So my lead-off remark was, “It doesn’t seem to be a level playing field—three Irish speculators and one Sicilian widow.”
“Tuscan, as I remember.”
“You read the article? I hope you didn’t take any of it seriously. Actually we are Sienese, to be honest, from a little farm on a hill outside of Siena. Probably Goths or Lombardi or some other primitive Bronze Age tribe.”
“Some of the genetic research suggests that the Etruscans were a Celtic tribe.”
“Then you have one female Celt against three male Celts. Be forewarned that you’re outnumbered.”
“My late mother, a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, would have agreed completely.”
“Smart woman. Presumably you inherited her intelligence.”
Our colleagues around the room laughed nervously at the banter. I was an idiot.
John Patrick Donlan was what my daughters called totally cute. Slender, maybe five foot eleven, pale baby blue eyes, curly blond hair with a faint touch of white, a quick, heart-melting smile, a three-piece dark grey Armani suit, gleaming white shirt, and a blue tie with a thin pattern that sort of matched his eyes. I warned myself that I should keep my mouth shut and that I should not let myself drift into a crush on this man. Those baby blue eyes had a veneer of cold steel.
He was a strong man with a tough, disciplined body and an aura of integrity that suggested moral strength. I would not fool him. Indeed every time his eyes focused on me, I felt vulnerable, even naked.
A handsome African-American woman drifted into the room with tea and coffee and Belleek cups and saucers.
“This my assistant, Elfrida Jones, Ms. Connors. Elfrida, this is Ms. Maria Connors.”
“Hi, Elfrida.”
“Hi, Maria.”
I had an ally in the room.
“You take tea, I believe, Maria.”
“Black as midnight on a moonless night.”
“Elfrida is the one who put the relevant issue of Chicago Markets in my file.”
“We used models for the swimsuit pictures,” I blurted, feeling my face flame.
“I very much doubt that, Ms. Connors,” he said with a matching blush.
Stop, you fool. Shut your big mouth. And banish all those errant thoughts.
“Now tell me a little about Oakdale. I’m afraid I don’t know much of Illinois west of the DesPlaines River.”
“So we took down the rusty old statue of General Atkinson who led the American forces and put up a monument to Black Hawk. Almost no one knew who General Atkinson was.”
“That would doubtless please the faculty from NIU—Northern Illinois—who live in town.”
“The symbolism would be lost on them. They think a Black Hawk is a hockey player.”
“You always have the last word, don’t you, Ms. Connors?”
Those steel blue eyes probed me, body and soul.
“Only when I’m awake.”
He smiled faintly, as though impressed.
“Now could you tell me three good reasons why I should not become involved with your enterprise?”
Ah, now was the real test.
“The first reason is that Elegant Homes depends on a sufficient level of prosperity in our society and a management class that wants homes that honor what the art critics and the environmentalists say, but do not have the time, and perhaps the talent, to build such homes. If our economy should collapse, then we would certainly go down with it.”
“As would all of us.”
“A second reason is that there might be something inappropriate about earning a living off such homes while there are still homeless people on our streets, minorities living in slums, and young couples who cannot afford homes of their own. We must vote for reforms that diminish or eliminate such injustice. When we do that in fact, we strengthen the economy instead of weakening it.”
“Spoken like a good Democrat.”
I permitted myself a first taste of the tea. Spiced.
“The third reason is that you might want to consider serious doubts about whether you want a babbling woman like me deciding the fate of your investment.”
“I would never dare to think that, Ms. Connors. You must excuse me for declining to serve on your board for the present. I have a marriage coming up in my family and that will consume a lot of time. Later perhaps . . . However, I would urge you to assemble a good group of outside board members.”
“May I ask you in another year?”
He considered carefully.
“Of course,” he said with a slight nod of his head.
He signed the document in front of him on the desk and passed it across to me.
I raised an eyebrow to my lawyer, who smiled.
“I’ve vetted it. If you want to read it . . .”
“Too excited.”
I pushed the document across the desk. Both lawyers applauded. We shook hands all around, thanked one another, and departed. There was no offer of lunch, thanks be to God. As we were walking out of his tastefully antique office—I must get some slides of it for our repertory—he followed me.
“I have a check here, Maria, for the agreed price. Do you want to accept it and sign a receipt?”
“You better give it to my lawyer. I’d spend it all in one place.”
I left the building, my heart beating, my head throbbing. I called Pete on my cell phone.
Vicki answered.
“Tell your husband I passed.”
“Hooray! . . . Was he cute?”
“In a button-down way. No big deal.”
But it was a big deal.
John Patrick
MARIA SABATTINI had invaded my imagination and refused to depart. I would get over her, I told myself, it will just take time.
Why get over her? Because if I did not I would fall in love with her and have to marry her. I was determined that would not happen.
She was not only beautiful but she was intelligent and funny and admirable. She was still wearing her wedding ring, which meant she was not available, did it not?
It had been my intention to take them all to lunch at the Chicago Club. The lawyers both expected the invitation. Had either of them told her? I had also told them that I would be ready to serve on the board of Elegant Homes where I could keep an eye on the efficiency of the staff. Yet I had changed my mind. They would want to know why.
Would she want to know why?
Because I was scared of her? That would be the behavior of a coward. Could I say that I was afraid of her? She had not tried to “hit” on me, a word the origin of which my daughter had to explain to me. Rather she had dismissed the meeting and my role as the Grand Inquisitor as silly and acted as if money and success were not at stake. She had decided to be her normal self, intelligent, fearless, and funny.
Was she not a woman to be pursued? Did I want to pursue her?
She was not the fetish woman I had made of her after reading the article. Rather she was the kind of woman you had to respect as well as desire. I was not at the age of life to take on such a task. I was not ready for the challenges of matrimony. And marriage to Maria Sabattini Connors would be all challenge, despite the obvious advantages it would involve.
My first wife would have said that God had seen fit to proffer me a great opportunity in addition to the gains that would arise from having part ownership of Elegant Homes. God would be upset with me if I waived such an opportunity.
Was God telling me, “Bed the woman while there’s still time. Don’t let her get away”?
I will not marry again, I insisted. Been there, done that.
I reached for my phone to call someone, I knew not whom.
I picked up the phone and there was Joe McMahon.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“I think you were right, we made a very good deal.”
“I know that. . . . What did you think of her?”
“Apparently a very intelligent woman.”
“Is that all?”
“And just a little crazy?”
“I wouldn’t say that. She was obviously nervous and covered it up with wit.”
“We should keep an eye on her.”
“Not I.”
Joe, I told myself, was not a matchmaker.
Or was he.
I did not want to share my life with a woman, any woman. Certainly not one larger than life.
That’s where I left it. On the day of the public offering the shares opened twenty percent above the floor. They fell fifteen percent the second day and ten percent more the third day. The Journal had a heavy-handed article about frivolous corporations. By the end of the second week, the share price was thirty percent above the initial offering and stayed there. The Times weighed in with a feature article about Maria Angelica, as she now claimed was her name. “Rural Woman Reads the Signs of the Time” was the headline. “Claims to Be a Lombard or a Goth. Build Your Dream House Online.”
That kind of publicity you can’t buy. I was not worried about my investment. Neither article mentioned my involvement. Publicity I don’t need. Then, however, I began to suspect that God was conniving against me. It was a moderately hot Chicago day in August. It had been a listless summer for me. None of the other acquisitions we looked at seemed interesting. My funds were doing well, Samwise was prospering in great part because of ELG. When I was a kid I loved summer. I would run down to the beach at Montrose, swim, read, and then swim again. I’d buy an ice cream bar on the way home, joke with my parents at supper, and then read some more. I bought a little beach house in the Dunes where we would go on some of the weekends and for a week in August. After we married and before my wife’s serious problems appeared, we’d spend two weeks over there with our daughters, much to the resentment of her family. They wondered why they were never invited to visit while we were at the beach. The answer was that there was just enough room for two adults and a child or two. There was no room for a bunch of overweight people who would be drunk by one in the afternoon. My wife begged me to keep them away.
Later I took up sailing because my doctor urged me to find recreation that was more relaxing than my tennis obsession. I bought a thirty-two-foot sailboat, berthed it at Montrose Harbor, and took sailing lessons. My teenage daughters thought it was cool and wanted to take lessons too. We had a lot of fun, especially during the summers Faith was away at the Betty Ford Center. The Mary Fran, named after my mother and my youngest daughter, was a kind of a hangout for the kids and their friends. My mom absolutely refused to board it even at the dock.
“That’s no boat for you to be driving around,” she warned me. “It looks as unreliable as the old woman after whom it’s named.”
Nonetheless she and my father would walk down to the edge of the park to watch us sail by.
“She’s a pretty boat, Grams, once you get to know her.”
“Well, your pa is a rich speculator so he’s entitled to a pretty boat.”
Her problem was that the boat would give a “bad example” to others.
Since Faith died, I used neither the boat nor the cottage, though I had paid to maintain both and had remodeled the cottage so that my daughters and eventually their families could use it. I felt not the slightest desire either to sail or drive to the other side of the Lake.
I was acting like a worn-out old man.
Grief, I told myself, maybe I’ll just have to live with it. I remembered fondly the summer days when my father and I would walk over to the Italian Village on Monroe, eat pasta Bolognese, and drink a bottle of Barolo—in memory of his days in Italy after hostilities had ended.
“They’re a strange, wonderful people,” he remarked. “Just the opposite of the Irish. We are generally pretty happy but pretend we are morose. They are very sad but do a wonderful imitation of happiness.”
Why not?
I turned right at Clark and walked two blocks to Monroe.
Did Maria, or Maria Angelica as I must call her, fit that model?
Suddenly, as I thought of her, she appeared in front of me, in green sundress, and carrying a matching bag, strolling down Monroe Street like she was on the Champs Elysées—which I’m sure she had never seen—and totally unaware of the admiring glances that trailed after the sundress that outlined the shapes of her body.
“Maria Angelica,” I murmured, as we almost collided, “green goddess of summer.”
“Jac—uh, Mr. Donlan . . . What are you doing here?”
“Walking down Monroe Street to the Italian Village, a right I have by virtue of my voter registration in this city, which is more than I might say for you.”
I had taken her completely by surprise.
“What Italian Village?”
I pointed at the sign down the street.
“My late father, God be good to him, and I had the custom occasionally on a hot summer day to eat a bowl of pasta there and drink a bottle of Barolo.”
“I never knew it was there. . . . I must have walked by it a hundred times.”
“Every Chicagoan knows about the Italian Village. You must learn these essentials or you’ll earn the reputation of being a hick.”
“Exurbanite . . .”
“Congratulations on the wonderful publicity in the name of all those who have invested in Samwise. . . .” I took her arm. “Surely you will join me in disposing of a bottle of Barolo in celebration of the good fortune of Samwise?”
“Jac—Mr. Donlan . . . This isn’t a good idea!”
She was breathless, but she did not resist my directing her across the street.
“It’s Jack, or if you wish, Jackie, and yes it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
“On some occasions there is an obligation to test something that seems not to be a good idea, but which in fact may well be.”
We were at the door of the Italian Village. I released her arm to give her a chance to decline my invitation.
She took a deep breath, sighed, and murmured, “I just love Barolo,” and recaptured my arm.
This is your idea, I said to God. I hope you know what I’m doing. I warn you that I will pursue this woman and learn all I can about her. I doubt that anything I learn will dissuade me. Okay?
There were no signals from heaven that the deity demurred from this game plan.
I will, however, pursue her slowly and gently and with all due respect.
“I was surprised that the Times didn’t have a picture of you.”
“They wanted one the worst way. I refused. I am not a sex object.”
“You certainly are not, Maria Angelica. You are a very beautiful woman and for that you should be thankful to God and not intimidated by either envious women or lecherous men.”
I am certainly invoking God often. I should also plead with Him to help me. This is an art that I never learned.
“You are leering at me now, Jackie.”
“I am not, Maria Angelica. I wouldn’t dream of leering at you.”
“You’re fantasizing about taking off my sundress.”
“Guilty as charged, but only respectfully and reverently.”
“Sometimes the fantasy is much better than the reality.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
She relaxed and grinned.
“You’re winning all the exchanges today, Jackie. I warn you, it won’t last.”
“I’m duly warned and I’m sure it won’t last.”
“Do you miss your father?” she asked cautiously as we arranged ourselves at the table and I ordered the Barolo.
“He was not just a father, but a teacher, a mentor, and good friend and never tried to run my life.”
“You’ve been very fortunate. My parents and my two brothers won’t speak to me, haven’t for years. My sister, Gina, and I are friends, but we don’t see each other often. My brothers have a construction firm. They are sloppy in their proposals and sloppier in their work. Everyone thinks that because they are family, I owe them business.”<
br />
“Ethnic standards.”
“I couldn’t do it. . . . I wouldn’t do it. My father-in-law and his father had created a reputation for integrity that I could not violate.”
We ate our pasta and consumed our Barolo and toasted each other every couple of minutes. She told me her life story, candidly and without any show of emotion or occasional flashes of wit. I realized then how vulnerable she was and promised the deity that I would always protect her—but only when she wanted to be protected. Her romance with Peter Connors was the stuff out of which Verdi operas were made—beautiful and bittersweet.
“Now you know all there is to know about me, Jackie. Not much of a story really. I tell myself that I was a good wife and a good mother, not perfect, but I tried hard. I probably saved the family business.”
“And remade Oakdale and created Elegant Homes.”
“I guess so.” She was close to tears.
“There is always a sense at a certain time in life that the youthful dreams, especially the romantic ones didn’t come true, but for all the heartbreak something was accomplished. That is consoling, but it does not justify acceptance.”
Who was I of all people to say that?
“That’s an improper comment, Jackie. It presumes an intimacy between us that does not exist.”
Strike one.
“I don’t presume any intimacy, Maria. I was not reflecting on your experience but on mine.”
“I’m sorry. . . .” Her shoulders slumped. “Too much Barolo. I feel too vulnerable . . . a little scared too.”
“I’m not hitting on you, Maria. And, when I’m thinking seriously about that, I’ll give you warning so you can exercise due diligence.”
“If I want to . . . I’ve told my story, now do you want to tell me yours?”
“Fair is fair.”
So I told her my story. She had the right to know it anyway. Moreover, shared memoirs strengthened bonds. As I told her about Faith’s family, her lovely face tightened with rage.
“Those bitches! Evil people! They killed that poor girl because she found a husband and her sisters didn’t. . . .”
“I don’t make that charge.”
“That’s up to you! I make it. Small, passive-aggressive, mean-spirited people like that make me want to puke!”
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