“Yes. And each one has three layers of rolled chiffon hems. What was I thinking?”
Dolly looks at me, her mouth twitching in amusement. “God alone knows. So. You need help, yes?”
For a second, I think she means help as in the kind where you go lie on a couch and barf up your past to some stranger. Then I realize she’s talking about another pair of hands. Specifically, hers.
“Oh, no…I couldn’t ask you—”
“You didn’t ask, sweetheart. I’m volunteering. Because you’ll never make it otherwise and I didn’t realize…” Again, she looks around. “I didn’t realize how much I missed it until just this minute. So. I’ll bring my machine and you’ll give an old lady something to do, yes?”
I think I need to sit down. “Ohmigod, I don’t know…I mean, I’m not sure how much I could pay you, but—”
“Did I ask for money?”
“Well, no. But I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
Something in her eyes goes strangely…brittle. But it passes so quickly I think perhaps I imagined it. Except then she says, “That will not happen. Believe me. Once upon a time, I might have let myself get into situations that put me at a disadvantage, but I learned from my mistakes. Now I call the shots,” and I realize I didn’t imagine it at all.
God, I love these tough little broads. I can only hope this will be me, one day.
“You’ve…worked with chiffon before?”
Her smile is enigmatic. “Chiffon, organza, velvet—you name it, I’ve handled it. So. Do we have an agreement?”
“I…guess so.”
“Good. Then if you will give me those Cokes, I will go. And if Liv doesn’t need me tomorrow, I’ll be here at nine?”
Oy. My blood doesn’t even start pumping until ten these days. But I smile and say, “Nine is perfect.”
After I’ve seen her to the door, I go back downstairs and sit on my stool, staring at the mess and thinking, Dude—I’ve got an assistant.
Hot damn.
Next Sunday, five o’clock, the Scardinares. Starr (on my right) and I are totally scarfing down the manicotti while Jen (on my left) is picking at it like a member of the bomb squad disabling a particularly sensitive device.
Yes, that’s right. Jen is here. At least, her body is. What’s left of it, anyway, since she’s lost, I’m guessing, a good fifteen pounds since she moved in. No telling where her head is, though. All I can say is, her defenses must have really been down when Frances ambushed her yesterday. But she’s not exactly fitting in, if you know what I mean. Oh, once we got past the shocked expressions—it’s been years since Jen’s been here, after all—everyone tried to draw her into the conversation. Except conversation with the Scardinares is a little like getting too close to the wrong side of a jet engine. So perhaps Jen’s reticence is the more prudent choice, after all.
Especially since I’m picking up on all sorts of weird vibes today, lurking like a poison gas underneath the deafening, incessant chatter about Heather and Pete’s wedding. Primarily from Luke and Jason. Understandable, since this is the first time I’ve seen or talked to either of them since the Jason Kissy Face incident. I have no idea what Luke’s problem is, but something tells me Jason’s ill humor has something to do with his brothers razzing him about having a girlfriend. Or rather, his not having one. Especially since Scardinare testosterone tends to kick in around kindergarten.
At the latest.
Poor kid. He keeps shooting me these looks, but what am I supposed to do? Explain that their baby brother’s juices are flowing just fine, they’re just leaking for the wrong person? Oh, yeah, telling Frances her son’s got the hots for his half-Jewish, eleven-years-his-senior neighbor oughtta go over real big.
But if he doesn’t stop staring at me, I may scream. Doesn’t he care that somebody might notice?
Finally he leaves the table, along with several of the older nieces and nephews who, with Starr, barrel out into the backyard to play. An eyeblink after they leave, Jennifer whispers, “The way Jason was staring at you was really creeping me out.”
As I was saying.
I am also amazed that my sister has initiated a conversation in which she is not the focal point. So, as an experiment, I decide to see how long she can keep it up before she cracks under the strain of thinking about somebody else.
“He’s got a crush on me,” I whisper back, then explain about the kiss.
“Oh,” she says, getting up to help clear the table. “That explains it, then.”
“That explains what?”
But she hustles her butt out to the kitchen without clarification.
Well. It was only five words, granted. But I can officially say that Jen got through an entire conversation without mentioning herself once.
Family and guests disperse throughout the house as they always do—women to the kitchen, men to the living room to watch sports. This is the way it is in this house; rabid feminists need not apply. Especially since the trade-off is the men watch the babies and younger kids while the women do the dishes. Sounds fair to me. Besides, who can talk dirty with a bunch of men in the room?
Once in the kitchen, the women take up their appointed tasks like a precision military machine, getting dessert plates and forks, making coffee, scraping dishes and filling the dishwasher. I’ve been a dish-scraper ever since I was deemed old enough to join the women, around when I turned eighteen. Of course, there weren’t as many of us back then, since only Jimmy Jr. was married at that point. Just me and Frances and Julie, J.J.’s wife.
And Tina. Whom I miss today with a sharpness that takes my breath away.
I glance over at Jennifer, standing apart from the swarming mass of estrogen. She asks Frances if she can do anything, but it’s a futile question, since it’s obvious there’s no place for her. Maybe I’m transferring my sadness over losing Tina’s friendship onto my sister, or maybe the manicotti has put me in a very good mood, but I say, “Come here and help me scrape.”
She looks as pleased as a kid picked for the best team. Jesus.
“So what’s for dessert?” Kristy, Johnny’s wife, asks. At twenty-four, she’s the youngest daughter-in-law, still thin after delivering twin boys a year ago. We would all hate her, except it would be like hating Mother Teresa. If Mother Teresa were gorgeous, had seventies hair and was, you know, alive.
“Jimmy made his chocolate cake,” Frances says, and we all pause for a moment of awed and respectful silence.
“With the chocolate buttercream frosting?” This from Monica, Vinnie’s wife, her brown eyes like saucers underneath maroon-highlighted bangs.
“Of course, what else?” Frances says, and my guess is that more than one of us comes perilously close to orgasm.
Still, despite the camaraderie, for all that my position as après-dinner dish-scraper is mine for as long as I want it, it occurs to me that I’m still on the outside looking in with this family. Never mind that I know the intimate details of their sex lives, their finances and their menstrual cycles, that Julie had a benign cyst removed last year and Monica feels guilty about wanting another baby when she and Vinnie already have three kids. I know these people, but I’m not part of them. I used to think it was because I’m not actually related, either by blood or marriage, but more and more I’m beginning to think it goes deeper than that. And right now, as I scrape and salivate in anticipation of this cake, it hits me—I’ve got ethnicity envy. Not because they’re Italian, specifically, but because they are part of something. Except for Jen and me, everyone in this room knows who they are, where they come from, what’s expected of them. An Italian meeting another Italian—or a Jew another Jew, a Greek another Greek, whatever—shares an immediate bond. They get the inside jokes. They know the secret handshake. It’s like they’re sirloin tip roast and I’m…meatloaf.
Not that there’s anything wrong with meatloaf. It’s just you don’t always know what you’re getting.
And whilst I’m wandering down these philosophical pa
ths, and the cake is sliced and passed around while we wait for the coffee to brew, they all stop their good-natured significant-other bashing long enough to wax rhapsodic about Heather’s dress.
“All I have to say is,” says Julie, “if I ever get married again?” Her fork jabs in my direction. “You are so doing my dress. Come to think of it, it might be worth dumping J.J. just so I could get married again!”
We all hoot with laughter as Frances yells, “Hey! That’s my kid you’re talking about!”, especially as we all know Julie wouldn’t dream of doing any such thing. Especially not with four kids including a four-month-old.
“But are you really sure the bridesmaids’ dresses will be ready in time?” Heather asks, longingly eyeing the cake the rest of us are “sampling.” Everybody else except Jennifer, that is, who’s again retreated to her spot by the kitchen sink, her arms crossed over her stomach, watching but not participating. If I’m on the sidelines, Jennifer is in a whole ’nother stadium.
“No problem,” I say around a full mouth, thinking if they don’t have this cake in Heaven, I’m not going. Then I tell them about Dolly and her offer to help. Which she’s been doing for the past week, making herself immediately indispensable. “It turns out she worked in the costume department of the Metropolitan Opera for years. Isn’t that wild?”
“And she’s working for you for free?” Frances asks.
“Everytime I try to talk money, she threatens to quit. Says I’m doing her a favor by giving her back something she used to love.”
Jason comes into the kitchen for a glass of water; Monica pretends to come on to him just to get a rise out of him. He blushes furiously and once again glances at me.
And this time, everyone notices.
Including Frances.
I shrug as if to say, “Sorry, haven’t a clue.”
He leaves; conversation resumes. But I keep feeling these speculative glances pinging off the side of my face. I’m not sure if nobody’s saying anything because they don’t believe it, don’t want to believe it, or are afraid of being the one to look like an idiot, accusing Jason and/or me of something so totally outside the realm of logic. Finally everybody moves en masse back out to the dining room with cake and coffee; Julie bellows, “Dessert!” as the older kids come trooping in from outside. In the ensuing chaos, I slip down the hall to the john. Only when I come out, Jason ambushes me and drags me into Frances’s office.
And shuts the door.
“Jason, what the hell—?”
“Dude, I’ve been trying to get your attention all night! Didn’t you see me looking at you?”
“Honey, everybody saw you looking at me! Jase, you’ve got to get over this. I told you, nothing’s going to happen between us.”
“What?” He actually looks confused. Then the light dawns. “Oh. Dude, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s just I’ve got something I need to tell my folks, and I’ve got to get it out, like, now, before I chicken out. And I thought maybe you could help me figure out what to say an’ stuff, because I’m afraid Pops is going to be real disappointed when I tell him. And I mean, hey, you must have some experience in that, huh?”
I frown, trying to digest all these scraps of information. “Experience in what?”
“Giving bad news to grown-ups, dude.”
Why do I not feel flattered?
However. If this isn’t about him and me (big sigh of relief, here), then I’m going with my other hunch, that he doesn’t want to go into business with his dad. Especially when he says, “See, I finally realized it wasn’t fair to anybody, my keeping this to myself, you know? Trying to act like I don’t feel certain things, just because I’m afraid I might hurt somebody? Pops, especially, he really needs to know this so he doesn’t start expecting something that’s not going to happen.”
He pauses. I take that as my cue to encourage him. “Then you just have to come right out and tell him. Because you’re right, it’s not fair otherwise.”
Relief washes over his features. “You really think so?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Dude.” His hand goes to his chest as I idly contemplate how many teenagers would become mute if “dude” were stricken from the English language. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. Because I thought, y’know, I didn’t want to do what you’ve been doing, y’know, like lying to yourself about how you really feel about stuff? I mean, the last thing I want to do is get to be as old as you and think, whoa—I just spent my whole life living a lie—”
His next words—and my What the hell are you talking about?—are lost in the deafening shrieks from down the short hall. We both race out of the room to find out that, after five years of trying, Vinnie and Monica are expecting Bambino Number Four. Much hugging, much crying and kissing.
Jen sidles up to me and says, “Why couldn’t our family be like this?” as Luke gives me a weird look from across the room and Jason gets up on the coffee table and says, “I have an announcement to make, too!”
Um, methinks the kid’s sense of timing could use a little work?
His father looks up at him, his round face creased in a frown as Luke wends his way over to me and mutters, “You got any idea what this is about?”
“I was right,” I whisper. “About his not wanting to be a plumber.”
“You sure?”
“He said he had to say this, even though your father would be disappointed—”
“Jason,” Jimmy says, “for godssake, whatever it is, it couldn’t wait for a few minutes?”
“No. No, it can’t.” The kid’s shifting from foot to foot on the coffee table like he’s gotta pee. “I gotta say this now, in front of everybody so there’s no confusion—”
“Jason,” Frances says, her mouth steely. “Get off my coffee table. And you’re being rude to your brother. Someday, it’s gonna be you making an announcement like this and I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone else stealing your thunder—”
Jason’s high, hysterical laugh cuts Frances off in midbreath. “No, no grandbabies here,” he says, and Luke mutters “shit” and grabs my hand.
My eyes zing to the side of his face. But his attention is riveted to the little drama unfolding in front of us. Which means I guess he has no idea he’s rearranging the cellular structure of my hand. Let alone my brain.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jimmy says, as all eyes play Ping-Pong between the two of them.
“It means,” Jason says, looking for sure like he’s about to crap his pants, “that I’m gay.”
chapter 19
Understandably enough, a long moment of stunned silence follows. A silence broken by yours truly when I blurt out, “So what the hell was that kiss all about?”
“That’s what made me realize I was gay,” Jason says.
Well, there’s a first.
Luke is now cussing up a storm under his breath, although he’s mercifully let go of my hand. Presumably to use it to keep his head from falling off. The rest of his family is still doing the stunned silence thing—astonishing when you consider the number of Italians per square foot in here—which apparently awakens some deep urge inside my sister to raise her hand and ask, “Anybody want coffee and cake?”
“I think I need to sit down,” Frances says.
Taking advantage of what we all know is the calm before the inevitable storm, Jason climbs down from the coffee table and makes his way over to me as Luke wanders away. “Dude, I’m like really, really sorry I used you. But I thought, y’know, if I, like, kissed you, I’d stop feeling so confused. Except—” he shrugs “—I didn’t feel anything.”
Somehow, I swallow the laugh. “Uh, honey? I hate to break this to you, but I didn’t feel anything, either. And trust me, I’m not gay.”
Grinning like I have never seen this guy grin before, Jason leans over and whispers in my ear, “That’s because we weren’t kissing the right people.” Then he giggles and holds up his right hand, showing off a thin gold ring. “His name
’s Connor.”
And my first thought? That this may be the first time in history the straight girl advises the queen on his wardrobe. Because God knows the poor kid’ll be eaten alive if he comes out of the closet dressed like that.
I glance around, realizing that all the Scardinare wives have ushered the children elsewhere—to where the cake is, judging from the sound of forks pinging off plates in the next room—leaving a mass of glowering, über-macho Italian jocks behind. And me, the only nonfamily member in here. But nobody seems to notice as Jason’s brothers all light into him at once.
“Whaddayou, nuts?”
“No brother of mine is gonna be queer, goddammit—”
“Is this some kind of sick joke?”
“How the hell can you do this to Pops, huh—?”
“Leave the kid alone,” Luke says quietly from where he now leans against the wall beside the fireplace, his arms crossed. When his brothers wheel on him, accusing him of everything from being a wuss to being gay himself, Luke calmly holds up one hand. Amazingly, they all shut up.
“It took balls, him telling us like this,” Luke says, giving his baby brother a considering look. “He could’ve taken the easy way out and kept it a secret. But he didn’t.” He walks over to Jason and extends his hand. “I’m proud of you, bro.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Frances says from a few feet away. “This is just one of those adolescent phases, the kid’s no more gay than I am.” She goes up to Jason and smacks him in his arm. “So you had a crush on Ellie and she didn’t return your feelings. So what? That doesn’t make you gay, for God’s sake, it just makes you young and stupid. Besides, nobody on either side of this family has ever been gay, and they say it’s hereditary—”
“Your uncle Carmine,” Jimmy says softly from the sofa. Where he’d sunk like a stone earlier.
Frances whirls around. “What did you say?”
Jimmy lifts bag-cradled eyes to her. “I never told you this, but Carmine once made a pass at me. Before we were married. In your mother’s kitchen.”
“What? Don’t talk crazy, Jimmy, Carmine wouldn’t’ve done any such thing.”
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