Fairytales (47 page)

Catherine stood, facing him. “If you’ll excuse me, Dominic, it takes me about an hour and a half to get myself put together for special occasions … and after all this one is my
debut.”
She walked around him without another word and went up the stairs, as Dominic stood listening to the sounds of her footsteps echo on each marble tread.

Upstairs in her room, Catherine drew back the silk gauze curtain just far enough so she could peer out unseen and what she saw was an army of reporters, sound trucks and cameramen waiting out in front, champing at the bit to get inside so that the show could get on the road. Appraising herself in the mirror once again, she smiled at her reflection. Never looked better than at this moment dressed in her extravagantly expensive, shocking-pink print gown … the likes of which only Hanae Mori could create. She adjusted the heavy opera-length, ten millimeter string of pearls with the diamond clip around her neck, then put the wide diamond bracelet on her left wrist, slipped on the pear-shaped gem that looked the size of a ripe Bartlett pear hanging heavily on a tree, the diamond-and-pearl earrings came next and finally a cluster of diamonds the size of a walnut on her pinkie. She rouged her lips once again, put her hand up to her carefully coiffed blonde hair, which had been done an hour ago at home, the hairdresser leaving through the rear door, and pushed a small hairpin back into place. She was ready. Opening the door of her room, she heard the sound of voices below reverberating through the huge marble hall. Quickly, she walked across the hall, knocked on Dominic’s door and waited. He came out, looking like a reasonable facsimile of a wax figure from Madame Tussaud’s factory. He was pale, the color of gray-green putty … his chin was so set it looked as if when he smiled it would crack. Catherine grabbed his hand in hers, holding it firmly (like a warden), digging her nails into his palm. Head held high, chin jutting forward (like Gloria Swanson in
Sunset Boulevard,
she thought) Catherine made her grand descent, smiling broadly at the members of the press whom she recognized. Dominic thought any minute she was going to make the V-sign for victory. With no alternative in sight, he smiled too, but like a man who had plastic surgery, whose lips were stitched into a permanent upward curve. Before they were seated together on the sofa in the huge living room, the flashbulbs flashed (blinding Catherine temporarily). The questions came at her so fast and furiously she didn’t have time to complete a sentence as the television cameras zoomed in on her, grinding out pictures … this would be documented for posterity. Now she thought she knew how Marilyn Monroe must have felt. The whole thing was becoming like a circus as a sheepish, miserable Dominic sat by her side. She heard fragments of questions thrown at her “… why did the senator … for two weeks … the story is, Mrs. Rossi, that … is it true you were …”

“Hold
it …” she said. “I’ll answer one question at a time. Now, who wants to ask first?”

Dominic began to perspire under his impeccably tailored suit. “Thank you, Mrs. Rossi,” a woman reporter broke in. “Can you tell us what actually happened from the time Mr. Rossi left you in Santa Barbara until now?”

“I surely can … the night of the banquet I flew happily into Santa Barbara to be with my husband. A man runnin’ for office needs the support of his wife standin’ by his side. But that wasn’t where I was standin’. No, that was not where I was … by his side.” Her lip quivered when she began to recite the events of that evening. “No sir, I was sittin’ with my children in some dark secluded corner as though we were uninvited guests. Well, I can tell you, that’s a slap in the face of a wife who’s worked, and given of herself through the strenuous difficulties of campaigning. I grant you, no woman deserves a medal for doin’ her share, but she sure as hell thinks she deserves a little recognition … if the senator could thank his paid workers, the least he could do, I figured, was to acknowledge his unpaid worker …
his wife,
by givin’ her at least the attention of a little introduction. Well, folks, I admit it, I just saw red… and I got damned mad … and jealous. I wanted to punish him so I retreated to a place I have friends … I don’t care if a man’s runnin’ for president, he mustn’t get so carried away with his own importance … the sound of his voice … the impression he’s tryin’ to make on the public, that he forgets his family, which is just exactly what my husband did … don’t misunderstand me, he’s no worse than the rest of them … it’s just that
this
famous politician’s wife decided to stand up and do something about it…” She looked at Dominic who was now sweating profusely under his collar as the color of his face turned from putty-gray to bright, bright pink.

The reporter then put the microphone up to Dominic to ask him a question. Catherine quietly spoke up. “I believe this is my interview, ladies and gentlemen.”

“All right then, what was your husband’s attitude when you returned home, Mrs. Rossi?”

“Well, we had a very understandin’ little chat, at which time the senator regretted his neglect of me and the children, but like the fine man he is, he assured me he’s not about to underestimate me again. You see, politicians are just human bein’s like just plain ordinary citizens. They take their wives for granted and sometimes a woman has to assert herself before she gets noticed.”

Again the reporter took the microphone and addressed Dominic, saying quickly, “Senator Rossi, how do you think this is going to affect your chances of becoming—”

But again Catherine spoke up. “Why you askin’ him that? Why should his chances be any more or any less because I went away to think out my own private thoughts? I’m just like any woman in private life. If my neighbor did somethin’ like that, you wouldn’t all go rushin’ over to her house askin’ if her husband’s gonna be demoted. The trouble with bein’ in the public eye is you can’t even have a plain old-fashioned argument with your husband without the whole world knowin’ about it, but we’re just like the people next door. Politicians have fights and get mad at each other … but they’re not
supposed
to, and that’s what’s wrong with the whole damned image thing. You people of the press get into the act and blow the whole thing right out of proportion. What I did was really between my husband and me … and grateful as I am for your concern, I think the time has come for my husband to get on with the thing he’s doin’ and let me go on helpin’ him because he’s gonna be the best damned United States senator this state has ever had, and I’m gonna support him … now, I’d say that just about ends the interview… Don’t you think so, Dominic, darlin’?”

He shook his head, still with that fixed smile on his face.

“Fine. Now, if you don’t mind, I think my husband and I really do need a little privacy.” She got up with Dominic’s hand still in hers and together they walked back upstairs as the reporters ran from the room to the nearest phones. The television crew packed up their equipment. On the way out, one said to his associate, “You know why they held hands … ?”

“To keep the senator from belting her one?”

They laughed, slamming the back doors of the van shut, then drove away.

That night, Dominic lay awake in the darkness, feeling like a broken man. He’d been made to look like a buffoon, a stupid clown in front of millions of viewers. Not only were they seen on local television, but the whole nation had the privilege of watching the Catherine and Dominic soap opera … the only thing missing had been the organ music. The speculations ran from his being the unfortunate victim of a spoiled, jealous wife … to her being the poor, abused wife who’d sacrificed her life to help her ungrateful husband climb the ladder of success. The issue became so controversial that husbands and wives began having their own private little arguments at breakfast over their Wheaties.

“Let me tell you, Gladys, if a wife of mine did anything like that…”

“Oh, really Charley? Well, if I had a husband that went off and neglected me the way she’d been, and taken for granted …”

Although Dominic knew the public’s reaction would be divided … it could be no more divided than he now felt himself … divided right down the middle … cut in half. One half asked how could he go on living in the same house with her … not only for what she’d done, but she knew how Italian husbands felt about being the strength and stronghold of the family … it was inbred, inherent in their nature for generations. This was a thing he could not come to grips with. Love her? At this moment he despised her. But on the other hand he so badly wanted to continue his career … he was forced to ask himself how else could he do it without her? Compromise, how else? To leave her would mean political suicide. It would only prove that he was an ambitious son of a bitch who put his own self-importance above wife and children. Well, if you can’t fight ’em, join ’em. There were no options left, he would simply have to grin and bear it, take whatever she was going to dish out, handle it as best he could. Catherine had washed their dirty linen in public. He was surprised she had restrained herself … when she said … quote … ‘I’m gonna let it all hang out … tellin’ it as it is,’ that she did not bring up Victoria Lang … whom he still loved and had never been able to forget … but he thought maybe I better not tempt the gods … Catherine might still say something, since she had now become a celebrity and had been asked to speak on the talk shows. Anything was possible.

The next week found a very shy, very embarrassed, very subdued Dominic being seen going to and from his office … and a very quiet, silent and taciturn Dominic had dinner at home each evening with Catherine. If he ever appreciated his children, it was that week. They at least seemed to understand his need not to be alone with Catherine.

As months turned to weeks, weeks to days, Dominic’s spirits began to climb, and after more than one conference with his key people, it was decided the fiasco might even turn into a plus. He had to appeal to the women’s vote … it was apparent from the mountains of mail Catherine was receiving from women both in and out of politics that she was the star, a celebrity made overnight. The letters all pretty much had the same sentiment. “Bravo for you, Mrs. Rossi” … “I wish I’d had the guts to do what you did” … “Many’s the time I wanted to walk out for the same reasons you did” … “Been taken for granted for too long now” … “Bless you, Mrs. Rossi, you’ve given a lot of women a little spunk.”

Catherine hired two secretaries to help with the mail, which she made sure was answered … every last letter. And Dominic took the clue. There wasn’t a speech he didn’t mention Catherine’s name. When they walked into a room, the cry went up, ‘Hurray for Catherine! Catherine for president!’ Catherine loved it, and Dominic thought maybe he’d hit on a bonanza after all.

Now the dwindling days before the California primaries were quickly coming to an end, and the team of Rossi and Rossi had made the big time together, making the final campaign trek side by side. The day of the election, Catherine and Dominic voted early. They went to mass, then that evening the children came to dinner and waited patiently as they had done through three elections. At ten it looked like Dominic was lagging slightly … by eleven he knew the game was over. Catherine had never in her life felt as guilty, as filled with remorse as she did that night. She was certain she’d lost the election for Dominic, and in spite of all the efforts to reassure her, no one could come up with the magic word to console her. It was the first time Dominic had ever lost. She felt the burden of that. Also she had lost her bid to immortality as the senator’s lady from California, which she now wanted to be as much as Dominic wanted to be the senator.

However, for all her remorse, there were other factors involved in Dominic’s defeat. For one thing, Dominic had still not made the inroads in the southern part of the state that he needed so badly, also the eighteen-year-olds preferred the younger candidate, and theirs was a decisive vote.

Reading that, she could almost make herself feel better.

A
T ELEVEN, A DEVASTATED
Catherine left with a resigned Dominic for headquarters, with only Gina Maria and Sergio going along, leaving the others to remain until they returned later. When Dominic stood on the platform with his arm around Catherine (who had learned to smile in defeat, like a pro), she stood close, with eyes of admiration, looking at her husband. The cheers went up in spite of the fact he had lost. And a radiant, smiling Dominic, with all the magnetism he had ever possessed to captivate an audience, stood resolutely like the victor instead of the vanquished and addressed the crowd. Laughing, he said, “We didn’t lose … we just didn’t win. And when I was a small boy growing up in North Beach, I learned you take your licks, never complain and never look back. I thank you all for your help. Do the same for the man who’s going to be our next senator. Now, good night … God bless you. Catherine and I are going on a well-deserved vacation. She really needs it because no one worked harder.”

Dominic and Catherine walked into the living room as the family sat silent, not knowing what to say. Dominic stood before the fireplace and looked at his children, then laughed out loud. “What are you all so sad about? So I lost the race, but it was a hell of a good battle, and Sicilians cut their eyeteeth on survival or we would have been extinct long ago.”

The family took no comfort in Dominic’s bravado.

Once again he almost laughed out loud. “Look, you defeatists, do you remember I once told you about a man named Thomas E. Dewey? I went to bed one night believing with the rest of the country that he was a sure thing to be president. The next morning, I woke up and found out that you can’t really fool the people most of the time. There was a little man named Harry S. Truman. An ex-haberdasher from Missouri … never had a chance, except he won, and turned out to be the best damned president this country ever had.

“Okay, Catherine, come on, break out the champagne and let’s celebrate …

“We’ve only just begun.”

Turn the page to read an excerpt from Cynthia Freeman’s
Illusions of Love