Rococo

by Adriana Trigiani

  “You’re not going to end up like one of those theater fairies, are you?” Anthony grumbles.

  “What’s a theater fairy?” Two asks evenly.

  “You know.”

  “I don’t know.” Two puts down his fork.

  “Well, it’s your basic she-male. Ballerinas, dancers, actors—you know—any guy that would wear tights.” Anthony and Nicky laugh.

  “So you’re including professional wrestlers?” Two asks.

  “They’re different,” Anthony counters. “They’re all-male. If a guy does sports, he’s automatically a man.”

  “What is a man to you, Anthony?” I interrupt. Everyone looks at me except Anthony, who looks down at his stuffed mushrooms.

  “A guy who does guy stuff,” he offers finally.

  “What a relief.” I throw my hands in the air.

  “What?” Anthony looks confused.

  “There are lots of people who think men who sit around on stools with tweezers and make ankle bracelets and toe rings are light in the loafers,” I say. “You know, jewelry fairies.” I saw my ravioli in half with my fork so hard I almost chip the plate. Two laughs, then Nicky and Anthony join in. Ondine looks relieved that an argument has not occured.

  “I’ve been seeing Sal Concarni,” Toot blurts.

  “What?” Nicky says. “The plumber?”

  “From Belmar,” Two clarifies, as if there’s more than one Sal Concarni.

  “Seeing him?” Anthony is confused.

  “I think Ma is dating,” Nicky explains to Anthony.

  “Yes, boys, it’s true. I’m seeing Sal socially. There, I’ve said it. I’ve had romantic evenings out with a man who thinks your mother is cute. I’m sorry. I know this is an adjustment for you boys, but I’m not giving him up because I’m having a wonderful time.”

  “Good for you, Ma,” Nicky says quietly.

  “Maybe we’ll get some free work on the boiler,” Two offers.

  “I will not accept this!” Anthony thunders.

  “And why not?” Toot throws down her napkin.

  “Because you’re my mother and you’re not supposed to go around town with a man.”

  “Well, get used to it, because I’m going. I’ve waited on men my entire life, starting with my father, then my husband, and ending with my sons. It’s time for a man to take care of me.” Toot looks around the table. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard her so vehement on any subject. A few moments pass in utter silence.

  “I think it’s nice,” Ondine peeps.

  “I have a carbuncle on the left cheek of my posterior,” I announce. Everyone stares at me. “Well, it just seems like everybody is digging deep into their bag of unmentionables, so let me drag mine out too.”

  “We’re married,” Ondine blurts.

  “What?” Toot raises her hips up off of her chair. “You’re what?”

  “Married.”

  “Nicky?” Toot looks as though she might toss a serving spoon at him.

  “We got married in Atlantic City yesterday.” Nicky takes Ondine’s hand in a sign of solidarity.

  “Atlantic City? The spiritual capital of the world. The site of many an official sacrament. I like my weddings in a church, not in a seaside hotel where money is laundered more often than the sheets. What would the Holy Father say? What will your father say?”

  “Look, Ma. I don’t go in for all that jazz, I never have, and you know it. So don’t start. I love Ondine and she loves me and that’s the end of it. We’re happy.” Nicky doesn’t look happy.

  “Congratulations,” Toot says softly, tears welling in her eyes. “May God bless you, Nicky, and you, Ondine.”

  “And the baby.” Ondine squeezes Nicky’s hand.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Anthony shakes his head in disbelief.

  “You have a child?” Toot shouts.

  “No, no child. Just the bun in the oven.” Ondine pats her stomach.

  Toot looks at me.

  “You’re having a baby?” Anthony asks. I’m beginning to believe that Anthony has a lobe of his brain missing.

  “Uh-huh.” Ondine smiles.

  “Excuse me.” Toot tries to get up but her legs fail her. “I need some air. Pardon me.” She pushes herself out of her chair and goes to the kitchen. I make an excuse and follow her.

  Toot paces in front of the window seat like a trapped rat. “I’m fifty-one years old, and I’m going to be a grandmother. I can’t believe it! This doesn’t happen in places where there are telephones! I’m a granny! And no church wedding! They probably won’t baptize the baby, they’ll throw some seeds on him and make a hippie ceremony while they smoke grass! What have I raised here?”

  “Listen to me.” I take Toot by the shoulders. “Stop this now. It’s done. There is no changing it. There is a baby on the way with the di Crespi label on it. Your grandchild. Besides, you are hardly a card-carrying Catholic—you won’t even spring for an annulment—so don’t beat up on them. You have to march back in there, give Ondine a warm hug, and tell them that you are here for them no matter what. You are very happy for them. Got it?”

  “I’m not. I can’t. I’m dizzy. I’m gonna faint. I’m seeing stars.” Toot holds her head.

  “Toot. Remember when Pop died and none of his brothers came to the funeral? We were devastated. And then we found out that Pop’s mother left our mother a cocktail ring, and Uncle Bones took it for his wife instead of giving it to Pop to give to Mom? Do you remember this?”

  “I may throw up.” Toot grabs her gut.

  “You cannot, you must not, destroy your family over Nicky’s situation. Nothing is as important as family. Nothing. No country, no church, no cocktail ring. You have to accept this marriage and baby and embrace them. All of them.”

  “It was a gorgeous whiskey diamond with sapphire baguettes.” Toot pushes me away. I give her a look. “All right, all right, back off.”

  The doorbell rings in three gongs that sound like the opening bars of “Panis Angelicus.”

  “That’s Lonnie and Lady Sylvia.” Toot throws her hands in the air. “Now what do we do?”

  “Invite them in.”

  “Oy oy oy.” Shaking her hands around her head like she’s thrashing at a mob of bees, Toot trundles down the hall to the front door and opens it. I hear her warmly welcome Lonnie and his wife and watch them go into the dining room together. I enter the dining room through the kitchen.

  “Sy . . . I mean Doris, darling, may I see you in the kitchen, please?”

  “Of course.”

  I open the galley doors and invite Doris through, shooting Toot a look. As I chat with Doris in the kitchen (she admires the wallpaper), I hear the low tones of the news being delivered to Lonnie. “Are you all right?” Doris asks me. “You look a little pale. Let me get you some water. Here. Sit down.”

  I sit as Doris goes through every cupboard looking for a glass. Finally she finds one.

  “I asked Lonnie if he called Nicolina before dropping by, and he said everything was fine.”

  “You know how men are—they never call.”

  “When I get on better terms with Nicolina, I will call in advance. It’s not nice to drop in unannounced.”

  “Doris, can you come in here, please?” Lonnie says from the doorway. Doris follows him out after placing a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  Through the top half of the galley door, I see Toot sitting next to Ondine and holding her hand as Nicky stands behind her talking to Lonnie. Lonnie tells Doris that Nicky and Ondine have married and are having a baby. Doris embraces the young couple warmly. Then the strangest thing happens. Lonnie kisses Toot on one cheek and then the other. He smiles at her and takes her chin in his hands, giving her a look of reassurance. Then he takes his fist and gives her a sweet punch on the chin like he used to do when they were young.

  “What do you think?” Capri cleans her glasses as I walk around the empty two-bedroom apartment in the nice section of West Long Branch. It’s on the third floor of a mode
rn ten-floor building, with a parking garage underneath.

  “I think it’s terrific.”

  “I’m going to sign the lease.”

  “Good girl.”

  “I’m so scared.”

  “Your mother will be fine.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She’s not an idiot. You need your own life.”

  “She said I could only ever move out if I got married.”

  “Capri.”

  “I’m not saying it so you’ll marry me. Although we could get married, you could pretend to move in here, and then we divorce really fast.”

  “No thank you,” I say firmly. “The last thing I need on my docket is a quickie marriage and instant divorce. My heart is not a glass of Tang.”

  “You’re right. I sound desperate and silly.”

  “Capri, it’s not wrong to want your own life. It’s natural.”

  “I know! I want to work and come home to a cat. I want boyfriends. I want to travel with them, cook for them, exchange ideas in the forms of books and literature, and make love to them.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Well, it’s all I think about. I’m this . . . this . . . ripe plum. Everything inside me is aching to be loved. Suddenly I can really see myself.”

  Coming from a woman with 20/200 vision in both eyes, this is truly a revelation. “Go on,” I say.

  “Turning forty is freeing me. If I’m not going to change now, I never will. And it doesn’t matter if it hurts my mother, because she’s lived her life. She’s had her true love, and now it’s my turn. I’m a lover who has not yet found my thing to love! Who said that?”

  “Bob Dylan?”

  “I don’t know,” Capri moans. “I think about sex in church. I sit up there in the choir loft and watch the men as they go up to Communion and imagine being in warm places like Hawaii with them. I do! In church! Can you imagine? If I ever went to confession, I’d be excommunicated.”

  “Capri,” I say in a tone I hope will shut off this valve of soul baring. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Maybe not. But I’d like to find out for myself.”

  “You’re saying what, exactly?”

  “It would have been nice to be a couple. But the only two people in this world who knew we were wrong for each other were you and me. I only played along because I didn’t have anyone else in mind. Now I know a girl has to look for it. We never had that spark.” She shrugs.

  “Not even the time your breast brushed my thigh in the den when I was hanging the valance?”

  “That was an accident. I tripped on the rug.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know why, but I’m a little hurt. I wanted to be rejected all these years, and now that I am, my ego is bruised.

  Capri continues, “I’ve been using you all these years, and I feel terrible about it. You’ve schlepped me all over the Eastern Seaboard on sightseeing tours, and then there was that trip to Florida where I got stung by a bee and had to be hospitalized and you sat in the waiting room for six days until the swelling went down. What I’ve put you through!”

  “It’s all forgiven and forgotten,” I promise her.

  “It’s Mom who won’t accept our true feelings. She thinks we have bad timing.”

  “We’ve known each other since kindergarten. How much time do you give something unless it’s a slab of carbon that you’re praying will become a diamond?”

  “She thinks forever. You’re like a son to her.”

  “I’m sure she’ll like all your . . . boyfriends.”

  “I’m not Jezebel, for godsakes. I want to see lots of men at first, but then eventually whittle it down to one.”

  Capri walks into the empty bedroom to inspect it. I watch her go. My goodness, what a difference a potential pied-à-terre can make for a girl’s self-confidence. The green banana has turned into a golden apple.

  “Over here, Bartolomeo!” Eydie waves to me from the Pan Am ticket desk at John F. Kennedy Airport. I wave back.

  “So glad you could make it on such short notice.” She kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you for doing this.”

  “Are you crazy? Thank you. I like nothing better than getting a phone call from a beautiful woman begging me to run off to Europe with her.”

  “I need your passport, sir,” the wizened lady behind the counter says, extending her hand. I pull it out of my sport coat pocket. “Destination Heathrow. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “We’re sitting together, right?” Eydie asks.

  “Yes, ma’am.” The attendant hands us our tickets as a gentleman takes our bags and snaps tags on them before placing them on the conveyor belt. “Have a wonderful trip,” she says politely.

  “It’s going to be short and sweet.” Eydie threads her arm through mine as we walk to the gate. “I called Asher Anderson and he’s expecting you.”

  “Fantastic. What would have happened to me had I never met you?”

  “Oh, please. When ASID said I could bring a guest on this trip, you were the only possible choice. I need London to revive, and you need it to get your church plans off the ground.”

  “What’s this King’s College speech you’re giving?”

  “Mica Ertegun of the MAC II firm dropped out at the last minute, so I got a call. I never mind being sloppy seconds, not when it’s free tickets to my second-favorite city in the world.”

  We pass a concession stand. I grab a carton of Lucky Strikes and put them on the cashier’s checkout. “It’s a long jump across the pond.”

  After a smooth flight with seventeen meals, a pack of delicious cigarettes, and more laughs than I’ve had in a long time, a representative from King’s College meets us at the airport, takes our bags, and directs us into a lovely Citroën with so much leg room we could stretch out and nap if we wanted.

  Though this is my first trip to the United Kingdom, I am a proud Anglophile. I admire the practical temperament of the people. I love the artful details of daily life: a hand-stitched tea cozy in the shape of a Victorian mansion, the Wellie boots, the sheep’s wool stockings, and the best tailors in the world. Thankfully, the Brits have a love affair with Italians, and if anyone asks me, the feeling is entirely mutual.

  We are dropped at Claridge’s in the heart of the city. The architecture is suavely Art Deco, with polished marble columns (Corinthian) and small square gardens spilling over with orange marigolds, neat sidewalks, and Palladian windows so sparkling they look like mirrors.

  “Maintenance,” Eydie says approvingly, pointing to the bright brass railing outside the hotel that leads to the revolving entrance door (not a single fingerprint on the glass!). “They know what they’re doing.”

  My room is small and toasty. The queen-sized canopy bed is made up with a polished chintz coverlet in shades of peach and dark purple. A cherrywood highboy is buffed to a sheen. There’s a rolltop desk with a small brass lamp and a fauteuil chair covered in a lavender velvet. I wouldn’t choose it for my own home, yet it’s exactly right. Even the pencil sketches of eighteenth-century Carnaby Street are the perfect accent to this traditional setting. It’s probably noisy in this part of London, but I don’t hear a thing. I sleep solidly for ten hours and wake up to the sound of the phone ringing.

  “Meet me for breakfast in the Surrey Room!” Eydie commands. After a quick shower and shave, I throw on my sport coat and meet her downstairs, where we find a table and order coffee.

  Eydie opens a file folder and hands me what looks like a report. “This is a little background information on my friend Asher. He’s expecting you around eleven, but he’s never been prompt, so don’t worry if you’re late. He can be a little prickly, but he’s truly one of the smartest people I know, and he can definitely give you some ideas for the church.”

  Eydie gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and heads off to King’s College for the day. I watch her disappear into the lobby, and for a moment it seems like she’s not of this world, rather like an angel who appears when
needed and then—poof!—is gone when she’s made her point. I can’t imagine why a hundred men aren’t in love with her.

  I pull her chair over with my feet, prop them on the seat, and I begin reading about Asher Anderson. He began his career as an artist forty years ago, which makes him roughly of my parents’ generation. He studied art in Milan, apprenticed at the Palazzo Gregorio in Venice under Gian Angelo Rutolo (a name I remember from Eydie’s list), then returned to London to run the Geffrye Museum. Now he’s the manager of Antiquarius, London’s esteemed antiques center on Kings Road.

  I help myself to the breakfast buffet, with cut-glass bowls of stewed berries, hot toast lined up in triangle wedges on a ceramic bread server, and silver Victorian coffee and tea urns with brass hardware and carved ivory handles. Butter and jam are displayed in small white pots on a polished cherrywood lazy Susan. I wish Toot were here to see all the serving pieces. There are things on this buffet she has only dreamed of.

  The cab lets me off in front of Antiquarius on Kings Road, a street so crowded with pedestrians that the cars can hardly get through. I make my way to the maroon-and-white awning and into the shop, which is more like a barn, with many vendors. Strolling through the first floor, I become depressed about having only three days in London—I could take a week on this floor alone. The vendors have decorated their booths like rooms to showcase their wares, featuring lighting, wallpaper, rugs. In one booth an antique dish offers jellies to shoppers in need of a sugar boost. Like an attic full of treasures, the place smells of wood polish, starch, cedar, and lavender.

  I notice a booth done completely in white—white walls, a white vinyl floor, and an enormous chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Its center post is faceted crystal, surrounded by a circular tube of sparkling glass. Dangling from the tube are layers of glittering crystal daggers on half-moon hoops. From the interior bobeches hang a series of small blown-glass angels. Hanging from one of the crystals is a card that says: MONICA VITTI’S CHANDELIER. INQUIRE WITHIN.

  “May I help you?” asks a petite white-haired woman wearing a brown apron.

  “I’m interested in this chandelier. How much?”