Olive Branches Don't Grow on Trees (23 page)

“Oh
don’t worry about it,” said Donna, who must have been sensing her son’s
remorse.

“Thanks
for understanding Mom,” said Cosmo.

“I
was thinking we could go for lunch or dinner sometime soon,” said Donna to
Cosmo.

Cosmo
agreed and smiled like he was grateful for his mother’s forgiveness and for her
friendship.  Silvia figured that Cosmo had been avoiding getting enmeshed
in any drama between Donna and Frank.  He avoided drama like a gangster
avoided the law. 

And
as the three of them experienced a mutual moment of togetherness and calm,
Frank re-entered the room, drink in hand, and once again tension filled the
air, loud, thick, and heavy.  Silvia had to say something frivolous about
something like the weather, or better yet, cake.

“We
got a great looking carrot cake in the back.  That's Vince's favorite.
 I think it's a lot of people's favorite.  I prefer it to chocolate
cake myself.”  She knew how little they must have genuinely cared about
her feelings for carrot cake, but they all pretended that what she was saying
was something very interesting.

“Yeah,
I love carrot cake myself,” said Frank, who loved all sweets.  Donna and
Cosmo nodded, grinning in agreement, and just as their exchange about carrot
cake grew into a thing of great beauty, Angie came in the door with Doug and
little Isabella dressed in a pink, plaid jumper and looking all ready for a
party.  Frank's face brightened with delight, with smiling lips and his
cheerfully squinting eyes.  Meanwhile, Cosmo's face became tense with
worry lines, and his body turned stiff.  Silvia was surprised to see her
brother react this way as he so rarely got anxious.  He seemed to get more
anxious as Angie came over to greet her family, with her movie star smile. 
She wore black pants, an off-white blouse, and a red scarf.  She was
dressed perfectly for the occasion.

Silvia
smiled admiringly at her sister, knowing that it could not have had been easy
to be with all of her family for the first time since her ‘drunk toast’ wedding,
and knowing that she felt rejected by Cosmo and felt her usual distance from
Donna.  She seemed fine though.  In fact, she was better than fine.
 She was happy to see her family, and she hugged Cosmo like all that had
happened between them was forgotten.  And with that hug, all of the past
seemed to fade into the air that was beginning to fill with the delicious
smells of gravy and garlic.  Cosmo grinned, his shoulders came down, and
his body seemed to visibly loosen as he reverted back to his usual caterpillar-like
posture.

Then
Donna embraced Angie like she had never done before, like she was trying to
close up the distance between them.  
A distance that
just happened and had been allowed to live and grow, unfettered and
uninterrupted.
  A distance that was never intended.  Could it
be closing up forever, Silvia thought, as she watched the two embrace, or was
it only for the moment?  Everyone seemed to partake in the hug in a
vicarious way.

Doug
was busy chasing his daughter, as the five of them looked up to see the guest
of honor walk through the door. Vince was dressed in his only suit, which was
black and looked too hot for the season.  His smile looked like it had
been painted on and spoke clearly that he would rather be somewhere else. 
It was a look of obligation combined with mild stage fright.

“Hey
Vince,” said Silvia, as naturally as she could, in hopes of relaxing him.
 He smiled over at the lot of them.  He walked over to Donna first,
and as they were hugging, Anna came out to say that the table was ready.
 All of them poured into the smaller private room that was reserved for
large parties.  The only table in the room was set with shiny white
plates, silverware in perfect order, and maroon colored napkins folded like
captain hats.  The lighting was warm and made everyone look especially
beautiful and helped Silvia to relax a bit.

No
one wanted to be the first to sit down, as if doing so was rude, so Silvia
broke the discomfort by sitting in the place where she sat at their dinner
table at home, and by doing so, the others followed suit.  She even moved
the high chair so that Angie could be in her usual place.  Doug would just
have to fall where he could, which inconveniently happened to be right beside
Vince.  Frank was next to Cosmo, so that they could both irritate each
other with their presence and their smacking jaws.  Angie was next to
Donna, so they could feel the distance that lived between them.  Silvia
and Vince were next to each other, so that they could compete over who used a
smaller piece of paper towel as a napkin.

Why
did her mother arrange it that way, anyway?  Or maybe she did not arrange
it.  Maybe they just masochistically arranged themselves to allow for
optimum discomfort.  Grandma
Tucci
would say
that they were sitting just where they were supposed to sit.  She firmly
believed in a divine plan that permeated all aspects of people’s lives, and she
would have said that they sat in these particular places to learn something.
 She would have said that they needed to learn how to be more comfortable
around people they did not feel comfortable with.  Vince and Silvia needed
to learn to not be so competitive.  Cosmo and Frank needed to learn to
tolerate each other and learn better table manners.  Angie and Donna needed
to learn to connect with each other and to stop pushing each other away. 
Angie and Cosmo needed to overlook their differences and simply get along.

But
Grandma
Tucci
was not here to say any of this.
 And had she been present, she would not have been heard.  Her voice
had always been clear, but lacking in the ferocity needed to be heard amidst
the Greco crew.  So, she went unheard to all, except Silvia, who was
fortunate to know what was important at a young age.  She remembered her
grandma’s words so clearly, and as Vince sat down beside her, a feeling of
non-competiveness came over her.  She wondered if somehow the other
members of her family were also hearing Grandma
Tucci’s
words.  She noticed Cosmo and Frank sitting next to each other without
their usual antagonism, with guards down, not up.  Isabella seemed to tie
Donna and Angie together, as if erasing the line between them.  

Silvia’s
main concern was Frank’s frequent gazes at Donna from across the table.
 Maybe he was admiring how pretty she looked with her beet red lipstick
and elegant black, sleeveless dress.  Maybe he was hoping that she had
changed her mind about him.  Her other main concern was with Vince and
Doug, but Doug wasted no time in spurring up a conversation about Berkeley,
allowing her anxiety about them to subside.  It turned out that Doug had
lived close by Berkeley for a short while.  Of course, it was in some
place in Silicon Valley, a place that Vince would probably never set foot
because it was too conservative.  None-the-less, Doug knew about the
general area.

“You’re
gonna
love it out there,” said Doug, stretching his
arms out over his tired looking face and perfectly styled hair.

“Yeah,”
said Vince, his tone of voice with a mixture of enthusiasm and cautiousness.
“I’m a bit nervous about going so far away, but I think I’ll like Berkeley.”

“He’s
going to fit right in,” added Silvia, making her big smile even bigger.

She
assumed that Frank must have told Vince that he would be helping him with his
tuition.  Of course, there was always the chance that he would change his
mind, maybe forty or fifty times more before Vince was safely out of the
house.  Silvia then thought of something she could do to prevent this from
happening.

“Hey
everyone,” she said, standing up and banging a spoon on her water glass.
 She had never done anything like this and kind of surprised herself when
she stood up to take center stage.  If she had been more sophisticated,
she may have waited to make her announcement when there was wine, thereby
making it a toast. 

“I
just wanted to thank everyone for coming to celebrate Vince’s graduation from
high school and his acceptance into Berkeley, where he’ll be going in the
fall.”  Everyone smiled at Vince and at Silvia, who then turned towards
Frank and said, “And I would especially like to thank you, Dad, for making
Vince’s
dream
a reality.  
And
also for making this gathering a possibility.”
  And at this,
everyone clapped their hands, especially little Isabella who saw this as an
opportunity to clap and bounce and say “Yay!” in her baby voice.  Frank
had such a look of gratitude in his eyes, as though this moment, in itself,
would be enough for him to live on for the rest of his life.  She then sat
down, Frank still smiling at her like she was the greatest person alive.
 She may have even been promoted to Frank’s number one child that
night.   

From
where Silvia sat, she could overhear fragments of all the conversations
surrounding her.  Donna was talking baby talk to Isabella, with Angie
chiming in about her daughter’s likes and dislikes.  Cosmo was saying
something to Frank about how his workplace was becoming less and less
departmentalized, as more and more people were being laid off.  Doug was
still talking to Vince about the area in which he would soon reside. 
Everyone was interacting with each other, as if their fight-filled past had
never existed, as if it had been completely erased from their minds.
 Maybe they
were
learning.
 Or maybe Grandma
Tucci
was sitting beside them,
silently showing them the way.  Or maybe they were all just acting in
accord to get through the night.  Whatever the reason, it did not matter.
 All that mattered was the absolute perfection of this time.

 She
felt a little covetous of this time, as she knew that, like all the really good
things in life, it would pass too quickly.  The thought of Frank’s
milkshake came into her head.  She knew only too well that at any second
Angie might remember how Cosmo rejected her offer to be Isabella’s godfather.
 Or Donna might remember one of the many times Frank stumbled in from a
night of drinking and cheating.  They might all collectively remember that
they should not be getting along so well.

This
time was to be treasured and surely it was destined to become one of those
special memories that Silvia could always look back on.  She wanted to
keep this time with her always in the same way that she had kept Grandma
Tucci
with her.  She wanted to carry it with her for
the rest of her life and throw away all of the bad family stuff that had lived
within her for so long.

Just
as Silvia was enjoying the feeling of being so light, that she felt as if she
was floating over the table and watching everyone from above, the waiter came
to the table with antipasto.  Had it not been for the big gaping hole in
her stomach, she would have floated a little longer.  But she knew she
needed to get some salad before her family finished it up.  In fact, she
knew to serve herself first, so that she could be assured of getting the best
of what was in the bowl.

“You’re
taking all the tomatoes,” said Donna to Silvia.

“I
barely ate all day,” said Silvia. “Give me a break.”

Isabella
began to make sounds and point to the bowl of lettuce, like she was trying to
say “salad.”

“She
loves anything green,” said her mother proudly. “You should see how excited she
gets when I make spinach.”

After
bragging about her little girl, Angie jumped up and ran over to the waiter,
smart phone in hand, to ask him if he could take a picture of all of them.
 Silvia could not believe that she had forgotten about getting a picture
of the occasion.  She was grateful that Angie had remembered and really
grateful that Angie then said that she would email a copy to everyone.

Voices
seemed to rise and fall together making a symphony of chatter.  Around
midway through dinner, Vince turned to Silvia and said, “Thanks for everything,
Silvie
.”  And she knew exactly what he meant by
“everything,” as if they had communicated telepathically.  It was not just
making this celebration happen.  It was not just announcing to everyone
that Frank would be helping him with his tuition,
thereby,
making sure Frank abides by the promise he had made and broken several times.
 It was for all that she had taught him this past month, like getting
along with people who had different values than he, biting his tongue and being
diplomatic, remembering the good in all people, and being able to forgive.

Donna
seemed oblivious to the awkwardness present between Cosmo and Angie, as she was
too preoccupied with feeding her grand-daughter.  But Silvia was perfectly
aware of it.  She was relieved when Cosmo made the opening gesture towards
Angie.  What he said was nothing like a piece of ordinary
conversation.  It was nothing like, “So how's north Jersey?” or “Do you
make it in to New York a lot?” or “You must be enjoying being a mom,
huh?”  Anything like that would have been too banal for Cosmo.
 Instead he grabbed something from his pants pocket and said playfully, “I
gotta
magic trick for Isabella.”  He walked over
to his niece smiling his big, goofy smile, while Angie followed with her eyes.
 He acted like a big clown and looked like one, even without face makeup
and big floppy shoes.  Isabella looked at him as if she knew she was about
to be entertained.