The Supreme Macaroni Company

  “But the sign is true. My father only had one son.”

  “Then you call it the Vechiarelli Tanning Company, or V and V, or something, anything but Son without an S.”

  Gianluca waved ahead to a man and woman who sat on the steps of the piazza, having a cup of gelato. Gianluca and the man, around his age, embraced, laughing.

  “Valentina, this is my best friend from childhood. Piero Greco.”

  “The Greek!” Piero said. “This is my wife, Alice.”

  “I love the way your name sounds in Italian. Ah-lee-chay. So beautiful.”

  “Name your baby Alice,” Piero said.

  “It’s going on the list.” I smiled.

  “This man knows all my secrets,” Gianluca said.

  “There weren’t so many. Only one was named Monica.”

  “Monica Spadoni.” Gianluca made the international sign of voluptuousness with his hands. “She was a goddess.”

  In my current physical condition, I wasn’t a goddess, I was the size of a temple, and the last thing I wanted to hear was about some beauty in Gianluca’s past who evidently still burns in his memory.

  “So where did Signora Spadoni go? Back to Mount Olympus?” Alice said.

  “I like your sense of humor,” I told her.

  “I will tell you one thing about Gianluca. He never loved any woman more than his 1979 Renault convertible. Bellissima! He used to ride it around these hills like a crazy man. He took the curves like a whip,” Piero said.

  “You were lucky you weren’t killed,” Alice said.

  “Almost,” Piero admitted.

  “What?” I couldn’t help it. I was pregnant, and any thought of living one day without my husband scared me.

  “I was driving on the old Viterbo above Arezzo.” He pointed. “I was going very fast when I turned a corner, and there was the priest on a Vespa. He was coming up the mountain to give last rites.”

  “He might have done the favor twice . . . ,” Piero interrupted.

  “Except that I veered off the road and went up the hill, over and past him, and then spun off the side of the mountain. Luckily I landed in a ravine, upside down, but I walked away without a scratch. I climbed back up onto the road, and the priest was waiting for me. Instead of administering last rites, he condemned me to hell on the spot.”

  Piero and Gianluca laughed. I looked at Alice, who rolled her eyes. She had probably heard that story a hundred times. I made a vow that no matter how many times Gianluca told the story of the priest and the Vespa, I would laugh the loudest and the longest, because had the story ended differently, we never would have met.

  We went for a drink before walking home. Gianluca had a limoncello, while Piero had two. Alice had a fizzy drink of bitters. I drank a gallon and a half of plain water.

  Gianluca nuzzled me as we walked home to find Gram waiting on the porch. “Orsola’s husband just called. She had the baby!”

  “Is she all right?”

  Gram nodded.

  “And the baby?”

  “Healthy and perfect. A boy!”

  Gianluca dialed his son-in-law. They spoke Italian to one another, their tone operatic. I heard the pride both of them had in the news that the baby was a boy, their machismo instantly thrown into high gear. A son is a name legacy and camaraderie. My husband was giddy.

  He hung up the phone. “I’m going to drive to Florence tonight.”

  “Give me a minute to pack.”

  “No, no, you stay. You need your rest.”

  “We’re going in the morning, Valentine. You can come with us.”

  “Okay. Are you sure?” I asked Gianluca.

  “Mirella and her husband are there,” Gianluca explained. “You come tomorrow.”

  “I understand.” When it came to his daughter, I did not question anything. He made those calls, and I did whatever was asked of me. I had put it out of my mind that I might actually meet the ex-wife, and now that it was going to happen, I wanted to lie down.

  Gianluca gathered a few things and kissed me good-bye. He planned to stay with Matteo and help him with whatever he needed. I walked Gianluca to the car.

  “What did they name him?”

  “Francesco.”

  “Like Saint Francis of Assisi,” I thought aloud. Was this coincidence or a message from the next world? I had a stack of prayer cards of the saint in my suitcase. I should have Gianluca bring a card to the new baby. But my husband was in a hurry.

  He kissed me again and jumped into the car.

  “Be careful!” I called after him.

  Gianluca sped around the corner. I remembered that he’d had a cocktail. I had a terrible feeling as I watched him turn the corner and disappear from sight.

  9

  Gram had woken Dominic up to tell him that he was a great-grandfather. Elated, he promptly fell back asleep.

  I followed Gram back to their kitchen. As she put a pot of espresso on the stove, I remembered her doing the same in her kitchen on Perry Street. There are times when memory is as potent as the moment. This was one of them. I sat down at the kitchen table and put my feet up on a chair. I leaned back and felt the full weight of my pregnancy.

  “Gram, I have feelings of doom.”

  “That’s just pregnancy.”

  “All the time.”

  “Those are the mother hormones kicking in.”

  “I thought those hormones would make me happy.”

  “They will come when the baby is in your arms.”

  “I believe you.” But I didn’t believe her.

  “What are you afraid of? Go ahead and say it out loud—that will take away all its power over you.”

  “You think so?”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay, here goes. I don’t think my husband thought things through. A younger wife is a kind of baggage. He’s had the life we’re starting now.”

  “He had a few years of being alone.”

  “I know. I guess I wouldn’t expect him to want to be alone all of his life. We found each other.”

  “And you’re good for each other.”

  “I don’t think he wants me to meet Mirella.”

  “He has his reasons,” Gram admitted.

  “Why? Besides the awkward nature of number one meeting number two, what’s the problem? She left him.”

  “I can only tell you what Dominic told me. When Mirella asked Gianluca for a divorce, it’s true, she and Gianluca had been living separate lives for a few years. But the reason they were living separate lives is that Mirella was turning forty, and she wanted another baby. Gianluca tried to talk her out of it, but she wanted that second baby. And it caused a rift that eventually ended the marriage.”

  “Why wouldn’t he have another baby with her?”

  “He thought Orsola was enough. And at the time, he had big ambitions for the tannery. He was thinking of going to Sicily and opening one there. There was talk of buying a tannery on the Amalfi Coast. When he was young, Gianluca was very ambitious.”

  My head was spinning. “Why wouldn’t he have told me this?”

  “Obviously he wanted to have a baby with you.”

  “Um, I don’t know that for sure because this baby is a surprise.”

  Gram rested her face in her hands. “Oh, boy.”

  “No kidding. I trapped the guy. Not before I married him, but shortly thereafter. I can’t believe it. Sharon Testa, the hottest girl at Holy Agony, was the trap-setting queen of our high school, and I make her look like an amateur.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Well, what else would you call it? We go to New Orleans, have a giant doozy of a fight that I think is going to end the whole marriage, and I find out later that I’m pregnant.”

  “Then everything is fine.”

  “He lo
oks after me. He makes sure I take my folic acid. He’s good, Gram. Very good. But he didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “Why are you worried? What’s at the root of all this?”

  “Gram, you’re talking to a pregnant woman. I worry about everything. Oh, let’s face it, it’s not just the pregnancy. I’m a worrier.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Well, tomorrow we’ll see what’s going on behind the curtain. I’ll meet my new grandson, dear God help me, and his grandmother. I should get a jump on my beauty sleep. What time will we leave for Florence?”

  “First thing.”

  When I got up to my room and slipped out of my shoes, I looked down at my swollen feet, feeling worse. I called my mother with the news of Orsola’s baby boy.

  “Honey, wonderful news. How much did he weigh?”

  “Nine pounds.”

  “Now that’s a canned ham!”

  “I’m sure he’s adorable.”

  “I’ll bet. Now. What is he to me again?”

  When I married Gianluca, it was so confusing to my mother that she had yet to sort out her relationships in this new, extended family. Gianluca was her stepbrother, which made me her niece. Orsola would be her niece also, so baby Francesco was her great-nephew. The whole thing gave me a headache, but my mother had to know because she was sending a gift and a card and had to know how to sign it.

  “Ma, just sign the card ‘Mike and Dutch.’ ”

  “Will they know who we are?”

  “Yes.”

  “It seems so informal.”

  “It should be!”

  “All right. Whatever you say.”

  “Ma, I need your advice.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’m going to meet the ex tomorrow.”

  “Who?”

  “Mirella. Gianluca’s first wife.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I know. I’m meeting the first wife, and I can’t fit in my pants.”

  “We can’t have that!”

  “No, we can’t. But we do.” I looked down at my stomach. My pants weren’t buttoned, and the zipper only went halfway up. “I’m the opposite of a trophy wife. I’m a booby prize.”

  “Don’t you have a dress?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You need something flowing.”

  “I have that sleeveless sundress.”

  “That’s the ticket. And I don’t care if you have to cram your feet into them, you put on a high heel. Three inches up equals five pounds of weight loss across.”

  “Oh no. I didn’t pack my stilts.”

  “Honey, you’re pregnant. You’re not supposed to be rail-thin.”

  “That’s good to know. Because I’m not.”

  “You shouldn’t make a big deal out of this. I mean, she kicked him to the curb, didn’t she?”

  “That’s the story.” I cannot possibly tell my mother the rest of the story. She’ll get on a plane and come over here in fear of a sequel to Sally Field in Not Without My Daughter, the Italian version.

  “So, clearly, what you’re saying and what I’m hearing is that Mirella is not interested in Gianluca anymore.”

  “She might be after she sees me in pants.”

  “We’ve already settled the fashion question. You’re wearing the dress.”

  “Right, right.”

  “Oh dear, Valentine. You’ve got short-term memory loss.”

  “Yeah, and I’m going for full-out dementia. I can’t remember anything. My face looks like a satellite dish. I’m running out of base foundation, there’s so much more skin to cover. My eyes look like raisins floating in a bowl of puffy cereal.”

  “Even if it’s hot, you have to wear mascara and use an eyelash curler.”

  “Okay.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a yes.”

  “Ma, I’ll do everything you’re telling me to do. What do I say to the woman?”

  “Say congratulations.”

  “Always a good opener,” I agree.

  “And tell her that Orsola is fabulous. Mothers always like to hear nice things about their children. You’ll find that out soon enough.”

  “Before you go, I have some more news.”

  “Spill, honey.”

  “We’re Jewish.”

  “Of course we are. Jesus was Jewish.”

  “No, I mean we really are Jewish. Gianluca’s mother was Jewish.”

  “Honey, since we found out we had black people in the family, nothing surprises me.”

  “I hear that.”

  “Wait until I call Iris Feldman. She’ll be thrilled when I tell her. She’ll insist I buy an entire table for the UJA fund-raiser. Usually I buy a pair of tickets, but with Jews in the family, I’m going to have to put out for a table of ten.”

  “Ma, spring for the table. Come winter, we’ll be able to fill it.”

  The ride to Florence from Arezzo through the Tuscan hills looked like a patchwork quilt stitched in summer colors. The fields were covered in sunflowers, spindles of olive trees were loaded with ripening black beads, and nestled in the folds of the valley were stucco farmhouses painted yellow, peach, and coral. But I observed most of it in a blur from Dominic’s car because I was strapped in the backseat like a paratrooper, with a pillow under my knees for safe landing. The hot summer had shifted the weight in my body. I was puffy with fluid, where there was a joint, there was swelling. It was a wonder I could even dress myself.

  We arrived at Santa Maria Battista Hospital right after lunch. Gianluca was waiting outside Orsola’s room. I saw him on his cell phone at the end of the hallway. I had a notion to turn around and run back to Arezzo on foot. I really didn’t want to meet this Mirella person.

  I tried to stand tall in my strappy sandals, throwing back my shoulders, knowing that I already looked big, so I might as well go for Big and Tall. Gram and Dominic walked ahead of me at a clip, filled with joyful anticipation. When Gianluca saw them, he motioned them into the room.

  “How is she?” I asked Gianluca. He kissed me on the lips.

  “She’s fine, and the baby . . . che bello.”

  I entered the dark hospital room. Gram and Dominic were cooing over the baby in Orsola’s arms. I was about to join them when I saw a petite blonde in her mid-fifties with a layered haircut standing by the empty crib. She looked up at me.

  How odd to see the face that I had only seen in pictures, photographs I searched for at Dominic’s house. I was insecure about the first wife, and now I was facing my worst fears.

  I turned to my husband to introduce me to his ex-wife, but he wasn’t there. I’d make an appointment to kill him later.

  Gram and Dominic were busy with the baby, and Orsola was giving them the high points of the birth. So, like the good Yankee I am, I pulled my version of the Marshall Plan and extended the warm hand of friendship to Mirella.

  “I’m Valentine,” I introduced myself.

  “I’m Mirella.” Up close, her smile was clenched and tense. Her white teeth were small and straight. Great. I had cornered a declawed cat.

  I don’t always do what my mother says, but this time I reached into the Mike Roncalli Sack of Good Manners and pulled out the big gun.

  “You have raised a beautiful daughter who will be a wonderful mother,” I told Mirella.

  This cracked the veneer of wife number one ever so slightly.

  “I had a lot of help. Her father . . . ,” she said and stopped.

  “Oh, no, Orsola is just like you. In fact, I feel I know you already.”

  And with that, I turned to ogle the beautiful baby boy and his happy mother.

  Gianluca joined us. He looked at Mirella as he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Have you met?” he asked her.

  She nodded as I kept my eyes
on the baby.

  “Stop asking me questions, I’m not going to tell you another thing,” Gianluca said to me as he loaded the car with our suitcases. “I’m taking you somewhere so wonderful, I can’t describe it.”

  “I just don’t know whether to pack my pants or my bigger pants. Are we going to Lake Como?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, I’m not Clooney ready.”

  “What is that?”

  “George Clooney has a house on Lake Como, or haven’t you heard?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Clooney ready is Gabriel’s concept. When you’re working out and you’ve dieted and gotten the right haircut and the best job, and you feel gorgeous, you’re Clooney ready. When you’re not, you go to Miami, put on your swim dress, and hide in a cabana with a can of frosting and a big spoon. You only go to Lake Como if you look good enough to snag George Clooney.”

  “This is why Gabriel is alone.”

  “I know. He admits that he overreaches, but what’s wrong with high standards, honey? I have them.”

  It soon became apparent that we were traveling west, not south to Rome, not north to the mountains of Lombardy, but farther west, to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. When we pulled into the seacoast village of Santa Margherita Ligure, I remembered Gram telling me that Gianluca had spent a lot of time there.

  I hadn’t had the nerve to bring up the new Mirella information that Gram had shared with me. After I met Gianluca’s first wife, he really didn’t want to talk about her. It was as if I’d seen her, and that was it, we were done. Besides, what good would it do to discuss whether Gianluca wanted to have a baby when we already had one on the way?

  I was in the beginning stages of mastering the art of communication with Gianluca. He seemed to be pretty open to any subject, unless it was about his past choices and romantic history. I figured there was a room somewhere in Arezzo filled with memorabilia of all the women he’d loved before (let’s call it the Willie Nelson room), but I didn’t want to know the location and I certainly didn’t want to visit. Yet a conversation about Mirella was different. Her mistakes needed to be understood. I could walk down my choice of paths in this marriage, but I wanted to avoid the one that ended in failure.