by Gail Cleare
“Well, if he learned from you he must be a great cook,” I said.
“Oh yes,” she replied seriously. “All my boys have been cooking since they were very young. It’s in the blood.”
She showed me some newspaper clippings that proclaimed Sorrentino’s Pizza the BEST in the Valley, several years running, and an article about Rocco’s efforts to obtain block grant money for improving the neighborhood’s historic properties. A photo showed him standing in front of his restaurant, leaning against the lamppost. He was a burly, good-looking man in his late thirties, with dark thick hair and his shirt sleeves worn rolled up like his mama’s.
Once I had been admitted to Josie’s kitchen, I tried to stop in and say hello whenever I passed. I picked up all kinds of information there about people in the neighborhood, heard wonderful stories and met several new acquaintances while seated at her table.
Not to mention, the stuffed peppers. The lasagne. The spaghettibolognese. The osso bucco, a stewed veal shank dish that Siri’s husband referred to as “Awesome Bucco.” It was served on orzo pasta with steamed broccoli raab, which Josie called “bitter greens.” She showed me how to make it and I wrote down the recipe, but somehow mine never tasted quite as good.
When I would enter the grocery and Mr. Sorrentino spotted me, he would smile and wave me towards the back, saying, “You go see her now. She wants to talk to you.” He always seemed very certain of this.
The only thing that Josie and I did not seem to agree on was religion. Born and raised a staunch Catholic, she fretted about her son Rocco’s divorce, and still referred to his ex-wife as his “wife.” She told me when she was a girl, nobody would ever have considered getting divorced, even if your husband abused you.
“Oh yes,” she said, shaking her head sadly, “There were women who would have a black eye sometimes, “ she gestured, “Or a mark on the neck, the arms. We didn’t say nothing about it, though.”
“Not that I’m saying it’s OK, that kind of thing,” she added. She sniffed disapprovingly. “But still, I just don’t like all the divorce.”
“It just doesn’t seem right,” Josie said. “I know you kids think it’s OK. And sometimes even the Pope says it’s OK. It just seems like, once you make the promise in front of God and everybody, you should stick to it.”
“Sometimes things can get better, if you stick to it,” she said wisely.
Apparently Rocco’s wife had not felt the same way. She was living in Seattle now, with her new husband and baby.
One day I felt like having pizza for dinner, so I stopped in across the street on my way home. I’ll admit I was curious about Rocco Sorrentino. His mother talked about him quite a bit. It obviously worried her that he wasn’t settled and happy like her other boys.
The pizzeria was full of people. It was noisy and crowded. There were a dozen or so tables and booths in the back, all occupied, and customers were lined up waiting for their take-out. I inspected the menu options and prices that were posted on a large sign behind the counter. Not bad. Some good choices. They had eggplant and mushrooms, my favorite. I got into line to place an order.
“Order for Bellino! Right here, Bellino!” A man’s voice rang out, above the din. It was Rocco, I recognized him from his pictures.
Rocco located Mr. Bellino and passed him a large pizza box.
“What?” he asked, and leaned forward to listen to the man. I couldn’t hear what he said. Rocco burst into laughter, grabbing the man by the shoulder in a warm, friendly way. He seemed to get along well with all his waiting customers, who called him by his name and joked with him.
“OK, next” he said, when it was finally my turn. “What can I get for you tonight?”
He stood waiting with his order pad and pen in his hands. He smiled, looking at me curiously. He was a big, strong, hearty man with thick dark hair that stuck out here and there as though he’d been pulling it in frustration. It was touched with gray at the temples. He was dressed in kitchen whites that had obviously been on duty for quite a few hours. He was full of vitality. When he smiled he looked like his mother, I noticed.
He took my order and accepted my offered twenty-dollar bill, then handed me my change and a receipt. I gave him my last name and he passed my order along down the line. I stepped aside to wait for my pizza. He was still regarding me curiously.
“Are you my new neighbor across the street, I think?” he ventured, “The one my mother keeps telling me so much about?”
I nodded and he grinned, reaching out to grab my hand. He pumped it up and down, smiling broadly. A warm cozy feeling came over me, like basking in sunlight. His energy was intense.
“Hey, how are you, Emily, right?” He kept on shaking my hand.
“Hi, yes, how are you? Rocco. It’s great to meet you,” I said, my head bobbling.
“You too!”
“So,” I said, finally regaining my hand.
“So. Your first time, right?” he asked.
“Yes, yes. Hmm. What?”
“First time I saw you in here.”
“Ohhh, yes! My first time. You certainly are busy, aren’t you? That’s wonderful.”
“Yeah, it’s busy tonight. Like every night!”
He looked around proudly. Two cooks, a dishwasher and a couple of waitresses were hustling around with precision. Every square inch of space was being utilized. We were packed in like sardines. The brick oven was interesting and I had high hopes for the pizza itself, which looked good. A waitress with a loaded tray of food headed out from behind the counter toward the table area, and I had a chance at a closer visual inspection. Thin crust, which I love. I wondered if his tomato sauce was as good as what they made every day next door. Rocco stepped aside to let the waitress go through the opening in the counter, then motioned for one of the cooks to step in and continuing taking orders. There were only two parties behind me at that point. The activity had started to ebb.
Rocco stood next to me leaning on the counter and we chatted, while he kept one eye on the action in the kitchen.
“Do you make your own sauce?”
“Sure we do, of course. Every day, just like my Pop.”
“I love your parents, they’re wonderful. And your mother is great.”
“Yeah? Well she sure does like you,” he said, glancing at me, then surveying the crowd again. “It’s real nice of you to take time with her. She loves to talk!”
“So do I. It’s been a great way to find out about the neighborhood.”
He raised one eyebrow at me.
“Yeah? She tells you what’s going on, eh?”
“Sure,” I nodded. “She has really made me feel welcome here.”
“Mom likes to know everything about everybody, if she can find out.”
“Yes, she seems very interested in people.”
“She has a spy network on the street, you know. All the people who come in and tell her the news, blah-blah-blah,” he said, opening and closing his hand like a mouth talking.
“She’s easy to talk to,” I said defensively. “She’s very supportive!”
Rocco shot me another of his raised-eyebrow, skeptical looks.
“Easy for her to pry personal information out of people, you mean,” he commented dryly. “You sit down for a nice bowl of pasta and the next thing you know, she is giving advice about your sex life!”
Since that was roughly what had happened with me, I didn’t have much of a comeback. So I asked him a few more questions about the restaurant. He had bought the building ten years ago and spent several years fixing it up, while he kept on working at the grocery next door.
“It was a real trash pile,” he said. “We had to rip out all the walls downstairs here, the floors, the ceiling, everything. They were full of rat shit. Pretty disgusting.”
I must have appeared dismayed, because he laughed and patted my shoulder reassuringly.
“Don’t worry, honey, we got it all out!” He burst out in his big hearty laugh.
“Oh
, good.” I rolled my eyes and grinned.
I wondered if the “we” he referred to included his ex-wife. According to Josie, the young couple had bought the pizzeria building as newlyweds, planning to raise a family there. She still regretted the loss of their unborn children, never to be bounced on her knee.
My pizza came out of the oven and was boxed, appearing on the counter in front us when Rocco motioned to one of the cooks. The buzz of business was building up again, as a group of diners left the restaurant and a party of six entered and found seats.
“I’ll let you get back to work now,” I said, taking the warm pizza box into my hands. “I’m so glad to finally meet you, Rocco.”
He patted me on the shoulder again and his warm aura enveloped me like a hug.
“You too, Emily! You come back again some time! Enjoy the pie!”
“Thank you! I will!”
I wormed my way through the maze of people standing in the front of the restaurant and made it out the door. The smell of the pizza was enticing, so I opened the box and took a slice as soon as I got into my car. It was superb. Just right. Nothing less than what I had expected, considering. Josie was right, I thought. Cooking was in the blood, with her clan.
A few days later on a rainy Sunday afternoon I decided to eat popcorn for lunch and headed to the Mall movie theaters in the next town. As I stood in front of the sign trying to decide which matinee to enter, I heard that hearty laugh again. Looking up, I saw Rocco emerging from the morning show that was just letting out. He had his arm around a petite Asian woman. She wore jeans and a black raincoat, with her long shining dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. He leaned over attentively as she spoke, then they both laughed. They were walking directly toward me. As they approached, he looked up and recognized me. He pulled back the arm that had been encircling the woman.
“Well, well,” he said in a friendly voice, though his eyes showed an odd wariness. “If it isn’t our new friend! How are you, Emily?” He smiled and nodded at me.
“Fine! Great! How are you Rocco? Did you see the Sci Fi, or the Sandra Bullock?”
I looked curiously at the woman, who seemed uncomfortable, so I gave her my most friendly smile. She looked startled, and then she smiled back. Rocco watched this little exchange with some apparent anxiety, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his brown leather jacket. He hovered over her protectively.
“We saw the Sci Fi, and it was good,” she spoke up. Her voice was light and girlish. I kept grinning at her, and she finally gave me back a full-on, gorgeous smile. She was absolutely adorable. Flawless skin, beautiful greenish eyes, a slim athletic build. Probably over thirty, though she could have easily passed for sixteen in the right clothes. Very sweet expression, very graceful. I was totally enchanted by her.
Rocco was obviously in full appreciation of her assets as well. He appeared delighted when she spoke, as though she had said something amazing. It was either cute, or excessive, I couldn’t decide which. He was definitely obsessed, but in a good way, I hoped. Something was clearly going on between them.
“Emily, this is my friend Mei, “ Rocco said. He pronounced it, “My.”
We greeted each other, shaking hands. Hers was tiny and frail as a bird’s wing.
“Emily! I heard about you! My family has a restaurant on Market Street. It’s called Buddha,” she announced. “It is Asian Fusion cuisine. My father is the chef. He’s brilliant.”
Rocco looked slightly dismayed. It came across that he did not want me to know who she was. I assumed that he didn’t want his mother to find out what he was up to. This was very interesting. Otherwise, I never would have agreed to butt in on their date when Mei politely invited me to come with them to get some lunch in the mall coffee shop.
Also I was starved, as usual. While we waited for our burgers, we talked. Or rather, Rocco leaned back with his arm stretched out along the top of the seat and watched the two of us talk. Mei and I chattered away like old friends. She told me all about her family, about their cooperative effort to start a successful new restaurant. Everyone had a financial investment in it, including her parents, her sister and her two brothers. It had taken over a year to do the construction work on the space they were leasing. They had hired a special crew from New York City to do the work, a Chinese company. It included someone expert at feng shui, the art of arranging objects within a space so that energy flows through it in a beneficial way.
“My family is very traditional, though we’ve been living here for a long time now,” Mei said. “My father still does not speak English. But he understands more than he lets on.”
She and her siblings were raised in the U.S., while her parents worked at a relative’s Chinese restaurant. The kids all went to high school and graduated with honors, then all four children went to college and trained for high-paying jobs. One was now a lawyer, one was an accountant, a third was in medical school and Mei herself worked full-time as a project manager in the Information Technology department at a large corporation nearby. All four of them also worked at the restaurant, whenever they could. Sometimes the brother in medical school would even fly in for the weekend, if they were in a pinch.
“Your family must be very close,” I remarked approvingly.
“Yes, very close. Sometimes, too close,” she said, looking pointedly at Rocco.
“Yep, yep,” he said, “‘Close’ is one word for it.”
“My family is very traditional,” she repeated. “They have very strict rules for how everyone must live.” An angry expression fluttered across her face, and was gone.
Rocco leaned forward to join in. He lowered his voice confidentially.
“They don’t approve of me.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“Of you? What’s not to love?” I demanded indignantly, and we all laughed.
“It’s not you, not you personally, though,” Mei protested.
“Yeah, they love me as the pizza-head from down the street, right?”
“Right, it’s just that they don’t want me going out with someone who is not Chinese,” she explained to me. “They have always been very definite about that.” She glanced at him. “My brothers and sister have all followed the rules, they have always dated only the ‘approved’ kind of person. But I guess I am the rebel!”
She sat up, straightened her shoulders and grinned proudly.
“Yeah, she’s a rebel all right,” Rocco teased, “Four years we’ve been going out, and she still doesn’t tell her parents.”
“No! Four years! They still don’t know?”
He nodded, shrugging.
“My father would be very angry if he knew we were serious about each other,” she explained. “He would not want me to be a part of the restaurant anymore. He would shun me. My entire life savings is invested. They cannot afford to buy me out. It’s complicated.”
“So your relationship is a secret,” I concluded.
“My parents don’t know, either.” Rocco looked at me meaningfully.
“Ohhh. OK. I get it.”
“No, it’s not what you think. I’m not afraid to tell them about her. I do what I want. I own my own place. It’s nobody’s business what I do.”
“Yes, of course.”
“But, you can’t tell my mother.”
“OK, OK, I won’t. Don’t worry about it.”
“It would be all over the neighborhood by noon.”
“Yes, yes.”
“I would say, by no later than ten o’clock,” Mei quipped, grinning.
We all laughed.
“Seriously,” Mei said, “We’d really appreciate it if you don’t tell anyone you saw us today. That’s why we always come to the Sunday morning movie. There’s never anybody here. I don’t want my family to find out right now. It is not a good time for us to be mad at each other.”
I assured them I would keep their secret. I was sorry that Josie couldn’t find out that her son was involved in a happy, loving relationship. S
he would have been delighted to know he was no longer alone. I thought she would probably approve despite what I assumed was a major difference in religion. I didn’t think Mei could possibly be Catholic. She was probably a Buddhist. Or whatever. In any case, I was sorry for everyone that her family was not more flexible in their attitude. It seemed like they all lost something as a result.
And, it couldn’t go on like this forever. What if the couple wanted to get married and have children? They couldn’t keep that a secret. It seemed like eventually, things would have to change, one way or another. As things always do change, one way or another. It’s one of the few things in life we can definitely count on.
The Lovers
ROMANCE
Description: A man and woman stand before an angel or cupid, aiming at them with the arrow of love. A third woman, somewhat older, stands on the other side of the man, representing his past relationships.
Meaning: Romance, marriage. Choice between the old and the new. Sexual attraction.
At lunchtime one day a couple of weeks after the store opened, I decided to enjoy the fine weather and walk down to the park. It was a perfect summer day. The birds sang, and the sky was bright blue with those little puffy white clouds that look like sheep.
I was feeling quite chipper, having sold an obscenely expensive antique grandfather clock that morning to a fashionably dressed woman who was thrilled to find it for her lawyer husband’s birthday. I agreed to arrange delivery to his office at an upscale address downtown. She paid in full with her American Express card.
When you’re in retail, this is what it’s all about. It doesn’t get much better!
So I savored the moment while strolling along in the dazzling sunshine, with the sound of kids at play echoing in the distance. I entered the gates to the park and followed the main path toward a circular pond surrounded by curving stone benches, all empty at the moment. A greenish bronze fish, a giant carp, appeared to leap up out of the pond’s center. Its scales were fully articulated and they sparkled in the light. Water sprayed out of its mouth in several glistening rainbow arcs, falling back into the basin.
