Brava, Valentine: A Novel

  "Sounds like fun," I tell him. "Thank you for coming."

  "Of course. I loved June, too."

  "And she knew it."

  Finally the last of the guests go, and just our family remains. Pamela has been antsy all afternoon. I noticed she got into a long conversation with the yoga instructors from Integral. Maybe she will find inner peace on 13th Street. She pulls her coat on to go.

  "The boys are at karate. I have to pick them up," she says.

  "Isn't your mom meeting them?" Alfred asks.

  "Yeah, but I like to be home when they get home."

  "If you wait, I can go with you."

  "No, no, you stay. I can get the train."

  "But Gram would like to visit with you."

  Tess is hosting Christmas Eve with the dinner of the Seven Fishes at her house, and when she called to invite Pam, Pam was very nice, but said she hadn't made up her mind about her holiday plans yet.

  "I spoke with Gram," Pamela tells him.

  "Okay." Alfred gives in. He kisses Pamela on the cheek. She turns to go.

  "Pam?" My mother stops her.

  She turns to my mother.

  "I need to talk to you," Mom says.

  "Not today, Mom," I say firmly.

  "It's okay," Mom says, as she sips her second martini.

  "No," I say firmly. "It's not a good time."

  I implore my sisters to help me.

  Pamela throws her purse down on the chair. Then she sits down on the zebra love seat.

  "All right, Ma. I'm all ears. I have no secrets in this group. Have at me. But if this is about Christmas, I haven't made up my mind yet."

  "I know. And there's no pressure," my mother says.

  Pamela looks at me in disbelief.

  My mother stands and holds on to the top rung of her chair. "Thank you for coming today."

  "You're welcome."

  "Pam, I was so happy when you came in the door over at Internal Yoga."

  "Integral," I correct her.

  "All right already. Integral." Mom waves her hand.

  "Of course I would be there. I thought the world of June," Pamela says. "She was one of the last honest people on earth." Pam looks down at her manicure.

  "Where's my mother?" Mom looks around.

  "She and Dominic are down in the shop."

  "Good."

  Mom looks around the room. Only my father, my sisters, and their spouses remain. The rest of the mourners have gone.

  "I'm very proud of my family." Mom cries.

  Tess hands her a tissue.

  "God knows we are a flawed group. But you know it isn't chance that brought us together. We were meant to be a family. And Pam, you are like my fourth daughter. I relate to you. I've lived through your pain. I understand it. Just because I like my shoes to match my bag, that doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I have a mind."

  "Is that in dispute?" My father bites into a brownie from the dessert tray.

  Mom shoots him a look. "You've been an excellent daughter-in-law, Pamela. You're a wonderful mother--and I know you've been a good wife. This situation is not in any way your fault."

  "Thanks, Ma." Pamela stands, so my mother can quit while she's ahead. But my mother doesn't.

  Mom continues, "Marriage is like working in a coal mine. You hack away in the dark, day after day, busting rock, and you think you're not getting anywhere, and then all of a sudden, this little sliver of sunlight appears and you say to yourself, Oh, that's what I've been waiting for--just a little light, just a little bit of hope--a sign, maybe, that will get me through. And Pamela--it does. You cannot throw away sixteen years of love and life with someone over a stupid mistake. You just can't."

  "Ma, Pamela needs time to think," Alfred says.

  Pamela speaks directly to my mother. "I respectfully ask you all to butt out. We're too close--or rather, you're too close. I'm not comfortable discussing my life with you. I have my friends to talk to--"

  "Just a word of caution about friends, Pamela. I looked like a fool to a lot of my friends when I took Dutch back in 1987. They thought I had a head full of church teachings, or I was afraid to lose his pension--or the house--or that it happened on the cusp of college for our kids, and that maybe because of all that, I stayed out of fear. Well, I think you know me pretty well, and there aren't too many dragons I won't slay--I'm pretty tough. And so are you. I stayed because I knew I could love him again. At the time I didn't love him--sorry, Dutch, but it's true."

  "I knew it to be true," Dad agrees. He leans back in the chair and closes his eyes.

  "I wanted nothing more to do with him. But I stayed, hanging on to the idea that if I loved him once, maybe I could love him again. You owe it to yourself--because I promise you, many, many months down the road, you will be grateful that you stuck it out. And my friends? Now that I'm--now that I'm of a certain age..."

  My sisters and I look at one another. We try not to smile.

  "Now that I'm older and wiser, the very friends that advised me to kick Dutch out are remarried--and in some cases, unhappy in second marriages themselves--and we talk about staying versus going; and they admire that I listened to my own voice, and not theirs. And now I have this--the satisfaction of a life with a man that tested his love for me, and found out that he loved me all along. That's my prayer for you. That you keep your own counsel. And whatever you decide, you will always be my daughter."

  "Thanks, Mom." Pamela turns to go. She digs into her coat pocket and finds a clean tissue. She dabs her eyes. "I've really got to get home."

  "We can finish up in the morning," I tell Alfred.

  "Okay, great." He grabs his coat and pulls it on. "Pam?"

  She turns to Alfred.

  "I'd like to ride home with you."

  Pam looks at him. Then she fixes the lapel on his coat.

  "Okay," she says.

  They go down the stairs. My mother calls after them, "See you at Tess's!"

  My sisters and I glare at her.

  "Where you gonna hang Nudie?" Dad asks Gabriel.

  "Over the sofa."

  "You better put some swatches over the private areas. We got kids around here."

  The roof is lit from the apartment across the way, in the Richard Meier Towers. It seems someone finally moved into the fourth-floor apartment. But we wouldn't know. Gabriel put up a trellis, high enough to obscure the direct view. All that comes through the lattice is the light, throwing squares of bright light on the roof.

  I'm wrapped up in a down coat, hat, and mittens.

  I look up at the night sky, and there's no moon, no stars, just gray clouds in odd shapes. June filled the sky with pattern pieces tonight, just for me. I think about our conversations in the last several months of her life. I search her words and reactions for clues that might have portended her death. But I don't think June knew. I don't think she had any idea she was going to die. And more to the point, I don't think she cared. My friend June was all about life--the living, and the moment.

  I remember when she tried to quit work, and I wouldn't let her. She could have retired, it was her right to insist upon it, but she didn't. She saw the fear in my eyes when she suggested leaving me alone with Alfred in the shop. She knew I needed an ally in the transition. She was one for me, and so much more.

  Then, crafty planner that June was, she trained Gabriel to take her job, even though Gabriel still keeps a night shift at the Carlyle. She made pattern cutting, one of the most serious operations in our shop, sheer fun for Gabe--he almost didn't notice that she was teaching him a new skill that required concentration, technique, and focus. She trained Gabriel, knowing that if she succeeded in passing along all she knew, he'd be ready in the event that she could no longer work. And now that day has come, and Gabriel is ready to take over.

  I picture the faces of the people that came to her memorial, such a disparate bunch of people--old artists, young dancers, gays and straights, village diehards, and of course my family. June lived in a world of her own design. How
many people can say that? She chose the people in her life carefully, and then she took care of them, nurtured them, and encouraged them.

  She didn't have to become a mother; she was a mother.

  "Would you like some company?" Gram says through the screen door.

  "Sure, sure." I jump up and run to the door to help Gram across the icy roof. She grips my arm as I guide her to the chaise next to mine.

  I explain the seating arrangement. "Gabriel and I come up here and look at the sky."

  "It looks lovely up here. Besides you and my family, this roof is what I miss the most about my old life in New York."

  "Do you like the new look?" I ask her.

  "It's a real roof garden now."

  "When Gabriel finished the interiors, he came up here and painted and planted. And down in the shop--June trained him, and he works really hard."

  "I can tell. I looked at his pattern work. Not bad."

  "Do you think he can ever be as good as June?"

  "Give him thirty years."

  I shrug. "Where am I going? I got thirty years."

  "I wish I did." Gram smiles.

  "You have a lot of time, Gram."

  "June was younger than me." Gram turns to me. "Did she really just go fast like that?"

  "Her neighbor Irv called me. I jumped in a cab, and when I got there, she was gone."

  "Isn't that marvelous?"

  "Well, I guess. For June."

  "Think about it. You get up, eat your breakfast, get dressed. Then you lie down, and cross over. I think it's just about the best exit I've ever heard of," Gram says.

  At Gram's age of course she thinks about dying and how and when it will happen. I don't give it much thought but I probably will from now on. June's death has rattled me. I always felt so young. But now I see the future as finite, not an endless bolt of silk that unfurls perfectly across the cutting table.

  "I feel so guilty, Gram. June wanted to retire, but I wouldn't let her."

  "Don't you feel bad for one second. June always did exactly what she wanted to do. If she didn't want to work, believe me, she wouldn't have been here. I had to force her to take vacation. She never asked for time off because it's a family-owned business, and she knew if she wasn't there, I'd have to do her work. And she knew, once I left, when she took off, you'd have to do her work. Please don't worry about that."

  "But, she gave up a lot to work here."

  "Why do you say that?" Gram asks.

  "I don't know. She didn't have a husband or a family."

  "She didn't want either of those things."

  "She didn't?"

  "No, she did not. She had a very difficult childhood. She got over it, but it left her a committed free spirit. Her goal in life was to be self-sufficient and live alone, and do exactly as she pleased. I know she was afraid about getting older, and only because she was always fearful of having a stroke and going into a home. That's nothing new. I have the same fears. But she didn't have a family to make decisions for her."

  "I was her emergency contact."

  "She made a good choice." Gram pats my hand. "You know, she called me in Italy quite a bit. She kept me in the loop. She was so proud of you. June marveled at your determination to make the business more profitable. I worked here over fifty years, and I never even changed the way we record in the ledger. And look at you. I'm barely gone a year, and you're launching a new line of affordable shoes. Your grandfather is dancing in heaven."

  I imagine my grandfather looking down at me dressed in a dapper tuxedo like Fred Astaire, leaping over the clouds to music. I never saw my grandfather in a formal suit, only in work clothes and a cobbler's apron.

  "Do you ever think about Grandpop?"

  "Sure. I talk about him with Dominic. And he talks about his first wife too. When you fall in love later in life, you marry the history of the person. And I think you know how I feel about my memories. They're my treasure. And Dominic's are his, too."

  "You know, those letters Roberta gave me helped me understand Grandpop. No wonder he was so sad sometimes--and so prickly. He had a rough childhood, losing his mother, and then his uncle."

  Gram nods. "He did."

  "But you were a good wife to him."

  "Not good enough. I couldn't help him beat his sadness. You know, Valentine, this is the thing. You can fall in love with someone, and believe in that person, but it doesn't mean that you can build a life together. I never got in there with your grandfather. I don't know how else to say it. Dominic understands me--and it's not complicated. It was so complicated with Michael. So complex."

  "It should be easy," I say. "You know, I think I've found the perfect husband."

  "Really?" Gram turns to me, surprised.

  "Gabriel Biondi. Gabe and I are like those gears on a Swiss movement watch. We spin in tandem like two interlocking gizmos without a glitch. We never fight. We don't fuss. We work together beautifully in the shop. It's just easy."

  The clouds move overhead, rippling like pattern paper. The edges of the horizon over New Jersey, beyond the river, flutter like ruffles. June, high in the heavens, places the moon in the sky like a silver button on a blue-velvet boot. "June will never leave you," Gram says.

  "I'm counting on it."

  Gram and Dominic went out for dinner at Da Silvano's, where the stars go. Gram used to eat there back in the 1970s when it first opened, and she wants to share the cuisine with Dominic, and hopefully find some native Italians for him to talk to.

  Gabriel is at the Carlyle. Tonight, he is going to give the big boss a month's notice. He has decided to focus on pattern cutting at the Angelini Shoe Shop as his new career, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

  Christmas is ten days away, and I'm trying to keep my spirits up. I sit here on the sofa, all the lights out except the ones that twinkle in the tree. I inhale the fresh scent of the blue spruce. I imagine the old familiar holiday rituals will comfort me this year. 2010 has been a year of loss and change.

  I pull out my sketch pad and flip it open to a new, clean page. I have an idea for a new shoe for yoga practitioners. Of course, I'll call it the June Lawton. I poise my pencil over the bare page. But, instead of beginning with the clean lines of the vamp, I write,

  December 13, 2010 Dear Gianluca,

  I hope this letter finds you well. Your health and happiness are never far from my mind.

  Dominic and Gram are out to dinner, Gabriel is at the Carlyle, and I'm here alone for the first time since June died. I have had a lot of time to think about her and the things she taught me. I also have been thinking about how she lived. June was truly independent. She made a life for herself on her own terms. She had a way of knowing what was right for her. This is the big lesson that I've taken away from her death. I have been thinking about what's right for me and how I should live going forward.

  I ruined everything with you. By now, I'm sure you've found a good woman who loves you and wants everything in life that you do. I know it is too late for us, but now I understand all the things you said to me, and the meaning behind your words. I resisted those words because I wasn't ready to hear what you had to say. I said I heard you, but I did not. I was too busy talking and finding ways to push you away because I believed you'd wake up one morning and see who I really was...and run.

  I have pushed so hard against what I come from, and at the same time, I'm compelled to re-create it. I have never looked at my life as my own, but rather, part of a whole, which includes my family. But this year, I have seen that the boundaries in the Roncalli family were never drawn, that we rely on one another, which is good, but we also blame one another when we fail (not so good). There must be a way to invent a life that is all my own and I hope I'm learning how to do that. The first step is writing you this letter. I don't want you to think of me as the petulant girl I was in Buenos Aires. I'm trying to grow up, and I think losing June has forced me to look at myself.

  I don't want to get to the end of my life without having loved. I've pla
yed at love and pretended to love, but I've never given myself over to my life in a way that made it my own. I was waiting for someone to come along and show me the way. Now, I realize that everyone has shown me the way. My parents, in their crazy way, see things through, even when they'd rather not. My brother, in failing, showed me it's okay, the world doesn't end when you screw up, and maybe letting someone you love forgive you makes you both a little stronger. Gram has shown me that you can live with your history but still experience a new life inside the old one. Well, I could go on and on. And then, of course, there's you.

  It's hard for me to admit that I pushed you away. I like to think that you left me when you saw that I didn't have any idea what I was doing with you. I hid behind my work, hoping that a higher purpose (Art!) would fill me up more than love. I can count on art, right? It won't let me down because it comes from me, I create it: from my whims and fancy. But you were right. There is no art without love. Only love can open someone up to the possibilities of living and creating art. And I thought it was paint--and pencils and this sketch book and my ideas that inspired me to make art. But it's not any of those things. It's love. And you. It was always you.

  I'm going to send this letter Federal Express International. I'm going to imagine the white truck as it motors up the hills of Tuscany in the rain. I'm going to imagine the deliveryman knocking on your shop door, and you inside, in your apron, cutting a yard of expensive kid leather with precision. And how you'll scowl because the knock at the door interrupted your process. And then, I'm going to imagine you sitting on the work bench and opening this envelope and reading these words. And I hope when you're done, when you get to The End, that you will know that I truly understand all that I've lost. I can only wish for that--and for you to have a Merry Christmas, a Buon Natale as you say in your beautiful hills.

  Valentina

  Gabriel and I sit across from one another at the table. We have signed up to make dessert for the Feast of the Seven Fishes, our Christmas Eve tradition. Tess and Charlie are hosting the whole family at their home this year. Gabriel wants to go all out, which means thorough planning and a shopping trip to Little Italy for supplies.

  Gabriel snaps his fingers. "Hello?" He looks at me. "Could we focus here? I have a week to get this dessert for a cast of thousands together. I need your help."