Love Finds Its Pocket

by Mary Scarpelli

  Marcella recalled how Monica had been the one with whom her own one-year anniversary cake had been shared. She was unable to shake the feeling of morbidity that pervaded her apartment after Toni and Monica’s departure.

  “She’s not long for this life, my dear. Mark my words.” Gene had exclaimed as a soothsayer of the human condition.

  “Oh, she’s just an artist whose propensity is to lean toward the dark side. I agree that she’s a bit stand-offish – well, rude actually, and into her own head but what are you saying - that she’s sick or she’s suicidal?” Marcella knew exactly what Gene was implying with his comment but so badly wanted him to be wrong, not for Monica’s sake but for the sake of her sister. She gave Monica the benefit of every doubt around every corner.

  “You know exactly what I mean, my dear. When you see her you see a woman with a dark side; when I see her, I see a skeleton hanging in mid air, having just jumped off of a cliff, holding onto a balloon that has burst, wishing that death would be even more imminent,” he said as he lit a cigarette.

  “To her, mortality is but a long-awaited answer to a desperate prayer.”

  Gene shook his head in disgust at how his influence had apparently not had the impact on Toni as he thought it should have had. To him, had Toni properly absorbed his tutelage, she would have run screaming from Monica before becoming so irretrievably entangled that she lost a piece of herself in the process, almost too late to retrieve her own soul. No sex or feeling of guilty responsibility could possibly be a good enough excuse for one to sacrifice her life for the sake of another.

  He embraced the concepts of love and compassion as having significant personal not to mention societal value but believed it was a vulgar display of masochism for someone to undermine her own existence in an irrational, thoughtless series of bad decisions. ‘Leave that for the martyrs of the world’, he was fond of repeating. Marcella was extracted from her reverie when she heard her husband’s voice.

  “Many changes are on the horizon, Cella-bella,” Gene commented as he looked over to see the intensity of concentration that had descended upon the face of his lovely wife. ‘I am a lucky man’, he said to himself.

  “All good changes, my dear. You didn’t think that your family would so readily accept me but they did; then it was fear over gay marriage, but they accepted that too. I cannot wait to see their reaction when they find out about the baby; ah, if only I could be a fly on that wall...

  “They have chosen the best, healthiest path possible which is to embrace family, to love fully, to seek compassion and empathy while discarding toxic elements that are so destructive to ones well-being. I am humbled to be a part of this extraordinary journey.” Gene walked over to his wife, and hugged her tightly from behind.

  “That had better be a stick of butter in your pocket,” Marcella said to a deep-throated guffaw from her husband.

  “There’s no time to be amorous. Can you go and get me the sponge layers from the walk-in?”

  “Thanks, hon.” Marcella added, not once looking away from the supplies she was laying out in an effort to create the most organized, efficient workspace possible.

  Gene returned, gingerly carrying the cakes then proceeded to make them both a strong demitasse of espresso, the first of many that night. Antonia had graciously agreed to keep Dylan for an overnight slumber bash plus to get her gussied up for the wedding because bringing her to the restaurant, as was Gene’s preference, which would have provided an excellent learning opportunity for her, was squashed by the manager who flatly refused to allow a child, well-behaved or otherwise, to remain on the premises after hours, especially not in his kitchen, mumbling something about insurance premiums and health code violations. All for the best, thought Marcella as they were cutting it tight as it was, barely leaving enough time for them to get themselves ready let alone help Dylan with her hair, nails and flower-girl outfit.

  Meanwhile, Back on Staten Island

  “I finally got Dylan to agree that getting some sleep was in her best interest. I had to read her two bedtime stories but she kept interrupting, pointing out, as she put it, ‘the illogic of the premise’! Can you believe that? She said, “What could possibly have motivated the wolf to be so hateful?” She wanted to know if he had been raised in our family, would he still have been so intent on harming Little Red Riding Hood.

  “But you should’a seen her face, her eyes, when she was asking those questions. That is one intense little girl!” Massimo said to his wife to the near hysterical laughter of them both.

  “She has Gene’s imprint all over her. She’s going to be a very special young woman; I can tell that she’s destined for greatness. I only hope I’m alive long enough to see her grow up.” Antonia was moved to tears, thinking about her advancing age, Kat’s cancer and how one never knows what lies ahead; her fears left her feeling vulnerable and depressed. She wanted to remain optimistic about the future but not so much so that she took even one minute of time for granted.

  “Oh, hey, don’t do that; don’t cry. Come over here. Don’t cry, my love.

  “You’re a strong and healthy woman - why wouldn’t you be around in another thirty years?” Massimo asked, only too late realizing that the premature death of her sister and both of her parents most likely precluded her from realistically entertaining any hope for longevity.

  Massimo was the one person in her life with whom Antonia was one hundred percent comfortable being vulnerable. No one else would have believed how easily her tears flowed, how sensitive she was when it came to her family; it was their secret and he kept, gladly.

  “Look - your parents had a hard life back in the old country. They were poor, they had nothing and they worked like dogs. Plus, Italy didn’t treat their poor too good back in the old days.

  “That don’t mean they weren’t strong people. Look at my folks for example. They’re both in their eighties and not one health issue. Not one, Antonia. No medication – nothing except a baby aspirin, some vitamins and a handful of prunes. That’s it!

  “If your parents had agreed to come with us when we left Brooklyn, rather than go back to Italy, then, who...” Massimo was interrupted by Antonia’s hand, a gesture that meant he’d been given a five-word warning to change the subject before being the recipient of her ire.

  Being a happily domesticated married man, still very much in love with his wife, and more than willing to keep the peace, he heeded her request, knowing that pursuing a critical discussion about her parents would only anger her and upsetting her on the eve of their daughter’s wedding day served no useful purpose whatsoever. Some quandaries one simply had to navigate on his or her own. She certainly knew where to find him if ever she wanted to revisit that topic.

  “So, how are you feeling? You know, about Toni and Katherine gettin’ married. You really okay with that?”

  Massimo was still in a wonderful mood and feeling increasingly amorous with each passing minute. In their forty-plus years of marriage, his attraction to his wife had not diminished one bit. Of course he found other women sexually attractive but found great humor in the fact that each woman in some manner resembled his wife. ‘Guess I’m a one woman man’, he thought, without remorse or regret. Although he’d bedded several girls in his teens, once he had secured Antonia’s commitment to be his wife, he immediately ended his free spirited days without giving it a second thought. He knew from the moment he laid eyes on her that they were destined to be together forever.

  Antonia took note that her husband had showered and shaved, exiting their en suite wearing only his jockey’s, cheeks and neck dabbed with her favorite aftershave. She smiled with love.

  “I have never been happier, Massi. Our daughter is happy. I adore Katherine. Our family has been blessed with love. I used to regret that Toni would never get married to a man – never give me grandchildren, but I’ve thought about it over the years and I think certain things happen for a reason and this is exactly the way it’s supposed to be so yes, I am okay with t
hem getting married. Very much so. And anyway, Giovanni still has time to get married and give me more grandchildren.”

  Antonia looked over at her husband, still muscular and handsome at sixty-two, salt supplanting pepper at this point but not at all to his detriment. He didn’t appear to have lost even one hair whereas his father started losing his hair while still in his forties. She didn’t mind the gray as it made him look more distinguished. He somehow looked more handsome in a suit as a sixty-plus man with graying hair than he did in his thirties with his shock of thick, dark brown wavy hair. How strange, she thought. ‘Why is it that men get better looking after leaving behind their prime years’, she wondered, ‘whereas women struggle to prevent their extremities from sagging out of control and scrapping against the floor. Such an injustice’.

  She smiled when she thought of her once proud breasts, which were now falling closer to her stomach than they had a right to do, the rest of her frame similarly sinking into oblivion, including a drooping neckline to such an unacceptable extent that she had scheduled a consultation with Dr. Echeverria to learn exactly what a weekend lift was and what the procedure would entail. She sought to prevent the vagaries of age coupled with the ill-effects of reduced skin elasticity, relative to gravity, from effecting too drastic a change in her appearance; she simply wasn’t quite ready to relinquish her hold on sustaining a more youthful appearance, to go gently into that good night, if you will – and if she were not given that option by dint of beneficent genetics, then she damn well wanted to make sure that she employed whatever means were available to continue looking as good as she possibly could for as long as possible.

  Antonia didn’t mind the fifteen extra pounds that she took on during menopause, those pounds that stubbornly refused to vacate the premises, as she was sufficiently tall and big-boned to pull it off without looking or feeling uncomfortably overweight. Looking over at her handsome husband, so obviously attracted to her, still madly in love with her, she smiled as she turned off the light, tucking herself within her usual pocket, allowing the strength of his love to wash over her.

  “Hey, Ma? You got a... Ah, geeze. What the hell! Aren’t you too old for that? What are you two, like, eighty? Geeze, give it a rest already, will ya?” Giovanni said as he slammed their bedroom door closed.

  Antonia and Massimo’s laughter could be heard throughout the entire second floor of the house and most of the first as well. Massimo yelled out “Knock first next time, you knucklehead! When the hell are you gonna learn?”, then returned his full attention to his wife, the love of his life.

  Finally, Legally, Together in Love

  Kat looked absolutely radiant in her stylish white dress, designed to emphasize her newly constructed cleavage; no one would have guessed what lurked beneath. Toni’s dress was similarly styled with a low-cut front and streamlined middle but cut just differently enough not to accentuate the existence of her secret passenger. She had agreed to wear four inch heals but worried endlessly, becoming fixated on the possibility of tripping over them and hurting the baby. Although comfortable in heels, this pair would be worn on feet that were more swollen than usual, standing at the altar in front of a Unitarian Minister, Sister Elizabeth, the entire Mangiarmi clan and all of hers and Kat’s friends and associates – thirty-six people in total had been invited to attend both the ceremony and early dinner they were having catered, desserts compliments of Marcella. Toni wanted to avoid the embarrassment and disruption that a sprained ankle would create. She brought along a pair of pumps that sported sensible, two and a half inch heels, ones that she planned on donning the moment the picture-taking exercise was over, which she hoped would occur within minutes after leaving the chapel.

  Toni complemented her attire with a string of pearls lent to her by her mother, and a dark blue hair clasp that pulled her hair up and away from her face, shocking even herself at how well she ‘cleaned-up’ under the hands of an expert stylist. Kat had hired said stylist to fix their hair and apply their makeup as she reasoned, “These pictures are going to be floating around for eternity for anyone and everyone to see so we might as well look damn good in them, right?”

  Kat feigned being mortally wounded when Toni explained that she would be supplying the ‘something old’ component of the wedding day requirement. Antonia responded with her patented mid-rise threat of a bitch-slap to which all three women laughed heartily, quickly followed by a group hug and too many tears.

  “There are three beautiful things in life: birth, love, and this day.” Antonia, not known for being terribly sentimental, everyone believing she had been constructed from basalt, grabbed them both, in succession, repeating to each one, “ti voglio bene, con tutto il mio cuore.”

  Kat’s stylist ran over to them to retouch their smeared makeup, but not before shooting Antonia a death-stare of his own, and began re-applying, re-working, combing, fluffing, fixing, with speed, precision and artistry.

  “No more touching of the faces, ladies! No more water works!” he sang in a chastising but perfectly mellifluous voice.

  As Antonia was walking out of the antechamber to retake her seat in the front row pew, Toni and Kat exchanged a quick glance; Toni was unable to contain her joy any longer.

  “Hey Ma! You never asked what I had that was ‘new’,” said Toni, directing her comment at her mother.

  Antonia turned around, looked quizzically at her daughter and seeing Toni glance down toward her belly, made several successions of thought, realization, rethinking, discarding then utter shock, her jaw dropping, hands quickly clasping over her mouth, eyes wide, looking back and forth between a laughing Kat and a grinning Toni, Kat having placed one arm around Toni’s waist, the other planted on her stomach, rubbing it gently.

  “There’s a little Mangiarmi in me, mom!” Toni said, to the rolling eyes of the stylist who once again removed his gear after having packed it up - twice, awaiting his turn to clean them up all over again.

  “And to think, I’ve been holding myself back from mentioning your weight gain! I just thought you were eating too many of Marcella’s confections. I knew you were pregnant! I just knew it, but it didn’t make sense so I ignored it!” Antonia said, still clearly in shock, alternately wondering about the logistics of how her lesbian daughter became pregnant and feeling wholly ecstatic with the prospect of being given yet another grandchild – one hundred wouldn’t have been too many for her. But she never thought that Toni would have been the one to give her grandchild number three. Another grandchild, she thought as she clasped her hands together under her chin, reminiscent of a prayer.

  Little did she know that in three years time, Giovanni would be married with three children of his own – all boys, two of which being a set of identical twins. So enamored he was with the love his family shared and being equally reluctant to move too far away from the nest, he thought it a sign from god when the house next door to his parents came on the market. He quickly snapped it up, asked his girlfriend to marry him, immediately got her pregnant – twice in rapid succession, and settled in with his new family to a life lived in love. No one dared mention how much his wife resembled Kat, even less discussion that he found her with the assistance of a sympathetic Gene.

  “We’re due on January 5th. We just found out yesterday that it’s a girl!” Kat advised, proud parent to be that she was. She and Toni once again looked at each other, communicating wordlessly as they had begun doing over the past year, a conduct that was, at times, disconcerting to those around them.

  “We’ve already chosen a name. We’re going to call her Francesca Antonia Mangiarmi.”

  Antonia began to cry anew, humbled and so proud that she’d even been a consideration in their name choice and also that they’d chosen to keep the family name.

  “I’ve decided to change my surname as well – primarily for the sake of the baby, that is. I’m going to legally adopt her; we think it best that we all have the same last name. We think it will give us one more important bond as a family. I
hope you don’t mind,” Kat added, again unable to read Antonia.

  Antonia had been so progressive thus far which gave Kat every reason to remain optimistic that she’d embrace this next level of modern living arrangement but with Antonia, one would always be wise to hedge her bets. Toni excused herself for a quick trip to the restroom, her bladder of late, often losing the battle to rein it in.

  Then, after what felt like an eternity, Kat wishing Toni would hurry the hell out of the bathroom as she could have used the emotional support while in the company of an unusually quiet Antonia, Antonia was ready to render her judgment.

  “Bella mia, we love you and you honor us by wanting to take our family name as your own; I’m sorry if my reaction seems strange - I can see it in your eyes, but all of this is simply too much to digest in one sitting. I’m simply overwhelmed, Katherine.” Antonia looked around, wishing her husband were by her side to share in the good news.

  Suddenly, she exclaimed an emphatic “I approve!” then stopped speaking, unable to push-out any other words through her tears.

  Toni returned, apologizing for having taken so long, explaining that she took special precautions to keep the dress clean and free from bathroom-related debris. She saw that her mother had been crying, felt a thick tension in the room but before she could request an explanation, Antonia suddenly rebounded, shooting her patented squinty glare at Kat and asked if she had been the one to knock-up her daughter, tapping at Kat’s crotch in search of a penis, the accusation and delivery of which were so unexpected, so perfectly comedic, so out of character with the seriousness of the typical Antonia, that they all practically wet themselves from the intensity of their raucous laughter, doubling over, holding on to their aching stomachs, so breathlessly happy they were to be living in the moment. The laughing jag once again pushed Toni to the restroom as she had already been feeling full and bloated of late, and did not want to interrupt the ceremony to use the bathroom.