“Are you hungry?” Roman asks.
“Yeah.”
“My favorite kind of woman. A hungry one.” He smiles. He helps me take off my coat, which I place on a rolling stool next to the door and anchor with my purse.
“There’s an apron on the hook.”
“I have to work for my supper?”
“That’s the rule.”
Behind me, sure enough, there’s a clean white apron. I pull it over my head; it has the scent of bleach and has been pressed with starch. Roman reaches around me and crosses the strings in the back then reaches around to the front of my waist, tying the ends in a tight bow. Then he pats my hips. I could have done without the hip patting, but it’s too late. I’m here and he’s patting. “Go with it,” I tell myself. Roman places a large wooden spoon in my hand.
“Stir.” He points to a large pot on a low flame. Inside, a mound of soft, golden risotto glistens, a fragrant mist of sweet butter, cream, and saffron rising from the pot. “And don’t stop.”
The soles of my sandals stick to the matting on the floor, a series of open rubber rectangular sheets placed around the work areas.
Roman drops to one knee and unties the ribbons on my evening sandals, silver calfskin in a gladiator style with flat white ribbons that lace up past my ankle. As he slips the sandal off my foot, the warmth of his hand sends a chill up my spine.
“Nice shoes.” He stands.
“Thanks. I made them.”
“Here.” He pulls a pair of red plastic clogs like his own from under the island. “Wear these. I didn’t make them.” Then he removes my left sandal and slips on the other clog, just like the prince in Cinderella.
I take a step in them. “I’m a delicate size nine. What are these? Fifteens?”
“Twelve and a half. But you don’t have to do a lot of walking in them. You’ll be stirring for the duration.” He takes my shoes and dangles them on the hook where the aprons go. “I’ll be right back,” he says and goes out into the restaurant.
As I stir, I look down at my feet, which now remind me of the feet of the kid on the Dutch Boy paint billboard in Sunnyside, Queens. They also remind me of my father’s big shoes, which I used to wear when I was a little girl. I’d stomp around in them, pretending to be all grown up.
Now that I’m alone, I give the kitchen a real once-over. My eyes travel up over the sink to a framed picture of a naked woman in profile, with huge hooters, leaning against a pile of dirty dishes. She winks at me. The caption reads: A WOMAN’S WORK IS NEVER DONE.
“That’s Bruna,” Roman says from behind me.
“That’s quite a stack of dishes.”
“She’s the patron saint of kitchens.”
“And chefs?” I’ll keep my eyes on the risotto from now on.
He takes the spoon from me. “So, why did you decide to call me?”
“You asked me, and I have excellent manners, so I did.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” He puts a tiny amount of salt in his hand and sprinkles it into the pot. “I think you might like me a little.”
“I’ll be able to tell you for sure after I taste your cooking.”
“Fair enough.” Roman shakes his head and grins.
The busboy enters from the restaurant with a large pan of dirty dishes. He places them in the sink. They converse in Spanish as Roman reaches into his pocket and gives him several twenty-dollar bills. The busboy thanks him, peels off his apron, and goes.
“Roberto has another job, at another restaurant,” Roman explains. “Someday he’ll have his own. I started out washing dishes, too.”
“How many employees do you have?”
“Three full-time, me, the sous-chef and the bartender. Three part-time, the busboy and two waiters. The restaurant seats only forty-five, but we’re booked up every night. You must know what it’s like, running a small business in New York City. You’re never off the clock. Even when I don’t have a room full of customers, there’s prep, or I’m up early going to the markets, or I’m here, working on additions to the menu.” As Roman stirs the risotto, I notice how clean his hands are and how neatly his nails are filed. “And it’s an expensive business. Some days, I feel like I’m just getting by.”
I move to the sink and turn my back on Bruna. “You must be doing a little better than getting by. You were looking at an apartment in the Richard Meier building.”
“The broker was showing me a potential restaurant space on the street level. Then she offered to show me an apartment.” He smiles. “I was curious. That’s when I saw you.” Roman takes the spoon from me and stirs the risotto. “That’s some building your grandmother owns.”
“We know.”
The bartender, wearing a coat and hat, leans in the doorway. “I’m leaving.”
“Thanks, Celeste. Say hello to Valentine.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says and goes.
“She’s lovely.”
“She’s married.”
“That’s nice.” Interesting. Roman makes a point that his pretty bartender is married.
“You’re a fan of marriage?”
“Good ones.” I slip up onto the clean work counter next to the sink. “How about you?”
“Not a fan,” he says.
“At least you’re honest.”
“Have you been married?” he asks.
“No. Have you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have children?”
“No.” He smiles.
“I hope you don’t mind that I ask questions like a census taker.”
He laughs. “You have an unusual style.”
“I’m not going for style. If I were, I would have discounted you when I saw you in the Campari T-shirt and the striped shorts that looked like the pantaloons the security guards wear at the Vatican.”
“Oh, so you have something against bright colors.”
“Not really. I just like to see a man wearing something besides action wear.”
Roman grates a wedge of aged parmesan over the risotto. “And, if memory serves, your outfit that night was spectacular.”
I turn the color of Saint Bruna’s ruby red stilettos.
He laughs. “Now why should you be embarrassed?”
“If I saw you naked on a roof, I’d pretend I hadn’t. That’s just good manners.”
“Fair enough. But let’s say I met you on the street and you were wearing a lovely dress like the one you have on tonight. Don’t suppose I wouldn’t be imagining what you’d look like without it. So I’d say we’ve just skipped a step.”
“I don’t skip steps. In fact…,” I blurt out, “I don’t go out with Italians.”
He puts the spoon down and takes the bottom of his apron, and using it as hot pads, lifts the pot off the stove.
“May I ask why not?”
“The cheating.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “You’re kidding. You dismiss an entire group of men for something they haven’t done but you think they might do? That’s completely prejudiced.”
“I’m a believer in DNA. But let me explain this on a culinary level. About ten years ago, there were all these articles about soy. Eat soy, drink soy, and stop eating dairy foods because they’ll kill you. So I stopped eating regular cheese and milk and ate the soy stuff. Well, it made me sick but I persisted because everything I read said soy was good for me, even though my body was telling me it wasn’t. When I told Gram about it and she said, ‘At no point in our history did Italians ever consume soy. Cheese and tomatoes and cream and butter and pasta have been in our diet for centuries. We thrive on it. Get rid of the soy.’ And I did. When I started eating the food of my forefathers again, I felt like a million bucks.”
“What does that have to do with dating Italian men?”
“The same principle applies. Italian men have built thousands of years of romantic history on the notion of the Madonna and the whore. They marry the Madonna and they have fun with the whore. You’d have to g
o back to the Etruscans, with Dr. Phil in tow, to change the way Italian men think. And I say it is impossible to change the fundamental nature of our people, in particular the nature of our men. The risotto is done.”
“I’ve set a table for us.” He motions to the door. “Please.”
I follow him into the dining room, where the balloon shades in the front window have been lowered halfway. There must be fifty white candles of all different sizes and shapes placed around the restaurant, throwing sheer nets of pink light up the walls. Rows of flickering votive candles in etched crystal holders are placed in small stone alcoves under the mural, their tiny orange flames forming a choir.
I check my watch. It’s two o’clock in the morning. I rarely eat past seven. I haven’t been out this late since I moved to the Village. I can’t believe it. I’m actually having fun. I catch my reflection in the mirror, and this time, miraculously, no number elevens appear between my eyes. Either I’ve been transformed by the youth-enhancing steam facial from the risotto pot, or I like how this evening is going.
“Go ahead. Please. Sit down,” he says.
“This is beautiful.”
“It’s just a backdrop.” Roman places on the table a platter of delicate fried pumpkin blossoms that have been dipped in a light batter.
“For what?”
“For our first date. Lose the apron.”
I pull the apron over my head and drape it over the back of a chair at the next table. I unfold the napkin on my lap, and reach for a pumpkin blossom. I take a bite. The delicate leaf, dipped in this crispy batter, is as light as organza.
Roman goes back into the kitchen and comes out with a hot loaf of bread, wrapped in a bright white cloth, then returns to the kitchen.
While he’s gone, I notice the table setting, each detail proper and deliberate. I’ve never seen this china pattern, so I flip the bread plate over and check the seal. The plates are Umbrian, a bold design called Falco, which shows hand-painted white feathers on a vivid green field. The pattern provides a splash of color on the black lacquer tabletop.
Roman returns with a small tureen that he places on the table. He loosens the cork on a bottle of Tuscan Chianti and pours wine into my glass, then his own. He sits down at the table. He picks up his wineglass. “Good wine, good food, and a good woman…”
“Oh, yes. To Bruna!” I raise my glass.
As Roman ladles the risotto onto my plate, a buttery cloud floats up from the dish. Risotto is a tough dish to pull off. It’s labor intensive, you must stir the rice grains until they puff up or your arm falls off, whichever comes first. It’s all about timing, because if you stir too long, the rice will turn into a goop of wallpaper paste, and not long enough—you’ve got broth.
I take a taste. “You’re a genius,” I tell him. He almost blushes. “Where’d you learn how to cook?”
“My mother. We had a family restaurant in Chicago. Falconi’s, in Oak Lawn.”
“So why did you come to New York City?”
“I’m the youngest of six boys. We all worked in the family business, but my brothers never saw beyond the fact that I was the baby of the family. Even in my thirties, I couldn’t break that birth-order rap. You know what that’s like, don’t you?”
“Alfred is the boss, Tess is intelligent, Jaclyn is the beauty, and I’m the funny one.”
“So you get it. I’d been working for the family since I was a teenager. My mother taught me how to cook, and then I went to school and learned some more. Eventually, I wanted to take what I’d learned and make some changes in the restaurant. It soon became apparent that they liked the restaurant just the way it was. After a lot of wrangling, and nearly drowning in my mother’s tears, I left. I needed to make it on my own. And where better to make your name as an Italian chef than here in Little Italy.”
Roman refills our glasses. There’s a lot of common ground between us. Our backgrounds are similar, not just the Italian part, but the way we are treated in our families. Even though we’ve both made some bold choices and gotten real-life experience, our families haven’t changed their perceptions of us.
“So how did you decide to join the family business?” he asks. “Not too many shoemakers out there these days.”
“Well, I was teaching school, ninth grade English, in Queens. But on weekends, I’d go into the city and help Gram in the shop. Eventually, she began to teach me things about making shoes that went beyond packing and shipping. After a while, I was hooked.”
“There’s nothing like working with your hands, is there?”
“It takes everything I’ve got—mentally, physically. Sometimes I’m so bone tired at the end of the day I can hardly make it up the stairs. But the work itself is just part of it. I love to draw, to sketch the shoes and come up with new ideas, and then figure out how to build them. Someday, I want to design shoes.” This wine has put me in a cozy place. I just confided my dreams to a man I hardly know in a way I rarely ever admit, even to myself.
“How long have you worked with your grandmother?” he asks.
“Almost five years.”
Roman lifts another pumpkin blossom from the plate. “Five years. So that makes you about…?”
I don’t even blink. “Twenty-eight.”
Roman tilts his face and looks at mine from a different angle. “I would have guessed younger.”
“Really.” I’ve never lied about my age, but being almost thirty-four years old seems like a good time to start.
“I got married when I was twenty-eight,” he says. “Divorced at thirty-seven. I’m forty-one now.” He rattles off the numbers without the slightest hesitation.
“What was her name?”
“Aristea. She was Greek. To this day, I’ve never seen a woman more beautiful.”
When a man tells you that the most beautiful woman in the world is his ex-wife, and he’s been looking at your face for over an hour, it sets like a bad anchovy. “Greek girls are Italian girls with better tans.” I sip the wine. “What went wrong?”
“I worked too much.”
“Oh come on. A Greek would understand hard work.”
“And—I guess I didn’t work hard enough on the marriage.”
I look at Roman’s handiwork—the mural, the candles, the feast on the table—and then I look in his eyes, which I’m beginning to trust. I can talk to this man. It’s almost effortless. I feel badly that I lied about my age. This could be the first date of many; now what do I do?
“I’m glad you called me—,” he begins.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I interrupt. “I’m thirty-three.” My face turns the color of the red pepper slices in the crudité dish. “I never lie, okay? I just did because, well, thirty-three seems almost thirty-four, and that seems like a number that’s getting up there. You should know the truth.”
“No worries. You don’t go out with Italians. Remember?” He smiles. Then he gets up from his chair and comes over to me. He takes my hands in his and pulls me up to stand. We look at each other in that way people do when they’re deciding whether or not to kiss. I feel guilty that I told Gabriel Roman’s nose was like the one with the Groucho Marx glasses. From this angle, his nose is lovely, straight and absolutely fine.
Roman takes my face in his hands. As our lips meet for the first time, his kiss is gentle and sensual, and very direct, like the man himself. I might as well be on the Piazza Medici on the isle of Venice, as his touch takes me far from where I stand and off to someplace wonderful, a place I haven’t been in a very long time. As Roman slides his arms around me, the silk of my dress makes a rustling sound, like the dip of an oar into the canal in the mural behind him.
The last man I kissed was Cal Rosenberg, the son of our button supplier from Manhasset. Let’s just say it didn’t leave me wanting more. But this kiss from Roman Falconi, right here in this sweet restaurant on Mott Street in Little Italy, with my feet in gunboat clogs, makes me feel the possibility of a real romance again. As he kisses me again
, I slide my hands down his arms to his biceps. Chefs, evidently, do a lot of heavy lifting, whereas button suppliers and hedge fund managers don’t.
I bury my face in Roman’s neck, the scent of his clean skin, warmed by amber and cedar, is new, and yet familiar. “You smell amazing.” I look up at him.
“Your grandmother gave it to me.”
“Gave you what?”
“The cologne.”
I can’t believe my grandmother gave Roman the free men’s-cologne sample in the goody bag from Jaclyn’s wedding. I don’t know whether to be embarrassed that she gave it to him, or embarrassed for him that he decided to use it.
“She said either I had to take it, or she’d unload it on Vinnie the mailman. You don’t like it?”
“I love it.”
“That’s a strong word, love.”
“Well, that’s a strong cologne.”
The sound of laughter from the street breaks the quiet of the restaurant. Through the windows, I can see the feet of a group of Saturday-night party hounds on their way to the next stop. Their shoes, a mix of polished wingtips, suede ankle boots, and two pairs of high-heeled pumps, one ruby red leather and the other black mock croc, stop in front of Ca’ d’Oro. “Closed,” I hear a woman say in front of the entry door.
Not for me. Roman Falconi kisses me again. “Let’s eat,” he says.
For all the extensive construction going on here on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River, there is plenty happening across the water as well. Construction cranes, dangling with cords hoisting parcels of wood, pipes, and cement blocks play in the far distance like marionettes on a stage. The rhythmic chuff of the pile driver softens as it crosses the water, reminding me of the sound of a coffee percolator.
I lean over the railing on the pier outside our shop and wait for Bret to meet me on his lunch break. A painting class is in full swing under the permanent white tents on the pier. Twelve painters with their backs to me and their easels facing east are painting the landscape of the West Village riverfront on white canvases.
Very Valentine Page 10