by Claire Cook
Maggie held up an unidentifiable crayon drawing. “Nonno,” she said. “This is you being handsome without fake hair.”
Myles started giggling and toddled back to his mother with his paper.
Vicky, our favorite developmentally challenged young adult from Road to Responsibility, had stayed for the intervention, too. Her coach looked up from her magazine, but Vicky didn’t need her. “Just say it out loud,” Vicky said. “And speak up.” She opened up a crumpled piece of paper. “Haircuts don’t hurt one bit,” she said. “You don’t even need a Band-Aid.” Then she giggled and sat down.
Angela tightened her grip when I let go of my father. I reached into my pocket for my note. It had all seemed like a big joke to me, but now I was surprised to feel so much emotion. “In the second grade,” I began, “we started hiding your Cover Your Bald Spot Instantly spray. By junior high we’d moved on to trying to replace your shampoo with Nair. This didn’t mean we didn’t love you, or that we didn’t think you were handsome. It’s just that your hair is the first thing you see when you come into a room, and we think it’s time to let it go. Plus, think of all the time it’ll free up.”
“Easy for you to say,” my father said. “It’s no hair off your head. And that Samson fellow should be a lesson for all of us. He was from Italy, you know.”
“No he wasn’t,” I said. “He was from Israel.”
My father never tired of trying to make the whole world Italian. “Well, then the guy who painted him was.”
A picture from my long-ago art history class appeared before my very eyes. “Wait,” I said. “You’re right. There was that great brown ink Guercino did. The one where Samson points to his bald spot.”
“I don’t have a bald spot once I cover it,” my father said. “That’s the whole point.”
“Can we try to stay on track here?” Todd said.
Mario already had his note out. “You know, Dad,” he began, “when Mom suggested this intervention—”
“Sweet Italy,” my father said. “Why didn’t you tell me it was her idea?”
13
ONCE MY FATHER MADE THE DECISION, THERE WAS no stopping him. He decided to go for the full Kojak look. “Lollipops,” he said, while I removed his salmon sweater from his shoulders, and Todd draped a black cape over him. “Somebody go find me some lollipops.”
I wasn’t sure what Sinéad O’Connor’s method had been, but I knew Britney Spears had gone straight to the hair buzzer. We’d already decided we’d take a bit more of a ceremonial approach.
Angela found The Barber of Seville on the salon’s Best of Italian Opera CD and pumped up the volume.
My father closed his eyes. “Ah, Rossini,” he said, as if this CD hadn’t been playing practically nonstop in the salon since the 1960s.
Tulia took the scissors first. “Careful,” we all said at once. Things were going so smoothly, it would be a shame to have to stop for stitches.
“Love you, Dad,” she said as she made the first cut. She managed not even to nick him, which was an amazing feat for Tulia. Then she held her kids’ hands while they each took a careful snip.
“Love you, Nonno,” they said one by one.
“You can come to my birthday party,” Maggie added when it was her turn.
Vicky started sweeping as soon as the first lock of hair fell. “Don’t any of you dare throw my hair away,” my father said. “I want that buried with me. It’s how they do it in Italy.”
“I think you mean Egypt,” I said.
His eyes were scrunched closed, awaiting the next snip, but he turned his head to follow the sound. “That’ll be enough out of you, Little Miss Smarty-Pants. Who’s the expert here?”
“Okay,” I said. “That’s how they do it in Egypt and Italy.”
Once we’d all taken a turn with the scissors, Mario brought out the buzzer.
“Not so fast,” my father said. “Which one do you have there?”
Mario turned it over in his hand so he could read the label. “Remington Titanium?”
“No way,” my father said. “I want the Andis T-Edger, or we quit right here.”
The new buzzer was brought in. Mario did the honors, and we all watched the rest of our father’s hair drop to the floor in long, spindly strips.
Then we brought him over to the sink, and Sophia scrubbed off the Cover Your Bald Spot Instantly. We had to use some Jolen Creme Bleach to get him back to his original scalp color, but it was worth the trouble.
Tulia removed the cape, and we all stepped back to survey our work.
Sophia’s mother, Linda, ran her hand across my father’s scalp. “Smooth as a baby’s bottom,” she said. “You sure do clean up nice, Larry Shaughnessy.” She was practically drooling, even though she was married to some other guy now.
“Very handsome,” Todd said. “And I think you look even more Italian, Lucky, if that’s humanly possible.”
“Kiss-up,” Mario said.
I handed my father a mirror, and he moved it around so he could see all the angles. “Abbondanza!” he said. He really did look handsome. His bone structure seemed more defined, and his crinkly hazel eyes really stood out now, too. His head had a nice shape to it, too. He was a perfect MAC NW25 from the back of his neck up to the top of his head and right on down the other side. Of course, all of my family and most of the Irish Riviera could be covered in that same pale beige.
We all reached in to rub his head for good luck, and I picked up Precious so she could get a paw in there, too. “Yay, team,” Angela said. She’d clearly been driving to too many sporting events, but we went along with her anyway, since we were already in the huddle.
“T-E-A-M,” we yelled, and then we threw our hands up in the air over Lucky Larry Shaughnessy’s shiny new bald head.
There was a knock on the salon door. “Somebody get that,” my father said. “It’s either the pizza or the paparazzi.”
“ARRIVEDERCI,” MY FATHER YELLED when everybody finally headed out to their cars. I stayed behind to wrap up the leftover pizza in plastic wrap. Since my father and I were the two single ones, I thought I’d divide it up, and that way we could each get another meal out of it.
My father walked into the kitchen, with Precious hard on his heels. “Ciao, Bella,” he said. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
I rubbed his head again for good luck. I could certainly use it. “It really looks great, Dad,” I said.
“I should have thought of it years ago,” my father said. I could tell the story was already morphing in his mind. Before long, he’d really believe the whole thing had been his idea.
My father reached past me to open the refrigerator. “Come, Bella. Sit for a minute and share a digestivo with your babbo.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Not the grappa. You know I hate that stuff.”
“Bella, Bella,” he said as he pulled out the bottle anyway. “What kind of an Italian are you?”
I grabbed the refrigerator door from him and reached inside to put the pizza on the shelf. “The Irish kind? Come on, you must have something to drink in here that doesn’t taste like Karo syrup.” I moved things around until I found a bottle of pinot grigio. “Okay if I open this?”
My father nodded, so I went hunting for the corkscrew. My father had been divorced from his third wife for years, and his kitchen drawers had taken on a life of their own. I pulled out three golf tees and a deck of playing cards from the silverware drawer before I found the corkscrew. A long-forgotten cork was still impaled on it.
My father opened a cabinet and handed me a wineglass. As I reached for it, I saw a whole row of unopened grappa bottles lined up like soldiers across the shelf below.
“Dad,” I said. “Where’d you get all that grappa?”
My father poured some grappa into an aperitif glass. He turned to admire his reflection in the glass panels of the kitchen cabinets and ran his hand over his head. “I just told those condo barracudas on the telephone that if they wanted a shot at my waterfr
ont property, they had to sweeten the deal.”
“You’re not really thinking about selling, are you?” I couldn’t imagine life without this house, the flagship salon attached to it.
“Nah, but it’s a great way to get grappa.”
“Be careful,” I said. It seemed like developers were buying up the whole town. “Don’t sign anything without your reading glasses, whatever you do.”
My father disappeared into the living room, and The Marriage of Figaro blasted out. He came back in and headed over to sit at the kitchen table.
I joined him. I loved this table. It was an old pine trestle table we’d carved up pretty thoroughly over the years. It started when we were doing our homework and accidentally pressed down too hard with our pencils. We’d lift up our math sheet and 12 ÷ 3 = 4 would be permanently etched below.
We began doing it on purpose after our mother moved out, throwing us into a flurry of limit testing. I remembered my father handing me a piece of sandpaper to sand off the I HATE YOU I’d carved. Angela was the one to rat me out, but I no longer remembered whether the sentiment was directed at Tulia’s or Sophia’s mother.
My father held up his glass. “Salute,” he said. “Cin cin.”
I touched my glass to his. “What’s the one Grandpa used to say?” I asked.
“Slainté,” my father said.
“Slainté,” I repeated as I clinked my glass to his. “I remember now. I used to think he was saying ‘it’s a lawn chair,’ really fast.” I took a sip. “You know, sometimes I wish you’d brought us up Irish instead of Italian. Life would have been simpler.”
My father took a sip of his grappa. He made a face, then chugged it down. “Life is never simple,” he said.
“What, you don’t like grappa either?” I asked.
“The kind you get over here is too sweet for my taste. It’s much more fiery in Italy. But I still like the idea of it.”
My father leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head, then ran them up and down his smooth scalp. “I suppose it’s all perspective. If we were Italians living in the North End, I might have thought the Irish were the exotic ones. Your grandfather’s favorite expression was ‘If you’re lucky enough to be Irish, you’re lucky enough.’ Truth be told, my father was a two-bit Irish barber, and I wanted something better for my family. It’s every immigrant’s dream.”
I’d heard this one at least a thousand times. The real truth was that my father had been born in South Boston, so he wasn’t technically an immigrant, but I took another sip of wine and let him have his version. I wondered what my dream should be, as the daughter of the son of an immigrant. Did that make me an immigrant twice removed? I’d never been able to figure out that family tree stuff. Precious jumped up on my lap, circled around, and made herself comfortable.
I didn’t really plan on saying it, but it came out anyway. “Do you think it’s my fault Sophia turned out the way she did?” I asked.
“What? What way did she turn out?” My father got up to ditch his grappa glass and pour a glass of pinot grigio for himself.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I was thinking she never developed her own interests….”
He topped off the wine in my glass. “And so she got interested in your husband?”
“Thanks. I don’t know. Maybe it’s crazy. Or maybe it’s true.”
My father looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “And I guess I was thinking maybe you would have picked a different kind of husband if I’d set a better example.”
I reached out and put my hand on his. “Oh, Dad, no. There’s no connection at all.”
“And you’re not responsible for your sister’s behavior.”
“Half sister,” I said.
“Blood is thicker than everything.”
“Even grappa?” I took a sip of my wine, and Precious started twitching in her sleep. She was probably having a nightmare about her former owner, that awful Silly Siren bride. “You know,” I said. “The thing is, I miss Sophia so much more than I ever missed Craig. But I don’t see how we’ll ever get past it. It’s just too big a betrayal.”
“L’amore domina senza regole,” my father said.
“What’s that?”
“Love rules without rules. At least I think that’s how it translates.” He grinned. “Either that or I just swore at you in Italian.”
“So what’s it mean? Assuming you got it right, that is.”
He leaned his elbows on the table. “Everybody does stupid things in life, Bella. Some of us more than others. You think you’re going to get away with it. Or they think they’re going to get away with it. Or one or both of you just stop thinking. But it happens. And when it does, you can keep drinking it like poison, or you can put it behind you and go make the most of the rest of your life.”
“Is that what you did with Mom?” I asked.
“No,” my father said. “That’s what she did with me.”
14
I RIFLED THROUGH MY LIPSTICK DRAWER, LOOKING for something strong, confident, and hydrating. Beeswax, shea butter, jojoba, and almond oil are all great moisturizing ingredients. I found a tube of Tarte Inside Out Vitamin Lipstick in a deep rose called Revive. It had jojoba, vitamins A, C, E, and K, plus acai, green tea, and lychee extract, so I figured I was covering pretty much all the bases. Maybe if I ate the whole thing like a Popsicle, I wouldn’t have to take my vitamins for a couple of months.
I’d meant to call Sean Ryan to tell him I’d meet him in Providence at the college fair. I wanted to make sure he understood this was strictly business. I was all about the kits, and the fact that he was a good-looking single guy and I’d been dumped by my husband a year ago was not going to factor into the equation at all.
Of course, I distinctly remembered him saying something or other about not being interested in me either. But people say a lot of things, so it never hurts to be sure your message is absolutely clear. Driving my own car would create a certain professional distance for both of us.
The way I looked at it, there was a nice long low-drama life ahead for me if I could just keep things simple. One small dog, some nice scenic walks, a new creative kit-making adventure. Lots of people lived perfectly fulfilling single lives. It was such an antiquated idea that people needed to be one half of a matched set, like salt and pepper shakers. I mean, what evolved person even used salt anymore?
And I’d skip the rebound relationship, thank you very much. It was actually sort of a patronizing suggestion Sean Ryan had made, if I stopped to think about it. As if I needed to have a meltdown and run around like a wronged woman for a specified period of time before I could behave myself again. Ha. Other than hitting Craig’s windshield with my shoulder bag, throwing one tiny rock, and okay, putting his jock itch cream in an envelope and mailing it to Sophia, and that was ages ago, I hadn’t felt the urge to act out much at all.
Sure, I’d had a few destructive fantasies. I’d thought about strapping our mattress to the top of my Volkswagen bug and driving it into Boston, and then torching it on the street outside Craig’s office. But traffic was a nightmare on the Southeast Expressway, and you’d really be taking your life in your hands trying to drive with a mattress. Plus, I didn’t think Craig and Sophia had actually slept in that bed anyway. Why would they, when Sophia had a perfectly good bed of her own and no one sharing it since she’d broken up with what’s his name. Sophia’s boyfriends never lasted too long. I used to wonder what she was looking for. Now I knew: my husband.
So I settled for donating all our sheets, along with some of our wedding presents I’d never really liked anyway, to a women’s shelter and buying new ones. Fairly pitiful as an acting-out gesture, I knew, but maybe it just meant I was a quick healer. I was calm. I was clear. I was starting to pick up the pieces of my life. I was getting ready to fly solo.
Or almost solo. Precious came skidding into the kitchen. She was wearing her DON’T HATE ME BECAUSE I’M BEAUTIFUL T-shirt today, and th
e soft yellow worked really well with her new highlights.
As soon as she looked up at me with her big Chihuahua-terrier eyes, I knew she knew.
I reached down to scratch her behind one of her ears. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I really can’t take you with me today. It’s business.”
She tilted her head and leaned into my hand as I scratched her.
“And I can’t drop you off anywhere because I don’t want my family to know about the kits. You have no idea how controlling they can be, and five will get you ten, they’ll try to get in on the action. So it’s better just to keep my mouth shut, you know?”
Precious raised her tufted eyebrows. This talking-to-your-dog thing was really addictive. I wondered if it would be completely rude to call Sean Ryan now and tell him I’d meet him there. Of course, I’d have to get directions, since so far I only knew we were going somewhere in Providence, which was a pretty big city. Maybe I could follow him. I’d just tell him I had something to do afterward, and there was no sense driving all the way back here to get my car.
It sounded like a plan. I’d packed all the kits I’d made into two big cardboard boxes before I went to bed last night, so I piled one on top of the other, swung my bag over my shoulder, got my keys ready in one hand. I opened the door a crack and threw a dog treat way across the room for Precious to chase.
“I’ll be back soon,” I said matter-of-factly. I wondered how people ever managed to leave actual children. I picked up the boxes and started backing my way calmly out the door.
I pulled the door shut and leaned the boxes against the doorframe while I locked it. I turned around and took a step. Precious yelped.
I screamed. “Ohmigod, are you okay? How did you get out here anyway?”
I heard a car door slam. “Are you talking to yourself up there?” Sean Ryan yelled.
I looked down over the railing. “Nope. I’m just being outsmarted by a small dog. Do you think I can get away with bringing her?”
