“Yup.”
“I thought you kept an objective distance from your clients.”
“I do. Sara was the bride’s best friend. When I interviewed her for the novella, she nearly threw herself at me. When I was invited to the wedding, I figured I should go just to give her a chance.”
“Really?”
“No, but it sounds good.”
By this point, we had arrived in Brooklyn, closing in on the Vespucci compound. Suddenly, I realized we’d spent the entire drive talking about me. I was disappointed for wasting the time blabbering about myself rather than getting useful information from Maggie.
“I have to apologize. I shouldn’t have been running my mouth the whole time. We should have been talking about you and Marco,” I reminded her.
“Don’t be silly, Jon. I want to know about you. I find you interesting. Talking about Marco and me can get boring. We’ll have more than enough time to talk about what you need to know to get our story done.”
“Okay. But do you mind if we keep what we talked about between us?” I asked.
“Deal.”
We pulled up to the entrance. Maggie reached out of the car and punched a code into the call box, setting the large iron gate into motion. We pulled inside the driveway, the gate closing behind us. She parked and we climbed out of the car and headed into the house. The commotion of my first visit was absent this time. It was late afternoon, not the dinner hour yet. Vespucci had imposed on me, adamant that I stay with them rather than in a hotel. It was rare for me to stay with a family, though this would not be a first. I followed Maggie inside as she led me to the second floor down a long hallway to my bedroom. I carried my small overnight bag, setting it down on the floor beside the rocking chair. The room was cozy, a full-sized bed in the back of the room and a small dresser directly across from the bed on the wall where we had entered. In the corner, a door led into a small bathroom. On the wall was a large, rectangle photograph of a modest, nicely shaped duplex that looked to be somewhere in New York City. A young Maggie, maybe ten years old, was standing on the porch with a big, open smile aimed straight at the camera.
Maggie noticed my interest in the photograph. “That was the house I grew up in. My father loves that picture. I like it because it brings back a lot of great memories.”
“You look happy.”
“I had a lot of fun growing up in that house.” We both stared at the picture until the moment passed and Maggie broke the silence. “I hope this room is sufficient.”
“This is great.”
“Then I’ll let you get settled. I’ll be downstairs in the library working. Come get me when you’re all done.”
“I will do. Thanks.”
Maggie disappeared into the hallway. I picked up my bag and set it on the bed. I turned around, plopped down, and stared at the picture of the young Maggie. She looked like a normal, happy ten-year old. The duplex looked like an average, middle-class American home. There was nothing in the picture to indicate that Maggie’s father was a major player in the New York Mafia. I looked around the bedroom, noting the nicely appointed wood furniture, the understated taste of the room. There was nothing extravagant or extraordinary about it. Yet, here I sat in the bedroom of an alleged Mafia boss as a civilian employee delving into his family’s life, and even though I was going to write about the romance between Marco and Maggie, it still felt strange and at odds with everything I’d learned about the absolute secrecy of the Mafia. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Vespucci’s hiring me was outside the norm for a member of the Mafia.
I heard Maggie’s voice inviting me down for an early dinner, interrupting my ruminations. By this time I knew enough about Barbara and her hospitality that I shouldn’t have expected any less. I changed into clean clothes, hustled into the bathroom to freshen up from my trip, and went downstairs. There were three generations of women—Grandma Jean, Mrs. Vespucci, and Maggie—sitting at the informal kitchen table when I joined them for an informal meal of spaghetti and meatballs and Caesar salad. I asked where the rest of the family was, and Barbara explained that Vespucci was in a business meeting he couldn’t get out of but had sent his regards. I asked about Marco. Maggie said he’d had production problems at the factory and would have to stay late to deal with it. I saw an image of Vespucci and Marco together at the foundry with a guy tied up in a chair hanging over the hot molten liquid.
“Would you like one or two meatballs?” Barbara asked.
“Two, thank you,” I replied.
Once the food was served, Barbara began discussing the wedding plans, but Maggie cut her off. Nothing would be decided while they were sitting there and she wanted a break. Barbara took the request in stride and chose instead to educate me on Maggie’s childhood adventures, telling one story after another about the trouble Maggie used to get herself into. Maggie protested each time her mother began another episode, but Barbara ignored her daughter’s protests with a smile. Grandma Jean added colorful images to fill out her daughter’s storytelling. By the time I was too stuffed to eat anymore, I had a clear picture of Maggie as a child: precocious, stubborn, independent, but clearly daddy’s little girl.
After dinner, Maggie had to go back to the city for a study session with her undergraduate students, so I spent the rest of the evening watching television with Grandma Jean and Barbara. Eventually, Barbara excused herself to finish her nightly chores before it got too late. I remained on the sofa, alone in the room with Grandma Jean, the quiet rhythmic creak of her rocking chair keeping time with her motion. She must have been at least eighty-five years old, but she still moved around with a nimble dexterity. With the television voices humming in the background, we sat silently, staring at the screen, lost in our own thoughts. I was only half paying attention to what was happening on the screen.
“My daughter and my granddaughter seem very fond of you,” Grandma Jean said, her voice bringing me out of my reverie.
“That’s good. It makes my job easier,” I said, taking the compliment in stride.
Grandma Jean fell silent again. I didn’t want to be rude and ask her questions while her show was on, so I remained silent. I had interviewed Grandma Jean during my first visit, but I’d been pressed for time and the interview was much shorter than I would have liked. I had gained insight from her memories about Maggie’s childhood and what she thought about Maggie’s career choice. But she hadn’t mentioned Marco even once, and I’d run out of time before I could ask her any specific questions about him and Maggie’s relationship. I figured now was as good a time as any to fill in the gaps. I waited until a commercial break.
“Grandma Jean?” I asked, hesitantly. (She told me to call her “Grandma,” though it sounded foreign to my ears every time I said it.) My voice broke her rocking, and the rocking chair slowed down. I took that as a cue to continue. “Mind if I ask you a few questions I didn’t get to ask during our first interview?”
She nodded.
“Are you as excited as everyone else about Maggie and Marco’s wedding?”
She resumed her rocking. The commercial break was over, so I thought I wouldn’t get an answer. Instead, she began, “People get married for a lot of reasons. Some people get married out of convenience, some out of necessity, some because they don’t know what else to do. All say they get married for love, but that’s the folly of youth. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you realize so many other forces are at play and love ends up being an excuse rather than a reason. A marriage based on true love is the rarest kind.”
“That’s a cynical view of marriage,” I said. I had no idea where she was going with this.
“Cynical, yes. But true. In the Old Country, the best marriages were arranged. It was a contract between two families. They didn’t always work, but most of the time they did. That’s all marriage is, a contract, an agreement between two people to spend th
eir lives together and raise a family while they do it. The man and the woman each understand their role, what they are responsible for. Do you know why arranged marriages worked so well?”
I was not aware that they did. I didn’t know much about arranged marriages—I had never worked for a couple who had an arranged marriage—but even with my lack of knowledge on the subject, I believed arranged marriages to be an archaic institution developed countries had evolved out of because it was generally misogynistic and backward. But here was a woman telling me arranged marriages worked.
“You doubt what I’m saying,” Grandma Jean said, with authority.
“It’s not that. I just don’t know how you can say arranged marriages worked better than modern day marriages,” I replied.
“That’s because you’re young. You can’t see it any other way. Nowadays, as soon as things get tough, people get divorced. I don’t see how you can call that working. The problem is they think because they made the decision to get married they have the right to make the decision to get unmarried if they want. Arranged marriages worked because there was no leaving. The arrangement wasn’t just between the man and woman, it was also between their families. The families committed themselves to one another, and if the husband and wife separated, it also caused a serious rift between the families. There was far more at stake.” She picked up the teacup sitting on the side table near her rocker and took a sip. “You young people place so much importance on love,” she continued, “as if it will cure everything, will carry you through all the fights and tough times and rough patches. Let me tell you something. Love is about as powerful as a candle in the wind. One strong puff and the flame goes out. But in an arranged marriage, there’s none of this fantasy about love. The husband and wife come to the marriage without any expectations. They must learn to love each other. Do you see?”
I really didn’t see, but I was listening. Flashes of anthropology courses about ancient cultures crossed my mind. I responded, “To be honest, Grandma Jean, I’m not sure I see.”
She gave me a wistful smile, the wrinkles on her face curling up for a moment. “When you get to my age, you’ll understand. If you get married because you’re in love, what do you do when you’re no longer in love?”
I was not sure how to respond to that. But the thought that love always had to disappear from a marriage didn’t sit well with me. “Not every married couple falls out of love.”
“Of course they do,” she answered. “That’s why marriage doesn’t work anymore. All you young people live with the fantasy that marriage is about being in love, about being attracted to each other, about always wanting to jump into bed. As soon as the going gets tough, your generation runs away because they don’t know what to do. Because that special feeling isn’t there anymore, then something must be wrong, they must have made a mistake when they decided to get married, their feelings must have fooled them. But see, that’s when the real marriage starts, when the man and woman have to learn how to work together, how to work as a partnership. The romantic fantasy life is over. They have to trust that their parents’ decision to put them together was made with a great deal of thought and consideration. This is why arranged marriages work. It’s a contract. The man and woman each understand their roles. Arranged marriages don’t end in divorce.”
What she said made logical sense, but I didn’t like it. She was challenging everything I believed about relationships, about my relationships, about my career, about Sara and me. But I only had to consider the current divorce rate to know she was onto something. The romantic in me was unwilling, though, to let go of the notion that romance and love had no legitimate place in a successful marriage. “Were you and your husband in an arranged marriage?”
“Yes, we were. I learned to love that man, God rest his soul, with all my heart. He was a good man. We never spent a night apart during our entire marriage.”
She was speaking from experience, so I had to give everything she said serious consideration. The thought brought me full circle to what I had originally asked her. “Does this mean you don’t approve of Maggie’s marriage because it’s not arranged?”
Grandma Jean turned to me. “My granddaughter is in love. Whoever made a rational decision based on feelings?”
I wasn’t sure if she was looking for an answer.
She stopped rocking, leaning forward for emphasis. “If Maggie marries this man, she will be cursed. Marco Balducci is a bully and a thug, and he doesn’t have any of my granddaughter’s good sense or strength.”
I stared at the aged matriarch, taken off guard by her candor. At the mention of Marco’s name, I inadvertently ducked, looking around the room to make sure we were alone. Invariably, in my line of work, sooner or later I heard someone from one side of the aisle bad-mouth the other side. More often than not, it was a sibling or a close friend who didn’t like the groom or the bride, but I usually didn’t hear it from a parent or grandparent, and definitely not with such conviction.
“Does Maggie know how you feel?” I asked in a low voice.
“I’ve never told her. But she knows.”
Our discussion was cut short by Maggie’s sister-in-law Caroline and her daughter, Sabrina. At the sight of her great-granddaughter, Grandma Jean instantly switched gears. She threw a knowing look my way, shaking her head once, warning me off any further discussion, as well as making it clear to me that what we had discussed was to be kept between us. As Sabrina ran across the family room toward her great-grandmother, Grandma Jean opened her arms wide and gave her great-granddaughter a hug.
After spending some time socializing with Caroline and her daughter, I excused myself for bed. As I settled down in my room, I realized I was exhausted. I lay back, staring up at the ceiling. Grandma Jean’s words about Marco echoed through my mind. Before I formed any further opinion about what all this could mean, I passed out in my day clothes, shoes still on, legs hanging over the side. I awoke in the middle of the night, my back aching from the position my body was in. Half awake, I stumbled around the room, trying to be quiet while I undressed, and then I found my way back to the bed, immediately falling into a dreamless slumber.
I awoke the next morning to a silent house. Reaching for my mobile, I hopped out of bed when I spotted the time at the top center of the screen. I was interviewing Giancarlo Balducci at 10:30 a.m., in less than sixty minutes. I scolded myself for not remembering to set my alarm. As I exited the bedroom and headed toward the bathroom, I spotted a note taped to my door from Barbara. It said that everyone was on errands or at work, she had left breakfast on the table, and Joey would be back before noon if I needed a ride anywhere. Smiling, I stuffed the note in my pocket. Mafia or no, my affinity for the Vespucci family was growing. Maybe my worries about this job, about the Vespucci’s, about the Mafia were baseless. I showered and dressed, then went downstairs to the kitchen to find a bowl of fruit salad, granola, and a glass of orange juice waiting for me. I quickly ate my breakfast, calling a cab while I did so. Ten minutes later I was on my way to Bayside, Queens, one of the more affluent areas within the five boroughs.
About twenty minutes later, I climbed out of the cab in front of a nicely dressed three-story house in sync with the surrounding neighborhood. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Balducci the father, but for some reason he didn’t elicit the same feelings of trepidation I had for his son. I climbed the few steps to the front door, knocked, and waited only a few seconds before a balding, rotund man swung the door open with a big smile.
“Jon! I’ve been waiting to meet you. If what Maggie says about you is true, I’m gonna have to be careful so as not to reveal any secrets,” Mr. Balducci said, welcoming me into his home.
I met these compliments with my most winning smile. A bear paw of a hand pulled me into the foyer and guided me past a cozy, expensively designed living room, past the formal dining room, then the kitchen, finally leading me into a large, open family r
oom lined with bookshelves of DVD’s and the biggest flat screen television I’d ever seen mounted on the back wall.
“Grab a seat. Want anything to drink?” Giancarlo asked.
“No, thanks. I’m fine,” I answered.
“All right, sit. Tell me what I can do for you.”
After my time with his intimidating son, I was taken unawares by Balducci’s enthusiasm and openness. I found myself liking this man the same way I liked Tony Vespucci. He was funny, charming at times, though apparently lacking Vespucci’s sharp intellect. As we spoke, I discovered Balducci’s strong feelings for his longtime best friend from the old neighborhood. In addition, Balducci seemed truly excited to have his son marrying Vespucci’s daughter. Sitting across from him, I realized I had expected Balducci to be lukewarm, at best, about the impending nuptials. In that moment, I discovered how strongly I believed that Vespucci didn’t like Marco, and this belief was spilling over into the other areas of my research.
From all my reading, I knew Balducci was as much a player as Vespucci, but by this time, I had accepted the fact that my clients were part of La Cosa Nostra. I figured as long as I didn’t ask any questions about said organization, I would be safe. Sitting across from me in his large recliner, puffing on an expensive cigar, Balducci looked like the consummate Mafia player from the movies, his large belly reaching over his waistline, his dark Italian features supporting the image, the large Cuban hanging between his fingers.
“Like I was saying, Tony and I were inseparable. Everyone knew in the neighborhood that if you messed with one of us, you was messing with both of us. That’s how it should be, don’t you agree?”
“Absolutely. Loyalty is everything in friendship.”
Balducci turned his head away from the window, his face squared on mine. “That’s right, Jon. Maggie told me I’d like you. In friendship, marriage, life, God, it’s all loyalty. Everything follows from that. You understand?”
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