Gianluca and Gabriel leaned against the cutting table. Tess had a notebook open to jot down ideas, while Charlie helped himself to a doughnut and a cup of coffee. Pamela had her laptop open with several new designs of the new logo. Jaclyn and Tom sat on the worktable, eager to see what new designs I had come up with.
“Okay, I want your honest feedback,” I announced. I noticed that Gabriel and Gianluca shot one another a look.
Evidently I had been a little less than cooperative in the shop in my postpartum state. “In honor of our new venture, I based the new designs on macaroni.”
“Made of macaroni?” Tom blurted.
“No, brother, inspired by macaroni.” I was glad I had Tom working in shipping and not creative.
I held up the first sketch. “This is the Orecchiette sandal. I took silver discs like orecchiette pasta, and strung them on silver mesh with a flat buckle.”
“Nice,” said Tess. “I’d wear those.”
“Me too,” said Jaclyn.
“I love them,” Pam said as she typed into her laptop.
“Here’s the Pastina, a simple beige or plum pump with a square heel embellished with tiny beads à la pastina.”
“You’ll sell those like cannolis in Brooklyn,” Gabriel said. “Those girls like glitz.”
“And this is the Rigatoni, a bouclé vamp and a block heel shaped like—”
“Rigatoni,” Charlie finished.
“Right. And here’s the Fusilli. A leather mule in vivid blue, black, and red, with a spring heel—”
“The Fush-heel.” Gabriel helped my presentation along.
“Yes. And here’s the Linguini. A neutral calfskin golf shoe accented with bright laces of rolled leather—”
“I’m rolling the leather.” Gianluca smiled.
“And you do it so well, honey. Well, what do you think?”
“I think we’re going to have a ball marketing these,” Pamela said. “They’re kitschy, but they’re beautiful. They’re functional and whimsical. We can do a whole campaign with the shoes in the kitchen, in pasta pots, that sort of thing. Hip for your feet.”
“Go wild,” I told Pam.
“I’d like to thank my staff for helping me pull this presentation together.”
“Staff of one,” Gabriel said.
“This was a family business from the beginning, and it will remain that way forever. You’ve all made Gram very happy. She loves that we’re all under one roof.”
“And let’s face it, since you had Alfie, you need us.” Tess smiled.
“And that too.”
Alfie’s birth had given me a whole new perspective on family. I had been the guest for years at my nieces’ and nephews’ milestones and passages. Now they would be there for Alfie. And if we were going to have them around all the time, why not put them to work? Why shouldn’t they benefit from the business? After all, it was their family business too.
My mom became built-in child care. Tess and Jaclyn and Pamela brought their children to the shop, and just like when we were kids, they had full run of the house and the roof. Our childhood wonderland had become theirs.
My sisters had thrown themselves into the work. It was like the old days when Gram called Feen to help with a shipping deadline. Mom would drop everything to come into the city to wrap the shoes in chamois sleeves and box them. It was natural for us to help one another in business because we had seen this sort of teamwork all our lives. Tess and Jaclyn had worked as temps or did odd jobs here and there after they became mothers. Now they had a place to go; each had her own desk on Perry Street.
The couture line paid our salaries, and once Youngstown took off, we’d be able to plow more money back into the business. Eventually, I hoped to offer retirement and shares in the company to my family.
The business was going great, but I was torn. For me, motherhood and work was a terrible combination. The only way to make shoes and maintain a family was to have a husband so supportive, I could jump from one high wire to the other with ease. I had a net, after all. The net was Gianluca.
“Do you really like the line?” I asked Gabriel after everyone had left.
“It’s adorable and doable. God, I sound like Pamela. She’s a walking advertisement. The new factory should be able to handle these.”
“Charlie says the equipment should arrive in Youngstown by the end of the month.”
“You realize that you’ve hired every Roncalli in the family except for the goldfish in your mother’s koi pond.”
“Can you imagine?”
“Family: the gift that keeps on taking,” Gabriel reminded me.
Gianluca was rocking Alfie when I came up from the meeting. He was looking out the window, and for a moment, memories of my own dad rocking Jaclyn when she was a baby came rushing back.
“That was a great meeting,” I said as I poured myself a glass of water.
“Alfie is hungry.”
“She has my appetite,” I said as I took the baby. I took her to the kitchen and prepared her a bottle.
“You’re not going to nurse her?”
“I’m weaning her.”
“So soon?”
“It’s been six months. My doctor said it was fine. She got all the nutrients up front.”
“That’s part of breast feeding, but the more important aspect of it is the bonding.”
“That’s judgmental.”
“It’s not a judgment. It happens to be true.”
“Look, they’re my breasts, and I’m done with it.”
Gianluca looked perplexed and then fixed his gaze on the baby.
“Is something wrong?” I asked him.
“Your staff is unhappy.”
“Gabriel?”
“The upstairs staff. Me.”
“What are you talking about?” All I could think was, Nice, buddy. I carry the baby, I have the baby, I nurse the baby, I am up all night with the baby, and it’s not enough. Gianluca had some idealized, old-fashioned notion of the Italian mama who wraps the baby in her apron, does her chores, nurses the baby on her breaks, and then tends the husband with any leftover time she has. I was furious. “I know I don’t multitask like a perfect mother in Italy, but I’m doing my best.”
“Why do you always have to denigrate my country and my people when we get in an argument?”
“Because you judge me.”
“When did I judge you?”
“I came upstairs, and you’re all cold and weird.”
Alfie began to cry. She spat the formula out. Gianluca jumped up and grabbed the bottle. He tested it on his arm. “It’s cold, Valentina.”
I grabbed the bottle from his hand. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Now we get to the truth. You know everything.”
“I know a lot, and frankly, more than you.”
“It’s a contest.”
“You’re making it one!”
“Well, guess what, Valentina? You’re losing. You can’t do everything you want to do and do it well. You rush down to your meeting as though it’s more important than Alfie and me, and then you rush back up the stairs and feed her cold formula. My daughter deserves better than this!”
“Are you kidding? She is surrounded by love!”
“That’s very loving. Screaming at the top of your lungs. Let me raise my voice, so perhaps you will hear me. I asked you to take time off with the baby, but you insisted on working through the first weeks of her life. We will not get these moments back.”
“I am so tired of you being the expert.”
“You asked me to help you through this process. I am only telling you what I know. But you ignore every suggestion. You glared at me at the hospital when I took away your phone when you were having contractions.”
“That’s extreme.”
“It
’s true!”
“Here’s my truth, Gianluca. I’m angry.”
“And that’s what I wake up to!”
“Poor Gianluca! You’re not getting enough attention, so you lash out at me?”
“I don’t need your attention, but your daughter does.”
“How dare you? You see what I have to do in a day.”
“I watched you sketch an entire line of shoes in Italy, and you never once lost patience or became angry.”
“We were on vacation!”
“Life can be that easy every day in Italy.”
“Oh, my God. You and Italy. Italy is the solution to every problem!”
“It’s a start. Don’t you see? You’re like a tense piano wire. You are pulled as far and as tightly as you can be by obligations and commitments, so tight that when the hammer hits the wire, it makes no sound. Listen to me, the shoes aren’t important. Your business is not the thing you will remember when you’re older—”
“Oh, now I’m going to take advice from the man who had big dreams to put a tannery on the Amalfi Coast and it didn’t happen, so now I’m going down in flames too!”
I saw rage rise deep within my husband. “You are not only selfish, you’re cruel. Who told you about my business?”
“Your father, through my grandmother, told me what happened.”
“And you bring it up now?”
“I should be asking the same thing of you. You shut me out, and then you’re hurt when I keep things from you. Well, here’s what I’ve been keeping from you—I have no intention of moving to Italy. It’s fine for vacations, but here’s the deal. I plan to stay right here on this block, in this house, with this view, forever.”
“Good to know,” he said.
Gianluca turned to go down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I demanded.
“The baby needs diaper cream.”
Gianluca went down the stairs. I realized that I had no idea that my baby was out of diaper cream—but give me a break, I had presented the new line of shoes today and had other things on my mind. Was it too much to ask that I could rely on my partner to do the shopping? Why should I feel badly about that for a second? Why have a husband if he’s not going to participate in the day-to-day raising of our child?
Alfie was dressed in her traveling ensemble, pink pants and a jacket with duck buttons made from a vintage chenille bedspread, when she went on her first car trip.
The Supreme Macaroni Company was set to open in Youngstown, and the entire family would be there for the ribbon cutting on the new factory.
We pulled up to the building on the main drag of Smokey Hollow. The facade of the building had been painted red, white, and green, in blocks, like the Italian flag. I loved it already. The building stood out against its drab, industrial neighbors like a giant Popsicle. Our logo was in a circle in the center of the wall. The r’s in Supreme Macaroni Company were upside-down boots. This was Pamela’s idea, and we ran with it. There was a bright red ribbon across the entrance door.
I turned to Gianluca. “The Italian flag is for you, honey.”
Gianluca smiled.
My brother and sisters were waiting for me by the entrance. My parents were standing back, taking in the exterior renovation. Their kids were running up and down the sidewalk. They were dressed up for the ceremony, just like Alfie.
My parents were beaming, so they must like it. Gianluca helped me out of the car and took the baby. Charlie and Don came around the side of the business and joined us.
“I’m going to take you all on a tour before the official ribbon cutting,” Charlie said. “Are you ready?”
Charlie held the ribbon to the side as Don propped the door open. My family filed into the vestibule.
This day had been months in the making. When Charlie returned from Argentina, he waited for the equipment to be shipped to Youngstown. He came out for a couple of months, bunked with Cousin Don, and put the whole thing together.
My brother-in-law was the best hire. He poured himself into the factory, and now we were seeing the fruition of his months of hard work. While Charlie was working with the mechanics, Bret and Alfred were working over the local banks with Don. Alfred carved up some crazy deal with Carl McAfee that helped us get a loan from the bank. Hopefully, when we started turning a profit, we’d be able to pay off our loans quickly. My husband kept reminding me that this was the price of doing business.
My family stood in the vestibule, which was repainted and well lit, with a new clock to punch.
“Hey, this is like when we went in the Haunted House at Great Adventure. Remember how they crammed us in?” Tom laughed.
“This time the floor won’t fall out from under you,” Charlie said. “I poured the concrete myself.”
“Is everybody ready?” Don wanted to know.
“Yes!” we shouted.
Cousin Don pushed the door open; we filed into the main room of the factory. The Supreme Macaroni Company had been restored to its former glory, but instead of ravioli presses and pasta machines, the enormous and glorious equipment used by our great-grandfather and his brother, protected and maintained by our cousin Roberta, was back home in the United States of America.
The presser, with its new steel rollers, glistened at the center of the room. The cutting table, with a state-of-the-art automatic motor and blade, was lit by a series of tin-capped lamps painted red, white, and green.
The buffer, with a ramp and conveyor belt that would deliver the shoes to finishing, took up the entire back wall. The finishing department consisted of four long worktables, stools lined up underneath on either side, where fifty employees would snip threads, polish heels, and glue embellishments on the shoes on their way to shipping. I felt as if I were inside the gears of a Swiss watch. Each operation was dependent upon the one before it.
Charlie had taken one of my sketches and, with Pamela’s help, framed a series of operations in the factory, from the impulse to design a shoe to the creative end, when the shoe is worn by the customer. To see the steps dramatized on the wall, in order, and with such reverence, brought tears to my eyes.
Gabriel joined me as I looked up at them. “These are the stations of the cross for anyone who has accepted shoes as their religion.”
“What do you think?” Charlie asked me.
I threw my arms around him. “You weren’t just a guy who sold alarms, you’re an artist.”
“Nah. You’re the artist. I’m just a pretty good mechanic.”
My brother Alfred joined us. “And thank you, Alfred!” I gave my brother a hug.
“Let’s thank the money gods.”
“Carl McAfee?”
“For one. We got lucky. When we needed an infusion of cash, it showed up. That’s how we do it.”
“Hey, everybody! They want us outside for the ribbon cutting. Mayor Ungaro is out there! And we got Monsignor Cariglio to bless the joint!”
My family joined the mayor and the monsignor outside the factory. A small crowd had gathered on this special day, and we were happy to have them.
“You like it?” Gianluca put his arms around me and the baby.
“It’s a miracle. I can’t believe it all came together. And that you and I didn’t fall apart in the process.”
“You have angels all around you, Valentina.”
“Yeah, well, I like the tall one with the blue eyes.” I kissed my husband.
As the mayor cut the ribbon, I leaned over and whispered to Cousin Don, “Where’s Carl?”
“He doesn’t do spectacle,” Cousin Don said. “He’s a behind-the-scenes guy.”
Don turned toward the camera and beamed. That’s the shot that made it into the Youngstown Vindicator.
That night Don threw us a big party at the Lake Club. There was an Italian spread that would put the best restaurant
in Little Italy to shame. Lou Fusillo went in the kitchen and whipped up a polenta appetizer that had the crowd begging for more. The night began with antipasto and ended with chocolate soufflés and Napoleons.
My mother walked the grounds, marveling at the gorgeous view behind the dining room. I have decided that my mother loves catering halls as much as double-point days at Saks Fifth Avenue.
My husband, father, and brother were enjoying a cigar on the veranda. I loved seeing my husband relax with my family.
Cousin Chrissy had found a fabulous team of local girls to babysit the kids. Alfie would sleep through the fun, but she was safe and happy. For the first time, the new parents were free. We decided to make a real party of the opening of the Supreme Macaroni Company.
I handed Gabriel a glass of wine by the lake.
“What the hell are we doing here?” Gabriel asked.
“In our small way we are revitalizing manufacturing in the United States.”
“You never think small, do you?”
“What’s the point?”
“I never thought I’d set foot in Youngstown, Ohio,” Gabriel said. “Steubenville, yes. I’m a Dean Martin fan. But Youngstown? Never.”
“So, what do you think?”
“Well, they’re our people, aren’t they? You got more Italians here than you do at the soccer finals in Calabria. I feel at home here.”
“Good. Because we’ll be spending a lot of time here.”
“Yes, we will. We have to take care of the Cathedral of the Shoe.”
“Let’s pray for good profits.” Don Pipino laughed as he passed us on the way to the bar. “Because, let’s face it, I’m not in this for my health. I’m in it for the green. Or should I say, the red, white, and green.”
Gianluca and I stayed in the same room at the Marriott we’d stayed in when we first visited Youngstown, except this time, in addition to extra towels, we requested a crib. Alfie was fast asleep when I poured my husband a glass of wine in a plastic cup and then one for myself.
I toasted him. We sipped and kissed.
“Thank God that’s over.”
“Val, it’s just beginning.”
“I know. But it’s built, and it’s going to run.”
The Supreme Macaroni Company Page 23
