“Ma!” Danny protests.
“A sausage connection?” I ask.
“Forget it,” my father says.
“Can you get some for me?” Frankie asks Danny.
“No! Ma, why’d you have to go and say something? Lou doesn’t want it getting out.”
“It’s Lou?” Joey’s eyes widen. “Lou’s back in business? Whoa.”
“No! It’s not Lou,” Danny lies—badly.
“Hey, listen, I won’t say anything,” Frankie tells him. “Just hook me up, will you?”
“He’s your brother, Danny!” Michaela says. “Hook him up with the zau-zage.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Danny says grudgingly.
“For me, too,” Joey says, and Danny glares.
I look at Jack, who clears his throat and starts to push his chair back again.
“For God’s sake, Danny, get your finger out of your nose.” We all glance over, I guess to make sure that Michaela is speaking to her son and not my brother.
Yup, but you never know.
I nudge Jack. He starts to push his chair farther back, then stops as my mother remembers she forgot the salad and hurries to get it from the trunk of her car.
That’s as much a Brookside thing as bootleg sausage. Everyone uses their car trunk as a spare fridge when they’re entertaining during the cold months of the year—pretty much from Labor Day till Memorial Day.
Of course, you have to time it all very carefully in the actual winter months, or you wind up with your food frozen solid. Worse yet, you might not be able to get at it at all, if an unexpected squall blows in.
But March is safe, and my mother returns with the nicely chilled iceberg salad, which she swiftly and expertly dresses in a homemade balsamic vinaigrette.
Then everyone has to pass the cheese, the salt, the pepper, the butter, the wine, the plastic liter bottles of Pepsi, Diet Squirt, loganberry.
Then people are starting to eat, and Jack is still waiting for God knows what.
Catching him sneaking a bite of ziti, I nudge him again and whisper, “Well?”
“I’m waiting till everyone’s ready.”
“That’ll never happen!” I can’t help but think he’s got a lot to learn about being a part of this family. “You can’t wait, you’ve just got to jump in and do it.”
“Do what?” whispers my niece Kelsey, eavesdropping on Jack’s other side. “Poop? Because Mommy says never wait. That’s how accidents happen,” she informs Jack solemnly.
“Thanks,” he says just as solemnly. “I’ll remember that.”
After flashing me an amused smile, he pushes his chair all the way back and stands up. Yes!
No. Now my mother has dashed back to the kitchen for another forgotten item. He pauses, waiting for her.
“You better hurry. I hope you make it,” Kelsey tells him. “Good luck.”
“You hope he makes what, hon?” my brother Danny asks from the opposite side of the table.
“Jack has to go poop.”
“Is that any of your business, Kelsey?” Michaela asks.
“He told me!”
“What? He said he has to go poop? That’s terrific.” My mother has come bustling back in on the tail end of the conversation. She sets a stack of extra napkins in the center of the table and proudly tells us, “Joey and Sara have been working on it.”
“On what?” I am thoroughly confused now.
“On getting Joey to tell them when he has to go poop. He can’t start preschool until he’s trained.”
Vince leans over and sniffs Joey Junior’s butt in the high chair beside him. “Uh-oh…I don’t think he made it. Smells like he went in his pants.”
“Poop!” Joey Junior shouts. “Poop!”
“We weren’t talking about Joey!” Kelsey protests, screaming with laughter. “We were talking about Jack!”
“Jack went in his pants?” her older brother asks in disbelief, and all the kids gape at Jack, horrified.
“No,” Jack protests, looking shell-shocked. “I—”
“I don’t do that anymore,” Nino informs everyone proudly. “Right, Mommy? I have big-boy pants.”
“So? Jack has big-boy pants, too,” Vince Junior says. “And I bet he doesn’t have accidents in them like you do.”
“I do not. And Danny said Jack just went in his pants! That’s an accident,” his brother retorts.
“Poop!” Little Joey shouts gleefully again, and I wish my brother and sister-in-law would shut him up, but they don’t believe in what they refer to as “tough love.”
“Is this any kind of conversation to be having at the table?” my father asks, pounding his fist, a lot less jovial than before.
I look at Jack, who has shrunk back into his seat and refuses to meet my gaze. This would never happen at the Candell dining table. Never.
“Jack did not…poop,” I tell them all.
“But he has to,” Kelsey adds helpfully.
I sigh and manage to say evenly, “No, he does not have to. He just has something to tell everyone.”
“Well, I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with the bathroom,” my father says.
“Why would you think that?” my mother swats his arm. “What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me?” my father protests. “I’m not the one who—”
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t have anything to do with the bathroom,” I cut in. “It’s good news.”
“The bathroom is good news when you’re getting potty-trained,” Kelsey informs me and turns to my sister-in-law, who’s trying to tie a bib on her squirming toddler. “Right, Aunt Sara?”
“Right, honey, but we’re not talking about Joey getting potty-trained right now.”
“Poop!” little Joey shouts, and bangs his high-chair tray, laughing demonically.
“Honey!” Sara helplessly tosses the bib aside and shoots Jack an apologetic look. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
Jack looks at me. I shake my head slightly.
I mean, who wants their engagement to be announced in the midst of this circus? “Everyone just eat,” Jack says. “We’ll tell you later. Go ahead.”
I pat Jack’s arm, wondering if he’s having second thoughts about marrying into this madhouse. Who would blame him?
“Tracey!” Katie blurts, then clasps her hands over her mouth.
“What?”
“Never mind,” she says, averting her gaze abruptly.
But now Mary Beth is gasping and staring, too. At me. Below the neck.
“What? You guys, is there a bug on me?” I ask, brushing off my clothes fervently.
“Where? I love bugs!” Danny Junior announces.
“What bug? It’s March,” my mother protests, “and we’re inside. No bugs. What’s going on?”
Oh.
My ring. I forgot to sit on my hand and obviously Katie caught a glimpse when I patted Jack on the arm. Mary Beth saw it, too.
So much for the big surprise. It’s now or never.
“It’s not a bug,” I say, standing and pulling Jack up with me. “Jack has something to say. Go ahead, Jack.”
He nods, chewing a huge mouthful as the room falls silent.
Jack swallows audibly, puts his arm around me to pull me close and announces, without further ado, “Tracey and I are engaged.”
And there it is.
A moment of silence…
Then the room erupts. Sheer bedlam. Laughter, tears, screams of joy, my mother wailing something in Italian that sounds suspiciously like a prayer of thanks. Through it all, Joey Junior bangs on his high-chair tray triumphantly shouting, “Poop!”
Of course everyone has to hug us, then see the ring.
Except my father, who doesn’t care about the ring and only wants to hug me hard, too choked with emotion to say anything other than, “I’m happy for you, baby.”
“That ring is absolutely gorgeous,” Ma says tearfully, mostly to Jack.
“Huge stone, too!” Ma
ry Beth puts in approvingly.
“You have excellent taste,” Ma says, this time entirely to Jack.
“He does, doesn’t he?” I jump in before Jack can mention that the diamond came from his mother’s engagement ring.
I forgot to tell him that we need to keep that little tidbit to ourselves till death do us part, as far as my family is concerned, anyway. For all I know there’s some old Sicilian superstition about engagement rings from failed marriages cursing anyone who wears them afterward.
Beside me, my father is pumping Jack’s hand and saying heartily, “Well, it’s about time, son, don’t you think?”
“Dad!” I protest.
“What? It’s been three months since he asked me for your hand. I’ve been wondering what’s taking so long.”
“You asked for my hand?” Stunned, I turn to Jack.
“Of course he did. That’s how it’s done,” my father informs everyone. “Just like Vinnie asked me for Mary Beth’s hand.”
“Yeah, and you should’a said no,” my brother Frankie mutters, and my sister glares at him even though she’s probably wishing Pop had said no, too.
“When did you talk to Pop?” I ask Jack, amazed that my father didn’t tell my mother and she didn’t tell my sister and my sister didn’t tell me.
Or maybe he did…
Nah. My mother and sister can’t keep secrets from each other or anyone else. Everyone—especially my father—knows that.
“I asked him when we were here for Christmas,” Jack says with a shrug.
“Really? Where was I?” Probably upstairs going through Jack’s luggage, looking for the ring.
Just kidding. I didn’t resort to that until we were in the Caribbean in January. Even then, I wasn’t looking for the ring, technically. I was looking for a warm sweatshirt. I found one, and the ring, too.
I was so convinced we were going to get engaged on that trip. But it took him another month.
“You were asleep when I asked him,” Jack informs me.
“Jack and I sealed the deal with some Black Velvet,” my father puts in fondly. “Didn’t we, Jack?”
“We sure did, Mr. Spadolini.”
“Call him Dad,” my mother instructs him. “And call me Mom. No more of this Mr. and Mrs. stuff.”
Uh-oh. I’m not so sure Jack is going to go for that. I mean, he’s so close to his own mother, he might not feel comfortable calling somebody else Mom.
In my family, that’s as much a tradition as it is for the bride to exchange her maiden name for her husband’s.
Tracey Candell.
That’ll be me before the year is out.
Which reminds me…
“We’ve got to go make arrangements for the reception as soon as we’re done eating,” I tell Jack, who’s looking a little dizzy amid the frenzy.
“Get the champagne glasses, Connie,” my father directs. “I want to toast Jack and Tracey.”
“With what?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered. I’ve had a couple of bottles of Asti Spumante out in the trunk of the Buick since December. Don’t worry, it doesn’t freeze,” he says, seeing the look on Jack’s face. “But if you didn’t get your butt in gear, I was going to have to move it into the fridge. Then Connie would have been all nosy.”
“Me? Nosy?” Ma laughs as if she’s never heard such a ridiculous thing in her life, and opens the hutch to start handing out mismatched champagne flutes she’s accumulated through the years.
I get one that was a favor from my cousin’s wedding; it’s etched Mario and Loretta, 5-16-99.
Yes, they’re still married. I take that as a good omen.
Pop fills everyone’s flute with sparkling wine. I’m sure Jack’s father toasts with Moët or Veuve Cliquot, but this is the sweetest wine—and toast—ever.
“To my beautiful daughter Tracey, and to her future husband, Jack.” Pop’s voice is a little hoarse. “May your lives be blessed with riches—and by that I don’t mean diamonds and gold, I mean love, health and children. Because in the end, that’s all that counts. Cent’ anni. That means a hundred years,” he adds for Jack’s benefit.
“Cent’ anni,” we all echo, clinking glasses all around and sipping contentedly.
For once, I think, smiling so hard my face hurts, something has lived up to my expectations.
8
“So when’s the wedding?” Michaela wants to know as we set down our champagne flutes and pick up our forks at last.
“October,” Jack says promptly, as if it’s all settled.
“We hope,” I speak up hastily. “We’ve got to make the arrangements while we’re here today.”
“I’ll go call Father Stefan.” My mother is already on her feet. “I’ll see if he can meet us before four-thirty mass.”
“Connie, sit down and eat,” my father says, but my mother is already scurrying to the phone in the kitchen.
Sara looks at me. “I really hope you were planning on getting married at Most Precious Mother,” she says dryly, “because if you’re not…”
“Where else would they get married, babe?” Joey says, retrieving his son’s tossed sippy cup from the floor.
“I don’t know…the Beaver Club?”
I don’t dare look at Jack. “I’ll be right back,” I say, setting down my fork and pushing back my chair.
“Where are you going?” Mary Beth asks.
“Bathroom.”
“You are not.”
She’s right. I’m not.
In the kitchen, I find my mother already hanging up the phone. “It’s all set,” she tells me. “We’re meeting with Father Stefan in forty-five minutes at the rectory because he has another appointment later.”
“We?”
“You, me, and if Jack wants to come, he can.”
“Don’t you think he should?” I ask wryly. “Being the groom and all?”
“Do you think he wants to convert?”
“What?” Where did that come from?
“Jack. Is he going to convert?” she asks as if that’s the most logical question ever.
“No,” I say firmly. “And please don’t start with that, Ma.”
“I was just asking.”
“Why were you asking?”
“Father Stefan wanted to know.”
I sigh. This meeting is going to be one big happyfest. I can tell already.
“Did you ever check with Jack to see if he’s willing to convert?” my mother persists, because that, and cooking, are what she does best.
“No.”
“Then how do you know—”
“Can we please just talk about this later, Ma? Because I have to go to the bathroom.”
She shrugs and returns to the dining room with a Saran-covered platter of something because she never walks out of the kitchen empty-handed when there are guests in the house.
I immediately pick up the phone and dial the number for Shorewood, which I long ago committed to memory. I ask to speak with the banquet manager, but wouldn’t you know he won’t be in for another hour?
“Can you do me a favor,” I ask the girl on the phone, “and just check to see if the third Saturday in October is still available for a wedding?”
“Sure, hang on.”
I do, holding my breath, praying “pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod,” until she comes back on the phone.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s booked.”
Exhale.
Thank her.
“Then is there anything available that Friday night?” I ask hopefully. “Or Sunday?”
“Everything’s booked here right through New Year’s,” she informs me. “That’s our busy season. We might have a Saturday in mid-January…”
I weigh my opposition to crepe-paper-festooned basketball hoops against the odds of a January Buffalo blizzard stranding the bride and groom, most of the wedding party and half the guest list in New York.
“No, thanks,” I tell Shorewood Country Club, and feel
like I’m enduring the second most heart-wrenching breakup of my life.
I slink back to dining room, mission unaccomplished.
Now what?
Crepe-paper-festooned basketball hoops, here I come.
By the time we’re finished eating that enormous meal followed by coffee and dessert—homemade canoli—wouldn’t you know there’s just no time to do the dishes.
“Leave them for me.” That’s resident dish-doer Connie Spadolini, already slipping into her good brown tweed dress coat and grabbing her tan vinyl purse.
“Ma, don’t be silly. We’re not going to leave them for you,” Mary Beth protests. “We’ll do them.”
By “we” she means herself and our three sisters-in-law, because my father and brothers are immune to kitchen work. Imagine my mother’s surprise—and dismay—when Jack started clearing the table the first time he visited.
“Jack, put that down right now!” she’d commanded, as if he were a toddler and the Corning Ware casserole dish were priceless crystal. “You go sit down. Tracey and I will get the dishes.”
He’d tried to argue with her, but soon figured out that it’s useless. She absolutely refuses to let him—or any man—touch a thing in the kitchen, unless it’s food itself.
Crazy, I know. But somehow, the residents of Brookside—or at least, the Spadolini segment of the population—seem to have missed the entire women’s lib movement. Back in the seventies, while the rest of her gender were burning their bras and demanding equal pay for equal work, my mother was bustling around in her apron frying onions and garlic, serving up elaborate meals, scrubbing pots with Brillo and I’m sure secretly longing for a dishwasher.
Pop got her one as an anniversary present—their twentieth, it must have been, because I was just a kid. I’ve never seen her so exhilarated. Watching her hug and kiss my father, I thought it was the most romantic thing he could have done.
Then I grew up and realized the most romantic thing he could have done was learn how to load, run and unload it once in a while.
But some things just don’t change, and I honestly don’t think my parents want them to. They’re comfortable with things the way they are.
As for my brothers, they might get away with sitting on their butts after meals in our mother’s house, but I know for a fact that my sisters-in-law don’t let them do it at home.