The Nine Month Plan

by Wendy Markham

  “You don’t think?” Rosalee steps over a hockey stick and a portable CD player and looks into the mirror above the bureau.

  “You think it is you?”

  “Bebe said it was me.”

  “Oh, Bebe. No wonder.”

  Nina should have known her sister’s oldest—­and most insanely jealous—­friend had something to do with this catastrophic coiffure.

  Bebe recently graduated from beauty school and opened her own salon, after spending the ten years since high school graduation unemployed and on a fruitless search for a husband.

  “Bebe thought this style would look great with my headpiece.”

  “She wants you to wear it this way on your wedding day?”

  “Yeah, and she did my makeup, too. You know, as a trial run.”

  Nina shakes her head. “Oh, Lord, give me a break. Either she’s trying to sabotage your wedding, Ro, or she’s inhaled too many perm fumes.”

  Probably a bit of both. Nina’s convinced Bebe resents Rosalee’s longtime romance with her high-­school sweetheart, Timmy—­and the fact that it has ended in an engagement at long last.

  “I didn’t think it looked that bad.” Rosalee pats a dark, coiled braid that’s drooping over her left ear. “I thought it was kind of chick.”

  “Not chick—­it’s pronounced ‘sheik,’ ” she tells Rosalee, who has a habit of mispronouncing words—­and is never the least bit fazed when somebody corrects her. She just goes right on mispronouncing the same words over and over, much to Nina’s amusement.

  “That doesn’t make sense. Our last name isn’t pronounced ‘sheik-­a-­lini,’ ” Rosalee points out.

  Nina opens her mouth to say something—­she has no idea what, actually—­but Rosalee goes right on talking.

  “Anyway, Bebe said this is how everyone’s wearing their hair in France this year.”

  Nina, her back turned as she removes a tank top that’s draped over the top of a lamp, rolls her eyes.

  Bebe—­who isn’t the least bit French and whose real name is Bernadette Lapozzi—­is full of crap.

  But Rosalee believes the best of everyone, which is probably her greatest fault. She and Bebe have been friends since kindergarten, and Ro certainly isn’t going to change her mind about her now.

  Still . . .

  “The thing is, you’re not getting married in France, Ro,” Nina points out gently. “You’re getting married right here in Queens, and in Queens, brides tend to wear regular hairstyles. Why don’t you just wear it down?”

  “That’s easy for you to say. Your hair isn’t limp and lifeless. I want to look beautiful on my wedding day, Nina.”

  “You will, sweetie. I promise.” And Bebe’s getting her hands on you again over my dead body.

  Nina hoists her overflowing plastic laundry basket and heads for the door. “Come on downstairs. I’m going to throw in a load of whites.”

  “I did whites yesterday.”

  “Yeah, well I think Ralphie’s changed his clothes five times today,” Nina says. “Maybe he really does have a girlfriend.”

  “You think?” Rosalee follows her down the stairs, past the framed family pictures that have hung untouched for years. It’s as if they’re frozen in time, the whole Chickalini clan.

  At the top: Pop and Mommy on their wedding day, he in a boxy sixties suit and skinny tie and she in unnaturally dark lipstick and her Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat and veil.

  Next is an eight-­by-­ten portrait of Nina in her white high school graduation cap and gown. Her hair is long and painstakingly curled beneath the mortarboard, thanks to the sponge rollers she used to sleep on.

  Then there’s one of Pete, newly enlisted in the army, standing proudly in his uniform next to an American flag.

  Beside Pete is Rosalee at that awkward stage, with braces on her teeth, pimples on her nose, baby fat around her middle, and her hair more limp than ever.

  Dominic, in his photo, is a laughing, curly-­haired toddler clutching a big red rubber ball.

  The last picture is much smaller than the others and hangs crookedly, much lower than the others. The frame is a metallic one from a Duane Reade drugstore—­the best Nina could afford back then.

  It’s a four-­by-­six snapshot of little Ralphie wearing nothing but a diaper.

  Every time Nina passes it on the stairway, she feels a pang that Mommy was never here to hang a proper portrait of her youngest child. Sometimes Nina wonders if she should change it to a more recent shot—­perhaps an eight-­by-­ten of his senior portrait. She should probably change all of them.

  She can’t bring herself to do it, though.

  Nor can she bring herself to so much as rearrange the living-­room furniture. It was brand-­new right before Mommy died, and replaced the mismatched pieces they’d inherited from relatives over the years. Nina vividly remembers Rosemarie, enormously pregnant and wearing a red maternity top with a bow at the neck, standing in the doorway telling Pop and Uncle Mario exactly where to place each piece.

  Nothing has been moved since then, except to vacuum and dust.

  Even the kitchen is the same, with its unfashionably dark cabinets, white ruffled curtains with red rick-­rack trim, olive-­green appliances, yellow-­gold Formica countertops, and daisy-­flowered wallpaper circa 1973. Mommy wanted to change it—­all of it—­but there wasn’t enough money for living-­room furniture and a kitchen renovation.

  “Will you drink coffee if I make it?” Nina asks Rosalee, depositing the laundry basket on the crumb-­littered table where Ralphie devoured a sandwich before heading out to play basketball.

  “Maybe one cup. I’m meeting Timmy over at the firehouse after his shift. We’re going to meet another photographer and look at his book. I hope this one is cheaper than the last.”

  “Why don’t you let Uncle Carl take the pictures for you?”

  Rosalee makes a face. “I might as well hand Dominic an iphone, Nina.”

  “Uncle Carl takes great pictures!”

  “Yeah, but he’s not a professional. I want everything to be perfect on my wedding day.”

  “Nothing is perfect, Rosalee,” Nina says, then wishes she hadn’t.

  Disappointment flickers in Rosalee’s heavily penciled eyes. “A wedding day is supposed to be perfect, Nina. Mommy always said hers was.”

  “She did, didn’t she.” At the sink, Nina runs water into the Keurig carafe. “And Mommy would want your wedding day to be perfect, too, Ro. I do, too. Really. I mean, every girl grows up dreaming about becoming a bride.”

  “Did you?”

  Nina fits a white filter into the black plastic basket, pondering her sister’s question.

  “When I was really, really young I think I did,” she says. “Minnie and I played wedding once. We took turns wrapping ourselves in her mother’s good linen tablecloth. Then Mrs. Scaturro found footprints on it and Minnie had to go to her room without dinner, and Mrs. Scaturro called Mommy.”

  “Did you get into trouble?”

  Nina smiles, remembering. “Mommy acted all concerned when she was on the phone, and she said she’d take care of it. Then she hung up, and I thought she was going to yell at me. But she didn’t.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She climbed up into the crawl space and she took out her wedding gown. She showed it to me, and she tried to get into it—­she couldn’t. She kept laughing about how small it was.”

  “She always said having all of us babies widened her hips,” Rosalee murmurs. “Did she let you try it on?”

  “Yes. It was much too big, of course. I was just a little kid. But she told me I looked beautiful, and she put the veil on my head. She hummed the Wedding March and I pretended to walk down the aisle.”

  “You’re so lucky. I wish I had that memory of Mommy,” Rosalee says wistfully. “And I wish I’d th
ought of wearing her dress for my wedding. It’s probably still up there somewhere.”

  “Probably. But your dress is great, too, Ro.”

  Nina busies herself measuring coffee grounds from the can of Folgers so that Rosalee won’t see the tears in her eyes. She can’t bring herself to tell her sister that sometimes, when nobody else is home, she drags a chair into the upstairs hall, hoists herself into the opening in the ceiling, and makes her way across the rafters to the trunk that holds her mother’s wedding dress.

  Usually she just takes it out, buries her face in the folds of yellowed peau de soie, and cries.

  But once, a few years ago, Nina actually tried it on. That time, it fit perfectly. She’s the same size—­an eight—­that her mother was on her wedding day. Same height, too, at five-­foot-­seven.

  Rosalee, on the other hand, inherited her slight pudginess and shorter stature from Pop’s side of the family. So did Dominic. Roly-­poly Grandma Chickalini loves to tell them that they’re Chickalinis through and through.

  “She says it like it’s a compliment,” Rosalee always grumbles, whenever they visit Grandma in the nursing home up in Westchester.

  Now, Ro declares, “You know, even if I wanted to wear Mommy’s dress, I wouldn’t fit into it. But you would, Nina. If you ever get married, you should wear it.”

  “Me? Married?” Nina jabs the BREW button on the coffeemaker and hoists the overflowing basket of laundry again. “I feel like I’ve been a housewife for years. That’s the last thing I want.”

  “Yeah, you were a housewife, but you didn’t even get the husband.” Rosalee rummages through the pantry cupboard. “If you ever fell in love, Nina, things would be different.”

  “I’ve been in love, Ro.”

  “With who?”

  “Kevin!” Nina says in a duh tone.

  “Oh, Kevin. You really loved him?”

  “Of course I loved him.”

  “Then why did you break up?”

  Nina just shakes her head. Rosalee simply has no idea what she’s sacrificed for Ralphie’s sake. And for Pop’s sake. Hell, for the whole family.

  “Irreconcilable differences, hmm?”

  “Exactly.” On the far side of the kitchen, beside the door leading out to the tiny patch of fenced backyard, Nina opens a pair of louvered doors. A washer, dryer, and hot water heater are crammed into the narrow space. She’s about to start shoving socks into the washing machine when she spots something rumpled and wet in the bottom.

  Pulling it out, she sees that it’s a blue linen dress shirt she bought for Ralphie to wear to Cara’s confirmation party last spring. A Dry Clean Only shirt.

  “What’s that?” Rosalee asks, taking a handful of Cap’n Crunch out of the box.

  “It’s evidence.”

  “Huh?”

  “Ralphie. Like I said, he’s constantly changing his clothes—­and now he’s suddenly doing his own laundry, and he’s wearing a dress shirt, no less. He really must have a girlfriend. Good thing I didn’t let Joey bet me on it.”

  “Speaking of girlfriends, and Joey . . . is he seeing anyone right now?”

  “Nope. Why?” Nina tosses Ralphie’s ruined dress shirt aside and starts loading the washer.

  “Because there’s this really sweet mom who brings her daughter into the office for checkups, and today she was telling me that she’d love to meet a nice, available guy in his thirties, but there aren’t any.”

  “She’s not married?”

  “Widowed. Her husband was a fireman. He died at the World Trade center. Her daughter barely remembers him.”

  “That’s tragic.”

  “Yeah. Timmy says he knew the guy and they were a perfect family. You know—­madly in love, just bought a house, had this adorable baby . . .”

  Shaking her head sadly, Nina throws several pairs of Dominic’s boxer shorts into the washer.

  “So I was telling her about Joey,” Rosalee goes on. “You know, how he’s single, and great-­looking, and rich—­”

  “He’s not rich, Ro! Geez.”

  “Sure he is.” Rosalee crunches her way through a mouthful of cereal while reaching into the box for more.

  “Okay, he makes a lot of money at his job, but it’s not like he’s a Rockefeller living on an estate somewhere. You probably gave this woman the wrong impression.”

  “No, I didn’t. I told her the truth. That he got jolted by his high school sweetheart—­”

  “Jilted,” Nina mutters.

  “—­and how after she left him at the altar he threw himself into his job, and all he did for years was work his butt off, and now he’s a big shot down on Wall Street and he really wants a wife.”

  “Who says Joey really wants a wife?”

  “I don’t know, I just thought . . . I mean, doesn’t he? He was engaged to that woman Amanda.”

  “Schmamanda.”

  “Will you stop correcting me? And—­what kind of name is Schmamanda?”

  Nina laughs and shakes her head. “Never mind. So you told this woman about what a great catch Joey is, and now she thinks he’s desperately searching for a wife, and . . . what? You want to fix them up?”

  “What? You don’t want me to?”

  “Me? Why would I care? I don’t want Joey to be lonely any more than you do!”

  “I know. And we owe him, Nina. He saved Pop’s life. Not to mention that he paid for the hospital, and our insurance, and Pop’s medication and everything. Then he took all that vacation time to run the restaurant while Pop was sick. The least we can do is find him a nice wife.”

  Nina smiles. “I don’t see how I can argue with that.”

  “Good. I’ll tell Susannah that I’ll give him her number.”

  “Susannah? Her name is Susannah?”

  Rosalee nods. “Yeah.”

  “Susannah with an ‘s’ in the middle and an ‘h’ at the end?”

  “Yeah. What’s wrong with Susannah with an ‘s’ in the middle and an—­”

  “Nothing! Nothing’s wrong with it.” Nina dumps a cupful of laundry detergent into the washer and slams the lid. Hard. So hard Rosalee winces.

  “Sheesh, Nina, be careful! Pop’ll kill you if he has to get the appliance repair guy back here. He freaked the other day when he got the bill for having the stove fixed.”

  “That’s because the stove is so ancient that the parts cost a fortune. I wish we could afford a new one.”

  Rosalee stops crunching. “I know. I feel terrible about Pop helping pay for the wedding. Between Dominic’s tuition and now Ralphie’s almost in college . . .”

  “Oh, Ro, he wants to pay for your wedding. I’m sure he’s had the money put aside for years for that,” Nina lies. “Don’t feel guilty. Nobody’s going to be happier on your wedding day than Pop. He can’t wait to walk you down the aisle.”

  Over on the counter, the coffeemaker sputters.

  Nina starts the washer while Rosalee pours the steaming brew into two mugs. She adds milk and sugar to Nina’s and pours two packets of artificial sweetener into her own.

  “That stuff is so bad for you, Rosalee,” Nina scolds.

  “So is sugar.”

  “Not as bad as that.”

  “I have to lose fifteen pounds before my wedding.”

  “Why? You look fine. And Timmy loves you just the way you are.”

  “Bebe said—­”

  “Rosalee, I really don’t want to hear it. Bebe should worry more about herself and less about everybody else, especially you.”

  “She just cares because she’s my friend.”

  Nina says nothing to that.

  For a moment, they sip their coffee in silence.

  Then Rosalee says, “So what about Susannah? Will you tell Joey about her? Her little girl is absolutely precious. You don’t think he’
d mind dating a woman who already has a child, do you?”

  “No, he—­” For some reason, she stops herself from telling Rosalee that Joey is crazy about kids. So crazy about them that he wants one of his own.

  “He what?”

  “I don’t think he’ll mind.”

  Of course he won’t mind. What could be better, for a man who’s so ready to become a daddy, than to find a ready-­made family? A sweet, fatherless little girl, and a young widow named Susannah . . .

  Susannah.

  The name is just so . . .

  So beautiful.

  A woman named Susannah can’t possibly be unattractive. A woman named Susannah will be lithe, and long-­haired, and lovely. She’ll be an old-­fashioned girl at heart.

  In other words, she’ll be perfect for Joey.

  Why doesn’t that make you happy? Nina asks herself. Don’t you want to do something nice for Joey after all he’s done for you? Don’t you want him to find someone to love?

  Of course she does. He’s her friend. Her best friend, really, ever since Minnie took off for the convent.

  Just the other day, Nina was trying to assure Joey that he’ll find the right woman. What’s the difference now?

  Nothing is different.

  Not really.

  It’s just that . . .

  The other night, in the pizza place, when he said that about her tattoo . . .

  She found herself remembering.

  Again.

  And the more she allows herself to indulge in memories of that one fleeting night, the more she finds herself longing for . . .

  Well, not for Joey.

  That’s not it.

  She doesn’t want Joey.

  He’s all wrong for her.

  And they’re just friends.

  Friends don’t fool around. Not unless one of them has been jilted and the other is trying to comfort him, and they both drink a little too much champagne left over from the wedding that never happened.

  It’s just been too long, Nina decides. Too long since she’s been with a man. Too long since she’s been kissed, and held, and . . . and loved.

  Maybe she should do something about that.