“I’m going to nab the sofa by the fireplace. This fancy outdoor living room is all well and good until winter sets in,” Gabriel says. “I’m so cold you could Zamboni my ass.”
“I’ll be over in a minute,” I tell him, but I keep my eyes on Bret and the girls.
Two of the young women peel away, leaving one shivering blonde with a drink in her hand. Bret leans in and says something to her. They laugh. Then she reaches forward and adjusts the flap on his tie. The intimate gesture forces Bret to take a slight step back.
A breeze kicks up on the roof, and the white lights of the chandelier dance, throwing small beams onto the floor. The girl tilts her head toward Bret. Their conversation has turned earnest. I watch them for a few moments, and then, with the cold night wind at my back, I move toward them.
I extend my hand to the girl, interrupting their conversation. “Hi, I’m Valentine, an old friend of Bret’s.”
“I’m Chase.” She looks up at him. “One of Bret’s many assistants.”
“He has many?”
“I exaggerate,” Chase says and smiles. She has the peridontically perfect teeth of a girl who grew up with all the dental advances of the 1990s, including whiteners, lasers, and invisible braces.
“Boy, you have gorgeous teeth,” I tell her.
She seems taken aback. Clearly, she’s used to compliments, but no one mentions her teeth as her first and best attribute. “Thanks,” she says.
I cross my arms and hold my drink in the crook of my elbow like a potted plant.
When she realizes I’m not going anywhere, she says, “Well, I guess I’ll go and get something to eat.” Her eyes linger on Bret. “Can I get you something?” She doesn’t ask this question like an assistant. Bret catches her tone, looks at me, then says in a very businesslike voice, “No, I’m fine. You go and enjoy the party.”
Chase turns and goes while Bret looks off over the roof, past the East River.
“You can see Floral Park from here.” I point toward the hinterlands, the borough of Queens, from whence we came.
“No, you can’t,” he says.
“It would be great if you could.” I hand him my drink and he takes a sip. “Maybe you’d remember where you came from.”
“Is that a dig?”
“No. Not at all. I think you’ve done amazing things with your life.” My sincerity is obvious, and Bret turns to face me. “So, what’s going on with that girl?” I ask him.
“You are so Italian,” he says.
“Don’t dodge the question.”
“Nothing. Nothing is going on.”
“She thinks so.”
“How do you know?’
“How long have we known each other?”
“Years and years.” Bret squints and looks over in the direction of Queens as if he can see us there, two teenagers sitting on the rectory fence on Austin Street as we talked until night came.
“Uh-huh. Since I had braces. Plus, I happen to be a woman, so I know that she’s interested in more than fetching you a lobster dumpling.”
Bret takes a deep breath. “Okay, so what do I do?”
“You’re going to tell her you’re married to a lovely woman and that you have two beautiful daughters named Grace and Ava. Of course she knows your family because she answers the phone at the office. Or is she the assistant that actually answers the phone? Anyhow, then you’re going to tell her that she deserves a nice guy of her own. She’ll argue with you, and when she does, you’re going to tell her she’s too young. That’s a turnoff when you’re actually young.”
Bret laughs. “Val, you’re funny. Are you done teaching me a lesson?” He turns to face me.
“All done. Now you can teach me one.”
In a shorthand only old friends with a history have, he asks, “What do you need?”
“Will you help me save our shoe company?”
“What’s the problem?”
I go into a rambling explanation about Alfred, the debt, Gram, and me. Bret is patient and listens carefully. “Let me look into it,” he says. Then he says the very thing that brings me peace of mind, always did and always will, “Don’t worry, Val. I’m on it.”
I huddle in the cold taxi next to Gabriel like he’s a radiator blowing hot steam. The cab cuts through the busy intersection at Union Square.
“I’m never going to another rooftop party after August. That fireplace was for show. It threw off no heat whatsoever. It was like warming myself on a Bic lighter.”
“It was cold up there but I’m glad we went.”
“What were you and Bret talking about? Is he dumping his wife and you two are getting back together?”
“If you’ll come and work as our nanny.”
“Forget it. I hate children.”
“My nonna Roncalli was right about men. No matter how old they are, you gotta watch ’em like a hawk. Like a hawk!”
Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Just a little. You’re mean. That poor girl didn’t dare go near Bret the rest of the night. It’s like you sprayed him with something. How long do you think that Swiss miss cried in the bathroom?”
“She cried?”
“She didn’t cry, but she would have liked to take one of those stone tiki-sculpture things and clock you with it.” Gabriel leans back. “Of course, she would have needed help lifting it. Those sinewy types have very little upper-body strength. And to be smoking in the new millennium. They’re morons.”
“They’re twenty-two years old. What do they know?” I remind him. “I liked the food.”
“A little too much fig. Everybody is using fig now, in everything. Fig paste on foccacia, fig slices in the arugula, mashed fig in the ravioli. You’d think figs were a major food group.” Gabriel sighs.
“Her name was Chase.”
“Who?”
“The girl interested in Bret.”
“Chase like the bank?” Gabriel shakes his head. “There’s a value system at work for you. Who’s her daddy? The Monopoly Man?”
“You never know. Her friend’s name is Milan.”
“Like the city?” Gabriel asks.
“Like the city and the cookie.”
“Whatever happened to going to the Bible or long-running soap operas for good names?” Gabriel clasps his hands together. “Give me a Ruth or a Laura any day. Now people name their children after places they’ve never been—it’s madness.”
“A Ruth or a Laura would never hit on her boss. A Chase would.”
“You know, I think Bret misses you.” Gabriel looks at me.
“I miss him, too. But when I was with him, I really didn’t think about my life very much. I sort of built what I was doing around him. When we broke up, I had to figure out what made me happy.”
“I don’t know, Valentine. Sometimes I think you traded taking care of Bret for taking care of Gram. You should fall in love again and have a life.” The cab pulls over to the curb on the far corner of Twenty-first Street, in Chelsea.
“I have a life!” I tell him.
“You know what I mean.” Gabriel gives me a kiss on the cheek. He stuffs a ten-dollar bill in my hand and jumps out.
I roll down the window and wave the ten. “It’s too much.”
“Keep it.” Then Gabriel waves. “Call the chef.”
I instruct the driver to take me to Perry and the West Side Highway. I lean back and watch as Chelsea blurs into Greenwich Village, the weekend carnival of the Meatpacking District in full tilt. A rambling gray warehouse is now a dance club, with strips of hot yellow and purple neon over the old loading dock, and a red-roped entrance for all the little pretty ones who await admittance. A rustic factory is now a hot restaurant, the interior decorated with red leather banquettes and floor-to-ceiling mirrors painted with the menus in cursive, while the exterior windows are covered in awnings that look like flouncing red capes in the wind.
Through my taxi window, young women like Chase walk in small packs through the pale blue beams of streetlight, like exotic bir
ds behind glass. Rushes of color jolt the black night as they move; one wears a blouse of peacock blue, another a trench coat in Valentino red, and another a skirt of metallic lamé whose hem ruffles along her thighs as she walks. In full stride, their long legs resemble the reedy stilts of cranes. As they cross the street, they laugh as they hang on to one another for support, making sure the metal tips of their spike heels hit the center of the cobblestones, avoiding the mortar in between. These girls know how to walk on dangerous terrain.
I bury my hands in my pockets, slump down into the seat, and wonder how much of my youth is actually left. And how am I spending these precious days? Is this what my life is going to be, hard work, early to bed and up at the crack of dawn, day in and day out for the rest of my life? Is Gabriel right in assuming I’ve become a caretaker, burying myself in work and worry at the expense of my thirties? Is there even a chance he’s right?
At the bottom of my pocket, I feel the business card. I pull it out. The cab stops at the light. I study the card as though it’s a free pass to the rides at Coney Island and it’s my seventh birthday party. Ca’ d’Oro. Someplace new. Roman Falconi. Somebody new. I don’t meet men at work, I don’t even have a commute home to meet a nice guy on the train. I won’t do match.com because I look better in real life than I do in photographs, and how would I ever describe what I’m looking for when I’m not even sure what I want? Besides, there is very little risk involved in calling Roman Falconi. He gave me the card. He wants me to call him. I fish my cell phone out of my evening bag. I dial the number on the card. It rings three times and then—
“Hello,” Roman says into the phone. I hear background din. Voices. Clangs. The rush of water.
“This is Valentine.”
More noise.
“Valentine?” His vague manner says he doesn’t remember me at all. I picture him handing out business cards to strange women all over town with a wink and a smile and a promise of a hot plate of braciole. I’m about to snap the cell phone shut when I hear him say, “My Valentine? Teodora’s granddaughter?”
I put the open phone back up to my ear. “Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in a cab on Greenwich Street. You sound busy.”
“Not at all,” he says. “I’m about to close. Why don’t you come over?”
I hang up and lean into the partition to speak to the driver. “Change of plans. Can you take me to the corner of Mott and Hester, in Little Italy?”
The cabbie crosses lower Broadway and swings onto Grand Street. Little Italy sparkles in the night, like emerald and ruby chips on a diamond drop earring. No matter what time of year you come to this part of town, it’s Christmas. The white lights strung over the thoroughfare, anchored by medallions of red and green tinsel, form an Italian coat of arms across Grand Street. Like my mother, my people require year-round glitz, even in their street decorations.
We pass the open marts selling T-shirts that say, PRAY FOR ME! MY MOTHER-IN-LAW IS ITALIAN, and coffee mugs that proclaim, AMERICA, WE FOUND IT, WE NAMED IT, WE BUILT IT. Framed vintage black-and-white photographs of our icons are propped against storefronts, like statues in church: a determined Sylvester Stallone runs through Philadelphia as Rocky, a dreamy Dean Martin toasts the camera with a highball, and the incomparable Frank Sinatra wears a snap-brim fedora and sings into a microphone in a recording studio. A poster of a six-foot-tall Sophia Loren in black thigh-high hose and a bustier, from Marriage Italian-Style, hangs in the doorway of a shop. Bellissima. Jerry Vale belts “Mama Loves Mambo” from speakers rigged on the corner of Mulberry Street, while the drone of a hip-hop beat pulses from cars at the intersection. I pay the driver and jump out of the cab.
Well-dressed couples saunter through the intersection, the men in open-collared shirts with sport jackets, and the women, all versions of my own mother, in tight skirts with fluted hems and fitted peplum jackets. Their spangly high-heeled shoes have toes so pointy you could pound a chicken cutlet with them. Every now and again, a hint of a leopard or a zebra print flashes on a purse or a boot or a barrette. Italian girls love an animal print—clothes, furniture, accessories, it doesn’t matter, we answer to the call of the wild in every aspect of our lives. The wives grip the crooks of their husbands’ arms as they walk, tottering against them to shift the weight their stiletto heels can’t tolerate.
As I look around, any of these folks could be in my family. These are Italian Americans out for a night in the city, eating dinner in their familiar haunts. At the end of the meal, and after a stroll (the American version of la passeggiata) they’ll go to Ferrara’s for coffee and dessert. Once inside, the wives will take seats at the café tables with gleaming marble tops while sending their husbands to the glass cases to choose a pastry. When they’ve had their espresso and cookies, they’ll return to the cases and select a dozen or so pastries to take home: soft seashells of honey-drenched sfogliatelle, moist baba au rhums, and feather-light angel-wing cookies, all delicately placed in a cardboard box and tied with string.
Ferrara’s doesn’t change, its décor is just as it was when my grandparents were young lovers. We’ve changed though, the Young Italian Americans. As my generation marries outside our group, our children don’t look as Italian as we do, our Roman noses shorten, the Neapolitan jaws soften, the jet black hair fades to brown, and often directly to blond. We assimilate, thanks to the occasional Irish husband and Clairol. As the muse of southern Italian women, Donatella Versace, went platinum blond, so went the Brooklyn girls. But there are still a few of us left, the old-fashioned paisanas who wait for curly hair to come back in style, can our own tomatoes, and eat Sunday dinner together after church. We still find joy in the same things our grandparents did, a night out over a plate of homemade pasta, hot bread, and sweet wine, which ends with a conversation over cannolis at Ferrara’s. There’s nothing small about my Little Italy. It’s home.
I check the numbers as I walk along Mott Street. Ca’ d’Oro is tucked between the bustling ravioli factory, Felicia Ciotola & Co., and a candy store called Tuttoilmondo’s. There’s a bold black-and-white-striped awning over the entrance of the restaurant. The door has been faux marbleized with streaks of gold paint on a field of cream. CA’ D’ORO is carved simply in cursive on a small brass plaque on the door.
I enter the restaurant. It’s small in size, but beautifully appointed in the Venetian style by way of Dorothy Draper. A long bar topped with charcoal-colored slate runs the length of the right wall. Attached bar stools are covered in silver patent leather. The tables have been carefully arranged to maximize the space. The tops are black lacquer, while the chairs are done in a gold damask with black scrollwork. It’s difficult to pull off baroque in a small setting (or on a pair of shoes for that matter), as it requires an open field to repeat the lush patterns of the period. Mr. Falconi pulls it off.
Two couples remain, paying their checks. One pair holds hands across the table, their faces soft in the candlelight as they hover over their empty wineglasses; all that’s left of their meal is a hint of pink wine against the crystal.
The bartender, a beautiful girl in her twenties, cleans glasses behind the bar. She looks up at me. “We’re closed,” she says.
“I’m here to see Roman. I’m Valentine Roncalli.”
She nods and goes back to the kitchen.
A mural fills the back wall of the restaurant. It’s a scene of a Venetian palace at nightfall. Even though the palazzo looks like one of the wedding-cake samples in the window at Ferrara’s, with its ornate arches, open balconies, and crown of gold metallic crosses along the roofline, it is haunting rather than kitschy. Moonlight pours through the palace windows, lighting the canal in the foreground with ribbons of powder blue. It’s primitive in style, but there’s plenty of emotion in it.
“Hey, you made it.” Roman stands in the doorway that leads to the kitchen. His arms are folded in front of him and the expanse of his chest in the white chef’s jacket looks enormous, like the sail of a ship
. He seems even taller this time; I don’t know what it is about him, but he seems to grow each time I see him. He has a navy blue bandanna tied around his head and, in this light, it gives him the cocky air of a pirate on a rum bottle.
“You like the mural?” He keeps his eyes on me.
“Very much. I like the way the moonlight shines through the palace and onto the water. The palazzo, I mean. Or home of the doge,” I correct myself. After all, if this guy can seduce Gram with his Italian, the least I can do is throw around the only official architectural terms I know.
“It’s the Ca’ d’Oro, on the Grand Canal in Venice. It was built in 1421 and took about fifteen years to complete. The architects were Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon, a father-and-son team. They designed it to show the traders who came in from the Orient that the Venetians meant business. Glamorous business. Lots of big egos in Venice, center of world trade and all that. You know how that goes.”
“It’s impressive. Who painted it?”
“Me.”
Roman turns and goes into the kitchen, motioning for me to follow. I catch my reflection in the mirror behind the bar and instantly relax the number elevens between my eyes. As I follow Roman back to the kitchen, I make a mental note to ask my mother to pick up a box of Frownies for me, those stickers you moisten and place on wrinkles while you sleep. My mother used to go to bed with beige puzzle pieces adhered to the lines on her face, and she woke up with a complexion as smooth as Formica.
The kitchen is so tiny it makes the dining room seem grand. There’s a butcher block island (so small it should be called a sandbar) in the center. Overhead, about thirty pots of varying sizes hang on hooks on a large aluminum frame.
The far wall is covered with an aluminum backsplash for the wide, flat grill. Next to the grill are four gas burners in a row, not front and back like a stove in a home. The corner next to the gas burners is filled with a series of four ovens, stacked one over the other, looking like a mini-skyscraper with windows.
There’s a deep triple sink on the opposite wall. I stand next to three floor-to-ceiling refrigerators. A large dishwasher is tucked into an alcove by the back door, which is propped open, revealing a small terrace, fenced in with old painted lattices. The steam rises from the dishwasher, making fog in the cold night air.