An Italian Wife

by Ann Hood

  “Cammie?” Aida says again, softer this time.

  The face under the hair might be Cammie’s, but the breasts beneath the head are not. These are like bubbles too, big and round, about to burst from her low-cut turquoise dress. Aida has never seen breasts like these. Not in person, anyway. After the breasts, past the wiggling hips, are legs—miles of them. Tanned and endless legs.

  Men are stopping. Men are fanning themselves with wedding invitations or handkerchiefs. Men cannot do anything but stare at Cammie.

  “Doll,” she says when she finally reaches Aida, “I need a drink.”

  Up close, there is still not much left of Cammie. The nose is smaller. The face is tanned. The pouty lips are wet and red.

  “There’s a whiskey-sour fountain inside,” Aida manages to say.

  Cammie throws her head back and laughs. “Maybe I’ll jump in it later,” she says, “but for now I need a real drink.”

  Aida follows her cousin inside. Busboys clutch their bins of dirty dishes to watch Cammie sashay by. Aida is embarrassed and proud to be walking behind such a creature. She supposes everyone in Las Vegas is this unbelievable. They must all be tall and tanned and busty. If she goes there with Cammie, perhaps she will return reborn into something like this. The idea thrills her. The idea terrifies her.

  In the dark lounge, Cammie leans across the bar and orders a scotch and soda. The bartender openly stares at her breasts, which lay on top of the bar like an offering.

  “Doll,” Cammie says to Aida, “you want a Fresca or something?”

  “A Shirley Temple?” Aida says, her voice small and soft.

  “And a Shirley Temple,” Cammie says to the bartender. “Extra cherries.”

  A slow smile crosses his face and a flush of red rises from his cheeks to the scalp beneath his thinning hair.

  “You bet,” he says.

  When he places the drinks on the bar, he says, “These are on the house.”

  Cammie stands up tall, her hair and breasts making a bubbly silhouette. “Why! Really! Thank you so much.” She glances at the little black name tag above his shirt pocket. “Fred,” she adds.

  She opens her gold purse and takes out a prescription bottle of pills, downing a few with her drink.

  “Are you sick?” Aida says.

  “Oh, no. These help me stay awake. After that long drive.”

  Cammie takes Aida’s hand and wiggles her way out of the lounge. Even without turning around, Aida knows the bartender is watching. His eyes are like lasers, shooting into them.

  “What a creep, huh?” Cammie says.

  Aida is surprised. “But he gave us free drinks.”

  Cammie cups her breasts in her hands. They fill them and overflow until Aida is certain they are going to pop out.

  “I paid a thousand bucks for these babies and I haven’t paid for anything else since.”

  A waiter passing by stumbles at the sight of Cammie. She puts her empty drink on his tray and says in her breathless voice, “A scotch and soda. Tell Fred it’s for Cammie.”

  “You bet,” the waiter says.

  “Where the hell’s this wedding?” Cammie says, taking Aida’s hand again.

  Like she is walking on air, on bubbles, on nothing, Aida glides beside Cammie into the Stardust Room.

  IT IS LATER, much later, before Aida is alone with Cammie again. They have had the soup with the escarole and miniature meatballs, the antipasto, the green salad, the ziti, the roasted chicken with potatoes and green beans amandine, the spumoni. There has been dancing to Frank Sinatra, to the Beatles, to the Rolling Stones. Terry and Eddie danced their first dance as man and wife to “And I Love Her.” Aida watched as her sister, her lipstick smeared, her eyelids heavy above red eyes, hung on to Eddie’s neck and Eddie kind of moved her around the dance floor. Too many whiskey sours, too many trips outside with her bridesmaids to smoke joints, had left the bride unable to walk or dance without Eddie’s help. The aunts and Mama Jo and Mama G and Aida’s mother took it for love. “Look at those two,” everyone was whispering. “Can’t wait for their wedding night.”

  The cake still needs to be cut and the garter removed and the bouquet thrown, but Terry’s maid of honor, Celeste, is trying to get the bride straightened up enough to perform her duties.

  The band begins to play “That’s Amore” and a sigh passes through the Stardust Room. Everyone finds their husband or wife or lover and takes to the dance floor, leaving Aida and Cammie alone at last.

  “Do you know him?” Aida asks. “Dean Martin?”

  Cammie blows a few perfect O’s of smoke before she answers. “Oh, sure. He’s always in Vegas.”

  Aida looks into her cousin’s eyes, which are so bright they seem to be lit from somewhere deep inside her. Her legs shake up and down, up and down as she moves from cigarette to drink to cigarette.

  “But do you actually know him?” Aida asks.

  The bubble of platinum hair bobs up and down. “He’s come to my show a bunch of times.”

  “He has?” Aida says. “Oh God, Cammie, I want to go to Vegas.”

  Cammie stubs out her half-smoked cigarette and finishes her millionth scotch and soda. “Sure you do,” she says, distracted. “This place makes me want to jump out of my skin,” she says, not looking at Aida.

  Everyone on the dance floor sings along with the band: “Ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-ling . . . ”

  “What’s he like?” Aida says. “Is he funny? Is he suave?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sexy,” Cammie says. She plays with the clasp on her purse, snapping it open and shut, open and shut.

  When she takes out her bottle of pills, Aida says, “You seem pretty awake. Do you need more of those?”

  “These here are different,” Cammie says. “They calm me down.”

  “Uh-huh,” Aida says, frowning.

  The waiter places a fresh drink in font of Cammie. “From Fred,” he says.

  “You tell Fred that if he gets me drunk he’s going to have to drive me home.”

  “He forgot my Shirley Temple,” Aida says.

  Cammie doesn’t hear her. “Everyone comes to my act,” she says. “Sammy. Joey Bishop. Johnny Carson.”

  “Wow,” Aida says, but she doesn’t feel impressed. She isn’t even sure she believes her. She studies her cousin’s face, searching for signs of a lie. Cammie’s makeup is practically sliding off, and everything except her hair and her breasts appears to be drooping.

  “What exactly is your act?” Aida asks her.

  “Oh, it’s something,” Cammie says. “Everybody who’s anybody comes to see it.”

  “I know,” Aida says. “But what is it?” As a child, Cammie was the star of the Al Angelone School of Dance, tapping and shuffling her way across the stage in glittery top hats and sequined costumes. “Is it tap dancing?”

  “Kind of,” Cammie says.

  Aida sighs, frustrated.

  “You want to see it?” Cammie says. She says it like a challenge.

  “Yes,” Aida says. “I do.”

  Cammie stands up. “I’ll go get set up and then I’ll talk to the band. See if they know my music.”

  “Okay,” Aida says.

  Nothing feels right. Surely weddings were the saddest things ever. Celeste has Terry propped against a wall, and Eddie is laughing like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen. They’ve wheeled the cake over to them for the cutting ceremony, and Terry is wedged between it and the wall.

  The cake has six layers and lots of fake yellow flowers with a plastic bride and groom on the very top. Aida worries that her sister will fall over, onto the cake. But no. Terry cuts a piece, her hands shaking like crazy while the band plays “The Farmer in the Dell” and everyone sings, “The bride cuts the cake . . .” Then Eddie cuts his piece and the singing changes to “The groom cuts the cake . . .” Terry picks up the piece she cut and looks at it, confused. But Eddie takes his piece and shoves it right in Terry’s face, smearing frosting and yellow wedding cake all over he
r mouth and nose and cheeks.

  Everyone laughs, except Aida. Eddie keeps pushing the cake into Terry’s face, long after the point is made. But Terry doesn’t even seem to notice. Finally, Celeste leads her away, frosting clinging to her hair and crumbs falling onto her chiana wedding gown.

  “Good job, Eddie!” the bandleader says. “Now we’ve got a real treat. The bride’s cousin, Cammie Campo, is going to perform her act, straight from Las Vegas.”

  Applause fills the room, and Aunt Gloria gets to her feet, pride all over her face.

  “Her show is a favorite with Joey Bishop and Dean Martin,” the bandleader says, grinning in his shiny black tuxedo and bright-yellow ruffled shirt. “And I have a feeling it will be a favorite of yours, too! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Cammie Campo!”

  Aida frowns as the band begins the song. She’s sat through enough Sunday nights with Mama Jo to recognize the Bonanza theme song, the four men bursting through a flaming map of the Ponderosa.

  Cammie has changed into white hot pants and a pink sheer blouse tied under her breasts and a pink cowboy hat and matching pink cowboy boots. As she sings, she moves her hips in perfect time to the beat. A man whistles.

  Cammie sings, wagging her finger, “He’s gonna fight with me . . .”

  When she points her finger right at those big breasts, men start calling out to her: “I’ll fight you, baby!”

  Cammie keeps on singing, about Hoss and Joe, but the way she’s gyrating and shaking her breasts, no one is really listening anymore. In one swift motion her hot pants are off and her shirt is off and she’s standing on the stage in the Stardust Room in a G string and little tassels on her oversize thousand-dollar breasts.

  Aunt Gloria’s face has changed from proud to horrified and Mama Jo is shouting something that cannot be heard over the sound of men running to the stage to get closer, men calling to Cammie.

  Hands on her hips, Cammie sings her finale: “Bonanza! Bonanza! Bonanza!” With each “Bonanza” she swirls her breasts in such a way that the tassels spin in perfect synchronization. Aida watches them as if she has been hypnotized, as they spin so fast they become nothing but a blur, like the cheap foil pinwheels children run with in the wind.

  AIDA CANNOT EXPLAIN what happens next. How Mama Jo got home or who gave her the heart medicine she only took in extreme situations, a small pill placed under her tongue. Where Cammie disappeared to after she scooped up the dollar bills men threw at her feet and left the stage, wiggling her fingers over her shoulder in farewell. How the bandleader finally brought order back to the Stardust Room and managed to get Terry on the stage to throw her bouquet into the crowd below of eager girls, their fingers reaching greedily upward to grab the daisies tied with yellow ribbon.

  But it all happens. Boxed wedding cake is handed out as guests leave. This was supposed to be Aida’s one job, to hand out the cake and instruct women to sleep with it under their pillow so they can dream about the man they will marry. But she refuses to do it and lets Celeste perform even this task.

  Terry appears in her going-away outfit, a yellow pantsuit. She smells like she has thrown up. Still she thanks everyone and takes Eddie’s hand as they leave for their honeymoon. The next day the paper says, “The couple is touring the New England States.” But really they check into a motel in Narragansett and drop acid and eat mushrooms for three days.

  Aida is the last to leave the Stardust Room. She walks around, touching the stained tablecloths, the lipstick-rimmed glasses, the fountain gurgling with foam. There, on the floor near the stage, is a hot-pink tassel. She picks it up and crushes it to her face.

  Anything can happen, she thinks. She can step outside and everything can change. Aida lets the tassel drop to the floor, and then she does just that. She steps outside. The parking lot is nearly empty. The air is different; she smells rain in it and hears the distant rumble of thunder.

  “Aida!” her mother yells.

  Fat raindrops begin to fall, splattering her face.

  “Aida!”

  The rain comes, hard and fast, shining in the headlights and streetlights, streaming down Aida’s hair and bare shoulders. Aida leans her head back, opens her mouth, and drinks.

  Captain Macaroni

  WHAT ROGER KNOWS, WHAT HE HAS ALWAYS KNOWN, is that his brother Davy is the best. The best student, the best athlete, the best loved. When his mother makes roast beef for dinner, she gives Davy the extra pieces, trimmed of fat and sliced just right. When Davy practices the trumpet, everyone has to be quiet so as not to disturb him. Davy can sing like a bird, run like a cheetah, do science like Einstein, and write poems like Robert Frost. Davy is bigger than life.

  That is why when he got drafted and sent to Vietnam, Roger’s mother started lying on the couch in the afternoons with a damp cloth on her forehead and the curtains drawn.

  “Entertain yourself,” she tells Roger.

  Roger knows how to do that. He has been entertaining himself for his whole life. He goes into Davy’s empty room and touches everything on the desk. The typewriter. The trophy for football and the other one for baseball. He picks up the books lined up there. The Making of the President and In Cold Blood. Roger picks up In Cold Blood and reads: On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

  Creeped-out, he puts the book back on the desk. Why would Davy read a book like that? He stretches out on Davy’s bed with its brown-and-gold plaid blanket and stares up at the ceiling, pretending he’s Davy. What would it feel like to be his brother? To be so special? Did he lie here at night and fantasize about going into space? Or playing his trumpet in a jazz band? Or kissing his girlfriend, Diane? Ever since Davy left for Vietnam, Diane comes over for dinner every Tuesday night. She brings dessert from one of the Italian bakeries. His mother pretends to be grateful for the pastries, but later she will say, I didn’t leave Rhode Island and a bunch of wops to eat cannolis in Connecticut.

  Diane’s hair is short in the back and teased on top, with little bangs. She outlines her eyes in thick black eyeliner and sometimes she wears false eyelashes and short white go-go boots. At some point during the evening she breaks into tears and tells them how much she misses Davy. Before he left for Vietnam he gave her a tiny diamond ring. They are not engaged; they are pre-engaged. Even though Roger’s mother spends a good part of her days and nights crying, whenever Diane cries his mother stays dry-eyed. She lights a cigarette and sits back in her chair and watches Diane through narrowed eyes.

  “I love Diane,” Roger always says after Diane leaves. “Don’t you love Diane?”

  “You’re twelve years old,” his mother tells him. “What do you know about it?”

  From Davy’s bed, Roger sees Davy’s old ventriloquist’s dummy sitting on the top shelf of the bookcase. For a while, Davy used to sit in the living room and practice ventriloquism, holding the dummy on his lap and talking without moving his lips. Except he did move them. Roger always saw them wiggling. He never pointed that out, though, because everybody always said what a good ventriloquist Davy was, how they couldn’t even tell that was his voice coming from the dummy.

  Their sister, Debbie, used to be afraid of the dummy and she cried whenever Davy practiced his ventriloquism. Use your voice, she used to beg. But Davy just kept wiggling his lips and moving the dummy’s mouth, swiveling its head and flapping its arms. Davy was the oldest. Then came Debbie, five years younger. She used to have pretty soft blond hair and a soft belly. But now she is all hard sharp angles in hip-hugger jeans and a ratty Army jacket. Her hair turned a muddy brown and hangs down to her butt. She stays in her room mostly and plays Bob Dylan records. She is only three years older than Roger, but she seems much, much further away from him than that.

  Roger takes the dummy down from the shelf and stares at his creepy face. His cheeks are round, like he’s hid
ing food in them, and his nose is like Bob Hope’s. Roger can’t remember the name Davy gave the dummy, so he renames it Mike Nesmith after his favorite Monkee. He wishes he had a knit cap like the real Mike Nesmith wears for his Mike Nesmith. Maybe his Mama Jo will knit one for him. Even though Mama Jo smells like onions frying and maybe vaguely fishy, he loves her more than anything. Roger likes to sit on her lap and pinch the wrinkly skin on the top of her hand together, then watch how it stays that way for a long time before slowly settling back into place. Mama Jo is ancient.

  Roger sticks his hand in Mike Nesmith’s back and makes his arms and legs flop around. He swivels the head and opens and closes the mouth.

  “Roger?” his mother calls wearily. “What are you doing?”

  “Entertaining myself,” he answers.

  “You’re not in Davy’s room, are you?”

  “No,” he says, lifting Mike Nesmith’s right leg and crossing it over his left one.

  ROGER TRIES IT. He tries to talk without moving his lips.

  “I hope Davy gets killed in Vietnam,” he says, pushing the words through his closed mouth.

  “Don’t say things like that,” Roger says in his regular voice. He gives Mike Nesmith a hard shake. “Don’t ever say that again.”

  Mike Nesmith stares back at him with his heavy-lidded eyes.

  ONE OF THE THINGS that his mother always reminds him of is that even though his ancestors are Italian, he is American. “We all are,” she says. “You and me and Daddy and Davy and Debbie. We’re American.” Even when he had to do a report in school last year called “My Heritage,” his mother wanted him to write about living in Connecticut and the big Fourth of July party she threw every year.

  “But I want to write about Mama Jo,” Roger said. He stared down at the yellow paper with blue lines, his pencil poised over it. “I want to write about being Italian.”

  His mother had looked at him with a hard, even gaze. “But we’re American, sweetie,” she’d said. “Doesn’t Davy play football and baseball? Don’t I make the yummiest pies?”