by Rosie Genova
“That’s Mr. Petrocelli to you. Have some respect.”
“Ugh, Nonna, he’s disgusting. He came around hoping Daddy was here to give him wine.”
She shook her head and made a tsking sound. “A terrible affliction. Pietro was once a cabinetmaker, a craftsman. And a man like that turns to drink. Such a shame.”
“Why are you nice to him? Why do you even let him come around?” I asked, giving the basil a quick rinse at the sink.
“Back in Naples, he knew your grandfather.” At the mention of her late husband, Nonna crossed herself and looked at me expectantly.
“May God rest his soul,” I said quickly.
She nodded her approval and resumed her story. “Pietro’s older brother, Alfonso, was also close to your grandpa’s fratello, your great-uncle, Zio Roberto. But such troublemakers, those two.” She shook her head again. “Got in with criminals. Your grandfather’s family never talked about Roberto.”
I put the basil away and gave my grandmother my full attention. A long-lost great-uncle who “got in with criminals” and was a forbidden subject for the Rienzi family? This was rich material for my novel, a historical I was writing based on my family. I grabbed my waitress pad and a pen from the pocket of my apron; they would have to do in lieu of my computer.
“What happened to him?” I casually set the pad down on the counter, trying to keep it out of her sight. If she thought I was writing instead of prepping vegetables for lunch, I’d be in for it. I set the bin of carrots on the counter for effect.
“He died in the old country. No one was sure how.” Nonna, who’d been scrubbing vigorously at the sink, dried her hands on a towel and tied an apron around her waist. “Have you chopped the onions and garlic?” she called over her shoulder.
“Uh huh.” I scribbled away in secret on the other side of the carrot bin. “So, did he just disappear? I mean, did they have a funeral for him? Is there a death certificate?”
She pinched her fingers and shook her hand in the classic Italian gesture. For as often as I’d seen it, I was surprised her hands weren’t frozen in that position. “What are you, the police?” she asked. “Why all these questions?”
“I want to know about our history.”
“Well, I want to know about the vegetables. Bring me that onion and garlic so I can start the sauce.”
I brought her the open containers from the refrigerator, my eyes tearing up at the smell. I was still learning about cooking, but I knew the garlic and onion had to be kept in separate containers. You have to start with the onions, as they take longer to cook; garlic burns if you’re not careful, so that gets added later. A perfectly sautéed onion-and-garlic mixture formed the basis of most of the Casa Lido’s famous sauces. “Would you tell me more about Zio Roberto?” I asked.
“I will if you put that pen away and clean those carrots like you’re supposed to.”
I sighed and took a vegetable scraper from the drawer. As my brother Danny once observed about our nonna: She don’t miss a trick. “Yes, Nonna,” I said.
I watched her pour a generous helping of extra-virgin olive oil into the bottom of our biggest stockpot, heard the sizzle as the onions hit the hot oil. She talked while she stirred. “Your grandpa Giuseppe’s mother was married very young and had Roberto right away. But then for many years, she had trouble having babies,” Nonna explained. “Your grandfather was what we used to call a ‘late life’ baby. His mama must have been forty when she had him.”
“So Grandpa and Zio Roberto had a big gap between them?”
“Sì. Maybe fourteen, fifteen years. Your grandfather barely remembered him. All he knew was that Roberto got involved with the wrong people and died back in Italy. End of story.” She stopped stirring long enough to scrutinize the chopped garlic. “Did you take out all the sprouts?”
My grandmother was obsessive about garlic preparation. “Yes,” I said, holding up my hands. “And I have the smelly fingers to prove it.”
“Part of the job,” she said shortly. “Use lemon juice.”
“Speaking of garlic,” I said, “Stink...uh, Mr. Petrocelli said that he ‘knows things’ that I could use in my books. Do you think he might have meant information about his brother and Zio Roberto?”
“Who knows?” She lifted one broad shoulder in a shrug. “He’s an old man, and old men like to talk and make themselves important. He probably just repeats the same stories to anyone who will listen.” She paused. “I suppose they could be about Alfonso. But he turned out bad, and, may God forgive me, so did your Zio Roberto.”
“Yeah, you said that.” But bad in what way? Could they have been mafiosi back in Italy? I imagined the two young men in Naples, dressed in suspenders and flat caps, looking like extras from The Godfather: Part II. Though my book wasn’t a Godfather-type story, I couldn’t help being curious. “So Grandpa’s brother died young. What happened to Alfonso?”
“Last I heard he had emigrated here. But that was many years ago.” She shook her wooden spoon at me. “I thought you wanted to know about your great-uncle Roberto.”
“I do.” I lifted a carrot high in my right hand, while my left crawled across the counter toward my pen and pad. But before I could grab either, my grandmother’s words assailed my ears.
“You pick up that pen, missy, and I shut my mouth.”
I let out a loud huff, prompting my grandmother to shoot me a look that froze my blood. “Okay,” I said, resigned to the inevitable. “No pen. So, I’m supposed to just remember it all,” I muttered.
“You’re supposed to be working. Come to think of it, I have more important things to talk to you about than dead relatives. We have the anniversary celebration to think about.”
I stifled a sigh. Nonna was obsessed with the Casa Lido’s upcoming anniversary; it was clear I’d get no more family history out of her today. I briefly considered talking to Stinky Pete to find out what he actually knew about my grandfather’s mysterious brother. Grimacing at the thought of a one-on-one with the odiferous Signor Petrocelli, I told myself I didn’t have much time for writing anyway.
It was August, and we were coming to the end of a busy season, one which would be capped off by a celebration of the Casa Lido’s seventieth anniversary and the last rush of Labor Day weekend. They were likely to be the restaurant’s most profitable events of the year, and we were counting on that revenue to make up for our slow start in the spring. (A dead body in the tomato garden tends to keep the customers away.) As I thought about the events of the last weeks, it struck me that I’d been back in New Jersey for nearly three months—almost a whole summer season. In that time I’d gotten myself involved with two men and two murders. That was some crazy arithmetic, even for me.
My thoughts were interrupted by a loud rapping noise and I jumped a mile. “I’m talking to you, Victoria,” my grandmother said, banging her wooden spoon on the countertop. “Stop daydreaming. Hurry and finish those carrots; then bring me four jars of tomatoes from the pantry. And when you’ve finished that, you can write down the menu for the party as I dictate. It will be summer dishes—antipasto and bruschetta, cold salads, and maybe some shrimp...”
She was off and running. And in all the bustle of preparation for the dinner service and the plans for the Casa Lido’s big day, Zio Roberto, his friend Alfonso, and Stinky Pete were quickly forgotten. Which turned out to be a mistake, because Stinky Pete was right: He did have a story to tell—one that nobody ever got a chance to hear.
