Very Valentine

  Rosaria looks with wonder at the clear plastic trays of rosettes. First she picks up the cornflower blue roses, because that’s the color her bridesmaids are wearing. She is intrigued by the strips of round-cut clear crystals on satin streamers, but decides they are too disco for her taste. After much deliberation, she settles on the antique cream rosettes. Then she calls her mother for her approval.

  I give the sketches of Rosaria’s feet to June, who places the patterns in her bin. I pull an index card from the desk drawer and make notes. I put all of the dimensions of Rosaria’s feet on the card, then staple the fabric swatch and bin number of the rosettes. I staple the envelope with the string measurements to the card as Rosaria, giddy with delight, tells her mom every detail. She is as excited about the shoes as she is about her gown. Rosaria hangs up with her mother and turns to Gram. “I feel so proud that I’m carrying on my mom’s tradition.”

  “When is your final fitting?” I ask.

  “May tenth, at Frances Spencer’s, in the Bronx.”

  “I know it well. Best knock-off seamstress in the five boroughs. I’ll be there with your shoes so they can do the final hem with the heel you’ll be wearing.”

  “Thank you.” Rosaria gives me a hug, takes her purse, and goes.

  I jot down Rosaria’s fitting date on the card and then open the file case on the desk.

  “I’m giving Rosaria the shoes as my gift,” Gram says, not looking up from her work. “No charge.”

  “Okay.” I mark the receipt. This is a bad time to be giving away shoes. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Gram takes the shoes she has been working on and wraps them in cotton.

  “You know, with Alfred checking our numbers…”

  “I know. But Alfred isn’t running this business. I am.”

  June looks at me and raises her eyebrow as if to say, Don’t argue with her.

  I tack up the order. On the bulletin board, I see a note in Gram’s handwriting. It says: “Meeting with Rhedd Lewis at Bergdorf’s, on December 5, 10 A.M. Bring V.”

  “Gram, what’s this?”

  “You remember that costume lady from the movie? Debra McGuire? Well, she may have been prickly, but she liked us. So she recommended us to Rhedd Lewis at Bergdorf’s, who asked to meet with us.”

  “Did she say why?” I can hardly contain my excitement.

  “She didn’t. Maybe she’s getting married and needs shoes.”

  “Or maybe she wants to put our shoes in the store!” My mind reels with the possibilities of supplying the most elegant department store in New York City with our shoes. This is exactly the kind of break Bret was hoping we would get. We need the big guns to recognize and support our brand. “Can you imagine? Our shoes in Bergdorf’s?”

  “I hope not.” June puts her hands on her hips and turns to Gram. “Remember when your husband put the shoes in Bonwit Teller’s? It was a disaster. We hardly sold any stock. The word came back that brides didn’t want to spend on their shoes when they had spent a pretty penny on their gowns.”

  “That turned us off to department stores,” Gram admits. “That was our first and last foray into big business.”

  “Maybe it will be different this time. Look in any fashion magazine. Upscale shoppers are spending two grand on a purse without batting an eye. That makes our shoes look like a bargain. Maybe there’s an opportunity here.”

  “Or maybe you just go to the meeting, see what she says, and then go to the Bergdorf café and have the deviled eggs,” June says practically as she takes her shears and cuts a pair of size-eight soles from the pattern paper. June looks at me and smiles supportively, but she’s been around this company long enough to know that it is highly unlikely Gram will change a thing about the way she conducts her business, even if it means she could lose the entire operation.

  “Gram, I think we should go to the meeting with an open mind. Right?”

  She doesn’t answer me as a long, black limousine pulls up in front of the shop. It seems to stretch from the corner to the lobby door of the Richard Meier building. As it parallel-parks, I see BUILDBIZ on the license plate.

  A man in a crisp navy blue suit with a red tie hops out the back door followed by my brother. The wind kicks up their silk ties like kite tails as they head for our entrance.

  “What’s Alfred doing here?” I ask.

  “He called while you were out with Roman. He’s bringing a broker by to see the building.”

  I look at June. Our eyes meet but she looks away quickly.

  “Hello, ladies,” Alfred says as he comes into the shop. He goes to Gram and kisses her on the cheek. Gram beams with pride as Alfred turns to the man and introduces her. “This is my grandmother Teodora Angelini. Gram, this is the broker I told you about, Scott Hatcher. We went to Cornell together.”

  Gram shakes his hand. Alfred puts his hands on his hips and looks around the shop as though June and I aren’t there. It’s a wonder to me how gregarious my brother is when he is around his peers. With family, he’s morose. But at work, when he’s on his game and personality plus is required, he’s a pistol.

  The broker is about six feet tall, a better-looking version of Prince Albert of Monaco, with a full head of hair. His eyes are wide and green, and he has the warm, fixed smile of a salesman.

  “We’re going to take a look around, Gram.” Alfred flashes her the fake businessman smile.

  “Go right ahead,” she says.

  “Let’s start on the roof.” Alfred leads Scott up the stairs.

  I sit down on my work stool. “Well, the day I dreaded is here.”

  “Now, don’t be this way,” Gram says softly.

  “How should I be?” I pick up the laces for my boot and take them to the ironing board. I plug in the iron and bury my hands deep in my pockets as I wait for it to heat.

  June puts down her shears and says, “I need a coffee. Can I bring you girls anything?”

  “No thank you,” I tell her.

  June slips on her coat and dashes out the door.

  “June can smell a fight,” Gram says quietly.

  “I’m not going to fight with you. I just wish you’d get your game on.”

  “Bergdorf’s isn’t going to save us. The one thing I’m certain of is that there’s no magic solution in business. You’re climbing a mountain here, pick, step, pick, step.”

  Suddenly, Gram’s old aphorisms sound ancient and irrelevant. Now I’m angry. “You don’t even know what the meeting is about. You didn’t ask. Why don’t we just put a Closed sign on the door and give up?”

  “Look, I’ve been down every road with this business. We’ve been on the brink of closing more times than I can count. Your grandfather and I almost lost it after his father died in 1950. But we held on. We survived the sixties, when our sales dipped to nothing because the hippie brides went barefoot. We made it through the seventies, when manufacturing overseas quadrupled, and then we rode the wave of the Princess Di years in the eighties when everybody went formal with their weddings and required custom gowns and shoes. We brought the business out of debt, and went into profit—and I designed the ballet flat to hang on to the market share we were losing to Capezio.” She raises her voice. “Don’t you dare imply that I’m a quitter. I’ve fought and fought and fought. And I’m tired.”

  “I get it!”

  “No, you don’t. Until you’ve worked here every day for fifty years, you can’t possibly know how I feel!”

  I raise my voice and say, “Let me buy the business.”

  “With what?” Gram throws her hands in the air. “I pay your salary. I know what you make!”

  “I’ll find the money!” I shout.

  “How?”

  “I need time to figure it out.”

  “We don’t have time!” Gram counters.

  “Maybe you could give me the same courtesy you show your grandson and give me time to counter-offer whatever he comes up with.”

  Alfred comes into the shop. “What the
hell is going on?” he says sharply as he motions toward the hallway where Hatcher is inspecting the stairs.

  “I want to buy the business and the building,” I tell my brother.

  He laughs.

  The sound of his cruel laughter goes through me, devastating my self-confidence, as it has all my life. Then he says, “With what? You’re dreaming!” He waves his arms around like he already owns the Angelini Shoe Company and 166 Perry Street. “How could you possibly afford—this? You couldn’t even buy the iron.”

  I close my eyes and fight back the tears. I will not cry in front of my brother. I won’t. I open my eyes. Instead of buckling, as I always do, I find the deepest register of my voice and say definitively, “I am working on it.”

  Scott Hatcher appears in the entry, puts his hands in his pockets, and looks at Gram. “I’m prepared to make you an offer. A cash offer. I’d like to buy 166 Perry Street, Mrs. Angelini.”

  I pull my knit hat down tightly over my ears, which sting from the cold. As I walk through Little Italy on this Tuesday night, the streets are empty, and the twinkling arbor over Grand Street looks like the last tent pole left to strike before the traveling circus leaves town. I turn onto Mott Street. I push the door to Ca’ d’Oro open. The restaurant is about half full. I wave to Celeste, behind the bar, and go back to the kitchen.

  “Hi,” I say, standing in the doorway.

  Roman is garnishing two dishes of osso buco with fresh parsley. The waiter picks them up and pushes past me to go into the dining room. Roman smiles and comes over to me, kissing me on both cheeks before pulling the hat off my head. “You’re frozen.”

  “It’s gonna get worse when I’m jobless and homeless.”

  “What happened?”

  “Gram got an offer on the building.”

  “Want to come and work with me?”

  “My gnocchi is like Play-Doh and you can’t count on my veal. It’s rubbery.”

  “I take back my offer then.”

  “How do you do it, Roman? How do you buy a building?”

  “You need a banker.”

  “I have one. My ex-boyfriend.”

  “I hope you ended it nicely.”

  “I did. I’m not one for drama in my personal life. Which is a good thing given how much drama there is in my professional life.”

  “What did your grandmother say?”

  “Nothing. She heard the offer, put down her work, went upstairs, got dressed, and went to the theater.”

  “Did she actually tell the guy she’d sell him the building?”

  “No.”

  “So maybe she’s not going to do it.”

  “You don’t know my grandmother. She never gambles. She goes with the sure thing.”

  Roman kisses me. My face warms from his touch, it’s as though the warm Italian sun has come out on this bitter-cold night. I feel a draft from the back door, propped open with an industrial-size can of San Marzano crushed and peeled tomatoes. I put my arms around him.

  “Have you noticed that since our first date, I’ve brought nothing to the table but bad news? My father got cancer and I have business problems?”

  “What does that have to do with us?”

  “It doesn’t seem to you like I’m walking bad luck?”

  “No.”

  “I’m just standing here braced for more bad news. Come on. Lay it on me. Maybe you’re married and have seven screaming kids in Tenafly.”

  He laughs. “I don’t.”

  “I hope you’re careful when you cross the street.”

  “I am very careful.”

  The waiter enters the kitchen. “Table two. Truffle ravioli.” He looks right through me, and then, impatiently, at his boss.

  “I should go,” I say, taking a step back.

  “No, no, just sit while I work.”

  I look around the kitchen. “I’m good at dishes.”

  “Well, get to it then.” He grins and turns back to the stove. I take off my coat and hang it on the hook. I pull a clean apron from the back of the door and slip it over my head, tying it around my waist. “I might like you more than Bruna,” he says.

  I catch my reflection in the chrome of the refrigerator; for the first time today, I smile.

  6

  The Carlyle Hotel

  GRAM AND I ARE RIGHT ON TIME for our meeting with Rhedd Lewis at Bergdorf Goodman. Gram gets out of the cab and waits for me on the corner as I pay the driver. I scoot across the seat and join her on the corner of Fifty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue.

  Gram wears a simple black pantsuit with a chic, oversize sunburst pendant on a thick gold chain around her neck. The hem of her pants breaks in a soft cuff on the vamp of her gold-trimmed black pumps. She holds her black leather shoulder bag close to her. Her posture is straight and tall, like the mannequin posing in a Christian Lacroix herringbone coat directly behind her in the department store window.

  The exterior of Bergdorf’s is stately; it was once a private home, built in the 1920s, with a soft gray sandstone exterior accented with lead-glass windows. It was one of several grand residences built in Manhattan by the Vanderbilt family. This corner lot is one of the most prestigious in all of New York City, as it overlooks the grand piazza of the Plaza Hotel to the north, while it faces Fifth Avenue to the east.

  Gram smiles at me, her bright red lipstick applied beautifully. “I love your suit.”

  I’m wearing a b michael, a navy silk-wool cropped jacket with a generous pilgrim collar and matching wide-leg trousers. I made the designer a pair of shoes for his mother, so this suit is a barter deal. “You look great, Gram.”

  We enter the store through the revolving door at the side entrance. This part of the store resembles a solarium except that the glass cases are filled with designer handbags rather than exotic plants. The blond wood-parquet floor is lit by a chandelier drenched in honey-colored prisms. Gram and I head straight for the elevators and our meeting. I have high hopes, and Gram has done her best to temper my expectations.

  As we get off the elevator on the eighth floor, it’s quiet, even the phones ringing on a soft pulse. There is no hint of the shopping bustle happening below us, in fact, it feels like we’re in a tony Upper East Side apartment building rather than a suite of offices. The tasteful décor is a wash of neutrals, with the occasional pop of color in the furniture and artwork.

  I check in with the receptionist. She asks us to wait on the love seat, covered in apple green moiré and trimmed in navy blue. The coffee table is a low, modern Lucite circle, with copies of the Bergdorf winter catalog featuring resort wear fanned across its surface. I’m about to pick it up and peruse it when a young woman appears in the doorway. “Ms. Lewis will see you now. Please follow me.”

  The young woman leads us into Rhedd Lewis’s office, which has the subtle fragrance of green tea and pink peonies. The desk is a large, simple, modern rectangle covered in turquoise leather. The sisal carpet gives the room the fresh feel of a Greek villa by way of Fifth Avenue. The lacquered bamboo desk chair is empty. Gram and I take our seats on Fornasetti chairs, two sleek modern thrones with caramel brown cushions. Gram points to the park, beyond the windows. “What a view.”

  I rise up out of my chair. With the last of the autumn leaves gone, the bare treetops in Central Park look like an endless expanse of Cy Twombly gray scribbles.

  “It must’ve been a dream to live in this grand house,” a woman’s deep voice says from behind us. I turn around to see Rhedd Lewis in the doorway. I recognize her from her profile on Wikipedia. She’s tall and willowy, wears red cigarette pants with a black cashmere tunic and a necklace that could only be described as a macramé plant hanger from the seventies. Somehow, the strange piece works. On her feet, she sticks with the classics, black leather flats by Capezio. She walks to the front of her desk, practically on tiptoe.

  Rhedd Lewis is around my mother’s age, and her upright posture and grand carriage are the tip-off that she was a dancer in a former life. Her honey blond h
air is cropped short in wispy layers, with a fringe of long bangs that sweeps across her face like drapery. “Thank you for slumming uptown.” She smiles, extending her hand to Gram. “I’m Rhedd Lewis.”

  “I’m Teodora Angelini and this is my partner, Valentine Roncalli,” Gram says. “She’s also my granddaughter.”

  I hide my delight at Gram’s announcement that I’m her partner (this is the first time she has ever said it!) by thrusting my hand toward Rhedd as if I’m handing her a flier for a sofa sale at Big Al’s in the East Village.

  “I love a family business. And when a young woman takes up the mantle, it thrills me. The best designers inherit the skill set. But don’t tell anyone I said that.”

  “Your secret is safe with us,” I tell her.

  “And here’s another one. When it comes to craftsmanship, there’s nothing like the Italians.”

  “We agree,” Gram says.

  “Tell me about your business.” Rhedd leans against her desk, crosses her arms, and stands before us like a professor posing a challenge to her class.

  “I’m an old-fashioned cobbler, Miss Lewis. I trust the old ways. I learned how to make shoes from my husband, who learned the trade from his father. I’ve been making wedding shoes for over fifty years.”

  “How would you describe your line?”

  “Elegant simplicity. I was born in December 1928, and my work is influenced by the times I grew up in. In the world of design, I like traditional trendsetters. I’m a fan of Claire McCardell. I admire the whimsy of Jacques Fath. When I was a girl in the city, my mother took me to the salons of designers like Hattie Carnegie and Nettie Rosenstein. It was a thrill to actually meet them. I didn’t end up making hats or dresses, but what I observed became important when I set out to make shoes. Line, proportion, comfort, all these things matter when you’re an artist making clothes.”

  “I agree,” Rhedd says, listening intently. “Who do you like now?”