“Here’s how it’s going to go, Mr. Arma. You’ll recede at the front until the age of fifty-two. The balding at the crown will spread quickly, and most of the hair at the top will be gone by forty. You’re how old?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Amend that. Crown will be gone closer to thirty-eight.”
“What’s the process, sir?” Chi Chi asked.
“We choose a style. For your husband, I would recommend side part, loose wave, to blend in with the curls around the collar. I do a nice blend. His hair is fine in texture, but he has a lot of it. We choose a lace. I measure his head. I do a form of his head. Ever had a hat made?”
“Yes.”
“It’s similar. So as you age, as you gray out, and eventually go white—yes, this is a toupee—we have your head measurements. They never change. I buy excellent quality human hair from Greece, Italy. Lately, I like Polish hair, but they tend to have a thick, straight quality to the hair, at least what is offered me. I like to give you the hair in its natural state.”
“How do you put a toupee on?”
“Adhesive. If you can paste a photo of yourself with hair in a scrapbook, you can place a toupee on your head. Don’t worry about that at all. If you knew how many Hollywood stars came in that door, you’d plotz. I like to say it’s only hair, but as long as it’s only hair, why don’t we make the best hair we can for the best result we can? You want to look good, I want to look good, who can blame us? Am I right?”
* * *
Chi Chi drew the drapes in room 903 of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. She had bathed, put on her lipstick, and brushed her hair. The hotel robe was soft against her skin.
As she untied the robe and let it drop to the floor, she studied her body in the mirror. Even though her waist had gotten thicker after the twins, she still had a nice shape and her legs were holding up just fine.
She slipped into a new peignoir set, an eggshell chiffon nightgown and robe. Chi Chi was trying to be alluring, to get Tony’s attention. As she waited for him to arrive, she straightened up the room, hanging her husband’s clothes in the closet. She put the Samson’s toupee contract in her purse.
Tony burst into the room. “I got it, Cheech. I got it.” He picked her up and twirled her around. “I got the movie. I’m singing in it, too. And they said if the studio likes it, I’m getting second song.”
“Honey, that’s great.”
“We start in a week.”
“The girls just started school.”
“So we move them.”
“Do you think?” Chi Chi asked.
“Why not? You loved California.”
“I did. And you know what? Wherever you are, we want to be. And this will be so much better than the road. You can make records and do a concert here and there. No more living out of a suitcase.”
Tony glanced at Chi Chi’s peignoir. “Are you expecting company?”
“You got here before William Holden.”
“Lucky me.” Tony kissed her. “You like William Holden?”
“Just trying to make you jealous.”
“Why’s that?”
“So you remember me.”
“I couldn’t forget you.”
“That’s when trouble starts, Savvy. When you forget me.” Chi Chi kissed him.
“Remind me, what are we doing here?”
“A little change.”
“But we have our place. We could walk there, for cripe sakes.”
Chi Chi was frustrated that her husband was breaking the spell. She had planned this getaway, and he was throwing ice cubes all over it. Finally, she gave up. “It was free, Savvy.”
“I’m in enough hotel rooms.”
“But I’m not.”
Tony looked at his wife, and understood: she needed a change. “Come here.” He held her. “Forgive me. Sometimes I’m a dolt.”
He reached down and turned off the bedside lamp. Chi Chi unbuttoned his shirt. As their lips met, they smiled inside their kiss. “I know what you’re thinking,” Tony said.
“That every time we kiss we start all over again?”
“Every kiss is a chance to fall in love again.”
“I like it. That’s a song.”
“Write it in the morning. We’re busy tonight.”
Tony lifted his wife onto the bed. The stars over New York City pushed through the blue night sky like pearls as Tony and Chi Chi started all over again.
* * *
Isotta brought a platter of sliced apples and cheese to her granddaughters. As the girls reached for them, Chi Chi gave them a look. “What do you say, girls?”
“Thank you, Nonna!”
The girls made room for their grandmother on the couch. “This is so exciting.”
“My dad is going to be on television!” Sunny hollered.
“My dad, too!” Rosie screamed.
“No more screaming, we want to hear Daddy sing.”
“We get to stay up until nine o’clock!” Sunny bragged.
“As soon as Daddy sings, it’s straight to bed.”
Tony came on the small television screen. The striped tie he wore vibrated in black and white as he sang Gravy. Chi Chi would never have approved that tie.
“Daddy looks funny.”
“Why is his hair so poofy?”
Chi Chi peered at the set. “Is it?”
“They must have used pomade,” Sunny said with the authority of youth. “They used too much. It looks teased.”
“It’s not teased,” her sister said.
“Tomorrow at school, Monique Gibson for sure will tell us that Daddy teased his hair.”
“Tell Monique that’s impossible, there isn’t enough to back-comb. Okay, off to bed. Brush your teeth.”
“Mama, Rosie skips the toothpaste.”
“It burns my mouth.”
“You have to use it, or your teeth will get black spots,” Chi Chi reminded them.
“I will supervise,” their grandmother said.
As soon as the girls and Isotta were upstairs, Chi Chi dialed Tony at the studio. “You were spectacular, honey.”
“You think so?”
“It was tight. Perfect.”
“They gave me attitude about the shirt and tie,” he said.
“Tell them to put you through wardrobe next time if they’re concerned.”
“I will.”
“I miss you, Sav,” she said hopefully.
“I miss you, too.”
Chi Chi wondered how much. “I’ve got news,” she said softly.
“Let me guess. You bought some more of that General Electric stock?”
“I’m expecting again.”
Whatever Tony thought she was going to say, it wasn’t that. “Are you sure?”
“I went to the doctor today, and yes, it’s for sure.”
Tony laughed. “I should’ve left a bigger tip at the Waldorf.”
“Are you happy?”
“Thrilled. If you want a hundred babies, I’d be happy a hundred times over.”
“Sav, I can’t take being apart anymore. With a baby on the way, well—I can’t do this alone any longer.”
“It’s hard for me, too.”
“I know. You’re missing too much.”
“With all that’s happening with television and the movies, I think we should move you all out here to California.”
“Oh, Sav.”
“It won’t be forever. And you like California. Remember? This is where our story began.”
“I do love the sun.”
“So, should I look for a house?”
“I suppose so.”
A few minutes later, they hung up. Chi Chi stared at the phone. She had a funny feeling. More and more, she found herself agreeing with everything her husband wanted to do to avoid an argument. Discussions, it seemed, were not about sharing points of view but listening to Tony and doing his bidding. Maybe she was wise to avoid conflict because he needed a place in his life where he was loved and su
pported without criticism. Or perhaps she was holding on to what they had together because she knew that if she let go, even for a moment, the life she had built for their family would float away, out of her grasp forever, like the kites her girls flew at the shore. That’s how she saw her marriage of late. It had become a flimsy harlequin diamond of rice paper held aloft by a wily wind and tethered to the ground by her will and a tenuous grip on a thin string that would not hold, no matter how tightly she held on.
10
Pizzicato
(Pluck the strings)
The California Years
Tony turned into the circular driveway of 1001 Hummingbird Lane in Toluca Lake, and parked at the entrance of the inviting Georgian-style home.
“What do you think, girls?” Tony turned the car off. “That includes you, Mama.”
“It’s a knockout.” Chi Chi lifted her sunglasses to take in the new home. It was painted a soft white, a lovely contrast against the licorice shutters and the blue sky.
“It’s all yours. You’re not the only one in this family who knows a prime real estate deal.”
“Never said I was the only one, Sav.” Chi Chi opened the front door of the car and swung her legs out. She looked down at her feet. “My feet look like I bought new shoes and forgot to take them out of the boxes. I’m wearing the boxes.” She shook her head in disbelief. She had put on more weight with this pregnancy than she had with the twins, and she was only in the second trimester.
Sunny piggybacked on her father while Rosie took a ride on his hip as they walked to the front door. He threw it open and dropped the girls in the foyer.
“Does it have a swimming pool?” Sunny wanted to know.
“Monique Gibson said every house in California has a swimming pool.”
“You’ll have to go and see.” Tony pointed to the back of the house.
The girls scampered off.
“Be careful!” he shouted.
Chi Chi walked in behind him and turned around, spellbound. There was a double-sided staircase to the second floor, a full living room to the left, and a full music room to the right, both with walls of windows with a view of nothing but green. Light danced on the highly polished, knotty pine floors.
“What do you think, hon?”
“It’s a beauty.” She kissed her husband. “We’d better follow the monsters.”
Chi Chi and Tony walked through the house to the bright, sunlit kitchen, done in tasteful black and white, through the door to the patio. The trellis walls of the veranda were drenched in hot yellow, pink, and purple bougainvillea in full bloom. In the center of the patio was a two-tiered fountain of three hand-carved cherubs holding urns that poured water into the basin.
“Is this what Italy looks like?” Chi Chi asked.
“It does. But this is all yours.”
Beyond the patio was a swimming pool shaped like a lake hemmed by artful natural rock formations. The girls were already climbing on them. A series of fully grown palm trees swayed along the property line.
“A genuine oasis, don’t you think? You won’t miss the winter.” Tony put his arms around Chi Chi. “How did I do?”
“We can make a home here.”
“That’s all that matters. I want my girls to be happy.”
Chi Chi watched Rosie and Sunny scoot down the rocks and run to the lawn. The scent of lemons filled the air. There were lemons trees growing tall in terra-cotta pots under the grape arbor. She plucked a ripe lemon off of a tree. “I think I’m going to love California.”
* * *
Chi Chi hung the last ornaments on the Christmas tree in the den of the Toluca Lake house. The miniature baby grand piano ornament had glitter on the keys, a gift from her mother when Chi Chi was a girl. She turned the room lights off and turned on the Christmas tree lit with red, blue, and green Roma lights. It was a beauty, a tall, fragrant blue spruce from Northern California, decorated with glass ornaments from New Jersey and festooned with strands of silver tinsel. The lights and the colors reminded her of Christmas back home in Sea Isle.
Chi Chi was homesick; she missed her sisters and mother. She remembered the mill. When a girl on the line was expecting, the women rallied around her with advice and support. She was certain her pregnancy was fueling her longing for home. She consoled herself with the knowledge that she would soon be too busy to be blue.
In a few weeks, the baby would arrive. The idea of having it alone, without Tony there, made her anxious. He had been cast in a film and had spent the last few months on location in Nevada. He had not seen the Toluca Lake house with furniture, rugs, or the draperies hung. She had sewn the kitchen curtains herself. Chi Chi had kept busy with the girls and her chores, but the ache of her loneliness for her husband and the life she used to know only became worse as the holidays approached. She felt uncertain about the future, stuck in time, as if she were underwater, in a vast ocean, near enough to the surface to see daylight but tangled in a morass of seaweed, unable to break loose and swim for the shore.
The key turned in the lock of the front door. Tony pushed through, carrying Christmas gifts tied with ribbons. He wore an Italian-cut suit in navy silk wool, a white shirt, and a sky-blue necktie. His Borsalino tipped forward. He looked more handsome than he ever had before, like one of those suave movie stars in Modern Screens. Chi Chi burst into tears.
Tony went to her. “What’s the matter, honey?”
“I missed you, that’s all,” she said as she hugged him.
“You need your family around you at Christmas. I bet you miss your sisters and your mother this time of year.”
“I’ve never been away from them at Christmas. Even when I was with the band. I always found a way to get home.”
“I remember a Christmas when you insisted that the bus drop you in Pittsburgh. We had just played the Jungle Inn in Youngstown. You were determined to catch a bus to the Port Authority, to get you home in time for midnight mass.”
“And I made it. It was a miracle.”
“Cheech, sometimes home has to come to you.”
“Surprise!” The front door burst open. As if in a dream, but it surely wasn’t, it was wonderfully real, Chi Chi’s mother and sisters ran to her and embraced her. Charlie and Frank followed with the children, Nancy, Michael, and Chiara. When Rosie and Sunny heard the children, they ran down the steps to join their cousins. Tony scooped up the twins and kissed them.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have surprised a lady who’s expecting,” Barbara joked, taking in the size of her sister.
Chi Chi looked at Tony, who gave her a wink. In that moment, all the months of loneliness were forgotten. She could see that Tony missed their old life, too, and their family as much as she did. How did he know? Tony Arma always found a way to give her exactly what she needed.
* * *
“It’s almost Tony time!” Lucille shouted from the living room. “Steve Allen says he’s up next!”
Chi Chi, Barbara, and Isotta joined the family in the living room.
“There is Daddy!” Sunny exclaimed as the studio audience applauded as the Tonight Show band played her father onto the stage to take the center microphone.
Barbara squinted at the television set. “What’s in his hair?”
“Pomade,” Sunny replied. “They like it poofy on the television set.”
Tony sang:
Love me, he said
Love me, she said
Love, they agreed, is the reason they wed
But does love pay the bills?
Does it butter the bread?
Does love stop the fear
That fills you with dread?
When he doesn’t come home and you’re alone in your bed
She’s true through and through
Better not to wed unless he’s true too
And if you got that, the world is yours
Your heart will be safe, your soul it soars
And everything else is
Gravy, Gravy, Gravy
&n
bsp; Gravy, Gravy, Gravy
* * *
Barbara cleared the dishes, Lucille washed them, and their mother dried them. Chi Chi sat with her swollen feet propped on the kitchen stool. “I bet if we add up all the time we spend setting tables, clearing, and washing dishes,” she said, “it would come to half our natural lifetimes.”
“What else do we have to do, ladies?” Isotta said cheerfully. “Our family needs to eat. The table is the center of the home, and that means cooking, cleaning up, and dishes to do.”
“Three meals a day until we’re dead,” Lucille sighed.
“A career in suds,” Barbara joked.
“I like to think I have a career in songwriting,” Chi Chi said wistfully.
“You do!” Barbara placed a stack of dessert plates on the counter. “Or you did and you will again.”
“That gravy song is a hit,” Lucille said as she ran more hot water into the sink.
“Number ninety-six on Billboard,” Chi Chi said proudly. “It will go up after the Allen Show.”
“Is Saverio home much?” Barbara asked.
“Not really.”
“That’s rough,” Lucille commented. “Have you made any friends out here?”
“There hasn’t been time.”
Barbara sat with Chi Chi at the table. “Tony’s going to be on the road all the time, why not move back home and live in New Jersey, near us?”
“When he got the movie contract, he didn’t think he’d be on location so much. He figured he’d be working at the studios in town and be home at night for dinner. As these things go, it hasn’t worked out that way. It’s like when he’s on the road, except he’s off in one place instead of one town a night. Truthfully, not much has changed, except that we moved out here.”
“We’re worried about you. You’re out here alone. And for what? You used to have a career, too. That was your song tonight on national television. Steve Allen could’ve said something.”
“I thought so, too,” Lucille admitted. “I didn’t want to say anything, but Tony could have said you wrote it. You never get any credit.”
Chi Chi did not want to argue with her sisters. “Let’s go outside,” she said. “Perpetually I’m overheated like Cousin Joozy’s Cadillac.”
The Donatelli women joined their husbands outside on the veranda.
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