Rococo

  “It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years to know what you like and then to fight for it. I was a pushover at first, but I learned that people were hiring me for my eye. It’s the same thing in the theater. You have to train your eye.”

  “I don’t relate to the other students.”

  “Why? Villanova has nice people. After all, they’re Catholic, aren’t they?” I sound like such a square. So I change my tone. “You’re serious about this?”

  “You know I always tell you the truth.”

  “I know.” Maybe it’s because I’ve been there for every major event of Two’s life—and every play, recital, and party—that I don’t do him the injustice of behaving like a parent. Who am I to tell him what to do? “Then . . . you should do what’s right for you.”

  “Thanks, Unc.” Two smiles. “Do you have some work for me?”

  “You want my blessing and a job?”

  “Well, like you said, otherwise Ma will kill—”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to my drapery guy. He might need someone in the studio.”

  Two thanks me profusely. Toot is going to make mincemeat out of me. As we turn onto Corinne Way, cars are parked bumper to bumper as far as I can see. Toot’s garage is aglow like a federal prison, the driveway ablaze with tiki lamps stuck into the ground. Two pulls the Cadillac onto the lawn, where a place has been saved for the guest of honor.

  At the entrance to the garage, the crowd lunges at me. “Surprise!” they shout, joyful anticipation on their faces. Italians, who plan their parties down to the fantail arrangement of silver teaspoons on the Venetian table, need to pretend that every detail just happened to come together casually to create la Festa.

  The Nite Caps, my cousin Dom Ruggiero’s swing band, is perched on risers in the space normally reserved for the Caddy. They launch into a high-voltage rendition of “Oh Marie,” and the guests swarm onto the rented parquet wood dance floor like the crowd at St. Peter’s Square when the Pope gives the Easter benediction. I am kissed and slapped and squeezed by my cousins (a few “y” Crespys have come down from Boston), my inner-circle clientele (the Baronagans, Aurelia Mandelbaum, the Schumans, Hagans, Kuglers, and Rabinskis), and dear friends from the trade in New York City (Helen McNeill, Susan Friedman, Norbert Ratliff).

  More lightbulbs flash in my face than when I keeled over in the heat at Toot’s wedding. Despite my walking depression, I feel loved and treasured, and younger than the enormous number printed in gold on the napkins alongside my initials. My sister is nothing if not subtle. My family loves to celebrate, and nothing tops a party in honor of a birthday ending in a zero.

  To commemorate the year of my birth, 1930, Toot looked to Hollywood. Festive blowups of icons Charlie Chaplin, Tom Mix, Deanna Durbin, and me—posed nude at age one on a leopard rug at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier—hang from the ceiling amid colorful crepe-paper streamers.

  The portable tables are covered in red, with multicolored tulips for centerpieces. Toot took my twelve years of school pictures, glued them to a wire, and stuck them in the vases amid the flowers. She covered the floor with green Astroturf, except for the wooden dance floor, where the riding lawn mower usually sits. The windows are propped open and a fresh spring breeze wafts through the well-scrubbed garage, carrying a faint smell of motor oil mixed with the heady floral tones of Youth Dew perfume worn by every lady in the joint.

  The walls are decorated (obscured, really) with a row of orange-and-white helium balloons suspended on multicolored ribbons and attached to weighted flowerpots on the floor. There are funny quips printed on them: THIRTY-NINE AND COUNTING, 40 AND FANTASTIC, and I’M SO OLD I CAN’T TELL MY KNEES FROM MY ANKLES.

  The cake, a replica of the Villa di Crespi, is lit by a spotlight on a round table covered in lace doilies. It is a wonder. The architectural details are exactly right, from the slope of the roof to the arch of the doors, all re-created in vividly colored buttercream icing (even the garden and lawn are done to scale). The dormers are outlined with licorice whips, the stonework fence is made with gumdrops, and the windows are Necco wafers. There’s a little man—me?—in the yard. (It looks as though the baker ripped a groom off a wedding topper. I would never wear a white tie and tails around the house.)

  “Bartolomeo, happy birthday from the Salesian sisters!” Sister Theresa Kelly, my favorite nun, gives me a small package.

  “Let me guess, Sister.” I shake the box. It gurgles. “Lourdes water.”

  “How did you know?” She smiles, and it’s as if an aura of good temper suddenly surrounds me. Or maybe it’s the pulsating strobe light and the up-tempo version of “After the Lovin’.” Sister Theresa is a striking presence, with her green eyes and porcelain skin set against the stark black-and-white habit. What a color scheme that would make for a room!

  “We can’t stay.” Sister Theresa points to the other nuns sitting at a table for eight eating an early supper. “Nicolina told us to go ahead and have a bite. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not. Who’s driving back?” North Haledon, where the convent is located, is pretty far, and the highway is busy on weekends.

  “Sister Ercolina. She just got new eyeglasses.”

  “That’s a good thing. I saw her at the Fatima sidewalk sale, and she almost plowed into the bingo tent when she was parking.”

  “I heard.” Sister Theresa lowers her voice. “That’s why the new glasses.” She gives me a hug as we join Sister Lead Foot and the rest of the nuns at the table for a photograph. They gather round me like chorus girls. I ask Sister Theresa to make devil horns behind my head while the rest of the nuns fold their hands in prayer and look up to heaven. What a shot for next year’s Christmas card.

  “Did I go all out or what?” Toot comes up behind me, gives me a kiss on the cheek, then takes my hand to show me the decorations.

  “Thank you, sis. What a party. And the cake!”

  “Well, you love your house more than anything.”

  “Not more than you,” I tell her sincerely. “You look lovely, Toot.”

  “Think so?” My sister wears a black chiffon cocktail dress with peekaboo nude lace inserts over much of the bodice. Her hair is done in a dramatic upsweep anchored by a clip covered in black sequins. She even glued on false eyelashes. “Lonnie’s coming,” she whispers; “I want him to regret everything. His affairs, the divorce, the secret bank account he set up in his dead mother’s name to hide marital assets from me. All of it. I want him to look at me and get a lump in his throat.” Toot swirls her hand from her bust down to her left hip. “Look what he gave up.”

  “What possessed you to invite him?”

  “He’s family.” Toot plucks a mini-cannoli from a four-tiered silver tazza on the Venetian table. “People aren’t paper plates, B. You can’t just throw them out when you’re done with them.”

  Or when they’re done with you, I’d like to remind my sister, but I don’t want to ruin her upbeat mood. “Good point.” I grab a mini-cannoli and toss it back. What the hell, it’s my birthday and it’s gonna be a long night. What’s an extra nine hundred calories when I’ll be hitting the dance floor later? I wave at Cousin Iggy With The Asthma as he waits on the buffet line with his wife, Moochie.

  “Can you believe it? Iggy and Mooch drove all the way from Vegas. It took them a week. Of course, you can’t get decent calamari out there.”

  Two hands his mother a whiskey sour.

  “You done good,” she tells him.

  “Uncle B didn’t suspect a thing.” Two winks at me.

  Toot smooths Two’s curls, then cups her hands around his chin tenderly. “I wish you’d cut your hair, honey. It’s too long. You look like the second guy from the left on the cigar box.”

  Cousin Amalia squeezes her way across the dance floor. She looks adorable in a pink Empire-waist peasant dress, with a matching yarn bow in her high ponytail. “Happy birthday, cousin B.” She gives me a beautifully wrapped box. “It’s not a wallet.”

  “That?
??s okay. It turns out my fortieth is going to be the Year of the Dobb Kit. By the end of the evening I’ll have a pair of toenail clippers for each toe.”

  “Don’t you mean Dopp?” Toot says.

  “I say Dobb.”

  “Huh,” she grunts. I unwrap Amalia’s present and lift out a round disk with a flat bottom.

  “It’s a paperweight. I sunk a picture of you and Mom into this plastic goopy stuff and let it dry. It’s not supposed to have any bubbles in it, but some got in.”

  “I love it, and I can’t believe you made me something. That means more to me than any other present.” I give Amalia a big hug. Christina joins us wearing a turquoise mini dress in chiffon with matching kitten heels. “You dyed your shoes,” I compliment her.

  “I know how you like things to match.”

  “You’re beautiful!” I tell her.

  “Aunt Edith just gave me the eye. She doesn’t like my dress. Evidently I’m supposed to wear black for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t take it another day.” Christina gives me a kiss.

  “In her day they also saved up their stray hairs in tin cups, matted them into balls, and attached them to their heads with straight pins and called it a coiffure. Forget Aunt Edith’s Victorian nonsense.”

  “I’m doing the best I can. But everybody has an opinion.” Christina forces a smile.

  My nephew Nicky works his way through the crowd to join us, yanking Ondine by the hand like she’s a pull toy on a string.

  “Here comes Sir Nicky with Lady Lubricant.”

  “That’s her?” Christina whispers.

  Nicky looks exactly like my father did in his youth—big head, broad shoulders, black hair, and stubby yet sturdy legs. He even walks like Daddy, with his head cocked to the side and his eyes in a squint. “Hey, Unc!” He throws his arms around me and pats my back hard, like I’m a horse and he expects me to giddyup. “Happy birthday. Hey, cousin Chrissy.” Nicky gives Christina a kiss, then introduces Ondine as his “girl.” Christina and I look at each other and cringe. Toot joins us with a plate of stuffed mushrooms.

  “Hi, Uncle B,” Ondine says with a smile. “Do you like the balloons?”

  “Don’t tell me you blew them up yourself,” I say, remembering that Toot overcame her animosity long enough to assign Ondine some chores for the party.

  “Uh-huh.” Ondine looks all around. “You know so many people. My family is teensy. You could fit the whole Doyle family on the riding lawn mower.” Ondine’s lush blond hair cascades around her shoulders; her sunglasses, perched on her head like a tiara, hold the wisps off her forehead neatly. (Why the sunglasses at eight o’clock at night is anyone’s guess.) Ondine wears a pale blue denim miniskirt, a short matching jacket with gold-trim epaulets, a denim shoulder bag with a patch on it that says DON’T EAT YELLOW SNOW, and short denim boots with a spike heel. It’s a genuine chuck-wagon ensemble—the only thing missing is a holster and a Smith & Wesson revolver. I compliment her. “That’s quite an outfit. You look like a million bucks once removed.”

  Toot inspects Ondine from head to toe. “It’s chilly tonight. No stockings?”

  “I don’t need ’em. I cream up. It’s better for my tan.” Ondine sticks her leg straight out and draws a circle in the air with her toe. “Sometimes I get as far as Thanksgiving before I have to put on nylons.”

  “Lovely.” Toot nudges me as if to say, “See—proof positive she doesn’t wear underwear.” There is an awkward silence. Toot takes a piece of prosciutto and melon off a passing hors d’oeuvres tray. She eats the melon, then rolls the prosciutto into a thin pink-and-white cigarette and takes a dainty bite. She turns to Two. “Where’s your brother Anthony?”

  “He’s coming with Pop. It’s nice of you to invite Pop . . . and his . . . and Doris.”

  “He has a new wife and I accept that. Look.” Toot checks each button on Two’s crisp white shirt. “Your father gave me my sons. And the least I can do is open up my home to him during times of celebration and grief.”

  “I’m proud of you, Ma.” Two gives her a hug.

  “It’s a lovely theory, sis, but let’s see how you do in real life.” I nod toward the door. “Forgive me if I find your sudden largess suspicious.”

  Lonnie, for whatever reason, comes into the garage through the kitchen. For a guy on his third marriage, he looks pretty good. Lonnie is five feet nine, with a small head and thick salt-and-pepper curls. He has handlebar sideburns, and it has been said that in profile he looks like an Italian Engelbert Humperdinck. I don’t see the resemblance, though he has full lips and a small nose and eyes so black and deep they look like two raisins sunk in a wet waffle. I’ve never known Lonnie to wear anything but a suit; tonight it’s a three-piece Johnny Carson gray serge with a lavender shirt and a wide black-and-white striped tie. Pretty dapper.

  “That’s his new wife,” Two whispers in my ear.

  “I thought it was the caterer,” I whisper back.

  “What caterer?” my sister thunders. “Every bite at this party from the hors d’oeuvres to the steam table with the pasta rondelet was made by family!” Several of our Farino cousins from the Poconos turn and look at her.

  Lonnie’s second wife, Sylvia Bonboni, was a lot like my sister—an Italian girl with lush black hair and a big black car. Evidently Lonnie had as hard time being true to her as he had to Toot. Marriage Number Two had the shelf life of a stuffed pepper.

  I haven’t been introduced to his current wife, Doris Falcone, née Cassidy. She doesn’t look like Lonnie’s type at all. First of all, she’s not younger than Lonnie, seeming to be in her upper fifties. She’s tall and willowy. At this party, she’s a good foot taller than any of the other guests. Her shoulder-length hair is a soft dove gray, offset perfectly by a shirtwaist party dress in a mild pink Pucci print, which she wears with pink Pappagallo flats. “She’s a dead ringer for Lady Sylvia Ashley,” I say to no one in particular, thinking of Clark Gable’s fourth wife, the zipper-thin British royal-by-marriage who came to the States and charmed Hollywood and its leading men after the war.

  “I heard of her.” Toot straightens her dress and pulls in her tummy.

  “Have you met Doris?”

  “I’m on my way.” Toot goes to greet Lonnie and Lady Sylvia. I turn to Two. “We may not have to restrain her with this one.”

  Two shrugs. “Pop’s a changed man now. He and Doris have a quiet life. She sits in the boat and knits while he fishes. Her kids are grown. She has her own money.”

  From across the garage, Capri motions for me to join her and Aurelia at a table marked “Reserved.”

  “B, you look divine!” Aurelia puts out a cheek for me to kiss, then the other.

  “You’re looking pretty sharp yourself, Aurelia.” She wears a Bill Blass palazzo-pant jumpsuit with a Kenneth Lane brooch that can only be described as an emerald fly caught in a pink diamond spiderweb.

  “Dance with Capri,” she barks.

  Cousin Dom, a few feet away at the electric keyboard, hears the order and complies with a jazzy “In the Still of the Night.” No one ignores the mandate of the richest woman in New Jersey. I take Capri in my arms.

  “I’m moving out,” Capri whispers in my ear as we glide across the dance floor to a smattering of applause.

  “What?” I’m stunned. “What did your mother say?”

  “She doesn’t know. It’s bad enough to turn forty. I can’t turn forty and still live at home.” Capri exhales and I smell the crisp perfume of a double Manhattan on her breath.

  “Your mother is not going to like this at all.”

  “Too bad. I want a life, B. I want to be independent, to come and go as I please. Like you. Like everyone I know. Of course, everyone I know is married and miserable with four kids. I don’t want that, but I want something.”

  Capri leans on me, and the deadweight of her almost makes my spine snap in two.

  “She’s always checking on me. I can’t go anywhere without her waiting by the door until I return. She
checks to see if I’m wearing the rubber support stockings I’m supposed to wear for my poor circulation. It’s madness.” I can see tears through Capri’s thick lenses. “My life is not worth living if I’m a prisoner.”

  “Then you should move out. You’re a grown woman, and your mother needs to accept that.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “Of course.” Instantly I regret my promise. Capri should stand on her own two feet, but when a girl is wearing orthotics, she might need someone to lean on.

  “I don’t want to be a bother,” Capri whispers.

  “You’re not a bother. You’re my friend, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”

  “Thanks.” Capri goes to rest her head on my shoulder for the saxophone solo but instead points to the center of the dance floor. “Oh my gosh!” she says with hot breath in my ear. “Look at your sister! Isn’t that her ex-husband?”

  The couples on the dance floor have fallen away and formed a circle on the periphery. I scoot Capri to the edge to join them. Lonnie holds Toot’s hand in the air, her fingers wrapped around the palm of his hand, and he leads with his pinky. They are holding each other entirely too closely for divorced people.

  The bandleader looks at Lonnie and my sister with their arched backs and faces nose to nose and lifts his sax, blowing low and sexy. A few wolf whistles are heard. The crowd hears the musical call of the wild and holds its breath. I look over at Ondine, who has the glow of a woman who just ovulated. She stands behind Nicky and puts her hands in his front pockets.

  As the opening chords of “Blame It on the Bossa Nova” wash over the crowd, Lonnie and Toot lock eyes like Rudolph Valentino and Mae Murray; even Sister Theresa and the nuns stop on their way out and feel the heat.

  Lonnie pulls Toot even closer, his arm anchoring her waist. (I wonder if she can breathe.) He lifts her slightly, dragging her to the center of the dance floor under the blowup of Deanna Durbin doing a double axel at the Ice Capades. As he drags her, her dress sidles up. Thank goodness she’s wearing opaque support hose à la Ann Miller. In a quick dip, Lonnie flips Toot onto the floor like a Sea World dolphin. He catches her, spins her, and snaps her back up to eye level. The crowd cheers.