Am I right?” Feen waves her fork around.
“Tell about the river walk, and the cobblestones,” June persists.
“They were lovely.”
Silence settles over the table. “But you have people there, right?”
“Yes, Aunt Feen.”
“I never saw any pictures.”
“I have them. I can show you later.”
“Okay. Nothing like waiting months on end to see your relatives who I never met and probably never will. I’ll be dead, and then maybe you’ll get off your duff and think, Sheesh, should’ve shown Aunt Feen the pictures. You’d think you’d have made a video or something. I’m never gonna get on a plane again. I’d like to see your long-lost cousins before I die.”
“You will, Aunt Feen,” I assure her.
The kids giggle as they poke the glitter pumpkins with their forks. “Don’t destroy the table,” my mother says to them nicely.
“You know, when you get to be my age, it’s a bad idea to withhold anything. That includes mail. I could win the lottery, and if I died, right before I found out, let’s say. You know, none of youse could collect the money? That’ll show you. You know, I could go in a heartbeat. Boom. One minute here, the next, I’m code blue. So, if you wouldn’t mind, get the pictures.”
“Later, Aunt Feen,” Tess pipes up.
My brother-in-law Charlie shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
“Who wants to go to the park?” my brother-in-law Tom says.
Chiara, Rocco, Alfred, and Charisma leap out of their seats. “The baby is fussy. She needs air.” He kisses Jaclyn on the cheek. The truth is, Tom needs air. These family dinners don’t sustain him-they literally choke him.
Tess helps the girls into their coats. Alfred zips up the boys’ parkas. “You want me to go with?” Alfred asks Tom.
“Nope. We’ll be fine,” he says as he drops baby Teodora into the snuggly. “The big girls and boys will help.”
“We will!” Chiara promises, but that devilish look returns to her face as she narrows her eyes. She probably plans to hail a cab, throw the baby in, and send her on a joyride through the five boroughs.
“And when you guys get back, we’ll go up on the roof for chestnuts and marshmallows, okay?”
The kids shout in delight as they race down the stairs.
“Kids, they are balls of energy,” June laughs.
“That’s why I never had any.” Feen takes the napkin from her lap and tucks it into her collar and spreads it across her chest. “They destroy everything they touch.”
I drain my wineglass. I look down at my food, which I still haven’t tasted. But I’m on my third glass of wine. Not good.
“So get the pictures,” Aunt Feen insists.
“Later.” I force a smile.
“Val’s not done eating, Aunt Feen,” Mom says hurriedly.
“She can eat, and I can look at pictures.”
“We are not looking at pictures!” Charlie bellows.
“Why the hell not?” Feen demands.
“Not while my children are here.”
“Technically, they’re at the park,” Mom offers helpfully.
“What difference does that make?” Aunt Feen looks around, confused. Her eyeballs bounce around in her head like slot machine lemons.
“I don’t want them to walk in and see the pictures,” Charlie says firmly.
“Are they pornos or something?” Feen throws up her hands.
“They are not…pornos.” My mother squeezes the word out, not wanting to allude to pornography at a family meal (or any other time, for that matter).
“Tell your aunt what the problem is, Ma,” Charlie says.
“There isn’t a problem,” I correct him. “At least not to thinking people.”
“What are you saying?” Charlie looks at me.
“Stop squabbling and get the pictures,” Aunt Feen says. “When Tessie and I die, you people are all that’s left. Our blood line will collapse like a tapped vein. So you found some relations on your side and I want to see them. What’s the big deal?”
“Not now,” Mom says.
“But I don’t understand why…,” Aunt Feen persists.
“Because they are black,” Charlie blurts. “That’s right. African American.”
Aunt Feen is confused.
“They can’t be African American-because they are not American. They are Argentinian,” I correct him. “But even that isn’t exactly right-they are a mix of many cultures, Ecuadorian, African, and Italian.”
“No matter how you mix it, there’s still one predominant color-and that would be black,” Charlie corrects me.
“No, it’s a mix.”
“A mix.” Feen is surprised. I guess Gram didn’t paint the fine details about our long-lost relatives. Aunt Feen thinks. Then she says, “Well, what did you expect? They’re south of Mexico.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Mom interjects.
“Huh. Look at a map.” Feen shrugs.
“Okay, look. Before this careens headlong into a stone wall, let me just say that I met our family, I like them, they’re good people, and Alfred and I are in business with them. Yes, they are black, and they are also Italian.”
“Blah blah blah,” Feen mumbles.
“That’s right. They are both. And they’re beautiful people.” I sound like an idiot. But I realize, in the center of this ridiculous argument, I react like one.
“Of course you’d say that.” Charlie taps his fork on the table.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I turn to Charlie.
“You accept anything. You’re a liberal.”
“What does that have to do with our family in Argentina?”
“You’re happy to have black people in the family. Sure, sure, let everybody in.” He waves his arms around. “What’s the difference to you?”
“There is none. Who cares what color they are?”
“I do. I don’t want my girls coming home with black guys. Okay? I’m all for equal rights, and everybody’s one and the same in God’s rainbow. I just don’t want them to marry it.”
“Charlie!” June pushes her chair away from the table. “Are you serious?”
“He’s serious.” Tess shakes her head sadly. Clearly, they’ve been fighting about this for months.
Charlie looks around the table for support. “Dad, back me up on this.”
“Hey, since I got the cancer, nothing bothers me.” Dad holds up his hands. “I love the world and everybody in it.”
“Thanks,” Charlie sneers.
“It’s not my husband’s fault that we have blacks in the family,” Mom says.
“It’s not anybody’s fault, Ma,” I say.
“I didn’t mean that like it sounded.” Mom shakes out her hands as she does whenever she’s nervous. “It’s just that whenever we start talking about race relations, I never say the right thing.”
“You’re fine,” I reassure her. “There’s nothing wrong with having black relatives.”
“Not to you,” Charlie says.
I turn to him. “It’s not like I discovered our cousins are running a drug cartel.”
“How do we know they’re not?”
“Oh, Charlie-you’re really sick.” I can’t help it. I haven’t eaten, and I’m losing all perspective. I could bite the ass of a wild bear right now.
Mom defends me. “Look, Charlie. Valentine did not go to Argentina to unearth some family secret-”
“Oh, yes, she did-she found that goddamned drawing, Tess told me, and then she went on a hunt to find Ralph-”
“Rafael,” I correct him.
“Rafael-whatever-and then she gets on a plane and goes down there and gets in business with these people. Come on. What are we doing here?”
I find myself standing, leaning across the table. “Charlie, how dare you! Nobody has asked you for anything-ever. You rolled into this family, and we’ve been damn good to you. When you and Tess needed help buying a house, we all pitched in-”
“Oh, now you throw that up in my face-”
“It’s true. But you’re not grateful. Well, the black side of me loaned you the money, okay?” I yell.
Tess stands up. “Everybody calm down.”
Gabriel hands me a bread stick. He lives with me. He knows a low blood sugar dive when he sees one. “He needs help!” I point to my brother-in-law. I realize that I’m tipsy. I hold the table.
Charlie gets up from the table. “Sit down, Charlie,” my father yells. “Nobody leaves the room.”
Charlie sits down.
“I will not have this.” My father pounds the table. “I will not have a rift. Nobody leaves until we settle this.”
“Well, good luck on that front, nephew.” Aunt Feen picks her teeth with her name-tag flag from the pumpkin.
We sit in silence for a moment, not knowing what to say or do. “I’m leaving,” Pamela announces from the doorway behind us.
We turn to face Pamela, who stands in the entrance to the hallway. She has on her coat.
“Oh, Pam, you’re up, how’s that migraine? Come and eat. The stuffing is as good as my mother’s,” Mom says.
“Don’t condescend to me.”
“I wasn’t condescending.” Mom looks around the table at all of us. “Was I?”
Tess and Jaclyn shake their heads that Mom was not.
“Go ahead. Stick together.” Pamela looks at my sisters.
“Are you all right, Pamela?” June asks. “Am I missing something?”
“This. This is what you’re missing. And what I’ve been missing.” Pamela hurls a piece of paper on the table. I pick it up and smooth it out. From the looks of it, Pamela has had it balled up in her angry fist for hours. It’s a printout of an e-mail.
“Read it,” she barks at me. “I printed it out at home and memorized it on the train. Go on. Read it.”
“Read what?” my father asks. “What’s on the paper, Val?”
Alfred puts his face in his hands. “It’s me. It’s my fault.”
“What is your fault?” My mom asks softly.
“Everything. It’s my fault.”
My mother strokes her turkey brooch and thinks. Then she says, “Did you…did you break the law? Did you steal, Alfred?”
He looks at her like she’s insane.
Mom leans back in her chair, relieved. “He did spend twenty-three years on Wall Street. Every day you pick up the paper and some other muckety-muck is on his way to the slammer for things he was unaware he was doing. The financial world is so complex.”
“Then what in God’s name did you do?” Feen barks at Alfred.
“He had an affair!” Pamela shouts. “An affair. He cheated on me. Happy Holiday, everybody!”
“Pam…,” my sister Tess says quietly.
“Don’t Pam me. I’m Clackety-Cluck-remember?”
“Clickety-Click,” Jaclyn corrects her.
“Whatever. Feel free to call me anything you want because I’m outta here! You made me feel like the outsider all these years, and guess what? It was true. I was different. I was normal-and you, you’re all crazy! I knew you were a pack of loonies before I married him, but it’s only gotten worse. And I only put up with you quirky bastards because I loved your son. But your son has decided he doesn’t love me anymore. He went out whoring around-”
Alfred leaps to his feet. “That’s not true, Pam. I love you.”
“Words! Words! That’s all you got for me? They got a million of those in the dictionary!”
Dad nods. “True, true.”
Pamela runs her hands down the sides of her body, from her bust to her waist and down to her hips. “Alfred. Look at me,” she commands.
Alfred looks down at the table; his head hangs in shame.
Pam lowers her voice to a growl. “I said. Look. At. Me.”
Alfred looks up at Pamela, his eyes filled with tears.
“I kept the deal. I am the girl you married. I didn’t change. I didn’t gain fifteen pounds, then lose five and gain back twenty on that Jenny Craig seesaw your mother’s been on all of her married life.”
My mother gasps.
“That’s right!” Pam shouts. “Lose the damn weight already!”
My mother, horrified, pulls her tummy in and sits up straight.
“Look at me. Size two December 1994 and size two November 2010. How many women can say that at forty-one years of age when they’ve given birth to babies with heads the size of bowling balls?”
“Sweet Jesus,” my father mutters.
“I got you all pegged. Each and every one of you. He cheats, but you all cheat! You all lie! You spread stories, you gossip-”
“We discuss things, yes, but-” my mother tries to defend herself.
“Ma, you’re the worst!” Pamela charges the table. “Everybody knows you tuck tags into dresses you’ve bought and wear them once and return them for a full refund!”
“Only once! I did that once!”
“It’s cheating, okay? It’s against the law!”
“It was a chartreuse gown, and it didn’t do a thing for me. But my back was against the wall, and I had to wear it.”
“And you.” Pamela points to me. “You’re a thief. Your neighbor, Mr. Matera, was dead for two years and you took his newspaper and read it every morning.”
“It was a glitch. I reported it to USA Today eventually.” My face burns hot with embarrassment.
“And you-” Pamela points to Tess. “Telling the ticket guy at Great Adventure that both of your children were under six, when they were seven and nine at the time. You made your own children crawl into the park on their knees to get in for free.”
“They wouldn’t honor my coupon,” Tess says in her own defense.
“It’s still cheating!” Pamela screeches.
“And you-” She points to Jaclyn. “You re-gift! That’s right. I gave you the Estée Lauder makeup kit for your birthday, and it wound up under the Christmas tree for Tess…from …you!”
“It was more her palette, not mine,” Jaclyn stutters. “I’m a winter, and she’s a summer…”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s still cheating!”
“I was with you till the re-gift,” June says generously. “That’s just a skin tone thing.”
“Her point would be that we’re all sinners here,” Dad explains to June.
“Yeah, Dad, that’s my point. And chew on this. I can’t believe I got mixed up with this bunch when I knew better. I saw all the signs, but I loved you so much, Alfred, I sucked it up and joined this lot of losers! Out of all the families in Queens, out of the millions of families, I marry into this one!”
“I take umbrage-” My mother raises her voice.
“Take the umbrage. Take it all. I’m done with you people.” Pamela paces back and forth behind the table like a prosecutor on Law & Order. “And you know what? Charlie and Tom feel the same way. That’s right, when you’re whispering about us, you got it: we’re talking about you! That’s right, the in-laws carp about you! Why do you think Tom is always going out for walks? Nobody likes fresh air that much! He can’t take you people! And Charlie? Tell ’em, Charlie. Tell them how you make up phony excuses about work so that you’re only forced to attend two major holidays a year!”
Tess turns to her husband. “Is that true?”
Charlie shrugs that it is.
“Well, then-” Tess explodes. “Guess what? Our next vacation destination is Buenos Aires! That’s right! We’re camping out with the South American side of the family!”
Charlie, embarrassed to be outed, reaches to put his arm around Tess. She lurches away from him.
“I’ve listened to you people complain for eighteen years, and I’m over it! If it wasn’t politics, it was religion. If it wasn’t RC Incorporated, it was your almighty gravy.” Pamela holds her hands tightly in fists and shouts. “I don’t care if you use garlic powder or real cloves in your gravy! It’s just sauce! Tomatoes and water! Eat it and shut up already! Stop complaining!”
“Who complains? I don’t hear any complaints,” Feen says.
Pamela ignores her and continues. “Thank God I didn’t let myself go! I wanted to-believe me. I wanted to wear Uggs and eat potato chips and watch The Real Housewives of South Bend, but I didn’t! I kept it all together! I hung on! It’s a damn good thing I kept my figure, because now I’m gonna be on my own-and this body is gonna be my revenge!” Pamela holds her hands high in the air in victory. “It’s my ticket out! You watch me.”
Gabriel is draped over the kitchen counter with his face propped in his hands as though he’s riveted to Night 3 of The Thorn Birds on TCM. Without taking his eyes off the theatrics, he dips a spoon into the bowl of cannoli filling and eats it. Aunt Feen cackles with glee under her breath as our family crumbles like blue cheese on greens before her eyes. My mother weeps into her napkin.
I read the crumpled e-mail silently to myself.
Dearest Alfred,
Our time was not now, our days were not our own, but our feelings were real. Never forget how much I love you. Happy Thanksgiving, dear Fredo, I will always be grateful for the time we had together. My love always, Kathleen
The laptop computer, open on the kitchen counter, rings once. Then again. Then a third time.
“It’s Gram on Skype,” I say.
“Close the lid!” my mother shouts, turning to Gabriel. “Close it!”
Gabriel turns as Gram’s face comes up on the screen. He snaps the screen shut, then takes the moppeen from his shoulder and wipes his brow.
“Let her hear! Let Gram hear it all! I got nothing to hide! I don’t care if the whole country of Italy knows I’ve been besmirched!” Pamela shouts.
“It’s not you.” Alfred tries to calm his wife down.
“I know it’s not me! It’s you. You’re one of them, even when you tried not to be. You’re just like them. You turned on me too.”
“Pamela…,” he says gently.
“She calls you Fredo.” Pamela pushes against Alfred’s chest as he holds her close. “I call you Fredo. I call you that.” She weeps as Alfred puts his arms around her. “Let me go. I want my boys. Where are they?”
“At the park,” Tess and Jaclyn say in unison.
Pamela breaks free of Alfred’s grip and turns to go.
“Pam, please sit down. Please don’t go.” My mother stands. “Maybe we can help.”
“You? What are you gonna do? Tell me I didn’t read the e-mail? Tell me it’s not true? You don’t see Alfred denying anything.” Pamela places her hands in the prayer position. Through her tears, she says, “Thank God I watch Oprah.”
My father moans.
“That’s right, Dad.” She glowers. “Oprah helps me. She did a show on money management, and I watched it because, you know…” And then Pamela does the strangest thing. She puts her hands on her hips like Susan Boyle when she was flirting with Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan on Britain’s Got Talent. She shimmies her hips from side to side as she says, “My husband was fired from the bank…”
“I thought you resigned,” Feen pipes up, gleeful at all the misery. “Some resignation. Turns out it was Das Boot!”
My mother glares at her.
“Oprah was giving women tips about how to save money during tough times. I followed her advice, because why? Because I’m a good wife and I want to ease my husband’s burden! Fat chance of that! He was easing it on some government employee!”
“Thank you Pope-rah!” Aunt Feen licks her lips, hopeful for more gory details.
Pam continues, “They brought on a therapist who said that men were very vulnerable right now-that women should be sensitive to their…” And then she does it again, she wiggles her hips and says, “huzz-bands, because of the economic downturn. Now, I didn’t think too much of it, because Alfred seemed so happy here with the elves making the shoes. And our life at home was fine. That’s right, even our sex life!”
My father puts his face in his hands. This diatribe might kill him.
Pamela screeches, “But the expert on Oprah said, ‘Check the man’s e-mails.’” She lowers her voice and growls like Linda Blair after the head spin. “And so I did. That’s how I found Kathleen Sweeney.” Tears roll down Pamela’s face.
“Wait, Pam.” Alfred reaches for her. She won’t let him touch her. “You told me you’d never cheat on me. You said you never would because your father cheated on your mother.”
“Now, just a minute…” My mother stands.
Pamela looks at my mother. “Well, he did. And you put up with it. But I think a little more of myself than you ever did of yourself.” She looks at Alfred. “You stay here. With your crazy sisters and your cheating father and your vain mother and your drunk great-aunt-”
Aunt Feen throws her head back and laughs. “That’s me!”
“Because…” Pamela tightens the belt on her size 2 coat. “I’m getting my boys and going home. Do you remember where that is? Home. The place where I made a life for you.”
Pam goes down the stairs. Her stilettos go clickety-click, clickety-click all the way down. Alfred follows her out.
The entrance door downstairs snaps shut.
“Anyone for dessert?” Gabriel says from behind the counter. “I could use a digestivo. Fernet Branca? Bitters, anyone?”
“Gimme a slab of tiramisu,” June says. “This is the goddamnest Thanksgiving I have ever spent.”
“I’m sorry, June.” Mom dries her tears. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
“This family needs to grow up.” June pushes her plate aside.
Aunt Feen applauds. “The wheels are off the bus. Off the bus! Off the bus!”
“Shut up, Feen.” June turns to my great-aunt. “You’re a mean old broad. You got a camel’s hump of misery on your back.”
“That hump is from osteo. Bone deterioration. I had a difficult menopause,” Feen explains.
“I don’t care where you got it. You’re the only old lady I know that gets dumber as the years roll on. And all these people dance around you in fear. I’m not afraid of you.”
“You attack a lonely widow on Thanksgiving. Nice,” Feen says quietly, milking any pity her blood relatives may still have for her.
“Poor Feen.” June turns and faces her. “It’s never enough for you. Is it? Your sister kowtowed, your niece, everybody’s afraid of you. Everybody fears your temper. Not me. I see who you are. You’re just an ungrateful old nag. You never got your portion. Never got a fair shake. And when you did, it was never enough. Nobody could fill the empty sock of your awful childhood. So you never got what you wanted. Boo hoo. Most people don’t. But the difference between you and other people is that they move on. They don’t calcify. They don’t blame everybody else for their troubles, and call the lawyer to sue the city every time they take a spill on the sidewalk. Put down the wineglass and pick up the magnifying glass and look in the mirror. Face yourself.”
Aunt Feen’s spine straightens in self defense. “Why you-”
“I’m not done.” June levels her gaze at Charlie, who looks away.
“Shame on you, Chuck. Open your eyes. The world isn’t black and white anymore-it isn’t even brown-it’s shades of something completely new. And not a minute too soon. Time for God to liven up the paint box. So your sister-in-law gets on a plane and finds out you have black people in the family-hardworking people who make their own way, and speak Spanish and grow olives-what’s it to you? Really, how does that affect your life? Do you really want to spend the precious moments of your life hating people you’ve never met from two continents away? If that’s your idea of living, then that’s your business, Chuck, but don’t bring the rest of us down to your idiot level. You’re embarrassing yourself with your ignorance.”
“June,” Tess warns.
“Shut up, Tess. I’ve known you since you were a baby. I’m talking to your husband.” June turns back to Charlie. “Let me tell you this about black people-and I know, because I’ve loved ’em all, black, white, Filipino-or at least I think he was-maybe, come to think of it, he was Hawaiian. It doesn’t matter. I have tasted God’s smorgasbord from Boston to Buhl, and I’m better for my experience. Does that offend you?”
“This is some Thanksgiving.” My father sighs.
June looks at Charlie. “Well, does it?”
Charlie shakes his head.
“Didn’t think so,” June continues. “You should be proud to tell your daughters they have family in another country and that those folks have a little different patina from you. But let’s cut to it here, Charlie. You’re Sicilian, your people are a mere paddle in a canoe from North Africa. And you know it, and yet you have the temerity to act as though Sicily is the land of pilgrims and Wonder Bread. I got news for you-you’re already family-you are African. It’s just pigment, Charlie. Pigment. So knock it off. I’m annoyed with you already.”
Gabriel places June’s tiramisu in front of her.
“I’m sorry,” my brother-in-law says meekly.
“Let me tell you who your daughters will marry. They will marry men exactly like you, Charlie. So if you want them to bring home a couple of small-minded bigots with a size twenty-two and a half collar, well, then, you’ll get your wish.”
Gabriel pours June a cup of coffee. He places the cream and sugar in front of her. June dumps cream into her coffee and stirs. “It’s a café au lait world, people.” She sips. “Get used to it.”
I help Aunt Feen into the back seat of a town car. She grips the Macy’s bag full of Thanksgiving leftovers on her lap like they’re gold bricks hot off a Brinks truck. I ask the driver to see Aunt Feen to her apartment door, and he agrees. She waves me off.
I push the entrance door open and see a light on in the workshop. I kick off my shoes; the heels are killing my feet. My toes throb like my head, everything hurts after the worst holiday I’ve ever spent, anywhere, anytime.
I poke my head into the workshop. Alfred sits at the desk, his head down. My father sits at the worktable, watching him.
“Hey guys,” I say, pushing the door open. “Alfred, are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer. I look at my father. Dad looks at me and shakes his head.
“Alfred?” Dad says softly.
Alfred doesn’t respond.
“Son?” Dad gets off the worktable and goes to Alfred, placing his hands on Alfred’s shoulders. Alfred begins to weep. “It’s going to be all right, Al,” Dad says.
Alfred turns around and stands. He puts his arms around my father and buries his face in his shoulder. He is now heaving with tears. My dad looks at me as he pulls Alfred close to him.
“I’ve ruined everything, Dad. Everything.”
“It’s a dumb mistake, but you didn’t ruin anything.”
“She’s leaving me.”
“She’ll forgive you, son.”
“Why would she?” Alfred asks.
“Come here.” Dad helps Alfred sit down. Then he pulls up a work stool next to him. He takes my brother’s hands in his own. “You’re a good son. A fine man. I’ve been proud of you every day of your life. Even when you weren’t proud of me. I’ve done things that weren’t right in my life, and the goddamn thing still haunts me. And now I’ve visited it on you.”
“And I judged you, Dad. I judged you, and then I did the same thing.”
“That’s okay that you judged me. It meant that you knew I did wrong.”
“I’m a hypocrite.” Alfred hangs his head.
“Hey. Listen to me. I left my marriage for a while, and I’m not proud of it. I was in a dark place when I had that affair. I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back, I wasn’t thinking straight. I felt like my life was over-I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. And I blamed your mother that I wasn’t a big cheese. I don’t know, I grew up in a household where my mother pushed my father. I guess I thought that’s what a wife should do. I’d missed out on a promotion in the Parks Department, and I went home to your mother and she said, ‘Dutch, don’t worry. It’ll come around. Try harder.’ I should have appreciated her even more, but it just made me feel bad about myself, and I couldn’t shake it. I needed to feel good about myself again. So, I went looking for trouble because that made me feel alive, back on my game. But it was a temporary fix. And when I went with the other woman…my heart…”
My father wipes away a tear, but he recovers, and focuses on my brother.
“My heart was breaking because I turned away from the people who loved me, for someone who was looking for the love I already had. Now, this seems like a…like a…contradiction…”
I exhale softly as my father at long last finds the exact right word.
“…but it wasn’t. The best thing about me was that I had a good wife and four children. That was my calling card in the world. That’s what made me a cut above. But I had to throw it all away to find that out. I had built, with your mother, a bee-you-tee-full family. But at that time, I thought I needed more, attention, appreciation. Whatever the hell you want to call it.”
“I don’t want to lose her,” Alfred says.
“You won’t, Alfred. You won’t. But you gotta persist. And when she’s ready to forgive you, you’ll get a chance to start over. You’ll have to build your life with her again.”
“I don’t know if I can do that. If she’ll let me.”
“It’s not easy. The hardest thing I ever had to do was win your mother over a second time. And every man is different. But you’re made of far better stuff than me. You’re smarter, you’re more loyal, and you’re stubborn. You can turn it around. And I’m here to help you however I can. If you’ll let me.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“You owe me nothing, son. Not an apology. Nothing.”
“I hurt you, too.”
“Because I hurt you. That only makes us even.”
Dad holds Alfred close.
I watch them for a long time. I never thought this day would come.
“I suffer, too,” I say aloud. I didn’t intend to speak, but the words just come out of me. I place my hand over my mouth.
My father looks up at me.
“Dad, I know you love us, but there’s a reason I’m not married. There’s a reason I can’t…” I feel tears coming, but I stop them. “I can’t trust any man. It’s really hard for me. I forgave you, but I never beat my own fear. I’m still afraid of loving someone and being disappointed.”
“I’m sorry, Valentina,” my father says.
Only two men in my life ever call me Valentina, my father and Gianluca. Instead of making me sad, it makes me smile for a moment.
Gianluca did everything he could to help get through my fear, and I turned him away because I couldn’t face myself. I wouldn’t show him who I really was, so at the end, he had to go because he didn’t recognize me anymore. I didn’t even fight for him. I didn’t chase him when he left our room at the Four Seasons, I just stood there, frozen, inside and out, unable to move. I guess I thought if I went after him, I wouldn’t know what to say when he stopped, I wouldn’t have known what to do. So instead, I let him go. I let a good man, rare as an emerald, go because I couldn’t think of one reason to make him stay.
“Alfred?”
My brother and father look at me.
“At least you know what happens when you break a promise. I can’t even make one.”
I leave Alfred and Dad in the shop. I pick up my shoes and climb the stairs. I think about the pithy letter I wrote to Gianluca to woo him back. I was being funny after I broke the man’s heart. Now, that’s inappropriate. No wonder he didn’t write back. He sat there in Italy and thought, “She still doesn’t get it.” Maybe someday he’ll forgive me for my ignorance. I wish, on this Thanksgiving night, that there was some way to reach out to him. But this isn’t one of Gabriel’s soufflés that fell on the way to the table from the oven. This is Gianluca’s happiness I destroyed. What I couldn’t know then was that I destroyed my own as well.
“Feen is on her way out of Manhattan,” I announce to my sisters and mother who sit around the farm table after an endless meal that was long on courses and family drama.
“Where’s your father?”
“He and Alfred are talking in the shop.”
“Oh, good,” my mother says, ever the optimist.
I pull up a seat at the table. I place the wooden nut bowl in front of me, and commence cracking walnuts. My sisters and mother have small piles of shells where their plates once rested.
“June and Gabe are on the roof. They said they were roasting chestnuts, but I think they’re smoking pot,” Tess says. “That, or they’ve charred the chestnuts.”
“Good for them,” I say. “Either way.”
“I agree,” Tess says. Then she looks around the table. “What are we going to do?”
“Well, clearly, I’m going to go on a serious diet after the holidays,” Mom says.
“Oh, God, Ma, Pam was just taking potshots,” Jaclyn says.
“I only did Jenny Craig twice. I never saw myself as a yo-yo dieter.” Mom hacks the meat out of a walnut with a small, silver pick. She chews. “Do you?”
“No, Ma,” we say in unison.
“You know what? I like her,” Jaclyn says.
“Who? Pam?”
“Yeah. She’s got moxie. I had no idea she was that tough. I thought she was weak, and look at her, she stood up for herself.”
“If you look hard enough, you can find something to like about anybody,” Mom says diplomatically.
“She’s got good taste,” I add. “She has very dramatic sense of color when it comes to her clothing.”
“Always well dressed,” Tess says, cracking a pecan in half. “You can’t say she let herself go. She was right about that.”
“She was,” I agree. “So why didn’t we like her?”
“I don’t think we ever liked her because we’re all scared of Alfred.” Tess smooths her nutshells into a pile like she’s racking the balls for a game of pool.
“You’re right. We’ve danced around him all our lives. Trying to please him, or stay out of his way-it’s him. It’s not her,” I realize. “It was never her.”
“I disagree. I’m not afraid of my own son.”
“Mom, when we were kids, you’d have a pot of sauce on the stove for rigatoni for dinner. When Alfred came in from the library and he didn’t want marinara, you’d turn off the sauce, put the pot back in the fridge, and start pounding cutlets. You were afraid of him too.”
My mother picks up a nutcracker and decimates a pecan with one squeeze. “Do you kids analyze everything your father and I ever did or didn’t do?”
“Yes,” we answer in unison.
“I don’t think that’s healthy.” Mom frowns.
The last of the relatives have left with the last of the leftovers. June grabbed a cab after a parting whiskey shot. She has another party tonight in the East Village.
I finish the last of the dishes. I go to the table and blow out the candles, which have burned down to flat orange puddles in the holders.
I grab the last two cannoli and climb the steps to the roof. The scent of roasted chestnuts fills the air.
Gabriel has his feet up on the chaise, looking at the moon. I sit on the empty one beside him.
“Nobody ate the chestnuts,” Gabriel says.
“A lot of drama today. They forgot.” I hand him a cannoli.
“I can’t. I got no room.”
I put the cannoli aside and lean back on my chaise. The full moon is lit like a diner sign on the off-ramp of the Jersey Turnpike, so close I could reach up and write Open 24 Hours on the face of it.
“You prepared a beautiful meal,” I say.
“It didn’t matter. It went down like gruel.”
“How about that Kathleen sending an e-mail?”
“I never liked that redheaded hussy,” Gabriel says. “Not for a second.”
“I was surprised she’d send an e-mail like that.”
“Then you need a wake-up call. She wanted Pamela to find it. Holidays suck for mistresses. They’re sitting home scheming! There they are: all alone in the dark with their black thoughts and a Morton’s pot pie. And instead of going out and finding an available man, they want to wreck the holidays for the married ones. In the old days, they did drive-bys. My mother called the police one Christmas when my father’s mistress cruised by for the fiftieth time before the manicotti. Now, all these home wreckers have to do is e-mail. Saves on gas, I guess.”
“Your father cheated too?”
“Of course.”
“Is it inevitable?”
“There’s a study. Around sixty percent of all people in long-term relationships stray. Except, I don’t go by those statistics. They say five percent of all people are gay, but that number can’t be right-if you count up the hairdressers alone, you got at least fifteen percent of the general population right there. I think men have a hard time being men. Straight men at least.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Women give men a place to go. A man is a useless piece of equipment whose purpose is lost if it were not for women.”
“What are you talking about?”
He nods, warming to his subject. “It’s like this. A man might go out and get a job, but only for someplace to go during the day. And he’s only working that job to give the money to his wife. And then, if he does really well…to buy her good jewelry. And only because she asks for it. Diamonds aren’t a man’s idea. The first woman sent the first man into a hole in the ground, and when he emerged with the first diamond she looked at it and said, ‘It’s too small. Dig farther.’ Men are not ambitious outside of their desire to impress women. A woman, in return, gives a man’s life shape. A context. A place to go. It’s very simple.”
“You mean that every man is motivated not by ambition or power or wealth, but because he wants to please a woman?”
“Absolutely. Think about it. A straight man doesn’t care about surroundings, or good food-unless we’re talking Mario Batali or Tom Colicchio, but they’re an anomaly. No, women are the inspiration behind anything that has ever been invented, made, or built by men. Women, in fact, rule the world because of that power, and I’ve always thought it a waste that they don’t see that.”
If Gabriel is right, and I think he could be, I might still have a chance with Gianluca. If he lives to love and please a woman, why not me?
Gabriel continues, “If there were more of us, gay men would rule the world, because we have it all. We know how to create a place to go, and we like being in it. We’re homebodies with flair. We are. But we’re outnumbered by the straights. No, this life…is all about women. When you girls say it’s a man’s world-well, if only that were true! I’d be loving it. You ladies should own your power. You need to pick up the ball and run with it. I only use that analogy because of all the football talk at dinner.”
“Sorry about that. The men in my family mistook your lovely table for a tailgater.”
“If only straight men could take that passion they have for a ball flying through the air, and apply it to making the world better, they could fix global warming, ocean dumping, and mountaintop removal in the time it takes me to stuff a turkey.”
“Or make twenty individual soufflés.”
“I am handy, aren’t I?”
“Beyond.” I reach over and take Gabriel’s hand. We look up at the midnight blue sky.
“What’s to become of us, Valentine?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re thirty-five years old.”
“That’s not old,” I say.
“It’s not young either. Do you ever think about the future?”
“I try not to.”
“You live in a bubble.”
“I like my bubble. It’s blue and shiny. And you should know, you did the interior decorating.”
“So stay there.” Gabriel smiles. “It’s a gorgeous Tiepolo blue, and it works well with your skin tone.”
“Thanks.” I don’t have the heart to ruin Gabriel’s holiday by admitting that I spend a lot of time worrying about the future. Time is passing, and I feel I have nothing to show for it. Sometimes I flip through my sketchbook and remember places and times, the color of the afternoon sun on old bricks or the exact shade of red on a cardinal that landed on the bench in Hudson River Park while I was drawing, but in general, I’m amazed at how quickly the days fade in my memory. What will I remember about these days ten years from now? Will I agonize that I didn’t do enough to build a life with a man that loves me? Will I be like June, who knows how to party but likes to go home alone? “Gabe, I have an idea. I don’t want to get the number elevens between my eyes. Why don’t you worry about the future for both of us?”
“Not a problem. Once this economy turns, I’m going to start to save money, and I’m going to get rich. I’m going to plan for my retirement. I’m going to need a lot of cash. A gay man living on social security on a fixed income? I don’t think so. The only fixed item I want in my life is that North Star up there.” Gabriel points up to the sky, where small specks of silver peek through the blue. “No, I’m going to need cash that flows. I need a big budget-just for decorative lamps. I’ve got a plan. How about you? What are you going to do with the second half of your life?”
I think for a moment. When I’m on this roof, I feel anything is possible and I have since I was a child. I search the sky as far as I can see beyond the point where the Hudson River meets the Atlantic Ocean. The answer lies somewhere between here and there, the home I love and know, and the greater world beyond, which I’m not so sure of.
Finally I say, “I want to love a man who can be true.”
“Aim low, wouldja?”
I laugh. “That’s all I want. And one other thing. Don’t ever leave me.”
“Where am I gonna go?” Gabriel asks.
“I don’t know. Away. Somewhere. My family is crazy.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Gabriel assures me.
The autumn moon slips behind tufts of low, gray clouds. “A storm is rolling in,” I say. And while I can’t be sure about the weather, somehow, when I say it aloud, it sounds like a promise.