BUONITALIA IS AN ITALIAN GROCERY in the Chelsea Market, an old, converted warehouse on Fifteenth Street filled with specialty shops that sell everything from party cakes in the image of Scarlett O’Hara (with antebellum hoop skirts made of frosting) to live lobsters.
The rustic, brightly lit building is a mini-mall of great eating, but nothing tops BuonItalia, as they carry a bounty of all my favorite imports, direct from Italy. You can find everything from jumbo jars of Nutella, a chocolate whip made with hazelnuts (there’s nothing else like it spread on a fresh croissant); Bonomelli’s chamomile flower tea; Molino Spadoni farina (the only kind Gram will put in soup; I’ve been eating it since I was a pup); to big tins of acciughe salate, anchovies straight from Sicily, which we stuff into hot peppers and eat with hot bread.
At the back of the store, a series of open refrigerator bins are filled with fresh, handmade pasta. There’s a special on one of Gram’s favorite noodles, spaghetti al nero seppia, a thin linguine made with the black ink of squid. In the package it looks like licorice whips dusted in cornmeal. I’ll prepare it with fresh lemon, butter, and garlic.
I pick up a package of arugula, some firm white mushrooms, and some roasted red peppers to make a salad. Gram loves Zia Tonia’s dark chocolate curls on vanilla ice cream, her own version of stracciatella gelato, so I pick up a container of that, too. On the way out, I stop at the Wine Vault and buy a bottle of hearty Sicilian Chianti.
As I walk along Greenwich Street, on my way back to the shop, I remember when I was small and my mother wouldn’t allow us to go north of Jane, where the old Meatpacking District merged with the residential West Village. Mom believed that if the speeding meat trucks didn’t kill you, the exposure to the drug peddlers would.
There was some discussion in the early 1980s about Gram and Grandpop selling the shop and getting out of the neighborhood. There were unsolved murders on the docks of the Hudson River and all-night parties in clubs on the West Side Highway named after places you only hear about during a colonoscopy. So many of my grandparents’ contemporaries and neighbors feared the worst, sold their buildings for rock-bottom prices, and left for Long Island, Connecticut, or the Jersey shore. Gram still stays in touch with the Kirshenbaums, who owned a printing press on Jane Street and now live in Connecticut. Friends who hung on until the gentrification of the 1990s fared much better. My grandparents stuck it out, and now Gram will reap the benefits. This strip along the Hudson has become some of the most desired and expensive property on the island of Manhattan.
I remember a more homespun village from my childhood, a working-class neighborhood with a small-town feeling. Gardens weren’t manicured. It was pure luck if you had something green growing on your stoop. Buildings were maintained, not renovated. Redbrick walls were chipped and cracked, beaten by the wind and rain to a dull pink, while concrete steps had chunks missing, like the ears worn away by weather on ancient Greek statues.
There used to be big gray garbage drums locked with chains in front gardens, and bicycles hanging off the chain-link fences. Now those same gardens hold marble urns spilling over with exotic plants, and the bikes have been replaced by decorative vines of orange bittersweet berries loaded with blossoms in the spring and berries in the fall. Magazine prettiness has replaced real life.
The poets and musicians who wandered these streets have been chased away by wealthy ladies from the Upper East Side in black town cars shopping for European couture. They haven’t paved over the cobblestones yet, but you get the feeling that’s coming. How many limousines will have to bounce over them, tossing rich people around in the backseat, before someone objects? As long as there are cobblestones, I will have proof of my childhood. Once those are gone, I won’t be so sure about where I came from.
I push the door open. I take a quick look in the shop. The leather Gram cut this morning is laid out on the worktable. The back windows are cracked open; a soft breeze blows over the pattern paper, making it rustle slightly. “Gram?” I call out to her.
The powder-room door is open, but no sign of her there. There’s a note on the cutting table from June Lawton, our pattern cutter: “Finished up. See you in the A.M.”
I climb the stairs with the grocery bags. I hear a man’s voice in the apartment. He talks about food.
“Quando preparo i peperoni da mettere in conserva, uso i vecchi barattoli di Foggia.”
He says he cans peppers.
“Prendo i peperoni verdi, gli taglio via le cime, li pulisco, dopodichè li riempio con le acciughe.”
Now, he’s saying something about stuffing the peppers with anchovies.
“Faccio bollire i barattoli e poi li riempio con i pepperoni ed acciughe.”
The voice still isn’t familiar.
He goes on, “Aggiungo aceto e spicchi di aglio fresco. All’incirca sei spicchi per barattolo.”
“Così tanti?” Gram says to him.
I walk into the apartment with my bags.
Gram is seated at the kitchen table. The man sits at the head of the table with his back to me. Gram looks up at me and smiles. “Valentine, I’d like you to meet someone.”
I take the bags into the kitchen and place them on the counter. I turn around and extend my hand. “Hi…” The man stands up. He is instantly familiar to me. I know him from somewhere. I shuffle through my memory bank, all the while smiling, but my mental hard drive is coming up with nothing. He’s good-looking, sexy even. Is he a supplier? A salesman? He’s not wearing brown, so he’s definitely not the UPS man. He’s not wearing a wedding ring either, so chances are he isn’t married.
“I’m Roman Falconi,” he says. The way he introduces himself tells me that I should know his name, but I don’t.
“Valentine Roncalli.” I extend my hand. He takes it. I release my grip. He doesn’t. He stands and smiles with an expression of knowingness. Maybe he went to school at Holy Agony? I’d remember that. Wouldn’t I?
“Nice to see you again,” Roman says.
Again? Nice to see you again? I roll his words around in my head and then suddenly it hits me. Oh no.
This is the guy from the apartment. The Meier building. Last night. The guy in the Campari T-shirt. This is the man who saw me naked. I run my hands over my clothes, relieved that I’m wearing them.
Roman Falconi towers over me. He’s definitely taller in person than he seemed in the apartment. Of course, in a glass building, when it’s dark out, with distance and the angle, he looked small to me, like one of those bugs trapped in resin for science class.
His nose makes the schnozolas in my family seem demure, but again, everything on his face seems larger up close. He’s got thick black hair, cut in longish layers, but it doesn’t look coiffed. It would be wonderful if he were gay. A gay man would have looked at my nudity as a study in light, contrast, and form. This guy looked at me longingly, like a ham sandwich and a cold soda accidentally found in the glove compartment on a long car trip with no place to stop and eat for miles. He is not gay.
His eyes are deep brown, the whites around them pale blue-this is genuine Italian stock here. He has a wide smile, excellent teeth. I wiggle my hand out of his grasp. He has a look of surprise on his face, as if to say, What woman has the temerity to ever let go of my hand? Big egos go with big hands.
“Valentine is my granddaughter, and the apprentice in the shop.”
“Do you take care of the garden on the roof?” This time his smile is, well, dirty.
“Sometimes.”
Gram interjects. “Valentine is up there all summer. Every day. She’s the real gardener in the family. I don’t know what I’d do without her. The stairs are getting to be too much for me.”
“You’re just fine, Gram.”
“Tell that to my knees. Valentine is a lifesaver.”
I wish Gram would stop bragging about me. With every word she says, he buys time to remember the woman on the roof as compared with the one standing before him. This man has seen me naked, and believe me, there are states I wouldn’t enter if I knew that were true of any of its inhabitants. I like a little control in the nudity department; I prefer to be naked on my own terms, and in circumstances when I have a say over the lighting.
“Last night, I was looking at some ground level real estate next door for a potential restaurant space. The broker asked me if I wanted to see an apartment upstairs for fun. She was hard-selling me on the view of the river. And while the river was a knockout, I saw a woman on this roof who definitely beat that view.”
“Who?” Gram looks at me. “You?”
I shoot her a look.
“Who else could it have been?” she says and shrugs.
I cross my arms over my chest, then uncross them and place them on my hips. This guy has seen everything anyway, and he hardly needs X-ray specs to see through my arms to my breasts. “If you’ll excuse me, Roland…”
“Roman.”
“Right, right. Sorry. I have…some things to do.”
“What? We’re done for the day,” Gram says.
“Gram.” Now I’m annoyed. I give her the same play-along face that we give each other when we’re trapped by annoying customers. “I have other things to do.”
“What?” she presses.
Roman seems to be enjoying this. “A lot of things, Gram,” I tell her.
“I’d like to see the roof,” Roman says not so innocently.
“Valentine can take you. Take him up,” she barks. Gram gets up and moves to the stairwell to go upstairs. “I have to call Feen. I promised to call her before supper. Roman, it’s been a pleasure.”
“All mine, Teodora.”
What happened to the grandmother who didn’t want company above this floor? What happened to the woman who guards her privacy like the savings bonds hidden in a rusty tin box under the kitchen-table floorboards? She’s awfully quick to abandon her house rules in the face of this paisano. There’s something about this guy that she likes.
“Excuse me,” I tell Roman. I follow Gram into the stairwell and whisper, “Gram, what the hell is going on? Do you know this person? We’re two women living alone here.”
“Oh, please. He’s all right. Pull it together.” She grabs the railing and takes a step. Then she turns back to me. “It’s been too long for you, young lady. You have no instincts anymore.”
“We’ll discuss this later,” I whisper. I return to the living room.
Roman has turned his chair out from the table, crossed his legs, and has his hands folded in his lap. He’s waiting for me. “I’m ready for my tour.”
“Don’t you think you’ve seen enough around here?” I say.
“You think?” he says, grinning.
“Look, I don’t know you. Maybe you’re just some weirdo who goes around charming old ladies, speaking crappy Italian…”
“Hey, that hurts.” He puts his hand on his heart.
This makes me laugh. “Okay, not so crappy. In fact, I think you speak Italian very well. And I know that because I don’t.”
“I could teach you.”
“Okay. Fine. If I ever decide to…” Where have my words gone? He’s reeling me in here, and I’m trying to resist. “…learn how to speak better Italian.” There. I said it. Why is he looking at me like that, with an almost squint? What’s he looking for?
“Listen,” he says. “I’d like to make you dinner.”
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”
“Not now, maybe. But, eventually, you’re gonna get hungry.” Roman stands. “And when you do, I’m your man.”
Roman fishes in his back pocket and takes out his wallet. He pulls a card from his wallet and places it on the table. “If you change your mind about that meal, give me a call.” Roman turns to go. “You really shouldn’t be ashamed of your body. It’s lovely.” I hear him whistle as he goes down the stairs. The front door snaps shut as he leaves. Curious about the tall stranger, I go to the table and pick up his business card. It says:
ROMAN FALCONI
Chef/Proprietor
Ca’ d’Oro
18 MOTT STREET
Here’s the thing about a business card with a man’s phone number on it. It moves through life with you if you let it. First, I put Roman’s card on the fridge, as if we’d actually order in from the place one night. Then, I moved it to my wallet, where it sat for a couple of days next to the Bloomie’s coupons I’d saved from a mailer. Now, it’s in my pocket, on my way to my room, where I’ll leave it in the crook of the mirror over my dresser, joining the school pictures of my nieces and nephews and a discount coupon for a deep-conditioning treatment at the Eva Scrivo Hair Salon.
Gram convinced me that we needed to bring Alfred into the know about our precarious financial situation. She’s invited him over this afternoon to turn over our records and books. And because we are first and foremost Italian women, we are making his favorite dish, tomato-and-basil foccacia, to soften him up and appeal to his sense of duty to family while attempting to swing things our way.
Alfred peels an orange as he sits in Grandpop’s chair at the head of the table. He places the peels neatly on a cloth napkin. Gram’s handwritten ledgers, her business checkbook, his laptop computer, and a calculator are spread out in front of him. He wears a suit and tie; his oxblood Berluti wingtips are buffed to a glassy burgundy finish. He studies the figures on the computer screen as he absentmindedly drums his fingers.
Gram and I have cleared the granite counter and are using it for a cutting board. I have made a well of flour into which I crack an egg. Gram adds another. I add yeast to the mixture and commence kneading the flour and eggs into dough. Gram sprinkles flour on the counter as I fold and refold the mixture until it’s a smooth ball. Gram takes the ball, and with her hands places it on a greased cookie sheet and with her thumbs makes small indentations in the dough. She pulls the edges of the dough into a rectangle, which eventually fills the pan. I scoop fresh-sliced tomatoes out of a bowl and layer them in the folds of the dough. Gram shreds fresh basil onto the tomatoes, then she drizzles the pans with gold olive oil. I hoist the foccacia into the hot oven.
“Okay, Gram, Valentine, sit down.”
Gram and I take our seats at either side of the table, across from each other. We turn our chairs to face him. Gram twists a striped moppeen around her hand and rests it in her lap.
“Gram,” Alfred begins, “you’ve done a good job of keeping the shop running. What you haven’t done is make money.”
“How can we-,” I begin, but Alfred holds up his hand to stop me.
“First we have to look at the debt.” He goes on, “When Grandpop died, instead of going out and getting a partner to help finance the operation, which would have been wise at the time, you borrowed against the building to keep your shop up and running. Now Grandpop had loans of about three hundred thousand dollars on the business. You kept his loan, but unfortunately, you’ve only paid the interest, so ten years later, you still owe the bank three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Even though she’s been paying all this time?”
“Even though she’s been paying. Banks know how to make money, and that’s how they do it. Now, Gram, here’s where you got into trouble,” he says. “You used the only equity you had to borrow more money. You mortgaged the building. The real problem is that they gave you a balloon mortgage-cheap to pay up front, but then, just as the name implies, it balloons. And now the marker has come due. Your payments double in the new year. Again, the banks were smart. They know your property value only increased in this area, and they’re making money on the fact that you will when you sell the building.”
“She doesn’t want to sell,” I interject.
“I know. But Gram used the building as her leverage. Once Grandpop was gone, Gram couldn’t pay off any new debt. She was saddled with the old debt. The business can only produce what it can produce in any given year.”
“I tried to turn out more product,” Gram sighs.
“But you can’t. It’s not in the nature of a handcrafted product. They’re supposed to be unique, right?” Alfred looks at me.
“That’s what we’re selling. Exquisite shoes. Handcrafted. One of a kind.” My voice breaks.
Alfred looks at me with all the compassion he is capable of. “Okay, here’s what I recommend. It’s highly unlikely, with the cost of goods in the shop, and your ability to meet your orders, that you will make money. So, basically, the shoe shop is a financial wash.”
“But couldn’t we figure out a way to produce more shoes?” I ask him.
“It’s impossible, Valentine. You’d have to make ten times what you’re producing now.”
“We can’t do that,” Gram says quietly.
“There is one way to solve all your problems. You could sell the building and relocate to a cheaper location. Or not. Maybe it’s time to close the company entirely.”
My stomach turns. And here it is, in plain language, the scenario that will end my partnership with Gram and destroy any hopes I have of taking our shoe company into the future. Gram knows this, and so she says, “Alfred, I’m not ready to sell the building.”
“Okay, but you understand that this building is your greatest asset. It can set you free from the debt, and give you plenty to live on for the rest of your life. At least let me bring brokers through so we can assess what it’s worth-”
“I’m not ready to sell it, Alfred,” she repeats.
“I understand. But we need to know what the building is worth so that at the very least, I can go to the bank and refinance your mortgage and restructure your debt.”
I look over at Gram, who is weary from the discussion. Usually, she looks youthful to me, but today, having to own up to her past mistakes by the harsh light of the balance sheet on Alfred’s computer, she looks exhausted. The scent of pungent basil fills the air. I jump out of my seat. “The foccacia!” I run to the oven, look in the window, grab the oven mitts, and rescue the golden dough, its edges turning deep brown from the heat; I lift the pan out and onto the counter. “Just in time,” I say, fanning it with my oven mitt.
“Don’t worry, Gram,” I hear Alfred say. “I’ll take care of everything.”
Alfred’s quiet promise to Gram sends a chill through me. Someday, I will look back on this and remember it as the moment Alfred made his play to control the Angelini Shoe Company. What he will never know is that as determined as he is to sell, I am equally determined to stay and fight. My brother has no idea what I’m made of, but he’s going to find out.
The cold rain that brings the first chill of autumn to New York City woke me this morning. The boiler kicked on as the temperature dipped below fifty-five. The scent of fresh paint on the radiators, mixed with steam, signals winter on the way. As I pass Gram’s bedroom, she’s still asleep. How things have changed. Gram was up and in the shop before dawn. I was never an early riser, but now, with a mission in mind, I’m up with the sun.
I push open the glass door to the shop, prop it with a wedge of old wood, then set my mug of hot milk and espresso on an old rubber cat’s-paw heel and begin my rounds, flipping switches to turn on the work lights. Since our meeting with Alfred, I have savored every moment in this building. Each pair of shoes that we finish, pack, and ship galvanizes me to try and hang on to this shop. I can’t imagine a world where 166 Perry Street is anything but the Angelini Shoe Company, and anything but home. But there are moments when I am filled with despair about the fate of my future, and feel as though my dreams are slipping away, carried down the Hudson River and out to sea like a paper boat.
Our workshop is one enormous room, with areas assigned to particular tasks. There’s a half bath in the back that was once a closet. The workshop is spacious because it’s actually two stories high. There are windows on all four walls, very rare in a city building, giving us light throughout the day. When the storm clouds are low and dark, as they are this morning, it’s as if we are cloaked in gray chiffon. The light is muted, but it still breaks through.
The bay windows that face the West Side Highway create an old-fashioned storefront, turning us into a kind of aquarium for passersby who observe us as we work. Strangers often become mesmerized as they watch us press, hammer, and sew. We are so fascinating that PS 3 considers us a mandatory field trip every spring. The kids get a firsthand view of old-world craftsmanship, manual labor from centuries past. They find us as mesmerizing to watch as the seals at the Central Park Zoo.
I lift the key ring off the hook in the alcove by the door. I begin at the front, unlocking the folding metal gates that secure the windows. I roll them off to the side and throw a large latch around them to hold them in place. About twenty years ago, Grandpop installed the gates because the insurance company told him they would raise his rates if he didn’t. Grandpop argued that the building had been safe since his father bought it in 1903, and why should he change? The insurance adjuster said, “Mr. Angelini, your building hasn’t changed since 1903, but people have. You need the gates.”
When my great-grandfather arrived here, he built wooden storage closets all the way around the room. The wood grain is a mix of anything he could find-planks of oak, ends of mahogany, and strips of tiger-eye maple. The patchwork colors and texture of the wood are a reminder that my grandfather built the shop out of remnants from the Passavoy Lumberyard, which used to operate on the corner of Christopher Street. The closets reach to the ceiling. When we were kids, we used to play hide-and-seek inside them.
We store our tools, fabric, leather, and supplies in the closets. The organization of the goods has not changed since the shop opened. Great-grandpop built within the cupboards slanting shelves where we store the carved wooden models of various sizes of feet, called la forma. We build the structure of the shoe around these lasts, which were brought from Italy when my great-grandfather emigrated.
Another closet has a series of wooden dowels that hang horizontally from ceiling to floor. We use a stepladder to reach the wide bolt of sheer, gray-blue pattern paper at the top. Beneath it is a thick bolt of plain muslin, followed by a sumptuous selection of fabrics that alter as the seasons change. There’s double-sided white satin jacquard stitched in harlequin checks; embroidered cream silk patterned with loose flower petals in relief; eggshell velvet that shows a pale gold sheen in a certain light; sheer beige organza as stiff as fondant icing; and milky cotton linen textured with nubs of thread that give it the look of raw dotted swiss. Finally, at the very bottom of the closet, a dowel holds skeins of satin ribbon on small wheels in every shade from the palest pink to the deepest purple.
I remember when my sisters and I would hit Gram up for swatches to make dolls’ clothes. Our Barbies wore some first-class hand-cut Italian goods. And their accessories? With Gram’s supply of jet beads, ball fringe, and marabou feathers, our dolls were swathed in haute couture.
The leather, stacked in sheets, is stored in the largest of the closets. We keep squares of clean flannel between the patent leather sheets, and thin layers of pattern paper between the calfskin. The shelves in this closet are kept well oiled with lemon polish to keep the environment around the skins hydrated. The rich scent of leather and lemon wafts through the shop every time we open a closet door.
We keep by the entrance a small table and straight-backed chair that function as a desk. The phone, an old black model with a rotary dial, sits next to a red-leather-bound appointment book. Over the desk is a bulletin board covered in pictures of the grandkids, and a collage of our customers wearing our shoes in their full wedding regalia. The classic bridal photo comes in two varieties. It’s either a full shot of the bride lifting her hem to show her shoes, or she is barefoot and carrying them in her hands at the day’s end.
A small wooden statue of Saint Crispin, the patron saint of shoemakers, anchors the invoices on the desk. The statue was blessed by Gram’s priest in 1952. Shortly thereafter, the church renounced Crispin’s sainthood, and the statue was demoted from the breakfront upstairs to a paperweight in the shop.
Besides a stackable washer and dryer, there are three large machines in the back of the shop. The roller is a long apparatus with large, sleek, metal cylinders that stretch and smooth the leather. The buffer is about the size of a washing machine and features large hemp brushes, which polish the leather, breaking down the grain to give it a sheen. La Cucitrice is an industrial sewing machine used to stitch the soles and seams.
There’s an old ironing board with a blue paisley cover, and it has more than its share of coffee-colored burns, lots of them my doing. The iron itself is small and heavy, a triangle wedge with the metal handle covered in rattan. It, too, came from Italy with my great-grandfather. The iron takes a good ten minutes to heat up, but we wouldn’t think of buying a new one. My great-grandfather rewired it for electricity when he was a young man. Prior to that, they simply put the iron in the fireplace on an open grid to heat it.
Pressing is the first job an apprentice must learn. You’d be surprised by how long it took me to press fabric without having the edges curl. I thought I knew how to iron, but like every skill involved in making shoes, the stuff you thought you knew has to be relearned and refined. Everything we do is about pulling the construction elements together so that each shoe is perfectly molded to the foot of the individual customer. There can be no rough edges, wrinkles, bunching, or gathering. This is the luxury aspect of wearing a custom-made shoe. No one else could wear yours.
I look at my to-do list for the day. I have to sew beading on a pair of sateen pumps for a fall wedding; Gram has finished the shoe proper, now it’s mine to festoon. I go to the powder room to wash my hands.
My grandfather started a tradition of wallpapering this room with headlines that made him laugh from the New York daily newspapers. His favorite? From 1958: BABY BORN WITH FULL SET OF TEETH. I taped up TYING THE NUT when a fickle movie star married for the third time two summers ago. Gram added CROOK ASTOR when philanthropist Brooke Astor’s son was indicted for taking money from her estate prior to her death.
I go to the worktable to organize my day. I savor rainy days, and I especially love to work when there’s a storm. The rhythm of the drone of the rain as it hits the shop windows is a natural accompaniment to delicate handwork.
“Jesus, it’s a monsoon-a-roonie out there,” June Lawton bellows from the entry. She shakes out her black umbrella and props it open by the door. Then she unbuttons her khaki trench coat and hangs it on a hook over the radiator in the hall. “Too bad it’s not raining men, or we’d be in the chips, sister.”
June, Gram’s oldest and dearest friend, is now in her early seventies. She’s an Irish beauty, with sky blue eyes and a swan neck, which she accentuates with plunging V-shaped necklines, elaborate ropes of beads, and long, loopy chains. June is the original West Village bohemian, and proud of it. Sometimes on a summer afternoon she joins me on the roof when I water the tomatoes. She doesn’t come up just for the sun; from time to time she likes to smoke pot on her coffee breaks. June would hold up the hand-rolled cigarette and say, “Occupational hazard,” referring to her days when she sang with a small jazz combo called Whiskey Jam. Gram used to go and catch her shows at Village clubs in the ’50s and ’60s.
June has the fiery ginger hair of her youth and the smooth skin of someone half her age. I once asked June her beauty secret (it’s not the pot) and she told me that, since she was eighteen years old, she would lather her face and neck with soap and water and then gently buff her skin with a wet pumice stone. Then she’d rinse and apply a thin layer of Crisco vegetable shortening. So much for expensive face creams!
Greenwich Village is filled with women like June who moved to the city when they were young to work in the arts, had some success, and squeezed out a living. Now retired, living in rent stabilized apartments that provide a low overhead, they’re looking for something interesting to fill their time. June loves to work with her hands and she has great taste, so Gram convinced her to come and work in the shoe shop. My grandfather trained June fifteen years ago, and in that time, she’s become an excellent pattern cutter.
“Where’s Teodora?” June asks.
“She’s not up yet,” I tell her.
“Hmm.” June opens a cabinet, pulls out a red corduroy work smock and puts it on. “You think she’s okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” I look at June. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. She seems tired lately.”
“We’ve been staying up late watching the Clark Gable DVD boxed set.”
“That’d do it.”
“Last night it was The Call of the Wild.”
June whistles low. “Gable was sex on a stick in that one.”
“Loretta Young was pretty great, too.”
“Oh, she was a true beauty. And it was all real. Those were her lips and her bones. She fell in love with Gable when they were making that picture, you know. She got pregnant, kept it a secret, had the baby, and gave her up for adoption. Then guess what she did? She adopted her own baby back, named her Judy, and pretended for years that the girl wasn’t biologically hers.”
“Seriously?”
“Back then you couldn’t have a child out of wedlock. It would have ruined her. These stars today? Even bad acting can’t ruin them.” June pours herself a cup of coffee. “This is when I miss smoking. When I get myself worked up.” June drops a teaspoon of sugar into her cup. “How are you?”
“I need six million dollars.”
“I think I can float you.”
We laugh, then June’s expression turns serious. “What do you want with that kind of money?”
I haven’t told a soul that I’ve been going online to research real estate comparables in the neighborhood. Since Gram gave permission to Alfred to call brokers, I decided I needed my own set of numbers so I could figure out some strategy outside my brother’s. The results of my search are staggering. I can trust June, so I confide, “I’d like to buy the shop. The building with the business.”
June sits down on one of the stools with roller feet. “How are you going to do that?”
“I have no idea.”
June smiles. “Oh, what fun.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Valentine, that’s what’s delicious about being young. Try everything. Reach. Really reach. Six mil, or six bucks, what’s the difference when you’re young and you just might get it? I love the salad days, hell, the salad years! You can’t know this now, but the struggle is thrilling.”
“I can’t sleep at night.”
“Good. That’s the best time to figure out a strategy.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not finding any answers.”
“You will.” June puts down her coffee and stands. She pulls pattern paper off the reel and places it over the duchess satin on her table. She pins the paper to the fabric. “What does your grandmother think?”
“She doesn’t say.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“June, this is all so touchy. You’ve known her a long time. What do you think she’s thinking?”
“Your grandmother is my best friend, but she is an enigma to me in many ways. I’m very open about what I want, but she never has been. She’s a brilliant woman, you know. But she holds a lot in.”
“She’s the only person in our family who does.”
June smooths the pattern paper with one hand. “I think she’s been better since you’ve worked here.”
“You do?”
“You’re a good team. She gets a kick out of you, too. That helps.”
“Has she ever said anything about retirement?”
“Never,” June replies, which I take as a very good sign.
Gram pushes the door of the shop open. “Morning, ladies.”
“Coffee is fresh,” I tell her.
“You should have woken me up, Valentine.” Gram goes to the desk, picks up her notes, reads them, and sighs. Lately, Gram is like the shoemaker in the fairy tale. I think she half-expects that some morning, she’ll wake up, come down the stairs, and magically, elves will have done our work for us while we dreamed; splendid new handmade shoes will be assembled and ready to wear. “I could have used the early start.”
“We’ve got everything under control,” I tell her.
“Besides that, you were hardly wasting time up there. Weren’t you dreaming of Gable?” June says, smiling.
“How do you know?” Gram asks her.
“Who doesn’t dream of Gable?” June shrugs.
I pull the finished shoes off the shelf. Gram has wrapped them in clean, white cotton. I unwrap the shoes gently, like taking a blanket off a newborn baby.
I place the left shoe on my work pedestal, smoothing the satin carefully. I marvel at Gram’s needlework around the border of the vamp. The stitches are so tiny they are practically invisible.
There is a loud banging at the door. I look up at June, who is at a point in her cutting that can’t be interrupted. Gram is making notes on her list. “I’ll get it,” I tell them.
I open the entrance door. A young woman, around twenty, stands under a flimsy black umbrella. She is soaking wet and carries a clipboard. She wears a backpack and a headset around her neck, which leads to a walkie-talkie hooked to her belt.
“Do you guys fix shoes?” She pushes the wet hood of her zippered sweatshirt off her head. Her long red hair is secured with a navy-and-white bandanna tied in a bow. Her creamy skin has a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, but not a single one elsewhere.
“Sorry. We don’t do repairs.”
“It’s an emergency.” The girl looks as though she might cry.
The girl props her umbrella in the corner of the vestibule and follows me into the shop.
“Who are you?” Gram asks politely.
“My name is Megan Donovan.”
“You’re Irish,” June says without even looking up. “I’m a lass myself. We’re outnumbered here. You can stay.”
“What do you need?” Gram asks her.
“I’m a PA on the movie shooting over at Our Lady of Pompeii Church…” Her voice goes up at the end of the sentence, like a question, but she’s not asking one.
“That’s my parish.” Gram sounds surprised that they’d be making a movie where she attends mass, got married, and baptized my mother.
“They didn’t check with you first?” June continues to pin fabric, but this time she looks up. “Call the Vatican,” June says with a grin.
“What’s the movie about?” I ask Megan.
“Well, it’s called Lucia, Lucia. And it’s about a woman in 1950 in Greenwich Village. Anyhow, we’re filming the scene of her wedding and her heel broke. And I Googled wedding shoes in Greenwich Village and found you guys. I thought maybe you could fix it.”
“Where’s the shoe?”
Megan drops the wet backpack off her shoulders, unzips it, and lifts out a shoe, which she hands to Gram.
I join Gram behind the table to assess the damage. The heel has completely ripped away from the shaft.
“It can’t be fixed,” I tell her. “But this is a size seven. Our samples are sevens.”
“Okay, let me tell them.” Megan whips out a BlackBerry and types rapidly with both thumbs across the keypad. She waits for a response. She reads. “They’re on their way.”
“Who?” Gram asks.
“My bosses. The costume designer and the producer.”
“We can’t fix this shoe,” Gram says firmly.
Megan looks flustered. “This is my first movie and these people are real perfectionists. When the heel broke, they all started screaming. They gave it to me and said, ‘Get it fixed,’ like they’d kill me if I didn’t. They’re serious about every freakin’ thing. I mean, totally picky. The bride couldn’t just carry white roses; it had to be a certain kind of white roses. I was at the flower market this morning at three AM to get some Ecuadorian rose that blooms, like, once a year.” Megan wipes her eyes with her sleeve; I don’t know if she’s wiping away tears of frustration or rain.
Gram pours Megan a cup of coffee. Megan dumps cream and sugar into the mug until the coffee is the color of sand. She grips the mug with both hands and sips.
“Well, now we know where the craftsmanship in America has gone. It’s in the movies.” Gram smiles.
“Here, give me your sweatshirt. I’ll throw it in the dryer,” I tell Megan. She peels it off and hands it to me. Her black T-shirt with bold white letters that say ADDICTED is, amazingly, dry.
“This place is really old.” Megan looks around and drinks in the operation.
“Yes it is.” Gram nods. “How do you like making movies?”
“I’m so low on the ladder, you don’t need a step to reach me.” Megan sighs.
There is another loud knock at the door. “That’s them!” Megan panics, puts her coffee down, and goes to the door.
Megan returns followed by two women who talk rapidly to each other and at the same time seem preoccupied. “This is Debra McGuire, our costume designer.” Megan almost curtsies.
Debra’s long, dark brown hair is worn in a loose braid to her waist. She wears bright red lipstick, and has half-moon-shaped brown eyes that squint around the room as she takes in our operation. She peels off her black patent trench coat. Underneath, she wears turquoise sari pants tucked into yellow patent leather wellies, a short pink silk skating skirt over the pants. On top, she wears a yellow-and-white-pin-striped band jacket that looks like she stole it off the body of Sergeant Pepper. It’s hard to say how old she is. She could be in her thirties, but she has the presence and command of a woman of fifty. “Have you fixed the shoe?” she snaps at Megan.
“No,” Gram interjects. “And who are you?” Gram turns to the woman standing beside Debra.
“I’m Julie Durk, the producer.”
Julie is in her thirties, with pale skin and blue eyes. Unlike the demanding Debra, she dresses like me, in faded denim jeans and a black turtleneck and black suede boots. Julie also wears a navy blue baseball jacket that says LUCIA, LUCIA in red where the team logo would go.
“Where are we?” Debra looks around the shop and then at Megan, more annoyed than curious. Before Megan can speak, Gram interrupts.
“The Angelini Shoe Company,” Gram tells her. “We make custom wedding shoes.”
“I’ve never heard of you.” Debra circles around the cutting table to get a view of the pattern June is working on. “Do you know Barbara Schaum?”
“The sandal maker in the East Village? She’s wonderful,” Gram says. “She’s been around since the early sixties.”
“This shop has been here since 1903,” I say, hoping this woman will get the hint to be respectful to my grandmother.
“Not many of you left.” Debra moves over to study the shoe I’ve been working on. “You guys do what again?”
“We make wedding shoes.” Now I’m peeved.
“Ms. McGuire has a lot on her mind,” Megan apologizes for her boss.
“Please.” Debra waves her hand at Megan dismissively. “Now why can’t you fix my shoe?”
“It’s beyond repair,” I tell her.
“We have to do reshoots, then,” Julie says, biting her lip.
“It’s a fashion film,” Debra snaps. “We have to get it right.”
“Who made this shoe?” Gram holds up the broken model.
“Fougeray. He’s French.”
“If you talk to him, tell him it’s better to use titanium in the heel.”
“He’s dead, but I’ll tell his rep,” Debra says sarcastically.
“Young lady, I’m busy. I don’t need your attitude,” Gram continues, unfazed. “The shoemaker glued the shaft.” She lifts up the heel. “That’s inferior workmanship.”
“They were very expensive.” Julie sounds apologetic, but I’m not sure if it’s directed to Gram or to Debra.
“I’m sure they were. But they’re poorly made, no matter how much they cost.” Gram raises her eyebrows. “So how much of the shoe do you see in the scene?”
“The shoe is the scene. There’s a close-up, a tracking shot-” Debra puts her hands on the cutting table and bows her head to think.
“Maybe-,” Julie begins.
Debra stops her. “If they can’t repair it, they can’t repair it. We’ll have to reshoot with a different shoe.”
“Would you like to see our collection?” Gram asks. Debra doesn’t answer. “We’re not French, but we’re experts.”
“Okay, okay, let’s see what you have.” Debra sits down on a work stool and rolls to the table. “You dragged me over here.” She looks at Megan. She folds her hands on the pattern paper. “So dazzle me.” She looks at us.
“This place is a wonderland of possibilities,” Megan says, looking at Gram and me with hope.
“It’s a custom shoe shop,” Gram corrects her. “Valentine, bring out the samples, please.”
“What are you looking for, exactly?” June asks Debra.
“It’s a Cinderella moment.” Debra stands and dramatizes the scene. “The bride runs out of the church and her shoe falls off.”
“Bad luck,” Gram says.
“How do you know?” Debra says.
“It’s an old Italian wives’ tale. Is the movie about an Italian?”
“Yes. A grocer’s daughter in the Village.”
“Megan said it takes place in 1950.” Gram looks at Megan, who smiles gratefully for including her in the professional conversation. “One of our styles was designed in 1950 by my husband.”
“I’d love to see it,” Debra says, smiling with feigned enthusiasm.
I line up on the worktable the boxes from the sample closet. Gram takes a soft flannel cloth and wipes down the outside of the boxes before opening them. This is a habit, since we work with pale shades of fabric that can stain and scuff on touch.
“We offer six styles of wedding shoes. My father-in-law named his designs after his favorite characters in operas. The Lola, inspired by Cavalleria Rusticana, is by far the most popular,” Gram begins. “It’s a sandal with a stacked heel. We often embellish the straps with small charms and trims. It’s usually made with calfskin, but I have made it in double-sided satin.”
Debra looks at the shoe. “It’s lovely.” She puts it down on the table. “But it’s too light and airy. I need substantial.”
Gram opens the next box. “This is the Ines from Il Trovatore.”
Debra examines the classic kid pump with its sleek heel. “Getting there, but not quite right.”
“The Mimi from La Bohème is an ankle boot most often ordered in satin faconne or embossed velvet. I add delicate grommets and grosgrain ribbon laces.” Gram places the boot on the table.
“Gorgeous,” Julie says. “But a boot would never fall off.”
“The Gilda from Rigoletto is an embroidered mule with a stiletto heel, though we’ve often made it without the high heel.”
“That’s my favorite,” June pipes up.
“The Osmina from Suor Angelica is a Mary Jane with buttons. The bride’s choice of a double or single strap, or a T-strap.”
Debra squints at the shoe. “No.”
“The Flora from La Traviata is fairly new. I designed this style in 1989.” Gram shows them a calfskin ballet flat with ribbons that crisscross over the ankle and go midway up the calf. “I got tired of sending brides over to Capezio, so I decided to get a piece of that market with this shoe. It really was the only style we were missing from the original collection.”
“If I was getting married again, I’d wear those in a heartbeat.” Debra points to the Flora. “But this isn’t about what I like. It’s about our character.” Debra picks up the Gilda. “I think it’s this one. It’s breathtaking. And a mule could fall off.”
“That’s the one my husband designed in 1950. So you are historically accurate.”
“And you, Mrs. Angelini, are the best-kept secret in shoes.” Debra smiles for the first time. I don’t know if it’s from relief or the shoes, but she’s pleased.
Gram has a look of complete satisfaction on her face. Nobody messes with Gram when it comes to shoes. She is the expert.
“These are size sevens,” Debra says, looking inside the shoe. “How much do we owe you?”
“I’m afraid we never sell the samples.”
“Well, you have to.” Debra’s smile disappears. “This is an emergency.”
“Actually, maybe you could just loan them to us? We would fully acknowledge your services in the film’s credits,” Julie offers.
“That would be fine.” Gram shakes Julie’s hand.
“Megan, wrap them up and meet us at the costume trailer,” Debra commands. “Mrs. Angelini, we’ll need you to come to the set, too, of course.”
“Me? Why?” Gram is confused.
“We’re shooting the scene now. If there are any problems, you’ll need to be there to address them. I can’t take a chance with that”-she points to the Fougeray-“happening again.”
Gram looks at me. “May I bring…”
“Bring, bring,” Debra says impatiently. “Megan will show you the way.” Debra pulls on her coat as they move to the door. They go as quickly as they came, like the lightning from the storm that pierces the room in a flash and then is gone. I grab Megan’s sweatshirt out of the dryer. She pulls it on.
“I could find Our Lady of Pompeii with my eyes closed.” Gram throws her hands up. “Grab my kit, Valentine. Let’s go.”
There’s always some television show or movie filming on the streets of Greenwich Village. The forty-seven versions of Law and Order are shot in Manhattan, so it’s rare when there isn’t a crew somewhere, filming something. We’ve become accustomed to waiting on corners until the cameras stop rolling, then tiptoeing over snakes of cables and wires, past trailers as crew members talk into headsets and check their clipboards.
When Gram was young, there was a magical place called Hollywood where movies were made. Now, movie stars walk our neighborhood streets like ordinary people. It ceases to be magic when I see Kate Winslet three people in front of me in line at the Starbucks on Fourteenth Street, so close I can see she wears Essie’s Ballet Slippers nail polish. They’re not icons when you can bump into them while running errands. Gram never saw Bette Davis at her bodega or Hedy Lamarr at the hairdresser’s.
“Follow me,” Megan says, motioning to us as Gram and I enter Our Lady of Pompeii Church. She turns and smiles shyly. “I forgot. You guys know this place better than me.”
The scent of spicy incense hangs in the air from last Sunday’s High Mass. The polished marble floor is covered by boxes of lighting instruments and wheels of cable. The table where the Sunday bulletins are fanned is filled with bagels, plastic coffee urns, and heaps of snacks. How strange to see the old Gothic church so out of context. Its rich carved pews, stained-glass windows, and baroque altar went from being a house of God to being a movie backdrop in no time.
“I can’t believe Father Prior let them use the church,” Gram whispers.
“Even the Catholic Church likes good publicity,” I whisper back. “And a hefty rental fee.”
I pick out the star of the movie because she’s wearing a wedding gown.
“That’s Anna Christina,” Megan tells us. “She’s an unknown until this movie comes out, then she’s Reese Witherspoon after Legally Blonde.”
Anna Christina appears to be barely twenty years old. She is tiny, with an hourglass figure. Her oval face is framed by waxy black curls that create a startling contrast against her flawless skin. Her lips are cherries in the snow, a true red that says 1950. Debra is on her knees next to her, fussing with the shoes.
“They’re too big.” Debra stands, looking like she’s about to blow. Standing next to me, I can practically feel Megan’s blood pressure skyrocket.
“Let me see.” Gram sails through the chaos toward the actress, but needs to grip Debra’s arm in order to kneel down. “Damn knees,” I hear her say as I thread through the crowd and kneel next to her. Gram presses the toe and the vamp of the satin mule then gingerly slides it off Anna Christina’s foot. Gram looks at Debra. “Which shoe comes off in the scene?”
“The right one.”
“Give me the cotton batting,” Gram says to me. “We’re going to sew it in.”
Gram unspools the cotton and cuts a square gently with a small pair of gold work scissors. I thread the needle and make a quick knot. Gram places the batting in the toe of the shoe and slips it back on Anna’s foot. It’s still loose. Gram takes another square of cotton batting and makes an arch in the vamp of the shoe. After another quick fitting, Gram hands me the shoe and the batting. “Sew it.”
I push the delicate needle through the fabric and into the cotton from the vamp to the toe. I stitch a tiny seam anchoring the cotton. I do the same on the other side of the shoe, in essence, making a shoe within a shoe. Gram takes the slipper and places it back on the actress’s foot.
“Now it’s too snug!” Debra cries. “It will never fall off.”
“We aren’t done,” Gram says in a tone of voice I haven’t heard since she caught Tess and me drawing on her bedroom walls when I was five. The set falls into a hushed silence. I look up and see the director, a young man in a baseball cap and a down vest, pacing as though he’s awaiting the birth of quadruplets. Gram hands the shoe back to me. “Make a gusset on the left side.”
I sew a seam, tightening the fabric over the instep. I hand it back to Gram.
“Give me the wax pencil, Val.”
I give Gram the pencil from the kit. She slides the wax over the interior of the insole, softening the leather and making it pliable. Gram slips the mule back on Anna’s foot. “Now, Anna, when it comes time to lose the shoe, just lift your toes and pull your foot out. It should slide right off. Try it.”
Anna does as instructed, lifting her foot off the floor and pressing her toe against the top of the vamp. The shoe slides off. “It works!” Anna says, smiling, her relief as palpable as my own.
Suddenly, the crew, who were standing around sending poison rays of worry our way, spring into action. They move to their positions, shouting orders, as the director settles into his seat and stares into the monitor.
Megan pulls Gram and me back into the shadows. We watch Anna Christina as she pushes the mahogany church doors open with two hands, then runs in her duchess-satin wedding gown through the vestibule, and outside, onto the landing of Our Lady of Pompeii. On cue, she loses the rigged Gilda mule as she steps onto the top step.
“It’s a tracking shot,” Megan explains. “One continuous movement.”
In what seems like the tenth time they film the sequence, the shoe falls off on cue, as it has every time. Gram and I breathe again. A man standing next to the director hollers, “Cut. Moving on.” The crew fans out, toting, lifting, pushing equipment all around us. Debra goes to the director, who has a few words with her. “You saved our asses,” Megan says, smiling. “He’s telling her he got the shot.”
Debra pats the director on the back and comes over to us. “Fougeray out, Angelini in.”