The Supreme Macaroni Company

  “I miss you. We’re coming home.”

  “I wouldn’t miss me if I had a view of the Mediterranean Sea. Enjoy it.”

  “I am.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “No, I really am. I just miss New York.”

  “Why? You have a man and a house, and he can cook. And I’m assuming he can cook in every room . . .”

  “He can, and he does.”

  “So forget work, forget New York. The Hudson River is a gray stream of mystery moisture in a dank, stinking heat compared to the Mediterranean Sea. Stay in the moment. Be with your husband.”

  Mom and Dad picked us up at the airport when we landed. The expression on my mother’s face when she took in the size of me reminded me of the time we went to Sarasota and visited the tank of the Mighty Manatee. The expression was one of awe and then horror.

  “Honey, you look . . . amazing.”

  “Code for gigantic?”

  “Oh, I’m not biting on that one. I had four babies, and I know exactly where you are hormonally.”

  “Yeah, I remember that crazy place,” my father said. “You were there so often, we took a rental.”

  “Now, Dutch. Watch it.”

  Gianluca carried our bags to the car and put them in the trunk. As soon as we were in the car, my phone rang.

  “We have a situation,” Gabriel said urgently.

  “What’s the problem?” I looked at Gianluca, whose jaw had returned to its clenched position upon landing at JFK.

  “We need a press release.”

  “For what?”

  “Let’s put it to you this way. All your vendors are nervous. They’ve heard about the factory, and now they’re wondering if you’re going to deliver your specialty lines to their stores.”

  “Oh for Godsakes, of course I am.”

  “I held them off at the pass. Look, I am many things, but I am a lousy writer.”

  “Hold on. I know a writer.”

  “Don’t tell me. Salman Rushdie is hiding in the leather closet.”

  “Not him. Pamela.”

  “She can write?”

  “Really well. Call her and ask her to spin this thing into a press release. Something like . . . Angelini Shoes, in the spirit of their founders over a hundred years ago, are breaking ground on a new American factory to produce a retail line of fabulous American shoes in the Italian tradition.”

  “Got it.”

  I hung up the phone and tried to join in on the conversation between Gianluca and my parents. My mother was quizzing Gianluca about the house in Santa Margherita, while my dad did his best to avoid orange highway cones and bad cabdrivers as we made our way into Manhattan.

  I put my hand on Gianluca’s. “Did I do all right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m hiring Pamela to be our press agent.”

  “Whatever you want to do, cara.”

  “You think it’s a bad idea?”

  “This is not a good time to ask me. You already hired her.”

  My heart sank. I always figured out how to consult my husband after I’d made a decision instead of before. No wonder he felt excluded. “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for. Pamela is a smart hire.”

  “I mean, she’s in school, but she’s got plenty of time to take care of our press.”

  “Good.” Gianluca smiled, but it was lacking warmth and kindness, which were on tap in abundance in Italy. I felt terrible, but the baby kicked, and I took that as a sign that he was happy to be home, just like his mother.

  There is a tricky moment in the making of a shoe when the sole is sewn to the upper. The shoemaker almost has to imagine a foot inside the shoe as she sews, providing enough give in the leather to hold the shoe’s shape, but not so much as to have the sides spill over the sole once the shoe is in it.

  In custom shoemaking, we do several fittings. Gram taught me that human beings, made mostly of water, have shifts in their weight. Not just losing and gaining fat but shifts in water weight, which occur daily and come from external factors like the weather, or internal ones, like a long run in sneakers that temporarily spreads the bones of the foot.

  I was on the last stitch of a closed satin boot for a November bride when I felt a rumbling deep within me. I felt the baby kick, but this kick was followed by a low, hollow pain that spread through my stomach and around to my lower back.

  I changed position in my chair. The pain passed. I stood next to the table to get a better view of the shoe. The cramping returned. This time, I draped my body over the table to steady myself.

  Gabriel came in from lunch and saw my position. He rushed to my side. “Are you all right?”

  “Go and get Gianluca. He’s on the roof.” Gianluca had decided to clean out the gutters since fall was upon us.

  The pain subsided, and I knew I had a few seconds, so I went to my phone. I was about to call my mother. Instead, I put the phone down and waited for Gianluca.

  The thought of him going through this process with me calmed me down considerably. After all, he had seen it all before. When you’re embarking on a new journey, it’s always best to go with the sherpa who’s already climbed the mountain.

  “Valentina!” he said when he came into the room.

  “They’re coming a few minutes apart.”

  “Gabriel, call her mother.”

  “No!” I bellowed.

  “What do you mean? You wanted her there, remember?”

  “I changed my mind. I want it just to be us.”

  “Are you sure?” Gabriel said. “She has experience. Four times.”

  “When the baby is born, we’ll call her,” I said softly.

  Gianluca drove us to NYU Medical Center slowly, as if we were in a parade. Gabriel sat next to Gianluca in the front seat, and to be honest, he was reacting as though he was the one about to give birth. We had to drive about a mile and a half, across the village and up First Avenue to Thirtieth Street. Gianluca was careful around the potholes, and not so patient with people who crossed without obeying the signals. He laid on the horn and gave one poor jaywalker a diatribe in Italian.

  When Gianluca helped me out of the car in front of the hospital, Gabriel jumped in the driver’s seat and drove off to park the car. The sidewalk was crowded with people going to lunch. The lobby of the hospital was a mob scene, and no one noticed the pregnant woman in labor. Gianluca guided me through the crowd. The whole time I was thinking, I’m about to add one more soul to this circus.

  When we arrived on the birthing floor, it was a madhouse. Evidently, there was a drop in the barometric pressure from an oncoming storm, and when the baby dropped inside my body, babies all over the city who were at term dropped too. There were gurneys in the hallway with ladies curled up in labor and one who was not so far along, who sat up and hugged her enormous belly like she was holding a beach ball.

  I was taken into a small room with a divider curtain. On the other side of the curtain was a woman I couldn’t see but could hear. She was chanting “Om” as loudly as the law would allow. Great, I got a chanter.

  A petite nurse came in and helped me into position on the bed. My water broke as she shifted me. The fun began. I remember thinking that the nurse looked like a cricket in a cartoon: all eyes, and so tiny, she could fit in my hand. She handled me skillfully and asked Gianluca to wait outside.

  My sisters had told me to ask for an epidural, so I did. A Filipino doctor came in and gave me the shot, telling me if I moved, I could be paralyzed. I said a soft Hail Mary as he did his job. When he was done, he said, “Hail Marys always do the trick.”

  I was wheeled into a birthing room. Gianluca took a CD from my duffel and put the music on. I was going to give birth to the music of Frank Sinatra, B. B. King, or Lady Gaga. It was anyone’s guess.
r />   My husband sat down on a rolling stool next to me and took my hand. I focused on his hand, the shape of his fingers, the clean, square nails, and the strength of his grip.

  My doctor, Alicia DeBrady, a beautiful African American dynamo, came in, took a look, and said, “Sooner than later, hon.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re about to have this baby.”

  “Wait!” I said. I thought I had hours of labor ahead of me, based on waiting for Tess’s girls and Alfred’s sons. I remembered in some instances, I left and came back in the morning and the baby still hadn’t been born.

  “Call my mother!” I shouted.

  “You said you didn’t want her,” Gianluca said calmly.

  “Just do it! Please!”

  In an instant, I needed my tribe. I didn’t want my baby to enter the world without the family around her. I’d been there for all the nieces and nephews, and they should be there for their cousins.

  Gianluca left the room to make the call.

  “Girl, you made fast work of this baby,” Dr. DeBrady said.

  “Are you kidding? This was the longest nine months of my life.”

  “Well, you’re about to have him in the shortest nine minutes of your life.”

  “It’s a he?” I whispered.

  “No, I didn’t say that. I call all the babies he so I don’t get caught spilling the beans.”

  “But what if it’s a boy?”

  “Coincidence, Valentine. Coincidence.”

  As Gianluca came back into the room, he was followed by a team of students. NYU Medical Center was a teaching hospital. Of course I’d forgotten this and agreed that I could be observed. Now I was sorry because a pack of students from Illinois, not my mother, were going to see my child born.

  Every feeling I had during labor was magnified . . . love, guilt, insecurity, anxiety, and anticipation. I wanted to meet my child, and I wanted him to enter this life with all he needed.

  “Did you get a hold of the family?” I asked Gianluca.

  “They’re on their way, darling.”

  “I hope they have wings,” Dr. DeBrady said. “Push, Valentine.”

  As the students shouted their support, I pushed. The baby slithered out of me and into the light. I heard a student say, “Awesome,” and I thought, The first word my child heard was awesome.

  Gianluca kissed me as the baby was whisked away.

  “Where is he going?” I shouted.

  “It’s not a he—you had a beautiful baby girl,” Dr. DeBrady said. “We’re just going to check her to make sure she’s perfect.”

  “A girl!” I was thrilled. “We didn’t want to know what we were having, and I would have been happy either way, but a girl!”

  “She’s beautiful, Valentina,” Gianluca said to me as he watched them weigh her, sponge her, and swaddle her.

  The nurse brought the baby to me. She had a full head of black hair and tiny rosebud lips. She was warm from me, and I pulled her close.

  “Che bella,” my husband said. He often spoke Italian when he was happy.

  “What should we call her?” I asked.

  “Whatever you want.”

  “May we name her after my dad? Do you like Alfreda?”

  “Yes, I like it.”

  “We’ll call her Alfie.”

  “Alfie?” Gianluca smiled. “Mi da tanto piacere di finalmente conoscerti.”

  “Alfie.” I kissed my daughter’s head.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I couldn’t compare how consumed I was by the reality of her to anything else in my life.

  I’d been able to work on one piece of suede for hours on end and was known for my undivided attention to detail, but all of it, anything I had ever known or done, just fell away in comparison to my total, instant, and primal devotion to this baby. She fascinated me unconditionally.

  As in every life-changing event, there was no way to prepare. You don’t know what you’re going to think in advance, or how you’ll react in the moment. I had observed mothers, and loved my own, and certainly knew a good one on the street, but this was an altogether different sensation. My life had changed in a matter of seconds. And the shocker: I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “Honey, get the iPad out.”

  My husband fished in the duffel again.

  “Let’s Skype Gram and your dad.”

  “It’s the middle of the night there.”

  “They won’t care.”

  Gianluca smiled. “You’re right.”

  At first, it rang and rang, so Gianluca called separately on the phone. He told his father about Alfie, and instructed him to pick up the Skype.

  The next face we saw was my grandmother’s. Gianluca moved the iPad to show Alfie.

  “Oh, Valentine, she’s gorgeous!” Gram said. “Was it a long labor?”

  “No, it was so quick, I’m stunned!”

  “Oh, isn’t that wonderful! You dodged a bullet!”

  “I know! How lucky am I?”

  “Kiss her for us.”

  “That’s not a problem!”

  My mother burst into the room. She was dressed head to toe in white, with a hot pink pashmina thrown over the ensemble. The ball fringe on the cape swayed as she moved. Leave it to my mother to wear a white pantsuit in a birthing room.

  She was followed by my dad, who was rattled. His hair was askew, and he was dressed to clean out the garage.

  “Oh, Ma, it happened so fast.”

  “I’m sick I missed it.”

  “You didn’t miss anything. She’s here now.”

  I handed my baby delicately, like a precious teacup, to my mother. She took the baby skillfully and held her close, as she had in the first few hours of the lives of all of her grandchildren.

  “So you and Gianluca did this alone?” my mother asked.

  Gianluca looked at me and smiled.

  When I married Gianluca, he joined this massive family who are around all the time. We call each other every day, sometimes more than once. When we don’t get a return call or text quickly, we assume the person is dead. When we have a spat, we hang up on one another and Gianluca shoots me a look that says, “Call your sister back.” He had become brother-in-law, mediator, and olive oil on the troubled waters.

  We spent many Sunday dinners with my family. Holidays. There was a social life around sacraments. First Communions gave way to Confirmations, then marriage, and on your way out, Last Rites with a funeral Mass followed by a buffet. There was always a school play or a recital or a game that required our attendance. It never mattered whether anyone else showed up. We made up for any last-minute cancellations. The Roncallis filled the seats, pews, or bleachers, no matter the occasion.

  Gianluca moved to Perry Street and took on the Roncallis, Angelinis, Fazzanis, and McAdoos as his own. Yes, it could be a pleasure, and sometimes it was wonderful and fun, but there was something great about it just being the two of us for the birth of our baby. We were exhilarated. We did this. Alfie was ours. And our daughter would be forever our own.

  So on that day, I figured Gianluca needed to be the only voice in the room. I wanted my husband to navigate the birth coach, the doctor, and the nurses. I wanted him to make decisions on behalf of the baby’s welfare. I wanted him to have the knowledge that we were his family now, and that Orsola and Matteo were part of it. It seemed crazy that Alfie would have a twenty-seven-year-old sister, but looking down the line, I trusted it would be a gift to our daughter. I couldn’t see how, but hoped it would be true. We would make it so.

  “What’s her name?” Mom asked.

  “Dad?”

  My father had put on his reading glasses and was studying his latest grandchild as though she was a delightful bit of news he was reading in the newspaper.

 
“As long as you don’t name her after a street or a state, I’m happy,” he said. “Enough with the Paris Dakotas.”

  “No problem. That’s a good thing. Because we named her after you. Her name is Alfreda.”

  “Valentine. Really?” My dad’s eyes filled with tears.

  “I want her to be just like you.”

  “She’ll need a coach for the vocabulary section on the SATs,” my mother said.

  “She’ll have one.” I laughed.

  “Her middle name is Magdalena, for Gianluca’s mother,” I added.

  “It is?” Gianluca beamed.

  “You’ll have to tell our daughter all about your mother.”

  Gianluca kissed me on the forehead.

  “There are a lot of stories in this family. The good, the bad, and the ugly.” Mom sighed. “But we never repeat the ugly. Denial is a good thing.”

  She opened a small gift box and removed a gold pin. Dangling from it was a small cross and a Star of David. She pinned it to the blanket swaddling Alfie.

  “A pin?” Gianluca said.

  “It’s an Italian tradition,” Mom said. “What, you never heard of it?”

  “We pin a saint’s medal to the crib.”

  “Don’t worry. I have that covered. I have Saint Rose of Lima in my purse for the bassinette.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  My mother held her new granddaughter close. “I had to cover both religions. Doris Gluck sent the Star of David. I had a Capuchin monk bless them.”

  “Thanks, Ma. You might as well go ahead and book Leonard’s for the bat mitzvah.”

  “Are we going that far?”

  “You never know.”

  “Good point. We can always cancel. Carol Kall is nothing if not flexible.”

  “May I?” Dad said to Mom.

  She gently handed him the baby.

  “Hello, Junior,” Dad said to his namesake.

  “Honestly, Dutch. We have a little princess here, and you’re calling her Junior?”

  “This one is all mine,” he said.

  “You say that every time we have a grandchild.”

  “Yeah? Well, this time I mean it.”

  Alfie was sleeping in her car seat on the worktable when I showed the staff of the Angelini Shoe Company our new line.