Very Valentine

by Adriana Trigiani

  I open my mouth to disagree, but no words come out. Maybe he’s right. I imagine my future in an old-folks’ home for single women. The TV room in the Roncalli Home for Singles would have the heads of Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, and Susie Essman mounted over the fireplace. Big-game catches for girls who deliver big laughs. The way this evening is going, I may have to reserve my room sooner than I thought.

  “Madeline was a saint. She took the burden off the rest of us. Of course, we were raising children and had our own lives,” Mrs. Delboccio says, smoothing the napkin in her lap.

  “Being single is a life,” Mrs. La Vaglio pipes up.

  The table falls to dead silence as the Friends saw their meat. I look down at my watch. Anyone who believes time flies should come and sit at the Friends’ table where the main course has lasted longer than the Peloponnesian War. I’d do just about anything to be stuck at the Rude table right now.

  Mr. Delboccio leans over, practically peering down my gown. “God meant for man and woman to pair off.” I lean back and pull my dinner napkin up over my bodice and around my neck like a dickey.

  “How many shoes do you make a year?” Mr. Silverstein wants to know, God bless him.

  “Last year we made close to three thousand pairs.”

  “How big is the staff?”

  “Three full-time and four part-time.”

  “Wow, that’s a pretty healthy operation.” Mr. Silverstein smiles approvingly.

  The band plays the opening riff of “Good Vibrations”; the Friends drop their knives and forks. “Hi-yo, it’s the Beach Boys medley!” Mr. Silverstein announces. They get up; the women adjust the waists, hips, and rears of their dresses, then head to the dance floor with the husbands in tow.

  I stretch out at the empty table and put my feet up. Tess slips into the seat next to me as Dad deposits Aunt Feen at the Dementia table. Dad surveys the room and then walks toward us at a clip. He’s only five feet six but well proportioned, so he seems taller. He has a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, the prominent Roncalli nose, and the tense lips of his people.

  “Jesus crimanee, I’m broiling.” Dad adjusts his bow tie as though it’s a dial on an air conditioner. “I just took Aunt Feen out for a cigarette and I thought she was gonna have a stroke.” Dad sits down next to Tess. “You know she still smokes a pack a day? Her lungs must look like a spaghetti strainer. How you girls holding up?”

  “Great,” we lie.

  “Your mother wants me to sing ‘Butterfly Kisses’ to your sister, but I don’t know the song at all.”

  “Cut off her liquor. Or else she’ll sing ‘You Gotta Get a Gimmick’ from Gypsy like she did at your twenty-fifth,” Tess says.

  “She had sciatica for months afterward,” my father says and nods, remembering.

  “Don’t try and sing, Dad. Tell them to play the CD and you can dance with Jaclyn instead,” I suggest.

  “That’s what I said, but you know your mother, she thinks weddings are an opportunity to hold auditions for American Idol. I work for the parks department, not Simon Cowell. Any Roncalli, Angelini, or Coo-cootz off the street is expected to get up there and sing. Any minute my brother’s gonna get up and perform the first act of Man of La Mancha. Trust me. He’s one gin and tonic away from ‘The Impossible Dream.’”

  Our sister Jaclyn is breathtaking in a simple strapless bridal gown with a fluffy tulle skirt. Her tiny waist twists as she threads through the tables looking like an electric-mixer beater dripping with white frosting.

  Mom suggested that Jaclyn’s white peau de soie bodice be piped with an iridescent mint-colored ribbon to bring out her green eyes. It was a brilliant move. Gram made Jaclyn a beautiful pair of leather pumps in petal green. I buffed the leather until the green was almost completely rubbed away, leaving only a hint of antiqued patina. From head to toe, my baby sister glitters like a citrine.

  Jaclyn plops down in Mrs. La Vaglio’s chair. She is a true beauty, her delicate features in perfect proportion, framed by her shiny black curls. “Was your meat tough?”

  “No, no, no,” Dad, Tess, and I chime.

  “I needed a chainsaw on my filet.” Jaclyn fans herself with the engraved menu card. “Valentine, you’re gonna have to kill with the bridal toast.”

  “No pressure here,” Tess says wryly as she surveys the guests.

  “Do me a favor. Make sure everybody at Gram’s table has their Miracle-Ears turned on.” I feel sweat bead on my forehead.

  “Don’t let this bother you, but my mother-in-law hates everything.” Jaclyn takes a sip of my ice water, then puts the glass against her cheek. “Always with the comments. Like the Irish know how to tell a funny toast. Please.”

  Tess and I look at each other. The Irish invented the toast, not to mention the well-told story, and they happen to be very good at them.

  “Watch yourself, Jac. Mrs. McAdoo is family now,” Dad says. “Be kind. The most important thing in life is getting along with other people. Without other people, you’re alone. And when you’re alone, you’re alone.” My father whisks his index finger on the inside of his shirt collar like he’s getting the last bit of face cream out of a jar.

  “Everything will work out. It usually does,” says me, the voice of optimism. Meanwhile, I’m biting my lip so hard, it’s giving me a headache.

  “Valerie! You’re on!” The bandleader points to me.

  “Valentine!” Tess and Jaclyn shout to correct him.

  “Whatever!” He waves the microphone at me like a drumstick.

  I look across the dance floor. The best man is by the drum set chugging a fuzzy navel with a group of frat boys.

  “Knock ’em dead!” Dad says cheerfully. Jaclyn and Tess give me a thumbs-up with smiles peeled so wide open, they look like they’re having their teeth bleached. I look over at Alfred, who is giving a dissertation on gluten allergies to the Cousins’ table.

  “Good evening, family and friends.” I slip the microphone into its stand and adjust the height. I’m five feet eleven in these three-inch heels. I’m not sure, but I may be taller than the groom. I know for certain I’m taller than anyone at the Friends’ table due to spinal disk collapse and hipbone deterioration, which they discussed freely during the soup course.

  The chatter in the room dulls to a few lone voices, then suddenly falls to silence. The only sound I hear is the whistle between Aunt Feen’s dentures and her gums as she breathes. “I’m Valentine Roncalli, a sister of the bride.”

  “We know who you are!” Lorraine Pinuccia shouts from the remote Island table, so far away her wave resembles a distress signal.

  Tess rises up out of her chair slightly and shoots Pinooch a dirty look. I look over at my mother, who has a smile of support plastered to her face identical to the one she had when I blew my line as the “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” angel in the kindergarten Christmas pageant in 1980. “You can’t help me now, Ma,” I want to shout to her, but she looks embalmed.

  “Well, thank you, Cousin Pinooch. You know we’re now the Roncalli-McAdoo family and maybe the McAdoos haven’t met us all yet,” I explain. It could be the sweat in my eyes, but I think Boyd McAdoo, the thrice-divorced electrician brother of my new brother-in-law is leering at me, another reason to cut this short. “God was in his heaven,” I begin, “and decided that it was time to create a country…he wanted to create a great country, with gorgeous vineyards, and lush fields, and glorious sunsets—”

  “The first country!” My father bellows as he makes a number one in the air with his pointer finger.

  “Dad. Please. You might want to save your upper register for ‘Butterfly Kisses.’” I dive back into the story. “God knew He wanted to call it Italy.” My dad’s brother, the eternally inappropriate Uncle Sal, yanks a rose from the centerpiece at the Parents’ table and stands, waving it like a flag. “Viva Italia sempre!” he cries.

  Mr. McAdoo stands and yanks another rose from the centerpiece. “To the Emerald Isle!” he counters.

  “E pluri
bus pizzazz!” my mother heckles.

  “To the world!” I raise my arm high in the air to include all global humanity.

  Tess applauds. Alone. “Anyhow…,” I continue, “God had to fill Italy with people, and He wondered, ‘Shall I create woman first? Or shall I create man first?’ The debate went on for several months until He decided. ‘I shall create women first so they can have dinner ready for the men.’”

  Gram, Tess, Jaclyn, Mom, and Dad wait a beat then look around, and finally, in solidarity, they force their laughs. The remaining guests sit in a blue pool of silence lit by low votive candles, which makes them look like out-of-work circus performers in a Fellini movie.

  “All right then.” I regroup. “Do you know why God created brothers in Italian families? Because he knew their single sisters needed somebody to dance with at weddings.” The self-deprecating humor goes over worse than the pointed joke. I am dying up here. It’s so quiet in this room, I can hear the ice melt in Len Scatizzi’s rum and Coke.

  Mr. Delboccio, the fanny feeler, shouts, “I asked you to dance, Valentine.”

  “She said her feet hurt,” his wife pipes up. “Of course, why would a shoemaker’s feet hurt? Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Regardless, I’m not gonna force,” Mr. Delboccio retorts.

  “You should never force,” Mrs. Delboccio snipes back.

  “Okay, you two. Let me hang up this routine so you can get back out on the floor and show us youngsters how it’s done. I believe the Neil Diamond medley is next.” And then I do the very thing I hate, I make two fists and egg-beat them. Just like Mom.

  “Youngster? Where? At thirty-three years old, you’re no spring chicken,” Aunt Feen shouts from the Dementia table. Then she makes a hissing sound with her upper plate for punctuation. She looks around the room, her eyes rolling around in their sockets like frantic golf balls. And then she bellows, “Thirty-three! Madonna! That’s how old Jesus was when he died on the cross.”

  “People only lived to be forty back then,” Tess hollers back.

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Aunt Feen’s thick white eyebrows twist into one lone tube sock across her forehead. “That’s even worse. That means at thirty-three she’s really got one foot in the grave and the other on a rag rug.”

  “All right. Stop it. Or we’re cutting off your sidecars. Here’s the best I got. A couple of weeks ago my dad went to the doctor. He took Mom along to do the talking…”

  A few giggles rise from the tables.

  “…and the doctor says, ‘Dutch, you’ve got bursitis. Now, I can do one of two things. I can give you a shot of cortisol. But you don’t need it. Your body produces it naturally.’ ‘It does?’ My dad was amazed. The doctor said, ‘All you have to do is have sex.’ My father and the doctor look at my mother and she says, ‘Doc, I’m not the one with bursitis.’”

  The room bursts into applause. “Please raise your glasses.” I realize that I don’t have a drink. The best man slaps his sweaty half-empty fuzzy navel into my hand.

  I raise the tumbler high. “Tom, welcome to our family. Jaclyn, you are beautiful and we love you and we’re here for you. Salute! Cent’anni!” I take a sip, defying my better judgment and standing orders from the board of health. “And, folks, don’t forget the goody bags. There’s Aramis cologne for the men and Li-Lac chocolates for the girls!”

  “Chocolate? In this heat?” Monica Spadoni barks from the Rude table. “They should give us miniature stadium fans. Of course, we’re back here by the kitchen where they’re broiling meat!”

  I ignore her, slip the microphone out of its stand, and give it to the best man, who looks through me, as boys do when a spinster is chaperoning a sock hop. After a few more toasts and the cake cutting, I go to the Dementia table where Gram is dipping a biscotti into her espresso. I lean over the back of her chair and whisper in her ear.

  “Are you having fun?”

  “Ready when you are. Let me just say good night to the kids.” Gram puts her beaded clutch on the table and pushes her chair back.

  I go to the cake trolley and stand next to my mother. I put my hand on her shoulders. “Ma.”

  My mother the mind reader frowns. “You’re leaving?”

  “Gotta get Gram home.”

  “So soon?”

  “Ma. All we’ll miss is the great aunts forming a line like Vestal virgins in a Charlton Heston movie to fight over the centerpieces.” Tomorrow every grave of my forefathers from Bayshore to Sunnyside will be decorated with wedding flowers. Italians never waste a floral arrangement. It’s a sin.

  “Thank you.” Mom takes me in her arms. “I love you, Valentine. Thank you for taking such good care of my mother.”

  “Do me a favor,” I ask her.

  “Anything,” she says.

  “Don’t make Dad sing ‘Butterfly Kisses.’”

  Mom throws her shoulders back. “You people are no fun.”

  Gram comes up and gives Mom a quick kiss. Mom tucks a piece of wedding cake wrapped in a napkin into my purse. Alfred, Jaclyn, and Tess gather round, taking turns saying good-bye to Gram. Finally, after we’ve kissed the last cousin twice removed we are free to go.

  Gram and I make our way out of the Starlight Venetian Room to the lobby, through the grand foyer with its vaulted ceiling, past walls covered in cranberry-and-gold-flocked wallpaper, past the inlaid marble fireplace, and finally, under the twinkling chandeliers to the entrance foyer.

  Gram takes a goody bag off the table for me and then takes one for herself. We hear the sexy, opening swing chords of “Oh, Marie” as the band plays us out into the balmy night. We climb into our car and settle back in the seat. The driver turns and looks at us. “Early night, girls?”

  Gram says, “Manhattan please.”

  We look at each other and smile. At last, we’re going home.

  2

  166 Perry Street

  THE LIMOUSINE SWERVES AROUND POTHOLES as we approach the entrance of the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Gram and I share the Li-Lac chocolate sampler as the skyscrapers of Manhattan loom ahead like giant piano keys, black and white against a silver sky.

  Once we’re out of the tunnel on the city side, we turn down Second Avenue. The East Village looks like the old Greenwich Village I remember as a child. Tonight, it’s a late-summer carnival of dense crowds lit by pale pink lights and blue neon. As we make our way west into the heart of Greenwich Village, we leave the high-rises and nightlife behind us, and enter the hushed sanctuary of winding streets lined with charming brownstones, their window boxes stuffed with geraniums lit by antique lamplights.

  From my bedroom window in Queens, as Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” played on repeat, I’d imagine the glamour and sophistication of Manhattan just a few stops away on the E train. I couldn’t wait for Sunday dinners in the Village with my grandparents. When Dad would make the turn onto Perry Street, and drive over the cobblestones, we’d bounce around in the backseat like tennis balls. The cobblestone streets signaled that we were almost there, the place where magic lived: the Angelini Shoe Company.

  “Where is it?” our driver asks.

  “The corner building. See that blue-and-white-striped canopy? That’s us,” I tell him.

  The driver pulls up to the sidewalk and stops the car. “You live all the way over here?”

  “Since the day I was married,” Gram tells him.

  “Hot neighborhood,” he says.

  “Now.” Gram smiles.

  I help Gram out of the car. She fishes for her keys by the light of the streetlamp. I look up at the original sign, over the door. It used to say:

  Angelini Shoes

  GREENWICH VILLAGE

  Since 1903

  but years of rain have washed away the last three letters. Now it says:

  Angel Shoes

  GREENWICH VILLAGE

  Since 1903

  The l in Angel is shaped like an old-fashioned ankle boot, in off-white with teal buttons. When I was a little girl,
I longed for a pair of boots just like the one on the sign. Gram would laugh and say, “Those spats haven’t been in style since Millard Fillmore.”

  The spicy scent of new leather, lemon wax, and the oil from the cutting machine greets us in the entry. I bypass the frosted-glass paneled door, etched with a cursive A, which leads to the workshop, hike up my gown, and climb the narrow stairs. I reach the first floor, one large room that combines the kitchen and the living room.

  “Go ahead and turn on the lights,” Gram says from below. “With these knees, I’ll be up by Tuesday.”

  “Take your time,” I tell her.

  I flip the switches for the track lighting over the kitchen counter. The open galley kitchen extends the length of the back wall. A long black-and-white-granite bar separates the kitchen from the dining area. Four bar stools covered in red leather with bronze tacks are tucked under the counter. I remember Gram hoisting me onto the stool when I was a child. How strange that here I am, in my thirties, turning on lights and making sure everything is safe for her, as she always did for me.

  In the center of the room is a long farm table that seats twelve. The straight-backed chairs have floral crewelwork seats, embroidered by my mother. We share meals, meet with customers, and make our business plans at this table, the center of our family life.

  An opulent Murano glass chandelier hangs over the table, dripping with bunches of crystal grapes and draped with beads of midnight blue. There’s a vase filled with fresh flowers in the center of the table year-round. Gram is a regular at the Korean market on Charles Street. Fresh flowers are delivered every Tuesday, and Gram makes it her business to go and choose the best of the bunch. This week, orange tiger lilies are stuffed into an antique crock.