“You tell those swankies to wait,” my mother instructs us. “There’s no sense in killing yourself over a party dress.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Delmarr assures her as he and John stand. Delmarr shakes my father’s hand and says good night to everyone.
John Talbot turns to my mother. “Thank you for a delicious dinner.”
“Come by anytime,” Mama says warmly.
“I promise I will.”
I show John and Delmarr to the vestibule. While John puts on his coat, I take down his hat and gloves and hand them to him. “Borsalinos are very chic.”
“And durable. This hat will last a lifetime.”
Delmarr holds out his hat before placing it on his head. “I hope my hat passes inspection.”
“Impeccable as always, Monsieur Delmarr. Lilly Dache would approve.”
“Ah, thank you, thank you. I’ll pick you up around two on Sunday, Lucia. I can’t wait to see Ruth in her Elizabeth Taylor gown. She wouldn’t let me look, even though I designed it. Evidently men are bad luck in general. Please thank your mother again for dinner.”
Delmarr opens the door and steps outside, leaving me and John in a brief moment of silence, which I break. “Good night, John.”
“Lucia? Are you busy tomorrow?”
My mind files through my chores. I picture myself curled up with a book.
“Not very,” I tell him.
“Would you like to go for a ride?”
“That would be nice.”
“I’ll pick you up at one.”
After I close the door behind him, I watch through the pink panes of glass as he and Delmarr walk up to Barrow and turn.
“He’s a looker,” Rosemary says from behind me.
“Do you trust lookers, Ro?” I ask her.
“Never.”
“Me, neither.”
“But I like him. And he likes my sesame cookies, which shows good judgment.” Rosemary hands me an index card. She has already written out the recipe for me.
ROSEMARY SARTORI’S SESAME SEED COOKIES
Yield: 3 dozen cookies
3 cups flour, sifted
Dash of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks real butter (warmed to room temperature)
3/4 cup white granulated sugar
3 jumbo-size egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Large handful of sesame seeds
1 tablespoon heavy cream
Take the flour, salt, and baking powder and sift together into a medium-size bowl. In a large bowl blend the butter with a fork into the sugar. Add in the egg yolks one at a time, then add vanilla. Take the dry mixture from the small bowl and pour into the large bowl of wet ingredients. Mix well with hands. Make into a ball; should be doughy. Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for a couple of hours. After this time has passed, lightly flour cutting board. Roll dough into long strips and cut into 2-inch pieces. Wet sesame seeds in heavy cream. Take each cookie and dip into seeds. Put the cookies on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 9 minutes at 400º.
I spent the morning pressing my brothers’ shirts in the basement laundry room. I never mind the job. The fresh scent of cotton when the steam iron hits the shirt is comforting. I get satisfaction when I look at the freshly starched shirts on hangers arranged in order on the rack, from my oldest brother to my youngest. Between housework and Ruth’s wedding tomorrow, I almost wish I hadn’t made a date with John for this afternoon. It’s unlike me to accept a last-minute engagement, but there’s something about him that makes me want to throw out my rules.
When he comes to the door promptly at one, Mama is waiting with a couple of wrapped turkey sandwiches and a small sack of Rosemary’s sesame cookies for us to take on our ride.
“Have you ever been to Huntington?” John asks as he opens the door to help me into his car. I notice a fringe of cloudy white salt on the bumpers, the only sign that the car has been out of a garage since the winter began.
“No,” I tell him.
He goes around to the driver’s side, gets in, and settles into the seat. “Long Island. It’s building up. You know, there are only so many views of the ocean. Finite real estate. That’s where the money is.” He looks at me and smiles, turning the key over. The Packard engine hums evenly like a church organ. “I have a real estate plan. You know, the entirety of the American economy is built on real estate. I plan to buy a home, then borrow against it to build another, and so on, until there’s a development with my name on it. What do you think?”
“I think . . . it sounds great.” I don’t know what else to say. Real estate is not something I have given much thought to. As we head over to the East Side, cross the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, and sail onto the highway, John Talbot tells me about his big dream to use the real estate money to open an elegant Manhattan hotel with all the trimmings. He sees a nightclub, a restaurant, rooftop views, the works. His enthusiasm is contagious. I imagine the women in their mink coats and pearls. I see the men who accompany them, dapper New York business tycoons, and I see John Talbot in their midst, entertaining them with his wit and charm.
Huntington Bay, Long Island, still has a kiss of the last snowfall on its trees and sloping lawns. The homes are new, dotting the hillsides in a mix of styles: brick colonial, Connecticut farmhouse, and my favorite, English Tudor. There’s something about the bricks, casement windows, and castle doors that makes me feel secure.
“You love the Tudor, don’t you?” John looks at me and stops the car in front of the house.
“Italians like English design. Mama has family in Forest Hills. They’re crazy for the Tudors.”
John pulls the car over in front of an empty lot. “Let’s go,” he says, and jumps out of the car. He comes around and opens the door for me, offering me his hand. “I want to show you something.” John leads me up a hill. It’s icy, so I slide back and we laugh, but he moves me in front of him and pushes me up the knobby hill until we reach the top. Through the trees I see a silvery expanse hung low with white clouds.
“That’s the bay,” John says.
A feeling comes over me, one I’ve never experienced. I connect with this place, deeply and instantly, as if I have been here before. What would it be like to live near the water? To be able to walk to the ocean and hear the waves and smell the sea salt every day? Fancy Upper East Side Manhattan, dressed in black velvet, has always been my idea of sumptuous living, but now I imagine having a view of the ocean. I can see the blue summers and the petal-soft springs when the driftwood bleaches from dull gray to eggshell white in the sun. Papa told me stories of going to Rimini, on the Adriatic coast below the Veneto, where the sand was the color of snow. Against the blue water, it could blind you in the noonday sun.
“You should live on the water someday,” John says, as if he knows something about my future that I do not.
My feet get caught in the dry bramble of some old branches. John kneels and helps me out of the twisty mesh. I look down at him and can’t help imagining the precise moment he will propose marriage to me. He looks up at me, and I swear he is thinking the same thing. I pull my foot loose and extend my hand to help him up. We go back to the car without saying a word.
Once we’re back on the highway, I feel sad about leaving the ocean behind. I look out the window because this isn’t something I want to talk about. I need to think about it before I can articulate it. Plus, I want to run all of this by Ruth. She is wise in these matters.
“Would you like to meet my mother?” John Talbot asks.
“Well . . . of course.” I’m surprised John wants me to meet his family. After all, this is only a first date.
“We don’t have to. We could do it another time,” he says, sensing my discomfort.
I change my mind. The more clues I have to understanding John, the better. “No, no. I’d like to. Does she live out here? With your father?”
“No, he died when I was seven. She
remarried when I was twelve. My stepfather was a nice man named Edward O’Keefe.”
“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” I ask.
“Nope.”
“So it’s just you taking care of your mother.”
John Talbot doesn’t reply, and for whatever reason, I don’t press him. I’m already beginning to read his signals. He is not direct. When he is uncomfortable or doesn’t want to talk, he ignores the question. He doesn’t volunteer information. But all interesting men are evasive sometimes, aren’t they? He’s an enigma. So I’m not terribly surprised when he turns into a circular drive with an arch over the entrance that says CREEDMORE.
If you’d never heard of Creedmore but stumbled upon it, you might think it was a private estate, with its grand driveway lined by hundred-year-old oaks with ivy growing up their trunks like long gloves. But it’s not an estate; it’s a hospital for the elderly, the infirm, and occasionally, the troubled who need a respite from the noise of the world. This is how it was explained to me when I was a girl.
“Does your mother work here?” I ask John as we walk under the awning that leads to the main doors.
“No, she’s lived here for the past three years.” John opens the door for me. Beyond the small foyer is an enormous visiting room ringed with the elderly in wheelchairs, some alone, others with weekend visitors. The center of the room is curiously empty, like a circus ring before the show begins.
As we approach the reception desk, I can see that the patients are clean and well cared for, but that doesn’t compensate for the sadness I feel when I look into their eyes. The nurse at the reception desk greets John as he signs in. He shows me through the set of doors leading to the rooms.
“My mother had me late in life. She was nearly forty. Four years ago she had a slight stroke,” John explains as we walk. “I took care of her myself for the first year, but then she suffered another stroke, that one massive, and lost her speech. Her doctors suggested a convent hospital on Staten Island, but my mother never liked Staten Island. I asked for other alternatives, and one of the doctors recommended this place.”
John opens the door to his mother’s room and motions for me to enter. The room is fairly spacious, painted mint green, and sparsely furnished. Its saving grace is a large window on the far wall that overlooks a sculpture garden with a rolling field behind it.
There are two patients in the room. Closest to the door, sleeping in a bed with the pillows propped almost to sitting position, is a small white-haired lady. In the far bed, looking out at the view, another petite white-haired lady is eating her lunch. Her hair is coiffed with marcel waves; her fingernails are short and painted bright red. She wears a pressed pink housecoat with a zippered front.
“I brought a friend today,” John says as he kisses her on the cheek.
She smiles and looks up at him, then grabs his arm with her hand. He reaches down and gives her another kiss. “I would like you to meet Lucia Sartori.”
“Hello, Mrs. O’Keefe.” I smile at her.
She looks me up and down without smiling and goes back to her soup.
“I brought you some chocolate-covered marshmallows.” John places the box of candy on her bedside table. “Are they treating you well?”
She can’t answer, but she does not seem frustrated by this. Obviously, they are treating her well. Her bed is neat, and the room is spotless.
John pulls up a chair and indicates that I should sit. He sits down on the edge of the bed and takes his mother’s hand and chats with her. John has the same strong jawline as his mother, but her eyes are light blue instead of gray. Around her face are touches of faded gold in her white hair, indicating that once upon a time, her hair was red. “Mrs. O’Keefe, were you a redhead?” I ask her.
“Yes, she was. A real Irish girl with a genuine Irish temper,” John replies.
Mrs. O’Keefe looks out the window and sighs. She reaches for the candy John brought, unwraps it, and offers John and me each a piece. We sit with her for half an hour as John recaps events happening in the news. She doesn’t appear to listen, but he presses on, trying to entertain her.
I have never known anyone who lived in a place like Creedmore. When my mother’s mother came to live with us after my grandfather died, we took care of her ourselves. It was unheard of to seek help outside the home. As I look at Mrs. O’Keefe, I wonder if she knew her life would come to this. John is very attentive, checking with the nurses and making sure she is comfortable. My mother always told me to observe how a son treats his mother. What I see today impresses me.
The drive back to Manhattan seems short, except for the theater traffic outside the Midtown Tunnel. It’s only six o’clock, but it feels much later. We spent the whole day together, a day so full it seemed to last a month. I am tired from the ride, from all the things I saw and learned, and from John himself. He is intelligent and needs more than an eager listener. He needs a confidante with whom he can share the flurry of ideas that seem to come so easily to him.
John pulls up in front of my house, gets out, and opens my door. He extends his hand and helps me out of the car. Then he lifts me up by my waist. I place my hands on his shoulders because my feet are barely touching the ground. Without a word, he gently kisses me. He holds me so tightly, I feel bound to him. I lean back a little to look into his eyes, but they are closed. I wonder what he’s thinking. The cold February twilight sends a chill through me, but his face is warm, and I bury my nose in his cheek.
“Thank you,” he says softly.
“Mr. Talbot?”
“Yes?”
“Are you ever going to ask me before you kiss me?”
“Probably not.” He laughs.
“Just so I know the rules.”
I go up to the stoop and take out my key. John Talbot waits by his car until I am safely inside. I watch him through the windowpanes and can hear the low tweet of his whistling as he climbs back into the Packard. He flips open his cigarette case, pulls out a cigarette, taps the tip on the dashboard, and lights it. Then he drives off down the street. The moment the car turns the corner and is out of sight, I feel sad. There it is, the first sign of falling in love: the great longing that comes from even the slightest separation. When I look at him, I don’t feel that I deserve him; rather that I aspire to him. This will be a love I will have to earn, but something tells me John Talbot is worth it.
I sit down and pull off my snow boots, thinking the house is awfully quiet. When I go to the foot of the stairs, I see a note taped to the banister: “Come to Saint Vincent’s Hospital! We have a girl!” I rush to put my boots back on and run the fifteen-plus blocks to meet my new niece.
Inside the warm hospital I find the stairs to the third-floor maternity ward and take them two at a time. The waiting area outside the new mothers’ rooms looks more like a train station than a hospital. Happy fathers corral the newborns’ siblings, not quite sure how to handle the children on their own. I see the occasional grandmother or aunt pitching in to help, but it’s mostly the overwhelmed daddies who try to make the children settle down and behave. A nurse, used to the fray, manages the proceedings with patience. I rush to the desk and inquire about the Sartori baby. The nurse smiles and points to the nursery. There is quite a crowd pressing against the large window. Hogging the front are my brothers, my parents, and the Lancelattis.
“Excuse me,” I say to the people waiting to get at the window, and squeeze in next to my parents. “Where is she?”
“Oh, Lucia, Rosemary did so well,” Mama brags. “She’s six pounds, three ounces. She’s tiny but strong.”
“Which one is she?” I want to know.
Roberto points to an infant swaddled tightly in a white flannel blanket. “Can’t you tell? Look at that head of hair.” Her face peeks out of the cocoon, a pink rosebud with a head of thick black hair.
“She’s an angel!” Papa says proudly. “Not since you were born, Lucia . . .” He gets tears in his eyes.
“That hair reminds me o
f Mr. Castellini’s toupee. A lot of hair on top and nothing on the sides,” Exodus comments. The boys laugh.
“That’s not funny!” Mama says. It occurs to me that the phrase she utters most often to my brothers is that one.
Papa has his arm around Mama. They look at the baby with such adoration that I can understand why Mama had five children. There’s nothing like this moment, nothing as hopeful as the face of a newborn. “Hey, let’s give the other families the window,” I tell everyone.
“Andiamo!” Mama says, giving Papa a gentle nudge to move the boys to the waiting area.
The nurse comes in with a chart and looks at us. “Let me guess. Italians,” she says with a half-smile. “You folks really know how to pack a joint.”
“Are we being too noisy?” I ask her.
“No, no, I’m teasing. Rosemary would like to see her mother, Mrs. Sartori, and Lucia.”
“That’s Aunt Lucia,” I tell her.
“Boys,” Mama instructs, “we’ll see you at home in a little while.”
“Roberto and I will be in the waiting room,” Papa tells her.
In single file, we follow the nurse down a quiet corridor to Rosemary’s room, Mama, Mrs. Lancelatti, then me. Mama takes Mrs. Lancelatti’s hand as they enter the room. Rosemary is exhausted. She looks even smaller than usual, and the way she’s propped up in bed reminds me of Mrs. O’Keefe at Creedmore.
Mrs. Lancelatti goes to the other side of the bed and kisses her daughter. She cradles Rosemary’s face in her hands. “I am so proud of you,” she says.
“It wasn’t bad, Ma. We’ve decided on her name, and we wanted you to hear it first. She is Maria Grace, in honor of our mothers.” Ro smiles. Both Mama and Mrs. Lancelatti begin to cry. “Okay, now you go. I need to sleep.”
“Grace, I made a roast,” Mama says to Mrs. Lancelatti across the bed. “You must all come to dinner.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind of you,” Mrs. Lancelatti says. They kiss Rosemary and go out into the hallway together.
“Sleep well, Ro,” I tell her, and turn toward the door.
“Lu?” Rosemary reaches out for my hand.
Lucia, Lucia Page 12
