Rococo (5 page)

“You can’t say no.” Aurelia smiles. “I’m sending you to the capital of romance. My goodness, if sparks don’t fly there, then we really do have a problem.”

Capri raises her glass. I raise mine to tap it, then do the same to her mother’s. We sip. I look around the table, and for a fleeting moment I feel like the three of us are a little family, which causes me to choke on my wine.

“Are you all right?” Capri asks.

How do I tell her that my throat snapped shut at the thought of entrapment, cutting off my oxygen like the door of a safe? “I’m fine,” I lie. I can’t believe I have to dream up a way to break off an engagement with a girl I never asked to marry in the first place! There isn’t a bachelor in the world who isn’t walking around with his eyes to the sky, waiting for the big net to drop on him—like the ones the police use to trap mad grizzly bears wandering loose in suburbia. Things have gotten out of hand. Sometimes the borders of this lovely town can close in like prison walls. I fish in my jacket pocket for my cigarettes. I allow myself one a week. Usually I wait for the espresso after dessert, but something tells me to have one right now.

“Let me tell you kids a little story. It’s got it all, tension, romance, and a denouement that John Ford could not invent,” Aurelia says.

Cripes,
I’m thinking,
if the wind-up is any indication, this story is going to last longer than a John Ford epic.

“I’d like to share it with you,” she continues. “It’s a love story. The only one I know. Mine. I was in college at St. Elizabeth’s in Convent Station, as a literature and composition major, where I contemplated life as a teacher.”

“You’d have been excellent, Ma. You’re
good
with rules.” Capri stabs her iceberg lettuce.

“Thank you. What is life without discipline? We’d all be fat, drunk and—”

“Happy?” Capri smiles.

“Don’t interrupt, dear. Anyhow, I met this handsome young man in a navy blue suit with a red tie at the Latin Quarter in New York City.”

“There was a rumba contest.” Capri helps the story along patiently.

“Right.
Heavens,
could he dance. And this fellow was so funny, sparks flew, and we agreed to see each other again. After a year of meeting at Schrafft’s on Fifty-sixth Street for lunch during the week, and at the Sailor’s Lake Pavillion on the weekends, he asked me to marry him.”

“You couldn’t have done better than Sy Mandelbaum,” I tell her.

“I know that. But our families were horrified that a Roman Catholic girl and a Jewish boy would fall in love and want to get married. But it was 1929 and no one was paying attention to anything once the stock market crashed. We had our window of opportunity. It wasn’t easy, though. I had to go to Florida to find a priest. I found a Capuchin monk half in the bag who agreed to do the ceremony, since I couldn’t get my parish priest to perform a wedding with a rabbi. The rabbi wasn’t too thrilled either, but he was a cousin of Sy’s and owed him a favor. We did it, though. We found a way. Look at the obstacles I had in my road to happiness. And here you are, with more in common than any couple I know, with more going for you than any two people I’ve ever met, and look—no wedding.”

Poor Aurelia. Doesn’t she know her Depression-era love affair is full of moth holes and sounds like a ghastly black-and-white B movie? This is 1970 on the East Coast of the United States in the Age of Aquarius in the Land of Free Love, where we let it all hang out. No one cares about marriage the way they used to. It is hardly the building block of civilized society that it once was. No, the Celebration of Self is the new cornerstone of culture. But this lady is not going to give up. I tap my cigarette on the ledge of the lead-crystal ashtray.

“Everything in its time,” I say pleasantly. But I don’t think Aurelia has any idea how much time I’m talking about.

CHAPTER TWO

A Tudor in Tumult

Besides the Villa di Crespi, the place where I feel most at home is the church of Our Lady of Fatima, a glorious Gothic structure that sits on top of the hill above town. Every Saturday afternoon I can be found here, dressing the altar with linens and flowers for the weekend services. My church was built in 1899 with monies raised by the first wave of Italian immigrants, shepherded by the Diocese of Trenton, which has always been known for its ambitious building projects and deep pockets.

The church, with an exterior of marble (imported from Italy) and sandstone (strictly local), has always been a mecca to me. When I was a boy waiting for Mama to pick me up from school, I would stand across the street and study the details of the façade, thrilled by the gargoyles nestled in the spires and mesmerized by the rose window, which seemed to spin in the light like a bejeweled wheel.

Whenever I enter its cool, dark interior, I feel an overwhelming sense of peace; it has always been this way for me. More than a few people in my family thought that I would become a priest, since I served nearly every Mass as an altar boy and never missed a holy day of obligation. What boy misses basketball practice to make a novena? Since 1962, I’ve been the only male voice in the choir. I have also been volunteer chair of the Altar and Flower Committee for nineteen years. I believe in giving back.

While the bachelor aspect of the priesthood was appealing, the poverty requirement seemed impossible. I love my suits and china too much to give them up. Also, my mother threatened to kill herself if I became a priest, and when you’re the only son and a change-of-life baby, you try to add to your mother’s longevity, not cut it short. I abided by her wishes, and she lived to be eighty-five and died in her sleep. I attribute this to my having done my best to make her happy. Sacrifice never hurt anybody—certainly not me.

As I push open the heavy brass door, I am met with the buttery perfume of beeswax candles, sweet smoke, and Lemon Pledge—an elixir that brings me back to the 1940s, pagan babies, and velvet knee pants (mine) with one whiff. I straighten the church bulletins on the entry table. When I notice they are last week’s, I take the stack with me. I enter the nave, then dip my fingers into the cold, clear holy-water font, blessing myself and then kissing my hand, remembering my parents, grandparents, favorite aunts and uncles, all dead.

The clerestory windows fill the pews with afternoon light that turns to streams of pale blue around the altar. I become calm in God’s house, and it has always been this way for me. The place is filled with soft light and sweet silence, much as I imagine heaven to be.

Behind the choir loft, the rose window makes a runner of pink light down the aisle that disappears at the gold-leafed Communion railing. Stained-glass windows, depicting scenes of miracles performed by saints, line the church walls like giant playing cards. Some of the windows are propped open at the bottom, leaving the occasional saint without feet.

A fresco behind the main altar, painted by local amateur Michael Menecola during the 1920s, peels with age. It depicts the miracle at Fatima, where three village children in rural Portugal were said to have seen Mary, the Mother of God. The mural dramatizes the precise moment on May 13, 1917, when the Blessed Virgin appeared to little Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta in the sky over a field where they were tending sheep.

I know many boys who fell in love with the face and form of this rendition of the Blessed Mother, hovering overhead like an angelic movie star. There were plenty of girls who tried to model themselves after her. The Holy Mother’s clear, creamy golden skin and wet blue eyes look up to heaven in complete supplication. There is something almost dreamy about her. My mother told me that the Blessed Lady’s pencil-thin eyebrows had all the girls in OLOF plucking to match them. The girls would light a wooden match, blow out the flame, and, with the charred end of the stick, draw thin arches over their own brows. Instant glamour.

I walk down the aisle and genuflect before the altar, then make my way to the sacristy, the small room where the priest and servers dress. I check the vestments first.

The priest’s white cassock with billowing sleeves and fat hems hangs next to the smaller versions, surplice robes for the altar boys. On separate pegs, braided white satin belts hang in a row like nooses. When I was a boy, I made three knots in my belt in honor of the Holy Trinity. I remember another altar boy, Vinnie de Franco, a real cut-up, who used to make two knots in his belt, one for Martin and the other for Lewis.

The OLOF sodality does a good job with the spiritual laundry; the heavy cotton vestments are bleached to a bright white and pressed to a crisp. The smell of starch fills the tiny room like a vapor. Hanging to the side of the vestment closet, in a dress bag, are the altar cloths. Attached to the bag is a scrawled note from Nellie Fanelli, laundress to the church. It says: “
B: the purificator is in the baggie. N.
”

I reach into the bottom of the dress bag, and there, just as she promised, is the pressed purificator, the official
moppeen
of the Mass celebration. The priest uses this starched dish towel to buff the chalice clean at the end of Communion. I take it out and place it on the credence table next to the cruets (for water and wine) and paten, a gold disc with a polished wooden handle held under the chin of the communicant by the altar boy to catch any fragments of the holy wafer that might drop during distribution.

I return to the sacristy and take the rest of the linens to the altar, where I kneel, then rise and carefully dress the marble slab with the snow-white cloth. It takes a touch of maneuvering, just as it does when you set a formal dinner table at home. I return to the sacristy and take a second cloth off the hanger, the smaller one known as the corporal, which is like a place mat on the altar for the chalice and paten.

I move the squat candles on their flat brass holders from the credence table to the altar. One candle has burned down haphazardly, probably from a draft, so I trim it with my pocketknife so it matches its mate. I walk around to the front of the altar to check the hems and placement. There is a large spray of pink gladioli and waxy green leaves behind the altar. I trim off a few dead leaves and arrange the flowers. Much better.

“Bartolomeo?” Father Porporino’s gravelly voice says from the doorway.

“Yes, Father?” My voice squeaks. I was raised to be in awe of priests, and therefore was always scared of them. After all, they held the keys to my salvation. The last thing I wanted them to do was drop those keys down a sewer hole, so I always did my best to be perfect in their eyes. Still do.

“Father, I noticed the church bulletins are old.” I hand him the stack from last week. Father Porp looks like a slim Mario Lanza with his full head of wavy gray hair and nice teeth.

“I haven’t put the new ones out yet.”

“Is there a problem? Marie Cascario said we need a new mimeograph machine.”

“Marie needs to learn how to operate the thing. I’ll put them out later.”

I smooth the hem of the altar cloth. “Father, I was having dinner at Aurelia Mandelbaum’s, and she told me about the renovation of the church.”

“And?” He looks at me.

“Well, I’d like to come and talk to you about it sometime.” Father does not respond, just looks at me, so I fill up the silence with babble. “You see, I have a lot of ideas, and I’ve already spoken to some of the members of the parish council. I could make this holy place dazzle.” I think I see Father raise an eyebrow, but it’s hard to tell in the slowly vanishing light. “I could come by next week, if that’s all right. If that’s not good, you can call me and we’ll set up another time.” Father Porp looks down the main aisle as though he’s searching for something. I feel the creeping warmth of humiliation overtake me. I do what I always do when someone makes me feel uncomfortable. I chirp. “Well, see you at Mass, Father.” I close my hand around the wax shards and rotten leaf stems I’ve collected and genuflect a final time. Father goes back into the sacristy. I shiver.

A beam of bright white light fills the foyer as Zetta Montagna pushes the brass door open. She wears a chapel veil studded with jet beads, even though head coverings for women went out with Vatican II. Once the chapel veils came off, the guitar Masses came in. No more Latin, no more fish on Fridays, and bareheaded women are no longer an affront to God.

Zetta’s slim frame casts a long pencil-like shadow down the aisle. She is probably the most important person in our church besides Father Porp. Zetta is president of the sodality, the women’s group that maintains the church, plans all the receptions, and sponsors the annual Cadillac Dinner, the fund-raiser for the Fatima elementary and middle schools. She is also the widowed mother of nine children, all of them grown, two of them doctors, and one, alas, a drug addict somewhere out west. Her beloved husband keeled over of a heart attack at the age of thirty-four, leaving her to raise all those children on her own. She is a woman who does not wear the tragedy of her life in any way; she always looks fresh and stylish. She might be sixty but looks fifteen years younger. She genuflects at the Communion rail.

“Hello, B. The altar looks lovely.”

“Thank you.”

“Who did the glads?”

“Fleurs of Fatima.” I make a face.

“Awful,” she agrees.

“I know. I trimmed them up. But you can’t really balance glads and waxy leaves and wind up with a decent arrangement.”

“Were the vestments all right?”

“Perfect.”

“I worry. Nellie’s eyesight is going.”

“Well, she can still handle a hot iron,” I reassure her. “Zetta, I hope you don’t think this is bold of me . . .”

“What is it, B?”

“Father is going through with the renovation of the church, and I wondered if you could put a good word in for me.”

“To do the design?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I will.”

“I’d appreciate it,” I tell her.

“You’re a devoted parishioner. I can’t imagine a better choice for the job,” she says.

With Aurelia Mandelbaum and Zetta Montagna on my side, I’m certain I can overcome Father Porp’s unexpected silence on the subject.

Zetta walks over to the alcove next to the side altar and kneels before the statue of Saint Michael. What a saint he was, with his silver doublet and sword hoisted high in the air, his big feet planted firmly on the ground, and his mighty thighs lunging forward to defend the faith. Michael is our Superman, while Saint Theresa of the Little Flower, who hovers on a stand close by in her chocolate-brown nun’s habit holding a spray of pink roses, is our Lois Lane. Pray to Saint Michael to save you from harm, and to Saint Theresa for what you want. They have never failed me in either department.

As Zetta makes the sign of the cross and kneels at the statue’s feet, I remember that her husband’s name was Michael. I feel the tip of my nose heat up, but I take a deep breath, swallowing the tears.

Whenever I see people humble themselves in prayer, I feel something deep within me stir, a sort of charismatic empathy that makes me want to sit down next to them and cry. You can imagine what a minefield of emotion Sunday Mass is for me, with all the kneeling and genuflecting. Perhaps it’s best that I became an interior decorator instead of a priest. Who needs to call on Father Weepy when they have a problem? I want my religious leaders strong and at the ready. My temperament is better suited to making art than saving souls.

My first cousin Christina Menecola (related by marriage to Michael Menecola, who painted the church’s fresco of the dreamy Virgin Mary) is my favorite relative, which is no small feat, as there are hundreds of di Crespis, not to mention the Crespys, who are related but, after some medieval falling-out, dropped the “di” and later replaced the “i” with a “y
,”
probably because it Americanized them, giving them a leg up in business or when applying to fancy country clubs.

Christina and I have always been close. I was nearly five years old and allowed to be present at the hospital when she was born prematurely. (Not because I was ready to be around childbirth, but because Toot had a date and couldn’t be bothered to babysit me, and Daddy had pressing business out of town.) I was ultimately glad for the experience because it gave me my first window into the power of prayer. I remember my mother on her knees in front of the incubator praying for Christina to survive. I also remember the nasty look the nurse shot at me when I asked if they could give the baby a blanket instead of a lightbulb for warmth.

Christina just turned thirty-five. I have a basket of childhood memories with her: collecting shells after the clambake at the Legion Hall, and taking them home, washing them up, and drawing lips on them to create a shell choir; rides on the Scrambler at Asbury Park, where we held hands (afterward, I would throw up and she would laugh); watching the fireworks at the St. Rocco picnic and being hustled back to the station wagon by my mother when the two of us accidentally discovered two teenagers having sex behind the security fence; swimming at the shore; and even starting up an imaginary business in her basement where we sold cement (her father was a bricklayer, so the materials were handy). We called ourselves the Mixmasters.