Brava, Valentine

by Adriana Trigiani

  June places the letter on the table. “A man who can seduce with a turn of phrase will not disappoint in the bedroom.” June gets up and pours herself a cup of coffee. “We have all been waiting for this one, honey. And if I were you, I’d hurry up and I wouldn’t be late. Gianluca’s riding in on the night train, and the last place you want to be is the wrong stop. I’d be waiting with my bags, and by God, I’d get on board. I’d take that ride for you if I could. I have moments, even now, when I’d try. But he’s for you. You take Gianluca and run with it.”

  “It sounds like I need to yank the emergency cord on the train.”

  “The only urgent thing in life is the pursuit of love. You get that one right, and you’ve solved the mystery.”

  “And I thought when I could figure out a way to survive in this shop by the labor of my own hands, that would be the mystery solved.”

  “Two different things. Work is survival, and love sustains you. You can have work anytime. But love? Not always.”

  “Why didn’t you ever get married, June?”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to either.”

  “No, you do,” she says quietly.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Women who take care of old people are the marrying kind,” she says.

  “Gram took care of herself.”

  “Yes, but you looked after her. It wasn’t a chore, it came naturally. Same with me. Nobody else calls me when I walk home from work in the snow. You always do.”

  “Dear God. I sound pathetic!”

  June laughs. “Not at all. You nurture people—and we need you to. But you don’t think about yourself enough. And time is passing—it really is. And when you get old, it passes even more quickly, like a lead foot on the accelerator. I hear old people on TV say they don’t have regrets. I have about a thousand.”

  “Name one.”

  “I would have asked for more. I would have had more.”

  “But June…”

  “I know, I know, I feasted my way through fifty years of men, all sizes, shapes, and proclivities. God only knows how many miles I schlepped and continents I crossed in the pursuit of pleasure. And when I look back over all the years, and all the men, I would have liked for just one of those men, to sit down, pen in hand, and tell me what he saw when I walked in a room.”

  June looks out the windows and off into the middle distance.

  “No, I had to guess. I had to fill in the blanks.” She whistles softly. “But you? He’s told you plain, right here on paper, what you mean to him. And if you can’t take these words in now, put the letter aside and reread it tomorrow when you’ve had time to think. Trust me, this Gianluca won’t come along again, not in your lifetime.” June picks up the letter and hands it back to me. “Unless you know something I don’t.”

  June perches her reading glasses on her nose and reads the work list. I pick up a shoe and measure the welt to attach it to the heel. June opens her box of straight pins on the table, then takes her pinking shears out of their chamois pouch and places them on the table. She pushes the work stool under the table with her knee, she loads a bolt of raw silk on to the roller, and I help her snap the dowel and close the traps.

  We are two women with so much more than friendship in common. We work together, and while I’m supposedly her boss, the truth is, she is mine. June knows more about the world than I ever will—and in matters of love, she would never mislead me. Teacher to student, she has never told me anything but the truth. Maybe I don’t believe Gianluca’s pretty words because he’s Italian and they’re known for their fleur-de-lis approach to life. Maybe I need hardware and nails when it comes to love, not the gentle curves of filigree. Maybe I don’t think the pretty stuff is strong enough to hold.

  “I’ve always maintained that this house could use some drama.” Mom sits on one of the red leather bar stools behind the counter that separates the kitchen from the living area in Gram’s apartment. “Everywhere.” She thumbs through Interior magazine, tearing out “looks” that she thinks I might like. “The old homestead needs a total redo.”

  “We’ll ask Gram.”

  “You don’t have to. She turned the building over to you to do whatever you want. Go wild. Reinvent yourself in a new environment. Have some fun!”

  My life is now developing a theme. Evidently, I don’t have enough fun. June wants me to spice up the bedroom, and my mother, the decor. It dawns on me that Mom has another motive entirely. “Has Dad put the kibosh on your renovations in Queens?”

  “That has nothing to do with it. But yes, he has. When it comes to interior design, your father is a joy killer. He’d have the same bicentennial red, white, and blue shag carpet from our den in 1976 if I’d let him. He’s like his mother in that way. When you vacuum her rugs, there are permanent grooves in the carpet where the furniture is placed. Actual pits. Your father doesn’t get that surroundings matter, and that change keeps you fresh, young, and on your toes. You wouldn’t wear the same clothes every day, would you?”

  “No,” I lie. I look down at my uniform: jeans and work smock.

  “Then your home shouldn’t either. The same curtains for thirty years? Come on, people. Might as well live in a HoJo’s lobby. When your father got the prostate diagnosis, the first thing I did after I overhauled his diet with lycopene was to study color therapy. After intense research, I painted our bedroom soft yellow because yellow is conducive to healing. Now, I don’t want to take credit for his stellar remission, but you can’t tell me there’s not a connection.”

  “There’s a connection.”

  “If only he’d indulge me once in a while.”

  “Ma. He does everything you want.”

  “Eventually.”

  The laptop screen sounds a small series of bells. Then Gram appears on the screen. “Can you see me?”

  I sit down and click the camera icon. “Gram, we’re here. I can see you!”

  “Hi, hon.” Gram waves. “Where’s Mike?”

  “Right here, Ma.” Mom puts down her magazine, fluffs her hair, and presses her lips together to release the micro-beads in her twenty-four-hour lipstick. “I’m camera-ready.” Mom squeezes onto the chair with me and sees her image on the screen. “Dear God, the lighting is atrocious.”

  “You look wonderful, Mike,” Gram tells her.

  “No, I look over sixty. That’s what I look. I’ve been asking every Blue Cross hotline attendant if they have any idea who did Susan Sarandon’s face work. We are practically the same age, almost exactly, and she looks like she did in the Rocky Horror movie while I look like the Rocky Horror.”

  “I don’t think Susan Sarandon had any work done,” I tell them.

  “Now I feel worse!” Mom throws her hands up in despair.

  “How’s it going with Alfred in the shop?” Gram looks at me and ignores my mother. I can’t believe Gram can pull that off on Skype. She knows if we go down the plastic surgery path with my mother, it will be hours on the line. “Are you two getting along?”

  “Not bad,” I lie.

  Gram gives me a look. “Alfred tells me it’s going fine.”

  “Good. I’m glad you checked with him.”

  “Now, now. He e-mailed me about some tax files.”

  “Uh-huh.” I know good and well that Gram and Alfred e-mail every day. And I know he reports everything I do back to her. But what he doesn’t get is that Gram only wants good news to go with her positive new life. He should skip the budget and tax talk with her. “How’s Dominic?”

  “I’m having the best time here. And our honeymoon. The Black Sea was a stunner.”

  “Ma, you won’t believe it.” Mom leans into the screen. “Every time I pick up a travel magazine, there’s something about the Black Sea. I never heard of it before you honeymooned there. You’re cutting-edge.”

  “Magnificent. Russian palaces on the coastline—the best caviar I’ve ever tasted. It was cold, but the water was calm, like a smooth
pane of mercury glass. Almost silver.”

  “I’m so happy for you,” Mom says.

  As happy as we all are for Gram’s new life, and all the things that go with it that she deserves, like amazing trips and an attentive husband, I can’t help but wonder if she ever misses making shoes.

  “Gram, you know the sketch I found? The one I scanned and sent to you?” I hold up the shoe design by Rafael Angelini. “Do you have any idea who Rafael is? I Googled the name but I couldn’t find him anywhere…But I did find a Roberta Angelini in Buenos Aires. Do you think she’s any relation?”

  “She could be.”

  “Do you know of other Angelinis?”

  “Well, there’s an old story—but I have no idea how true it is. But your great-grandfather had a brother. There was some estrangement, long, long ago—I think it may have happened here in Arezzo. But I really don’t know any details.”

  “My great-grandfather had a brother?” I look at my mother.

  “Don’t look at me. I’m only an expert on my family after they arrived in America. Hoboken and forward…that’s my area of expertise.”

  I can’t believe this. My mother knows the exact count of the family silver, and how we’re missing a ladle that she believes was lifted when she invited the Martinelli cousins over for brunch after the May Day crowning at Queen of the Angels in 1979. My grandmother stored and marked heirloom rosaries for each of her great-grandchildren on the day they were born to be given on their First Communions in the event of her demise. This is a family that knows the contents of every drawer, closet shelf, and jewelry box. Our wills are updated like our dental records (and we are fanatical about teeth!). Can it be possible that we have an entire branch of the family, sawed off the old tree for kindling, and nobody bothered to tell us?

  “I didn’t know much about the brother,” Gram says. “They didn’t discuss it. And this is the first thing I’m hearing about Argentina.”

  I just stare at the screen. I want to shout: Yeah, you don’t know much—or you just don’t remember to share it with me: just like you never told me this building was in hock or that Grandpop had a mistress until you were already in love with Dominic, who you told me about ten years after the fact!

  I have a notion that if I opened the wrong box in storage, I’d uncover enough family secrets and vendettas to blow the roof off 166 Perry Street. “Well, I think it’s important. It would appear that there was another shoemaker in the family.”

  “Why should that matter now?” my mother pipes up.

  I look at Gram and then my mother. “Are you serious?” Don’t they get it? I’m attempting to grow the brand. I need to know everything about this company and our history. There may be something of value to use going forward—I shouldn’t be in the dark. What I don’t say is that between Alfred and Gram, I get the funny feeling that’s exactly where they’d like to keep me.

  “Your mother is right,” Gram says. “Let’s look to the future. Besides, that sketch wasn’t as good as your grandfather’s—or your great-grandfather’s.” She smiles. “Or yours.”

  “Could you do me a favor anyway?” I ask. “Go to the church there in Arezzo and see if you can find the baptismal records. If Rafael Angelini really was Grandpop’s uncle, he’ll be there.”

  “I’m getting chills,” Mom says. “Maybe we should consult a psychic.”

  “Ma, the last time we did, it was a disaster. We gave Aunt Feen a free session, and the lady promised her that she would win Powerball.”

  “Right, right. And when Aunt Feen didn’t win the lottery she wanted to sue the psychic and the gaming commission.”

  Gram interrupts us. “How is Feen?”

  “I went to see her on Sunday.” Mom says. “She’s as crabby as ever. She signed up for water aerobics at the Y in Mineola. Better she drink pool water than Johnny Walker Red.”

  My cell phone rings on the counter. I pick it up while Mom and Gram go down the long, lonesome road of life with Feen.

  “Valentine, it’s Pamela. When did Alfred leave?”

  I check the clock. “Around five. He had a bunch of meetings with the Small Business rep downtown.”

  “He’s supposed to be here for Rocco’s parent-teacher conference. I have a sitter and everything.”

  “He’s not answering his cell?” I ask.

  “It goes straight to voice mail.” She sounds completely frustrated.

  “I’ll track him down. You go ahead to school, and I’ll tell him you’ll meet him there.”

  I hang up with Pamela and call my brother. He picks up the phone after a couple of rings. “Hey, Alfred. Call Pamela. She couldn’t reach you and said there’s some parent-teacher thing at school.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “You forgot?” This is not like Alfred at all. He remembers everything—including the grade he got on his calculus final in eleventh grade. “Well, get on the bus, brother. She’s waiting for you.”

  I snap the phone shut, completely annoyed. Along with a partnership I never wanted, I am officially my brother’s keeper. What’s next? I spend my Saturday afternoons ironing Alfred’s shirts?

  My mother scans the keyboard on the computer. “How do you shut this off?”

  “Are you done?”

  “Yes.”

  I hit the buttons out of Skype. The screen goes black. My mother claps her hands together. “What a trailblazing invention. I just love the 21st century! It’s so William Shatner. So Star Trek.”

  “Do you ever miss old-fashioned ways?”

  “Which ones?”

  “Love letters written with a fountain pen?”

  “Oh, God no. Your father can’t spell. He cannot express himself via words at all. He tried to write to me when we were young, but I needed a dramaturg to deconstruct his sentiments. No, no, I like how we communicate now. Dutch tells me how he feels to my face. Press a button and my mother’s face pops up from Italy. There’s nothing like right now, in the moment.”

  The Small Business Adminstration office is two doors down from the room we are sent to when serving on jury duty. The waiting area is filled with people, laptops out, cell phones on, doing business. I sign in. Whenever you deal with doctors or government agencies, there’s invariably a clipboard and a number 2 pencil dangling from a string.

  Kathleen pokes her head out the office door and motions to me. I point to the list—there’s at least nine names in front of mine. She waves me in.

  “I have your paperwork all set to go,” she says as she closes the door behind me.

  “Already?” I’m amazed and also slightly guilty about the line I just jumped in the waiting room. Kathleen has really been charmed by the Angelini Shoe Company.

  “It was a snap. Alfred looked over it and signed it.”

  “Great.”

  “Ray Rinaldi approved them and sent three sets back to me for your signature.” Kathleen places the documents in front of me and gives me a pen. I sign the paperwork. She stamps them.

  “You should have your loan within six weeks. This gives you time to make a deal with a manufacturer.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Kathleen stands. “You’ve been great to work with.”

  I open my tote bag and lift out our signature red and white striped shoebox. “These are for you.”

  Kathleen opens the box. “They’re gorgeous!” She lifts out a pair of Flora calfskin slippers. “I can’t possibly keep them.”

  “Why not? It’s not a bribe. The loan has already been approved.” I point to a bouquet of flowers with a thank-you card that sits on Kathleen’s desk. “We express our gratitude with shoes instead of flowers. Friend to friend.”

  “I’ve had a great time working with you and your family.” Kathleen smiles.

  I never noticed how pretty she was, or maybe now I see her as a beauty because she just promised me enough money to make the Bella Rosa.

  I place my copy of the contract in my tote bag. I feel very guilty when I pass through the waiting room loade
d with people who, just like me, need a loan to survive, and hopefully grow.

  I text Bret:

  Me: LOAN APPROVED!

  Bret: Congrats!

  Me: Thanks to you.

  Bret: Now we find a factory.

  Me: In the U.S.?

  Bret: Arguing with your brother about China.

  Me: I knew he’d be a problem.

  Bret: That’s why I’m here. I fight. You make your beautiful shoes.

  Me: What would I do without you? I know: I’d be in proper therapy!

  Bret: You’re my therapy. Nobody makes me laugh like you.

  Me: Or you!

  Bret: xo

  Me: xo

  Tess, Jaclyn, and I sit in the rotunda waiting area of Sloan Kettering Hospital. Dad is here for his checkup, and Mom seemed nervous about coming alone, so we all came to give them our support. You would think, after the diagnosis and months of treatment, that we would be used to the grind that comes with a diagnosis of stage-two prostate cancer, but we’re not. We live in fear, but we don’t talk about it. We put on big smiles, joke and laugh to keep our parents’ spirits up. But all the while we grip the rosaries in our pockets, holding on to the beads, praying for good news every time Dad has to walk through those doors.

  We love the word remission, and we throw the word cure around as our deepest wish (because it is). But cancer is now an official member of the Roncalli family. We don’t like it, we didn’t ask for it to be born, but it’s here, and we have to accept all of it: its cranky moods and unpredictable behavior, its sudden retreat when the doctors try a new drug and tell us to go home and wait for the results. In the meantime, we cope with the toll it takes on our father, who goes from normal to exhausted to sick as the doctors try to make him better.

  But today, I’m feeling unusually lucky. With the loan approval, maybe we’re on a roll, and things in general will begin to go well for my family. I’m superstitious, though, because I’ve seen momentum go in the other direction, so I keep my optimism to myself.