“That would change if you married him.”
“Married him? I can’t even get him to commit to go to the movies.”
“You have to make Roman focus on you. When we were dating, Charlie was so invested in his job it scared me. After we got married, his priorities shifted. Our family comes first. Now he goes to work, and when he comes home, life begins.” Tess puts her hand on her heart. “Us. The part of his life that matters.”
We hear a loud crash upstairs. We run to the vestibule. Chiara appears at the top of the stairs with Charisma.
“What was that?” Tess yells. The hand on her loving heart has turned into a fist that she shakes in the air.
“I spun Charisma in a pas de deux. Don’t worry. She landed on the rug.”
“Stop throwing your sister around. Sit and watch your show.”
The girls disappear into the living room.
Tess looks at me. “Don’t look at my children as an example of what yours might be someday. You might have ones who behave.” Tess looks up at the clock. “Mom can’t get here fast enough. She knows how to handle those two.”
June pushes the door open with her hip. She carries two green plastic flowerpots filled with purple hyacinths. “We need some spring around here,” she says, handing the pots off to Tess.
“Val is going to break up with Roman.” Tess takes the flowers to the sink and runs water into the pots.
“I didn’t say that.”
“It sounded like it to me,” Tess says.
“Why on earth would you give him the boot?” June asks.
“We hardly see each other. He’s busy, I’m busy.”
“So?” June buries her hands in her pockets and looks at me.
“So? It’s a pretty big deal that we barely lay eyes on each other.”
“Everybody’s busy. Do you think people get less busy as time goes on? It gets worse. I’m busier now than I’ve ever been, and if I sat down and tried to figure out why, I couldn’t. There’s no ideal situation out there. A shot of a good man even once in a while is not a bad thing.”
“I hear you,” I say. When it’s good with Roman, it’s the best it can be. I sometimes think that the good stuff blinds me to reality, sways me to keep trying. But is that enough? Should it be?
“You have a perfect situation.” June pours herself a cup of coffee. “You see each other, you have fun, then you go your separate ways. I’d be with a man myself right now if they didn’t eventually nag me to move in. I don’t want somebody in my house twenty-four/seven. I like my own life, thank you.”
“My sister wants a family someday.” Tess puts the hyacinth in the front window where the sun can get to the clusters of starburst petals. “She’s traditional,” Tess says.
“Am I?” I ask aloud. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly traditional. I guess I appear to be one of my tribe, but the truth is, whenever I have the opportunity to walk the hard line of tradition, I balk.
The entrance door creaks open. “Hi-yo!” Mom calls out in the vestibule.
“In here, Mom,” I holler.
Mom comes into the shop roaring like a March leopard in a spotted trench coat fit for the random rainstorms of spring. She’d be a March lion but she looks pasty in solid beige, and besides, leopard print is her trademark. Mom wears black leggings, shiny black rubber rain demiboots, and a wide-brimmed patent leather rain hat tied under the chin with a bow. “Are the girls ready?”
Tess goes to the foot of the stairs and calls for her daughters. They don’t answer. We hear her shout, “Okay, I’m coming up.” Tess goes up the stairs.
“She really needs to get a grip on those children,” Mom says softly.
“She’s hoping you will. Where’s Dad?”
“Home. He’s not feeling so hot today.” Mom forces a smile. “He’s exhausted from the treatments.”
“They’re working, aren’t they, Mom?”
“The doctor says they are. The radiation team at Sloan is very optimistic.”
For the first time since Dad was diagnosed, Mom looks tired to me. The constant appointments have taken a toll on her. When she’s not running my father to the doctors, she’s educating herself about his illness. She reads about what he should eat, how often he should rest, and which holistic supplements to take and when. She has to go out and find all the stuff, the organic food and medicinal herbs, then go home and prepare the dishes, strain the tea, and, then, the hardest part of all: force my father to follow the regimen. This is a man who would sprinkle grated cheese on cake if he could. He’s not exactly a compliant patient, and it shows on my mother’s face. She hasn’t had a good night’s rest in months, and it’s clear to me that she needs a break.
“Mom, you look exhausted,” I say gently.
“I know. Thank God for Benefit’s LemonAid. I smear that concealer on the dark circles under my eyes like I’m buttering bread.”
June pours Mom a cup of coffee. Mom takes the mug and is about to put the cup down on my sketchbook. I push it aside and give her a rubber cat’s-paw heel for a coaster instead.
“What can you do?” Mom sighs and sips her coffee, holding the mug with one hand and opening my sketchbook with the other. She absentmindedly flips through it. Then, she focuses and stops on my recent sketch for the Bergdorf shoe. I’m just about to pull the notebook away when Mom says, “My father was so gifted.” She holds up the sketch and shows it to June. “Look at this.”
June looks at the drawing and nods. “That man was ahead of his time. The wide straps, the button details. Look at the heel. Wide at the base, into a spindle at the tip. Completely courant and the man has been dead ten years.”
“That’s not Grandpop’s sketch.” I take a deep breath. “It’s mine.”
“What?” June takes the sketchbook. “Valentine. This is brilliant.”
“That’s the shoe we’re going to make for the Bergdorf competition. At least, that’s the one I’m going to show Gram, and if she likes it, we’ll build it.”
“You really have the gift.” June puts the sketchbook down on the table. “Wow.”
“Genetics. It’s all in the DNA. Good taste cannot be learned or bought.” Mom tightens the belt on her trench coat. “It is inborn of natural talent and honed with hard work. Valentine, all the hours you’re putting in here are paying off.”
“That’s quite a shoe,” June says. “Complex. How are we going to build it?”
“Well, I’m hoping I can find some of the elements in Italy.”
“Good, because we don’t have embossed leather like that in this shop. And that braiding—I’ve never seen anything like it.” June shakes her head.
“I know. I just…dreamed it up.”
Charisma and Chiara run into the workroom. “Aunt June, do you have any candy?”
“What did you give up for Lent?” June, the fallen-away Catholic asks them.
Chiara stares at June. Charisma, no fool, steps forward and answers her, “Well, we don’t give up candy, we just try and do good deeds.”
“And what would those be?”
“I’m nice to the cat.”
“How kind of you.” June opens her purse and gives each of them a peppermint candy.
Charisma makes a face. “But these are free at the Chinese restaurant.”
“Yes, they are. So stop and thank them sometime,” June says. “The Chinese are the backbone of civilization. They invented macaroni and flip-flops.”
Unconvinced, Charisma and Chiara, holding their lousy candy, look at each other.
“Okay, kids, let’s go. Grandpop is waiting at our house.”
Tess helps the girls into their coats. “Mom, thanks so much for taking them for the weekend.” Mom herds the girls out the door.
June is happy to see them go, though only I would know it. “Aren’t they delightful.”
“Sometimes.” Tess says, pulling on her coat. “I’m late. I’m going to meet Charlie at the Port Authority. We’re taking the bus to Atlantic City.?
??
“Romantic weekend planned?” June asks.
“His company has a convention. I’m going to play the slots while he looks at the latest smoke alarms,” Tess says as she goes. The entrance door snaps shut.
“Smoke alarms? To put out what fire?” June whistles low. “I say buyer beware and run. There’s your best advertisement for marriage, Valentine. Take a good look.”
A cold draft from the open window wakes me. I sit up in bed and look out, pulling the cotton blanket and down comforter around me. Snow. Snow in March. The West Side Highway is a carpet of white, with black zippers of tire prints made by the early morning delivery trucks. There’s a doily of frost on the windowpane, and a layer of icy flakes on the sash.
I slept peacefully through the night. Alone. Roman was busy with a sold-out seating, and had to finish the prep work for a private party, so he crashed at his place instead of coming over and waking me. Gram comes home tomorrow night, and while I’ve enjoyed my run of the place, I have to admit I miss her.
I spent most of yesterday cleaning and putting things back where they belong. I did some research for our trip to Italy and found some new suppliers to visit in addition to Gram’s old reliables. I found some interesting new-guard talent who make braids and trims. I’m hoping to meet them on our trip, and add them to the roster of suppliers we currently use. I want to deliver a shoe to Bergdorf with embellishments that Rhedd Lewis has never seen before. Italian designers have recently been influenced by the in-flux of talent from a new sweep of immigrants, so I’ve come across lots of Russian-, African-, and Middle European–inspired accents in buttons and trim. I can’t wait to show Gram the new stuff.
When I finished my research, I scrubbed the bathroom, cleaned the kitchen, and made lasagna. The work in the shop is up to speed. Gram will return home to a clean house and a first-rate operation, with all existing deadlines met and orders filled.
I get up and pull on some comfortable sweatpants and a hoodie, and go into the bathroom. I pat on some of the rich botanical face cream that Tess gave me for Christmas. Might as well have a spa day, as I won’t be seeing anyone. It’s Sunday, and I have the day to myself.
I go down to the kitchen, take out the coffee press, and put a kettle of water on the stove. I get the milk out of the fridge and pour it into a small pan, putting the burner on low to steam it. I open the wax-paper sack from Ruthie’s, at the Chelsea Market, and pull out a soft brioche sprinkled with glassy raw sugar. I place the brioche on a frilly dessert plate and take a cloth napkin out of the drawer. My cell phone is beeping in the charger, so I flip it open and play the message.
“Hi, honey.” Roman’s voice is raspy. “It’s me. It’s five o’clock on Sunday morning. I’m still in the kitchen. It’s snowing. I wish we were together. I miss you. I’ll call you later.”
“Yeah, it would have been nice, Roman,” I say aloud. “But you have a wife. Her name is Ca’d’Oro and she comes first.”
I realize that I’m willing to overlook a lot because whoever is with me has to do the same. But I also remember how Roman made it his business to find out who I was in the very beginning, when the only clue he had was a glimpse of me on the roof. And now that I’m here for him, I might as well be a pair of those clunky clogs he keeps in the restaurant kitchen. Always on hand. Available. Comfortable. Reliable. The hunt is over.
I pour the boiling water into the coffee press, inhaling the rich earthiness of the dark espresso. I pick up the pot of foaming milk on the stove and pour it into a wide ceramic mug. I add the espresso until the milk turns the color of chocolate taffy.
I take my breakfast and climb the stairs to the roof, stopping in my room to pull on my boots, down coat, hat, and gloves. Pushing the door open and stepping out onto the roof covered in fresh snow, it’s as if I’m standing in a well of soft white candle wax, the shapes of everything familiar gone, replaced with smooth edges, rounded corners, and drapes of silver ice. I place my coffee and brioche on the snow-covered Saint Francis fountain, shake off a lawn chair, and open it to sit.
The sun, behind the thick, white clouds, has the luster of a dull gray pearl. The river has the texture of old, speckled, forest green and beige linoleum as the wind gently ruffles the surface. The walkway on the river is empty except for a couple of park attendants in their blue overalls sprinkling rock salt along the crosswalk at Perry Street.
A seagull hovers overhead, giving my brioche a studied look. “Shoo,” I say to him. He flaps away, his gray wings matching the morning sky. I nestle the mug between my hands and sip. I feel a pang of guilt as I remember Sunday mass. A good Catholic girl usually becomes a guilty Catholic woman, but I say a quiet prayer, and any nagging guilt about my whereabouts at the eight A.M. express mass at Our Lady of Pompeii is exhaled and sent out to sea. Doing the best I can, I remind God.
Snow begins to tumble down, throwing a white net over lower Manhattan. I pull the hood of my coat up over my head, put my feet up on the wall, and lean back.
Why is it, in the story of my life, that the moments I remember with the deepest affection are the times when I have been alone? I can line them up like faceted perfume bottles on an antique dresser.
When I was ten, I went to work with my father at the park. At the end of the day, when the summer sky over Queens was turning the color of smashed raspberries, he went into the supply shed and left me alone on the swings a few feet away. I had the whole of LaGuardia Park number fifteen to myself. I swung as high and as fast as I could, climbing higher and higher, until I swore I could see the blue lights on the top tier of the Empire State Building.
When I was a nineteen-year-old sophomore in college, I went to check my grade at two o’clock in the morning outside Sister Jean Klene’s advanced class, Shakespeare: The Comedies. And I got an A. I stood and stared at that letter A until the reality of it set in: I had achieved the impossible. The solid B student had broken the barrier and earned a perfect grade.
And I’ll never forget the night Bret dropped me off at my apartment in Queens, before leaving on his first business trip to some outpost like Dallas, Texas. I was twenty-seven years old and he had asked me to marry him. Sensing my uncertainty, he said, “Don’t answer now.” After he left to go to the airport to catch his flight, I felt the great relief that comes with being alone. I needed to seek my own counsel, to think things through. So I made a dish of spaghetti with fresh tomatoes from this garden, olive oil from Arezzo, and sweet white garlic. I made a salad of artichokes and black olives. I opened a bottle of wine. I set my own little table and lit candles. Then I sat down to eat a glorious meal, slowly savoring every bite and sip.
I realized that my answer to his proposal, upon his return, would not be the great moment; the great moment had already happened. He had asked. This was the first time in my life I recognized that I delight in the process and not necessarily the result. I was a good girlfriend, but wife? I couldn’t see it. But Bret could. And now, he has it, the life he dreamed of even then. The only difference? He’s with Mackenzie, not me.
I don’t crave a traditional life. If I did, I assume I’d have one. My own sister thinks I want a life like she has, with a husband and children. How can I explain that my thirties may not be about reaching some finish line everyone seems to be rushing toward? Maybe my thirties are about the precious time I have left with Gram and deciding which path to take in my life. Stability or the lark? Very different things.
When I observe Gram, I see how fragile the notion of tradition can be. If I take my eyes off the way she kneads her Easter bread, or if I fail to study the way she sews a seam in suede, or if I lose the mental image I have of her when she negotiates a better deal with a button salesman, somehow, the very essence of her will be lost. When she goes, the responsibility for carrying on will fall to me. My mother says I’m the keeper of the flame, because I work here, and because I choose to live here. A flame is a very fragile thing, too, and there are times when I wonder if I’m the one who can keep it going.
br /> A wind kicks up. I hear the snap of the old screen door. I turn around, my heart pounding a little faster, hoping for a second that Roman made it over after all. But it’s just the wind.
That evening, I’m debating as I pace behind the kitchen counter. Do I heat up the lasagna now or wait until Gram gets home tomorrow night? One of the rules of etiquette my mother insisted upon on is that you never cut a cake before the company comes. You present it properly and whole to the guests, like a gift. The lasagna will become a leftover instead of a welcome-home gesture if I eat a square tonight. So I put it back in the refrigerator.
The buzzer sounds. I press the intercom. “Delivery,” Roman says. I buzz him in. Then I go to the top of the stairs and turn on the track lights.
“Hi, Valentine.” Roman smiles up at me from the bottom of the stairs.
His face is about the best thing I’ve ever seen. “I thought you were working tonight.”
“I’m playing hooky so I can be with my girl.” He climbs the stairs two at a time, wielding an enormous tote bag. He drops the bag when he reaches me, scoops me up in his arms, and kisses me. “You’re surprised?”
I kiss him tenderly on his cheek, his nose, and then his neck, hoping each kiss will make up for the doomed thoughts I had about us on the roof this morning. I’m not a good liar, so I fess up, “I’m surprised. I totally gave up.”
Roman looks at me, concerned. “Gave up what?”
“That I’d see you before Gram came home.”
“Ah.” He looks relieved. “Well, I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.” He kisses me again. I let the words I’m not going anywhere play in my head like a simple tune. Roman picks up the bag and follows me into the living room. “I’m going to make you dinner.”
“You don’t have to. I made a lasagna.”
“I don’t think so.” He pulls a bottle of wine out of the bag. “We’re starting with a Brunello, vintage 1994.”