The Complete Series

by Angela Scipioni

  Gregorio’s intentions were further made clear by the delicate but firm pressure he applied to Iris’s shoulder to make her lie flat on her back; within seconds, he was straddling her, his movements quickly falling into a perfectly syncopated rhythm. Her body had learned to submit to the patterns established by silent accord as the way Gregorio Leale and Iris Capotosti, two strangers born on different continents who had somehow ended up married, made love. She could predict, give or take a minute, exactly how long it would take for him to climax, and knew just when to roll out the reels of her illicit encounters with Claudio, featuring memories of her naked body sinking into the fluffy beds of Europe’s most exquisite hotels, where her bare skin would be caressed by the finest of linens and Claudio’s expert hands.

  Until that moment, she would engage in the mental foreplay she had invented to distract herself during sex. In her fantasies, Iris was the lone contestant in a game show and Gregorio was a giant metronome. She was allowed ten seconds to come up with a song that would match the beat dictated by his pelvic motion. A Beatles tune was usually the first to pop into her head, something swingy, like “When I’m Sixty-Four” or “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite.” This morning, Mick Jagger singing “Ruby Tuesday” kept interfering with the game. Lately, she had become obsessed with the song, but its beat was too slow, its words too penetrating as a soundtrack for sex with her husband on this rainy Palm Sunday morning, when the last thing she wanted to reflect on was the loss of dreams. And now the metronome was stepping up the tempo, and Iris knew she would be eliminated if she could not think of something faster to keep the pace, but still those same lyrics kept looping in her mind.

  Gregorio pushed and panted purposefully on, leaving Iris lagging way behind, until she was saved by the memory of eating a sinfully rich chocolate hazelnut torte at an incredible restaurant in Lugano, and Claudio reaching under the table, nudging her legs apart, grazing his fingers over the soft skin above her stockings, and Gregorio thrust harder and faster, and Claudio slid one hand to the top of her thigh and with the other placed a snifter of cognac to her lips, as Gregorio grunted and shoved, and the velvety chocolate and the strong liquor collided in an explosion of flavor in her mouth, and Gregorio spent himself inside her and Claudio pushed aside her panties and flicked his fingers over her sweet spot and the current of pleasure surged through her and she arched her hips and ground her need into him, then fell still.

  “Maybe we can still make the ten o’clock service after all,” Gregorio said, already on his feet.

  “Still I’m gonna miss you,” Iris whispered into her pillow.

  “What are you talking about? Aren’t you coming to Mass, too?”

  “Of course,” Iris said.

  There were no Easter baskets with milk chocolate bunnies surrounded by brightly colored marshmallow chicks nesting in a bed of fake straw. There were no nickels to dole out to the lucky child who discovered the hiding place of the coveted Golden Egg. There was no Carlo Capotosti presiding over the Easter table with his plastic Our Lady of Lourdes bottle filled with the holy water siphoned off the font at church, which he would sprinkle over family and food with an Easter blessing. There was no Lily of the Valley twirling around in her “new” dress (the one Iris had reluctantly but inevitably grown out of), showing off the frilly but tattered pink bonnet which slipped from her head when she hopped up and down the driveway before Mass singing “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.”

  But on this Day of Resurrection, the fragrance of childhood Easters filled the house where Iris lived, and resuscitated her memories. There was a loaf of Easter bread fresh from the oven (though a luncheon commemorating a women’s rights activist was not the best place to discuss baking, Iris had used the opportunity to access her mother’s secret recipe). There was also an Easter table, prettily set for seven, with a potted lily in the center, and hand-painted hard-boiled eggs to mark the place of each person. She hadn’t minded decorating the eggs all by herself; she had welcomed the opportunity to indulge in nostalgic thoughts of the messy egg-dyeing days of Holy Week.

  “We’re home!” Gregorio called from the entrance. Iris glanced at the table one last time and smiled. It would be childish to expect holidays to be like they used to, but Iris loved them just the same.

  “Look what I have for my Piccolina!” Gregorio said as he entered the room, one arm linked with his mother’s, the other holding up a large egg-shaped object wrapped in brightly colored foil. Italian Easter eggs were flashy and big, but it was all show. There wasn’t much chocolate, because they were hollow, enabling a cheap plastic toy to be hidden inside. A blue ribbon dangling from the egg meant that the prize was meant for a boy. Cinzia followed with her three sons dressed in white shirts and black ties, looking like a funeral procession. Perhaps the priest hadn’t made it clear that the agony and crucifixion were behind them, and today was a day to celebrate rebirth.

  “How was church?” Iris asked everyone and no one in particular, as she greeted the family.

  “The only way to know is to go,” Isabella replied. “I don’t suppose you could be bothered to fulfill your Easter Duty.”

  “Mamma, we’ve already gone over this,” Gregorio said. “You know Iris had to go in early this morning to check things out at the hotel, so she would still have time to get things ready for us.”

  “I think God understands, Isabella,” Iris said. She was glad for having had a valid excuse for skipping, and staying home to pray in her own private way.

  “Maybe you could turn that music down, Piccolina?” Gregorio said. He spoke softly, with that subtle tone of condescension she recognized so well. His support of her and her ways could be counted on, but only up to a certain point.

  “I’ll just turn it off,” she said, walking over to the CD player. “I’ve been listening and meditating on the Passion of Christ, right here on my own,” she said. She neglected to tell them that she had done so by listening to and singing along with both discs of Jesus Christ Superstar from beginning to end and had been so moved, she had put it on again. She had found joy in the words Jesus preached, empathized with the confusion of Mary Magdalene, cringed at the betrayal of Judas, shared the Lord’s solitary agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, wept with pain and rage during His crucifixion.

  “How could you meditate, with all that noise?” Isabella said.

  Iris flushed with the frustration of the misunderstood. She took a deep breath and attempted to explain, “That’s ‘Hosanna,’ a beautiful piece from Jesus Christ Superstar. I still remember all the words to the album, from when I was a teenager. Lily and I used to act out the whole thing. You should have heard her sing ‘I Don’t Know how to Love Him.’ It used to give me goosebumps.”

  Isabella looked at her as if she didn’t know what she was talking about, which of course she didn’t. She had met Lily once, years ago, and had even heard her sing at Iris’s wedding, but she had probably removed the details of the event from her mind, and had certainly never listened to the rock opera. Rather than inquire about the music, about Lily, about anything, Isabella motioned for her son to escort her to his recliner chair, pausing as Gregorio shooed away Zenzero, who was curled up in a doughnut on the seat. After making a show of brushing away the cat hairs from the cushion, Isabella sat down.

  “I’ll just pop into the study a minute to make a call to the hospital. I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Gregorio said as Isabella made herself comfortable, opened the fresh copy of “Settimana Enigmistica” Gregorio always picked up for her at the newsstand, and set about solving the first of the week’s set of crossword puzzles and brainteasers.

  “Can I help with anything, Iris?” Cinzia said. If she wasn’t feeling the Easter Joy, she must really be into Easter Duty; she never offered to help with anything.

  “No thanks, Cinzia,” Iris answered, walking to the kitchen. “I love it in the kitchen, but as I told Gregorio, I wanted to keep things nice and simple today.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” Cinzia had followed her
anyway, and stood staring at the flameless burners of the vacant stove. “Maybe it’s time you put the pot on, though. The boys are starving.”

  “We don’t need a pot!” Iris said. “Everything’s ready.” After putting in a hectic twelve-hour day to guide the hotel and its staff through their first sold-out Saturday, she had come home and worked until late preparing food in advance. She was proud to gesture at the bounty on the countertop: a wicker basket filled with hard-boiled eggs, the homemade Easter bread, a fresh fruit salad, a ham and cheese quiche, and in concession to Ligurian tradition, a torta pasqualina, made with fresh artichokes.

  “But we always have ravioli on Easter,” Cinzia sniffed. “You know that.”

  “I thought it might be nice to change, and have a brunch instead. This way, you can all sample something of what my Easters used to taste like.”

  “What about the lamb? Don’t tell me you didn’t make the lamb?”

  “The lamb was sort of what convinced me to do the brunch, Cinzia. I stood in that packed butcher’s shop staring at those skinned pink cadavers for a good half hour, and by the time it was my turn to order, I just couldn’t go through with it.”

  “You didn’t have to do the roast, you could have gotten the ribs. Who ever gives a thought to where ribs come from?”

  “It’s not that. It’s the whole idea of the sacrificial lamb thing. I thought of the thousands of innocent creatures being slaughtered so everyone can gorge themselves after performing their Easter Duty. Even the symbolism seems out of kilter to me.”

  “What are you, suddenly? Some kind of vegetarian? My kids don’t even have a father to celebrate Easter with anymore, and now you do this! You deprive them of their family traditions! You always have to be different, don’t you? Can’t you just try to blend in for once? Be like one of us? What is your problem? Madonna che palle!” Cinzia huffed out of the room; seconds later Iris heard her shrill voice competing with the blaring voices of the Sunday morning variety show someone had switched on, as she bore the sad tidings of Iris’s kitchen to her mother and sons.

  Iris looked again at the appetizing lineup of simple, wholesome dishes on the counter, wondering whether they felt as inadequate as she did. She opened the refrigerator and took out the bottle of Berlucchi rosé she had been chilling especially for the occasion. Her hands shook as she peeled the foil from around the neck, untwisted the wire cage, popped the cork. She poured a glass and gulped it down while it was still frothing, then poured a second. She raised the flute in the air and studied the perlage of tiny bubbles as they formed chains, floated to the surface and burst, like the tight tears of loneliness burning her eyes.

  Iris had tasted passion, and knew all about penance, but she was beginning to have serious doubts about ever attaining redemption.

  14. Lily

  “Hello?” Lily said breathlessly into the receiver.

  “Where have you been?” Joe demanded.

  “I told you this morning - I had to go grocery shopping.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “That’s all.” Lily set one of the bags on the kitchen counter, then reached into her purse, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and removed the cellophane wrapper with her teeth.

  “That’s the only place you went? The grocery store?”

  “I said that’s the only place.” Lily set the second bag down on the floor, ignited the front burner on the stove, leaned over it, and lit her cigarette. She took a long drag. She would have to think about quitting. One of these days.

  “What took you so long?”

  “Joe, I was gone less than an hour-and-a-half. It takes thirty minutes just to drive back and forth.” Lily exhaled as she spoke, smoke escaping through her nose and mouth in small puffs with each word, swirling itself about her head. “The only other place I went was to Seven-Eleven, to get cigarettes; they didn’t have mine at the grocery store.”

  “So you didn’t just go to the grocery store,” said Joe. “Why do you have to hide things from me all the time?”

  “I’m not hiding anything, Joe.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me you went to the Seven-Eleven when I first asked you?”

  “Because going to Seven-Eleven is part of doing the shopping.”

  “You didn’t go anywhere else after that?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Lily. As if she had anywhere else to go.

  “Are you sure, because if you did, I’ll find out.”

  “I have to go, Joe - the ice cream is going melt all over the kitchen floor.”

  Joe’s gambling had continued to escalate as time passed, culminating in crises that Lily learned to infer from their symptoms - a stern warning from the mortgage company, a suspicious hitch in Joe’s gait, compliments no doubt of some angry bookie, or puffs of pent-up rage that seemed to pace nervously inside him, looking for any tiny opening through which they could erupt full force. It was an opportunity that Lily would inevitably, albeit unwittingly, provide. After one of his blow-ups, Joe always issued a tearful apology, telling Lily how much he loved her and how terrified he was that she would leave him. When he was at his most vulnerable, Lily tried to get him to agree to seek help, but he always unequivocally refused. His professions of remorse eventually became cliché, just one more way for him to mark Lily with the scent of pity, binding her to him through guilt, confusing her enough to keep her firmly in her place.

  “I know I said I would go,” Lily told Donna that evening. “But I don’t feel like it at all. I just want to put my pajamas on and stay in tonight.”

  “You’ll do nothin’ of the kind,” said Donna. She dumped a package of chocolate chips into a large orange bowl, and mixed them into the dough. “If it weren’t for church on Sunday, I don’t think you’d ever even leave that house. We hardly see you at PTW anymore. We pray for you when you don’t come because we get so worried. It’s not healthy to be holed up alone with nothing to talk to but that computer and those crazy exercise ladies you play on your TV.”

  “It’s just so much easier that way, Donna. I’m so sick of the fighting and the questions.”

  “Well now, he doesn’t give you a hard time when you go to church and such, does he?”

  “No, that’s the only time I go out without getting the third degree anymore,” said Lily. “I think he’s afraid of pissing God off. But I don’t know - I just don’t really feel like it. I’m tired.”

  “You’ve been saying you’re tired a lot lately - have you gone to the doctor?”

  “Yeah, I went for that stomach thing I had. They didn’t find anything wrong with me.”

  “You look like you’ve lost more weight. How’s your tummy been?”

  “OK. It comes and it goes. It mostly only bothers me when I eat.”

  “Havin’ a sick tummy is a sign that you need to do somethin’ that feeds your soul. As you can tell,” said Donna, gesturing to the bowl cradled in her arms, “I’m feedin’ my soul just fine.” Donna scraped a glob of cookie dough from the wooden spoon with her finger and ate it. “Lily, the choir is perfect for you. Besides,” she added, “Nikki’s been looking forward all day to havin’ the boys over tonight. I do not want to put up with the fit she will throw if I tell her they’re not gonna come.” She wiped the spoon on her apron, and then slapped it against Lily’s rear end. “Now git.”

  Lily drove to church slowly, relishing the solitude of the car. The only time she really ever got to be alone these days was when Pierce was in preschool and she had the house to herself for a few hours. But even then, Joe was there - his presence always either implied or actual. Like a crazed Santa Claus watching your every move to see if you’re naughty or nice. Or like God, making His notes for judgment day.

  The Christ Covenant Church choir was a hodgepodge of singers comprised of “volunteer junkies” who compulsively signed up for everything - lonely widows and retirees who sought to avoid going home where they would be relegated to watching reruns of Law and Order, frustrated former high
school drama geeks who never made it out of Gates, and worn out housewives who desperately needed an evening away from the unrelenting demands of their children. Lily cringed at the recognition that she was one of them.

  Jeffrey Crane, the choir director, was a willowy man about Lily’s age who wore purple coloring in his closely cropped Afro. His skin was the color of milk chocolate and whenever Lily saw him perform during Sunday service, she wondered if his skin was as creamy as it looked, and fantasized about asking him if she could touch it. At first she worried that this was a manifestation of the kind of attraction between Christian brothers and sisters that Bethany always warned against, but Lily was relatively certain that even if she were interested in Jeffrey that way, he would not be interested in her. She was surprised to see that he wore a gold band on the ring finger of his left hand, and wondered who it was he was trying to fool.

  Jeffrey’s voice was thick and rich, and Lily loved the way he held himself when he sang, his chest slightly puffed up, his arms held away from his body, his hands clasped at chest level. He looked like every drawing of every angel that Lily had ever seen. Except for the dark skin. None of the drawings in the books of Lily’s childhood ever depicted angels with dark skin and purple hair. Lily wondered if Jeffrey’s mother had access to books that did - ones where Adam and Eve and Moses and Jesus and the angels looked at least something like he did, or if Jeffrey grew up thinking that when God said, “Let us make man in our image,” He wasn’t talking about Jeffrey.

  “OK, everyone, enough of the chit-chat,” announced Jeffrey with a sharp clap-clap of his hands. “Let’s get settled, shall we?” Jeffrey smiled and waved at Lily by putting his hand up next to his cheek and wriggling his fingers. Lily smiled and wriggled her fingers back at him.

  “Now,” said Jeffrey,” When I come to you, you tell me whether you are a bass, tenor, contralto, or soprano, OK? Then we will sort ourselves out and do our warm-ups.”