“Okay.”
“I want you to tell me when I’m not putting you first. Will you do that?”
“I can do that,” Gianluca said. “Will you tell me when I fail you?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Then we agree.”
“We have a plan.”
I kissed him to seal The New Deal.
I wouldn’t look back on New Orleans and think of it as the Big Easy. After our argument, I’d think of it as the Big Impossible. So in the same place that Hurricane Katrina came and ruined homes and lives, destroyed beauty and art, I had my first real fight with Gianluca.
I’d assumed that I would continue to live my life as I always had, wedding ring or not. Why would I change what had worked for me? Why should I compromise when I already had the best solution? Or does having a husband mean that I am required to defer to him, and therefore he speaks for me?
This was what my father warned me about. There were big differences between Gianluca and me. Some were small cracks, others fissures, and one was a deep chasm. The obvious one: our ages. He had lived longer and raised a child to adulthood. I couldn’t imagine that breadth of experience.
The subtle difference between us: the way we did business. When one partner wants to rule the world, and the other wants to be happy and quiet in a corner of it, there’s conflict. My ambition was fueled by a drive to be the best, his, by a gentle energy to do your best but not worry about the reaction.
The stealth difference: we’re both Italian, but I was an American first and he was truly an Italian first. All the vowels in the world that we had in common couldn’t make up for the disparity in our points of view.
The deepest divide was the one that was almost impossible to overcome. He was a traditional man, raised in a typical Mediterranean patriarchy. I was raised under the same label, but it was a fake. My mother made all the decisions. She just pretended that my father made them. And the kicker: she was content with the charade, but more importantly, so was my father.
Gianluca was very determined. This was a man who fought for what he wanted—including defying all convention and marrying the granddaughter of his stepmother. But in all the hoopla, we hadn’t stopped to figure out how to drive the bus. We didn’t know how because we hadn’t made it a priority.
Maybe this is why a long engagement is a good idea. Those couples who take years to plan a beef tenderloin dinner learn how to talk things through. We sped through pre-Cana like we were going through a yellow light, hoping not to hit anything. But then we did hit something, and it was no speed bump—it was the Grand Canyon, and we couldn’t cross it. We disagreed about how we saw the world.
I woke up alone in the hotel room the next morning. A wave of panic rolled over me. Maybe he’d left me and gone back to Italy, just as he had when we were in Buenos Aires.
I heard the key in the lock. Gianluca pushed the door open. He carried a sack of beignets, the round puffs of fried dough doused in powdered sugar that I had grown to love. He also carried two cups of chicory coffee. He placed them on the nightstand and came and sat beside me. He kissed me.
“We’ll be all right, Valentina.”
“I know.” But did I?
Gianluca kissed me again. As he did, I released all my problems: the closing of Roberta’s factory, the loans due to the bank, and the search for a new manufacturer. I was not going to worry about where the money would come from, who the investors would be if it came or if it didn’t. Even if I had all the answers, it couldn’t be solved that minute, and in that moment, I needed to pay attention to Gianluca.
So I took my husband’s advice on our last morning in New Orleans. I let go of all of it. He took me in his arms, and we made love as we said good-bye to our honeymoon and started our marriage all over again. We made peace and we made a pact. We promised to listen to one another. And we sealed the promise with a feast of beignets.
Someday I would look back on this fight and know for certain that there is only one fight in a marriage, the first one. And as much as you might try, the fight is never solved. Over time, it becomes a conundrum, the immovable thing, the inexplicable conflict that forms a wall between you. It grows higher and higher, and then the vines come, and when the wall is grown over in bramble and weed, there’s no getting over it. You cannot see past it, get around it, or blow through it. It takes up the space between you, and no amount of love can bring that wall down.
I knew I would look back on that fight and wish I could take back every word and the terrible thoughts behind them. In time, I hoped to understand Gianluca’s point of view. He wasn’t fighting to keep me from working. He was fighting to show me how to live.
Alfred and Bret sat at the cutting table in the shop sipping coffee. Alfred had made the coffee so it tasted like mulch. No amount of cream would dilute the bitter brew to drinkable. Gianluca joined us with his laptop. I opened a folder with the production schedule from Roberta’s factory.
Gianluca was very secure within himself, and as he worked in the shop and observed our operation, he began to see Bret’s knowledge as invaluable. Alfred was controlled, and rarely showed emotion in business. As a former banker, he wore a poker face, so it was hard to know when we were in crisis mode or in the deep, delicious, and profitable black. I was the wild card. I threw myself into the financial decisions as I had the designs. Sometimes I was emotional about how to bring a design to fruition. Other times, you would think I was working on an assembly line, focused but not emotionally engaged.
When I went off the rails, Alfred pulled me back on track. We had grown to understand each other, so I let him. I guess Gram knew what she was doing when she made this unholy alliance.
The short history of the partnership of the Caminito Shoe Company and Angelini Shoes was laid out on the spreadsheets in detail. It was a profitable deal for both of us. I didn’t know where in the world we would find another manufacturer who wouldn’t sacrifice quality for cost.
“The last of Roberta’s obligations will be completed by early summer,” Bret told us.
“So we need a new manufacturer in place by then,” Alfred said. “Nice when your family gives you the heave-ho.”
“Well, if you had told me about it, I might have been able to convince her to stay in the business.”
“Val, it doesn’t do any good to rehash what might have been. Roberta is out, Buenos Aires is out, and we have to find a new factory,” Bret said calmly. “And if you want to stay on schedule for the fall line, we need to be up and running somewhere by the first week of June.”
“I could speak to some of my friends in Italy,” Gianluca offered.
“Thank you,” Bret said. “The problem will be that most of the Italian factories are booked through next year.”
“That’s true,” Gianluca admitted. “But it doesn’t hurt to ask. I know manufacturers in Barcelona.”
“I’m done with the Spanish,” I complained.
“How about China?” Alfred wondered.
“We’d be starting from scratch,” Bret said.
“We’re going to be starting from scratch no matter what,” I told them. “But you know, this is an Italian company. It started with our great-grandparents in Italy, and they came over here and built this business. I feel we should try to stay close to their vision. We could go anywhere we want in the world, but why would we if we could make the shoes here or in Italy? I know it might not be possible, but I’d like to try.”
“I hear you, Val,” Bret said. “But we have to think about cost.”
“And you need an experienced workforce,” Alfred offered. “Your shoes are not always simple. We need excellent machine operators who can also do any extra hand work. You designed a line with lots of embellishments—and one shoe with a tricky ankle strap with buckles. It’s going to take some time on the line to build it.”
“Valentina has worked with so
me factories in Naples that make the embellishments. We might be able to order the straps from them directly. That will save production time.”
“Would you look into that for us, Gianluca?” Alfred asked.
“Of course.”
“What about America?”
“What about it?” Alfred asked me.
“Is there a factory that makes shoes in the United States?”
“Sure, there are a few left. But they make men’s shoes, and they have lug soles, and they use glue,” Alfred said.
“Why don’t we put up our own factory?” I asked. “People need jobs, and we need somebody to make our shoes.”
“You’d have to cut a special deal on real estate, and you’d have to train the workforce.”
“So we train them.” I looked at Gianluca.
“We can’t afford to put up a factory in Manhattan. I already talked to a guy in Brooklyn who used to make shoes for Kenneth Cole. Those factories went to China.”
“We’re not mass producing,” I reminded them.
“Not yet.” Bret smiled.
“How about Jersey?” Alfred asked.
“Expensive. Their real estate is high. And you’re taxed up the wazoo.”
“What about Youngstown?” Alfred wondered.
“Why would we go to the midwest?” I asked him.
“I was talking with Cousin Don. He is always on the lookout for new business opportunities. They have a workforce there that is familiar with piece-good construction. They had a couple of garment mills there.”
“Where is Youngstown, exactly?” Bret asked.
“It’s about six hundred miles away—halfway between New York and Chicago. It’s the town that ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini came from. Made it famous,” Alfred explained.
“It’s close to Pittsburgh.”
“So you’re near a major airport.”
“It’s worth a look,” Bret said. “If it makes financial sense.”
“I haven’t been on a road trip since 1979,” my father said as he loaded his suitcase into the trunk of his car. “University of Michigan versus the University of Ohio. Lansing campus. It was a real head-knocker.”
Dad handed me a separate Mylar bag filled with snap-lid containers of cookies, biscotti, ham and butter panini, and for good health, crudités, carrots and celery.
I put the bag of food on the backseat. “You know we can stop to eat along the way. This isn’t 1812, when 7-Elevens didn’t exist.”
Dad lifted a giant cooler and placed it in the trunk.
“That cooler isn’t for you. It’s sausage from Faicco’s on Bleecker Street. Don has a yen for it.”
My mother came running down the sidewalk in front of her compact Tudor, the house I grew up in, wearing the exact color palette of the cross-timber trim: strictly black and white. She carried a bag of tarelles.
“Really, Ma?”
“They never go bad.”
“But no one eats them.”
“Then it’s good for them that they never go bad.”
Mom was wearing her housekeeping ensemble: black slacks, a crisp white T-shirt, gold hoop earrings, and a black-and-white bandana in her hair. She wore her “knock-around” shoes, brushed black suede mules with a kitten heel.
It occurred to me that I’d never seen my mother without her lipstick, including two weeks in 1988 when she had the swine flu. She is of another era when women dressed before leaving the house. There was never a dirty dish in her sink or a dead flower in her vase. She may be old fashioned but she lives to be mod and in the moment. The result of having grown up with a camera-ready mother is that I always think something is about to happen, even when it isn’t.
“What are you going to do while we’re in Youngstown?” I asked Mom.
“I don’t know. Watch some movies. Light the gardenia candles, because they make your father sneeze and I happen to love them. I’ll probably call some girlfriends and take a ride to the Short Hills Mall. I don’t know. I’ll fill up the hours.”
I gave my mother a kiss. “Have fun without him.”
“Not a difficult assignment,” she said. “Did you pack a business suit?”
“For Gianluca?”
“For you.”
“Ma, it’s Cousin Don.”
“You should be your professional best, even if you played Trotta Trotta Cava-lee with Don when you were five.”
“There will be no bouncing on the knee. We’re looking for a factory, Mom. It’s not like I’m having a meeting at Bergdorf’s. I’ll look good enough for Ohio. I promise.”
Gianluca came out of the house with a couple bottles of water. He handed them to me. “Thanks, honey.” I gave him a quick kiss.
Dad was already in the front seat with his seat belt fastened. “Come on, G. L. You’re driving the first leg. I’ll take over in Pennsylvania.”
The last thing we heard as we pulled out of Queens was the gentle hum of the front passenger seat as my father put it in recline. He pulled the brim of his baseball cap over his eyes and promptly fell asleep.
The hills of Pennsylvania gave way to the low, rolling flats of Ohio on Route 65. The first buds of spring turned the gray landscape into a green pointillist painting. The sky, wide and blue, had no edges. It extended as far as my eye could see.
Along the highway, we saw the abandoned steel mills obscured by overgrown brush, looking like lost toys in high weeds. I remembered when the rust belt was in full operation. I had cousins who worked in the steel mills and the auto plants on school breaks. Their fathers retired with pensions and dreams of travel beyond these fields. A few lived long enough to enjoy those years, but most weren’t so lucky. The plants closed before retirement and pension plans dried up. There was a mad scramble to make a living.
The work began to dwindle in earnest when I was growing up.
And just as Don Pipino had moved west to work in Youngstown in the 1950s, now my generation did the same, moving in the opposite direction, away from steel towns like Bethlehem and Allentown and on to opportunities in Chicago and Atlanta and Charlotte. Italian Americans who had never been south of DC were suddenly moving to places like Georgia and Tennessee and Florida to find work.
The manufacturing jobs in the small towns where they were born were gone. It was time to look for other ways to make a living in new places. Cousins my age went to college and came out and went into computer programming, pharmaceutical sales, and teaching. This new reality left us with the conundrum of building our own families away from our family of origin. The drive to Youngstown had me thinking about my brother and sisters, our family and our future. We had made a full circle, locking arms at work, just as our great-grandfather and his brother had at the turn of the last century.
Once we arrived in Youngstown, we followed the directions Don had e-mailed us. We found Bears Den Road with the help of the GPS, and turned off the main highway onto a dirt road.
I called Cousin Don’s cell and told him we were moments away.
In the distance, through a clearing of trees, we saw a large rectangular box building with dull gray aluminum siding. There was a row of windows along the main floor and a double entrance door.
The parking lot had grown over with weeds, but I could see where once at least a hundred parking spots had been marked for the workers.
We pulled up. Cousin Don was waiting for us outside in a University of Michigan baseball hat and matching jacket. He wore aviator sunglasses and chewed on an unlit cigar.
“Jesus, Don, you look like Banacek from the TV show.” My dad gave him a hug.
“Did he have a good head of hair?”
“Yeah, good and thick like yours. U of M?”
“This is my go-see jacket. I like to wear a winning team when I’m about to lose my shirt.”
“You won’t lose your shirt, Cousin Don,”
I assured him as he gave Gianluca a slap on the back. In our family, “Cousin” is a title of honor. When I was a girl, I thought “Cousin” was Don’s first name.
Don unlocked the door and took us inside the old mill. The large, empty room had a thirty-foot ceiling and a concrete floor. It was as cold as a meat locker and it had the scent of motor oil and crushed metal. I could almost hear the sounds of this steel mill in its heyday, the hum of the electrics, the sawing of the metal, and the hiss from the torches.
“It’s a big space,” Don said.
“You have a lot of room here,” Dad said. “But you need it. You need the assembly space, room for the sewing machines, the buffer, the polisher, the presser.”
“You could put up a wall and do packing and shipping over here.” I pointed. “You have the loading dock outside this door.”
“That door rolls up like a shade,” Don said. “You pull the truck right into the building. And when you’re dealing in high-end shoes, you don’t want those boxes getting wet. Perfect for dry load-ins.”
“You’re thinking of everything.”
“Ohio gets a wet spring. Think ahead. That’s the Pipino way. No stone unturned. No rock unthrown.”
“It needs work, Don,” Dad said as he walked the floor.
“Look, we can’t occupy the space tomorrow. But give me a couple of months, I get the water on, I rewire. I gravel the pavement out front. I put in the industrial lights, the HVAC. I mean, we could do this thing.”
We spent the next day looking at more spaces. Don showed us everything Youngstown had to offer. An old dairy farm. The Weatherbee coat factory. A restaurant supply warehouse. If it was for sale, Don knew about it. But Gianluca and I couldn’t shake the thought of the old steel mill on Bears Den Road. It was too perfect. It felt right.
Dad stayed with Cousin Don at his house. I imagined one widower, one temporary bachelor, and some colorful locals engaging in all-night card games played through a fog of cigar smoke over a plate of soppressata and Parmesan cheese washed down with grappa. However it played out, they would have a ball.
Gianluca and I checked into the Marriott, where I set up camp in the room with a coffeemaker and a cooler, just as my mother had on every family trip we ever made. Gianluca was propped up in bed, watching a soccer match, as I went through the particulars of the properties we had visited.