Italian Americans revere Louis Prima, as we are married and buried to his music. Jaclyn, Tess, and Alfred danced to Louis’s chart of “Oh, Marie” at their weddings, and my grandfather was buried to Keely’s version of “I Wish You Love.” Prima is primo with the Roncallis and the Angelinis.
I check my lipstick in the cab on the way to the Café Carlyle, the Krup diamond of cabaret rooms. When a Village girl crosses Fourteenth Street and heads north, she had better be Upper East Side chic. Also, I want to look good for Roman, who hasn’t seen me gussied up since our first date. How can I look glamorous when I run over to the restaurant kitchen to help him make pasta by hand or shuck clams for chowder? Tonight, he’s getting the best version of his girlfriend.
I’m wearing a midnight blue coatdress with a wide embroidered belt that belonged to my mother. I’ve had my eye on it for years, and this summer, when she purged her closet, I got lucky. There’s a picture of Mom holding me at my baptism in the fall of 1975 and wearing this coatdress. Her long hair is secured with a headband, which is attached to a fall, giving her cascading curls to her waist. Mom looked like a Catholic Ann-Margret with one foot in the sacristy and the other on the Vegas strip.
I wear the coatdress with pants, as it’s much shorter on me. My mother wore it as a dress with sheer L’Eggs stockings, and I know that for certain because we used to collect the plastic eggs her hosiery came in and play farm.
Tess, Jaclyn, and I happily accept Mom’s secondhand clothes because we know how much she treasured them the first time around. Tess ended up with a few structured St. John jackets from the eighties, appropriate for PTA meetings, while I opted for coats and dresses she had made by a seamstress for special occasions. Jaclyn, with her tiny feet, inherited Mom’s collection of Candy platform sandals in every shade of fake python that was available during the Carter administration. Yes, tangerine snakeskin exists. Mom says that you know you’ve been around awhile when you own every possible variation of a heel in your shoe collection. She still has the Famolare Get There sandals with the wavy bottoms. My mother never needed the recreational drugs of her era, she just put on those sandals and swayed.
As the cab makes a quick turn off Madison and onto East Seventy-sixth Street, I see Gabriel outside the hotel entrance, talking on his phone. I pay the cabbie and jump out.
Gabriel snaps the phone shut. “You’ve got the best table ringside.”
“Great. Is Gram here yet?”
“Oh, she’s here all right. She’s on her second scotch and soda. I hope the show begins soon, because there will be a show, just not the one you’re paying to see.”
“Gram’s tipsy?”
“June is worse. The woman can put it away. Evidently, her legs are made of sea sponge. And your Aunt Feen looks stoned. What’s the deal with her anyway? Lipitor with an Ambien chaser? Do me a favor. Check her meds.” Gabriel motions for me to follow him inside. “Is Roman on his way? I hate latecomers.”
“Yep.”
“Have you had sex yet?”
“No.” I yank my belt tightly. Tonight may be the night, but I don’t have to tell Gabriel.
“You bore me. What are you waiting for?”
“I’d like to spend more time with him before I take him on my magical mystery tour. Our relationship is building beautifully, thank you.”
“Who said anything about a relationship? I’m talking about sex.”
“You know they are coffee and cream to me.”
“Go ahead. Have your high standards and enjoy them alone. Follow me, darling.”
I follow Gabriel through the lobby of the Carlyle Hotel. Art Deco mirrors conjure up a sophisticated era, a time of rumble seats, speakeasies, clean gin, and elbow-length satin evening gloves. The chandeliers dazzle, like open cigarette cases, sunbursts of silver, gold, and daggers of crystal glowing overhead. Every detail of the lobby is lustrous—the brass doorknobs, the hinges, and even the patrons gleam. The polished marble floors look like sheets of ice, pale silver marble in the center with crisp black hems of granite.
Gabriel leads me through the bar, where the frosted sconces throw low lights over the soft mushroom-colored walls. The neutral background shows off the stylish William Haines club chairs, covered in peach velvet and grouped around marble-topped bar tables.
We enter the Café Carlyle through etched glass doors. The room resembles a luxurious leather train case lined with sage green and pale pink bouclé. A series of murals painted by Marcel Vertes shows beautiful women flying, dancing, and leaping through the air, in a carousel of color; shades of strawberry, cream, sea green, magenta, and grass green fill the room in endless summer. The ceiling, painted dark blue, hangs overhead like a night sky. The neutral-patterned leather booths with a print of small circles, airy bubbles, seem inspired by Gustav Klimt. Small tables are grouped downstage, draped in crisp, midnight blue linens.
Gram and June chat shoulder to shoulder at our table, a large banquet shape to accommodate our family. Aunt Feen sifts through the mixed nuts in a silver dish, while June swishes the cherry in the bottom of her cocktail around like a pinball as the band members filter in and take their places onstage. A glossy black baby grand Steinway fills the small stage. A microphone and stand rests in the curve of the piano. Keely will literally be three feet from our table.
“You made it,” Gram says when she sees me, toasting me with her scotch. I give her a quick kiss.
“Happy birthday!”
“I love your ensemble,” June says.
“Thank you. And you look spectacular.”
“To old broads!” Gram raises her glass to June.
“We certainly are!” June touches her glass to Gram’s.
“Thanks to the cream at Elizabeth Arden, I am about a week younger than I was when I walked out of the house this morning.” Gram takes my hand and squeezes it. Tess, Jaclyn, and I treated Gram to a day of beauty at the Elizabeth Arden salon. She’s been pummeled, plucked, and primped since morning. “Thank you. It’s been a marvelous day, and now, we get Keely.”
Mom throws her arms around her mother from behind. “Happy birthday, Mama,” she cries in her black sequin tank with matching silk georgette palazzo pants and a wide hammered-gold chain-link belt that drips down her thigh with a fringe of rhinestones. She wears strappy gold sandals to complete the Cleopatra effect. Dad wears a black-and-white-pin-striped suit with a gray dress shirt and a wide black-and-white silk tie. They match, but of course, they always do.
June stands and gives Dad a hug. “Dutch, you look fantastic.”
“Not as good as you, June.”
“How’s your cancer?” Aunt Feen brays.
“My numbers are improving, Auntie.”
“I put you on the prayer wheel at Saint Brigid’s.”
“I appreciate it.”
“The last guy we prayed for died, but that wasn’t our fault.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.” Dad throws us a look and sits down next to Aunt Feen for more abuse.
Tess waves from the check-in desk, in a strapless red cocktail dress. She makes an entrance worthy of my mother and is followed by Charlie, who wears a matching red tie. There are some inherited traits not worth fighting.
Tess gives Dad a hug. “Hey, Pop. How are you feeling?”
Before he can answer, Aunt Feen says, “How should he feel? The man’s full of cancer.”
Charlie reaches down and squeezes my shoulder. “Hey, sis,” he says. “Can’t wait to meet the Big Man tonight.” Charlie smiles supportively. It’s funny that Charlie would call Roman the Big Man when it’s Charlie who’s big. He looks like Brutus in every Hollywood Bible epic ever made. He’s also Sicilian, so he tans in twelve minutes and takes twelve years to forgive a slight.
“I can’t wait for you to meet him. Be nice.”
“I’ll be adorable,” Charlie says and sits down next to Tess.
Gabriel brings Jaclyn and Tom to the table. Jaclyn wears a short cream-colored wool skirt with a matching cashmere sweater
and pearls. Tom, in his Sunday suit, looks like he’s been spit-polished for his First Communion. As Jaclyn and Tom take their seats, Alfred and Pamela join us.
Pamela turns forty next year, but she looks about twenty-five. She’s slim and has long, sandy blond hair, with a few pieces bleached the color of white chalk around her face for contrast. She’s a mix of Polish and Irish, but she’s picked up on our Italianate details when it comes to prints, sequins, and the size of her engagement ring. Tonight she wears a long, flowing, orchid-print evening wrap dress.
Alfred plants his arm firmly around her. He came straight from work, so he’s wearing a Brooks Brothers suit with a red Ronald Reagan tie. Pamela greets everyone with a kiss, but she’s not comfortable doing it. After thirteen years of marriage to my brother, whenever we all get together it’s as if it’s the first time she’s met us. We’ve made repeated attempts to make her feel a part of things, but our efforts don’t seem to take. Mom says Pamela has an “aloof personality,” but Alfred told Tess that we’re “intimidating.”
My sisters and I don’t think we’re scary. Yes, we’re competitive, opinionated, and discerning. And yes, at family gatherings, we yell, talk over one another, interrupt, and basically become the children we were at the age of ten minus the hair pulling. But intimidating? Must be. Pamela sits at the table gripping her evening clutch in her lap like it’s a steering wheel, staring at the Steinway with a patient, if plastered-on, smile as Alfred orders her a glass of white wine.
The waiters arrive, filling our table with hors d’oeuvres, delicate crab cakes, tiny potatoes with buttons of sour cream and caviar, clams casino on the half shell on an artful bed of shiny seaweed, oysters on ice, and a silver platter of baby lamb chops. Aunt Feen stands up, reaches across the table, and grabs a lamb chop, holding it like a pistol. She takes a bite before sitting back down in her chair. She chews. “Succulent,” she says through the meat.
The lights in the café dim, and the crowd applauds and whistles. I look to the door, hoping to see Roman rush in to take his seat next to me. I scan the crowd, and there’s no sign of him. The band strikes up, into a fizzy intro, and the applause escalates as Gabriel announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, Keely Smith!”
The glass doors push open and Keely enters the room, looking exactly like the cover art on her albums. Her hair is bobbed and jet black, with two signature spit curls on her cheeks. Her pale pink skin is flawless, her black eyes shine like jet beads. She wears simple gold silk pants topped with a bugle-beaded Erté jacket. The three-quarter-length sleeves reveal chunky Lucite bracelets that offset a diamond ring the size of a cell phone.
Keely weaves through the crowd like a bride at her third wedding, greeting the patrons with warmth, but just a touch blasé. Her manner is casual and familiar, as though she’s getting up to sing a few songs in her living room after dinner. She takes the microphone and scans the crowd, squinting at us as if to examine who we are and why we came. “Any Italians here tonight?”
We whistle and cheer.
“Louis Prima fans?”
We applaud loudly.
“We’re Keely fans!” Gram hollers.
“Okay, okay. I see I’m gonna have to work tonight.” She looks to her conductor, behind the piano, and says, “Here we go…” The band launches into a high-energy rendition of “That Old Black Magic.”
Keely stands before the microphone in the curve of the baby grand piano and taps the beat on the waxy finish with her long red fingernails as she sings. She makes time with her feet in gold stiletto sandals with inlaid tiger’s-eye straps. Her toenails are painted maroon. She notices that I’m staring at her feet, and smiles. The song ends, the crowd bursts into applause. She takes a step downstage and looks at me. “You like my sandals?”
“Yes. They’re gorgeous,” I tell her.
“A woman cannot live by shoes alone. Though there have been times in my life when I had to. I’ve walked many miles in my lifetime. I’m going to be eighty years old.”
A ripple goes through the crowd.
Keely continues. “Yep. Eighty. And I owe it all to…” She points heavenward.
“Me, too!” Gram waves to her.
“Today is her birthday,” Tess shouts.
“It is?” Keely says and smiles.
“Yes it is.” Gram didn’t need the creams at Elizabeth Arden, she’s getting a total rejuvenation right here. “You’re my gift.”
“Stand up, sister,” Keely says to Gram.
Gram stands.
Keely shields her eyes from the stage lights overhead and looks down at Gram. “You know the secret, don’t you?”
“You tell me,” Gram says, playing along.
“Never go gray.”
My mother whoops. “Tell her, Keely!”
“And the big one: younger men.”
“I hear you!” June, three straight-up whiskeys down, waves her napkin like a flag of surrender, to whom I’m not sure, but she keeps waving.
Keely points to June. “Now, not for the reason you think, Red. Although that’s important.” She continues, “I like a younger man because the men my age can’t see to drive at night.”
The drummer snares a rim shot. “I want to sing something just for you. What’s your name?”
“Teodora,” Gram tells her.
“Hey, you really are a paisan.” Keely makes the international sign for “I’m Italian,” making a slicing motion with her hand without a knife. “You got a boyfriend?”
Her grandchildren answer for her. “No!” we holler. Then, a man wearing trifocals, at the next table, whistles like he’s hailing a cab. “Lady didn’t say she was looking,” Keely chides him. “Tay, you got a man?”
“I’m with my family tonight,” Gram says with a giggle.
“And the less they know, the better. Take it from me.” Keely smiles and waves her hands over us like she’s a priest giving the final blessing. “Anybody who gets in the way of Grandmom’s fun will have to deal with me.” Then she extends her hand forward to Gram. “This one’s for you, kid. Happy birthday.”
Keely sings “It’s Magic.” Gram leans forward, puts her elbows on the table, and props her face in her hands and closes her eyes to listen. My father puts his arm around my mother, who nestles into his shoulder like it’s an old pillow. Tess looks at me with tears in her eyes, Jaclyn reaches across and squeezes Tess’s hand. Their husbands smile, sip their drinks. Pamela sits ramrod straight and blinks as Alfred picks the parsley off the mini crab cake before sampling it. My phone vibrates in my purse. As the magic song ends, the crowd bursts into applause and Gram stands and throws Keely a kiss. I look into my purse and check my BlackBerry. The text message reads:
Flood in the kitchen. Can’t make it.
So sorry. Kiss Gram.
Roman
Tess leans over and whispers, “Are you okay?”
“He’s not coming.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I feel my cheeks flush. I built up this whole evening in my mind. I pictured Roman sailing in to meet my family, handsome and glib, charming them, and pulling my father aside to tell him how much I mean in his life, and then later, my father would tell me that he’s never been more impressed with a suitor, and I’d have that feeling of security in the pit of my stomach, the kind that allows you to surrender to love when it comes your way. Instead, I’m embarrassed. No wonder Alfred believes I’m unreliable. It seems things never work out the way I plan. Of course the kitchen flooded, and of course Roman had to stay and take care of it, but to read the words: CAN’T MAKE IT means so much more than Can’t make it tonight. Can we ever make it? At all? Will Ca’ d’Oro always come first?
Keely sings “I’ll Remember You,” Gram’s eyes fill with tears, June gets misty, and even Aunt Feen’s face relaxes in a smile as she goes back in time to her youth. A tear rolls down my face, but as good as she is, it’s not because of Keely. Tonight, I could cry her a river on my own terms, and it would not have to be set to music.
&
nbsp; 7
SoHo
GRAM AND I STAND ON THE CORNER of Jane and Hudson, surveying the Christmas tree selection as we inhale the cold night air, filled with the invigorating scent of crisp pine and clean cedar.
There’s nothing like December in Manhattan when the Christmas trees go on sale. Every other street corner becomes an outdoor garden, as freshly cut trees are stacked and displayed in their corridors of evergreen. Peels of pungent pine bark fall onto the sidewalk as the sellers trim the trunks and wrap the trees in their umbrellas of webbed plastic before delivery. Glossy wreaths with red velvet bows and sprays of holly tied with gold mesh ribbons hang on rough-hewn stepladders, ready for pickup. You cannot help but close your eyes and believe in the possibility of the perfect Christmas.
I arrange for delivery of our blue spruce as Gram chooses a wreath for the shop door. Mr. Romp places our ten-foot tree on a turnstile and gives it the umbrella treatment. Gram takes my arm as we walk back to the shop.
“Are you inviting Roman to Christmas dinner?”
“Think he’s ready for us?” I joke.
The truth is, I’ve prepared Roman. The good news, he’s from a crazy Italian family, too, so he gets it, we have a shorthand. I worry about that though, a romance at our stage of things should feel solid. Our feelings are clear, but scheduling the time? That’s the tricky part. That, and I live with my grandmother. I’ve never brought a man home to stay. I wouldn’t even know how to ask. I suppose I could do what Italian girls have done for decades: sneak. But when?
Maybe this is the state of romance for two self-employed people over thirty. Between his schedule at the restaurant, and mine in the shop, our communication is like a stack of unread mail; we get to it and each other when we can. It all began with a slow, delicious meal at Ca’ d’Oro; I thought it was the ultimate to have a man cooking for me, feeding me, pleasing me. But the truth is, the last time we ate together we had take-out cold sesame noodles from Mama Buddha on a park bench on Bleecker Street before I had a shoe fitting with a customer.