GRAM AND I STAND ON THE CORNER of Jane and Hudson, surveying the Christmas tree selection as we inhale the cold night air, filled with the invigorating scent of crisp pine and clean cedar.
There’s nothing like December in Manhattan when the Christmas trees go on sale. Every other street corner becomes an outdoor garden, as freshly cut trees are stacked and displayed in their corridors of evergreen. Peels of pungent pine bark fall onto the sidewalk as the sellers trim the trunks and wrap the trees in their umbrellas of webbed plastic before delivery. Glossy wreaths with red velvet bows and sprays of holly tied with gold mesh ribbons hang on rough-hewn stepladders, ready for pickup. You cannot help but close your eyes and believe in the possibility of the perfect Christmas.
I arrange for delivery of our blue spruce as Gram chooses a wreath for the shop door. Mr. Romp places our ten-foot tree on a turnstile and gives it the umbrella treatment. Gram takes my arm as we walk back to the shop.
“Are you inviting Roman to Christmas dinner?”
“Think he’s ready for us?” I joke.
The truth is, I’ve prepared Roman. The good news, he’s from a crazy Italian family, too, so he gets it, we have a shorthand. I worry about that though, a romance at our stage of things should feel solid. Our feelings are clear, but scheduling the time? That’s the tricky part. That, and I live with my grandmother. I’ve never brought a man home to stay. I wouldn’t even know how to ask. I suppose I could do what Italian girls have done for decades: sneak. But when?
Maybe this is the state of romance for two self-employed people over thirty. Between his schedule at the restaurant, and mine in the shop, our communication is like a stack of unread mail; we get to it and each other when we can. It all began with a slow, delicious meal at Ca’ d’Oro; I thought it was the ultimate to have a man cooking for me, feeding me, pleasing me. But the truth is, the last time we ate together we had take-out cold sesame noodles from Mama Buddha on a park bench on Bleecker Street before I had a shoe fitting with a customer.
“Roman has to do something for Christmas,” Gram says, pushing the door to the vestibule open. “He’d liven things up.”
“Just what we need.”
Gram goes into the kitchen to make us a dish of spaghetti marinara for dinner. I climb the stairs to take the Christmas decorations out of storage in my mother’s old bedroom closet. I flip on the small bedside lamp and pull cardboard cartons full of ornaments out of the closet and stack them on the bed. Boxes labeled SHINY BRIGHT are filled with vintage gold-glass teardrops, and silver, green, red, and blue balls embossed with stripes or flocking, each loaded with meaning and memory.
The old Roma lights, oversize bulbs of ruby red, navy blue, forest green, and taxicab yellow, are the only lights my sisters allow on Gram’s tree. Tess and Jaclyn may have the small, mod twinklers in their own homes, but here at Gram’s, the tree has to be exactly as we remember it: a live blue spruce loaded with smoky glass ornaments that have been around since my mother was a girl. We cherish the ornaments that are a little the worse for wear, the felt reindeer with an eye missing, the plastic choirboys in faded red flannel cassocks, and the tinfoil-star tree topper that Alfred made in kindergarten.
The bed is now covered in boxes. I look for the extension cord with the foot pedal for turning the tree lights on and off. I can’t find it. “Gram?” I holler from the top of the stairs.
“What is it?” She appears on the landing a flight below.
“Where are the extension cords?”
“Look in my room. Check my dresser. It’s got to be in one of those drawers,” she says, heading into the kitchen.
I flip on the light in Gram’s room. Her perfume lingers in the air, freesia and lilies, the same scent that you catch when Gram pulls off her scarf or hangs up her coat.
I pull open her dresser drawer and search for the extension cords. Gram is a pack rat, like me. Her drawers are well-organized but are filled with stuff. The top drawer holds stacks of her lingerie anchored by stockings still in their packages. I lift them carefully, looking for the cords.
An unopened bottle of Youth Dew perfume sits on top of a stack of pressed antique handkerchiefs, which she still uses in evening bags on special occasions. I lift out a box of lightbulbs in their flimsy carton. Searching under it, I find a shoe box of receipts, which I carefully place back where I found it.
I look in the second drawer. Her wool cardigans are folded neatly. In an open plastic bin, there’s a flashlight, a bottle of holy water from Lourdes, and an envelope marked “Mike’s report cards.”
I open the last drawer. Gram’s purses and evening bags are neatly stacked in felt bags. I lift a cigar box filled with small metal gizmos, wheels, latches, and hook replacements for repairing the machines in the shop. Under the box, there’s a black velvet pouch lying flat against the bottom of the drawer. I pull out a heavy gold picture frame.
Inside is a picture of Gram from about ten years ago. The background is unfamiliar and rural. Gram stands next to an olive tree with a man who is not my grandfather. She must be in the hills of Italy. The man has thick white hair brushed to the side, crackling slate blue eyes, and a wide smile. His skin is golden, as is hers, tawny with summer.
The hills behind them are in full bloom with sunflowers. The man has his arm around Gram’s waist, and she is looking down, smiling. I quickly shove the photograph into the pouch and bury it at the bottom of the drawer with the small box of machine parts on top of it. I see the cord for the Christmas lights hidden in the far corner. “I found it!” I call out to her. I close the drawer carefully and turn out the light.
“Maybe it’s one of her cousins,” Tess whispers as we wait for my parents to arrive in the vestibule of Our Lady of Pompeii Church on Carmine Street for Christmas Eve mass. Garlands of fresh greens hang from the columns leading to the altar, covered with gold-foil pots of red poinsettias. A series of small trees with tiny white lights forms a backdrop for the ornate gold tabernacle.
“He didn’t look like a cousin.”
Gram is seated inside, with the grandkids and Alfred, Pamela, Jaclyn, and Tom, while Tess and I wait for our parents while they park.
“Who could it be?”
“It looked romantic to me.”
“Oh, come on! You’re talking about our grandmother.”
“Older people have relationships.”
“Not Gram.”
“I don’t know. She gets a lot of phone calls from Italy, and remember what she said to Keely Smith about having a boyfriend.”
“She didn’t say she had one. She was just playing along for the show. Gram is not the type,” Tess insists.
“The picture is hidden in a velvet pouch in her dresser, like it matters.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what. When we go back, you keep her busy in the kitchen and I’ll go up and check it out. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“It’s a mob scene out there,” Dad says as he and Mom enter the church.
Tess, Mom, and Dad follow me to the side aisle. We squeeze in next to Charlie and the girls. Gram sits on the far end of the pew, next to Alfred. She leans forward and checks to make sure every member of our family is in place. She smiles happily as she surveys the lot of us before turning her eyes back to the altar. Maybe Tess is right. Gram is not the type to have a life outside of the family she loves. She’s eighty years old. That ship has definitely sailed.
Gram’s kitchen was designed with holidays and the preparation of big meals in mind, so there is no such thing as too many chefs in this kitchen. The long marble counter is a crack workstation, while the fully loaded galley kitchen can accommodate several of us as we reheat and arrange the platters. Christmas Eve dinner is exactly as it was when we were kids, except now, instead of Gram doing all the cooking, we pot-luck the food.
Gram made her traditional wedding soup with spinach and mini meatballs made of veal, Tess brought her homemade manicotti, Mom roasted a loin of pork with sweet potatoes, and prepared a second entrée of breaded chicken cutlets with steamed asparagus. Jaclyn made the salad. I’m in charge of the starters, which feature the traditional seven fishes: smelts, shrimp, sardines, oysters, baccala, lobster, and scungilli.
“What did Clickety Click bring for dessert?” Tess asks after looking around and making sure Pamela is out of earshot.
“They went to DeRoberti’s,” I tell her. Pamela brought cookies, cannolis, and mini cheesecakes, but we don’t mind the store-boughts, because at least she goes to a great Italian bakery.
“It’s Christmas and I want peace in the valley,” Mom says firmly.
“Sorry, Mom,” Tess apologizes.
“Never mind you. Look at my chicken cutlets,” Mom says proudly as she arranges them on a platter. “I pound them until they are as thin as paper. Before I bread them, you can see right through them. Jaclyn, your salad looks delish.”
“It’s from my Nigella Lawson cookbook,” Jaclyn says. “I figure with the name Nigella, she’s got to have some Italian in her, right? We got her entire collection at our wedding.”
“Her entire collection? Is that all?” Gram asks as she joins us in the kitchen. “When I got married, there was only one cookbook given to brides.”
“And now I have it. Ada Boni’s The Talisman.” Mom garnishes the cutlets with spikes of fresh parsley.
“It’s the best. Whenever I make Charlie meatballs, recipe number two, out of that book, he’ll do whatever I want. I made them last month and he retiled the half bath.”
“Well, at least you know what motivates him,” I tell Tess.
“You know, I try to do what Ma did when we were growing up. A fresh, home-cooked meal every night and dinner with the family. Not easy to pull off these days.”
“Thank you for acknowledging my contribution. I hoped my children would appreciate the little things I did and the big meals I prepared. I think Saint Teresa of the Little Flower said it best, ‘Do small things in a big way,’ or was it ‘Do big things in a small way’? I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. I worked hard all of my life”-Mom lifts the steamer full of asparagus off the stove, removes the lid, and lifts the asparagus out with tongs-“inside my home. I don’t like the delineation of career in the office versus homemaking. Work is work. And I worked for my family, to the exclusion of my own goals. You four children were my job. My performance evaluation came when each of you graduated from college and fled the nest able to take care of yourself. I gave up my own life, but I’m not complaining. It’s just the way it was. And by the way, it was fabulous!” Mom places the platter on the table.
When we were growing up, my friends would tell me that their moms would threaten them into behaving by saying things like, “I hope your children ruin your life the way you’ve ruined mine!” or “If you don’t shape up, I’ll kill myself and then what will you do, you little bastards!” or “This time next year I’ll be dead, so you can go ahead and have your pot parties!” Mom never said anything of the like to us. She would never threaten suicide because she’s a genuine life junkie.
No, when Mom really wanted to scare us, she’d say, “That’s it! I’ve had it! I’ll go out and get a job! You heard me! A job! Then you’ll see what it’s like with no mother around here to wait on you hand and foot!” Or the big jab delivered loud and singsongy, “I’m going back to work!” Never mind that my mother never had a job outside our home. She graduated from Pace with a teaching degree and never used it. “When would I have gone back into the classroom?” she used to say. “When?” As if the classroom were this mythical place that swallowed women with teaching certificates whole in the land that time forgot.
The truth is, my mother had other plans. She was busy building Roncalli Incorporated. She had Alfred ten months after she married Dad. Then Tess was born, followed by me, and finally Jaclyn, and we became her high-powered career. Lee Iacocca had nothing on my mother. Motherhood was her IBM, her Chrysler, and her Nabisco. She was the CEO of our family. She woke early every morning, “put on her face,” and dressed like she was going into an office. Mom made lists, organized six lives on a giant eraser-board calendar, got us to and from wherever we needed to be, and never complained, well, not much. One year for Christmas, we made up business cards for her that said:
MICHELINA “MIKE” RONCALLI
Mother Extraordinaire
Available 24/7
Forest Hills, Queens, New York, USA
She was so proud of those cards she handed them out to strangers, like she was running for borough president. She could’ve handled that job, too, believe me. Mom is a born leader, a taskmaster and a visionary. She also toots her own horn, which doesn’t hurt in politics.
“How are the boys doing on the roof?” Gram brings the soup bowls to the counter.
“I’ll check.” I head up the stairs to the roof.
“And call the kids please,” Mom calls after me. “We’re ready.”
I climb the stairs two at a time to the third floor. I do a quick check of the bedrooms. I stop and check the clock in Gram’s room. Where is Roman? He said he’d be here fifteen minutes ago. Now I’m worried Tess and Jaclyn are beginning to think he’s a phantom. I put it out of my mind; he’ll be here.
The kids are scattered everywhere, playing dress up and hide-and-seek, or maybe Charisma is calling Japan like she did the last time she was here (twenty-three bucks on the long-distance bill). Whatever they’re up to, no one appears to be bleeding or crying so I breeze past them and go up to the roof.
The men are in charge of preparing a fire in the charcoal grill on the roof. After dinner, we bundle up in our coats and head to the roof to roast marshmallows. This was my grandfather’s Christmas chore, and it’s not lost on us that it takes Dad, Alfred, Charlie, and Tom to do what Grandpop did by himself.
I step out onto the roof and into the cold night air to check the grill. The charcoals are still black, their edges turning deep red. In an hour, they’ll be just the right temperature for the marshmallow roast. A swirl of gray smoke rises from the fire as Alfred holds court in his Barneys topcoat.
My brother points to buildings on the West Side Highway. He’s conducting what sounds like a tutorial on real estate, with Pamela at his side shivering in a fur capelet. Charlie, Tom, and my father listen carefully, rapt at his knowledge. He points to a building on the corner of Christopher Street. He rattles off the asking price, followed by the recent sale price, like he’s reciting the names of his children. I stand in the cold long enough to hear him drop some big numbers.
“Dinner is ready,” I interrupt.
“Do you need any help down in the kitchen?” Pamela asks.
“We’re okay.” I smile at her. “Could you help corral the kids?”
“Sure.” She follows me down the stairs. I almost ran to the Home Depot on Twenty-third Street and bought those rubber step guards because I knew Pamela was coming and I was afraid she’d take a tumble off those five-inch stilettos and somersault down three flights of stairs, winding up in the workshop in a bloody heap.
“I like your dress, Pamela,” I tell her, genuinely admiring her red silk-shantung shift with a matching bolero and red ankle-strap sandals. “You look as young as you did the day you met my brother.”
She blushes. “Your brother told me that change was nonnegotiable.”
“What?”
“Well, he said, no matter what, he didn’t want me to change from the day he met me.”
“Isn’t that sort of impossible?”
“Well, maybe. But I’m trying to keep up my end of the deal. Plus, his eyesight keeps getting worse, so it all evens out.”
As Pamela gathers the kids for dinner, I return to the kitchen. Mom, Gram, and my sisters place garnishes on the platters for the Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes. I’m about to tell my sisters about Alfred’s No Change Clause and kvetch about how controlling our brother can be, but decide not to. Pamela, after all, is only doing what we tried to do for all these years-make Alfred happy. If that means she has to wear her jeans from 1994 and fit into them for the rest of her life, so be it. I feel sorry for my sister-in-law. When I picture Pamela at family parties, I see her on the outside, peeking through twists of crepe-paper streamers as if they’re prison bars. She never participates at weddings when we form a soul-train dance line, or joins the card games we throw together after Sunday dinner. She sits in a corner and reads a magazine. She’s just not one of us.
The buzzer sounds.
“Are we expecting someone?” Mom asks.
“Who could it be? Last-minute FedEx?” Tess teases, looking at me, knowing full well that I’ve been waiting for Roman to arrive so I can put him on display like the radish rosettes in the crudité dish. “A testy bride maybe?”
“On Christmas Eve? Never,” Gram answers. “Or any other day, for that matter.”
“It’s probably June. You invited her, didn’t you, Gram?” Jaclyn plays along with Tess; after all, it’s Christmas, so let’s have some fun with Funnyone.
“She’s with her wild East Village friends eating a seitan turkey and smoking weed,” Gram says and shrugs. “You know those show people.”
I press the button on the monitor. “Who is it?”
“Roman.”
“Come on up,” I say cheerfully into the intercom. I turn to my sisters. “Behave yourselves.”
Tess claps her hands together. “Your boyfriend! We’re finally going to meet him!”
“I wonder what he’s like!” Jaclyn trills.
“Girls, let’s not put pressure on Valentine.” Fully aware of the power of the first impression, my mother checks her lipstick in the chrome reflection of the toaster. Then she adjusts her posture, throws back her shoulders, lifts her neck, and parts her lips ever so slightly to show off a shallow dimple in her left cheek. Now she’s ready to meet my boyfriend.
Roman comes into the kitchen carrying a large baking pan covered in foil and then Saran Wrap. He wears a tailored black cashmere overcoat that I’ve never seen before. “I thought you could use dessert. Cobbler. Merry Christmas,” he says.
I give Roman a kiss. “Merry Christmas.”
I take the pan from Roman and place it on the counter. He unbuttons his coat and hands it to me. “You look pretty,” he says softly in my ear.
“Introduce us please, Valentine.” Mom looks Roman up and down like she’s studying the statue of David on a group tour. She actually goes up on her toes, craning for a better look at him.
“Ciao, Teodora.” He kisses both of Gram’s cheeks before turning to shake my mother’s hand.
“This is my mother, Mike.”
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Roncalli,” he says warmly.
My mother offers her cheeks, and Roman picks up on her cue and gives her the European double-kiss action, too. “Please call me Mom. I mean Mike. Welcome to our Christmas celebration.”
“This is my sister Tess.”
“You have two daughters, right?” Roman asks as Tess extends her hand and he shakes it.
“Yes, I do.” Tess is impressed that the stranger has retained any biographical information about her whatsoever.
“And this is my baby sister, Jaclyn.”
“The newlywed?”
“Yes.” Jaclyn shakes his hand and squints at him like she’s surveying stew meat in the butcher department at D’Agostino’s.
“Well, Roman, what did you make for us?” Mom bats her eyelashes at him.
“It’s a cobbler of blackberry and fig,” he says, just as I hear my niece pipe up from the stairs.
“Who’s that guy?” Charisma points at Roman.
“Charisma. Come over here and say hello.” Tess looks at Roman. “I’m sorry. She’s seven. She hates all boys. This is Aunt Valentine’s friend.”
Charisma squints at him. “Aunt Valentine doesn’t have friends.”
“Well, not in a long time, but now she does and we’re all happy for her,” my mother explains as I contemplate jumping headfirst out of the kitchen window.
“We’re just about to sit down to dinner.” Mom makes a sweeping gesture with her arm toward the table. My mother’s body language shifts from slight wariness to full receptivity of Roman Falconi. “You must meet my husband and the boys.”
“Our brother, Alfred, his sons, and our husbands,” Tess explains as she puts her arm around Jaclyn in a united, don’t-mess-with-us fashion.
“You’re forgetting Pamela,” I remind them.
“And Pamela. My only daughter-in-law. She’s so tiny you almost miss her.” My mother waves her hand in the air and laughs.
My father and the boys come downstairs and Mom, now in full command of Roman Falconi, introduces the remaining family members. Alfred’s sons extend their hands in greeting, like gentlemen in the drawing rooms of old. Chiara, with all the charm of her older sister, makes a face at Roman, and runs to join her sister at the table.
Gram motions to us to help her in the kitchen. Pamela stands up to come with us, but Tess says, “Don’t worry, Pam. We’ve got it.” Pamela shrugs and goes to the table.
“You complain that Pamela doesn’t help and then you don’t let her,” Gram whispers.
“If we gave her a platter to carry, she’d collapse under the weight and her stilettos would sink into the floorboards like penny nails.” Tess puts a pepper grinder under one arm and picks up the water pitcher with the other. Gram, Jaclyn, and I grab the last of the platters and join the family at the table.
My father takes his place at the head of the table. He folds his hands in prayer. He makes the sign of the cross, and we follow him. “Well, God, it’s been a helluva year.”
“Dad…,” Tess says softly, looking at the children, who find the mention of hell hilarious in a prayer.
“You know what I mean, dear Lord. We’ve had trials and tribulations and now we meet a new friend on the journey…” Dad pauses and looks at Roman.
“Roman,” Mom pipes up.
“Roman. We give thanks for our good health, my relative good health, Ma’s eightieth birthday, and all the rest in between.” Dad goes to make the sign of the cross.
“Dad?”
He looks up at Jaclyn.
“Dad…one more thing.” Jaclyn takes Tom’s hand. “Tom and I would like you all to know that we’re having a baby.”
The table erupts with joy, the children jump up and down, Gram wipes away a tear, Mom reaches across the table to kiss Jaclyn and then Tom. Dad holds up his hands.
Roman takes my hand and puts his arm around me. I look up at him; he is beaming, which means the world to me.
“My baby is having a baby. Well, this is proof positive that God isn’t sinkin’ our ship just yet.” Dad puts his hand to his forehead, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit-”
“Amen!” we shout, the least religious of my mother’s children the loudest. I’m thrilled about Jaclyn and Tom’s news, and I’m also happy that my first Christmas with Roman is off to a great start.
We crowd onto the roof in our coats, hats, and mittens for the Annual Christmas Marshmallow Roast. Mom follows with a bottle of Poetry wine and a stack of plastic glasses embossed with sexy girls dressed as elves. (Where does she find this stuff?)
Dad and Alfred load the sticks with marshmallows and hand them to the kids, who gather around the grill like little match children, holding the white puffs into the flames. Roman puts his arm around me.
“Time to light the torches!” Mom calls out. “Ambience inside and out, I say.”
“She’s exactly as you described her,” Roman whispers in my ear, then joins Charlie and Tom as they fan out and light the torches on the corners of the roof.
Dad helps Alfred Junior and Rocco hold their marshallows on sticks to the flames. Charisma, a little pyro, lets her marshmallow burst into flames, open like a bomb, and ooze onto the hot coals. Chiara waits patiently, toasting each side of her marshmallow uniformly. My sisters stand behind the girls, guiding them as another holiday tradition is handed down from my generation to the next one.
“Great-gram?” Charisma asks. “Tell the story of the velvet tomatoes.”
“Great-gram has had too much great wine.” Gram sits down on the chaise and puts her feet up. “And I’m having some more. Have Auntie Valentine tell the story.”
“Tell the story!” Charisma, Rocco, Alfred Junior, and Chiara jump up and down.
“Okay, okay. When I was six years old, my mother brought me over to stay with Gram and Grandpop when she went to see Phantom of the Opera for the eighth time.”
“I love an Andrew Lloyd Webber show,” Mom says unapologetically to Roman, who shrugs.
“Alfred and Tess were at summer camp…”
“Camp Don Bosco,” Tess clarifies.
“…and baby Jaclyn was in Queens with Dad. I had Gram and Grandpop all to myself. And I came up here to play on the roof. First I had a little tea party, using garden tools for utensils and mud for scones. Then I decided to be like Gram, and I went over to the tomato plants and started to dig around in the dirt. But when I looked up through the vines, there were no tomatoes. So I ran downstairs, right into the shoe shop, and I said, ‘Somebody stole the tomatoes.’ And I started to cry.”
“She almost had a nervous breakdown,” Gram says wryly.
“She was worried! No tomatoes,” Chiara says in my defense.
“Right. So Grandpop explained that sometimes the plants don’t bear fruit, that sometimes, no matter how well you take care of them, it’s just too rainy for the plants to make tomatoes. The plants are so smart, they know not to bloom, because the tomatoes would come in all mealy and tasteless, and what good would they be?”
“And then I said we might have to wait until next summer for the tomatoes to grow. But Valentine was heartbroken.” Gram lifts her glass of wine.
I pick up the story again, looking at Roman, who is as engrossed as the kids in the fate of the tomatoes, or maybe he’s just being polite. “The next Sunday, everyone came over for dinner, and Gram said, ‘Go up to the roof, Valentine. You won’t believe your eyes.’”
“And everybody raced up the stairs!” Chiara says.
“That’s right.” I put my hands on Rocco’s and Alfred Junior’s shoulders. “We all came up to the roof to see what had happened. And when we got here, there was a miracle. There were tomatoes everywhere. But they weren’t tomatoes to make sauce, they were velvet tomatoes, made with red and green fabric, and they dangled from the barren plants, like ornaments. Even the tomato pincushion from the shop was there, hanging from the vine. We jumped up and down like it was Christmas morning even though it was the hottest day of summer. I asked my grandfather how it happened. And he said, ‘Magic!’ And then we all celebrated the harvest of the velvet tomatoes.”
My mom gives me a thumbs-up as the kids eat their marshmallows and we drink our wine. I look around at my family, feeling blessed and full. Pamela remains glued to my brother’s hip, like a gun holster, while Gram lies with her feet up on the chaise. Tess and Jaclyn pull Mom away to watch a Norwegian cruise ship make a lazy entrance into New York Harbor. I look at Roman, who seems to fit into this crazy family without too much fuss. The moon peeks out between the skyscrapers looming behind us, looking an awful lot like a lucky penny.
Dad holds up his sexy elves plastic cup of wine. “I’d like to make a toast. To Dr. Buxbaum at Sloan who took my prostrate numbers from north to south. Which is a good thing.”
“To Dr. Buxbaum!” we toast. My father is beating prostate cancer and he still can’t pronounce it.
“Many, many more years, Dutch,” Mom says, raising her glass again. “We have lots of sunsets to see, and lots of places to go. You still have to take me to Williamsburg.”
“Virginia?” Tess asks.
“That’s your dream trip?” Jaclyn says. “You can get there in a car.”
“I believe in setting goals that one can achieve. Low expectations make for a happy life. I can die without seeing Bora-Bora. Besides, I love glassblowing, Georgian architecture, and Revolutionary War reenactors. Aim for doable, kids.”
“I think you mean it.” I swig my wine.
“I absolutely do. I have dreamed of the attainable and the attainable has found me. I wanted a nice Italian boy with good teeth, and that’s what I got.”
“I still have all my choppers,” Dad says, nodding.
“You think small things don’t matter until you consider teeth,” Gram toasts Dad from the chaise.
We sip our wine as we ponder Dad’s bite and Mom’s dream of Colonial Williamsburg. The only sound we hear is the faint pop of the marshmallows as they ignite into orange flames, only to turn bright blue before charring to black. Roman supervises the operation and actually seems to be having fun. He looks over at me and winks.
The kids have gone downstairs to play with some of those minuscule Polly Pocket dolls, while the grown-ups remain on the roof, sitting around the old table finishing our wine. A cold wind kicks up as the fire in the grill dies down. I collect the cups, and I’m about to head downstairs to start the dishes when I hear Alfred lean over and say to Gram, “Scott Hatcher’s offer is still on the table.”
“Not now, Alfred,” she says quietly.
I knew this was coming. I could barely look at Alfred all night, knowing he was calculating square footage and interest rates with every mouthful of manicotti. He’s made remarks and dropped hints until I’m good and sick of it. So I turn to my brother and say, “It’s Christmas! She doesn’t want to talk about Scott Hatcher and his cash offer. And besides, you told us Hatcher was a broker, not a buyer.”
“He’s both. He sells properties, but he also buys them for investment purposes. Anyhow, what difference does it make?”
“A lot. A broker comes in and gives an opinion. It’s a process. After a few months, when you’ve gathered enough information and gone out to competitors to get the best price, then, and only then, if you want to sell, do you hire your own broker and name your price. But that’s not what’s going on here. He’s a developer.”
“How do you know?” Alfred counters.
“I did my research.” If only Alfred knew how much research. I know more about Scott Hatcher than I ever wanted to. “It isn’t prudent for Gram to sell the building after one offer. That’s bad business.”
“And you know from business?” Alfred sneers.
“I’ve been putting together my own numbers.” My family looks at me. Funnyone is artistic, not a numbers person. I’ve blindsided them.
“You’re not serious.” Alfred turns away from me.
“I’m deadly serious,” I say, raising my voice.
Alfred turns back and looks at me, confused.
“Not now, Valentine,” Gram says firmly.
“Anyhow, it’s Gram’s decision. Not yours,” Alfred says dismissively.
“I’m Gram’s partner.”
“Since when?” Alfred yells.
I look at Gram, who begins to speak, but reconsiders.
“Kids, don’t get like this,” Dad interjects.
“Oh, we’re gonna get like this.” I stand up. When I stand, the in-laws-Pamela, Charlie, and Tom-get up from the table and inch back to the fence line of the roof. Only Roman remains at the table, with a look on his face that says, Here we go.
“You two, stop it right now,” Mom chirps. “We’ve had a lovely holiday.”
I persist. “How much was the offer, Alfred?”
He doesn’t answer.
“I said, how much?”
“Six million dollars,” Alfred announces.
Shrieks rise from my relatives on the roof, like hosannas at a tent revival.
“Gram, you’re mega rich!” Tess exclaims. “You’re like Brooke Astor!”
“Over my dead body,” Gram says, looking down at her hands. “That poor Astor woman. And I mean poor. May she rest in peace. If you don’t raise your children right, all the money in the world doesn’t matter. It’s the fast track to tumult.”
“Please, Ma, we are not the Astors. There’s a lot of love here,” Mom says.
“So what’s going to happen with the offer?” Jaclyn asks delicately.
“It’s a very high offer, a great offer, in fact, and I’ve advised Gram to sell,” Alfred says, laying out his plan like a road map. “She can finally retire after fifty years of killing herself, get a condo in Jersey out by us, and put her feet up for the first time in her life.”
“She has her feet up right now,” I tell him. I turn to Gram. “What happens to the Angelini Shoe Company?”
Gram doesn’t answer me.
“Valentine, she’s tired.” Alfred raises his voice. “And you’re pushing her. Stop being selfish and think about our grandmother for a change.”
“Now, Alfred, you know how much I love my work,” Gram says.
“That’s right. We’ve got a great business going here. We make three thousand pairs of shoes a year.”
“Oh, come on. That’s hardly viable by any current business standards. You don’t have a Web site, you don’t advertise, and it’s run like it’s 1940.” Alfred turns to our grandmother. “No offense, Gram.”
“None taken. That was a big year for us.”
Alfred continues, “You use the same tools Grandpop did. At this point, the Angelini Shoe Company is nothing more than a hobby for you two, and the part-timers you employ. It’s a financial wash in a good year, but with the debt, it’s irresponsible not to consider closing and cleaning up what you owe. Besides, even if we could find somebody to buy the shop, it would not come to one percent of what this building is worth. This building is the gold.”
“It’s our business!” I tell him. Doesn’t he see that our great grandfather’s shoe designs are the gold? Our name? Our technique? Our reputation? Alfred puts no value on our tradition. What are we without it? “We make our living in this shop!”
“Barely. If you had to pay rent, you’d be in the street.”
Clickety Click moves back to Alfred’s side. She threads her arm through his, which tells me that she’s heard this before.
“I live within my means. I’ve never asked anyone for a penny.”
“I helped you when you broke up with Bret and quit teaching.”
“Three thousand dollars. You didn’t give me that money. I paid it back in six months at seven percent interest!” I can’t believe he’s throwing this in my face. Then again, of course he’s throwing this in my face. He’s Alfred! My mother shifts uncomfortably on the lawn chair and Dad stares off at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge as if it’s burst into flames like a marshmallow on a stick.
“I think what Alfred is trying to say,” Mom says diplomatically, “is that my mother is of a certain age now, and in looking ahead, down the road, we should all anticipate changes.”
“Right, Ma,” I challenge her. “And the road is icy, your tires are bald, and you’re skidding. Anything to support your precious and brilliant son, Alfred. What he wants, he gets. If he was truly concerned about Gram and her well-being, I wouldn’t open my mouth. But my brother is all about the money. He’s only ever been about the money.”
“How dare you! I’m worried about Gram!” Alfred shouts.
“Are you?”
“Your brother loves his grandmother,” Dad interjects.
“Don’t speak for him,” I tell my father.
“Don’t speak for me,” Alfred tells Dad.
Dad puts his hands in the air in surrender.
“And don’t speak for me,” Gram says, standing. “I will make all the decisions about the Angelini Shoe Company and my building. Alfred, as smart as you are, you have a big mouth. You should never talk numbers. You’ve thrown everyone into a tizzy.”
“I thought since it was just family-”
Roman looks off, like a guest hoping to disappear from the fray. But he can’t move. I catch a flicker of impatience in his eyes.
“Even worse!” Gram says. “Those kinds of numbers only make people nervous. For God’s sake, they make me nervous. I’m a private person and I don’t want my business ripped into like a Christmas package for public consumption. And, Valentine, I appreciate everything you do for me, but I don’t want you to stay here because you think you have to-”
“I want to be here.”
“-and Alfred has a point. I’m not what I was.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound like that, Gram,” he says. “I do believe it’s your choice. But I’d like to see you relax for the first time in your life. There’s a reason people don’t work at a job when they’re eighty.”
“Because most of them are dead?” Gram says, giving up and sitting down.
“No, because they’ve earned a break. And, Valentine, nobody said you couldn’t pursue shoemaking as a hobby. It’s time for you to have a real career. You’re in your midthirties and you’re living like a Boho bum. Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old? I suppose I’ll get stuck with that tab, too.”
“You’re the last person I’d ask for help.” And I mean it. Clickety Click exhales, one less thing for her to worry about.
“We’ll see. So far, I’m the only Roncalli kid who picks up a check.”
“What are you talking about?” Tess wants to know.
“Gram’s party.”
“We offered,” Jaclyn and Tess say in unison.
“So did I!” I tell him.
“But I paid! And I’ve got news for you, I always pay.”
“That’s not fair, Alfred, you can’t pick up a check and then complain about it. That is terrible form!” Tess makes a motion that Gram, the honoree, is listening.
Alfred doesn’t care. He goes on. “Who do you think pays for Dad’s doctors? He has insurance, but there’s a deductible and there are out-of-pocket expenses. He has to go out of network for some of the procedures. But you girls don’t know that! Why? Because you never ask!”
“We will repay you, Alfred,” Mom says quietly.
“If you didn’t swoop in and pay for everything, like Lord Bountiful, we would be happy to pay our share,” I tell him. “You only pay so you can hold it over our heads.”
Alfred turns to me. “I’m not going to apologize to you for being successful. There’s a success tax I pay every day in this family. I’m the one who makes money, so I’m the one who pays. And you resent me for it!”
“Because you complain about it! I’d rather be broke and living in a box on the Bowery than in that castle of fear you live in. Just look at Clickety Click…” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
Tess and Jaclyn inhale quickly, while Mom mutters, “Oh no.” In the silence that follows, I swear I can hear the clouds drift past in the sky overhead.
“Who is Clickety Click?” Pamela asks. She looks at me and then up at her husband.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he says.
“Valentine?” Pamela looks at me.
“It’s a-”
“It’s a term of endearment really,” Tess says, jumping in. “A nickname.”
“It’s not a nickname if I’ve never heard it.” For the first time in seventeen years, Pamela’s voice hits its upper register. “Wouldn’t I know my own nickname?”
“I’m begging you, girls, get off this subject. It’s getting us all nowhere.” Mom pulls the collar on her faux mink up around her ears. “Come on. It’s getting too cold up here. Let’s go in and make some Irish coffee. Anyone for Irish coffee?”
“Nobody is going anywhere.” Pamela sets her steely gaze on Mom. “What the hell does Clickety Click mean?”
“Valentine?” Mom looks at me.
“It’s a nickname that-” I begin.
“It’s the sound you make when you walk in your high heels,” Jaclyn blurts out. “You’re small and you take short steps and when the heels hit the ground, they go…clickety click, clickety click.”
Pamela’s eyes fill with tears. “You’ve been making fun of me all this time?”
“We didn’t mean it.” Tess looks desperately at Jaclyn and me.
“I can’t help my…my…size. I never make fun of you, and there’s plenty to laugh at in this crazy family!” Pamela turns on her heel and stomps off. Clickety click. Clickety click. Clickety click. When she realizes the sound she’s making, she rises up onto her toes and moves silently en pointe until she reaches the door. She grabs the door frame for balance. “Alfred!” she barks at him. Then Pamela goes clickety click down the stairs. We hear her calling for the boys.
“You know, I don’t care if you’re mean to me. But she never did anything to you. She’s been a good sister-in-law.” Alfred follows her down the stairs.
“I’m going to wrap up some leftovers for them,” Mom says, following Alfred out.
“You had to blurt it out,” Tess says, throwing up her hands.
I point to Jaclyn. “You had to tell her?”
“I felt trapped.”
My face is hot from the wine and the fight. “Couldn’t you have made something up? Something glamorous, like the clickety click of an expensive watch or something?”
“That would be Tickety Tock,” Charlie says from his guard position in the outpost by the fountain.
“You’ll have to apologize to her,” Gram says quietly.
“You know I’m not supposed to get upset in my condition,” Dad says, adjusting the collar on his car coat. “These implanted seeds are radioactive. If my blood pressure goes berserk, they’re likely to blow like Mount Tripoli.”
“Sorry, Dad,” I whisper.
Dad looks at his three contrite daughters. “You know, we got one family here. One small island of people. We’re not Iran and Iraq and Tibet, for crying out loud, we’re one country. And all of youse, except you, Tom, with the Irish blood, all of youse have some Italian, or in the case of Charlie’s people, the Fazzanis, a hundred percent Italian including that quarter Sicilian, so we got no excuses.” Dad remembers his manners and looks at Roman. “Roman, I’m assuming you’re a hundred percent.”
Roman, caught off guard, nods quickly in agreement.
Dad continues, “We should be united, for one another, and we should be unbeatable. But instead what do we got? We got rancor. We got rancor coming out our ears and out our asses. And for what? Let it go. Let it all go. None of this matters. Take it from your father. I’ve seen the Grim Reaper eyeball to eyeball and he is one tough bastard. You got one life, kids. One.” Dad holds up his pointer finger and presses it skyward for emphasis. “And trust your old man, you gotta enjoy. That’s all I know. Now if Pamela has short legs and has to wear high heels to read her watch, well, we need to accept that as normal. And if Alfred loves her, then we love her. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Dad,” Jaclyn, Tess, and I promise. Roman, Charlie, and Tom nod in agreement.
Gram’s eyes are closed as she leans back on the chaise.
“So that’s gonna be how it’s gonna be. I’m going in.” Dad goes down the stairs.
Charlie and Tom have stepped away from the fray as far as they can go without falling off the roof. They stand with their hands in their pockets, half-expecting more bullets to fly on Christmas. When they don’t, Tom looks around and says, “Is there any more beer?”
Roman helps me into the passenger seat of his car, then climbs in the other side. I shiver as he starts the engine. His seat is pushed back as far as it can go; I push my seat back to his. “What do you want to do?” he says.
“Take me to the Brooklyn Bridge so I can jump.”
“Funny. I have a better idea.”
Roman drives over to Sixth Avenue and heads uptown. The streets of Manhattan are bright and empty.
“I’m sorry you had to hear all that.” I reach over and hold his hand.
“One time at a Falconi Christmas, we served dinner in the garage; my brothers got into a fight and were so angry they started pelting each other with spare tires. Don’t worry about it.”
“I won’t now.” We laugh. “What did you think of Alfred?”
“I don’t know yet,” Roman says diplomatically.
“Alfred has very high standards. No one is allowed to fail. After my father’s affair, Alfred got very righteous and even thought about going into the seminary to become a priest. But then Alfred was called by a different god. He became a banker. Of course, that’s just another way to get back at Dad. My father never made a lot of money, and that’s another way for Alfred to be superior. Alfred is morally and financially superior.”
“How about his wife?”
“She’s under his thumb. She’s so nervous, she eats baby food because she has chronic ulcers.”
“Why is he so hard on you?” Roman asks gently.
“He thinks I’m flip. I changed careers, I live with my grandmother, and I didn’t close the deal with the perfect man.”
“Who was he?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in perfect.”
“What do you want?”
“You.” Roman lifts my hand and kisses it. I’m besotted, and I don’t think it’s a passing holiday mood. As terrible as the fight on the roof was, I was soothed by Roman’s presence. He made it all better without saying a word or doing a thing. I felt protected.
Roman slows down in front of Saks Fifth Avenue and then makes the turn onto Fifty-first Street. He parks the car at the side entrance. “Come on,” he says. He comes around to my side and helps me out of the car. “It’s Christmas. We gotta do the windows.”
He takes my hand and we walk behind the red velvet ropes. There’s a Latino family down the way taking pictures in front of a window with a circus act of snowmen. The father holds up his three-year-old son, near the glass.
Fifth Avenue is hushed as we look at the windows, dioramas of holiday happiness through the ages, a fussy Victorian scene where the family opens a present and the puppy pulls the ribbon from a package over and over again, another of the Roaring Twenties, with girls in bobbed haircuts and short sequin sheaths doing the Charleston in synchronized repetition.
A man with a saxophone appears on the corner of Fiftieth Street, breaking the silence with a jazz riff. Roman holds me close and moves me down the line to the tumbling-snowman window. The man with the horn stops playing, his brass sax dangling around his neck like an oversize gold charm. As we move to the next window, I look at the old man and smile. He wears a beat-up English tweed cap and an old coat. He sings,
We have been gay, going our way
Life has been beautiful, we have been young
After you’ve gone, life will go on
Like an old song we have sung
When I grow too old to dream
I’ll have you to remember
When I grow too old to dream
Your love will live in my heart
So, kiss me my sweet
And so let us part
And when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart
And when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart
Roman takes me in his arms and kisses me. When I open my eyes, the floodlights on the dormers of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral disappear into the black sky in cones of white smoke. “You want to stay at my house tonight?” he asks.
“That’s about the best Christmas present I can think of.”
Back in the car, Roman looks at me and smiles. I plan to spend the ride to wherever he lives kissing his neck. And I do. He turns on the radio. Rosemary Clooney sings, sounding as smooth as whiskey and whipped cream. All I can think is that we’re going to start something wonderful tonight. I bury my face in his neck and wish that this car could take off and fly us to his home.
I am falling in love! My thoughts explode like a coin shower when the winning quarter hits the release lever in a slot machine in Atlantic City. I watch myself in my mind’s eye as gold disks pour out all around me by the hundreds, then thousands! I see spinning tops and ribbons unfurled, bluebirds flying out of belfries, church bells ringing, showgirls, rows of them in red sequin shorts, tap dancing at full power until the sound is so deafening you have to cover your ears. I see a bright blue sky filled with red kites, purple and white hot-air balloons, and shooting silver asteroids of fireworks that rain down like Christmas tinsel. I feel a parade coming on! Marching bands, flank after flank, in emerald green uniforms, baton twirlers in white sequin tank suits weaving in and out of formation while polished copper tubas work the street from right to left, braying a tune, my tune! My song! My head is full of sound, my eyes are full of wonder, and my heart is full of old-fashioned, spectacular joy. I open my eyes and look up at the moon, and it’s flipping in the sky! A celestial coin toss! I won! I’m in the money, my friends!
Roman pulls his car into a parking garage on Sullivan Street. He leaves the key in the ignition and waves to the attendant, who waves back. We go out onto the street and he kisses me under the streetlight. “Which one is yours?” I ask him.
“That one.” He points to a loft building, an old factory of some sort, with words carved on the door, but I can’t read them. He grabs my hand and we run to the entrance. We get inside and go up in the elevator to the fourth floor, we kiss, and when the car bounces, our lips wind up on each other’s noses and we laugh.
The doors of the elevator open onto an enormous floor-through loft with a series of large windows on both sides. The floors are wide planks of distressed oak with polka dots of old nail heads. Four large white pillars anchor the center of the room, creating an open, indoor gazebo. Greek-key plaster molding hems off the cathedral ceiling, while architectural pilasters lean against the wall, giving the loft a feeling of an old museum storage room. There’s a large painting on the far wall of a lone white cloud on a blue night sky.
An industrial kitchen, the length of the loft, is behind us. Neat and organized, it’s outfitted with state-of-the-art appliances. A wild chandelier of Murano-glass trumpet vines in orange and green hangs over the counter.
His bed, in the far corner of the room, is a four-poster, with a valance behind it of clean white muslin. The silver radiators spit steam into the silent loft. It’s got to be 120 degrees in here. I begin to sweat.
“Let’s get that coat off you,” he says. He kisses me as he unbuttons my coat. He doesn’t stop with the coat. He undoes the tiny pearl buttons on my pale pink cashmere sweater and slips it off my shoulders. For a second, I wonder how I look, then disregard it, good, he’s already seen me naked. He touches the damp drops on my forehead.
“Is this the steam heat or us?”
“Us,” I promise. He unzips my skirt. I help him off with his coat. He struggles with the sleeve of his shirt until I pull it off his arm, like a wrapper. We laugh for a moment, but then go back to kissing. I hold his face in my hands, never letting go as we move across the room. We leave a trail of our clothes on the floor, like rose petals, until we make it to his bed. He lifts me up and puts me on the soft velvet coverlet. He reaches across and opens the window. The wind blows in, ruffling the valance like summer laundry on the line. The cool air settles on us as he lies over me.
We make love to the music of the cranky boiler and the whistle of the Christmas wind. We are hot and cold, then cold and hot, but mostly hot as we tangle ourselves in each other. His kisses cover me like the velvet quilt that now lies on the floor like a parachute.
I sink down into his pillows, a spoon in chocolate cake batter.
“Tell me a story.” He pulls me close and rests his face in my neck.
“What kind of story?”
“Like the tomatoes.”
“Well, let’s see. Once upon a time…,” I begin. As I’m about to continue, Roman falls asleep. I look to the floor and the coverlet, knowing that sometime in the next few hours, the boiler will rest and I will freeze. But it doesn’t, and I don’t. The only thing I wear as I sleep are his arms. I’m warm and safe and wanted by a man I adore, who lies beside me like a mystery, and yet, enough is known to sleep deeply and dreamily long into this Christmas night. What a blissful place to rest my once weary heart, patched like the old man’s coat pockets, the man who grew too old to dream.