As a tip I left him $100 and clubhouse tickets to the next Dodgers game. I went back to the office and another bunch of messages. Like the day before, two-thirds of them were from Nancy, but the others were great news. A major car manufacturer I had created an advertising campaign for had finally agreed with my suggestion to use a bestselling song from a Detroit musician in their commercial for a new truck they were rolling out. The musician was on board from the start, but the manufacturer had been skeptical about the cost and the royalties they would have to pay out every time the commercial ran. (Thirty years later, different versions of the commercial were still running, and the song had become the anthem for every new truck rolled out.)
After I calmed down, I called Nancy and told her about the deal. Her response was curt and cold. “It figures, only you could poison a beautiful song for profit.” She hung up without telling me why she’d left eight messages. By the time I picked her up after work, she was back to her Donna Reed impersonation. She didn’t mention the song and once again offered to cook dinner. I politely declined, but stopped at a supermarket so she could pick up some microwave popcorn for our movie marathon. She put the bag in the back seat, got back into the car, then told me how happy she was feeling. I braced myself, waiting to hear how her happiness was linked to something I was expected to do.
“I was thinking,” she started, “would it be okay if I put my paycheck into your bank account? That way I won’t be tempted to spend it all.”
“No.”
“Just like that? Without giving it any thought at all?”
“That’s right, just like that. I don’t mix my finances. It’s less complicated that way.”
“What about after we get married?”
“You don’t have a ring on your finger yet, darling, much less a proposal.”
She looked hard at me and I could feel the old Nancy about to emerge. “I see,” she said bitterly. “I guess it’s helpful to know that I’m going to have to put all the work into this relationship if it has any chance at all.”
“Not all the work, Nancy. I appreciate you wanting to make some changes and be more responsible financially. To prove it and show my gratitude, I’ll match dollar for dollar everything you put into your bank account for the first month.”
“How sweet, and what do you get in return? A free pass to fuck me in the ass?”
“I don’t go there, you know that. You get my unbridled loyalty.”
She sighed heavily as she folded her arms and looked out the window. “Your unbridled loyalty … does that include your unbridled love? Or is that something different?”
“How many times do I have to tell you how much I love you? How much unconditional support and encouragement do you need to understand that I’m not going anywhere?”
“Oh, don’t give me that shit. Lying comes as naturally to you as breathing, and as for the support, that’s easy when you have as much money as you do.”
“Really? Okay! Why not just go out and pick up another rich guy? I’ll understand, and after he’s tired of fucking you and kicks you out, I’ll be here waiting for you. How’s that for loyalty? Just don’t bring back any diseases.”
“You arrogant motherfucker!”
“Atta girl … that’s the sweet ray of sunshine any guy would be happy to introduce to his mother.”
“I might be alone in this world, but if I am sure of anything, you are even more alone. Aren’t you?”
“Maybe, but I’m fairly confident that I have the capacity to make friends. That’s more than I could say for you.”
She shook her head and started tapping the window with her nails. “At least I can look in the mirror and know I’m true to myself.”
“That’s wonderful, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”
She turned and looked at me with those giant blue eyes, and before she could reply, I said, “I love that you’re a creative genius and that you don’t bend your morals for anyone or anything. I respect you for that more than you can imagine.”
I ordered the Chinese takeout, poured a couple of glasses of white wine, and sat down at the kitchen table beside Nancy.
“I guess I’m really striking out, huh?” she asked sadly.
“A few base hits and you’ll be over three hundred in no time.”
She swirled the wine in her glass.
“You keep that up and the wine is going to evaporate.”
“It takes a very high temperature to vaporize alcohol.”
“Thank you, Einstein,” I joked then gently placed my hand over her hand holding the glass. “Don’t you believe anything I tell you?”
“Of course I do. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
The rest of the night was perfect. I got to watch two movies with my favorite actress, eat popcorn, drink a lot of wine, and hold the most beautiful girl in the world in my arms.
The next two weeks were more of the same and nearly as perfect, except for a few minor hiccups. Then came the day of reckoning, the day we were going to look at the new condominiums.
Nancy sat at my desk reading the newspaper; discarded sections were scattered on the floor around her. She had an excellent memory and had already used it against me many times, so I was confident that she hadn’t forgotten today’s planned activity.
It was easy for me to look past Nancy’s many shortcomings. After all, I was in love with her. Her beauty blinded me; it impaired rational thought and sound judgment. I walked up behind her and kissed her neck, whispering, “We want to get to the open house early. Otherwise some of the better units might be gone.”
She turned toward me and I could see the hurt on her face. “Yes, the condominiums. Wouldn’t want to get there late.”
She was still in her pajamas. Nancy! Pajamas! Condominiums! Movie dates! Popcorn and wine! It all seemed unreal, like a wonderful dream that turns into a nightmare, where you suddenly wake up to find yourself surrounded by the mundane: the domesticity of family, the smell of coffee and bacon, the chatter of familiar voices, and the distant sound of a radio broadcasting the news, weather, and sports.
Nancy dressed in an unusually sexy outfit and styled her hair very naturally. We decided to walk to the open house. It was less than half a mile and it was a typically beautiful southern California day. She talked about how much she enjoyed all the movies we had watched over the last couple of weeks, and said she was looking forward to the two movies she had planned for that night … two more Ingrid Bergman classics. She was disappointed that I didn’t want her to cook dinner, but she was sure that would change. I didn’t say much. It was better that way. I was already feeling a sense of guilt, like I was betraying the baby sister I never had or my long-dead mother.
We got to the building early, but the real-estate agent at the site kindly let us inspect the fourteen-unit complex on our own. She handed us a brochure that listed the dimensions and features of each unit. The association fee was a reasonable $110/month. The units were almost identical — all had two bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, and a closed off balcony the size of a small closet. The architecture was California modern, which meant it lacked all style and was built cheaply. The major plus was the neighborhood; it was beautiful and retained a rustic and tranquil feel, a diminishing quality across much of the landscape of Los Angeles.
Nancy’s reply to each unit we saw was either, “It’s fine” or “It’ll do.” She sounded more like a frustrated, impertinent teenage girl than the energetic firecracker I knew. Finally, we reached a front unit that was slightly bigger than the others and much brighter and more airy. It had an open balcony, with an iron railing, that ran across the entire living-room area. It was nothing to jump with joy over, but compared to the apartment she had been living in two weeks before, it was like Heaven.
When I asked her how she liked it, she didn’t even answer, just disappeared into the front bedroom, which looked out at the colonial-style First Christian Church across the street. I let her simmer for a while and then walked over
to where she was standing at the window.
“What’s wrong, Nancy?”
It took her a few moments to answer. “Is it because I’m Jewish that you don’t want to marry me? If it is, I’ll gladly convert to Catholicism.”
I had to control myself so I wouldn’t raise my voice. “Of all the insults you’ve thrown at me, that one hurts the most. Do you really think I’m the type of man who wouldn’t marry a woman because of her religion?”
“The way I understand it, when Italian men get married, if the girl’s not Italian, she better at least be Catholic.”
“Is that the way you understand it? Using an ethnic stereotype to explain and dismiss an entire population?”
She looked like she might cry, and I almost thought she was playing me, but this was Nancy and she didn’t lie. She was many things but not a fake, and she certainly wasn’t like other women, at least not like any other woman I’d known. She turned and wiped tears from her eyes and said, “For the first time in my life, I came home to a house these last two weeks where I knew for certain that the man inside loved me.”
“And I’ve felt the same way, Nancy. But we need to be sure about this. We have to be certain. I see so many crap marriages right here in LA. If we rush into marriage, we may end up regretting it, and I don’t want either of us to feel trapped for the rest of our lives.”
“What the hell do you mean, trapped? You just said you love me.”
“Let me make this perfectly clear. I take marriage very seriously. I am not one of those people who swear before God to love someone forever and then change their mind two years later. All I’m saying, for both our sakes, is that I want to be absolutely sure, even more sure than I am now.” I paused to see what she might say, but she was quiet. It seemed like she wanted to argue but knew she couldn’t.
“How about this? Let’s have a three-month trial. We’ll live together for three months, and if everything goes as wonderfully as we expect, then we’ll take the next big step. Is that okay?” I asked.
She threw her arms around me and held on tightly, as though she feared if she let go, this magical moment might forever dissipate.
“Do I at least get a ring?”
“A ring?”
“Yes! I want to show everyone that I’m taken. It doesn’t have to be a big stone, just as long as it sparkles.”
“Will my grandmother’s ring that I have at the house do?”
“That would mean more to me than all the diamonds in the world.” We walked back to the house, and for the first time since meeting her, I could honestly see that Nancy was happy. It was as though the sun’s rays were glowing within her body without any menacing clouds infringing upon her radiance. She was safe, loved, and finally free.
Back at the house, I opened the top drawer of my dresser and took out a box, placed it on the bed, and looked down at it for a long moment. In it were my most cherished belongings: letters my parents wrote when I was away at college; pictures of the three of us together celebrating birthdays and holidays; pictures of my parents as newlyweds; a copy of their will; the receipt and title that designates my burial plot next to theirs in Saint Raymond’s Cemetery; my father’s service medals and honors; and my grandmother’s ring, wrapped in a silk napkin … a simple, delicate ring signifying my grandparents’ eternal love for each other.
I polished the ring with the napkin, and when I looked up, Nancy was standing a few feet away. I motioned for her to come closer and slid the ring on the third finger of her left hand. It fit perfectly.
Chapter Twenty-One
I drove down Sunset Boulevard toward Malibu. A month had passed since Maggie entered the rehab clinic, and she was being released. I had explained to Nancy in very clear terms that Maggie would always be part of my life, and if she tried in any way to interfere it would only cause problems. Nancy said she totally understood, looked admiringly at her engagement ring, and walked away.
I walked into Maggie’s room and looked at her sitting on the bed. It was as if I was seeing her for the first time. She looked beautiful. Jumping up from the bed, she hugged me tightly. I could feel her exuberance pass directly into me like an infusion of oxygen.
When we got back to her house, her two children enthusiastically greeted her at the front door. She hugged and kissed them like only a loving mother could, and for the moment I felt relatively confident that my precious Maggie was back. Now more than ever she was my responsibility, and her children’s welfare depended on her success, so I had to be vigilant and not let her down. Her recovery could unravel, and I was determined to support her so that wouldn’t happen.
When I got home after seeing Maggie, I found Nancy sitting out at the pool just staring into space. She didn’t move or even acknowledge my presence. This was not a good sign. I wondered if she was going to start in about Maggie. I tapped her on the shoulder, and as she turned she asked, “Can you please drive me to Sal’s Mortuary in Glendale?”
Nancy’s mother had died a few days earlier, and the mortuary had just called to tell her she could come down and pick up the ashes. She hadn’t mentioned anything else to me; I was hesitant to start asking questions. We got into my car and drove to Glendale in total silence.
When we went into the mortuary, Nancy showed her identification, signed a number of papers, and was handed an urn with her mother’s ashes. I tried to pay for the cremation, but Nancy in no uncertain terms said, “No!” She paid and we went back to the car.
The urn was ceramic and quite little. It looked more like an urn used to hold pet ashes. It was shaped like a baseball and Nancy was gripping it like a pitcher would, rotating the ball in her hand as if searching the seams for just the right feel. I asked, “So your mother was quite small?”
“No. I simply told them to pack her ashes tightly in the cheapest and smallest urn they had. Considering all the bitch did was eat junk food and watch TV, I would say they did a really good job.”
Nancy had me park about a block away from a bridge overlooking the less-than-mighty Los Angeles River, directly across from CBS Studios, where The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spinoffs were shot. We walked to the middle of the bridge, and, as I waited for Nancy to open the urn and release the ashes, it came to me that Nancy’s mom had loved Mary Tyler Moore. It was a thoughtful, loving gesture on her daughter’s part to spread her ashes so close to the place Ms. Moore had achieved entertainment magic and become famous. A moment later, Nancy threw the entire urn, like a baseball, off the bridge. It smashed into pieces against the cement bottom of the aqueduct and a small cloud of ash quickly dissipated … that was it. No final words. Nothing.
She turned to me and said, “Now we are both officially orphans. At least your parents loved you.”
“I love you, Nancy.”
She smiled and took my hand. “I know, and that’s all that matters.”
We walked into the village to a Baskin-Robbins. Nancy ordered a double scoop of vanilla and I had a double scoop of chocolate-chocolate chip.
Chapter Twenty-Two
My nightmares started after I finished my first major campaign for a company marketing a vitamin supplement for teenage girls; the supplement promised to quickly cure acne. It was a major success for the two years it was on the market, which was one year more than the company ever hoped for. I didn’t believe in the product, but then I wasn’t being paid to believe, only to elevate the brand and increase revenue. My approach was no different than any major newspaper that ran advertisements for products their editorial staff knew were pure nonsense. A newspaper couldn’t exist if its moral code was so uptight that it turned down advertising revenue from every company they didn’t believe in.
To put it more accurately, it was one recurring nightmare. It always started with my coffin being rolled into Saint Raymond’s Church in the Bronx, the church my parents and I had attended. I assumed I was in the coffin because where else would I have been?
The priest, a somber-looking man with the hardened complexion of a dru
nk, was shaking a canister of incense over my coffin while speaking in Latin. The church was empty except for a couple of professional mourners, old Italian women who always wore black. I doubted if any of them had cracked a smile in the last twenty-five years. Believe me, I was thankful that they were there. There’s nothing worse than an empty funeral.
After the service was over, the coffin was placed in a hearse and driven to the cemetery by the lawyer who prepared both my parents’ and eventually my own will. He was listening to The Beatles, which I thought was a nice touch because they are my favorite band of all time.
We passed through the gates of the cemetery and came to a stop just before my parents’ graves, where the cemetery police met us. I was bewildered; I never knew the cemetery had its own police force. My lawyer, professional as always, handed the police captain the papers to the plot right beside my parents … my final resting place, as indicated in my carefully written will.
I could hear the police captain laughing hysterically, and to add insult to injury, I could hear my lawyer laughing right along with him. Apparently, another Joseph Rossetti — loving son of Stephen and Ann Rossetti — had just been buried in my plot a few days earlier.
Surely, there was some kind of major screwup. An imposter was buried alongside my parents! But my lawyer had another appointment — apparently with living clients — that he couldn’t be late for. He dropped my casket off and drove off.
The police gathered around my coffin and started passing a flask of whiskey as they sang “La Marseillaise” in French. Suddenly Ingrid Bergman was beside me in the coffin, whispering, “Kiss me, Joe. Kiss me as if it were the last time.” At that moment I didn’t mind being dead or whatever the hell this was. Then, just as we were about to touch lips, Poof! she was gone, and all I could hear was torrential rain striking the casket.
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