Cold Comfort (2 page)

As Carmela assembled and boxed up the order, she asked, “Is that all Minnie wants?”

“That’s everything.”

“Everything?” Surprise seeped from Carmela’s voice. Her bleached, strawberry blonde hair, swept up in a tidy bun, glimmered like a caramel cloud beneath the fluorescent lights. “Is Minnie all right?”

“Yes, she’s fine. It’s just gonna be the two of us sharing a quiet Thanksgiving dinner this year. She’s going to tackle the pumpkin pie herself.”

Carmela nodded in understanding, passing a white cardboard box, tied with white and red cotton string, over the counter to me.

“Sometimes quiet is better. You’re a good niece… Here,” she said, reaching across the counter to hand me a cup cake paper filled with a sfogliatelle—a flaky, multi-layered, clam-shaped pastry, sprinkled with powdered sugar and filled with sweet ricotta cheese and diced citron fruit. She knew they were my favorite and had been handing me a comp pastry every time I visited her store since I was kid.

Inhaling sugary bites of what would become my lunch, I traipsed out of the bakery and hurried down the block through Garibaldi Square, past a monumental bronze statue of the Italian general and patriot, and onto a nearby side street. It was comforting, after all the years, to be back amid the local flavor and folks of Federal Hill. It was my version of reuniting with family. Each warm greeting, comments and asides included, made me feel as though I were surrounded by the comforts of home, even though my actual “home” was a rent-controlled studio apartment in New York City. When I wasn’t on a photojournalism assignment, which wasn’t very often, I clocked in at the Associated Press Offices in Midtown.

With only minutes to spare before I was due back to collect Aunt Minnie for her doctor’s appointment, I dashed, navigating the shopping cart toward Giacomo’s fish place. The wheels shimmied along the cold, windy street. But when I spied the hand-crafted sign that read
Fresh Catch
, I stopped in my tracks. The hallmark of Giacomo’s store had always been a simple weathered sign that read
Pesce/Fish
. I looked up and down the street to see if I’d maybe passed Giacomo’s shop, but there were no other fish stores in the square. Figuring this must be the same place, I stepped inside. The bell on the front door jangled against the plate glass, echoing into the eerily empty shop. The soles of my sneakers squeaked upon the freshly painted concrete floor. I looked up at the fluorescent lights lining the ceiling. Was it me or did the place look brighter? The freezer doors…they had never sported Windex shines. There was an uncharacteristic void of customers and not even the sight of a clerk behind the counter. But after all, who, but my Aunt Minnie, buys fish on Thanksgiving weekend!

I stared into the glass cases sporting wide-eyed aquatic creatures with fins and gills and glistening scales set alongside trays of mollusks and shrimp laid out on ice with as much care as fine diamond necklaces sitting on velvet at a jewelry store. I glanced at my watch. Time was quickly ticking away so I said, “Hello. Hello…Giacomo? Anybody home?”

Out stepped a man much younger and taller than the Giacomo I’d remembered. I couldn’t get a good, clear look at him, as he was standing behind the uncovered tanks housing foraging lobsters. Wearing jeans, a faded R.I.S.D. t-shirt and old sneakers, he looked to me, wiping his hands on a towel as he asked, “Yes, how can I help you?” A New England accent tinged his voice.

When the man’s gaze met mine, time seemed to stop. I was stunned. Breathless.

“A.M.?” he asked.

My belly thrilled at the sound of hearing myself referred to by the initials of my first name. It didn’t take long to recognize traces of a man I used to know—his well-defined biceps filling out the arms of his worn t-shirt; his trimmed goatee; his receding hairline cropped ultra-short, no doubt, to conceal its diminishment. His face was no longer thin, but the familiar impish glow glimmering behind his warm, chestnut-colored eyes was unforgettable.

“Jack?”

“Ohmygoodness. A.M., it
is
you… Your hair—it’s so much shorter. And it’s lighter…”

I ran my fingers through the layered, shoulder-length, dyed strands remembering how in college my long, thick mane used to hang down my back at one point almost to my derriere.

“…It looks good. Becoming on you,” he said, scrambling. “So tell me. How are you?”

“I’m good. Good.” My heart was pounding so fast, I suddenly felt woozy and unwell. I ran a hand over my mouth, praying that I didn’t have traces of powdered sugar from the sfogliatelle pastry still dotting my lips.

In truth, this chance meeting had thrown me totally off kilter. The spontaneous part of me, the part dictated by my heart, was truly glad to see Jack. But my mind overruled my heart and unearthed a whole hodgepodge of feelings for Jack from a very long time ago.

Jack was a guy—really,
the
guy—who broke my heart in college. Although I don’t think he knew how deep and profound a wound he’d left in me. At the time, the slow dissolution of our relationship was all-consuming. Thankfully, the years had dulled the sting. He, and the thought of him, had ultimately been reduced to an every-now-and-then passing flash—the
what-could-have-been-but-wasn’t-meant-to-be
—that burned brightly in my mind only to dim just as quickly.

“It’s been a long time,” he said, studying me as if checking to see whether I had retained my youth any better than he’d retained his.

“Yes, it has been a while,” I agreed. “Hard to believe we graduated college what…is it eleven years ago?”

Jack nodded. “I was really hoping to see you at the reunion last year.”

“Oh, I couldn’t make it,” I told him. “I was on assignment.”

“On assignment? Sounds important… What do you do?”

“I travel a lot. Work as a photojournalist for the Associated Press.”

“Wow! You’re still there… That’s great.”

“And what about you?” I asked.

“Me? I work here.” He gestured with his hands, motioning around the fish store.

“Really?” I narrowed my sights on him. “Since when?”

“Since…” he hesitated. “Since I couldn’t feed my family on what I was earning as a starving artist.”

I quickly read between the lines of what he’d told me, but was unsure how to respond.

Okay, sounds like he couldn’t make a go of an art career… He’s married…has a family
—
outside of me, who doesn’t?

“So, I guess that means, you’re not in graphic arts anymore?”

He shook his head. “Unless you count my artwork for the
Fresh Catch of the Day
.” He pointed to a chalkboard mounted on the wall over the bubbles that ascended inside the lobster tanks. There were colorful sketch images of lovable looking squid and octopi with a price per pound printed beneath the gangly legs of the doodles.

“Some things never change. You always
were
gifted and talented.”

He laughed. “And I could always count on you for compliments.”

“How’s business?” I asked, swiveling my sights around the shop.

“I’m afraid if I say,
good
, the echo in here is bound to make you think I’m a liar. Come back on Christmas Eve and ask me the same question.”

The bell on the front door of the store jangled, and it served to dispel the beat of awkwardness that lingered between us.

“So, tell me,” he asked. “What are you doing on Federal Hill, anyway? Do you have a photo assignment in this neck of the woods?”

“No. Have the weekend off. I’m here to visit my aunt…Minnie LaRusa.”

“
She’s
your aunt?”

“Yes, my great-aunt. You know her?”

“Of course, I do. I’ve known her for years. She’s a great lady, a good customer.”

At his comment, my Smartphone chimed to alert me that a new text message had just been delivered. I rummaged through my purse and by the time I pulled out the phone, my pulse rose when I read the characters:
Where R U? Getting late...

“Bad news?” Jack asked.

“No, I’m just kicking myself for teaching Aunt Minnie how to text.” When I looked up, I spied the wall clock hanging above the fish counter. It was official. I was now three minutes late in getting back to fetch Aunt Minnie. “She’s probably the only 96-year-old in the whole world who has an interest, and aptitude, for all this new-fangled technology. I’m taking her to a routine doctor’s appointment. And she’s not happy that it’s getting late.”

“Well, tell me what she needs, and I’ll get you out of here
asap
.” He clapped his hands together then rubbed his palms as if trying to warm them.

“She wants four cod fillets—or
fill-its
, as she calls them—as long as her palm and about a half-inch thick. She said Giacomo will know exactly what she needs. Is he here?”

He blushed. “Giacomo’s me.”

“You?”

“Yeah, I was my uncle’s namesake. When he passed away and left me the shop, I sort of reinvented myself from plain old Jack to the ethnic Giacomo. It sounds more authentic when I attend the meetings for the Federal Hill Little Italy Rotary Club. You know what they say…
When in Rome
…”

I burst out laughing. I had forgotten how much I’d missed Jack’s dry, deadpan sense of humor.

He reached a hand inside the case and pulled out a whole cod fish—head, tail, the works.

“You said four
fill-its
?”

“Right. Four.”

On the counter behind the refrigerated case, Jack settled down to work. With the precision of a surgeon, the long blade of a knife cut the fillets fresh off the fish, completely skirting the bones. Then he slapped the four of them atop the scale and said, “That oughta do it. Are these for dinner tonight?”

“No, they’re actually for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah, Minnie thinks it’s not Thanksgiving without every course imaginable—soup, salad, pasta, fish… Seven courses in all. It’ll probably be midnight by the time we actually dig in to the turkey and fixings!”

He grinned as he wrapped up the cod fillets. “Maybe she thinks the Pilgrims were Italian?”

“You might be on to something,” I told him, realizing how much I missed the easygoing, playful banter we’d had in college.

“Well, tell Minnie these are on the house,” he said. “Happy Thanksgiving to you both.”

As I thanked Jack, the one other customer in the store—a woman carrying a bag of Panko breadcrumbs and a jar of shrimp cocktail sauce—approached the cash register and interrupted our final goodbyes.

When Jack finally passed the bundle of fish over the counter to me, I looked and was surprised to notice he wasn’t wearing a wedding band.

“Well, you take care… And a Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.” I slipped the fish atop all the other bundles packed inside the overflowing shopping cart.

“By the way, you have a little smudge on the corner of your lip there,” he said, pointing to his own face in order to show where on my own.

Mortified, the small shop suddenly seemed hot and closed in. I followed his lead and wiped away what I figured were lingering traces of powdered sugar from the pastry and started pushing the cart toward the door.

I hurried out of the store, grateful to be met by a cool gust of fresh air.

My phone chimed again.

It was another text from Aunt Minnie:
U R 10 mins late. Now I’m getting worried.

Two

We made it to Aunt Minnie’s chiropodist appointment with time to spare. While I sat in the waiting room, thoughts about bumping into Jack swirled inside my mind. I mentally tried to distract myself, flipping pages in magazines, silently analyzing and critiquing all the photographs.

Once Aunt Minnie had her toenails and corns and calluses trimmed, she was like a new woman, back in business and raring to get home to start prepping for Thanksgiving dinner.

She was thrilled that we returned in time to catch her “story,” that’s how she referred to
Days of Our Lives,
her favorite soap opera. She slipped out of her clothes and back into her housecoat and sweater. Then she switched on the television set on the kitchen table and settled down to work.

First thing she did was set up the pumpkin pie and pop it into the oven. “Won’t be Thanksgiving without it,” she said.

You’d think, with the amount of food I’d picked up for her, along with a host of ingredients she had already socked away in her freezer and pantry, she was expecting a huge crowd. In the old days, when all the relatives were still alive and not scattered around the country—with growing families of their own—that was the case. But these days, family, on the local level, had dwindled to just Minnie and me. That didn’t daunt her from making our traditional Thanksgiving dinner just as it used to be. This included setting the table with her best linen, china, crystal and silver and even arranging a floral horn-of-plenty, bursting brightly with asters and mums.

“There’s no need to go to all this trouble,” I’d told her. “I’d be just as happy with take-out on paper plates.”

“That’s life for you every day. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. Whether it’s two or twenty-five people at our table, it’s important to keep traditions alive.”

“But you really don’t need to stand on ceremony—not for me.”

“Anna Maria, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do all this. So as long as God continues to provide me with good health, I want the holidays to be as special as always.”

I didn’t stop her, as food seemed Minnie’s most effective and satisfying way to express herself. It always had been. She wasn’t deep or intellectual by any measure. By that I mean, she never read the classics (outside of
Gone with the Wind
) or had a fondness for opera (Frank Sinatra was more her style); she never wanted to talk politics or current events (outside of entertainment news and tidbits of local gossip); and she was never the type to bare the burdens of her soul. She rarely, if ever, gave voice to the losses she’d sustained in her life, and I knew better than to remind her of them. Atop the embroidered doily on the dresser in her bedroom were framed photographs of her mother and father on their wedding day and a few pictures of her and her now passed siblings from their childhoods. Next to the bed, on her nightstand, stood a small, faded sepia-toned portrait of a good-looking man, a soldier in full military garb, arms wrapped around a beautiful, beaming teenaged Aunt Minnie. Dog tags were draped over the corner of the frame.