Turning the Tables: From Housewife to Inmate and Back Again (7 page)

I wanted the best for my honeymoon, so we stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Kapalua in Maui and at the Grand Hyatt in Kauai. I was told these were the hotels to go to. They were. Our room at the Ritz was stunning. It overlooked the ocean and lush greenery everywhere. I didn’t want to leave.

The Ritz was so elegant. The pool overlooking the ocean was one of the biggest I had ever seen. One of the best parts of the trip was when we went to Mount Haleakalā to see the huge volcano there at two in the morning so we could be there for the sunrise. It was cold up there but well worth the wait. The sunrise was one of the most spectacular I had ever seen. We rode bikes down the mountain, but I got scared because we were going so fast, so I ended up taking a bus the rest of the way down, which made Joe laugh. After we spent a week in Maui, we headed to the Grand Hyatt in Kauai for a week. They had a fun bar scene there with music, which we loved. We had a blast at that bar . . . (The Hyatt there still sends us a Christmas card every year, which is incredible since we were there sixteen years ago.)

We went swimming under waterfalls and lagoons at the hotel (and fooled around there, too . . .). We rented this yellow convertible Dodge Prowler, such a cool car, and had fun driving through Kauai, visiting the breathtaking waterfalls and forests. We indulged in many romantic candlelight dinners and went to a couple luaus, where the hula girls danced for us. We tried dancing like them, which was hysterical. You should have seen Joe shaking his hips!

Despite all the fun we were having and how euphoric I felt being away with Joe, I got a little homesick when we first got there. I mean, I lived at home until I was twenty-seven, so I missed my parents so much. I started to cry at one point, but tried not to, because I didn’t want Joe to get upset. But he understood. When we sat on the bed in our room and I broke down, Joe put his arm around me and said, “Let’s call them.” I felt better about everything after I heard their voices. They were so happy we were having such a good time.

It was great to finally be married. I loved being a newlywed and being with Joe all the time. When we got back home, it was fun living together and getting to know each other even better. I would make him scrumptious dinners. We would give each other massages when we were in bed at night. He continued to take me to amazing restaurants and buy me beautiful gifts. He got me whatever I wanted. He never said no . . .

I went straight from living at my parents’ house to living at Joe’s house, which was a new thing for me. Life without that curfew was so much fun! We would stay out late going to dinner and clubs or drive down to Atlantic City for the weekend or go on lots of vacations together. It was such a relief not having to worry about getting home on time because I was married.

Even though I grew up with two people who made the most incredible food on the planet, I had never actually cooked much myself before I got married because my mom did most of the cooking, especially when I was working. But I would always help her cook on the weekends and on the days I had off. She taught me so much. Joe’s mom is an incredible cook, and I wanted to show her that her son would be eating well with me, too. I loved making meals for Joe, but once in a while when I wasn’t sure about something I was whipping up, I would call my mom and ask her what to do, and she would talk me through it. I loved doing that with my mom. I would make Joe the most delicious roasted chicken, potatoes, and vegetables in the oven, just like my dad would make for us on Wednesday nights, or veal with peppers, eggplant, and mushrooms, which is one of my favorite dishes. After a while, I started making up my own recipes, and that’s when my love of cooking really took off.

W
hen we first got married, I moved into Joe’s second-floor apartment in the three-family house he owned in Paterson. When I moved in, there was no mistaking that a guy lived there. This was, after all, his former bachelor pad. He had black leather couches in the living room, gray lacquer furniture in his bedroom, speakers everywhere with surround sound, and a Jacuzzi tub. His apartment also had a small office, a galley kitchen, and a deck where I spent a lot of time. He had another small bedroom that I used as my closet because he didn’t have room in his bedroom for all of my clothes. He couldn’t believe how much stuff I had!

I didn’t mind that the house looked like a man cave. I didn’t want to redecorate—and in turn, spend money on the apartment—because I knew we were going to move and that I would soon be decorating a whole house. I did change the drapes and some other small things, just to give it a bit of a feminine touch.

At this point, Joe was running his businesses and I was working, too. Right after college and before I married Joe, I worked at Nordstrom in Jersey’s Short Hills Mall, before I became an assistant buyer at Avenue in Rochelle Park. After that, I landed a great job at Macy’s Herald Square, the company’s flagship store in New York City, as an assistant buyer in the corporate offices, where we did the buying for all of their stores. I worked hard, and before I knew it, I got promoted to associate buyer. After a great run at Macy’s, I went to work for Nine West and later on at Calvin Klein, in their corporate offices, selling handbags to stores like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. (I think people forget—or just don’t know—that before I started doing
Real Housewives
, I enjoyed a successful career in the fashion business.)

F
rom the minute Joe and I got married, we wanted to have kids. I was twenty-seven when I got married and Joe was twenty-nine, so we said, “Whenever it happens, it happens.” Since we were so in love, we really wanted to have a baby together.

That May, just seven months after we got married, I missed my period. I thought,
There’s no way I could be pregnant already.
I drove to CVS and bought a pregnancy test, just in case. I remember how nervous I felt on the drive there and back. As soon as I got home, I took the test while Joe was at work. It came up positive! I thought maybe I did the test wrong, so I went to the store and bought another one, which also came up positive. I still didn’t believe I was pregnant. So I went back, yet again, to buy another test.

The test was positive—again. I thought,
Oh my God. I’m really pregnant . . .
I was nervous because I had never spent a lot of time around kids before. I didn’t have any little cousins or anything like that, and I never babysat for anyone because I was either working at my dad’s repair shop or at Shoe Town.

But I was so excited, too. I couldn’t wait to tell Joe. I knew he was going to be so happy! I waited to tell him because I wanted to give him the good news at his thirtieth birthday party. I had been planning a surprise party for him, but now it would be a double surprise. But that plan went out the window fast. I was just too excited. I had to tell him—on the day of the party he didn’t know about.

I like to make these important moments unforgettable, so I bought two pairs of booties—one pink and one light blue—and gift wrapped them. I filled our bedroom with pink and pale blue balloons. Since it was his birthday, I handed him the two gifts. I was sitting next to him on the couch in the living room. He opened the first package and looked at the pink booties, but didn’t say anything. Then he opened the other package and saw the blue booties. He looked at me like, “What?”

“Now do you know what your gift is?” I said, beaming.

He leaned in toward me and took my hands in his, asking me if we were really going to have a baby. When I said yes, he leaned me back on the couch and started kissing me.

“But there’s more!” I told him. I led him into the bedroom, where he saw all the balloons. I told him I wanted to go to the deck and let them all go, so we could send them to heaven and ask God for a healthy baby. Joe and I stood together on our deck and watched the balloons float into the sky. I felt so euphoric because I knew that my life was going to change forever. I just knew we were ready for this baby. It was such a beautiful moment, one that I will always treasure.

O
nce Gia was born in 2001 (she was absolutely perfect and I fell in love the minute I saw her!), both my mom and Joe’s mom warned me about the
malocchio
—the evil eye (pronounced
maloik
). They had talked about it all the time, but now that I had her, they were afraid someone could do it to her. When I was a teenager, I used to get the worst headaches. My mom took me to see this old lady she knew to find out if the headaches were caused by the
malocchio
. I watched as she put drops of olive oil in a bowl of water. If the drops got big, that meant someone had given you the
malocchio
and she would say prayers to break it. It worked. My headaches went away. I remember the lady would yawn from saying the prayers, which meant the
malocchio
was gone. The bigger and longer the yawn, the worse the
malocchio
was. The lady yawned for a long time, which meant mine was very bad.

My family took the
malocchio
seriously. When I was growing up, my mom and dad told me that it could actually kill you. To protect myself from people I felt were giving me the
malocchio
, my mother would always tell me to make the sign of the horn with my hand: You put up your index finger and pinky while holding your middle and ring fingers with your thumb. I did that when those girls in high school were jealous of me and my crush. Some of them had no idea what I was doing and thought I was weird. That’s why Italians always wear horns around their necks—to ward off someone who looks at them with envy. (Joe wore one when he started doing really well in business later on. It didn’t seem to work, though, given what happened to us. Now he wears a huge horn around his neck that his mother got him in Italy and was blessed by priests.)

My mother-in-law told me that sometimes people can give you the
malocchio
without even meaning to do it. So I always had Gia wear a fourteen-karat-gold pin with the Italian horn on her little outfits, just in case.

B
efore I had Gia, I had planned on going back to work. But I couldn’t bear the thought of being away from her for more than twelve hours a day. I just couldn’t leave her. Joe’s businesses were doing well, so I was lucky enough to be able to stay home and take care of her full-time.

We were still living in Joe’s apartment when we had Gia. We turned the second bedroom I used as my closet into her nursery, so we were pretty cramped in there. We needed to move into a house. When we were dating, we’d bought a piece of property around the corner from where we lived, so we could build on it. But in 2000, a friend of Joe’s showed him a fantastic property in Montville, which is where we live now. As soon as we saw it, we fell in love with it. Even though it already had a 5,500-square-foot house on it, we were going to expand it and make it into our dream house. The yard was huge—and so private.

Since we knew we were going to remodel, we started out with only the furniture from Joe’s apartment so we wouldn’t waste money. It took years—and a lot of hard work, time, and sacrifice—to get the house to look the way it does now. I was happy we moved to a house because our little family expanded quite a bit after Gabriella was born in 2004, followed by Milania sixteen months later in 2006, and then Audriana, in 2009.

We lived in the Montville house for a few years, then moved out for a few years while Joe and some of his construction crew added on to it and changed the roof. We were still finishing our house when I started
Real Housewives
. The one I had to say goodbye to the night I left for prison. That house is the heart and soul of the family. Joe helped build it with his own two hands. My girls grew up there. We celebrated birthdays and holidays under that roof. It’s where I sang my babies to sleep and snuggled with my husband. Saying goodbye to the home I had known for so many years tore my heart into a million pieces, just like saying goodbye to my husband and daughters did.

I
have made a point of teaching all my daughters to be strong, independent, and hardworking. My parents, in-laws, Joe, and I have always worked hard, and the girls truly see that. My daughters constantly help me do laundry, wash the floors, and clean the bathrooms. They all clean their rooms and put their own laundry away, except for little Audriana, of course.

My oldest daughter, Gia, is an amazing, intelligent, grounded, beautiful girl. She is a gifted student and wants to be a criminal defense lawyer when she grows up because she has seen what Joe and I have been through and wants to help people like us—and moms like me, with kids who need them.

In the days after I left, Joe told me how Gia tried to be so stoic about everything and carry on like normal, but comforted her sisters when they broke down crying because I had gone away. When Audriana was sobbing the day after I left, saying how much she wanted me there with her, Gia took her in her arms, hugged her, and told her everything was going to be OK. “Mommy is fine and we will talk to her later today or tomorrow.” She had Audriana sit with her on the couch while she read her a story to take her mind off of me being gone, even though Gia was trying to cope with my leaving, too.

She helped me so much while I was at Danbury. I would tell her what I needed her to do around the house or for the girls and she always got it done, even when she had been at school all day and at varsity cheerleading practice until 9 p.m. She is a strong young woman and is such a great role model for her sisters. She has such a bright future ahead of her. All my daughters do.

Gabriella is my quiet, sensitive one. She is a bit shy around new people at first, and didn’t like the cameras when they were around in the earlier years of
Housewives
, so I never forced her to be on the show. She did start to come out of her shell a little bit and had fun on Season 6.

Gabriella likes everything to be perfect, like her mommy does. She’s so neat that sometimes she will sleep on top of her bed, with just a blanket over her, so that it always stays made.