Angelina's Bachelors

by Brian O'Reilly

  The still, unmoving form of Don Eddie was propped awkwardly against the arm of the sofa. His thin and aged hands were at his sides, unnaturally stiff. His skin looked ashen and gray in the shadows, his slackened jaw drooped slightly and his body had listed at a cruel angle to one side, but he remained utterly, utterly still. Angelina was close to tears.

  He was so much older and he’d looked so frail the last time she’d seen him, hadn’t he, only last night? How long had he been here? She hadn’t even heard him come in. Oh, God, this can’t be. She’d failed him, too.

  “Oh, no,” said Guy.

  Guy left her side and moved slowly across the living room. Her hand went to her mouth.

  Guy looked back at her helplessly, then in dread at the silent and motionless form of their friend.

  Angelina let out a heartbroken sob.

  Don Eddie awoke with a lurch, Angelina screamed and Guy fell back and over the coffee table.

  “Oh, my Lord!” cried Guy.

  “Jesus Mary and Joseph!” cried Angelina.

  “What happened?” said Don Eddie.

  Overcome with frustration and relief, Angelina slammed her new book down on the dining room table.

  “When the hell did you get in here?” said Angelina.

  Don Eddie straightened his tie and wiggled up into a proper sitting position on the sofa, struggling to recover some small modicum of his absented dignity.

  “Phil had to go to the dentist and he dropped me off at the curb. I come in the front door and nobody was here, so I sat down. Looks like I grabbed forty winks.”

  “I must have been out back when you came in,” said Angelina.

  Guy picked himself up off of the floor and replaced the magazines he’d knocked over when he went sprawling.

  “You all right?” asked the Don.

  “Yeah, thanks,” said Guy.

  Angelina came into the room as Don Eddie levered himself up onto his feet. He came over and took her by the hand.

  “I see what happened, dear,” he said. “You ain’t the first. I take a nap and sometimes I look like I’m dead when I’m doing it.”

  “You almost gave me a coronary,” said Angelina.

  Her heart was slowly making the trip back down from her throat. Eddie looked forlorn and grave and badly in need of a hug. She gave him one and it helped them both feel better.

  Guy stuck his hands in his pockets. Angelina started up the steps slowly and looked at them both with a weird sense of fascination.

  How did I let all of these men get into my house?

  Though, in point of fact, at that moment they looked more like naughty little boys who were no doubt going to get back into some sort of mischief as soon as she left the room.

  “Okay. I don’t want any more trouble,” said Angelina. “You’re in charge of each other. Come and wake me up in an hour.”

  When she was out of sight and they’d heard the bedroom door close, Guy and Eddie looked at one another.

  “Cup of joe?”

  “Sure.”

  Later, the men were finishing up the evening meal. The conversation had flowed easily and casually and, as it usually did when they were all in attendance, it inevitably circled back to the food. Mr. Cupertino stabbed his last bite of veal, swirled some pasta around his fork, took a last artistic swipe of the sauce on his plate and put it into his mouth.

  “I swear,” he said as he finished chewing, “I have never had food like this before. In my life. This woman, she makes the veal sit up and beg for you to eat it. Always, perfecto.”

  He made a little kissing gesture with his fingers and lips.

  “And the interplay of flavors,” said Mr. Pettibone, “so delicate, yet so bold at the same time. Her touch with spices … I’m telling you, she’s a poet.”

  “Yeah,” said Jerry, “and there’s always so much of it.”

  That got a big laugh from Johnny.

  Guy leaned in conspiratorially.

  “You know,” he said in a tone of cool confidence, “there’s a pie coming for dessert. A custard pie.”

  “Don’t toy with me, please,” said Basil, with a little tremor in his voice.

  “Yes. I saw it with my own eyes. She calls it her Boston Custard Puff-Pastry Pie.”

  Basil touched his napkin to his brow. He took his glass in hand and raised it to his fellows.

  “Gentlemen, I am sure that this will be the greatest pie you ever have tasted or ever will taste again in your life.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Pettibone.

  “Salute!” said Jerry and glasses clinked.

  Only seconds later, Angelina poked her head through the kitchen door.

  “Everybody ready for dessert?” she asked.

  The murmured assent was mixed with tangible excitement and a thrill of anticipation. Angelina disappeared for hardly a moment and returned bearing a big wooden tray filled with cut-glass dishes of Jell-O. In the weighty silence that followed, she efficiently began placing a small dish at each place.

  “What’s this?” said Basil.

  “Strawberry Jell-O,” said Angelina.

  Phil and Don Eddie picked up their spoons and started eating, completely unperturbed.

  It was Guy who finally gathered up the nerve to ask, “What happened to the pie?”

  “What pie?” said Angelina.

  Guy felt like a man trapped in a world he no longer understood.

  “The pie. The Puffy Boston Cream Puffy Custard Pie,” he stammered.

  “Oh,” she said. “I ate it for dinner.”

  Basil was crestfallen.

  “Why?” was all he could manage to say.

  “I was hungry,” said Angelina.

  She put down the last dish and smiled.

  “Coffee, anyone?” she asked

  “You ate the whole pie?” asked Guy.

  Her dark eyes flashed dangerously.

  “It’s for the baby,” she said coldly.

  “Is there any left?” asked Basil.

  “One piece.”

  “Can I have it?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  He’d asked politely, but she came that close to completely losing her patience with him.

  “Mr. Cupertino, how can I give it to you and nobody else? Besides, I’m having it for dessert.”

  And she was gone.

  Basil and Guy solemnly regarded the wobbly dessert in their dishes.

  “The thing I’m wondering is, who’s gonna’ be named godfather?” said Don Eddie between spoonfuls.

  They all sat and thought about that to a tinkling chorus of Jell-O spoons.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  High Tea and Sympathy

  THE MIDDLE OF February felt like the middle of the ocean to Angelina, and she pined to sight the distant shores of Springtime. It was frigid outside and had been for the past two weeks solid. The arctic cold and her condition had forced her indoors, so she hadn’t even left the house for five days. She recalled a book she’d read for school by Jane Austen in which one of the characters had been in the family way, and they all referred to her “confinement.” Angelina finally knew what they meant.

  Things were coming along nicely, she supposed. The baby was growing beautifully, kicking her just to say “hi” any old time, day or night. She was great “with child,” as any look into any mirror or reflective surface in the house could tell her, but today, she didn’t feel that great. She felt cranky and huge, as if she were lugging a bowling ball around under her sweater.

  She had counted every crack and every loose edge of wallpaper on every set of four walls in every room of the house. To top it all off, it was Saturday, which meant that nobody was coming over and nothing was on TV, which she didn’t like watching anyway, and she was hungry and didn’t know what she wanted to eat. She was burning up with cabin fever.

  Angelina went into the kitchen, her only hope of sanctuary, and started building a couple of sandwiches. She toasted some Italian sandwich bread, cook
ed up half a pound of thick-cut bacon, sliced some tomato, diced up a hard-boiled egg, cut some razor-thin slices of red onion, laid on a couple of sardines, topped the stack with lettuce, and schmeared generous swirls of mayo on the bread. Then she made herself a big, hot cup of peppermint tea and sat down at the table for her lunch.

  Just as Angelina was finishing up the last bite of her second sandwich, she heard a knock on the door. She brushed her hands together to chase off the crumbs and rushed to answer it. Even if it was the mailman, he was coming in for a cup of coffee and a piece of crumb cake, whether he wanted to or not.

  “Jerry!” she said as she threw open the door.

  “Hi …”

  She pulled him by the wrist in out of the cold and slammed the door. “Brrr, oh my gosh, it’s cold.” She thrust her hands under her arms. “When is it ever going to end? I’m so glad you showed up. I was just having a cup of tea, but how about I make you some coffee and give you a piece of cake? I just made it for breakfast this morning, but—”

  “Hold it,” said Jerry, grinning. “I don’t want any cake.”

  “You have to have some cake.” Angelina took him by the arm and pulled him toward the kitchen.

  Jerry laughed. “No, wait! Are you busy?”

  “I am so not busy, it’s not even funny.”

  “Good. Get your coat.”

  The sparkle returned to her eyes. “My coat? What for?” she asked eagerly.

  “We’re going out, you and me.”

  “Out where?” said Angelina, hardly able to contain her growing excitement.

  Jerry stuck his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket and tucked his nose down into his thick scarf before he answered. “Well, we took up a collection, the gents and me, and I got elected as delegate.”

  Angelina shifted back and forth on her feet with tingling expectation. “Delegate for what?”

  “We’re going baby shopping.”

  It took her all of fifty-seven seconds to reappear in front of him, dressed snug and warm in her boots, coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. She’d even had time left over to grab a stack of oatmeal-raisin cookies from the pantry and handed him one as they sailed out the door. Just outside, a yellow cab was waiting, running the heater to keep it nice and toasty inside.

  Angelina was thrilled. Her dreary day of confinement had magically been transformed into an expedition.

  A short drive up Broad Street into Center City and past the showy, ornate balustrades of City Hall left them at the doorstep of the Wanamaker Building. They stepped out of the cab, rushed through the doors into the main lobby, past the great golden eagle and monumental pipe organ, but only when they were headed toward the escalator toward Infants & Toddlers did Angelina begin to fully realize that she was only two months away from her due date and hopelessly unprepared.

  She had nibbled around the edges of buying baby clothes and had picked up a few insubstantial stuffed animals for the nursery, but now Angelina was abruptly faced with the unavoidable fact that she, of all people, had neglected to properly plan for everything she’d need to clothe an infant and fill up a baby’s room. It was an inexcusable failure of mise en place.

  The baby was due in April and she had decided that she was going to wait until the birth to find out whether it was a boy or a girl. As she perused the shelves for gender-neutral clothing (no monster trucks or fairy princesses), she was pleased to find that lots of the cutest items were on sale, and in no time she had collected an impressive ensemble of diminutive pants, shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts, undershirts, tiny overalls, baby socks with tassels, turtlenecks, and T-shirts and had piled them all into Jerry’s arms as they went.

  “Oh, Jerry, look.” She held up an adorable pair of Dr. Denton’s footsy pajamas in fire-engine red with a bunny on the front.

  “You think they have that in my size?” said Jerry, nodding for her to throw it on his pile.

  They settled up at the register and moved on to Bedroom Furniture, where Angelina immediately made a bee-line to a beautiful wood-carved crib. An unmistakable look of recognition of its utter perfection passed over her face … until she saw the price.

  “That’s the one,” said Jerry.

  She fingered the price tag and sighed. “No, it’s too much money,” she said wistfully.

  Jerry came over and gently took the tag from her hand and flipped it over. “I’ll tell you when we get to too much money,” he said firmly. “I got orders to spend every last cent. We’re getting it.”

  Angelina squealed before she could stop herself and gripped the railing of the crib, her head swimming with the thrill of ownership. They found a saleswoman, gave her the delivery information, and soldiered on.

  Once they made it to Toys, Jerry felt that he was on more solid ground. Angelina spent twenty minutes in the educational-toys aisle, shopping carefully for early-learning toys and board books. She picked Goodnight Moon, of course, and a book of Mother Goose with gorgeous pen-and-ink illustrations, and her heart skipped a beat when she saw a classic reprint of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a book that her mother must have read to her a thousand times. She was caught in a memory of Emmaline when Jerry came around the corner with a baseball bat, a catcher’s mitt, a football, and a toy rifle, wearing a little cowboy hat.

  “I’m taking a stand. It’s a boy,” he said.

  Angelina laughed out loud. “In that case, we’d better get out of here before you find the golf clubs.”

  Jerry carried all of the shopping bags filled with clothes and arranged for delivery the following week of the crib, high chair, changing table, playpen, bassinet, baby swing, Winnie-the-Pooh rug, sheets, pillowcases, blankets, and comforters. Their last purchase was a dazzlingly white stuffed polar bear, nearly actual size, with a red ribbon tied around its neck that rode on Jerry’s shoulders, like the Mvp after a big game, as they paraded toward the exit.

  “Angelina,” called a voice.

  They turned around and saw a familiar figure walking briskly toward them, unimpeachably turned out in a three-piece suit, complete with watch chain and a white-rosebud boutonniere.

  “Mr. Pettibone,” said Angelina. “I forgot that you worked here.”

  “I do, indeed. I’m the head buyer for the cosmetics department. What are you two up to?”

  Jerry suddenly spoke up and took Mr. Pettibone by the arm. “Hey, Pettibone, good to see you. I actually need to ask you something. Could you wait here a second, Ange?”

  “Sure,” said Angelina.

  Jerry pulled Mr. Pettibone a short way off, just out of earshot. Jerry did most of the talking as Pettibone nodded, then they both returned to Angelina.

  “I didn’t realize you were coming today,” said Pettibone, “or I would have been certain to have met you at the door. Angelina, do you have your receipts for everything?”

  Angelina patted her purse. “Yes. Jerry told me to hold on to them in case anything had to go back.”

  “May I have them, please? I want to apply my twenty percent management discount. I’ll just run up to customer service and get you all squared away.”

  “You can do that?” asked Angelina.

  “I certainly can. And that goes for anything else you buy, young lady. Now, where were you two planning to have lunch?”

  “Hoagie shop around the corner?” said Jerry helpfully.

  “Not today.”

  In moments, Pettibone had marched them to the elevators and escorted them up to the ninth floor, to the Crystal Tea Room. The breathtaking dining room was housed in an enormous space, with miles of tables draped in immaculate white linen, each set with a magnificent floral centerpiece, with flawless silver and glassware, surrounded by golden, high-backed chairs. The room bustled with efficient, black-jacketed waiters moving with faultless, old-world precision, ferrying dishes to and from tables, all shielded by shiny plate covers that, when swept away with a flourish, revealed sumptuous portions of tempting-looking entrées. The clink of forks and knives and tinkle of ch
ina and goblets blended together with strains of classical music played by a live string quartet on a small raised stage off to one side. The space, grand as it was, was dominated by the biggest, most magnificent cut-glass chandelier Angelina had ever seen—just looking up at it made her feel light-headed.

  Pettibone took them over to the tuxedoed maître d’ and said, “Gary, please meet Angelina and Jerry. Can you seat them right away? They’re my guests.”

  Gary smiled and, with a nearly imperceptible bow, said, “Sure, I can seat you right now. Are you here for lunch or afternoon tea?”

  Angelina’s eyes saucered wide and Jerry laughed

  “I have a feeling, and correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “that we’re here …”

  “… for afternoon tea, please,” chirped Angelina.

  As Gary was gathering their menus and checking his seating chart, Angelina hugged and kissed Mr. Pettibone.

  “Mr. Pettibone, thank you so much for everything.”

  “Angelina, I think it’s high time you started calling me Douglas.”

  “Douglas, thank you,” she said sincerely.

  He extended his hand toward the dining room. “In you go. Enjoy.”

  “Thanks, Dougie,” said Jerry. “You’re the best.”

  “Dougie?” said Angelina.

  “Maybe you and I should stick to Pettibone?” said Mr. Pettibone.

  “Probably a good idea,” agreed Jerry as they shook hands and said good-bye.

  By the time he and Angelina reached their table near the center of the room and the maître d’ had held her chair and unfolded her napkin and placed the leather-bound menu by her plate, Angelina was beside herself.

  “Jerry, this is so special. You guys are the greatest.”

  A busboy came by and poured water into their glasses. Jerry watched Angelina as she took her first sip. She was radiant.

  “You deserve it,” he said, “and so does that little guy.”

  “How do you know it’s a little guy? She might be a little ballerina.”

  “Go ahead and paint everything blue, it’s a lock. I got the feeling.”

  She laughed. “Oh, then it must be true.”