Passports and Plum Blossoms

by Barbara Oliverio

  I picked at my comforter and didn’t reply.

  “Then when they got engaged, you didn’t take that too well either, did you?”

  “Hey, I have never said anything bad about her!”

  Rory’s eyes scrunched as she crossed her arms.

  “What?” I challenged.

  “Uh. You once said that the way she chooses to wear her hairstyle is as if God had not created taste.”

  “That doesn’t sound like me!”

  Rory hit me with my stuffed Mickey Mouse.

  “It sounds exactly like you because it WAS you!”

  “Hey!” I grabbed the doll and hugged it to me. “Don’t take it out on Mickey.”

  Rory continued, “I’m not judging you. Actually, that was a pretty funny comment you came up with. I’m just saying you may like to think you got over him quickly, but you really didn’t. What I don’t understand is why you took a chance on bringing all that up again by going to the wedding.”

  I hugged Mickey closer and wiped an encroaching tear from my eye with his ear.

  “I don’t know. My parents have been friends with his parents forever and they invited the whole family and it would have been a whole thing if I wouldn’t have shown up. I mean, we broke up so long ago, you know?”

  “Yep,” she conceded. “It would have looked strange, I guess. I’m just sorry I wasn’t in town to, I don’t know, go along to make snide remarks about the bridesmaids’ dresses or something.”

  She reached over to the nearly empty bag of cookies, retrieved two and handed me one. We crunched as we pondered for a moment.

  “That really wasn’t the problem, Rory,” I said finally. “It was the fact that he announced that he was so proud of the fact his fabulous bride had this new job. You know, the one I had applied for and was, I thought, the final candidate for? I know, I know, he probably didn’t know she beat me out of it, but it felt like it. There she was, freakin’ superwoman, living my life. Well, my life with a worse haircut.”

  Rory stared at my hair pointedly. My ’do was decidedly bedraggled since I had pulled my long tresses up into a lazy washerwoman topknot from which random pieces hung lankily into my face.

  “Oh, you know what I mean.” I waved her off. “My hair is usually cuter than this.”

  “Well, I would say that YOU are usually cuter. Have you seen yourself in a mirror?”

  “Hello?” I threw one of the other stuffed animals that I had surrounded myself with at her. “I’m going through a tragedy here. A little sympathy, please?”

  I could feel tears starting again.

  The unwitting teddy bear sailed back toward me.

  “Look, I’ve got all sorts of sympathy for you, but it’s not the end of the world. Don’t you think you’ve wallowed enough?”

  I stared at her.

  “What? You’ve been here exactly a nanosecond and you think I’ve ‘wallowed’ to use your word ‘enough’?”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers through her own russet hair prettily.

  “Yes. And I stand by my statement. C’mon, Annalise, would you really have wanted to stay with him?”

  “Well, no ...”

  “So it doesn’t matter who he ended up with, right?”

  “Well, yes ...”

  “And didn’t you tell me after the final job interview that you weren’t really sure you wanted that job anyway?”

  “Well, maybe ...”

  “So. Maybe this was all for the best.”

  Humph. She really ticked me off when she was right.

  And she had a point. Sure, I didn’t enjoy hearing that I didn’t get that job, and I REALLY didn’t like hearing that I didn’t get it in exactly the way I heard it, but when you get right down to it, I only wanted it because I had been out of work for so long and had been on so many interviews that it was more a matter of taking the first offer that came along.

  Six months ago, my whole department had been laid off, and I had been pounding the pavement looking for a job ever since. In high tech, marketing is always the first department to be let go and the last one to be staffed back. To top things off, my roommate in our trendy Highlands bachelor-girl apartment moved out without notice. I wasn’t able to find a new roommate in time to renew the lease, but luckily, I was able move back in with my parents in the suburbs. All in all, I felt like I was moving backward in life, not forward. While I was job hunting, I even worked part-time as a waitress at the same restaurant where I had worked so many summers during college. What next? Go back to high school?

  So ... was that marketing position actually my dream job, or was it just an escape plan?

  “I hate it when you are right, Rory.”

  “Then you must always hate me,” she punched me in the shoulder.

  I wanted to cry but smiled tentatively. My family had been very supportive, but I guess I just needed some extra perspective from my best friend.

  “So, what do we do now?” she began in that tone she always adopted when she was in planning mode.

  “We?”

  “Annalise, we’re best friends, right? What else would you expect—oh, come on, I thought you were done crying!”

  “You made me cry, you goof, because you are so YOU!”

  She smiled. “Wouldn’t be any other way. Okay, let’s get organized here. First order of business I’d say is definitely a shower for you, Miss Stinky. While you clean yourself up, I’ll get rid of those disgusting clothes and clean up this pigsty.”

  Chapter Three

  “Well, who is this pretty girl?”

  My mother’s sweet tone was one she usually reserved for children and the elderly.

  “Did you forget what I looked like so soon, Ma?”

  My words may have been clipped, but I crossed the kitchen and hugged her from the side as she stirred a giant pot of aromatic spaghetti sauce on the stovetop.

  “Mmm. Meatballs or sausage?” I queried.

  “Both,” she answered as she slipped a few onto a plate for Rory and me. “I’m making sauce to take to your father for the Knights of Columbus social night tonight.”

  Rory wasted no time moving around the kitchen retrieving the necessary items for us to make ourselves sandwiches with the savory meatballs. She was as comfortable in our kitchen as one of Ma’s own children.

  “She looks pretty good all cleaned up, doesn’t she, Mama Fontana?” she said, tossing me packets of cheese and roasted peppers from the refrigerator as I sliced bread from the breadbox.

  My mother wiped her hands on her apron and came to sit beside me, pushing my overgrown bangs behind my ears.

  “I’m glad to see you looking more like yourself, sweetheart. But what is this outfit you have on?”

  Rory had managed to discard my sloppy hoodie and pajama pants while I showered, but when I tried to find something to wear, even after only a few days on my calorie-laden diet, everything in my closet was, er, a little snug. I was in yoga pants and a mismatched tunic that, frankly, was not draped as loosely as it should have been. My long, wavy hair was squeaky clean, but I had done nothing more than pull it into a quick braid that hung down the middle of my back.

  “Too many Oreos, I guess,” I shrugged as I sliced meatballs and sausage onto the bread, garnished them with liberal triangles of cheese, and topped it all off not only with peppers but several rounds of salami for good measure.

  “Are you sure it was just the Oreos?” Rory asked, as she gracefully folded exactly one meatball and two roasted pepper slices into a slice of bread to make half a sandwich.

  “What?” I said around a huge bite. She remained silent, but glanced at the tribute to Italian foods I had fabricated, which was at that moment dripping down my hand, forcing me to lick my wrist in a most indelicate manner.

  “What?” I repeated with a bit more force.

  Realization dawned.

  “Oh, no, you’re not going to deny me a sandwich, are you?”

  “Sandwich, no,” she paused. “Ent
ire meal for a family of four, yes.”

  I tried to appeal to my Italian mother, the one person I could count on who wouldn’t deny me the right to eat, but she had disappeared into the pantry to retrieve a cardboard box in which to place the giant pot for transport in the car.

  “Look, Rory, you’re not going to food-shame me into thinking I need to be a size zero. You know I’m a curvy girl.” I pointed to my hips, inherited from my southern Mediterranean ancestors.

  “Curvy is one thing, Annalise. But working on cardiopulmonary disease is another.” She shook her head and continued. “You’ve obviously been eating your emotions and have piled a little extra weight onto your delightfully curvy frame very quickly. I’m just saying you need to slow it down, that’s all.”

  I looked down into my hands and saw how difficult it was to keep together the monstrosity I had concocted. It was worthy of a challenge on the Man v. Food show. She was right. If I continued on the path I’d started after the wedding, I would be a candidate for a heart attack before I turned thirty. I know my Nonni and my mother would encourage me to eat, but even they were prudent women who knew that balance was the key in life.

  Fine. I was just about to deconstruct my masterpiece when my mother walked back into the kitchen to sit at the table with us.

  “Ma, want to share part of this with me?”

  I pushed the plate toward her. A curvy woman who was not afraid of food, she rearranged the ingredients of my hoagie on a piece of bread, claiming one meatball, half the cheese, and some of the salami to make her own sandwich—I guess I did have a lot there—and joined us in our companionable snack.

  “So, my girls, what are you planning to do after you eat?”

  “Well, my room is clean.”

  “Thank goodness,” my mother said as she crossed herself. “I was afraid I was going to have to send the bomb squad in there soon.”

  “Thank Rory, you mean,” I pointed to my friend. “She managed to get it all done while I was in the shower.”

  “It wasn’t too difficult,” Rory shrugged. “I just divided things into ‘laundry’ and ‘trash,’ then applied a little elbow grease with the vacuum and cleaning products.”

  Rory had always been a one-woman whirlwind. I had stepped out of the shower, and my room was meticulous. It seemed lighter by half.

  Hey ... wait a minute.

  “Rory, what was that third bag?”

  “It was giveaway. Anyone want some fruit salad?” She moved to the refrigerator with an innocent air.

  Giveaway!

  “Who gave you permission to give anything of mine away?” I put my hands on my recently expanded hips.

  Rory took her time returning to the table with fruit salad, bowls, spoons, and a serving implement.

  “Rory, delaying your answer won’t make me forget the question. What’s in that third bag?”

  “Only things that a normal adult would have discarded long ago—oh, sorry, I used the word ‘adult’ there.”

  “Ma!”

  My mother took delight in witnessing the familiar give-and-take that had been part of her life since I first brought home the scrawny, freckled redhead from school. Rory had seemed shy at first, but she could absolutely hold her own in our rambunctious, extended family.

  “Leave me out of this, Annalise. I’m sure I would agree with her.”

  I leaned back and crossed my arms, but Rory patted my knee with a loving gesture.

  “Calm down,” she said. “Sheesh! All I did was round up all the stuffed animals and random gifts from Dylan. I thought perhaps you might want to have a fresh perspective? Was I so wrong?”

  I uncrossed my arms. She was right—once again. If I was going to put Dylan behind me I really needed to rid myself of any reminders of that time of my life.

  “You’re right. As a matter of fact, after we eat, let’s take them down and donate them today.”

  “Atta girl!” my mother said. “Take them to the church. The youth group is collecting things for their annual garage sale. Won’t that make you feel better to know that you’re helping them make money for their pilgrimage? Remember how you girls loved that trip when you were in high school?”

  Rory and I smiled at one another. That weeklong trip to the biannual World Youth Conference in our senior year was one of the highlights of our school years. We still kept in contact with some of the people we’d met from all over the world.

  “I forget where the trip is this year,” I said.

  “I think it will be in Yugoslavia,” said my mother.

  “Wow! I loved our trip to Canada, but don’t get me wrong, I really wish we could have gone a bit further afield.”

  She hugged me. “Well, you girls have your whole lives to travel. Just keep those passports up-to-date. Right now, how about taking those donations to the church? And while you’re at it, let’s pack these meatballs and sausage and take them to the Knights of Columbus hall for your father.”

  It was short work to pack the delicious results of my mother’s cooking into the trunk of the car. We tossed my bag of donations in the back seat to drop off on the way back. As we backed out of the driveway of our modest home, my mother ran onto the porch, waving a piece of paper.

  “Girls! On your way back, could you stop at the grocery store and at the hardware store for a few things?”

  “No problem, Ma,” I grinned as I dashed up the porch stairs for the list.

  When we finally got on the road, Rory glanced at me. “What are you laughing about, happy face?”

  “Oh ... just thinking that no matter how old we will get, this will be us—dashing around, running errands for Ma.”

  “Having adventures?”

  “If that’s what you call going to the Home Depot for”—I consulted the list—“a new mop head.”

  “Ah, but adventure is in the eye of the adventurer,” said Rory.

  “Easy for you to say. You live in Manhattan, the busiest city in the world.”

  “You could always move out there and join me.”

  “What are you saying? You’re never coming back to Denver?”

  She shrugged and glanced at me from the corner of her eye.

  “I don’t know, Annalise, I kind of like it there. I bet you would like living there, too.”

  I paused to think about it. I certainly liked visiting there. It’s not that I had never thought about moving away from Denver, it’s just that I thought the opportunity had never presented itself.

  Hmm.

  Job hunt in Manhattan? Could I do it?

  “What do you think?” Rory turned toward me. “We were roommates all through university and didn’t kill each other. I’m sure we could make it work again.”

  “I’m not worried about that. I just never thought about it, that’s all.”

  “Well think about it. I think it would be great. At least come out and stay with me for a while and check out job opportunities. I know my apartment is a squeeze, but one more can’t hurt.”

  Rory shared a brownstone in Brooklyn with two other young women who I knew must be good roommates to meet her standards.

  “How would Lisa and Rachel feel about you just asking me to move in for a while?”

  She waved me off.

  “They’d love it. We were just talking about the fact that having someone else to share the rent would help all of our pocketbooks. You know they like you. My room is big enough for another bed.”

  “But is your closet big enough for my clothes?” Of the two of us, Rory was definitely the fashionista.

  “I’m sure I could make room for your knockoffs,” she teased.

  “Knockoffs! Just because I don’t have access to Lisa’s discounts!”

  Rory became serious and turned toward me.

  “I think it would be awesome, Annalise. You have great credentials, and I really think you need to broaden your horizons outside this city.”

  Hmm. It didn’t sound so bad. Maybe I did need a change of venue to change my perspec
tive.

  “I think I need to broaden something beside my hips obviously,” I said drily.

  “Oh, you know I think you look gorgeous no matter what. But we do agree that you need to watch your health, right?”

  “I know, I know,” I nodded.

  We pulled into the Knights’ parking lot at the same moment my father was walking out the front door. If he was shocked to see me outside the house, he hid it well.

  “Hello, my girls,” he grabbed us each into one arm in a bear hug. “Good to see you, Rory. I’m especially happy to see YOU outside the house, my Gypsy girl.” He gave me an extra hug.

  “Thrilled to see us or the pot of meatballs and sausage you know we have for your social?”

  He gave us each a quick buss on the cheek before reaching into the trunk to pull out the giant pot of my mother’s delicious sauce.

  “I’ll admit, the guys are looking forward to hoagies for tonight’s card game, but something has come up that might interest you, Annalise.”

  Oh sure. He had probably twisted the arm of a buddy and convinced him he needed a girl Friday and that I was just the right person to fill the bill. Ever since I had been laid off, Pop had “hired” me to do an odd job or two in his insurance office, but he truly didn’t have enough work to keep me busy for very long. He was trying hard to get me a job, bless his heart.

  “What’s up, Pop? Envelope stuffing? Data entry?”

  Not that either was beneath me. My parents had taught my brother and me the value of all forms of work.

  “Oh, I think you’re going to like this opportunity,” he said over his shoulder.

  We followed him in, greeting some of his brother Knights along the way who were preparing the hall for the evening’s activities. Finally we reached the kitchen, and my father heaved the pot onto the counter, turned to me, and placed his hands on my shoulders.

  “Gypsy girl, I’ve made arrangements for you to go to China!”

  Chapter Four

  “China? Pop, if you’re tired of me living at home, I’ll move out, but, seriously, you don’t need to send me all the way across the world!”