“Anthony.” Michael’s voice was imploring. “Look, I don’t want this bad blood between us—”
“Then keep your nose out of the restaurant, Mike.”
“I can’t. Mom and Pop made me co-owner.”
“And what? All of a sudden I’m too fucking stupid to run things? I’ve been running the restaurant for years.”
“I know that. But—”
“But what?” Anthony returned to the table where some walnuts still lay intact and resumed chopping, violently. “Look, why don’t you stick to what you do best, and I’ll stick to what I do best? You’re a hockey player. Go play hockey.”
“I’m also co-owner of the restaurant,” Michael repeated stubbornly. “Besides, Mom wanted to upgrade the restaurant. I’m just trying to honor her wishes.”
“Mom wanted to expand the restaurant, not upgrade it,” Anthony countered. “There’s a difference.”
“If we’re expanding, we may as well upgrade, too.”
Anthony’s expression bordered on the mutinous. “No offense, baby bro, but what gives you the right to walk in here and change things around? I seem to remember that while you were off at college and playing for Hartford, I was the one sweating here in the kitchen with Mom and Pop, learning the ropes. You might own half the restaurant, but you don’t know shit about what goes into making it run.”
“You’re right,” Michael conceded humbly. “I don’t.” Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a tray of almond cookies cooling. He went to grab one, but Chef Eagle Eye was already one step ahead of him.
“Eat one and I’ll chop your hand off. They’re a special order for Saint Finbar’s. You know that bastard Father Clementine: He’ll count every freaking one.”
“He’s still there?”
“Oh yeah.” Anthony frowned. “Still comes in here every Sunday night, too.”
“Know why? Because the food is great.”
“Well . . . yeah.” Anthony shot him a glance that said, “Why state the obvious, you moron.”
“Which is why I had the meeting with Theresa.” Michael took a step closer to his brother. “You’re a great cook, Ant. That’s why this place has such a huge local following. But don’t you think it’s time to get the word out?” Anthony continued chopping. “We’re sitting on a gold mine here. You know that, or you wouldn’t have agreed to an expansion. A little advertising, a little sprucing up, we could probably double the traffic in here within a year. We could pull in the food fanatics from the city. Word of mouth gets around. Before you know it—baboom!—you’re getting mentions in Gourmet, Food & Wine, maybe even a review in the Times. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“No.”
“No?” Michael echoed incredulously. “No?”
“No offense, Mikey, but business is fine. We’re packed every night. We start trying to pull in all those Park Slope yuppies and before you know it, the regulars won’t be able to get their tables. People who have been loyal customers for years are gonna write us off. I don’t want that to happen.”
“It won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know. Trust me.”
“What, is that what the PR woman told you?”
“No, I just know.”
“You just know.” Chopping completed, he grabbed a large stainless-steel bowl from the shelf below the table, tilting the walnuts into it. “You’ve been a professional hockey player for ten years, you don’t know dick about cooking or the restaurant business, but you just know. Well, let me tell you what I know. Mom and Pop never intended this place to be some fancy, schmancy trattoria, where people have to pay twenty bucks for a bowl of pasta and gravy. And that’s what you’re talking about turning it into.”
“You don’t know that, Anthony,” Michael insisted.
Anthony’s response was an unintelligible grunt.
“Let’s just wait and see what the PR people come up with and we’ll talk about it then.” He sighed. “C’mon,” he said, jostling Anthony’s shoulder. “Try to have an open mind.”
“I already told you: I don’t want anything to do with your PR bullshit. How much is this going to cost, by the way?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Michael assured him. “I’ve got it covered.”
“No, tell me,” Anthony insisted, wiping down the cutting board and the mezzaluna blade. “I’m curious.”
“Thirty,” Michael admitted reluctantly.
“Thirty K!” Anthony exclaimed. “What are you, ubatz?”
“Wait and see,” Michael insisted. “It’s going to pay off big time and you know who’s going to reap the rewards? You and me.”
“My life’s rewarding enough,” Anthony said, sauntering over to a row of cabinets where he pulled out a bag of candied citron. “But hey, you want to piss your money away, you go right ahead. Thirty K,” he chuckled to himself. “Madonn’.” He carried the citron back to the table, and tearing the bag with his teeth, shook the contents out onto the cutting board and began dicing again with the mezzaluna. “So that PR woman, Theresa. She’s the one you’ve got the hots for, right?”
Michael frowned. “Could you be a little more respectful, please?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is my blunt language offending your delicate sensibilities?”
“Vaffanculo!”
Anthony laughed. “Look whose trash-talking now.” He popped a piece of citron into his mouth. “Seriously, she’s the one, right?”
“Yup.”
“So what’s the deal? You hiring her to do all this PR crap because you really care about the restaurant, or because you wanted an excuse to see her?”
Michael shook his head in disbelief. “I had no idea she was going to show up. It could just as easily have been her business partner.” Of course, he would never tell Anthony that in hiring FM PR, he was well aware his path would cross more frequently with Theresa’s. Not that it seemed to matter.
“Besides,” he added, taking some citron for himself. “She doesn’t seem to like me.”
“Maybe because you’re an arrogant, meddling jackass,” Anthony suggested.
“That could be it. We know her folks: Dominic and Natalie Falconetti.”
“The Falconettis.” Anthony paused, trying to place the names. “Veal sorrentino and fettucini alfredo, two slices of olive-oil cake afterward with espresso. They haven’t been here for a while.”
“The old man is sick.” Suddenly Michael had an idea, his eyes scouring the kitchen. “In fact . . . I was thinking of stopping by and saying hello to them before I head out for the game tonight. Would you mind putting together a care package for me?”
“You sure you got time? I could drop by there tomorrow morning.”
“I want to do it.”
Anthony’s eyes crinkled as he smiled at his little brother and winked. “Yeah, of course you do. Just let me finish up with this citron and I’ll fix a nice little plate for each of them.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Now can I call my staff back in?”
“Go ahead,” said Michael. “And make sure you tell them great changes are on the way.”
Anthony ignored him.
“Any messages?”
Theresa drummed her nails impatiently on the glass-topped reception desk while Terrence, FM PR’s receptionist, took his sweet time closing the Vanity Fair he’d been absorbed in. Delicately licking his right index finger, he began thumbing through the small pile of messages on the desk before him, reciting to her.
“Let me see: your mother; Gail Tudor at The Wild and the Free, who said she can’t do the celeb softball game because that’s the day she’s getting her ta ta’s done like they’re not already fake as her tan, thank you very much; your mother; Lou Capesi from the Blades office; your mother; oh, and lest I forget, your mother.” Terrence’s gaze was withering as his eyes rose to meet hers. “Time to phone home, ET.”
“No comments from the peanut gallery, please,” Theresa returned dryly. “Is Janna ba
ck from meeting with Mike Piazza yet?”
“No, though she should be in any minute. Anything else?”
“Nope. Go back to your Tom Cruise pictorial.”
Anxiety mounting, Theresa walked down the hall to her office and quietly closed the door behind her. Kicking off her shoes, she settled down behind her desk and dialed her parents’ number, preparing for the worst. Either her father was back in the hospital, or she had been spotted walking down Eighty-sixth Street earlier in the day and her mother was going to accuse her of familial treason.
“Hello?” Her mother’s voice was tense.
“It’s Theresa, Ma. Terrence said you called three times. Everything okay?”
“You’re interrupting my show.”
Her show. Guiding Light. God forbid anyone came between her mother, Josh and Reva. “So tell me fast,” Theresa said, relieved that she hadn’t been seen in Brooklyn. “What’s up?”
“I was calling to remind you about coming to dinner on Sunday.”
Theresa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Have I ever missed Sunday dinner, Ma?”
“No, but I just wanted to remind you.”
“Consider me reminded.”
“Also, Cousin Angelo’s daughter’s third birthday is coming up.”
“Uh huh.”
“There’s going to be a party. With a clown.”
“Now there’s an enticement.”
“Always with the mouth.” Her mother sighed.
In the background, Theresa could hear her father asking her mother who was on the phone.
“It’s Theresa!” her mother yelled. Theresa winced, holding the phone away from her ear.
“Is she coming to little Gina’s party?” her father shouted, trying to be heard over the television.
“Guess,” her mother shouted back.
“Hey!” Theresa exclaimed defensively. “I didn’t say I wasn’t coming!”
“Are you?” her mother demanded.
“No. But only because I’m busy.”
“Is she saying she’s too busy?” her father shouted.
“Of course,” her mother shouted back. “She’s always too busy.”
Theresa closed her eyes. “If you know I’m busy,” she trilled sweetly, “then why do you even bother asking?”
“Because I was hoping that just once, you might make more time for your family.”
“I guess Miss Cosmopolitan has better things to do,” her father noted loudly.
“I have to go now, Ma.” Theresa’s voice rang with false cheer. “Love you and daddy. See you Sunday.”
Mother of God, she thought, as she hung up the phone, was she allowed to have a life? The once-a-month Sunday family meal was never enough. Her mother wanted her to follow in the traditional pattern where your extended family was your entire social life, and weekends were an endless round of communion parties, birthdays, anniversaries. Any excuse for a family get-together. It had been fun as a kid, always having cousins around to play with as well as aunts and uncles who doted on you like you were their own. But now that she was an adult, she didn’t have time for that whole smothering Italian-American thing. She had friends from high school who had never left the neighborhood. Cousins, too. They’d married boys they’d gone to school with, boys who were just like their fathers and their brothers and their uncles. And they all lived within ten minutes of their parents and siblings. Their whole life revolved around la famiglia—which was fine, if that’s what you wanted.
But Theresa never had.
When she was in high school, she’d take the subway into Manhattan every chance she could and just walk around, exploring. Bookstores were her favorite: the Strand and Partners & Crime in the Village, where she could gorge on mysteries. And the Public Library on Forty-second Street. God, she loved that place—still did—with its reverential silence and implicit promise of transformation. Those trips to Manhattan were what helped her realize she wanted to go to college and major in English. Her family actively encouraged her dream. So why was it, now that she’d carved out a successful life for herself, they held it against her, accusing her of getting too big for her britches and forgetting about her roots? She didn’t get it. Didn’t parents want their children to spread their wings and fly? Why were her folks always trying to drag her back down into the nest?
She suspected part of it was because she was still single. So what if she ran her own business, lived in the city, and occasionally brushed elbows with the rich and famous in the course of her work? In her family, what mattered was getting married and having babies. Her mother and sister-in-law were constantly on her case, offering to set her up with friends of cousins and neighbors, always wanting to know if she’d met anyone “nice”—a polite code word for “Italian.” Too bad I don’t like Michael Dante, she mused. He’d be right up their alley.
Michael Dante . . .
Thankfully, the meeting hadn’t been as uncomfortable as she’d expected, though she was displeased she’d let her guard down even momentarily, and the bizarro older brother was a little unnerving. She tried to recall if she’d met Anthony at Ty and Janna’s wedding or any Blades functions, but came up blank. He must have been hiding in the kitchen the whole time. Pondering the Dante account, her gaze was drawn to the small Miro lithograph hanging across the room, which led her to thinking about the artwork—if you could call it that—at the restaurant. God, was it awful. How could she tactfully suggest a new look? Yawning, she glanced up at the clock. Quarter to five. Resignedly, she picked up the phone to call Lou Capesi, when a knock sounded at her door and Janna stuck her head inside.
“Got a minute?”
“Of course.” Theresa put the phone back in the cradle. “How did it go with Piazza?”
Janna gave a big thumbs-up, smiling broadly. “I think he’s going to have us work for his charitable foundation.”
“That’s great!” Theresa hadn’t realized how tense she had been. Hearing Janna’s good news, she could feel her hunched shoulders slowly lowering.
“How’d it go at Dante’s?”
“Well, the good news is he committed to a year, not a month-by-month.”
Janna perched on the edge of the desk. “That’s fantastic.”
“The bad news is the brother, who’s the head chef and runs the place, had a total conniption about my being there and wants nothing to do with any of it.”
“You’ll just have to work around him.”
“I hope I can work it, period,” said Theresa uneasily. “I’ve never handled a restaurant account before. I think I might be in over my head.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“What if I’m not?”
“Ter, we don’t have a choice,” Janna said grimly. “We need the money.”
“Right.”
Janna gazed thoughtfully into space. “I think I might know someone at the Food Network.”
“That would be great. Maybe we could get them on some talk show or something.”
“Yeah, let me think about it.” She pushed off the desk and settled down in a leather chair identical to the one in her own office. “So, it was just you and Michael?” she noted coyly.
“Yup.”
“And—?”
“Dante’s is now one of our clients,” said Theresa, refusing to take the bait. Though it did make her wonder . . . “Do you think I’m a snob?” she asked abruptly, swinging back and forth in her chair.
“When it comes to Michael Dante, yes. He’s a really nice guy and you know it.”
Theresa stopped swinging. “I’m done dating jocks.”
“Not every jock is a potential rapist, as I can attest.”
“And as I’ve told you, you got the only good one.” The phone line on her desk lit up and she held her breath. Please, Terrence, take care of it, especially if it’s my mother again. The light went out. I knew there was a reason I loved you, Terrence. She looked to Janna. “So what did you want to talk about?”
Janna took a deep breath. “I got
a call this morning from someone named Ted Banister.”
“Sounds like a soap opera character.”
“He’s a lawyer. Representing the Butler Corporation.”
The Butler Corporation. All the tension that had melted from Theresa’s shoulders came screaming back with a vengeance. Butler was a huge international advertising agency currently in the process of gobbling up PR firms like M&M’s. In the two years since she and Janna had opened their office, Butler had bought out three small PR firms and buried two small ad agencies. With money and clout to burn, it was clear they wouldn’t rest until they owned every boutique agency in the city.
“Let me guess: They want to buy us out,” Theresa deduced blandly.
“I assume that’s the case, but of course Banister wouldn’t come right out and say so on the phone. He wants to meet with us here Friday morning.”
“And did you tell him to go take a leak in his hat?”
“I wish,” Janna replied. “No, I told him to stop by around ten. Should be interesting.”
“Mmm.” Theresa resumed swinging in her chair, more slowly this time. “Why would they be interested in us? We’re not that big.”
“No, but we’ve got some professional athletes and TV people on our roster.”
“Jesus. How long do you think the meeting will take?”
“I have no idea. Why?”
“I have to be at the celeb softball game at noon.”
“I’m sure we’ll be done by then. If not, you can go when you need to, and I’ll wrap things up.”
There was an edge of uneasiness in Janna’s voice that Theresa found contagious. “I don’t like this,” Theresa confessed.
“I know,” Janna agreed. “I’m afraid he’ll offer us an obscene amount of money we’d be insane to turn down, or else he’ll blatantly threaten to ruin us. But we’ll hang tough, right?”
“Damn straight,” Theresa replied without hesitation.
But whether they truly believed what they were saying was another matter.
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
Hustling through the small crowd of fans outside the players’ entrance at Met Gar, Michael promised to sign autographs afterward, praying the team wasn’t already on the ice for the pregame warm-up. If they were, his ass was going to be grass. Tearing down the long concrete hallway leading to the locker room, he was hurriedly calling out hellos to various Met Gar staff. Shit. Most of the guys had already left, but a few were still dressing. Thank God. If he could dress really fast and get out on the ice with them, he’d be okay.
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