Before I can ask more, Kerwin glances at his watch and says he has to get going, so we stand and say our thanks and how we have to go, too. He repeats his offer to give Connie a call should he need her services. He’s all smiles and friendliness until we’re at the door. Then his face becomes grim and he says, “I can understand you wanting to know more about your father. But stay away from that gang business. I’m sure you’ve read the stories. Those are dangerous people.”
Out on the street, I badger Connie with questions and observations. “What stories? What’s he talking about? And what the heck was the matter with you in there? I know this is heavy stuff but—”
“Don’t you read the paper or watch the news?” she says, trudging ahead to the car. “Some kids were killed not too long ago, and this gang is suspected. Even the kids’ parents won’t testify against the gang members. That’s how dangerous they are.”
Now it comes back to me. I do remember reading about it. The parents were allegedly in debt to the ring for smuggling them and others into the country. They weren’t paying up fast enough. Or maybe they were snitching. Whatever it was, it was a big enough infraction that the gang took drastic action. And even through the heartbreak of losing their kids, the threat of worse violence kept these parents quiet.
Connie picks up her pace. “You heard what he said about Paluchek. The IA stuff …”
“That was in the files you had, wasn’t it?” I say. “Something about maybe being on the take …” Information we already have, in other words.
“I got the impression Moffit knew more.”
“Then why didn’t you press him?” I hurry to keep pace with Connie, who’s decided to power walk back to the car.
“I will, I will. I got the impression he didn’t want to say more right now.”
“Of all the things he said, it seems to me the Paluchek stuff was the thinnest. Hey, where are we going now?” I ask.
“We’re not going anywhere. I’m dropping you home, and then I’m running to my office to make some calls.”
“You have a cell phone. Since when do you run to your office to ‘make some calls’?” Connie’s office is two breaths away from condemnation. The heat isn’t reliable, but the mice are.
“I have some files I need to look at.”
Files? Her files are in boxes in her bedroom closet. What gives?
“Maybe I can help. You said I could at least file this summer.” When we reach the car, Connie gets in and drapes her hands over the wheel.
“Look, I want to do some stuff away from the house. And I don’t want you nosing around while I do it, okay?” Her voice shakes a little. Aw geez. Kerwin’s recitation of the facts has rattled her. She wants to be alone with her pain over Dad’s death. But all she’s going to do is replay it, hitting the mental rewind button so often she’ll be a slobbering mess by dinner. She’s got to buck up. I need her to buck up. I need the old Connie back, irritating and harassing me. I don’t want to be the one looking out for her. I’m the kid sister.
So as she starts to drive us home, I do what I can to bring her back. I irritate and harass her. I nag her about working for her during the summer. This elicits a grump and something that sounds like “later.” I pester her about letting me borrow her car on Saturdays. This triggers a shrug and an “uh-huh.” I criticize what she’s wearing. I diss her driving. I make fun of her on-again/off-again boyfriend Kurt. Nothing works. Nothing brings back the Connie I love to hate. Until finally …
“Kerrie says I should buy an engineered bra — one of those Apex/Ipex/Duplex things.” I sigh. “She thinks it will do wonders for me.”
A snort. A cluck. A shake of the head. Finally, I’ve found the key to unlocking her gloomy mood: conversation about lingerie.
“Do you know how much those things cost?” Without waiting for an answer, she goes on. “Sixty bucks.”
She veers around a corner. “If I’m gonna pay sixty bucks for a bra, it better come with extras.” Another turn. “Like OnStar.”
This leads her to review my ensemble, which she calls “unbusinesslike,” and if I expect to work for her, I better start showing I understand the job. Oblivious to my previous critique of her clothes, she uses them as an example.
“I look professional. See? Dark slacks, neutral shirt, tailored jacket. I look like an equal to whomever I’m meeting with.”
“You didn’t tell me I was supposed to dress up.”
She shoots me a look of disdain. “Must I lay out your clothes for you, little girl?”
“Okay, okay. So next time I’ll ask about the dress code. At least I was okay in the interview.”
“I thought you were going to drink so much Coke you’d be peeing like a horse.”
“He offered!”
“If he offered you a cigarette, would you have taken it?”
“You don’t like him, do you?”
“He creeped me out a bit.”
“Hey, me, too. At first, I thought he was trying to keep it light, keep it bright …”
“… keep it gay,” she says, finishing the quote from The Producers. “But I scratched that.”
“Me, too. He thinks he’s hot.”
“Maybe to a woman of a ‘certain age.’”
“Anyway,” I say, “we’re still no closer to finding out anything new.”
Connie snorts again. “Oh, no, my dear. I think we have several new pieces of info. For one, Kerwin said that Paluchek had eyes in the back of his head.”
“Yeah, so?”
“It was his choice of words. He didn’t just say they were partners. He strongly implied that Paluchek knew things.”
“Don’t you think you’re reading a lot into that one comment?” I ask.
She shoots me a glare. “He said Jimmy Winslow was a good cop, but Steve Paluchek had eyes in the back of his head. He didn’t just say, ‘Oh, yeah, Paluchek was okay.’ He said he had—”
“Okay, okay, I get it. But still …”
“But still … he also said Paluchek had a drinking problem.”
“Yeah, I thought that was weird.” But as I think about it, I remember times when Steve had the smell of beer on his breath.
“Not weird,” says Connie. “Important. The force frowns on any kind of substance abuse. They have a whole system in place to get officers dry. They encourage snitching.” Just then, Connie pulls up in front of our house, and I have no alternative but to get out. I’m sure one of her next phone calls will be to learn more about Paluchek’s possible drinking problem.
At home, I find two e-mail messages and two voicemails, one on the house phone and one on my Mom’s cell — all from Kerrie, asking if I want to go to the mall with her. My guess is she’s got a Bra Hunt in mind.
Mom gives me the cell message and then tells me we’re all going to Mama Rosa’s restaurant tonight for dinner. Mama Rosa is actually a great aunt — my mother’s mother’s sister — who owns a restaurant in Little Italy. She used to own it with her husband, Uncle Cesare, but she hit the widow jackpot with his life insurance when he passed away, and she turned a struggling pizzeria into a bustling Italian bistro.
“Where’s Connie?” Mom says. “I want her to come, too.” Mom stands by the door, keys in hand, and says she’s on her way to the mall because she needs some “new spring clothes.” I notice she doesn’t offer to take me, though she knows Kerrie wants me to go, so I surmise she wants to fly solo. (There wouldn’t be time for a Kerrie-style shopping spree before dinner, anyway.)
Mom is tall and decent-looking, with short frosted hair, and she isn’t chubby, but her figure has thickened a bit over the years. I’ve never known her to fret about her looks, but lately she’s been spending a lot more time choosing clothes and jewelry.
She looks at her watch. “Tony already knows. He’ll meet us there.”
Warning light flashes in brain: Paluchek will be there, too.
As if reading my mind, she gives me the scoop. “I’m telling Aunt Rosa about my engagement,” she
says, “and I want you guys there.”
“A public place? Don’t you want to do it privately?”
“If I called Aunt Rosa and told her about it, she would insist on inviting Steve and me to dinner to celebrate, and by the time we got there, she’d have every Corelli in the tri-state area waiting to ambush us.” Corelli is my mother’s maiden name. “I’d rather preempt that.”
I’m impressed. My mother can manipulate with the best of them. But all this talk about telling family members makes me wonder if she’s talked to the Balducci side of the family. We’ve stayed close over the years, of course. Grandma and Grandpa Balducci are gone now, but there’s an uncle in New Jersey.
“Have you told—”
She nods. “It’s all right.” She gives me a tight smile and leaves. I hear her humming as she heads to her car. She’s so happy. Darn! I was going to try to ask her about Steve’s “drinking,” but now I can’t bring myself to utter a syllable that might dampen her spirits.
So here we sit in Mama Rosa’s restaurant, the happy Family Balducci. Not.
Tony arrived early (you can always count on Tony to be early for free food), which meant he snarfed down all the bread in the basket by himself, earning a look of disapproval from Mom, echoed by Connie (“you’d eat the last piece of bread if we were shipwrecked on an island with no food and water”). Mom plays peacemaker (“let’s behave ourselves, shall we?”), and Aunt Rosa immediately zooms in when she sees us with Mister Stranger (Steve Paluchek) pulling out Mom’s chair and acting all gentlemanly and nervous.
He should be nervous. This meal will be an ordeal by fire.
Let’s start with Aunt Rosa. Recognizing Steve Paluchek’s name when introduced, she nods, then raises her eyebrows. Translation: So now I understand why you have said this man’s name the way you did, Angela, over the years — there is more going on here than meets the eye, eh? I can see the way you look at him and he looks at you. I can see into your very souls and smell the perfume of rediscovered amore. I hear the very birds trilling in the night for your happiness. I picture a nice wedding, with you in pale blue silk, and the reception here, of course, where I will have the chicken cannelloni and calamari al fritto, and order a rum raisin wedding cake from Milano’s Bakery even though he cheated me on my last bill by ten percent, the son of a mongrel dog, but I forgive him because my customers love his tiramisu and I can’t afford to have Giuseppi Milano think ill of me because I hear the rumors. Don’t we all hear the rumors … (Aunt Rosa’s thoughts do go on.)
The point is, she might be in a kitchen most of the night smelling enough garlic to send an army of vampires into comas, but Mama Rosa can sniff out a romance faster than you can say Pasta Puttanesca. Before Mom even has a chance to break the news, Aunt Rosa is kissing her on both cheeks and welcoming Paluchek into the family.
This compels Connie to order a glass of the house wine. When Mom shoots her a look, she says “What? It’s just one glass.”
But it turns out to be two. And then she orders a carafe for the whole table (except me, of course; Aunt Rosa won’t risk her liquor license serving a minor), and we’re toasting and smiling and Connie is really smiling (not fake smiling) by this time because she’s now on her third glass of wine and hasn’t eaten since breakfast. I notice Steve doesn’t touch his wine, which makes me wonder about his “drinking problem.” Is he abstaining because he once had a problem with the stuff, or is there no problem at all?
When Aunt Rosa swoops in with another bread basket and Tony makes his move for a piece of crusty Italian, Connie swats his hand. Tony yowls and Aunt Rosa reprimands Connie, just as she did when we were kids. Uh-oh. The smile disappears from Connie’s face and she …
Broods.
We place our orders (or rather, Aunt Rosa orders for us by telling us what’s good and daring us to choose something else). This usually incites a minor Complaint Fest after Aunt Rosa leaves the table, with Connie taking the lead. Tonight, however, she remains silent, a plastic smile pasted on her mouth. She sips more wine while Tony talks about his business classes (he’s majoring in Millionaire) and his leads on jobs in investment banking, stock trading, and other jobs I only hear about in news stories featuring words like “indictment” and “bankruptcy.” But this isn’t what makes me nervous. It’s Connie’s silence.
She sits between me and Mom, sipping her wine like a debutante at a tea party, her pinky finger grotesquely pointed outward, then she wipes the corners of her mouth with a napkin before breaking off the tiniest corner of bread and eating it.
Translation: Mom, you want me to be polite? Well, kiss my patootie!
She continues to sip her wine, but this doesn’t seem to stop her from consuming it at a prodigious rate, and before we’ve even finished our salads, she’s asking for another carafe.
“I think we’re fine, dear,” Mom says, patting Connie’s arm lightly and looking wild-eyed at her.
“Nope. Need a glassh with dinner.”
So Mom asks the waiter to bring us all (except me, of course) just one glass of the house Chianti with dinner, even though that’s more expensive than ordering another carafe, which Connie figures out — after a few minutes.
“That’s shilly,” Connie says. She tries to flag the waiter by snapping her fingers in the air. As if realizing this doesn’t look at all dignified, she sits up straight and calls out in a high sing-song voice that sounds like a cross between Julie Andrews and Eleanor Roosevelt, “Oh waiter! Oh waiter, dah-ling!” Mom cringes and whispers something in Connie’s ear that makes Connie fidget and twist silently in her seat.
My guess is Mom threatened to call Aunt Rosa to the table and mention that Connie’s not dating anyone. Aunt Rosa fancies herself a matchmaker, and any hint of a single available Balducci will result in a veritable catwalk of possibilities, all from her supply of waitstaff, of course, and most with Spanish or Italian accents. I have already been through this humiliating exercise. Connie has been through it. And even Tony has been through it (although Aunt Rosa hires more guys than gals, I’ve noticed). After a particularly painful episode last year when Aunt Rosa practically asked one waiter to show Connie what good teeth he had, we rebelled. We instructed Mom to tell Aunt Rosa we were all happily dating people, or we wouldn’t go to the restaurant ever again. This was, Mom knew, a threat not to be dismissed lightly. We take our lasagna seriously, after all.
Anyway, Mom’s own threat does the trick this time, and Connie is quiet once again while we wait for our meals to arrive.
Steve asks Tony a lot of questions, because he sounds genuinely interested in my brother’s future, and this makes Mom happy because I see the tight lines above her eyebrows relax, but I feel like issuing a triple alert: Warning, warning, warning! Oldest daughter about to blow! I know Connie, and she is a veritable Patton, barreling on through when something is bothering her. Being at this table with The-Man-Who-Would-Be-Stepfather, and seeing how happy Mom is, not to mention Aunt Rosa, is bothering her big time.
When the food arrives, I think a genuine respite is at hand, because if there’s one thing you can count on to end hostilities, it’s a Balducci chow-down. And for a few minutes, we have blessed peace as the lasagna, veal scaloppini, mussels Florentino, pesto ravioli, and shrimp scampi are devoured.
There’s a lot of “mmm-mmming” when Aunt Rosa stops by to ask the usual “everything good, eh?” and a few moments of foody camaraderie as we taste each other’s dishes. (Except for Tony. Stay away from Tony when he’s eating. His fork is like a guard dog on the prowl. Get within a quarter-inch of his plate and he’s jabbing at you.) And then, just when we’re so, so close to that magical moment when digestion disables your animosity buttons and an abundant contentment seeps into your psyche, making you feel like a big, fat Goodyear blimp floating serenely above the table, Aunt Rosa chooses to come forward pushing a tray loaded with …
… a sugary white-frosted rum cake decorated with sparklers spitting on top, and a just-opened bottle of champagne with enough
fluted glasses to go around.
“I couldn’t let you go without something special for the occasion,” Aunt Rosa says as she passes out the glasses filled with bubbly (I get ginger ale, oh boy oh boy). There’s a hush at nearby tables, as if a spotlight were being shone just on us. Even Tony looks unhappy in this environment, and that’s saying something. The only time Tony’s annoyed at mealtime is when there’s not enough food for him.
“Here’s to my wonderful great-niece,” Aunt Rosa proclaims, “and this charming gentleman who has allowed her to discover once again what many of us never have the opportunity to experience even once …”
Huh? What about Uncle Cesare — was he chopped liver?
“… amore!”
Clink clink. Slosh slosh. I notice Paluchek takes only a sip. Is it because he’s dealing with that drinking problem, or because he’s the group’s designated driver? I know I’m a designated driver, whether Connie likes it or not.
Speaking of Connie, you didn’t think she’d let this salute to The-Man-Who-Would-Be-Stepfather pass without incident, did you?
She stands, holds her glass in the air, dings her other glass with a spoon with such force she knocks it over, and proceeds with her own toast:
“And here’s to a man who was a hero among heroes, a man who didn’t need fancy dinners and elaborate toashts” — this she punctuates with a hiccup — “to make him know how good, how special, how great he was. Here’sh to a man who helped me with my homework and taught me how to ride a bike. Who read me shtories at night and taught me not to be afraid of the dark.” Deep breath. “A man who put food on the table and laughter in our hearts, who wash always there when you needed a boost or a pep talk. Who always had a buck to buy candy at the corner shtore, who was as handshome as he was brave … Here’sh to a man who was so good, so dechent, so right … that he only fired his gun once the entire time he wash on the force and even then it was only to wing a man who was aiming a gun at him …”
My mother sucks in her breath.
Recovering Dad Page 8
