“Tell that to my knees. Valentine is a lifesaver.”
I wish Gram would stop bragging about me. With every word she says, he buys time to remember the woman on the roof as compared with the one standing before him. This man has seen me naked, and believe me, there are states I wouldn’t enter if I knew that were true of any of its inhabitants. I like a little control in the nudity department; I prefer to be naked on my own terms, and in circumstances when I have a say over the lighting.
“Last night, I was looking at some ground level real estate next door for a potential restaurant space. The broker asked me if I wanted to see an apartment upstairs for fun. She was hard-selling me on the view of the river. And while the river was a knockout, I saw a woman on this roof who definitely beat that view.”
“Who?” Gram looks at me. “You?”
I shoot her a look.
“Who else could it have been?” she says and shrugs.
I cross my arms over my chest, then uncross them and place them on my hips. This guy has seen everything anyway, and he hardly needs X-ray specs to see through my arms to my breasts. “If you’ll excuse me, Roland…”
“Roman.”
“Right, right. Sorry. I have…some things to do.”
“What? We’re done for the day,” Gram says.
“Gram.” Now I’m annoyed. I give her the same play-along face that we give each other when we’re trapped by annoying customers. “I have other things to do.”
“What?” she presses.
Roman seems to be enjoying this. “A lot of things, Gram,” I tell her.
“I’d like to see the roof,” Roman says not so innocently.
“Valentine can take you. Take him up,” she barks. Gram gets up and moves to the stairwell to go upstairs. “I have to call Feen. I promised to call her before supper. Roman, it’s been a pleasure.”
“All mine, Teodora.”
What happened to the grandmother who didn’t want company above this floor? What happened to the woman who guards her privacy like the savings bonds hidden in a rusty tin box under the kitchen-table floorboards? She’s awfully quick to abandon her house rules in the face of this paisano. There’s something about this guy that she likes.
“Excuse me,” I tell Roman. I follow Gram into the stairwell and whisper, “Gram, what the hell is going on? Do you know this person? We’re two women living alone here.”
“Oh, please. He’s all right. Pull it together.” She grabs the railing and takes a step. Then she turns back to me. “It’s been too long for you, young lady. You have no instincts anymore.”
“We’ll discuss this later,” I whisper. I return to the living room.
Roman has turned his chair out from the table, crossed his legs, and has his hands folded in his lap. He’s waiting for me. “I’m ready for my tour.”
“Don’t you think you’ve seen enough around here?” I say.
“You think?” he says, grinning.
“Look, I don’t know you. Maybe you’re just some weirdo who goes around charming old ladies, speaking crappy Italian…”
“Hey, that hurts.” He puts his hand on his heart.
This makes me laugh. “Okay, not so crappy. In fact, I think you speak Italian very well. And I know that because I don’t.”
“I could teach you.”
“Okay. Fine. If I ever decide to…” Where have my words gone? He’s reeling me in here, and I’m trying to resist. “…learn how to speak better Italian.” There. I said it. Why is he looking at me like that, with an almost squint? What’s he looking for?
“Listen,” he says. “I’d like to make you dinner.”
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.”
“Not now, maybe. But, eventually, you’re gonna get hungry.” Roman stands. “And when you do, I’m your man.”
Roman fishes in his back pocket and takes out his wallet. He pulls a card from his wallet and places it on the table. “If you change your mind about that meal, give me a call.” Roman turns to go. “You really shouldn’t be ashamed of your body. It’s lovely.” I hear him whistle as he goes down the stairs. The front door snaps shut as he leaves. Curious about the tall stranger, I go to the table and pick up his business card. It says:
ROMAN FALCONI
Chef/Proprietor
Ca’ d’Oro
18 MOTT STREET
Here’s the thing about a business card with a man’s phone number on it. It moves through life with you if you let it. First, I put Roman’s card on the fridge, as if we’d actually order in from the place one night. Then, I moved it to my wallet, where it sat for a couple of days next to the Bloomie’s coupons I’d saved from a mailer. Now, it’s in my pocket, on my way to my room, where I’ll leave it in the crook of the mirror over my dresser, joining the school pictures of my nieces and nephews and a discount coupon for a deep-conditioning treatment at the Eva Scrivo Hair Salon.
Gram convinced me that we needed to bring Alfred into the know about our precarious financial situation. She’s invited him over this afternoon to turn over our records and books. And because we are first and foremost Italian women, we are making his favorite dish, tomato-and-basil foccacia, to soften him up and appeal to his sense of duty to family while attempting to swing things our way.
Alfred peels an orange as he sits in Grandpop’s chair at the head of the table. He places the peels neatly on a cloth napkin. Gram’s handwritten ledgers, her business checkbook, his laptop computer, and a calculator are spread out in front of him. He wears a suit and tie; his oxblood Berluti wingtips are buffed to a glassy burgundy finish. He studies the figures on the computer screen as he absentmindedly drums his fingers.
Gram and I have cleared the granite counter and are using it for a cutting board. I have made a well of flour into which I crack an egg. Gram adds another. I add yeast to the mixture and commence kneading the flour and eggs into dough. Gram sprinkles flour on the counter as I fold and refold the mixture until it’s a smooth ball. Gram takes the ball, and with her hands places it on a greased cookie sheet and with her thumbs makes small indentations in the dough. She pulls the edges of the dough into a rectangle, which eventually fills the pan. I scoop fresh-sliced tomatoes out of a bowl and layer them in the folds of the dough. Gram shreds fresh basil onto the tomatoes, then she drizzles the pans with gold olive oil. I hoist the foccacia into the hot oven.
“Okay, Gram, Valentine, sit down.”
Gram and I take our seats at either side of the table, across from each other. We turn our chairs to face him. Gram twists a striped moppeen around her hand and rests it in her lap.
“Gram,” Alfred begins, “you’ve done a good job of keeping the shop running. What you haven’t done is make money.”
“How can we—,” I begin, but Alfred holds up his hand to stop me.
“First we have to look at the debt.” He goes on, “When Grandpop died, instead of going out and getting a partner to help finance the operation, which would have been wise at the time, you borrowed against the building to keep your shop up and running. Now Grandpop had loans of about three hundred thousand dollars on the business. You kept his loan, but unfortunately, you’ve only paid the interest, so ten years later, you still owe the bank three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Even though she’s been paying all this time?”
“Even though she’s been paying. Banks know how to make money, and that’s how they do it. Now, Gram, here’s where you got into trouble,” he says. “You used the only equity you had to borrow more money. You mortgaged the building. The real problem is that they gave you a balloon mortgage—cheap to pay up front, but then, just as the name implies, it balloons. And now the marker has come due. Your payments double in the new year. Again, the banks were smart. They know your property value only increased in this area, and they’re making money on the fact that you will when you sell the building.”
“She doesn’t want to sell,” I interject.
“I know. But Gram used the building as
her leverage. Once Grandpop was gone, Gram couldn’t pay off any new debt. She was saddled with the old debt. The business can only produce what it can produce in any given year.”
“I tried to turn out more product,” Gram sighs.
“But you can’t. It’s not in the nature of a handcrafted product. They’re supposed to be unique, right?” Alfred looks at me.
“That’s what we’re selling. Exquisite shoes. Handcrafted. One of a kind.” My voice breaks.
Alfred looks at me with all the compassion he is capable of. “Okay, here’s what I recommend. It’s highly unlikely, with the cost of goods in the shop, and your ability to meet your orders, that you will make money. So, basically, the shoe shop is a financial wash.”
“But couldn’t we figure out a way to produce more shoes?” I ask him.
“It’s impossible, Valentine. You’d have to make ten times what you’re producing now.”
“We can’t do that,” Gram says quietly.
“There is one way to solve all your problems. You could sell the building and relocate to a cheaper location. Or not. Maybe it’s time to close the company entirely.”
My stomach turns. And here it is, in plain language, the scenario that will end my partnership with Gram and destroy any hopes I have of taking our shoe company into the future. Gram knows this, and so she says, “Alfred, I’m not ready to sell the building.”
“Okay, but you understand that this building is your greatest asset. It can set you free from the debt, and give you plenty to live on for the rest of your life. At least let me bring brokers through so we can assess what it’s worth—”
“I’m not ready to sell it, Alfred,” she repeats.
“I understand. But we need to know what the building is worth so that at the very least, I can go to the bank and refinance your mortgage and restructure your debt.”
I look over at Gram, who is weary from the discussion. Usually, she looks youthful to me, but today, having to own up to her past mistakes by the harsh light of the balance sheet on Alfred’s computer, she looks exhausted. The scent of pungent basil fills the air. I jump out of my seat. “The foccacia!” I run to the oven, look in the window, grab the oven mitts, and rescue the golden dough, its edges turning deep brown from the heat; I lift the pan out and onto the counter. “Just in time,” I say, fanning it with my oven mitt.
“Don’t worry, Gram,” I hear Alfred say. “I’ll take care of everything.”
Alfred’s quiet promise to Gram sends a chill through me. Someday, I will look back on this and remember it as the moment Alfred made his play to control the Angelini Shoe Company. What he will never know is that as determined as he is to sell, I am equally determined to stay and fight. My brother has no idea what I’m made of, but he’s going to find out.
The cold rain that brings the first chill of autumn to New York City woke me this morning. The boiler kicked on as the temperature dipped below fifty-five. The scent of fresh paint on the radiators, mixed with steam, signals winter on the way. As I pass Gram’s bedroom, she’s still asleep. How things have changed. Gram was up and in the shop before dawn. I was never an early riser, but now, with a mission in mind, I’m up with the sun.
I push open the glass door to the shop, prop it with a wedge of old wood, then set my mug of hot milk and espresso on an old rubber cat’s-paw heel and begin my rounds, flipping switches to turn on the work lights. Since our meeting with Alfred, I have savored every moment in this building. Each pair of shoes that we finish, pack, and ship galvanizes me to try and hang on to this shop. I can’t imagine a world where 166 Perry Street is anything but the Angelini Shoe Company, and anything but home. But there are moments when I am filled with despair about the fate of my future, and feel as though my dreams are slipping away, carried down the Hudson River and out to sea like a paper boat.
Our workshop is one enormous room, with areas assigned to particular tasks. There’s a half bath in the back that was once a closet. The workshop is spacious because it’s actually two stories high. There are windows on all four walls, very rare in a city building, giving us light throughout the day. When the storm clouds are low and dark, as they are this morning, it’s as if we are cloaked in gray chiffon. The light is muted, but it still breaks through.
The bay windows that face the West Side Highway create an old-fashioned storefront, turning us into a kind of aquarium for passersby who observe us as we work. Strangers often become mesmerized as they watch us press, hammer, and sew. We are so fascinating that PS 3 considers us a mandatory field trip every spring. The kids get a firsthand view of old-world craftsmanship, manual labor from centuries past. They find us as mesmerizing to watch as the seals at the Central Park Zoo.
I lift the key ring off the hook in the alcove by the door. I begin at the front, unlocking the folding metal gates that secure the windows. I roll them off to the side and throw a large latch around them to hold them in place. About twenty years ago, Grandpop installed the gates because the insurance company told him they would raise his rates if he didn’t. Grandpop argued that the building had been safe since his father bought it in 1903, and why should he change? The insurance adjuster said, “Mr. Angelini, your building hasn’t changed since 1903, but people have. You need the gates.”
When my great-grandfather arrived here, he built wooden storage closets all the way around the room. The wood grain is a mix of anything he could find—planks of oak, ends of mahogany, and strips of tiger-eye maple. The patchwork colors and texture of the wood are a reminder that my grandfather built the shop out of remnants from the Passavoy Lumberyard, which used to operate on the corner of Christopher Street. The closets reach to the ceiling. When we were kids, we used to play hide-and-seek inside them.
We store our tools, fabric, leather, and supplies in the closets. The organization of the goods has not changed since the shop opened. Great-grandpop built within the cupboards slanting shelves where we store the carved wooden models of various sizes of feet, called la forma. We build the structure of the shoe around these lasts, which were brought from Italy when my great-grandfather emigrated.
Another closet has a series of wooden dowels that hang horizontally from ceiling to floor. We use a stepladder to reach the wide bolt of sheer, gray-blue pattern paper at the top. Beneath it is a thick bolt of plain muslin, followed by a sumptuous selection of fabrics that alter as the seasons change. There’s double-sided white satin jacquard stitched in harlequin checks; embroidered cream silk patterned with loose flower petals in relief; eggshell velvet that shows a pale gold sheen in a certain light; sheer beige organza as stiff as fondant icing; and milky cotton linen textured with nubs of thread that give it the look of raw dotted swiss. Finally, at the very bottom of the closet, a dowel holds skeins of satin ribbon on small wheels in every shade from the palest pink to the deepest purple.
I remember when my sisters and I would hit Gram up for swatches to make dolls’ clothes. Our Barbies wore some first-class hand-cut Italian goods. And their accessories? With Gram’s supply of jet beads, ball fringe, and marabou feathers, our dolls were swathed in haute couture.
The leather, stacked in sheets, is stored in the largest of the closets. We keep squares of clean flannel between the patent leather sheets, and thin layers of pattern paper between the calfskin. The shelves in this closet are kept well oiled with lemon polish to keep the environment around the skins hydrated. The rich scent of leather and lemon wafts through the shop every time we open a closet door.
We keep by the entrance a small table and straight-backed chair that function as a desk. The phone, an old black model with a rotary dial, sits next to a red-leather-bound appointment book. Over the desk is a bulletin board covered in pictures of the grandkids, and a collage of our customers wearing our shoes in their full wedding regalia. The classic bridal photo comes in two varieties. It’s either a full shot of the bride lifting her hem to show her shoes, or she is barefoot and carrying them in her hands at the day’s end.
A sma
ll wooden statue of Saint Crispin, the patron saint of shoemakers, anchors the invoices on the desk. The statue was blessed by Gram’s priest in 1952. Shortly thereafter, the church renounced Crispin’s sainthood, and the statue was demoted from the breakfront upstairs to a paperweight in the shop.
Besides a stackable washer and dryer, there are three large machines in the back of the shop. The roller is a long apparatus with large, sleek, metal cylinders that stretch and smooth the leather. The buffer is about the size of a washing machine and features large hemp brushes, which polish the leather, breaking down the grain to give it a sheen. La Cucitrice is an industrial sewing machine used to stitch the soles and seams.
There’s an old ironing board with a blue paisley cover, and it has more than its share of coffee-colored burns, lots of them my doing. The iron itself is small and heavy, a triangle wedge with the metal handle covered in rattan. It, too, came from Italy with my great-grandfather. The iron takes a good ten minutes to heat up, but we wouldn’t think of buying a new one. My great-grandfather rewired it for electricity when he was a young man. Prior to that, they simply put the iron in the fireplace on an open grid to heat it.
Pressing is the first job an apprentice must learn. You’d be surprised by how long it took me to press fabric without having the edges curl. I thought I knew how to iron, but like every skill involved in making shoes, the stuff you thought you knew has to be relearned and refined. Everything we do is about pulling the construction elements together so that each shoe is perfectly molded to the foot of the individual customer. There can be no rough edges, wrinkles, bunching, or gathering. This is the luxury aspect of wearing a custom-made shoe. No one else could wear yours.
I look at my to-do list for the day. I have to sew beading on a pair of sateen pumps for a fall wedding; Gram has finished the shoe proper, now it’s mine to festoon. I go to the powder room to wash my hands.
My grandfather started a tradition of wallpapering this room with headlines that made him laugh from the New York daily newspapers. His favorite? From 1958: BABY BORN WITH FULL SET OF TEETH. I taped up TYING THE NUT when a fickle movie star married for the third time two summers ago. Gram added CROOK ASTOR when philanthropist Brooke Astor’s son was indicted for taking money from her estate prior to her death.
Very Valentine Page 6
