Advice for Italian Boys

by Anne Giardini

  Nicolo and Monica were in the broad, bright, gold-carpeted lobby of Gordon’s golf and tennis club, where the wedding and reception were taking place. Nicolo was wearing a new dark grey suit, bought with younger Enzo’s help, a blue and white striped shirt, a navy blue silk tie with a repeating design of linked red and gold circles, and his older brother Enzo’s good pair of shoes.

  “What do you think?” said Monica.

  She opened her arms wide and turned around slowly. She had managed to come within an almost satisfactory seven and a half pounds of her goal. Her stomach was flat, her upper arms solid. She was wearing a purple silk sleeveless sheath dress, size eight petite, cut low at her chest and tight across her bottom, which looked just a little bit packed in, like ice cream in a tub. That last seven and a half frustrating pounds would have made all the difference, she pointed out to him; she might even have achieved that inward slope of flesh above her pelvis and between her hip bones that was the hallmark of serious self-deprivation. She opened her purse, brushed a fresh sweep of bronzing powder across her nose and cheeks and cranked her lipstick tube to reinforce the wide pink swath on her lips.

  Nicolo was surprised at how protective he felt of Monica, balanced before him in her high heels, and by the realization that he also felt sorrowful for her, although this wedding was an ordeal that she had set for herself. He leaned down and brushed his cheek against hers. Monica smelled like lilies of the valley, the spring-flowering plants that grew in clusters along the walls of his family’s garage.

  “You’ll be all right?” he asked her.

  Monica breathed so that her breasts puffed like the chest of a bird above the lilac trim at the top of her dress, and then nodded. He reached for her arm and tucked it under his, and they walked together into the Mallard Room, then up the centre of the room to the front where two rows of chairs had been labelled “Reserved for Family and Special Friends.”

  Monica nodded to friends from her days with Gordon. She squeezed Nicolo’s arm and looked up at him through her lashes. He was, after all, a very sweet guy. Not her type, of course. She liked them older and hapless, but he was a sweetie, especially for seeing her through this ridiculous wedding. She chose seats at the end of the second row in front of a supporting column that provided some shelter from scrutiny.

  Within a few minutes, Hayley, plump and pink and dewy in a cascading confection of princess-cut eyelet lace and with her grandmother’s long silk veil fastened to her blonde head by means of golden butterfly-shaped pins, made her procession up the centre space between the rows of chairs to the front of the room, where she was joined by Gordon. The bald spot on the back of his head had grown larger over the past year, Monica observed. And it was shaped almost exactly like the hole-in-the-ozone satellite shots over Antarctica that her son Noah had glued to bristol board for his science project this past winter. What did sparkly little Hayley, not twenty-five yet, want with an ozone-headed man in an outgrown tuxedo with two kids he never wanted to see and a selfless but sardonic wife so freshly but not yet completely excised from his past? Nicolo wondered. And did Gordon believe that some magic would be achieved through these new pledges, some alchemy that would transform him into someone else entirely, someone who would cleave forever to wife and hearth?

  “Today I gladly and with my entire heart take you for my spouse,” they each intoned, Hayley first and then Gordon a beat behind. They continued through the promises in turn.

  “I promise to love you without reservation.”

  “I shall bring you flasks of wine, comfort you with apples, and never tire of love.”

  “Let our love be like bread, made new with fresh yeast every day.”

  “Our love will be the morning and the evening star.”

  “I will share your burden in times of distress, laugh when you laugh, and cry when you cry.”

  “I pledge to grow along with you in mind and spirit, always be open and candid with you, and treasure you for as long as we both shall live.”

  “I take you now, before these witnesses, and pledge my love.”

  Nicolo felt Monica’s shoulder shaking against his elbow.

  “So stupid, I know,” she whispered when he inclined his head toward her. She batted at her nose with a crumpled salmon-coloured tissue.

  Nicolo reached out for Monica’s hand and squeezed it. “It’ll be all right,” he said into the thick wave of pinned hair that concealed her ear.

  “No,” she whispered back, her voice raspy with suppressed exasperation and sorrow. “It won’t be all right. Not really. They think it’s a game. Like those rides at Disneyland that just keep on going, and you buy the kind of ticket that lets you get on and off and on again whenever you like. I married him for life. For better or worse. That’s how it is with me. You shouldn’t commit until you know for sure, but once you commit, that’s it. For life. Like those parking lots downtown. No in-and-out privileges. It’s a game to them, but to me it was serious.”

  Nicolo nodded. He put his arm around her shoulders. His chin pressed against the top of Monica’s head.

  “It’s too late for me; I won’t do it again. But you, you shouldn’t go through life alone. Marriage gives you ballast. Having someone else there every day balances you. When we first met, Gordon had a motorcycle. On our second date he bought me a helmet and taught me how to ride behind him. At first, when he took a corner, my instinct was to pull away from the turn because I was afraid that the bike would fall over. But what you have to do is sit as close as possible and lean together. I fell in love with him when we were out on that stupid bike. I thought that was what our marriage would be like, leaning together. That’s what a marriage should be like. When you find a good one, whoever it is, grab them. Take the chance. Hold on tight. No matter what, it’s worth it, it really is.”

  “Do you know what this is?” Broad-beamed James stood, legs planted wide, in the middle of the hall on Monday morning when Nicolo arrived at Caruso’s, holding out several pieces of paper stapled together. James jerked his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing for Nicolo to follow him into the office. He kicked the door shut behind them, dropped into the chair behind his desk and signalled for Nicolo to sit. Then he pushed the papers at Nicolo. Sarah came from her adjoining office, really a rectangle of space between a row of filing cabinets and the far wall, and positioned herself behind James. She observed Nicolo closely, worrying with her teeth at a few strands of hair that she pulled across her cheek.

  Nicolo remained standing and picked the papers up from the desk. He read the heading and scanned the first page silently. “It’s the harassment policy,” he answered. He could see from the multiple staple and pin marks that this was the copy that usually hung on the bulletin board at the main entrance to the gym.

  “Read the first part out loud,” said James.

  “‘Caruso’s will not tolerate, ignore, condone, allow or permit workplace harassment and considers harassment to be a serious offence, which may result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal,’” Nicolo read.

  “Go on,” said James.

  “‘Workplace harassment can include a single or a series of incidents involving unwelcome or offensive behaviour, gestures, comments and conduct directed specifically at an individual.’” Nicolo paused. “It goes on after that for pages. Five pages. What’s up?”

  “There’s been a complaint,” said Sarah.

  “Against you,” said James. “Sexual touching. See here?”

  He pulled the papers out of Nicolo’s hand and flipped the top page. “Like it says right here. ‘Unwelcome physical contact, intentional or unintentional, such as touching, kissing, patting, contact or pinching.’ That’s prohibited.”

  “And discrimination,” added Sarah.

  “‘Refusing to work or cooperate with a member of the public or fellow employee because of their ethnic, racial or religious basis,’” James read again from the policy.

  “Me?” said Nicolo. “Discrimination against who?” He
was thinking, however, of the Fells.

  “See?” said James. His voice, always high pitched, soared into falsetto range. He pointed at Nicolo’s face and gestured with his chin toward Sarah. “See that? That look right there? You know what we’re talking about, don’t you, eh?”

  “We’re supposed to let him tell his side of the story,” Sarah pointed out. She stepped around James so that she stood closer to Nicolo. Nicolo and Sarah were the same height. She fixed her eyes on his. “Do you know what this is about?”

  “The only thing I can think of is what happened last Thursday,” Nicolo said, and he described the sequence of actions that had led to him tumbling on top of Phil and underneath Bella. “Was that it? I can’t think of anything else. But it wasn’t intentional. It was awkward, but just as much for me as for them.”

  “You should have reported it,” said Sarah. “Any physical contact, intentional or unintentional, by a member of a staff with any client has to be reported immediately.”

  “If that’s even what happened,” said James. “And I can tell you right now, Nicco-boy, that your version of events isn’t at all the way we’ve heard it.”

  Nicolo closed his eyes. Exactly what had happened on Wednesday? The experience had been as much dispiriting as humiliating and he had tried to put it out of his mind. In any case, even at the time it hadn’t been entirely clear how he had ended up in a pile on the floor like the filling of an unsavoury sandwich with the Fells on either side of him. Being forced to consider it now brought a shot of bile into the back of his throat. He didn’t like the Fells and—it occurred to him for the first time—they didn’t like him.

  He opened his eyes and in an instant of clarity, perceived that James disliked him as well, and very probably for the same reason. Nicolo was one of the world’s blessed. He had been provided with sufficient resources, more than sufficient in fact. He was healthy, well-adjusted, well-housed and well-guided. He had always had people who loved him, and as a result he had always had at the ready the confidence—doubtlessly naive—of someone who expects to be liked and generally is. James and the Fells must have begun life as deserving—what infant can possibly be born unworthy?—but the workings of the world, whatever they were, and however it worked, had been stinting with them. The world had provided them with miserly doses of many of the advantages that Nicolo had been allotted in abundance. It could be no consolation to them that Nicolo was both aware of and grateful for this plenitude. And Nicolo realized that part of his fortune had been to live in a manner uncircumscribed by rules. His own moral system was enough of a rudder; the rules were almost all superfluous. James and the Fells would struggle for their entire lives with the question of what and who and whose rules should have authority over them, and who they could dominate in turn.

  “Just what did they say?” Nicolo asked James. He remembered how Salvatore had asserted charge over a set of difficult facts. He sat down, pulled his chair close to the desk, took the pages of the policy in his hands and straightened them by tapping their edges on the desk, first the long side and then the short.

  “That’s for us to know,” said James. “None of your business at the present time is all you need to know. Our investigation is ongoing.”

  “But I’m entitled to know the facts. In fact, I need to know them in order to respond to them, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, of course we’ve asked for a written description of the exact allegation,” said Sarah. “We’ll give a copy to you as soon as we have it. I’m sure it can all be—”

  “Are there any witnesses?”

  “No. But it’s two against one.” James folded his arms across his chest. “Only your word against theirs. Two paying customers.” He wore the satisfied expression of a professional torturer.

  “So you have nothing in writing at all. All you have is a complaint against someone who’s worked for you for five years so far with no problems?”

  “What we have is an allegation that you engineered a situation in which you had contact of a sexual nature with both of the Fells.”

  “Both? At once? Here in the gym? In a workout room that anyone could have walked into at any time? That’s quite a story, don’t you think?”

  “You’ve already admitted to the incident and you’ve also admitted to failing to file a report about it as soon as it happened, as required by the gym rules.”

  “I have described to you a collision that was not my fault and in which no one was injured. There was nothing even remotely sexual about it. If nothing happened, then there was nothing to report. Is that all you have? An allegation? No injury and nothing in writing? Do the Carusos know about this?”

  “There is in fact an injury.”

  “Who? What kind of injury?”

  “We have a picture of it, Nicolo,” Sarah said.

  “Let’s see it, then.”

  Sarah pulled a large photograph from a file folder and passed it across the desk to him, dodging James’s obstructive reach. The photograph showed a long blue-white thigh with a bruise almost identical to Nicolo’s, but lower down, just above the knee.

  “Bella?” Nicolo asked.

  “No,” said James. “This is a picture of Mr. Fell’s injury. He came to see us this morning alone, without Ms. Fell. She was apparently too upset to come in.”

  “Who took the picture?”

  “I did.” James rattled his desk drawer. “I keep a camera in case there is ever any need to document an incident. The insurance company makes it a requirement of our liability policy. I keep the batteries charged and fresh film in it at all times. Just in case. The Carusos rely on me to play this kind of thing entirely by the book.”

  Nicolo closed his eyes and flexed the muscles in his shoulders. He could feel his pulse surging underneath his skin. His fingers clenched. What he wanted, he realized, was to reach over and pull James’s head from his neck. He could feel the veins in his forearms inflating. His jaw and temple ached. He took a slow deep breath and then unfolded his hands.

  “Well then,” he said. “You might as well take a picture of this for the record too.” He was wearing grey sweatpants over his gym shorts. He stood up, pulled his sweatpants down to his knee and placed his leg up on the desktop under the bright, overhanging light for James and Sarah to see.

  Enzo slept in on the morning of his hearing. He had worked at the factory until midnight and had been in bed before one, but he hadn’t been able to fall asleep until after two. Just before nine o’clock the sound of a door closing somewhere in the house woke him up. He showered, dressed and went into the kitchen. The coffee pot was upside down on a towel beside the sink. The breadbox held a heel of bread from a loaf made several days before. He called out.

  “Ma! Nonna!”

  No one was home. His father would have gone to work, and his mother must have taken Nonna out shopping with her.

  He got his keys and wallet from the top of his dresser and drove to the Vaughan Bakery, the file that Salvatore had prepared for him to review on the passenger seat beside him. The day was cool and blustery. A dry urban wind carried with it scraps of dust and paper and invisible streams of sharp pollen molecules that invaded his nose and eyes and made his tear ducts itch. He parked and walked into the store, and saw with some annoyance that there was a long lineup at the coffee counter. He joined the back of the queue, quelling his natural, type-A impatience. Nicolo had convinced him to start going to yoga twice a week at the gym, and he thought that this might be helping him maintain his composure in general.

  The woman in the line immediately in front of him—medium height, indeterminate age, straight hair that reached to her shoulders and gleamed brighter than her complexion and so likely was dyed, rumpled navy trench coat overtop a gold sweater, and red wool, kilt-like, knee-length pleated skirt—spun around so abruptly that at first he thought she must have suddenly remembered that she had left the tap running or the stove on and been about to run from the store. But she didn’t step away from the line. Instead she
addressed him directly.

  “I’m never going to see you again, am I,” she said.

  “I guess not.” Enzo was unsure what answer she was hoping or expecting to hear.

  “You look like the kind of person that someone could say just about anything to,” she said.

  “Yes, I think that’s true,” said Enzo.

  “And it doesn’t really matter what I say, since I’ll probably never see you again.”

  “I guess it doesn’t.”

  “You don’t look as if you’d be easily shocked or judgmental or anything like that.”

  It didn’t seem that any answer was required. Enzo glanced at the woman’s face covertly. He noticed that her purse and hands were small. She might be deranged but there was no sign she was dangerous.

  “Because I’ve just worked it out. Standing here. I think I’ve finally figured it out.”

  Enzo inclined his head in a neutral way.

  “See that woman over there, behind me, at the table in the corner, in the yellow coat and thick stockings and ugly shoes?”

  Enzo looked and saw, waiting at one of the bakery’s round tables, a woman who fit this description. She was bent over the tabletop, engrossed in a tabloid.

  “That’s my mother. She’s waiting for me to bring her her coffee and her toast, lightly spread with margarine, but only if it’s Becel, otherwise it has to be butter, but only if it’s unsalted, otherwise dry, okay? And it has to be whole wheat, but failing that rye or sourdough but never multi-grain because multi-grain hasn’t got any taste or fibre.” The woman paused and drew a breath.

  “So, what I realized, right now, standing here, is that I’m never going to make her happy, am I? I’m never going to be able to do it. It’s a mug’s game, right? It’s just not possible. I’m going to fail. Each and every time. It will always be the wrong kind of toast or the wrong margarine or the coffee will be cold or the cream will curdle. Because she’s the kind of person cream curdles for, see? That’s just the way it is. And, see, the thing is, I’m forty. I don’t feel forty, and I don’t even think I look forty, because when you think about it, nothing has ever happened to me and so I don’t have as many wrinkles as I probably should have if I’d done all the things I was supposed to have done by now, and I’m not getting fat, but it’s snuck up on me anyway, forty, even though I think I really thought deep down that it wouldn’t happen to me. It’s always that way, isn’t it? You don’t think it will happen to you but then it does. Your friends grow up and get married and move away and have kids and send you letters, you know the kind, the newsletter kind, and they hand-write something personal in the corner at the bottom, and they still mail them to your mother’s house because they know that that’s where you still live, and no one even asks any more what your plans are because it’s pretty obvious really that you’re just going to moulder away, and she’ll make sure no one wants you notwithstanding all of the hints about grandchildren. She lets them fly, like missiles, when you’ve got your guard down and might even be starting to like her. And then, kaboom, like that, she explodes some comment like a bomb in your face. Grandchildren. For God’s sake.”