The Supreme Macaroni Company

by Adriana Trigiani

  The last thing Gianluca wanted to do was examine his first marriage at the beginning of his second. There wasn’t going to be any soul searching. I would have to put aside my curiosity until he was ready to talk—if he ever did.

  He pulled the car up in front of a beautiful salmon-colored house with ornate white trim. A series of balconies faced the sea. Planted boxes overflowing with purple blossoms spilled over the sides like festoons of silk.

  I loved Perry Street, but this was something else entirely.

  “Is this a hotel?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, is it one of those bed-and-breakfasts? If it is, please let’s find another place to stay. I don’t want to sleep with the house cat, and there’s always a cat in a B&B.”

  “It’s not a bed-and-breakfast, and there’s no cat,” he said as he climbed out of the car to unload our suitcases. “Do you like it?”

  “Honey. It’s a palazzo.”

  Gianluca took a key from his pocket and opened the door. A sweet breeze blew through the house, from the windows in the front and on the sides.

  The house was furnished with comfortable couches and chairs slipcovered in white linen. The terrazzo floors were buffed to a high polish. The simple decor was the backdrop for a few paintings of the sea and objects like old urns in shades of turquoise with small cracks in the resin. I felt inspired there, and very much at home.

  Gianluca held me close.

  “Where’s our bedroom?” I asked.

  “You need to rest.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Gianluca took me by the hand and led me up the stairs past a floor with a suite of two bedrooms to the third floor, the master, an enormous room that took up the whole floor with a king-size bed and a suite of a sofa, two deep armchairs, and a chaise, all covered in linen. We had landed in a sumptuous, white cloud, floating over a blue ocean.

  Gianluca pulled the drapes aside to reveal a set of French doors to the balcony. He opened them and invited me outside. The view of the Mediterranean Sea was breathtaking, an expanse of the deepest turquoise blue as far as we could see. Everything was blue, except the sun that shimmered like a gold ring. The scent of the ocean, both salty and sweet, sailed over us like musical notes.

  The port below was cluttered with sailboats that knocked against one another like ice cubes in a fizzy cocktail. I rested my head on my husband’s shoulder and closed my eyes. I opened them to his kiss. Before we turned to go back inside, I touched the plants, full with ripe tomatoes. “Gianluca, just like my roof.”

  “Is the Hudson River this blue?”

  “No, it isn’t. But God only made one Italy,” I told him. “We get Staten Island in the distance like Bali Hai. Which is not without its charms, by the way.”

  Gianluca plucked ripe tomatoes off the fragrant green branches. He handed me a few, then gathered some of his own.

  Sometimes I forgot that we were still newlyweds. Honeymooners. When I hit the wall in New Orleans, I hadn’t surrendered to marriage yet. Slowly and surely, I felt we were getting there. A marriage is for life, so what are a few quibbles here and there, and a couple of mysteries that don’t get solved right off the bat? My husband didn’t volunteer a lot of information. My mother said I needed to go on a fishing trip with Gianluca. You bait the hook, make him bite, and reel him in for the interrogation. Besides, we had all the time in the world—or maybe it just seems that way when you’re in Italy.

  I was finding out so much about him, and as much as he fascinated me in general, the specificities of who he was, what he used to do, and what he cared about before he met me were all of interest to me. I just had to wait as he slowly revealed what he wanted me to know in his own time. A woman knows when there’s a mystery. After all, we invented it.

  As we made love, I remembered all the things I treasured about him, and how someday soon we would have a baby who would remind me of those things. I was beginning to understand the phrase “the miracle of life.”

  Gianluca held me close.

  “Where are we?” I asked him.

  “Santa Marga—”

  “I know where—I mean this house. I want to meet your rich friends. Who are they?”

  “No friends. I wanted to buy this house when I was married to Mirella.”

  “What happened?”

  “She didn’t want it.”

  “Why?”

  “She wanted to live in Firenze. She likes the Adriatic. Venice. Rimini.”

  “And you like the Mediterranean side. Of course she liked the white beaches of Rimini and the cool waters of the Adriatic. The Mediterranean Sea is as warm as a bath, and the sun bakes everything like sweet bread.”

  “I like the heat.”

  “So you didn’t buy the house because she wouldn’t live here.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I bought this house after the divorce.”

  “It’s yours?”

  “And yours. This is your house now.”

  “Mine?”

  “I own it, and so do you.”

  I sat up. “Are you serious?”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Like it? It’s a Barbie dream house.”

  “Who is Barbie?”

  “The doll. She had a dream house. But I had to share it with my sisters. This is better. Believe me. Much better.”

  “You don’t have to share this house with anyone. Though your family is always welcome, of course.”

  “If we tell my mother you have a house on the Mediterranean Sea, she’ll plotz! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Gianluca shrugged. “You don’t want to live in Italy.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to—”

  “I know, the shop, the shop.”

  “Yes. The shop. I held on to the shop through near bankruptcy, Gram leaving, Alfred joining. But can’t I love Santa Margherita too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let me.”

  I got up and gathered the tomatoes on the dresser. “I’m starving.”

  “I’ll cook for you.”

  “In our kitchen!” If I had the pep to shout, I would have. “Oh my God, we have a kitchen on the Mediterranean Sea.”

  Gianluca helped me carry the tomatoes down the stairs. I took in the house in a different way, knowing now that it belonged to us. The stairs built from terra-cotta tiles trimmed in black marble were stunning. The windows outfitted with graceful white shutters let in the ocean breeze. I adored the details of the place. Our baby would come here and know this village as his own. I couldn’t quite believe my luck.

  Gianluca put a pan on the stove. He diced up some garlic and drizzled olive oil in the pan. He wielded the knife gracefully, just as he did when he cut leather in the shop. He chopped the tomatoes and added them to the mixture sizzling in the pan. He stirred in a tablespoon of fresh butter. Soon the air filled with the glorious scent of fresh tomatoes cooking slowly. Gianluca lowered the flame on the stove and put a lid on the pot. He filled another pot with water, sprinkled salt into it, and put the flame on high. As we waited for the water to boil to cook the pasta, Gianluca chopped up some basil and grated fresh parmesan cheese into a bowl.

  “How do you feel about being a grandfather?”

  Gianluca looked at me. “Thrilled. But odd.”

  “Too young?”

  “No, I’m exactly the right age. But I’m about to be a father again, so it’s strange.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean it like it sounded.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “You may.” He smiled.

  I was feeling a lot like a first wife because now we owned a house I didn’t know we had before. I also felt that Santa Margherita was a place that was impo
rtant to my husband, and he had never shared it with anyone but me, so it made us even closer. Emboldened by this new knowledge, I wanted to know more about Gianluca’s past.

  “What was it like to see Mirella at the hospital?”

  Gianluca chopped parsley for a moment without answering. He put down the knife. “It’s difficult.”

  “Do you still have feelings for her?” We had just made love, and he had just shared this house with me, and yet I had to ask.

  “Of course I respect her. But she left me, so I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “So you never stopped loving her?”

  “I love you—that’s all that matters.”

  “I’m secure, Gianluca. You don’t have to convince me that you love me. I get it. And your first marriage doesn’t hurt my feelings. Life is complicated. And you’re Italian. This is a country of dogs hanging on to bones. Stubborn is the name of a chromosome in the Etruscan line. I don’t think you’re a man who could stop loving anyone, including me.”

  “You’re very intelligent.”

  “Thank you. That’s always a plus when physical beauty is temporarily off the table.”

  I went to the terrace outside the dining room. I peered over the railing. There was a terrace on every level of the house. They were filled with pots of plants and vines loaded with bougainvillea. There was vivid purple and the deepest green like a frame against the blue panorama of the Mediterranean Sea. I wondered if I would become a different person entirely if I could take in this view every day. Would I just give in to the beauty and never leave? To own this view and live in the scope of its magnificence might quell my desire to create beauty with leather and nails.

  Even more tomatoes grew on this terrace. There were small trees in ceramic pots loaded with ripe lemons, and another with figs. I picked a few as Gianluca brought me a plate of Parmesan cheese and prosciutto.

  “Look, honey. Figs. We need a fig tree on our roof.”

  “They won’t grow in New York.”

  Gianluca had never been to Brooklyn, where fig trees were as common as fire hydrants. But I didn’t want to fight, so I said, “Well, we have the tomatoes.”

  “That’s true.”

  “They grow beautifully on Perry Street. But I remember one year when they didn’t grow at all. I was around six years old. And I was devastated.”

  “Why?”

  “I helped Grandpop pot the tomato plants and water them, and had done everything in my power to make them grow, but when I went up to the roof, week after week, no tomatoes.

  “We had Sunday dinners on Perry Street then with the whole family—the cousins, Aunt Feen, her weird husband. We’d go to church, and then we’d have dinner, homemade manicotti, meatballs and sausage, a big salad. Somebody made a cake or picked up a sleeve—that’s what we called them, a sleeve—of cannolis at Caffe Roma, and we’d feast. We’d laugh and catch up on the week’s news. And the kids, we played on the roof.

  “So after dinner, I’d go up there and check on the progress of my tomatoes. One week, there weren’t any buds, not a sign of a tomato. They must have been bum plants or worse. I cried to my grandfather and then forgot about it until the following Sunday. When I went up to the roof, they were loaded with tomatoes—but not real tomatoes, magic tomatoes, my grandfather called them. He had made tomatoes out of velvet in the shop and hung them on the branches like Christmas ornaments. A vine of velvet tomatoes.”

  “That will be my bedtime story to our baby. I’ll tell him that story every night.”

  “Don’t leave out the part where his mother has a nervous breakdown. Let’s condition this kid early.”

  I sat down on a chaise and watched the sun melt into the horizon like a pat of butter. Soon Gianluca came with our dinner. He set the table, then placed the bowl of pasta in the center. He grated fresh cheese onto the macaroni. I had never been so hungry in my life—of course, this was something I said six times a day since becoming pregnant.

  My husband pulled out my chair. I placed my napkin on my lap, and he on his. I twirled the pasta on my fork, then tasted it. The linguini was al dente, smothered in the sweet tomatoes, buttery cheese, and fragrant olive oil.

  “You got me,” I told my husband.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I surrender. I will live with you by the sea for the rest of our lives. Our son can learn to read at home. I have no desire to go anywhere else or do anything else ever again.”

  “If only you meant that.”

  “I do mean it.”

  “Until your American ambition comes rushing back like a fever.”

  “You think my ambition is a disease.”

  “No, I’m proud of you. But sometimes it overtakes you.”

  “Not when I’m looking at the Mediterranean Sea.”

  “How about we pour everything into your career and make you a world-class shoe designer, and then you have your fill, and it’s you and me and our baby right here with the tomatoes.”

  “I’m going to have a son, you know.”

  “I love my daughter, and I’d love another girl.”

  “Nah, you’re Italian. You want a boy. The only reason Italian families used to be so big was because they’d have girls and have to keep going until the son was born. I’m ashamed to even repeat it, but Aunt Feen told me that when I was five, and it stuck.”

  He shook his head. “Whatever God sends, and as long as he’s healthy.”

  “Gianluca, is there anything else you’re keeping from me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This place is awfully clean. Do you have a girlfriend, a sexy one that looks like Sophia Loren when she came out of the water in Boy on a Dolphin? Does she come over here and take care of the place when you’re gone?”

  “I cannot answer that.”

  “Oh, man, there’s more than one? I knew it. I’m going to find negligees in the closet and tap pants in the bureau.”

  “They’re very nice ladies.”

  “I bet they are.”

  “Yes. Three sisters.”

  “Ugh. Sisters.”

  “They’re very capable.”

  “Sure they are.”

  “They clean the marble, they tend the tomatoes, they wash the windows.”

  “I can imagine what they do for an encore.”

  “You’d be surprised. They’re very flexible.”

  “They’d have to be.”

  “Especially at their ages, seventy-four, seventy-five . . . seventy-eight.”

  “Now I find out you like older women?”

  “I’m sorry, cara. I had to tell you the truth eventually. It’s best you hear it on a full stomach.”

  “It’s full. And now that you have a full stomach, tell me. How many children do you want?”

  “Let’s start with one.”

  “Why did you only have Orsola?”

  “The marriage wasn’t strong enough for a second baby.”

  “Okay.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Our little one is a surprise. Is that okay with you?”

  Gianluca got up and kissed me. On his way back to the kitchen he pulled two figs off the tree; then he thought better of it, and took two more. Then he turned to me. “I like surprises. I live for them.”

  10

  Gianluca decided to take a ride down to Sestri Levante. An old friend of his had just acquired a small textile mill, and he wanted Gianluca’s advice about how to run the operation. I had the day to myself in the pink house by the deep blue sea.

  The only problem with Casa Vechiarelli was that I couldn’t decide which room I liked the best. The rooms that faced the sea, including the master bedroom, were filled with luscious ocean breezes, but there was something wonderful about the back of the house and the garden with its stone pizza oven
, chaise longues, and awnings. I loved it all, and I had to tell someone all about it.

  “Gabriel, this house.”

  “I got your text. And the pictures. Seriously? It’s gorgeous! What do you mean, he owns a house? Is the man rich? Should I put my feet up?”

  “I have no idea if he’s rich. I think he just bought this because he loved it. His ex-wife wouldn’t live here.”

  “Idiot!”

  “I know. What’s wrong with people? Of course, I should send her a thank-you note for leaving him. I would’ve never had a chance with him if she had held on to him.”

  “Are you sure she left him?”

  “That’s what he tells me. And Gram says that’s what Dominic told her.”

  “I don’t know. Who would leave that guy? I mean, it sounds like a smart woman would stay with him just for the house.”

  “That only happens on nighttime soaps.”

  “And in my family.”

  “How’s it going in the shop?”

  “We got a couple of orders for winter weddings. I took measurements.”

  “I’ll get started on them as soon as I’m back.”

  “You are having a baby. Take a break.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Val. Get real.”

  “I’m not going to change my life because I’m having a baby.”

  “You won’t have to—the baby is going to change it.”

  “No. He’s coming to live with us, we aren’t going to live with him.”

  “Are you drinking over there? Everything is going to change. Your father was over here baby-proofing, and he rigged the toilet. I took a wee, and the thing snapped shut on my Junior like the mouth of a mighty alligator.”

  “We don’t need childproofing.”

  “Not yet, but Val, the baby is coming. We’re going to have gates everywhere in the shop. Can you imagine a baby near the steam press? We can’t have that. Upstairs is your problem.”

  “How’s your new apartment?”

  “It ain’t One Sixty-Six Perry.”

  “Why don’t you live with us?”

  “Val, there was a TV show about it when I was a kid, Three’s a Crowd, and it got canceled.”