Rococo (15 page)

“I asked Lonnie if he called Nicolina before dropping by, and he said everything was fine.”

“You know how men are—they never call.”

“When I get on better terms with Nicolina, I will call in advance. It’s not nice to drop in unannounced.”

“Doris, can you come in here, please?” Lonnie says from the doorway. Doris follows him out after placing a gentle hand on my shoulder.

Through the top half of the galley door, I see Toot sitting next to Ondine and holding her hand as Nicky stands behind her talking to Lonnie. Lonnie tells Doris that Nicky and Ondine have married and are having a baby. Doris embraces the young couple warmly. Then the strangest thing happens. Lonnie kisses Toot on one cheek and then the other. He smiles at her and takes her chin in his hands, giving her a look of reassurance. Then he takes his fist and gives her a sweet punch on the chin like he used to do when they were young.

“What do you think?” Capri cleans her glasses as I walk around the empty two-bedroom apartment in the nice section of West Long Branch. It’s on the third floor of a modern ten-floor building, with a parking garage underneath.

“I think it’s terrific.”

“I’m going to sign the lease.”

“Good girl.”

“I’m so scared.”

“Your mother will be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s not an idiot. You need your own life.”

“She said I could only ever move out if I got married.”

“Capri.”

“I’m not saying it so
you’ll
marry me. Although we could get married, you could pretend to move in here, and then we divorce really fast.”

“No thank you,” I say firmly. “The last thing I need on my docket is a quickie marriage and instant divorce. My heart is not a glass of Tang.”

“You’re right. I sound desperate and silly.”

“Capri, it’s not wrong to want your own life. It’s natural.”

“I know! I want to work and come home to a cat. I want boyfriends. I want to travel with them, cook for them, exchange ideas in the forms of books and literature, and make love to them.”

“Oh dear.”

“Well, it’s all I think about. I’m this . . . this . . . ripe plum. Everything inside me is aching to be loved. Suddenly I can really see myself.”

Coming from a woman with 20/200 vision in both eyes, this is truly a revelation. “Go on,” I say.

“Turning forty is freeing me. If I’m not going to change now, I never will. And it doesn’t matter if it hurts my mother, because she’s lived her life. She’s had her true love, and now it’s my turn. I’m a lover who has not yet found my thing to love! Who said that?”

“Bob Dylan?”

“I don’t know,” Capri moans. “I think about sex in church. I sit up there in the choir loft and watch the men as they go up to Communion and imagine being in warm places like Hawaii with them. I do! In church! Can you imagine? If I ever went to confession, I’d be excommunicated.”

“Capri,” I say in a tone I hope will shut off this valve of soul baring. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Maybe not. But I’d like to find out for myself.”

“You’re saying what, exactly?”

“It would have been nice to be a couple. But the only two people in this world who knew we were wrong for each other were you and me. I only played along because I didn’t have anyone else in mind. Now I know a girl has to look for it. We never had that spark.” She shrugs.

“Not even the time your breast brushed my thigh in the den when I was hanging the valance?”

“That was an accident. I tripped on the rug.”

“Oh.” I don’t know why, but I’m a little hurt. I wanted to be rejected all these years, and now that I am, my ego is bruised.

Capri continues, “I’ve been using you all these years, and I feel terrible about it. You’ve schlepped me all over the Eastern Seaboard on sightseeing tours, and then there was that trip to Florida where I got stung by a bee and had to be hospitalized and you sat in the waiting room for six days until the swelling went down. What I’ve put you through!”

“It’s all forgiven and forgotten,” I promise her.

“It’s Mom who won’t accept our true feelings. She thinks we have bad timing.”

“We’ve known each other since kindergarten. How much time do you give something unless it’s a slab of carbon that you’re praying will become a diamond?”

“She thinks forever. You’re like a son to her.”

“I’m sure she’ll like all your . . . boyfriends.”

“I’m not Jezebel, for godsakes. I want to see lots of men at first, but then eventually whittle it down to one.”

Capri walks into the empty bedroom to inspect it. I watch her go. My goodness, what a difference a potential pied-à-terre can make for a girl’s self-confidence. The green banana has turned into a golden apple.

“Over here, Bartolomeo!” Eydie waves to me from the Pan Am ticket desk at John F. Kennedy Airport. I wave back.

“So glad you could make it on such short notice.” She kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you for doing this.”

“Are you crazy? Thank
you.
I like nothing better than getting a phone call from a beautiful woman begging me to run off to Europe with her.”

“I need your passport, sir,” the wizened lady behind the counter says, extending her hand. I pull it out of my sport coat pocket. “Destination Heathrow. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“We’re sitting together, right?” Eydie asks.

“Yes, ma’am.” The attendant hands us our tickets as a gentleman takes our bags and snaps tags on them before placing them on the conveyor belt. “Have a wonderful trip,” she says politely.

“It’s going to be short and sweet.” Eydie threads her arm through mine as we walk to the gate. “I called Asher Anderson and he’s expecting you.”

“Fantastic. What would have happened to me had I never met you?”

“Oh, please. When ASID said I could bring a guest on this trip, you were the only possible choice. I need London to revive, and you need it to get your church plans off the ground.”

“What’s this King’s College speech you’re giving?”

“Mica Ertegun of the MAC II firm dropped out at the last minute, so I got a call. I never mind being sloppy seconds, not when it’s free tickets to my second-favorite city in the world.”

We pass a concession stand. I grab a carton of Lucky Strikes and put them on the cashier’s checkout. “It’s a long jump across the pond.”

After a smooth flight with seventeen meals, a pack of delicious cigarettes, and more laughs than I’ve had in a long time, a representative from King’s College meets us at the airport, takes our bags, and directs us into a lovely Citroën with so much leg room we could stretch out and nap if we wanted.

Though this is my first trip to the United Kingdom, I am a proud Anglophile. I admire the practical temperament of the people. I love the artful details of daily life: a hand-stitched tea cozy in the shape of a Victorian mansion, the Wellie boots, the sheep’s wool stockings, and the best tailors in the world. Thankfully, the Brits have a love affair with Italians, and if anyone asks me, the feeling is entirely mutual.

We are dropped at Claridge’s in the heart of the city. The architecture is suavely Art Deco, with polished marble columns (Corinthian) and small square gardens spilling over with orange marigolds, neat sidewalks, and Palladian windows so sparkling they look like mirrors.

“Maintenance,” Eydie says approvingly, pointing to the bright brass railing outside the hotel that leads to the revolving entrance door (not a single fingerprint on the glass!). “They know what they’re doing.”

My room is small and toasty. The queen-sized canopy bed is made up with a polished chintz coverlet in shades of peach and dark purple. A cherrywood highboy is buffed to a sheen. There’s a rolltop desk with a small brass lamp and a fauteuil chair covered in a lavender velvet. I wouldn’t choose it for my own home, yet it’s exactly right. Even the pencil sketches of eighteenth-century Carnaby Street are the perfect accent to this traditional setting. It’s probably noisy in this part of London, but I don’t hear a thing. I sleep solidly for ten hours and wake up to the sound of the phone ringing.

“Meet me for breakfast in the Surrey Room!” Eydie commands. After a quick shower and shave, I throw on my sport coat and meet her downstairs, where we find a table and order coffee.

Eydie opens a file folder and hands me what looks like a report. “This is a little background information on my friend Asher. He’s expecting you around eleven, but he’s never been prompt, so don’t worry if you’re late. He can be a little prickly, but he’s truly one of the smartest people I know, and he can definitely give you some ideas for the church.”

Eydie gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and heads off to King’s College for the day. I watch her disappear into the lobby, and for a moment it seems like she’s not of this world, rather like an angel who appears when needed and then
—poof!—
is gone when she’s made her point. I can’t imagine why a hundred men aren’t in love with her.

I pull her chair over with my feet, prop them on the seat, and I begin reading about Asher Anderson. He began his career as an artist forty years ago, which makes him roughly of my parents’ generation. He studied art in Milan, apprenticed at the Palazzo Gregorio in Venice under Gian Angelo Rutolo (a name I remember from Eydie’s list), then returned to London to run the Geffrye Museum. Now he’s the manager of Antiquarius, London’s esteemed antiques center on Kings Road.

I help myself to the breakfast buffet, with cut-glass bowls of stewed berries, hot toast lined up in triangle wedges on a ceramic bread server, and silver Victorian coffee and tea urns with brass hardware and carved ivory handles. Butter and jam are displayed in small white pots on a polished cherrywood lazy Susan. I wish Toot were here to see all the serving pieces. There are things on this buffet she has only dreamed of.

The cab lets me off in front of Antiquarius on Kings Road, a street so crowded with pedestrians that the cars can hardly get through. I make my way to the maroon-and-white awning and into the shop, which is more like a barn, with many vendors. Strolling through the first floor, I become depressed about having only three days in London—I could take a week on this floor alone. The vendors have decorated their booths like rooms to showcase their wares, featuring lighting, wallpaper, rugs. In one booth an antique dish offers jellies to shoppers in need of a sugar boost. Like an attic full of treasures, the place smells of wood polish, starch, cedar, and lavender.

I notice a booth done completely in white—white walls, a white vinyl floor, and an enormous chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Its center post is faceted crystal, surrounded by a circular tube of sparkling glass. Dangling from the tube are layers of glittering crystal daggers on half-moon hoops. From the interior bobeches hang a series of small blown-glass angels. Hanging from one of the crystals is a card that says:
MONICA VITTI’S CHANDELIER. INQUIRE WITHIN.

“May I help you?” asks a petite white-haired woman wearing a brown apron.

“I’m interested in this chandelier. How much?”

“Four hundred pounds, dear.”

“Can you do better?”

“Don’t want to. It’s her chandelier, you know.”

“Monica Vitti, the movie star?”

“Yes. I can show you.” The lady disappears briefly and returns with a
Look
magazine from April 1966. She opens to a spread about Monica Vitti’s apartment in Rome. There she is, the classic blond Italian movie actress, standing in a white silk caftan, photographed through the glittering crystal angels of this enormous chandelier. “I also have a letter from the broker I bought it from in Rome. Here.” She produces a letter from a file box and hands it to me. “It’s included with the purchase, of course.”

“I’ll take it. Can you ship it?”

“Yes, sir. You pay over there. Give them this slip to validate. It takes a few months to ship by boat. Don’t fret, nothing will be broken. I wrap each piece by hand, then we box it in a wooden crate the size of your house. I do it all myself so I know it will make the trip in perfect condition.”

I drop off the slip to be validated, they hand me a packet of information, I pay the cashier with traveler’s checks and thank her.

I check the paper Eydie gave me and see that I am to report directly to Anderson’s office on the second floor. I take the staircase to the second level, which is filled with purveyors of antique china and glassware. The fluorescent lights overhead illuminate the rows of glass, which sparkle like gems in an endless velvet case.

Outside Anderson’s office, I introduce myself to the receptionist. She motions me into what looks like a junk-filled attic—hardly what you’d expect for the office of the manager. Anderson sits at a desk buried behind stacks of books, bent lamp shades, random chair legs, ripped cushions, bolts of water-stained damask, broken picture frames, a wagon wheel, and a Chesterfield lounger that is propped, half cocked, against a file cabinet overflowing with yellowed paper.

“Mr. di Crespi! It’s a pleasure.” Asher Anderson rises from his creaky seat and extends his hand. It’s rubbery and cold to the touch, like a grandfather’s. He is very tall, very thin, and very old. His white hair is combed neatly to the side, and his blue eyes are clear and intelligent. Asher’s thin white mustache makes him look of another era entirely, a sort of beleaguered Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. He wears baggy brown wool slacks and a lumpy gold hand-knit wool sweater.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, sir.” I look for a place to sit. There is none.

“Now now, don’t get comfortable,” Asher says. “We’re off straightaway. Eydie asked me to take you to the Geffrye.”

“You used to work there.”

“Correct. And then I needed to make some money to send my parents to the seashore in the summer, and that’s how I ended up here.”

“Are they still alive?” Once I say it aloud, I don’t like the way it sounds.

“No, no. My God, they would be centenarians. No, now I work here to send
myself
to the seashore.” He laughs. “My wife is already there. Follow me, please.”

So far my trip has been like a crazy carnival ride, offbeat operator included. I’m surprised when we climb into his car, which itself looks antique. Its interior makes his office look organized. I sit on a pile of newspapers in the passenger seat. The backseat is filled with books and papers and what appears to be either a cracked ceramic basin or a large spaghetti bowl, depending upon where you’re from. Asher jams the key into the ignition and stomps on the gas like he’s killing a beetle; we lurch into the traffic of Kings Road. Certain I’m going through the windshield any minute, I grab the seat between my knees like I’m on a teeter-totter.