Once I’m outside on Fifty-seventh Street, I lean against the building. I imagined this moment so differently. I thought I would give the shoes to Rhedd herself, and she’d open the box and swoon; or I imagined her staff in a conference room where some lowly but gifted assistant stands up and says, “We have to give the underdog a chance,” bringing Rhedd Lewis to tears, and finally her senses, when she chooses Angelini Shoes over the fancy-pants designers. I played so many scenes through my mind, and now, I imagine our shoes in a heap on the floor among all the other submissions. I imagine them getting lost. I imagine them losing. Us. Losing.
I walk at a rapid clip back to the subway. My face burns hot with embarrassment. Let me tell you, you cannot feel smaller than you do when dwarfed by the skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan after you’ve just been dismissed like an old shoe at Bergdorf Goodman. What will they think of Gram’s photograph in the fussy wedding gown or that silly snap of Costanzo and me in front of the shoe shop? I didn’t dramatize fine Italian craftsmanship in my presentation, I went homey and heartfelt, and above Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, that means hokey. Why would they care that I am part of a tradition that extends back a hundred years? So do Nathan’s hot dogs and Durcon zippers. I deserve to lose.
But the shoes? They deserve a chance. For a moment, I consider running back to the store, going up in the elevator, bypassing the crowd, the receptionist, and the assistant, and marching right into Rhedd Lewis’s office and telling her exactly, in a rousing speech, why the little guy should win. Instead, I fish my MetroCard out of my backpack and go down the stairs to home, to the Angelini Shoe Company.
June attempts to cheer me up about the Bergdorf competition by telling us a long story about her uncle who used to buy lottery tickets, convinced he’d win. Week after week, he’d buy them, and when he was dying, he sent his son out to buy a ticket. He died, and the ticket brought in five thousand bucks. The moral of her story: I must die in order for our shoes to be in Bergdorf’s windows, though I don’t believe that was June’s intention when she told it.
“Here it is.” I hold up a black flat embellished with a silver-pavé angel wing. This is my first pair of everyday shoes for the everywoman, the first sample for the secondary-line launch from the Angelini Shoe Company. I’m calling the line Angel Shoes, inspired by our sign, and by the wings I drew on Capri. Also, in any new venture, particularly one as precarious as this, it doesn’t hurt to call on all the powers of heaven to tilt things our way. I have no problem relying on angels or calling upon my saints, on this plane or elsewhere.
I place the finished shoe on the worktable. Gram and June examine it. June whistles. Gram picks it up. “It’s whimsical.”
“Functional,” June adds.
“Now I just have to figure out how to mass-produce it.”
“You will,” Gram says gaily.
Since we returned from Italy, it’s as though Gram has been on a high. She flits around the apartment, does her work cheerfully, and has even tackled some projects that she swore she’d never do—like clean out the closet in my mother’s old bedroom. We even visited Dr. Sculco, who will give Gram new knees on December first, with plenty of time to rehab before the new year.
While she’s been busy reorganizing, I’ve been busy researching how to get my new line of shoes made. I am determined to manufacture the shoes in America so that I might oversee the production. Of course, I have to keep an open mind because, after all, this is a new arena for me, and there’s no master to show me the ropes. All I bought in my business agreement with Alfred was time. He’s my full partner, and he has a say, to the tune of 50 percent. I have a year to establish a profit margin in the shop, which would prevent him from selling the building out from under me. I try not to think of the six million dollars that would free me from this partnership forever, but rather, take this venture one shoe at a time. We hear the buzzer sound in the vestibule.
“I’m ready for the unveiling,” Bret says from the entrance. Then he pushes through the workshop door. “How are we doing?” he asks.
“Say hello to the first pair of Angel Shoes.” I hold up the sample. While Bret examines it, I place my business plan on the table. “Here’s the breakdown of costs for the shoes. I found some innovative materials in Italy. This is actually a fabric that mimics leather. We’ll market it as a fabric, not a leather look, which should appeal to the customer and keep the cost down. In leather, the same shoe goes up in base price by thirty-three cents on the dollar. I found the new materials in Milan. What do you think?”
“Val, you really pulled this off. I’ll be happy to take your plan to the investors. Any news on the Bergdorf windows?”
“I just dropped off the prototype. I wouldn’t count on winning that contest, Bret. The competition is fierce and French, two elements that are unbeatable in the world of fashion.”
“I’m going to tell the investors that you were handpicked by Rhedd Lewis to compete, and hopefully, I’ll have them sign on the dotted line before Rhedd makes her announcement.”
“Sounds like a great plan.” I smile gratefully at Bret as my cell phone rings. I pick it up.
“Val, it’s Mom. Meet us at New York Hospital. Jaclyn is having the baby! Bring Mom!” My mother hangs up on me in an obvious panic.
“Jaclyn is having the baby at New York Hospital.”
“Get my purse,” Gram says calmly.
The entry to New York Hospital is a lot like an old-time bank; there’s a lot of glass, an enormous atrium, multiple swinging doors, and people, lots of them, waiting in lines. I have Mom on the cell, which she is using as a tracking device in order to describe every twist and turn that will lead us up to the maternity floor. “Yeah, yeah, I know—no cell phones. I’ll be off in a minute. I just gotta get my people up here,” I hear her say to a muffled voice in the background. Gram and I manage to find the maternity ward on the sixth floor, where Mom is waiting for us when the elevator doors open.
“How is she?” I ask her.
“The baby will be here soon. That’s all we know. I told everyone the doctor miscalculated! Jaclyn got so big so fast. Somebody didn’t do the math.”
We follow Mom back to the waiting area. Dad is reading a beat-up copy of Forbes, while Tess corrals Charisma and Chiara away from people in the room we are not related to. Gram sits down on the couch, while I take the chair next to my father.
“We came too soon,” Gram whispers to me after an hour passes. “This could take hours.”
“Remember when Jaclyn was born?” Tess says, sitting down next to me.
“You named her after your favorite Charlie’s Angel, Jaclyn Smith. I still can’t believe Mom went for that.” I put my arm around Tess.
Mrs. McAdoo shows up with her sister; they wait patiently for an hour and then go. To be fair, this is Mrs. McAdoo’s fourteenth grandchild, so the thrill is essentially gone.
Finally, Tess, too, gives up and takes Charisma and Chiara home. Dad falls asleep on the couch and snores so loudly, the nurse asks us to have him removed. And then, after six hours, two rounds of Starbucks coffee and an hour and a half of Anderson Cooper on mute on the TV in the waiting area, finally, at ten minutes after midnight on June 15, 2008, Tom comes out of the labor room.
“It’s a girl,” he says. “Teodora Angelini McAdoo.”
My mother cries, Gram clasps her hands together, honored and stunned. My father embraces Tom, slapping him on the back. Mom gets on the cell and calls Tess, and then Alfred, to tell them of the arrival of the newest member of our family. Gram, Mom, and I go into the recovery room to see Jaclyn. She lies back in the bed holding her daughter. She’s exhausted and puffy, her usually large and limpid eyes buried in her face like raisins in the top of a bran muffin. She looks up at us. “Isn’t she beautiful?” Jaclyn whispers.
We gather around her and coo.
“Never again.” Her expression changes from bliss to resolve. “Never again.”
In the cab ride home, I check my phone. I listen to th
e messages. There are three from Roman, the last one downright terse. I call him. He picks up. I don’t even say hello. “Honey, I’m so sorry. Jaclyn had the baby. We’ve been at the hospital all night.”
“That’s great news,” he says. “Why didn’t you call?”
“I just told you, I was at the hospital.”
“I left you messages everywhere.”
“Roman, I don’t know what to say. I was all caught up in it. I had my phone off. I’m sorry. Do you want me to come over now?”
“You know what? Let’s rain-check. We can do this another night,” he says, sounding exhausted, and truthfully, more annoyed than tired.
I snap the phone shut. Gram looks out the window pretending not to have heard the conversation.
“You’d think I left him stranded for a week alone on Capri. It was only dinner,” I tell her. “Men.”
Gram and I are weary the next morning after our long day at the hospital. Gram has called all of her friends to tell them that her new great-granddaughter is also her namesake. Never let it be said that it doesn’t matter who a baby is named for, in my family, it’s the highest honor. I’ve never seen Gram so happy.
I bring the mail into the workshop, sorting through it until I find an envelope from Italy. I hand it to Gram. “You got something from Dominic.”
She puts down the pattern she is working on and takes the letter from me. She opens it carefully with the blade of her work scissors. I pick up a brush and polish the kid leather on the Ines. When she’s done reading the letter, Gram hands me some pictures that came with the letter.
“Orsola got married,” she says.
In a vivid color photograph, Orsola is a stunning bride in a simple, square-necked white silk slip dress, with ornate trim made of white silk roses along the bottom. The hem of her dress stands away from her feet, like the edge of a bell. She carries a small bouquet of white edelweiss.
On Orsola’s other side is her groom, a match for her beauty, his blond hair slicked back for the big day. Next to the groom are his parents, a nice-looking couple. Holding Orsola’s hand on her other side is a woman I’ve never seen before, she must be Gianluca’s ex-wife, and Orsola’s mother. She is the same height as her daughter, with short hair, and the same delicate features. I can see that she’s tough, and she’s definitely got the number elevens going between the eyes. Gianluca described her well.
My heart races when I see Gianluca in the photograph next to his ex-wife. Maybe I’m embarrassed about kissing him, or maybe seeing his ex-wife, a woman around his own age, reminds me of our age difference. Gianluca wears a stately gray morning coat. He looks handsome and refined, not like the working-class tanner he is in life. His smile is full of joy for his daughter. Dominic, the Duke of Arezzo, wears a gray morning coat and a black-and-white-striped ascot, and stands proudly next to his son.
“Dominic writes that Gianluca asked about you.”
“That’s nice.” I change the subject quickly. “How’s Dominic?”
“He misses me,” she says. “You know, he’s in love with me.”
Gram says this as casually as she might when she places a lunch order. I put down my work brush. “Are you in love with him?”
She places the letter off to the side carefully. “I think so.”
“Don’t worry, Gram, soon a year will go by and we’ll need more leather and you’ll be with him again.”
She looks at me. “I don’t think I can wait a year.”
“You can visit anytime you want.”
“I don’t think a visit is enough anymore.”
I’m stunned. My grandmother is eighty years old; would she actually uproot her life to go and live in Italy? It doesn’t seem possible, and it certainly doesn’t seem like her.
She continues, “I’ve had a struggle within myself all my life. I’m always torn between doing what I want to do and what I should do.”
“Gram, when you’re eighty, I think you get a pass. I think it’s time to do what you want to do.”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” She looks off and then continues, “But it’s not easy to change what is fundamental and basic about yourself, even if you wish you could. I’ve been working in this shop for over fifty years, and I imagine that I always will.”
“But you fell in love…,” I remind her. “That’s a game changer,” I say aloud, as though it’s something I actually know to be true.
“Love only works when two lives come together without sacrifice. No one should give up who they are for someone else. People do it, but it doesn’t make them happy, not in the long run.”
The phone rings, interrupting our conversation. “Angelini Shoe Company,” I say into the phone.
“Rhedd Lewis calling for Teodora Angelini,” the assistant says.
I cover the receiver. “Gram, it’s Rhedd Lewis.”
Gram takes the phone from me. It seems like it takes twenty years for her to say, “Hello?” She listens carefully, then says, “Rhedd, if you don’t mind, I’d like Valentine to take the call. It’s her design. One moment please.” Gram hands the phone back to me.
“Valentine, I’ve sifted through every shoe submitted for the windows. I was wowed, disappointed, shocked, and appalled. There was real junk, and genuine genius…”
Why is she telling me this? I don’t need a critique on top of a rejection. Get to the point, lady.
Rhedd continues, “But nowhere in all the submissions was there such élan, such energy, such a new view but with a respect for the past. You rose to the occasion splendidly, and in creating the Bella Rosa, you married tradition with the pulse of the moment in an artful and seamless way. In fact, I’m in awe. We are going to feature Angelini Shoes in the Christmas windows at Bergdorf’s. Congratulations.”
I hang up the phone and scream so loudly, the pigeons on Charles Street take flight. “We won! We won!” Gram and I embrace. June comes in from lunch.
“What the hell is going on?” she says.
“We won, June! We’re doing the windows at Bergdorf’s!”
“Dear God, I thought somebody hit the lottery,” June says.
“We did!”
I put on one of my mom’s vintage Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dresses. This one is black and white, in a paint-splattered-style print. My hair is long and cascades down like DVF’s own mane back when these dresses were in style the first time around. I want to look good to celebrate our wonderful news with Roman. He doesn’t know it yet, as I’m going to surprise him at the restaurant. He has workmen fixing the electrical on this, his night off, so I’m going to whisk him off for a great celebration meal in Chinatown. I pull on my coat.
“Gram, what are you having for dinner?”
“I heated up the manicotti you made.”
“How is it?”
“Just as good the second time around.” Gram has her feet up, watching television in her easy chair.
“What are you gonna do tonight?” I ask her, as I always do.
“I’m going to watch the news and then I’m going to bed.”
“Don’t wait up.”
“I never do.” She winks.
The cab drops me on Mott Street. Before I push the security code to enter Ca’ d’Oro, I check my lipstick in a compact mirror. The balloon curtains are down in the front windows. I punch in the security code and enter the restaurant. I’m greeted by votive candles flickering on the ledge of the mural, as well as on the tables. Roman must already know my news. He probably called Gram and Gram told him and he prepared a celebration feast for me. God, life is good.
I hear Roman’s voice in the kitchen, so I tiptoe back to surprise him. I sneak up to the doorway. I look inside.
Roman is hovering over a skillet on the stove, while a woman, with long blond hair the color of flat champagne, and wearing a cook’s apron, sits on the island, her legs dangling as she sips a glass of wine. She takes her foot and taps him on the ass with her toes. He looks around and grins at her. Then he sees me. And then
she turns and sees me.
“Hon, what are you doing here?” he asks.
I look away from him, and place my gaze on her. She’s ashamed. She looks away.
“We won the Bergdorf windows.” Then I turn and go back out into the restaurant. I’m not good at these kinds of scenes, they are way too dramatic for me. I head for the door at a rapid clip. I can’t say I’m upset. I’m numb. But of course, as Tess is eager to point out, if there’s ever a crisis, go and stand by Valentine, because she remains flatly in denial for a full twenty-four hours after something horrible happens. I put my hand on the door to go out. I push it open. Roman is right behind me.
“Wait,” he says.
I’m outside on the sidewalk. I am not waiting. “Good night, Roman.”
“Stop. You owe it to me.”
Now, I’m angry. Every word he utters is an excuse for me to be mean right back at him. “What exactly do I owe you?”
“Let me explain.”
The idea that he’d actually come up with an excuse for what I saw unnerves me. I’d like to scream at him, but I’m so furious, I can’t form the words.
“She’s a maître d’ I was going to hire, but now I won’t.”
“You know what, Roman? I’m not buying it.” I turn to go.
He stops me again. “Look, there’s nothing going on here. She had some wine, that’s why she was flirting.”
“I love a liquor defense.” I turn away, but this time, it’s because there are tears in my eyes. So much for Tess’s twenty-four-hour rule, I broke it tonight in thirty seconds flat. Let him see that I’m crying. I don’t care. “Roman, your idea of a relationship is seeing me when you can. I’m like spackle. You fit me in between the important stuff.”
“You’re just as busy as I am.” His expression softens. “I think you like the idea of being with me, but I don’t think I’m the one.”
If I were younger and he were a different person, I’d think this was some sort of a rap, designed to distract me from the sexy indiscretion in the kitchen. But it’s not a rap, he’s right. I like him to be there when I want him, but I’m not really present in this relationship either.