Italian for Beginners

by Kristin Harmel

  Chapter Two

  That was a silly question to ask, of course. When you got right down to it, I had plenty of people who loved me. My dad did, and Grandma. And since Dad was a first-generation Irish American, I had the requisite seven uncles, five aunts, and several billion (okay, twenty-five) cousins on his side alone. And then there was my only sister, Becky, my best friend in the world.

  I suppose our close relationship was unusual, especially given our five-year age gap. But our mother—a fiery, temperamental Italian woman—had left us without so much as a note just a week and a half before my twelfth birthday, and major events like that have the effect of bringing people together. Dad had fallen apart for that first year or so, and it had been up to me to keep things together.

  I had quit the soccer team, my ballet classes, and my dream of playing the trumpet in the high school band, and I’d become, in effect, an adult before I was even a teenager. I’d taken Becky to all her lessons and classes, cooked meals for the three of us every night, and even kept the apartment clean when Dad worked overtime. I hadn’t minded; I had always figured it was my job.

  Then our mother came back, a few months after I turned seventeen. And she’d expected to pick up just where she left off.

  She’d been there for my senior year of high school and for Becky’s seventh-grade year. She had lived in an apartment just down the street at first, and she and Dad went out on dates with each other and seemed to be falling in love again. Becky, who had been too young to truly feel abandoned the first time around, had been thrilled when she came home. I’d felt the opposite; in the five years she’d been gone, I’d grown to hate her for leaving us.

  So when she returned, I kept waiting for her to break our hearts again. I wanted to strangle my father every time he’d shrug helplessly and say in that fading brogue of his, “But, Cat, girl, she’s my one true love. And she’s your mum. Can’t you give her another chance?”

  She moved back in with us three months after coming back. And every day, I waited for her to leave again. I knew she would. I knew it in the core of my soul.

  And then, one day, she did. But not the way I thought.

  She died. A massive heart attack at the age of forty-nine.

  For the second time in my life, I’d been left by my mother. But this time, it was for good. And it wasn’t her fault, which was the hardest part of it to wrap my mind around. I couldn’t hate her for leaving this time. But I could hate myself a little for failing to let her back in when I still had the chance.

  Dad sank into depression. Becky locked herself in her room and refused to talk to anyone. And I quietly changed my plans to go off to UCLA for college and instead stayed home to go to NYU. When I’d graduated with my degree in accounting, I’d taken a job at a tax firm in the city. I’d been there ever since, old reliable Cat Connelly.

  It was better that way. I could take care of Dad and Rebecca. And that’s what I did. It was in those next several years that the three of us grew inseparable. We had all been changed by Mom’s leaving. Dad had learned that sometimes you have to let go of the people you love the most. Becky had learned that there would always be people there to take care of you.

  And me? I learned to trust my instincts and to know that even the people who are supposed to love you can leave you one day for no reason at all.

  “I miss Mom,” Becky whispered to me a few minutes after we’d sat down for dinner at her reception at Adriano’s Ristorante on the Upper West Side.

  “Yeah?” I asked noncommittally.

  Becky made a face at me. “Don’t do this, Cat,” she said. “Not today.”

  “Do what?” I asked innocently.

  “The Mom thing,” she said.

  Becky remembered all the good things and revered our mother. It was the one thing in our lives we’d never been able to see eye to eye on.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I won’t.”

  Becky looked at me for a moment and nodded. “Thank you,” she said. She took a deep breath. “It would have been nice for her to be here. I think she would have been proud.” She paused again and added, “She would have liked this.”

  “Yes,” I agreed after a moment. “I think she would have.”

  I meant it. The reception was beautiful. Not that I’d expected it to be any other way.

  The Roma Ballroom at Adriano’s, Becky’s favorite Italian restaurant, was packed to capacity with Becky and Jay’s family and friends. Exposed brick walls gave a warm, intimate feel to a room dotted with high-backed chairs covered in clover green, and the fireplace in the corner crackled brightly, lending a glow to one end of the room as crystal chandeliers bathed everything else in soft light.

  While most of the wedding guests continued to eat and chat, I got up and walked to the back of the room, where I’d left my tote bag tucked under the gift table. I pulled out my camera, one of my most prized possessions. It was a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50S, the only major purchase I’d made in the past five years, a thirty-fourth birthday present to myself, and I’d meant to use it more. In fact, I’d spent many mornings wandering my neighborhood, photographing people in their normal environments, sitting on their brownstone stoops, walking their dogs, taking out the trash. I’d caught couples arguing down the block, mothers fixing the collars of their young children’s jackets, grandchildren helping elderly grandparents out for a stroll. I somehow felt most in my element when I could capture the world inside my lens, anonymous, unobserved, blending into the scenery while life happened around me.

  I had taken Becky’s engagement photos, and she’d loved them, but she told me not to worry about shooting the wedding. “That’s why we hired someone to take pictures,” she’d said. “Just relax for once, okay?” I had agreed at the time, but with Becky fully absorbed in Jay, I couldn’t resist sneaking in a few shots. I knew she’d appreciate them later. Becky loved having her picture taken, and she looked more beautiful tonight than I’d ever seen her.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Dad said, coming up behind me and squeezing my shoulder after I’d shot a few dozen frames. “How you doing?”

  I turned around and lowered the camera. He looked so handsome in his dark suit, his crisp white shirt, and his clover green tie that perfectly matched my maid of honor dress. I smiled. “Good,” I said. “This is beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “I thought you were on camera probation for the wedding.” He winked. “Bride’s orders.”

  “I couldn’t resist,” I said. “She looks beautiful, doesn’t she?”

  He nodded and we both looked at Becky for a moment. “Listen, kiddo,” my dad finally said. “I’m sorry about your grandmother.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not your fault,” I said. I swallowed hard. “I just hope Becky’s not too upset.”

  My father fixed me with a stern look. “Your grandmother humiliated you in front of more than a hundred people, and you’re just worried about your sister?”

  I glanced away. “Whatever.”

  A few minutes later, after I’d put my camera reluctantly away, I headed toward the bathroom to touch up my makeup. I was stopped by well-intentioned aunts who told me, “Your time is coming, dear,” and, “You look beautiful today. Don’t worry about what your grandmother said,” and cousins who said things like, “That color is great on you!” and, “When are you getting married?”

  I smiled and gave the appropriate responses, issued the proper excuses. I’d almost made it safely to the back of the restaurant when my cousin Melody, a tall, plump woman with bad hair, stopped me with a firm, icy hand on my arm.

  “So where’s Keith?” she asked, her eyes boring into mine. Melody was only a year older than me, but we’d never been close. She lived just outside Boston, like most of my relatives. She had been married for a decade and was heavily pregnant with her sixth child.

  “He’s not here,” I said, not wanting to get into it. I smiled pleasantly, hoping that could be the end of it, and began to walk away. But she maintained her death grip on
my arm.

  “Why not?” she asked with a syrupy smile. Sweat glistened on her brow and threatened to smear her heavy-handed makeup.

  I’d thought that the story had already made the rounds of the Boston Connelly clan. But perhaps Melody had somehow missed it. Or maybe she was just trying to rub it in. “We broke up, Mel,” I said through gritted teeth.

  She looked at me for a minute. I could have sworn that there was a little bit of satisfaction in her expression. She always had been competitive with me. “I’m sorry to hear that, Cat,” she cooed. “That must be tough, to be dumped at your age.”

  I took a deep breath. I knew she was trying to get under my skin. I also knew it would be better to walk away. But I responded anyhow. “I wasn’t dumped,” I said. “I broke up with him.”

  Real shock crossed her face this time. Then she laughed. “Oh, come on, Cat,” she said. “You don’t have to say that. It’s all right to be broken up with. It happens to all of us.” She paused and smiled. She patted her pregnant belly. “Well, not me, obviously.”

  “He didn’t break up with me, Melody,” I said. “He just wasn’t the right person for me.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Her eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head. “You had a man who loved you,” she recapped slowly. “Who made a good living. And you dumped him because you didn’t think he was right for you?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You’re thirty-five,” she said flatly.

  I cleared my throat. “Thirty-four.”

  She ignored me. “Don’t you think you’re running out of time? I mean, really!”

  I took another deep breath and tried not to react. This had, after all, been the general reaction of everyone I’d told. Apparently, when you were thirty-four, you were supposed to hang on for dear life to anyone who happened to show you the slightest bit of interest. It seemed that, in everyone else’s opinion, I’d been damned lucky nine months ago to land Keith Zcenick, a mild-mannered senior-level accountant who worked at the same firm I did.

  “He just wasn’t right for me,” I repeated calmly. I swallowed hard again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom.”

  I yanked my arm out of her meaty grip and strode quickly to the ladies’ room, hating that I could feel tears prickling at the corners of my eyes.

  In the restroom, all three stalls were full, so I stood in front of the mirror for a moment and splashed cold water on my face. If I could make it past my grandmother humiliating me at the ceremony, surely I could brave Melody’s insults without crying, right? I dried my face, took a deep breath, and studied my reflection, trying to steady myself.

  The face looking back at me in the mirror seemed as out of place as it ever had at family gatherings. Whereas my sister was the spitting image of my father and his Irish clan, I looked like a carbon copy of my Italian-born mom. Becky was a petite five foot four, while I towered over her uncomfortably at a long-legged five foot nine. Where Becky’s hair was curly and carrot-colored, mine was pin-straight and dark brown. Where her alabaster face was sprinkled with pale freckles that my father always called “pixie dust,” my pale face was devoid of any such magical sprinklings, save for a tiny beauty mark just below my right cheekbone. My dad always said it was eerie, because my mother had had the same single freckle in the same place on her face. Where Becky’s eyes were brilliant blue, mine were a stormy green, just like my mom’s had been. Without Mom around, I looked like I had just dropped out of some alternate Italian universe into my dad’s perfect little Irish world.

  And on days like today, where my self-confidence was flagging anyhow, I wished I could look at my own reflection and see something comforting. But instead, all I saw was a face that was, with each passing year, becoming more and more like that of my mother, a woman who couldn’t be trusted, a woman who didn’t know how to love.

  “Get ahold of yourself, Cat,” I whispered to my reflection as I gave myself the evil eye. I took a few deep breaths. I was just about to turn and leave when I heard a high-pitched voice from the middle stall.

  “You sort of have to feel sorry for her.” I thought I recognized the shrill tone as belonging to my cousin Cecilia. I cocked my head to the side and listened, wondering who they were gossiping about now. I started to smile at myself in the mirror. Honestly, they never stopped. My cousins were, in effect, a bunch of little old ladies in thirty-something bodies.

  “I don’t,” said another voice, which I was fairly sure belonged to another cousin, Elinor. “She’s had every opportunity in the world. Who’s she waiting for, Prince Charming?”

  “Apparently, Cat thinks she’s better than the rest of us,” said a third voice, which I was sure belonged to my cousin Sandy.

  I started, the smile falling from my face. They were talking about me?

  “Too good to settle down with any of the perfectly decent guys she’s thrown away,” Elinor chimed in.

  “I don’t know,” said the voice from the middle stall. “I mean, maybe she’s just all screwed up because of her mom, you know?”

  “Oh, c’mon,” scoffed Sandy. “You can only blame your problems on a dead mom for so long. It’s pathetic. The way she dumped the most recent one? That Keith guy? It’s terrible.”

  “Seriously,” said the one I thought was Elinor. “She’s running out of chances.”

  Just then a toilet flushed, snapping me out of my horrified trance. I glanced quickly from side to side. The last thing I needed was to be caught eavesdropping on a humiliating conversation about myself.

  Before I could think about it, I yanked the bathroom door open and ducked back into the hallway, hoping none of the cousins noticed. I glanced around quickly. On one end of the hallway was the door to the men’s room. At the other end was the entrance back into the restaurant. I sure wasn’t going back there yet; all I needed was to face a room full of 120 judgmental faces while tears still threatened at the back of my eyes. The only other option was the restaurant kitchen. Heart pounding, I looked from side to side and quickly made my decision. Just as the door behind me started to open, with the voices of my gossiping cousins seeping out from behind it, I took a swan dive toward the swinging doors across the hall.

  I landed in the entrance to the kitchen with a crash, flat on my face. I narrowly missed knocking over a stack of mixing bowls and a table full of utensils, but I wound up in a pile of flour that had escaped from a big sack on the floor. As I stood up, blushing, and began to dust myself off, a few cooks looked at me with mild curiosity but went quickly back to stirring, chopping, kneading, and whatever else they were doing, as if diving maids of honor were a regular occurrence there. I took a quick step to my right, so that I wouldn’t be knocked over by the next waiter to bustle through the swinging doors, and I looked around to get my bearings.

  The kitchen was huge, much bigger than I would have expected. The walls were a sterile white, and stainless steel pots, pans, and mixing bowls seemed to hang from every surface. A small team of dishwashers ran hot water over dishes and piled them into massive dishwashers, while several white-smocked young men and women in chef’s hats seemed to form an assembly line of chopping vegetables, tossing pizza dough, spreading sauce and cheese, and carrying raw pizzas into a massive wood-burning oven in the far corner of the room.

  I was half hidden behind a giant rack of hanging fresh pastas, and the cooks who had seen me enter seemed to be fully absorbed in their work once again. I was forgotten, invisible.

  I backed up a few more paces and sat shakily down on a barrel in the corner. I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes, trying to collect myself.

  I’d been so sure about my decision to leave Keith. At least, I’d told myself it was the right thing. But had I made the biggest mistake of my life? I held my head steady, trying to stop the wave of an approaching migraine. Maybe the relatives were right. Maybe I was being foolish and much too picky. After all, all my friends were married, and now my little sister was, too. Was I cond
emning myself to a lifetime of being alone?

  A moment later, I was snapped out of my self-pitying trance by a deep voice above me. “You must be Cat.”

  I jerked my head up, surprised, and saw a man in a suit and tie staring down at me. He had unruly dark brown hair that seemed at odds with his buttoned-up appearance, boyish dimples that didn’t seem to entirely fit on a face with crow’s feet around his pale green eyes, and smile lines like parentheses around his mouth.

  I just stared at him for a moment, not quite sure how to respond.

  “Maybe,” I said finally. “Who are you?”

  “Michael,” he said, extending his hand formally. I stared at it for a moment but didn’t shake it.

  “Michael?” I repeated. He’d said it like the name was supposed to mean something to me.

  “Yes,” he said. He grinned and glanced around. “You’re in my kitchen, actually.”

  “Your kitchen?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. He raked a hand through his thick hair, making it stick up at even stranger angles.

  I looked him up and down and narrowed my eyes. “But you’re not a chef.”

  He laughed and held up his hands defensively. “Well, not professionally, anyhow,” he said.

  “And you’re not the restaurant manager,” I said. “I’ve met him.”

  “Right again,” he said mysteriously. He arched an eyebrow at me and offered his hand. I took it reluctantly and stood up. As I did, I was surprised to realize that, even in heels, I was still shorter than him by a few inches, which meant that he had to be at least six foot two.

  “So what are you talking about?” I asked. I was running out of patience.

  “This is my restaurant,” he clarified once we were face-to-face. “I mean, I own it.” He was studying me with an amused expression. “You’re tall,” he added.

  I sighed. “Yes, you’re the first person to have ever pointed that out.” I paused and added, “Your restaurant? Your name is Michael, but you own a restaurant named Adriano’s?”