Christmas and Cannolis

by Peggy Jaeger

  I tried to tell myself it wasn’t because of that adorable expression on his handsome face that I’d acquiesced. It was a wonder the Virgin Mary herself didn’t suddenly appear before me and box my ears for lying so blatantly.

  “Since it’s Christmas, I was hoping for something…Christmasy.” He waved his hand in little circles in the air.

  Since my heritage is Italian, that kind of gesture is like a second language to me.

  The tops of his ears turned the same color as my mother’s tomatoes when she blanches them. “I’m sorry,” he said, glancing down at his coffee mug. “Like I said, my assistant usually handles stuff like this. She’s the creative one. I’m more the business end, you know?”

  I nodded.

  “My company is donating hundreds of tech toys to Pearl’s Place this year to give the kids something to play with while they’re receiving treatment, in addition to the money we’re going to bring in from the fundraiser, so maybe something along those lines?”

  Ideas, my father has commented on many times during my life, are his and my shared bread and butter.

  “So, how about this?” I pulled my order book to a blank page and started sketching. “Since your event is gonna benefit a place that caters to sick kids, why not something like Santa’s Toy Land?”

  I draw fast, which is always a benefit when I’m crunched for time. As I hunched over the pad, Connor leaned in, his head cocked, to watch me. He was so close the aroma of something woodsy and clean that he’d probably showered with wafted over me. Now, when you’re used to the heavenly scents of dough rising and baking, cinnamon and sugar melting together, and buttercream and chocolate filling your senses twenty-four/seven, the aroma of something different and….stimulating, is enough to make you sit up and listen. Well, smell, I guess is the better word.

  “How about little techy elves?” I asked, trying not to make it obvious that I was inhaling him while sketching an elf with an e-reader in its hands. “They can be wrapping tablets and hand-held e-games in the workshop.”

  “I love it,” he said, that cute grin pulling across the width of his face again.

  My gaze flicked to his hands, still resting on either side of his coffee mug. I’d put his age at high thirties, and by the looks of his hands I was correct. Smooth and without the weathered, freckled, and age-spotted skin of my father, uncles, and older brothers, this man’s hands looked like they spent their days at a desk and not outdoors or involved in manual labor.

  His fingers were long and lean, as if he played an instrument, and for a split second I wondered what they’d feel like playing me.

  Madre di Dio. What a thought to have in the middle of the day in a bakery. Or anywhere, for that matter.

  Look, it had been a long, long time since a guy’s hands had been on me in anything resembling a carnal way. My ex had decamped to parts unknown five years ago after signing the divorce papers, and I’d been so busy rebuilding my life that adding any kind of relationship to it wasn’t even a notion. Besides, with my hovering parents, one of whom worked for me while the other popped in daily to check up on their only daughter, I had enough on my plate fending off the men they wanted to introduce me to. Guys who, for the most part, had unorthodox lifestyles, carried concealed, and owed my father innumerable favors.

  Anyway. Just as I was wondering what his hands would feel like drifting all over me, my name was called—okay, bellowed is the better word—from behind us. I looked up to see my oldest brother’s son Jerome, whom everyone calls Pesce, crossing the store, a look of concern on his face. At least, I thought it was concern. It was hard to tell with Pesce. At twenty and still living at home with an overindulgant, overprotective mother and a father who considered yelling a form of endearment, this kid wore a perpetual scowl on his chubby, jowly face. He’d stopped growing upward and started growing outward at fifteen, so that now he was almost as wide as his five-eight height. Add in the fact that his nickname was Pesce because he wouldn’t eat fish—a mortal sin in my family—and well, the kid deserved to frown.

  “Excuse me,” I said, rising. My nephew isn’t the most pleasant person on my staff and whatever had made him seek me out must have been problematic because he usually stayed down in the bake room, liking the solitude of just him and the industrial ovens.

  “Zia Regina, you gotta come. Now. The friggin’ ovens are whackin’ out. Stupid pieces of shit ain’t gettin’ up to temp.”

  Did I also mention that Pesce’s a lot like his father in the yelling department?

  “Lower your voice and watch your language,” I said, channeling my cousin Chloe when she disciplines her kids. She, too, was raised in a family where everyone spoke loudly to be heard over everyone else. Meal times sounded an awful lot like feeding time at the zoo when we were growing up. Still do to this day. Chloe learned early on the benefits of adopting inside voices with her children. “This is a place of business,” I added. “My customers don’t need to hear you cursing.”

  Pesce had the grace to look embarrassed as he lowered his chins to his barrel chest and snuck a few furtive glances at the waiting throng of people.

  “Sorry.”

  “So what’s wrong with the ovens?”

  In a much lower tone, he said, “Heat isn’t coming up to temp for baking. I think the frigg—uh—the thermostat is on the fritz. We got a backlog now of things that gotta get baked. Whatta you want me to do?”

  “I’ll be right down to take a look,” I told him. “Let me finish up with this order.”

  “You want me to shut everything down?”

  “No. That’s the last thing I’ll do if I can’t figure out what’s wrong. Just give me a minute.”

  He nodded and shot a glance over my shoulder to my customer. I think his scowl deepened, but as I said, sometimes it’s hard to tell.

  “I apologize,” I said when I got back to the table. “Baking emergency.”

  He stood. “I won’t take up any more of your time because I can see how busy you are. Just knowing that you’ll be able to help me has made this day so much better.”

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out a business card. “May I?” he asked, pointing to my pen. When I handed it to him, a spark ignited between us again. We both jumped a bit. His grin pulled wider, and for the first time, I noticed the little accordion fan of lines spreading from the corners of his eyes to his temples.

  “This has my email address on it, but I’m giving you my personal cell number, as well. When you have the order set, just send me the bill and the particulars.” He handed the pen and the card to me, then took one of my hands in his. “I don’t care about the cost. I really don’t. You’re doing me such a humongous favor by agreeing to this, any price wouldn’t be enough.”

  It was good thing my father wasn’t standing around us. Otherwise, that phrase doing me a humongous favor would have taken on a whole new meaning.

  “Your idea of a techy Santa’s workshop is perfect.”

  “I’ll fax you a sketch when I have it finalized.”

  “I can’t wait to see how it comes out.”

  We stood there, staring at one another, for a few beats. The bakery was exploding with voices, customers talking to one another or on cell phones, my workers shouting out order numbers, the ring of the cash register going nonstop. But the two of us could have been in a silent tomb for all of that. At least, I felt that way. The noise level was relegated to a low hum, the crush of people almost invisible to me. All I could see was his face—those eyes the color of migrant, drifting clouds, those full lips that had my own tingling to touch.

  A subtle squeeze of the hand he held and he took a step closer, keeping our hands joined.

  “Regina.” His low voice drifted across the hubbub and hit me square between the eyes like a bullet shot from a close range .22. I could hear my pulse pounding and whooshing in my temples, feel my lungs expanding for air. My feet turned to lead. If someone had come behind and pushed into me, I wouldn’t have moved an inch.

/>   What he’d been about to say was forever squelched by my mother’s thunderous roar. “Regina. Pesce’s screaming for ya down at the ovens. Andare avanti. Get going.”

  There have been times in my life I truly wished I’d been a foundling. Like during my first choir recital at St. Rita’s of the Armada Parish when I was ten. My father stood center aisle in the church hall, filming the entire program with a video camera the size of Montana he’d gotten “from a guy who knew a guy who gave him a great deal.” The motor whirred loudly while it filmed, every few seconds making a noise like an old attic door creaking on hinges that hadn’t moved in decades.

  My face heated to the temperature my temperamental ovens should have been baking at. Whereas a moment prior I’d been rooted to the bakery floor, lost in the glimmer of…something…in this man’s eyes, my feet now moved like they’d sprouted Mercury’s wings.

  I dropped Connor’s hand, turned, and then over my shoulder said, “You’ll be hearing from me,” before sprinting away.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” he called above the cacophony in the shop.

  Hours later after dealing with the oven debacle, which wasn’t really a debacle, more of an inconvenience, and working on two big wedding-cake orders I had for the weekend following Thanksgiving, I finally settled back in my office chair, the monthly receipts review a distant memory.

  My order book was on top of my desk, opened to the sketch I’d done and Connor’s information that I’d jotted down. His business card was still in my apron pocket. I pulled it out and ran my finger over the embossed lettering.

  Connor Gilhooly, CG Systems with a Battery Park location and an email address. I flipped the card over to find his scrawled cell phone number. The exchange was a local one. Did that mean he lived in the city as well as worked in it, like me?

  I leaned back in my ergonomic chair, a gift from my four sisters-in-law when I’d opened the bakery, and called Connor’s face to the front of my mind.

  I’d never seen eyes the color of his before. My cousin Chloe and her husband Matt each have one blue eye and one green one. The rest of my relatives range from the northern Italian blue-eyed, fair-haired DNA, to the Sicilian cocoa-colored eyes and midnight hair that I possess, along with my parents and siblings. But Connor’s eyes were a collaged combination of gray, blue, and pewter all meshed together. And they were as captivating to look into as the rest of his face.

  My fingertips danced over the card again remembering the sting from the spark that shot between us. What had he been about to say when my mother interrupted him? Nothing romantic, of course. I’d met him all of five minutes ago. Just because I’d found him swoon-worthy didn’t mean I’d had the same effect on him. I knew for a fact I didn’t. I’m just not the kind of girl guys trip over themselves for.

  When I was a teenager, I used to think the reason I sat dateless on most Friday and Saturday nights when all my friends were out with hot guys was because I was physically repugnant. When I looked in the mirror I couldn’t figure out back then what was so off putting about me. I was curvy, sure, but my brothers assured me guys liked curves on a woman. I wore my waist-length hair parted in the middle and straight down my back after spending hours working on it with a flattening iron. My face was a solid testament to my ancestry with jet black eyebrows arched above coal-colored eyes. My cheekbones, though, were high, and my mouth, my cousin Gia assured me, was sultry and sexy.

  It wasn’t until I was a senior in high school that I came to realize the reason boys weren’t knocking each other over on their way to dating me was due to my father’s ridiculous reputation. No one wanted to be the guy who dated Sonny San Valentino’s only daughter. The odds of something happening to the guy should he cause me any emotional harm were thought to be great, and most boys my age valued their lives and potential futures.

  And I know how dramatic that sounds. My father, despite what people believe, is not a violent man or a criminal in any sense of the word. Sure, he knows some wiseguys with reputations, most of whom he’d grown up with, and does business with a few who have been up the river once or twice…or more, for various and sundry charges, but he’s not the gangster he’s believed to be.

  Reputations, though, are like rumors. They spread fast and furious despite any semblance of fact.

  One nugget of truth to the entire situation that I did discover though, was that my father had been known to talk at the Marconi club where he was a frequent mahjong player, that no boy was good enough to date his little bellissima figlia, the name he always called me by. He didn’t want me dating and when the time came for me to marry, he would pick out the husband for me. My brother GianCarlo heard this from a friend of his and he repeated it to his wife Trixie, who then told it to me like any good Italian cognata would.

  Needless to say when I found out, Pop’s little bellissima figlia erupted like Mount Vesuvius. I went out and grabbed the first guy I saw, got pregnant within a month, and married a few weeks later by the priest who’d baptized, communed, and confirmed me.

  And, obeying my mother’s wishes, wore a virginal white gown that had belonged to her mother.

  The one and only timed I’ve ever rebelled in my life, and the ramifications of that single action still haunt me to this day.

  My eyes started to get heavy, so I decided to call it a night. I had to be up in a few hours to start decorating the cakes due for pickup before the holiday hit.

  As I snuggled under the quilt my nonna made for my tenth birthday, eyes the color of darkening clouds followed me into sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Regina’s tips for surviving in a big Italian family: 2. Count your blessings and pass the macaroni.

  “You look tired, bellissima figlia.”

  “Thanks, Pop. Just what every girl wants to hear when she walks through the door.” I shook my head and kissed both his cheeks, handing him four of my bakery boxes with the pies I’d baked, then shrugged out of my coat.

  Thanksgiving morning had dawned cold with a bitter wind slicing through the air. The bakery was officially closed today, so I’d been able to sleep in until six a.m., which, believe me, was a godsend because I was—as my undiplomatic father had just stated—dog tired.

  “Sonny, why you gotta say things like that to Regina?” my mother asked from her perpetual spot at the stove. She’d gotten her hair done-up, as she calls it, the day before, and the halo of champagne-tinted curls was wilting a bit as she stirred the boiling pot of pasta. “My Regina looks as beautiful as she always does.” She flicked her gaze to me and gave me a once-over rake every Italian mother has known how to do since the dawn of time. “Even tired.”

  Left-handed compliment, thy name is Ursula Rigetti San Valentino.

  “Thanks, Ma.” I bent to kiss her cheeks as well. “It smells great in here.”

  “It always smells great in here,” my oldest brother GianCarlo (Pesce’s dad) said, coming up behind me. He wrapped his hands around my waist and hugged me like he was attempting a Heimlich maneuver. “Did you bring me my pie, sorellina mia?”

  “What kind of a little sister and baker would I be if I hadn’t?” I spun around and kissed his cheeks, too.

  That’s my family: a bunch of cheek kissers, men and women alike. No one was exempt from the two-smooch bacio.

  “Yours is the one with the blue string,” I told him. “It came out of the oven about an hour ago.”

  “I’m putting it out in my car so I can take it home an’ eat it later when I’m watchin’ the game.”

  My father’s open palm swatted the top of his oldest son’s head as he walked by. “Hey! What’s with the head smack, Pop?” ’Carlo gripped the top of his head, shielding it—I knew from experience—from another hit.

  “Since when are you so greedy? Your mama and me taught you all to share, no?”

  “Reggie made me a special pie,” my brother whined, rubbing his head now. “I called and asked her to make one just for me to bring home. There’s still three left for everyone else. I’m
not being greedy.”

  A scowl, the twin to his son’s, branched across his full face.

  “He did, Pop,” I said.

  Experience has also taught me that no apology for the head smack would be coming anytime soon from my father. The zombie apocalypse would occur before Salvatore San Valentino ever expressed regret at something he’d done.

  “What can I do to help?” I asked my mother. “Set the table? Open the wine.”

  “I set the table last night when I got home from Mass. And your sisters-in-law opened the vino when they got here.” Ma’s lips puckered into a self-righteous line that had me experiencing flashbacks to my grade-school nuns. The presence of it across an aging and withered bride of Christ’s face denoted someone in the class was about to experience a little Hell on Earth. Luckily, I’d been spared from the experience. My brothers had not.

  “It’s a holiday, Teddy. Let the girls have a couple-a belts while they watch the Macy’s parade.” My father still referred to his wife by the nickname he’d gifted her with more than fifty years ago. The root meaning for Ursula is bear. From the moment Pop was introduced to her at a church dance by the parish priest when they were both fifteen, he’d called her his Teddy Bear because she was so tiny and—in his words—cuddly.

  I know. My little romantic heart always sighs when I think about that story.

  The line across her face deepened. My mother is as old-school Italian mama as they make ’em when it concerns her children. No girls my brothers brought home had ever been good enough for her bambini ragazzi—baby boys. I doubt the Virgin Mary would have been good enough in her eyes.

  And let’s not forget about my loser ex. To this day if his name—or God forbid a reference to him—is made or said, she crosses herself and then spits on the first two fingers of her blessing hand to ward off potential evil from the mention.

  “They should be in here, helping me, like good wives, instead of in there cackling and gossiping like old hens. And drinking. Non è giusto. It’s not right.”