The Supreme Macaroni Company (4 page)

Gianluca and I stood at the center of the back row, his arm around me. I placed my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, taking in the scent of his skin, fresh lemon and cedar, and imagining years of burying my face in his neck.

“Get a room, Val,” Gabriel said as he snapped away.

“Here,” Tess said, handing him her phone.

Soon Gabriel was juggling the phones, snapping the group shot for each of us. He handed the phones back as he finished. Finally, he snapped a final photo with Alfred’s camera. “That’s it! Francesco Scavullo is done. I need carbohydrates. We’re all done here.”

“I want you in a picture, Gabe.”

“I have a thousand pictures with you.”

“But you’re my best man.”

“I am? I’m too hungry to be excited.” Gabriel lifted his phone to the best angle, put his cheek against mine, and snapped. “Got it.”

“Everybody back to the table. We’ve got plenty of time to plan the wedding,” Jaclyn said. “But two more minutes on the stove and the linguini will be gruel.”

“Throw it out if it’s not al dente,” Aunt Feen ordered. I guessed she’d decided not to call Carmel after all.

“Nothing worsh than mushy homemades,” Charlie slurred. He was definitely drunk, and there was no way to sober him up with the overdone pasta. Maybe the clams would cut the insulin spike. Here’s hoping.

“Red or white sauce?” Tom asked.

“Both,” Tess replied. “Everybody gets to have what they like on Christmas.”

Mom and Gram grabbed Gianluca and herded him into the dining room. The remaining Israelites turned tail and returned to the far shore as though the Red Sea had never parted. So went the biblical Roncalli/Vechiarelli family epic on that night before Christmas. No loss of life, but no miracles, either.

I was about to join the family when I turned and saw my father standing alone by the twinkling tree, which was encrusted with more sequin crap ornaments than you could find in a January sale bin at the Dollar Store. He was checking his phone to make sure the photo was good enough. Satisfied, he turned off the phone and slipped it into his back pocket. He stood back and watched as the family took their places at the table. There was a small smile on his face, a look of near contentment. Dad is a man of peace, and for the time being, we had a sliver of it.

Dad buried his hands deep in the pockets of his winter-white Sansabelt trousers that he ordered from the ad in the back of the Sunday
Parade
magazine. A New Yorker through and through, in his black dress shirt and white Christmas tie he looked like the holiday version of a black-and-white cookie. The expression on his face was just as sweet. No matter what, as long as I was making my own choices, my father was happy for me. What more could I ask for?

2

T
he family was crammed around Tess and Charlie’s dining room table, extended to the max with three leaves, covered in white damask, and lit with tiny blue tea lights. Tess had hung Christmas ornaments from the chandelier. The glass angels shimmered over the holiday table as though it were an altar.

My sisters and I, as always, took the worst seats near the kitchen—we’d be up and down, serving the food and clearing the dishes between courses. The seat levels of the extra chairs around the table varied wildly from piano stool to lawn chair, making my family look like a row of mismatched tombstones. There’s an email chain amongst my sisters before every holiday about the possibility of renting a proper table and chairs from a party supply place, but we never do. Somehow, this weird mash-up of furniture is part of our holiday tradition just like Gram’s ricotta cake.

Gianluca was wedged between his father and Aunt Feen in the chairs that actually went with the Ethan Allen classic six suite of formal dining room furniture. In proper chairs, they loomed over the rest of us like a billboard. Tess had set the table using every piece of her wedding crystal, so for most of the meal, from my low-flow ottoman seat, I was looking at my family through goblets that distorted their features like an abstract landscape by Wassily Kandinsky.

“Are we on a clam diet around here?” Aunt Feen swished the noodles on her plate. “I can’t find any clams in this linguini.”

“That’s because they’re
shrimp
,” Tess said as she swirled the ladle at the bottom of the pasta bowl and dumped a school of shrimp swimming in butter sauce onto Aunt Feen’s plate.

“You didn’t toss. You have to toss, otherwise all the chunks sink to the bottom,” Feen said.

Tess shot me a look like she’d like to toss Aunt Feen out the window.

“We should call the cousins in Youngstown with the news,” Mom offered.

“Maybe the Pipinos are having a peaceful holiday and we should hold all calls,” Jaclyn offered.

“Good idea,” Dad said.

“How’s Cousin Don?” Gram asked.

“We’re planning a cruise to nowhere in the spring,” Dad said.

“Where are you going?” Alfred asked.

“Nowhere.” Dad laughed at his own joke, but no one else did. “Don is still working. I told him we need to take a few days off and have some fun. So he came up with the idea of a boat that goes from Miami and does a loop out in the ocean.”

“It’s a floating crap game.” Mom smoothed the linen napkin on her lap. “They go out on the ocean, drop anchor, play cards, and lose their shirts.”

“You only see water?” Aunt Feen asked.

“And the top of a green felt card table.” Dad sighed. “It’s bliss.”

“I’d kill myself,” Aunt Feen said.

“I hear cruises are very relaxing,” Pamela said, speaking up for the first time that evening. That third glass of wine really turned my sister-in-law into a conversationalist.

Pamela almost walked out on my brother when he had a brief affair last fall. Somehow she’d found a way to forgive him, and in so doing, forgave all of us for being lousy in-laws. Pamela had never forgotten that we’d given her the nickname Clickety-Click behind her back because of the sound she made when she walked in high heels.

My sisters and I went to a priest to discuss how we could better build trust with Pamela. The first thing he said was, “Stop calling her names behind her back
.
” The bulb blew in that lightbulb moment. We don’t always acknowledge the obvious. Since then, we’ve poured love all over her like an alfredo sauce, thick and heavy. My sisters and I leaned forward toward Pam with big smiles of support on our faces. We wanted her to know we were on her side.

“Maybe we’ll go on a cruise sometime,” Alfred said, placing his hand over his wife’s.

“Why would you waste a cruise on Pamela?” Aunt Feen barked. “That’s an
eating
vacation. Look at her. When was the last time you had a meal? She looks like a breadstick.”

My sisters, mother, grandmother, and I quickly blew a chorus of compliments Pamela’s way to compensate for Aunt Feen’s rudeness. Pamela flipped her long blond hair and plastered a smile on her face. Tess wasn’t the only one who would like to throw Aunt Feen out the window.

“No vacations for me until after the wedding. We have a lot of planning to do,” Mom said. “The last Roncalli to marry is an excuse to pull out all the stops.” She suddenly sounded out of breath, like she’d just finished the final meter of the New York City marathon. “We have to make this the best wedding ever.”

“No, we don’t. We need a priest and a cake,” I told her. “You know. Simple.”

“Simplicity is not my thing,” Mom said. Through the years she had announced a list of things that were not her “thing,” including household budgets, driving moccasins, black diamonds, and skinny margaritas.

“Whatever you decide, don’t invite your cousins Candy and Sandy to dance at the reception,” Pamela advised. “I cleared them to lead the Electric Slide, and instead they appeared in crop tops and did a belly dance.”

Perhaps had our cousins been better dancers, the number wouldn’t have come off as lewd. A table of nuns were so offended they put their dinner napkins over their eyes as though they were in a dust storm in a spaghetti western. That’s the last time we saw the Salesians at a family party.

“No worse than Cousins Sophia and Vivianna doing ballet en pointe at the rehearsal dinner,” Jaclyn remembered.

“At least that was tasteful,” Mom said. “Ballet is elegant.”

“Anything French is elegant,” Aunt Feen said as she chewed with her mouth open.

“There will be no entertainment at either the wedding reception or the rehearsal dinner. No standup routines or magic acts.” I laid down the law. “No spontaneous comedy, no Tricky Tray, and no door prizes.”

“You’re no fun. Sometimes the entertainment is good,” Jaclyn said, remembering Rose Lena Littlefield’s tap-dance routine at her own rehearsal dinner.

“If people want to be entertained, they can go on the TKTS line and see actual professionals in a Broadway show. My wedding is not going to be a circus.” I instantly felt guilty because Tess had had a circus theme at her wedding shower. “I like pups in skirts and a clown car, just not on this go-round.”

“L
ook at your fiancé,” Tess said as she peeked through the door to the dining room. “He’s flirting with Aunt Feen.”

“How touching,” I said as I washed the salad plates.

“I think Aunt Feen has dementia.”

“Then she’s had it since she was eight years old,” Gram said, dropping an empty manicotti tray on the counter. Tess followed her with the empty salad bowl.

“Is Charlie okay?” Gram asked.

“Luckily, he won’t remember any of this in the morning,” Tess said as she picked up a dish towel.

Gram gave me a hug and looked at my ring while Tess peered over my shoulder.

“What do you think?” Tess asked, squinting at the ring. “Two carats?”

“One and a half,” Jaclyn guessed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Gram said. “It’s beautiful.”

“He could have put a cigar band on my hand, and I would’ve been fine with it.”

“You say that until you realize that you have to wear that ring every day for the rest of your life. Why should you have a puny stone? You’re worth a decent center stone
and
the extra baguettes,” Tess said.

“Thanks. But you get what you get, and you don’t get upset.”

“You’re a bigger person than me.”

“Three and a half inches in flats,” I reminded her.

“Don’t rub it in.”

Gram picked up a tray of cookies and took them into the dining room. Jaclyn followed her out with the coffeepot.

Tess dried the salad plates. “Thanks for what you said about Charlie and his job.”

“He’s a good guy. It’s not the end of the world.”

“It sure feels like it.”

“Does Charlie know what he wants to do?”

“He said he’ll find something in sales.”

“He’s good at it.”

“We have a little saved. We’ll be all right. ADT already called him when they heard he was let go. I guess when the economy is bad, people buy alarms to protect what they already own.”

Gabriel burst into the kitchen, juggling a stack of dinner dishes that dipped to one side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Hands. I need hands!”

Tess helped Gabriel safely deliver the dishes onto the butcher-block island. “I work less at my job,” he said as he straightened the ruby red velvet vest under his black wool sport coat. He smoothed back his thick black hair. “Shall I slice the timbale?”

“Why not?” I handed him a big knife.

“You’re a guest. You shouldn’t be working the party,” Tess said.

“I’m happy to join you girls in scullery. The chitchat in there is getting on my nerves. Clickety-Click regaled me with a half-hour tutorial on face fillers. I told her the only face fillers Italians believe in are cannolis.”

“You don’t get to pick
where
you gain weight,” Tess said. “I put on ten pounds, and it all went to my rear end. It’s like somebody dropped a TV set down my pants.”

“It’ll come right off, Tess.” Gabriel forced a smile before turning away from my sister and rolling his eyes. “Diets are a discussion for another night. This is a night for cabernet and calories. Congratulations, Val.” Gabriel gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m happy for you.” Gabriel put his hand on his heart. “He’s gorgeous. You had to cross an ocean and a generation to find him, but it was worth it.”

“Thanks, bud. What’s a holiday without a backhanded compliment?”

“Sicilian DNA. Sorry.” Gabriel shrugged.

Jaclyn pushed the kitchen door open with her hip. She carried the empty artichoke fondue bowl. “Well, this was popular. If I didn’t know better, I would think that you’d already washed the bowl. Thank you, Nigella Lawson. Did I interrupt something?”

“We were just being happy for your sister.”

“He’s a good guy, Val,” Jaclyn agreed. “And tall.”

“So tall,” Tess agreed.

“I can’t believe that everyone likes him. I mean, are there no negatives whatsoever?”

“His age,” Tess said bluntly. “He’ll die before you.”

“Nice, Tess.” Gabriel glared at her.

“I’m just being realistic. Besides, she asked.”

“I’m not worried about death, I worry about when he’s eighty and you’re sixty. Dominic looks good in his early eighties, so I guess you’re all right,” Jaclyn said.

“Ladies, Gianluca is a knockout,” Gabriel said. “And let’s face it. Valentine is at that age where all that’s left is the scrap heap. You got the divorced ones with the little kids who need to do homework, or you got the weird singletons who never married, and the three gay guys that are still in the closet but marry a woman to create a bigger closet, but at forty, if they’re still single, they have problems. Gianluca is older, but he’s primo, so let’s take him. Twenty years is not that big an age difference.”

“Eighteen,” I corrected them.

“Over fifty, two years is like a day and a half.”

“Do I look a lot younger than he does?”

“No,” Tess and Gabriel and Jaclyn said in unison.

“Great.”

“You don’t look like you’re in your fifties. You look around forty,” Gabriel said.

“I’m thirty-five!” I reminded him.

“What does it matter? Everybody gets old,” Gabriel said as he checked his reflection in the microwave door. “And if you’re worried about your looks, forget it. Women end up two ways by the age of seventy. If you’re thin, you wind up looking like Granny Clampett from
The Beverly Hillbillies
, and if you’re heavyset, you end up like Aunt Bee on
Mayberry
.”

“Those are our choices?” Tess said with wonderment.

“You either get etched with the lines of wisdom, or you balloon as you careen toward death. Flinty or fat. Take your pick.”

“I don’t think age matters,” Jaclyn said. “Gianluca loves you, and that’s what’s important.”

Tess and Gabriel stared at her.

“Are you married?” Tess asked Jaclyn.

“Yes.”

“And you can actually say that and mean it?”

“Love is a . . . lot,” Jaclyn said defensively.

“Come on,” Tess said impatiently. “Love is one ingredient in a good marriage. By that, I mean it’s not the whole cake—it’s the eggs in the batter. It sort of holds everything else together. But you need the other ingredients. Without them, you’re out there without a life plan, goals, dreams, money. Money is as important as love. I love my husband, but right now I’m more worried about the money than I am soothed by the fact that he loves me.”

“But love sustains you through the hard times,” Jaclyn insisted.

“I’m going with Tess on this one. Love doesn’t fix anything. You don’t want to put on a teddy when he’s online filing for unemployment,” Gabriel reasoned. “Nothing takes the starch out of sex like a lack of self-confidence.”

“I’m not talking about sex, I’m talking about love.”

“Love as in forgiveness, mutual support, honoring his dreams. Right?” I asked Tess.

“Yeah. Those things. Once you have children, the marriage comes dead last. The kids and their needs are above Charlie’s and mine. Sure, we have a date night here and there, but it’s really about the family as a whole now.”

“Spoken like a woman who traded her subscription to
Fit & Trim
for
Fat & Sassless
,” Gabriel told her. “Your husband is going through a rough time. Now I’m not saying you haven’t been a peach through the whole thing, but he drank a lot of dessert wine tonight on his return trips to the bar at O’Fazzani’s. You should recognize the signs of a man in crisis.”

“I know he’s had a few drinks. But I’m not going to yell at him on Christmas Eve. So what he has a nip or two or a gallon? He’s entertaining my family, and frankly, had there been a second bottle, I would’ve been swigging it.”

“Are we that bad?” Jaclyn asked meekly.

“Yes!” Tess and I insisted.

“At least there are no police on your doorstep,” Gabriel said. “There was always a Christmas Eve bust at the Biondis. That was the night when the cops thought they’d catch my father and uncles unaware and break up their gambling ring for good. Bookies get sloppy during the holidays. They leave their bet sheets next to their children’s letters to Santa. I remember our
Buon Natale
s like it was yesterday. We’d flip on the tree lights, put out the
baccalà
, and ding-dong, the doorbell would ring. ‘We’re here to see Gus Biondi,’ the detective would say. We’d invite him in. My mother prepared for the bust in advance and had filled Tupperware with linguini in clam sauce. I rolled the paper Santa napkins with plastic forks and spoons for the to-go meal to be eaten in the police car. She always included a cookie tray for the cops down at the precinct. Sweet memories. My mother. May she rest in peace. What an angel.”