“Cripes almighty, Cheech. You’ll give us all first-degree cancer with that stuff.”
“You want my hair falling out when we sing?”
“No.”
“So, don’t breathe.” Chi Chi sprayed more Aqua Net onto her hair.
“What are you wearing?” Tony demanded.
“It’s a surprise,” Chi Chi barked back.
“Do we match?”
“Match? You’re in a tuxedo. Why do we have to match?”
“Because when we used to do the act, we matched. The audience expects us to match.”
“They’re not paying. This is TV. It’s like a telethon, except nobody’s benefiting from it except you.”
“You got issues, Cheech,” Tony said. “Big ones.”
“Wonder why?”
“Would you two please stop?” Leone said firmly. “Think about this moment. Think about how far you’ve both come. This is so cool. You’re going to be on TV with Johnny Carson singing the song that started it all. Be happy, would you, please? Life is short.”
“Especially when you’re old,” Chi Chi commented.
“We’re not old,” Tony countered.
Chi Chi looked at her ex-husband. Waves of compassion rolled over her like a hormonal hot flash He had a paunch, a toupee, and hands with liver spots the size of Milk Duds. He was not only old, he could be in the advertisement for the pill to cure it. “Okay, Tony. Whatever you say.”
“I want my parents to get along. Can you do that for me?”
“I can do that, son,” Tony said.
“So can I,” Chi Chi agreed.
“Good. I’m going to warm up with the band. You two behave yourselves. And Dad, stay away from the couch. It’s a lint factory.”
Tony began to pace. “Stay within the tape, Cheech. Just stay within the tape.” He cracked his knuckles.
Chi Chi put down her lipstick. “Would you please stop? If you don’t stop, I’m going to pull off this shoe, if I can pry it off my foot, and beat you about the head with it. I will stay within the tape. I know how to hit a mark.”
Tony smiled in relief. “That makes me feel better.”
“Where’s Dora?”
“She’s not coming.”
“Why not?”
“She said I make her nervous. All of a sudden I’m like an annoyance to people.”
“I’m joining her club.”
“You’d like that. Gang up all the wives against me, three against one.”
“Your second wife, no one can find her. I hear she joined a cult and is working in a Dairy Queen in Mequon, Wisconsin. There’s just Dora and me.”
“I don’t want to go down this road.”
“Because whenever we do, you get lost, Tony.”
“I’m going back to my dressing room. You’re beginning to piss me off.”
“That only took forty years,” Chi Chi called out after him. The door slammed shut behind him.
Chi Chi sat in front of the mirror and put on her lipstick. When she was done, she smiled in the mirror. “I’m sixty years old. I want to kill myself. I got more lines on my face than Act One of Hamlet. I barely smoked a cigarette, and I look like I inhaled a pack a day. How is that fair?”
Chi Chi slipped out of her robe and into her Clovis Ruffin caftan. It was a loaner from I. Magnin, so she was careful to tuck the tags into the back of the dress.
Sunny peeked into the dressing room. “Ma, you look like a star!” She pushed through the door, followed by Rosie. The twins wore peasant blouses, long skirts, flat sandals, and their hair cropped short.
“Ma, the hair is cool,” Rosie said.
“I love you girls, giving me confidence when I could throw up.”
“It’s been a while since you’ve sung with Dad.”
“Do you think you can do it without falling apart?” Sunny asked.
“I don’t know. But either way, it’ll be good television.” Chi Chi snapped on her earrings.
* * *
“It’s a pleasure to welcome Tony and Chi Chi Arma to our show,” Johnny Carson began. “This legendary act worked the circuit in the days of the big-band era, when they were kids. They’ve agreed to come on the show tonight for a little reunion. Please welcome Tony and Chi Chi.”
The curtains, bold stripes of cobalt blue, salmon, emerald green, ruby red, gold, and purple, parted like a circus tent before the entrance of the ringleader.
The Armas entered holding hands. Tony headed stage left, Chi Chi went stage right. Chi Chi’s caftan in swirls of pink, fuchsia, and orange was off-set by her jet-black hair in an updo. She carried a rolling pin.
A soft drum brush underscored their dialogue.
Where you been, Tony?
Around, Chi Chi.
Around who?
Just around.
What do I gotta do, Tony? Follow you everywhere?
Not a bad idea, Cheech.
The rolling pin don’t scare you no more?
Not much.
Not much. But you still love me, don’t you, baby?
Not much.
Horns. Strings.
Tony wagged his finger at his ex-wife, and they began to sing.
Wife sang:
I make dough
Husband sang:
She makes dough
Wife sang:
He makes dough
Together they sang:
We make dough—with Mama’s Rolling Pin
Wife sang:
We got married, the church was nice
Husband sang:
She wore a veil and a chunk of ice
Wife sang:
Preacher said are you out or are you in
Together they sang:
She said yes and I said yes—To Mama’s Rolling Pin
Chi Chi’s heart began to race in that old way it used to. She was long over her ex-husband in the romantic sense. This moment was a lot like visiting a house you sold years ago, a home where you once were happy. You walk through the rooms filled with another family’s things, the walls painted different colors, the scent different, and it is at once familiar and yet completely unknown.
Chi Chi looked into her husband’s eyes and saw something new, and she thought she had seen it all. Tony Arma was grateful. That’s what moved her, what made her heart beat faster. They had meant something to each other once, and he remembered.
“Say hello to our son, Leone!” Tony yelled over the orchestra.
The cameras swiveled to take in Leone as he blew his trumpet like he was blasting the gates of heaven open.
“That’s my kid,” Tony said proudly.
“He gets his talent from me,” Chi Chi said.
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“He gets his looks from me.”
“Says who?”
“Says my schnoz,” Leone said from the orchestra as he turned in profile and blew the horn.
Johnny laughed appreciatively, and the studio audience, mostly around their age, appreciated the old routine. It was their youth, too, returning in a song from the days before the war. They relaxed into the music, the mood conjured days gone by when one of those low, hot Jersey shore summer suns in a cloudless sky was so bright, it left nothing in shadow, not even their memories.
Chi Chi and Tony brought it all back once more, all the living that had transpired between World War II and the present, and for many, the song placed them smack dab in the middle of the past when they first fell in love, mourned the loss of his mother, and held high hopes, in the days when they believed there was still time to make dreams come true. Tony felt that energy surge through the studio as the bold brass section stood up and blew the music of the big-band era. Was the sound better then? Or was everything better because they had been young?
Tony hated the word nostalgia. It meant he was a has-been, a crooner who had hit it and never would again. The comeback he’d dreamed of, planned for, and needed would never be. He had finessed every angle, called every cont
act, worked every room, and had taken every shot, and he was still just a mid-list singer who could open solid but kept the needle tight on the sales chart at 500K and not one album more, stateside and international combined. Great for a year-rounder, an opening act in Vegas. Just fine. Lucrative even, if you showed up, stayed in shape, were in good voice, laid off the sauce, worked the crowd, and goosed those old feelings. But it wasn’t enough—not good enough for Tony Arma.
As Tony sang, Chi Chi pounded the rolling pin in her hand like a billy club when he upstaged her, the audience roared when she went to slug him with it, quickly pulling it back when he turned to face her, rolling it innocently in the air as though she was making him fresh macaroni for Sunday dinner or a piecrust to be filled with sweet Michigan cherries. It was an act, a comedy routine. But it was still funny, and it had sustained them.
Chi Chi was surprised when Tony took her into his arms during the bridge. He hadn’t done that in years, and certainly not since they had their troubles. As he whirled her around the polished linoleum, their bodies in sync, her feet barely touched the ground. She felt weightless as they floated over the musical notes, like a veil of smoke.
Chi Chi closed her eyes and allowed herself the pure joy of the brass, of Doc’s trumpet as it blew fierce in a solo line and kicked back in with the orchestra in a seamless revelry. How she loved swing music, and always had.
When they broke to sing the final stanza, Tony went stage left, Chi Chi moved stage right. They harmonized:
If you want your love to be true
Don’t hesitate to follow our rule
Once you marry and become kin
Keep him on a short leash
With Mama’s Rolling Pin!
Chi Chi was about to take a bow when Tony stepped downstage. They had not rehearsed this move. She froze, her hand in midair, and waited.
The Tonight Show orchestra vamped with a phrase of music from the song.
Chi Chi didn’t know where to go; the song was supposed to be over. They had not rehearsed an interlude. She looked over at the producers in the wings, who seemed to be enjoying their number.
She was unsure whether to stay or go. Tony’s back was to her, so she stood and forced a smile as Tony swayed to the music. At this stage of life, thoughts ran through her head like a ticker tape. Is he having a stroke? Did he forget the ending? What’s he waiting for? We’re live on television coast to coast. This was a terrible idea!
Desperate, Chi Chi looked over at Johnny Carson, who was blowing smoke rings casually from his cigarette, as though nothing were wrong. Ed McMahon was looking over some notes. Fred De Cordova was in the wings, smiling. Chi Chi thought perhaps it was her own health that should be questioned. Had she forgotten something?
The B camera wheeled in closer to Tony as the music underscored his speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know if you remember how I met the mother of my children. But it was over some macaroni in Sea Isle, New Jersey, when we were very young.”
The drummer hit the snare and then the cymbal.
“We are still young at heart,” he continued.
Chi Chi shook her head. Tony was doing some shtick. Okay. She could handle it.
“There’s been a lot of macaroni and gravy since then . . .”
“You been talking to your cummerbund?” Chi Chi ad-libbed.
The audience roared.
Tony shot her a look. “But what you don’t know”—Tony worked the lip of the downstage camera area—“is that we had a little help on Mama’s Rolling Pin from an act that was known far and wide on that little strip of sand in Sea Isle City, a trio of the prettiest sisters God ever made this side of the Eternal City, and I’m not talkin’ Newark. Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time since the last time, join me in welcoming Barbara and Lucille, who, along with Chi Chi, were and ever shall be the Donatelli Sisters!”
The buildup had been so tasty, the audience responded with wild applause. Johnny sat up in his seat as the rainbow curtains parted once again. Barbara and Lucille joined hands and walked toward their sister.
Chi Chi stayed in position, in her light, and shook her head as she admonished her ex-husband with her microphone as though it were a rolling pin.
Barbara wore a flowing lime-green Qiana caftan and matching turban, while Lucille wore turquoise palazzo pants and a hot-pink bolero, which was lovely against her dove-gray wedge haircut.
“Surprise,” Barbara said under her breath as the Tonight Show orchestra vamped.
“We practiced, I swear,” Lucille whispered. She was already sweating under the lights.
The stage crew whisked out standing microphones and placed them on marks on the stage floor. Barbara and Lucille took their positions.
Before Chi Chi could run backstage, Tony joined them. All three cameras faced them. “You sonofabitch,” Chi Chi said to Tony through a clenched smile. He threw his head back and laughed. “Just sing, Cheech.”
Tony took her hand. The cameras rolled back into position downstage and focused on Tony and Chi Chi. Camera C widened out and stayed on Lucille and Barbara.
As the band started, it was as though forty years had come and gone, taking with it, like a low rolling tide, all the sadness. The remnants of their pain washed away all the should’ves and would’ves and might-have-beens, for as long as the band played. What did they sing? Another chorus of Mama’s Rolling Pin.
The audience seemed hungry for the touchstones of the past, for the validation of their gleaming youth. The swing era, after all, had belonged to them, and there had been nothing like it since. They had won a war, built a way of life, and survived. When the song finished, the applause was deafening.
The stage manager escorted Lucille and Barbara offstage. They waved to the audience, who applauded as they made their exit. Johnny indicated that Chi Chi and Tony should join him on the couch.
Tony insisted Chi Chi take the lead chair. She refused, so Tony sat in it, but not before he made sure that Cheech sat in first position on the sofa. As they went to commercial, Johnny shook his head in admiration. “The definition of hip,” he said.
They thanked him before he was pulled away by his producer.
Tony turned to Chi Chi. “Never sat down for an interview.”
Chi Chi smiled and looked out over the studio audience. “Enjoy it. Because when this is over, I’m going to kill you.”
Tony grinned, reached over, and patted her hand. He was sweating profusely from the dance number. Chi Chi had already waved the makeup girl over to blot him. As she mopped his brow, he said to the young woman, “Aren’t you a knockout. You look like Connie Stevens.”
The makeup artist laughed uncomfortably.
“Enough, Grandpop,” Chi Chi said. She winked at the girl as she powdered Chi Chi down. When the makeup artist left the stage, Chi Chi called after her, “Don’t worry about him, he can’t see and he can’t hear and he’s up all night tinkling.”
“You never let me have any fun,” Tony said.
Chi Chi didn’t answer him. She looked straight ahead as Carson took his seat and welcomed the audience back from the commercial break.
Tony opened the segment with a crack, shaking his thumb at Chi Chi, and repeated, “She never lets me have any fun.”
“You had so much fun they sold out of it,” Chi Chi said dryly.
The audience—particularly the women, Chi Chi noticed—laughed at that.
“Now everybody will know why we got divorced,” Tony said.
“But will they care?” Chi Chi tapped her cheek with her finger. “I don’t think so, Tony.”
“I care,” Johnny interjected.
“Isn’t that lovely,” Chi Chi deadpanned into the camera. “Ask him what he’s been up to. That will tell you everything.”
“Tell us what you’ve been up to, Tony,” Johnny said.
“I’ve got a room at the Sands in Vegas.”
“For about ten years now?”
“On and off. It’s a go
od show. We have some of the guys from the old tour, and some of the ladies.”
“Always the ladies,” Chi Chi purred as she smoothed her gown.
“I’m glad props took the rolling pin away,” Johnny joked.
“Smart move,” Chi Chi said.
“I understand there are rumblings that you two may reunite and bring back the old act,” Johnny said.
“Yes,” Tony said.
“No,” Chi Chi said. “Here’s the problem, John . . .” Chi Chi began.
“Just one problem, John . . .” Tony said.
“Just one?” Chi Chi interrupted Tony.
“Really, Cheech? You’re going to do this on national television?”
“Why not? The nice people at home are in bed, and who doesn’t like having their evening ruined by a good fight?” She smiled.
“Folks at home are trying to relax.”
“They’ll be plenty relaxed when I’m done with you,” Chi Chi cut in.
“What is your problem?” Tony asked.
“It’s not my problem.”
“It is your problem.”
“That’s your opinion.”
“What is the problem, Chi Chi?” Johnny asked her.
“Tony’s problem has many names, John: Doris. Sheila. Connie. Nancy. Didi. Should I keep going?”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Tony said.
“My ex-husband likes the ladies, and that’s fine, now that he’s my ex-husband.”
“That’s why I’m her ex-husband, or so she says.”
“It was the only reason. He’s a lovely father, and except for the extracurriculars, a pretty good husband. Not very handy, but I am, so it worked.”
“You remarried, didn’t you?” Johnny asked Tony.
“Twice,” Chi Chi answered for him.
“He asked me.” Tony turned to Chi Chi.
“Three if you count me,” Chi Chi interjected.
The audience laughed.
“I’m never counting you again.”
“Don’t,” Chi Chi said breezily. “But I’m the one who keeps the checkbook.”
“You do?” Johnny asked in surprise.
“She does,” Tony admitted.
“How does that work?” Johnny wanted to know.
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