The Supreme Macaroni Company (12 page)

“It’s a good rule to always go with the art.”

“It’s your work,” Gabriel said. My wedding shoe, drawn with a light pencil, then painted with watercolor, highlighted in shimmering gold and pools of powder blue, in fact looked like that slipper Cinderella lost, if in fact Cinderella had been Italian.

“You’re really good, Val.”

“I have help.”

“No, I mean it. You’re a really good designer, and I think Gianluca gets it. He gets
you
. And believe me, as I wander the world like it’s a giant desert and I’m looking for an oasis, I want you to understand how rare that is.”

“Don’t you think I know? I learn everything the hard way. When I dated the chef, I learned how to chop onions so I could help him prep in the kitchen. Then I got smart. Marry the man who helps you in
your
shop. I’m marrying my tanner.”

“Now that I’m a pattern cutter, I’m going to be on the lookout for a scissor manufacturer. ”

“Now you’re talking.” I lifted the shoe off the table and checked the heel. “I saw Roman.”

“When?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because when I mention the man’s name, he appears.”

“How’d he look?”

“Good.”

“Did you get a tingle?”

“I’d be dead if I didn’t.”

“That’s good. Wow.”

“I lied to him.”

“You didn’t tell him you were engaged.”

“No, I said Gianluca was young. Like Roman.”

“Why did you do that?”

“You’re my best friend. You tell me.”

“It’s ridiculous.”

“I know!”

“Gianluca looks amazing.”

“I know! What’s my problem?”

“Did you volunteer the lie?”

“No, he asked me how old he was.”

“That Roman is like one of those metal detectors at the beach. He always finds the needle and then he sticks you with it.”

“I didn’t tell Gianluca I saw him.”

“I wish you would’ve. There would have been a duel on the grass at Pier 44.”

“No. Roman wouldn’t have shown up.”

“And that’s why you’re marrying Gianluca. He will always show up. You can count on him.”

O
n the morning of my wedding, I stood on the roof in my parka, long johns, and boots and watched the sun rise. I should have been wrapped in a tinfoil cape, like a marathon runner after the race. In six weeks, we had achieved the impossible. We had planned an Italian American wedding. Every person that was still alive in my family was coming, from as close as Queens Boulevard and as far away as Argentina. They received engraved invitations. And yes, there was an angel embossed on the linen paper.

It wasn’t just my wedding, it was a family reunion.

One of the best parts of getting married at my age was that anticipation of the actual event was insignificant. My sisters had long engagements in their twenties, and they needed them. They had to save up for all the things I already have, a place to live and the stuff that fills that place.

I had other issues on my mind. I wasn’t worried about getting an Electrolux vacuum cleaner or a fondue pot for my new apartment. It was the marriage afterward that I was looking forward to. I would finally be alone with my husband, away from the lists, Post-its, tiffs, arguments, brawls about flowers, passed hors d’oeuvres, and veils. “Eye on the prize,” I chanted to myself like it was May Day and I was going for the world record for reciting Hail Marys.

“Come inside, Valentina,” Gianluca said from the roof door.

“Honey, what are you doing here?” I didn’t “have my face on” (my mother’s term), but I didn’t care. Gianluca pushed the door open. I ran to him and put my arms around his neck.

“Your mother has been up for an hour already with the makeup artist.”

“It takes a good forty minutes to draw on her eyebrows. She overplucked the left one in the sixties and has to fake symmetry.”

“Women and their eyebrows. I don’t know a man in the world that notices them.”

“So you fled Forest Hills?”

“There was no room for me at your mother’s house. There were so many hot rollers plugged in, I was afraid to recharge my electric razor for fear the Long Island transformer would blow.”

“You stayed in my old room, didn’t you?”

“I gave it to Orsola and Matteo. Your mother put me in the spare room.”

“No! You were in the twin bed? How could she? Nobody sleeps in that bed. It’s for show. When we were little, Cousin Gootch slept there. He was a bed wetter. Table fifteen. We sat him with Dad’s surgical team from LIJ. No worries. Gootch got over it, and Mom put a Mylar sheet on the old mattress.”

“It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t fit on the mattress, so I stretched out on the floor.”

“I’m so sorry. Where did she put Roberta?”

“Roberta got the den.”

“With the bathroom.”

“Your mother thought that was important.”

“Look.” I pointed to the winter sky in the east. Gray clouds floated overhead like chiffon.

“The sunrise.” He smiled. “The light can barely make it over the buildings.”

“My grandfather told me that if you make it a point to get up and see the sun rise every day, you will eventually know the secret of life.”

“And what is that?”

“That no matter what happens, the sun always comes up in the morning.”

“How did you sleep, Valentina?”

“I had crazy dreams. I was an old lady. And you were an old man.”

“Too late for that. I wish I was younger, so we could see the world in the same way.”

“Well, get over it. You are looking at the end of my youth. I’m warning you, I’m going to let myself go, get cranky, and wear sweatpants. And if I look anything like I did in the dream, I don’t want any mirrors in the house.”

“You will always be beautiful to me.”

“Will you say that to me every morning for the rest of my life?”

“Of course.”

“You know that today will be a circus,” I promised him.

“A circus with a bakery. I just walked through your living room. Every surface was covered with a cookie tray.”

“Twenty-five cookie trays strong. My cousins are bringing them to Leonard’s this morning. I was able to buck a few traditions, but not that one. Thirty-one different kinds of cookies. This is some kind of world record, I’m not kidding.”

“We have traditions too, you know.”

“Really. The native Italians. Who knew? I thought you only had vendettas,
malocchio
, and cigarettes.”

“Among other things.”

Gianluca reached into his coat pocket and gave me a blue velvet box.

“In Italy, every groom gives his bride a gift to wear on their wedding day.”

I opened the box, stamped
La Perla Cultivada, Capri
. A stunning necklace, a string of glistening pearls separated by delicate shards of red coral, was nestled on a bed of cobalt blue velvet.

“This necklace belonged to my mother. When she was a girl, she spent her summers on Capri. The jeweler, Costanzo Fiore, made this for her from the coral in the caves of the Blue Grotto. His father, Pasquale, mined this coral himself. It was Mama’s favorite piece of jewelry.”

I lifted the necklace out of the box. The light caught the shimmer of the pearls.

“When I was a boy I was fascinated with these colors. I thought the coral looked like flames and the pearls like stars. When she died, my father gave it to me and I put it in a drawer. When I missed her, I’d open the box and look at it, remembering how beautiful she was when she wore it. Somehow, those thoughts made me feel less alone. And I remember when I was sent to Capri to check on you—”

“I was horrible to you! I’m still sorry about that.”

“You had good reason. Your boyfriend hadn’t shown up. You were by yourself, and I couldn’t understand how any man could leave you alone in Italy. I couldn’t understand how anything could be more important than you. We went to dinner, and I fell in love with you that night.”

“I’m so glad I put on my best dress that evening.”

“You could have worn a dishrag, I didn’t care. I want you to have something of my mother’s and also something to remind you of the memories we share. When I think of you, I imagine you high in the hills of Anacapri. I see you swimming in the Blue Grotto. And on the day I die, that’s the image of you that I will take with me.”

I closed my eyes and buried my face in Gianluca’s neck. I remembered the grotto, and how we swam there. He seemed so serious. I was certain I was annoying him with questions about the Grotto. He seemed put off by my questions as I nagged him. It was like being a girl again, when a boy who liked me was mean to get my attention. Gianluca was trying to get my attention all right, but I didn’t see it.

When we swam through the warm blue water to the walls of the cave, he showed me the veins of coral clinging to the rock wall, glistening ruby red against the deep blue water. I had never seen anything so beautiful, the exact point where earth and water meet, where one holds the other and an eternal connection is made.

Sometimes before I fall asleep, I imagine the way the water felt against my skin and the way the smooth, glassy coral felt against my fingers. How could he know what I dreamed about when I had never told him? That was the knowingness of a man who truly loved me. I didn’t have to tell him because he already knew.

“I’m going to leave you to get dressed, Signora Vechiarelli.”

I lifted my face from his neck. “Gianluca? I meant to discuss the name change.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Well, I’m in my thirties, and I’m a Roncalli. Everyone in the business knows me as a Roncalli.”

“So?”

“I’d like to keep my name.”

Gianluca’s face fell. His expression was a combination of hurt with a confusion chaser. “I’d like you to take my name.”

I thought quickly. “How about I keep Roncalli in business and use Vechiarelli at home?”

“I know who you are at home.”

Gabriel pushed through the screen door. When he observed this private moment between Gianluca and me, he pivoted to go back inside.

“Gabriel?” Gianluca called out when he heard the door creak.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt. But we’ve got a looming disaster with the cookie trays. They sent your geriatric cousins from Ohio to transport them to Leonard’s. One of them is on a walker. Does the name Mary Conti ring a bell? She couldn’t carry a single baba au rhum down a flight of stairs without breaking her neck, let alone a tray of them.”

“I’ll be right down,” I told him.

“No, no. I’ll get the cookie trays where they need to go. I’ll see you in church.” Gianluca kissed me.

I’d marked every important moment of my life on this roof. I’d made every major decision, and all the small ones, right here. Air and sky and space, a luxury in this city, were mine anytime I wanted to climb the rickety old stairs and claim them.

In all those years, I never had the same view twice. The sky has turned every shade of blue from the deepest sapphire to the palest aqua. I’ve learned how to predict oncoming snow, and been able to pinpoint the exact moment rain would stop before crossing the Jersey side into lower Manhattan.

The mood of the Hudson River shifts constantly with the drift of the cloud cover, the rising and setting of the sun, and the wind as it propels the waves as they ripple toward the sea. Sometimes the surf is choppy. Foamy whitecaps rise and lap against the shore like ruffles of lace. Other times, the water is as still and smooth as the surface of lapis. But on this morning, something new. The sun peeked over the buildings behind me and my river turned gold in the light.

The waterway was empty, barely a ripple rolling out in the distance toward Staten Island and out to sea. It was just me and my old friend, dressed up for my wedding day. The Hudson River was still and bright and clear, as if I could walk on it. It looked like a road, a simple gold path to somewhere.

“O
kay, I love the necklace, but now the belt doesn’t work,” Gabriel said as I stood on the stool in front of the three-way mirror. “Couldn’t he have given you amethysts?” Gabriel loosened the lavender ribbon belt from around my waist.

“There aren’t any amethysts in the Blue Grotto.”

“All right, all right. Let me think.” Gabriel went to the notions closet and opened the door wide. He pulled several wheels of ribbons out. He brought them to me. He held them up against the lace. “Green, ick. White, you look like Helen Hayes in
The White
Nurse
. Good movie. Lousy palette. Pink, no. Coral? Too on the nose.”

“How about no belt?”

“You have to be cinched.”

I studied the gown in the mirror. “I guess.”

“No guess. You have to drape and shape. I want you to look like a woman in that dress, not the box it came in.”

Gabriel stood next to me in his tuxedo and squinted at the image of me in the mirror. My hair was half up and half down. The loose side ponytail was very Claudia Cardinale. The curls looked like ribbons.

The gown was so simple, exactly what I’d hoped for. The delicate lace had a texture like frosted glass. The coral and pearl necklace hugged the neckline as though it were part of the dress.

“When in doubt, go with Chanel.”

“I don’t own any Chanel.”

“You don’t have to. We’re knocking her off.”

Gabriel went to the notions cabinet and unfurled a wide, black grosgrain ribbon from a spool. He dug around in the embellishment bin until he found an antique pearl shoe clip. He tied the ribbon around my waist, anchoring it in the back with the shoe clip.

“Now we got pearls coming and going.” He stood back. “What do you think?”

I squinted at the mirror. Then I lifted the hem of my gown, revealing my wedding shoes. “It works with the shoes. With the Lucite, it’s kind of deco.”

“We knew it all along.” Gabriel shook his head. “Black and white. Cecil Beaton knew what he was doing. Whatever possessed you to go with the lavender belt?”

“It was the first one I reached for—and you know how I feel about original impulses.”

“I know. You live by them. But not today. This is the ticket, sister. Now
you
are the pop of color, not the belt.”