Invitation to Italian

by Tracy Kelleher

  “Julie,” Katarina said.

  She turned.

  “I don’t know if you remember. It’s been many years. But this is my mother, Zora.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “FOR AN OLD MAN, you can still pound the ball.” Sebastiano mopped his forehead as he walked to the bench beside the tennis court.

  “I may be fifty-three, but I’m not old. I just feel old most of the time.” Paul Bedecker stopped to gulp down half a bottle of Gatorade. Still breathing hard, he wiped his mouth. Despite the years, he had a wiry build. Dark red stubble covered his gaunt cheekbones. If the man had an ounce of fat on him, he was hiding it well.

  He waggled his racket menacingly in Sebastiano’s direction. “Just don’t get the idea that I’m about to start playing like an old man. Those little dink shots. The underhanded serves.” He demonstrated some ditsy hand motions. “Don’t you just hate them?” He pulled the beak of his baseball cap down over his shaved head. It bore the logo of a reality TV show from a bunch of years back, a remnant of his time in Hollywood.

  Sebastiano deliberately folded his towel into thirds and draped it over the end post of the net. “So you played and lost to an old man recently I take it?”

  Paul shrugged. “Monday, which was…was it just yesterday? I’m starting to lose all track of time these days.”

  Monday had been one to forget for Sebastiano, as well, thanks to Dr. Julie Antonelli. Why that woman insisted on periodically getting to him was beyond him. He did his utmost to maintain control over his emotions and his life, and she seemed somehow…somehow…to upset the applecart. Sebastiano smiled. He liked that image. Metaphors in English frequently seemed mysterious to him, but this time he could easily picture Julie lying sprawled on the ground as a mound of tempting red apples spilled over her long, lanky torso. Her tempting torso… Sebastiano’s smile became more thoughtful.

  He shook his head and looked at Paul. Their relationship was the closest thing Sebastiano had to a friendship in town—a friendship basically consisting of a standing tennis game once a week. They played at eight in the morning, before Sebastiano went to the office and Paul helped out at the family garden center or nominally worked on his novel. The two had met a few months ago, right after Paul had returned to Grantham. Talk about the prodigal son. Paul had been a whiz kid who seemed to have it all—top of his class at Grantham High School, Ivy League education and hotshot job in Hollywood. But the air had gone out of his dream bubble—due to his own fault, Paul would have been the first to admit. And now he was back living with his father and helping out with the family business.

  Sebastiano wasn’t a snob. He didn’t need to hobnob exclusively with members of the upper tax bracket, let alone the glitterati. In fact, he was more comfortable with Paul the way he was now—for many reasons. He liked Paul’s humor, his sardonic take on the world. He even found his edginess interesting. But that didn’t mean Sebastiano was blind to Paul’s faults.

  “Paul, are you okay? Something bothering you?” He paused. “Have you started drinking or using again?”

  Paul breathed in deeply. “Thanks for asking. And, no, I’m not using. And I haven’t touched a drop.”

  “I’m glad to hear it because I haven’t seen you at the A.A. meetings lately.”

  “Hey, I know you’re my sponsor, but you don’t need to keep tabs on me. I was busy with my father. I had to take him to his eye doctor for a checkup. His eyes were dilated, so he couldn’t drive. Then there was my niece’s birthday. Other stuff, too.” He idly watched a doubles match a few courts away.

  Sebastiano waited.

  Paul sighed. “Okay, it’s just that being back in Grantham has a way of dredging up old memories, not all of which are good. But, I can deal with it. Really. I know not to sit around and let them get to me. Anyway, sometimes you just miss meetings, you know? Everyone’s done it, even you.”

  Sebastiano hadn’t. Ever. Not for six years anyway. Not since he decided to get control of his life, stop drowning his guilt in vodka and join Alcoholics Anonymous. It hadn’t solved all his problems, but it allowed him to wake each morning and face each new day and do the best he could. In fact, hadn’t he just explained yesterday in his office to Julie Antonelli that he worked daily to do what was right by the hospital? Sebastian blinked, startled at where his line of thinking had unintentionally wandered. Julie Antonelli? Suddenly insinuating herself into his very thoughts?

  THAT SAME MORNING, Julie headed to Fine Threads, Grantham’s premier knitting and needlepoint shop. After poking around the piles of needlepoint canvases spilling over the table in the center of the store, she approached the cash register with one she’d chosen. “I saw you had a trunk show, so I decided to come in.”

  Caroline, the owner, held up the printed canvas. “It so looks like something you would do, Julie. I can see all your different stitches on the flowers and along the geometric border.”

  Julie rested an elbow on the gray granite bench surface and admired the pattern on the canvas. “I really liked the Hungarian peasantry feel to it. And after getting the twenty-percent-off coupon, I couldn’t resist.”

  Caroline, a thin middle-aged woman with short gray curly hair and the placid demeanor of a seasoned kindergarten teacher, beamed. “You got the coupon? That means it’s your birthday this month! Congratulations! When is it?”

  “Oh, I have days to go.” Julie waved off her enthusiasm. “Besides, I’m at the stage where I try to ignore birthdays.” Actually, Julie had made a point of ignoring her birthday since she was twenty.

  Caroline shook her head. “You’ve got a long way to go before you get to that stage. Anyhow, do you want to pick up the needlepoint thread, too? It’s twenty percent off the entire purchase, you know.”

  “I’m not sure what I need, but maybe I’ll just take another peek at the pile?”

  “Take your time. And you know what? I was going to call you. I just put together your latest pillow, and I’ve got it downstairs. I’ll just go look.” Caroline headed down to the storage area.

  Julie wandered over to the display. Neat rows of needle point threads in silks and wool, some shot with glittery strands, covered the walls. Jars of buttons, knitting needles and books rounded out a cozy seating area, where knitters of all ages gathered together.

  Julie liked the shop and Caroline immensely. In fact, she sometimes thought of Fine Threads as her little club. When she wasn’t working or thinking about work, she was most likely curled up in an armchair in her apartment with the television tuned to some sports channel, while she compulsively needlepointed.

  The bell over the front door chimed, signaling a new customer. Julie glanced around. Her heart sank. Not again.

  “Julie, my dear, fancy meeting you here. And to think I was just about to get in touch.” Iris Phox entered the small shop, preceded by a well-loved L.L. Bean canvas carryall and her oversize confidence.

  “Mrs. Phox. How nice to see you, too,” Julie said. Maybe she’d just forego collecting her pillow.

  “Here you are, Julie,” Caroline announced, mounting the stairs to the checkout counter. She carried a blue Fine Threads bag with a sausage-shaped pillow peeking out from one side. “It looks fabulous.”

  “Oh, I must see.” Iris undid the belt and buttons of her Burberry raincoat.

  Caroline removed the pillow from the bag and unwrapped the plastic covering. “Isn’t it magnificent. I love the way you mixed in beads and buttons with the needlepoint. And the idea to roll the canvas into a bolster pillow was brilliant.”

  Julie looked over Iris’s formidable shoulder. The large patchwork of scrolls and hibiscus flowers in a mixture of warm yellows, oranges and brick-reds, coupled with the light greens and beige and pale yellow background, had come out nicely, even she had to admit it.

  “Yes, the shape is quite clever.” Iris squinted. “Whatever made you think of doing that?”

  “My grandmother has been complaining that her lower back hurts, and I thought it would provide some su
pport when she’s sitting down.”

  Iris ran a boney index finger over the loopy stitches with beads attached that formed the anther tips of the flowers’ stamen stalks. “Yes, very clever. Indeed, you’re just the person to help me.” Iris marched back to her carryall that she’d left on the high worktable in the center of the shop.

  “I am?” Julie asked, looking warily at Caroline before turning to Iris.

  “Yes, indeed.” Iris pulled a giant canvas from her bag. “I’m making a Christmas stocking for my granddaughter Natalie—the start of a family tradition—and I am having trouble with Santa’s beard. According to the instructions, it’s supposed to be something called Turkey Work, but I am completely baffled. Clearly, the instructions were not written by an educated person.”

  There was much to be learned from a person like Iris, Julie realized. Here was someone who felt no compunction about blaming others for her own failings. She, on the other hand, assumed she was responsible for any and all failures.

  And she would have liked to tell her so, but she decided instead to be nice—as hard as that was. She had already messed things up yesterday, and Iris was too powerful a figure in Grantham to risk further alienation. “I don’t know if I can help very much, but let me try,” she said with the correct amount of humility. “Turkey Work is one of those stitches that I seem to have to reteach myself every time I do it, using the big black stitch guide that Caroline carries here in the shop.”

  Iris raised an eyebrow at Caroline, who immediately grabbed a copy from the store bookshelf.

  The doorbell jingled again and a group of women came in. They carried bulging bags and were laughing. Then two more women came in. Julie smiled as they all walked by and headed downstairs to the lower level where the classes met.

  “That’s my afghan knitting group,” Caroline announced. “If you and Mrs. Phox are all right up here, I’ll leave you?”

  “No problem.” Julie flipped open the book and found the right page. She placed it on the center island and looked at Iris.

  “Just a moment, please.” Iris reached into her leather purse and extracted a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses. The necessity of pleasing a granddaughter apparently won out over vanity. Then she passed over the canvas printed with a Victorian illustration of Father Christmas.

  “What I tell myself when I do Turkey Work is two forward front, one back behind.” Julie demonstrated as she spoke. “Then you just need to remember to alternate the loop with the flat stitch on the front.” She glanced at Iris. “Why don’t you try?”

  Iris peered closely and held up her hands. “Yes, I think I understand.” She asked Julie to repeat the mnemonic once more and pursed her mouth in concentration.

  After a few more minutes of practice while Julie offered encouragement, Iris stopped, resting her work on the table. She took off her reading glasses and placed them on the needlepoint. “You’re very good at this type of thing. A good teacher. No wonder your patients speak very highly of your communication skills in addition to your expertise.”

  “Thank you, that’s very generous,” Julie said. Was it possible that Iris was a nice woman after all?

  “Yes, it is.”

  Well, maybe not completely.

  “And it’s the same generosity that spurred me to convince Dr. Fonterra that you might be allowed to make amends for your…shall we say…physical outburst yesterday?”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Julie really didn’t.

  “A written note of apology addressed to my home address on fine stationery is always appropriate, much preferable to email. Dr. Fonterra strikes me as someone who only reads email though. Still…” Iris let the single syllable hang in the air.

  “Still?” Julie asked.

  Iris smiled serenely.

  Julie spotted trouble immediately.

  “Still, even the most finely penned apologies don’t totally address the problem.”

  “The problem? Oh, you mean my breaking the vase. I’m happy to reimburse the board, if that would help.”

  “Yes, there is that. Might I suggest, shall we say, a nice contribution to the new hospital fund?” Iris named a figure that easily equaled the monthly mortgage payment on Julie’s condo.

  Julie worked hard to keep her jaw from scraping the floor.

  Iris slipped the needle through the webbing in her canvas and folded the piece deliberately. “But I think we’re talking about more than money.”

  “We are?”

  “Dr. Fonterra pointed out to me—and very wisely, indeed—sometimes one’s strength is also one’s weakness.”

  “And did he mention what mine was?”

  “Your passion,” Iris answered.

  Julie felt a wholly uncalled-for flutter in her stomach. “He used that exact word?”

  “Actually, that was my word. His was perhaps better left unsaid.”

  The flutter turned to a knot.

  “Nonetheless, it was clear that the best way to establish a better working relationship and to demonstrate remorse for the destruction of a valuable gift, accidental as it might have been, would be to demonstrate your appreciation of his way of thinking.”

  Why did Julie get the feeling she was being painted into a corner by a master, a master whose clout at the hospital was second to none, who just happened to be the mother-in-law of a close friend and who could easily drop a negative word here and there about her father’s garage, thus causing his business to dry up faster than a day-old prune?

  “And what exactly did you have in mind?” Julie asked, trying to tamp down her anger.

  Iris paused dramatically, placing her hand to her throat. “Let me see. The issue becomes what type of activity would harness that passion of yours in a social context yet still foster your wonderful interactive skills.”

  Julie didn’t buy Iris’s putting on her thinking cap one whit. Then she saw the older woman dig into her sewing bag and pull out a pamphlet.

  “As I said, we need to focus that keen mind of yours onto something other than medicine, thereby allowing you to take pleasure in the world around you and mitigate outbursts due to a singular focus on work, which transforms it into a strain rather than a calling.” She said all of that in one magisterial breath before slapping the pamphlet on the white work surface.

  Julie furrowed her brow. “Grantham Adult Education School? I’m not sure how that is going to mitigate or curtail or…to do whatever it is I’m supposed to be addressing.”

  Iris sat up extra straight. “Never doubt the power of learning.” She flipped open the cover and read out loud from the introduction. “‘Above all, we at the Adult School believe that education does not end with a diploma. Hence, our motto—Education: the Wellspring of Life.’”

  “That’s very commendable,” Julie agreed. And totally predictable, she realized in one of those ah-ha moments. Twice before, Iris had manipulated her friends Katarina and Sarah into participating in her pet project.

  Iris gazed over the words. “Commendable, indeed. I know. I wrote them.” She flicked the pages to where a sheet of paper was inserted. “Do you speak Italian with your parents?” She turned her head.

  “Why, yes.”

  “I recommend the advanced Italian conversation class then.”

  Julie leaned forward and read the description. “And you really think this is the best way to say I’m sorry to Dr. Fonterra?” She glanced at Iris and saw the woman raise a condescending brow. Julie looked at the booklet again. “Okay,” she agreed. Then she noticed a critical bit of information. “But it says here that the class meets every Wednesday at seven-thirty for an hour and a half? What if I’m in the middle of a delivery?”

  “Then you’ll deal with that when it happens, won’t you? Besides, I doubt all babies are born on Wednesday evenings. And before you offer any more excuses, may I just point out to you how adept you were at explaining to me about Turkey Work. Clearly, you are someone who shines in a classroom scenario, whether as teacher or pupil.” Iri
s tucked her glasses into the side of her bag and gathered up her work.

  Julie scrambled to stand up, too. “But I’m not registered.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve already registered you and paid the fee. You may write a check to me and include it in the note that you will be sending me. Oh, in case you were wondering, the Adult School has a strict policy of taking attendance. And needless to say, in my capacity as head of the Adult School board, I’m always there for the first week of the semester.” Iris slipped on a pair of gloves and carefully smoothed the kidskin leather down each finger. “By the way, I recommend a generous application of powder to cover that bruise on your cheek.”

  It would have been simpler just to wear a paper bag over her head. And I hope the good doctor realizes how much I am sacrificing, Julie couldn’t help thinking.

  Unfortunately, when it came to Sebastiano Fonterra, that wasn’t the only thing that Julie couldn’t help thinking.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KATARINA LOOKED UP from washing the pots and pans from dinner. Only the day before yesterday her mother— Zora—had dropped back into her life after one of her periodic absences. One of those absences had included not coming back from Antarctica after Katarina had been shot in a robbery at an ATM in Oakland. In fairness, Katarina had insisted she was fine, but still…? And while Zora had made it to Katarina’s wedding, she had scheduled her departing flight in the middle of the reception. They’d barely had time to exchange pleasantries.

  Needless to say, when Radko was born Katarina hadn’t even bothered to invite her mother back to Grantham to celebrate the event. Instead, she’d sent an email with all the relevant information. Her mother had mailed a little hooded sweater she’d knitted from genuine yak’s wool from a trek she’d made in Mongolia on some sponsored research grant. Unfortunately, the oils in the yarn seemed to irritate the baby’s tender skin.

  Nevertheless, Katarina still harbored a sentimental notion of family. That’s why she had made dinner and invited her mother to meet her husband, Ben, her stepson, Matt, and, of course, to get better acquainted with Zora’s new grandson Rad. She should have known it was a mistake.