Rococo (20 page)

Happy to be released, Doris leads Lonnie to the food.

“Look,” Toot whispers.

At first I don’t recognize the woman, then I realize it’s my niece, Ondine. She is so puffy her face looks like a pancake with two chocolate chips for eyes. “What happened?” I ask Toot.

“Water weight. It’s gotta be a girl.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s stealing her beauty.”

I go to Ondine and give her a Christmas hug. “I’m enormous, B,” she whines. “Look at my hands. They look like catcher’s mitts.” She holds them up. They do. “I can’t wear my rings anymore, and Nicky has to shave my legs.”

“Oh, dear.” What is it about the women in my family? Have they no discernment?

Ondine continues, “It’s horrible. Nobody told me.”

“It will all be worth it when the baby gets here,” I say.

“That’s what everyone keeps saying. I hope they’re right. What if the little slugger has hooves like that kid in
Rosemary’s Baby
?”

“Now, now, only think nice thoughts. And remember, only see happy movies. The baby must be surrounded by pretty—even now. So, you go and have a meatball hero and relax. Where’s your husband?”

“They started a card game in the kitchen.”

I holler to my sister, who is showing off her boyfriend to the sodality ladies. “Toot, your sons are in my kitchen playing cards. Please go and remind them that the three wise men didn’t stop for a game of five-card stud before they visited the manger. I want their asses in here. Now. Thank you!”

“Oh, B!” Capri gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ve got so much to tell you.” She looks like an adorable elf in her green velvet pants and a red sweater with a wreath brooch.

“Where’s your mother?” I ask.

“She wasn’t feeling well because I moved out the last of my stuff today.”

“For crying out loud, you’ve been moving out since August.”

“I’m trying to ease Mom into it. But it’s not working. It’s always something. First it was her birthday. Then it was Dad’s tree ceremony at B’nai B’rith. Then it was the anniversary of Daddy’s death. Then she got a kidney stone. I thought my luck was changing when she passed it, but then she got slight anemia, and now they’ve come for the final boxes. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Come with me. I want you to meet some genuine New Yorkers.”

Eydie, Rufus, and Pedro have formed a little club with Christina, who seems to be giving them the lowdown on all things OLOF. “Say hello to Capri Mandelbaum,” I say.

“What a beautiful name,” Pedro says, rising to shake Capri’s hand. He drinks her in like cousin Marlene did my Christmas tree.

“It’s after the island. My parents went there on their honeymoon, and here I am. Something happened in the Blue Grotto, and it wasn’t a night swim.” Capri holds on to Pedro’s hand a little too tightly, then moves on to Rufus, then Eydie.

“May I get you a drink?” Pedro asks Capri.

“I’ll go with you.” Capri smiles. I haven’t seen this smile on Capri since she climbed aboard Eddie Pinetti’s speedboat in the Gulf of Genoa.

“Do you know where the bar is?” I hear Pedro ask her.

“I know my way around the villa,” she tells him. He puts his hand on Capri’s back and follows her through the crowd.

“This is quite a party.” Father Porporino greets me and hands me a Mass card.

“Glad you could make it.” I am warm with Father, but I still feel a slight distrust. I don’t ever want him to think he can push me around. “The artisans I hope to work with on the renovation are here. I’d like you to meet them.”

“Of course, I’d be happy to.”

“B, you’ve outdone yourself!” Zetta Montagna says as she joins us. She wears a white blouse and a plaid skirt, made festive with Christmas-tree earrings and a matching pin.

“Father?” One of the Broadway dancers charges up. “I’m Mark Aquilino.”

“He’s in
Hello, Dolly!,
Father,” I explain.

“I’ve seen it twice!” Father beams, which I’ve never seen him do. “I’m sick it’s closing.”

“So are we,” Mark tells him. “But that’s showbiz. The boys and I were hoping you could do that Saint Blaise blessing on us—you know, the one for singers, where you crisscross the candles under our throats?”

“Now?” Father Porporino asks.

“We don’t want to be a bother, but we live and die by our pipes, so any extra something you could throw our way to keep us on the boards would be great. Sam is Jewish, but he’s willing to go for it too.”

“I’ll be happy to bless you,” Father says. “All of you.”

Mark turns around and throws his arms high in the air. “Windshield wipers up!” The other dancers follow suit.

I am temporarily mortified, but Father Porp seems to take no offense. In fact, who knew Father Porp liked American musicals? I took him for an Agatha Christie fan. “Padre’s gonna send up a flare to Saint Blaise!” Mark declares. “I think that calls for a song.”

They sing “Hello, Dolly!” a cappella. My living room and dining room are filled wall to wall with family and friends riveted by the performance. As the boys hold the final note, Toot’s voice sails over the crowd, “Cripes, Sal. If there’s a problem, fix it. I gotta lotta life left in me yet! Get yourself to the doctor.” There is an awkward silence until I shout, “How about something Christmasy!” The boys launch into an upbeat “Jingle Bells,” and I hope it helps everyone forget that Sal Concarni has a little problem down south.

A few guests remain in the living room, chatting around the fire. The last of the relatives have left, and with them, the last of the cookies. My family never leaves a crumb of dessert behind. This includes the chocolate Kisses that decorate the cookie trays. They each take a napkin and stuff it full of fig bars, almond biscotti, brownies dusted with powdered sugar, and coconut balls for snacking on the ride home or for dunking in
gabbagule
(espresso and hot milk in a bowl) for breakfast. Every family party concludes this way. You never get a good-bye hug, only a kiss on the cheek, because the guests are juggling their booty of sweets. My mother used to take leftover cake too, which required stealing a plate. When she died, we found a full set of mismatched dessert plates in her server. Instead of photographs in a scrapbook, my mother remembered people through the china she stole from them. Every once in a while she would hold up a plate: “Look, Zia Ola’s Pfaltzgraff!”

I take the enormous ceramic conch full of melted ice where the shrimp cocktail was (all that’s left are the rosettes carved out of lemon peels) into the kitchen. Toot has on rubber gloves and is washing dishes. “Don’t do that,” I tell her. “I’ll take care of it in the morning.”

“You don’t want to wake up to party dishes. I’m almost done.”

“Where’s Sal?”

“I made him drive Aunt Edith and Marlene home. Marlene made a fool out of herself with the show people.”

“What did she do?”

“Lifted her skirt and showed them her legs. She told them the story of Uncle Noog pulling her off the bus to New York City when she was seventeen and going in to audition for the Rockettes.”

“No.”

“Oh, yes, she even told them how he locked her in her room and called the priest. And how no one thought it strange when the priest didn’t come out of her room for twelve hours. They were riveted.” Toot snaps off the Playtex gloves. “I’m going home.”

“Isn’t Sal coming to get you?”

“I told him to go on home after he did shuttle duty. I drove myself over anyhow.”

“But what about . . .”

“Some holiday nooky? I know, look at me in a strapless. What a waste. Well, he was tired. So there’s no sense going back to my place and hearing him snore all night long. It dawned on me when I was helping him read the dosage on his blood-pressure medication that I may have to find somebody younger. This is too hard.”

“I’m sorry, Toot.”

“When’s it gonna be about me? When?”

“In the new year. We hope.”

Toot gives me a kiss on the cheek, anchors her fur shrug over her shoulders with a yank, and goes out the back door. I turn on the porch lights and follow her out until she’s safely in her car.

Rufus and Pedro have pulled two of my dining room chairs over to the loveseat in the living room where Capri and Christina sit. They laugh under a hazy cloud of cigarette smoke that hangs over them like a canopy. I blow out the candelabra on the dining table (two tapers are missing—Father Porp must’ve blessed the dancers’ throats after all) and join them.

“I’m starving,” I announce. “I never eat at my own parties. Anyone for pancakes at the Tic-Tock?”

My favorite thing about my Festa di Crespi is when it’s over. I seize a moment to breathe and reflect on the fun. As I watch Capri and Christina dig into their pancakes, it dawns on me that I have never seen Capri so happy or Christina so animated since Charlie died. Boy oh boy, nothing like a couple of swinging bachelors from the big city to get the local girls’ blood pumping. Can it be that I’m the man they tell their troubles to, so I never see them at their flirtatious best?

“Where’s Amalia?” I ask Christina.

“She went home with cousin Cathy. Her kids love when Amalia stays over. My daughter would give anything to live in New York.”

“Wouldn’t we all?” I say wistfully.

“There’s nothing wrong with your spread,” Rufus says.

“B was smart,” Christina says. “He bought that house when no one was living over by water. And now look.”

“No, don’t get me wrong, I love my house. But I do feel a little tug of regret when I see Eydie get into her town car and head back to Manhattan for a bar crawl and all-night dancing.”

“I’d move into the city, but it would kill my mother.” Capri lights a cigarette, then passes the pack around.

“Then you shouldn’t do it,” Pedro says solemnly.

“The stress of upsetting her always outweighed my desire for personal freedom. But not anymore. I have to move on. At least to West Long Branch. Right, B?”

“One stick of furniture at a time. By 1980 you should be moved out completely.”

“I met your priest,” Rufus says, smiling.

“What did you think?”

“He’s a cleric.” Rufus shrugs.

“What the hell does
that
mean?” The way I ask this question makes everyone laugh.

“It means he toes the company line. He asked what my role was in the renovation. And I told him I just met you and I hadn’t seen the church yet. He looked at me and said, ‘Don’t touch the choir loft.’ ”

“You see what I have to deal with? Small minds!” I throw my hands in the air.

“I was hoping I’d get to see the church. If you tell us where it is, Pedro and I can swing by and see the exterior tonight.”

“I have a key. Let’s go.”

I feel like a high school kid again as I sneak Rufus, Christina, and Capri through the side door of Our Lady of Fatima and lock it behind us.

I turn on the lights. Rufus begins to look around. Pedro walks up the side aisle and genuflects before going behind the altar to look at the fresco. I forgot that Mexico is 90 percent Catholic. The girls and I join him. “What do you think?” I ask Pedro.

“It’s very nice,” he says quietly.

“There’s a lot of potential here,” Rufus says from behind us. “I like the height, the arcades, and the rib vaulting. Very nice.”

“How about the mural?” I point.

“It was painted by my great-uncle by marriage, Michael Menecola,” Christina tells Rufus.

“He painted all the signs in the town. And he painted company logos on trucks and things.” I don’t want to give Rufus the impression that we think Michael Menecola was Michelangelo. He was a painter who could copy from other pictures, not a true artist. Rufus touches the wall. Pedro joins him.

“It doesn’t tell the whole story,” Pedro says, flicking a bit of the paint with his fingernail. “The story of Fatima is so much more than this.” He points to the Blessed Mother floating overhead and the three children looking up at her.

“But what happened, exactly? I remember the kids had visions.” Rufus looks at Pedro.

“Well, Fatima was actually a Muslim princess who lived in Portugal when it was occupied by her people. She died young, but after she converted to Catholicism.”

“I didn’t know that,” I say. “Twelve years of nuns browbeating me with useless information, and I never learned that. Go on.”

“In 1917, during the First World War, three little children, Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta, were tending sheep, and they saw what they called ‘the Angel of Peace’ in the sky. They returned to the field many times, and sometimes the angel would appear to them. Months later, they saw an apparition they called ‘the Lady of the Rosary.’ She gave them Communion. So the kids told everyone they knew about what they saw and what she had done. The word spread, and on the day the Lady promised to appear again, thousands of people gathered to see her.”

“And,” Christina continues, “that’s when the miracle of the sun happened. The people were praying, and then the sun turned black and seemed to spin out of the sky like a top. People were screaming, and then it started to pour rain. The field, according to reports, turned to mud, and they couldn’t move. Then suddenly the sun returned overhead, bright as ever, and she appeared again, the Lady of the Rosary. And the people were dry instantly, and the earth was dry. No one could believe it. And then she spoke to them.”

“This is giving me the creeps,” Capri says, tightening the belt of her coat. “Remember, folks, I’m half Jewish. We don’t do miracles.” Capri sits on Father’s chair. “If you’re gonna tell scary stories, I need a drink. Rumor has it there’s wine around here somewhere.”

“The Blessed Mother had three secrets,” Pedro continues.

“I’m warning you all,” Capri whines. “I’m getting chills.”

“What were they?” Rufus asks as he checks the supports to the vaulted ceiling.

“World War I would end, but if people didn’t repent, there would be a worse war on the way,” Christina says.

“Well, that certainly turned out to be true,” I say.

“And the second secret was that believers needed to pray to convert Russia away from communism. And then there’s a third secret that was supposed to be revealed in the last decade, but the Pope decided to wait until the year 2000.” Pedro quietly finishes the story.