Brava, Valentine

by Adriana Trigiani

  June and Gabe break out a bottle of champagne from the mini-fridge while Alfred goes on a hunt for plastic cups. I feel a sadness in my gut because this is a moment I have dreamed of, and worked toward, and I have no one to share it with. My eyes fill with tears of regret. How I wish I could go back to Buenos Aires and make everything right with Gianluca. I miss him. But he has not called or written to me, and while I may not be the wisest woman around, I’m astute enough to know when a man has moved on. My letter, filled with humor and hope, was not well received. If it had been, I would have heard from him by now. Silence is the most direct answer of all.

  I check the clock. My Skype appointment with Gram is on. I turn on the computer and dial through. After a few moments, Gram’s face appears on the screen.

  “Hi, hon! All’s well here in Arezzo. I’m going to miss Thanksgiving turkey, though.”

  “You and Dominic can jump on a plane.”

  “Why don’t you come and see us?” Gram asks.

  “I can’t leave the shop right now. But if the Bella Rosa takes off, or the economy improves in the next couple of months—”

  “Valentine, don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”

  “Did you get the Bella Rosa sample that I sent? Roberta built the prototype.”

  “It’s handsome. How do you like working with her?”

  “On my end, it’s very easy. She’s built my shoe according to specifications. She beat the Chinese. But Alfred says she drives a hard bargain in the cost department.”

  “That’s an Angelini trait,” she says.

  “I need your stuffing recipe. Gabriel is cooking this year.”

  “No problem.”

  “Yeah, we’re having the whole family over—kids, parents, chestnuts on the roof—every dish and everybody but you and Dominic.”

  “We’ll be there for Christmas.”

  “I know. It’s just not the same. You know, Thanksgiving is your holiday—nobody will roast the chestnuts like you. Even Aunt Feen is coming over. I’ll hide the liquor.”

  “I just called her.”

  “How is she?”

  “The same.” Gram sighs. “How about we have a mod holiday—we’ll Skype!” Gram says.

  “Okay. Great.”

  “Shall I e-mail the recipe?”

  “Sure, sure. You can send it right to Gabriel.”

  “How’s the roommate situation working out?”

  “I love it. Gram, you won’t believe the changes he’s made. The house is beautiful.”

  “He’s got the energy to do it. I never did.”

  Before Gram met Dominic, especially in the years after my grandfather died, I noticed that it was all she could do to put in a workday downstairs and then go up the stairs for dinner. Toward the end, I took over most of the chores; I would do the shopping and the cleaning. But beyond a coat of fresh paint, in the same colors that had always been on the walls, we never did much to upgrade our living space. Now I understand why she kept the same sofa for thirty-five years. There wasn’t the time or energy to look for a new one. Making shoes takes stamina; the business takes its toll on our time and resources, and whatever is left goes to the essentials.

  “You will love the new look,” I promise her.

  “I’m sure I will.”

  “So have you seen Gianluca?” I ask.

  “Not a lot. He’s been traveling to Florence quite a bit.”

  My stomach turns. I imagine Gianluca in his Mercedes with a willowy redhead draped across the front seat, one of those Italian girls who speaks four languages, gives a great neck massage, and makes a killer dish of linguine alle vongole.

  Gram continues, “The tannery is busy. Gianluca’s always working, it seems.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” I couldn’t sound less enthusiastic. “Has he asked about me?” It’s out of my mouth before I can take it back.

  “Gianluca?” Gram leans in. “No, he hasn’t, honey.”

  “Well, do me a favor. Don’t tell him I asked you if he asked about me.”

  Gram looks confused. And she should. Gianluca accused me of being a child, and I sound like one. At least he didn’t burden Gram with the whole Buenos Aires saga—although part of me wishes he had.

  “Okay,” she agrees. After a slight pause she continues, “I’ll get that stuffing recipe right out to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  The screen goes black like my mood. Gianluca has totally moved on. No agonizing and regret for him! How adult! Maybe he’s even checking in on Carlotta from time to time—after all, nothing like reigniting an old fire and basking in that familiar glow. This is going to be a lovely holiday season around here. Thanksgiving and then Christmas, with a fresh pine tree, and me—single, lonely me…pining.

  I wake up to the scent of fresh sage, pumpkin, and bread baking on Thanksgiving morning. I’m about to roll over and go to sleep, when I hear:

  “Val, time to get up! I need a pair of hands down here.”

  I sit up in bed and look out the window. The treetops along the Hudson River Park have only flecks of gold left on their mostly bare branches. The gray river looks like a shard of hammered silver where the sun hits the surface. “Coming!” I holler.

  Gabriel is in the kitchen, running the mixer. He wears a black-and-white bandana around his head. He turns the mixer off. “Do the table for me. I spent half the night glittering the place cards.”

  Gabriel dipped miniature fresh pumpkins in orange glitter, then stuck a small green flag, on which he had written the guest’s name in calligraphy, next to the stem.

  “My, we are fancy.”

  “Is there any other way?” Gabriel goes back to fluffing his pumpkin mousse.

  June made a tablecloth out of orange cotton, and trimmed it in white fringe. I center it on the table. Then I take the tray of pumpkins and place them one by one down the center of the table on either side. I set the table with Gram’s china, which Gabriel set out and counted.

  “No kiddie table?”

  “I don’t believe in them. Sitting at the kiddie table scarred me for life. I won’t visit that agony on your nieces and nephews.”

  “Hey, it’s your party.”

  “And yours,” he reminds me.

  I unpack a large solid chocolate turkey from Li-Lac’s on Hudson Street and place it on a gold serving dish. I open a bag of orange, green, and silver foil kisses and surround the turkey. The details of the table design were decided on a legal pad a week ago. I follow Gabriel’s plan down to the placement of the last foil kiss.

  “What time are we expecting the family?” I ask.

  “Noon. They’re going to the parade till eleven. Then they’ll catch Santa in Macy’s Square, hop the subway to Christopher, up to the roof for hot apple cider and chestnuts, and downstairs for carving of the bird. We’ll eat promptly at one thirty.”

  “You play serious ball, my friend.”

  “Have to. I’m doing soufflés for dessert. Can’t have those sitting around like Barney, the Macy’s balloon, when he hit the streetlight on Broadway and deflated. Not a good idea.”

  “I love you for many reasons, Gabriel. Your soufflés might be number one.”

  “Thank you. I love being loved by you. And I hope none of your love affairs work out—ever.”

  “Well, Gabriel. You don’t have to worry about that. I am destined to be alone. You know what gay men and I have in common?”

  “I’m dying to know.”

  “We were not raised for happily ever after. That’s another reason why you and I have the perfect marriage. You understand that. I’m going up to the roof to start the grill,” I tell him.

  “That’s a good wife,” he says as I go.

  I grab the large cast-iron skillet and head up to the roof.

  Gabriel winter-proofed the garden, and instead of putting old feed sacks on the plants, he took muslin from the shop and draped it over them, tying the material at the base of the containers with enormous red ribbons. Everything that man touches turn
s into art.

  I load the charcoals onto the grill. I take a long matchstick and light it, throwing some lighter fluid on the coals. They ignite into orange flames, the exact color of the stubborn leaves that remain on the top branches of the maple trees across the highway.

  I lean over the roof ledge and look down the Hudson to where the river opens up into the Atlantic Ocean. Gianluca is just an ocean away, I’m thinking, as I watch the white caps roll out to sea. “Stop it,” I say out loud. Stop thinking about that man! He does not want you anymore.

  “Valentine.”

  My mother hauls a sack of chestnuts across the roof. “Yoo-hoo.” Mom wears a pumpkin-colored suit with matching high heels. A brooch in the shape of a turkey, made with chocolate pavé stones, shines in the sun. “I didn’t want to scare you. What are you doing? You’re looking off to sea like a besmirched scullery maid in a Philippa Gregory novel.”

  “Actually, I am pining. I’m going to be alone for my entire life, Ma.”

  “I promise you that will not be the case.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A mother knows,” she says definitively. “In the meantime, you and Gabriel have put together quite the holiday. The table looks gorgeous. We picked up Aunt Feen on the way in. She’s down in the kitchen grousing about the traffic. June is here, and she’s helping.”

  “I’d better get down there.”

  “Alfred called from his cell. He’s bringing the boys. Pamela is coming in from Jersey on the train.”

  “Pamela didn’t go to the parade?”

  “No. You know she hates crowds. She’s such a tiny little thing. She’d have been tossed to and fro.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” Any deviation from Alfred and Pamela’s routine gives me a jolt of worry. Alfred assures me that everything is fine, but is it?

  “What’s the matter?” Mom asks.

  “I can’t shake him, Ma. The Italian.”

  “I’m sorry.” Mom puts her arms around me. “Maybe you can go to Italy when you get the Bella Rosa launched. Maybe if you go there, Gianluca will listen to reason.”

  “I don’t want to make a trip just to be rejected again.”

  “Good point. Why don’t you invite him here for Christmas?”

  “Because he’ll say no.”

  “You don’t know until you ask.” My mother uses the same strategy she employed when I was sixteen and needed a prom date. She’d haul out the yearbook and paw through it, making a list of names just as she would from the phone book when the drain clogged and she needed a plumber. “Tell Gianluca that we’ll put on the dog for him. He hasn’t lived until he’s had the Roncalli Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.”

  “What a lure,” I groan. “Hmm. Gianluca…please choose…me, a comely thirty-five-year-old or…a fish fry. Come one! Come all!”

  “Hey, it’s the best I got,” Mom shrugs. “But Val…first we have to get through Thanksgiving. We could be in for a little tension at dinner.”

  “Why?”

  My mother lets go of me and pushes her Jackie O. sunglasses up the bridge of her small nose. “Tess and Charlie have been having a little ongoing argument about our family down in Argentina. And, well, it’s the race issue. Charlie feels that Tess shouldn’t tell the girls about the Argentinian side of the family.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Charlie feels it’s complicated.”

  “You mean he’s prejudiced.”

  “No, no, I don’t think that at all. It’s just new information. He doesn’t know how to tell his daughters.”

  “You just say, we have family in Argentina and they’re black.”

  “That’s what you would do, but the Fazzanis—you know how they are. Those people have airs. His mother wanted finger bowls at their wedding reception.”

  “I remember.”

  “They’re awfully proper for a bunch of carpenters from Long Island—but proper nonetheless. And small-minded. I cannot deal with pea brains, but in this instance, we have to.”

  “Mom, I’m not going to hide my cousins.”

  “I’m not asking you to hide them. I just would rather you don’t Skype Roberta in when Charlie’s around.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “It is what it is.” My mother purses her lips together. “Give the man time to accept our new family.”

  “I’m going to talk to Charlie.”

  “No, don’t bother. Let it go.”

  “I thought it was weird. Charlie’s been keeping his distance. I’ve hardly seen him—now I know why.”

  “He doesn’t judge you. And he doesn’t blame you for going down there. Not entirely anyway. He doesn’t understand why you have to get into business with them.”

  “I really don’t care what he thinks. Charlie can judge me all he wants. But I’m not putting up with this—and my sister knows better.”

  “That’s her husband.” My mother throws her hands up. “We marry who we marry, and then we have to cope.”

  “Then she better enlighten him.”

  Mom shakes her head and goes back down the stairs. Something tells me this Thanksgiving won’t be a peaceful meeting like the one between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. I have a feeling this one could be war.

  12

  Autumn in New York

  GABRIEL CHANGES INTO A SUIT for Thanksgiving dinner, or the Feast of the Cassoulets, as we referred to it during the preplanning stages. I throw on a skirt and heels, because wherever there are glittery pumpkins, dressy clothes are required.

  Tess whistles when I enter the kitchen. “Put on the apron,” she says. “Cashmere is a bitch to clean.”

  I throw it on. She gives me a pastry gun filled with cannoli filling.

  “I made the shells myself,” Jaclyn says.

  “They look divine.” I fill a delicate pastry horn with creamy filling. I take a bite.

  “Excellent!” I tell them.

  “Roll the ends in chocolate,” Jaclyn instructs. “I learned that from Giada De Laurentiis. She eats everything she makes on TV. How does she stay so thin?”

  “I have no idea.” I shove the rest of the cannoli into my mouth and chew.

  Tess places a bowl of dark chocolate curls on the counter. I pick up the horns and fill them, then roll the tip ends in the chocolate.

  “Italians are the only people in the world who prepare dessert while they serve the main meal,” June says as she ladles mashed potatoes into a server.

  “We like our sugar,” Jaclyn explains.

  Aunt Feen is parked at the head of the table nursing a cup of weak tea, because that’s all my mother offered her. The new elephant in the living room of the Angelini family is Aunt Feen’s drinking problem. Our solution is to hide the hard stuff and hope she doesn’t notice. Alfred fills the crystal tumblers at each place setting with ice water.

  Charisma, Rocco, and Alfred Jr. watch the recap of the Macy’s parade on TV in the living room, while Tom feeds baby Teodora a bottle. Charlie uncorks the wine. Dad carves the turkey on a cutting board on the counter. As he slices, my mother stabs the pieces and places them artfully on a tray festooned with spinach leaves.

  “Chiara, call everyone to dinner.” My niece sits on a stool, playing with a handheld computer game.

  She doesn’t look up at me. “Do you have a bell? Grandma Fazzani has a crystal bell with a little silver dinger.”

  I look at her. “Yeah, I got a bell.” I take the computer game away from her and give my niece the egg timer shaped like a hen. “Crank it and ring it.”

  “Nice attitude,” Gabriel whispers as he grabs the matches to light the candles down the center of the table. “Makes me happy my family is dead.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Well, they are dead. Can’t bring ’em back.”

  “No, you can’t,” Aunt Feen bellows. “And you’re better off. I got a few relatives taking up space in the bowels of hell.”

  It’s always fascinating that Aunt Feen pre
tends to be deaf when you want to send her a message, but when something is whispered, she gets it in total.

  Chiara lets loose with the egg timer close to baby Teodora’s ear. The baby wails.

  “Chiara!” Tess shouts. “You’ll make the baby go deaf.”

  “Sorry,” she says, but the look on her face is anything but contrite.

  “That’s the little devil who interrupted your coitus, isn’t it?” Gabriel says confidentially in my ear.

  “The very one. That kid was on a mission.”

  Dad takes his place at the head of the table, while Mom places the platter of turkey before her place setting, as she will serve it.

  “I took a nibble of the stuffing, Gabriel—and it’s just like Teodora’s. You nailed it, seasonings and all,” Mom brags. “Savory. And light in texture.”

  “Thank you,” Gabriel says proudly.

  One by one, the family finds their seats as they check for their names at the place setting.

  “Where’s Pam?” I ask Alfred.

  “She’s upstairs. She has a migraine,” Alfred says, tapping his forehead.

  “I told her to lie down in my room.” Gabriel places baskets of fresh rolls down the center of the table. “The serene green walls will cure whatever’s ailing her.”

  “This year, we’re gonna join hands…,” my father begins.

  “I am not holding hands,” Aunt Feen complains. “The Catholic Church went in the toilet when they started that—I don’t like it in church, and I don’t like it at dinner.”

  “Okay, then we won’t hold hands,” Dad says.

  “Wait a second, Dad,” I interrupt. “Aunt Feen, if Dad wants us to hold hands, we’re going to hold hands. He’s the head of this family. You’re our beloved great-aunt, but what he says goes.”

  A silence settles over the table.

  I bow my head. I close my eyes, and instead of picturing Jesus on his heavenly throne surrounded by a choir of saints, I see Gianluca. Our relationship may be as dead as the autumn leaves in the centerpiece, but the things I learned from him are very much alive. He would be proud that I defended my father and his role. Gianluca taught me that tradition isn’t something we do, it’s the way we are. And now that 166 Perry Street is my home and this is officially the first holiday where this is my table—and Gabriel’s—it’s my call. I make the rules in this house.