Mafia Chic (17 page)

“We don’t carry it,” I said. “Fix them all the antipasto platters.”

We worked hard to feed them all, then Quinn said he’d close up alone. Tony drove me back to my apartment. He went into Di’s bedroom, and I tried to relax. I sat at the small desk in my room and composed recipes and stories. I remembered stories of hard times when the family first came to America, and stories of fabled gangsters who liked certain veal dishes. I was having fun when the phone rang. I assumed it was Quinn asking me something.

“Yeah?”

“Teddi? It’s Robert.”

“Oh, hi, Robert.”

“I just heard about the shooting. They’re trying to play it off like it was random violence or some giant coincidence, but come on. It was a hit. I’m surprised you weren’t swarmed by the media.”

“The Mafia isn’t the news it once was.” I eyed my answering machine, showing I had twenty-one messages. I guessed some of them were media. I groaned.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Can I come see you?”

“Not tonight, Robert. I am just laying low. It’s been an insane twenty-four hours.”

“All right. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Of course I will.”

“All right. Good night.”

“Good night, Robert.”

I waited, as I wrote stories down, to hear from Mark. But he never called. I told myself he was busy with cases. He was busy investigating the Corellis. He was busy arranging his transfer, but in my heart, I didn’t believe that. Maybe, after nearly seeing me shot, he realized our worlds were too far apart.

I sighed. It was time to stop mooning over him. Time to grow up and face a hefty dose of reality. He wasn’t my thunderbolt. He couldn’t be. If he was, we’d be together. Or perhaps, like Mariella and Mario, we’d just been driven apart by circumstances beyond our control.

Suddenly, I felt a surge to write the story of Mariella and Uncle Mario and include a recipe. I picked up the picture frame from among all the little silver frames of family. Mariella was wearing a suit and white gloves. Her long black hair blew around her face, and she was laughing. I would name their recipe Mariella’s Broken Heart Soup. It was a lemon-based soup my grandmother said Uncle Mario made when she went to visit them. The whole apartment smelled like lemon. It was Mariella’s favorite. Sour, not sweet.

“Hello?” Two days later, I held the phone against my still-sore shoulder as I chopped fresh basil in the kitchen of Teddi’s.

“Hello, famous flatmate.”

“Hello, Di.”

“Anna just rang me. You already have two publishing houses bidding over you, and you haven’t pulled together all the proposal yet.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Teddi’s will be very famous, and so will you.”

“Well, luckily it’s Quinn there in the front of the house sucking up to it all. And, naughty girl, you never came home last night.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

“Really?”

“From a realm of sexual pleasure others only dream of.”

“Really?” I asked, bemused.

“If George Michael was straight, and if he fucked me for hours with Wham! playing in the background, it could
not
do justice to what last night was. Unbelievable. I think your cousin has been struck mute.”

“Poor Tony. Doesn’t know what hit him.”

“Poor Tony indeed.” She laughed into the phone. “And you know…you never did rank the kiss from James Bond.”

“I told you—it can’t ever be.”

“Nonetheless. Ranking?” Di always ranked everything.

“First.”

“First?”

“Unfortunately, yes, because he’ll never call me again. I need to concentrate on the cookbook. On Teddi’s. Put it from my mind.”

“We’ll see.”

“What’s in that devious head of yours?”

“Nothing!” she sang into the phone brightly. “Must run.”

I hung up the phone and went up front to tell Quinn the good news about the cookbook.

“I’m telling you, Teddi,” Quinn said, “…we’re going to be on the map!”

“Quinn, you are irrepressible, you know that?”

“And you are always too practical. So between the dreamer and the pragmatist lies the perfect combination.”

“Maybe.”

“Hey, Teddi…can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“I didn’t say anything that night, but whatever happened between you and the FBI guy?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not the way it looked to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come here.” He took me by the hand and led me over to the wall. “You…looked like her—” he pointed to the copy of the picture of Mariella, the one from my room “—the night he came in here. The night you two had dinner together. Sometimes, Teddi, you should tell that ‘practical’ head of yours to shut up.”

I turned to face Quinn. “He hasn’t called since the night of the shooting. Whatever you saw that night, Quinn, the Marcello and Gallo baggage I drag around with me is just too much for Agent Petrocelli.”

“Nah. Not that guy.”

“Yes, that guy. And you know who
has
called me?”

“TV repairman.”

“Yes.”

“Come on, let’s have a sambuca and talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Quinn. Nothing at all.” I turned on my heel and went back to the kitchen—my territory. Luis looked at me with his one eye. “And what do you want?” I snapped.

“Nothing, Teddi. I know better than to fuck with an Italian when she’s angry. That’s how I lost my eye.”

“Oh,” I said meekly, and tried to chop my basil a little less angrily. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay. This place is crazy. Crazy,” he muttered.

“Luis,” I said softly. “I kind of have to agree with you there.”

Office Memorandum: United States Government

TO: David Cameron

FROM: Mark Petrocelli, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation

SUBJECT: Wiretap report, Anthony (Tony) Mancetti’s phone line

7:30 p.m.

Tony Mancetti: Diana?

Diana Kent: Yes, lovie?

Tony Mancetti: I got some not-so-good news. About Teddi.

Diana Kent: What? What? Tell me before I have a heart attack. Is she hurt? Does it have to do with those Corelli people?

Tony Mancetti: No. This has to do with a broken heart.

Diana Kent: What?

Tony Mancetti: You know, we’re not the kind of family that lets just anyone date our Teddi.

Diana Kent: Really? How shocking.

Tony Mancetti: Well…we did some checking.

Diana Kent: Who’s “we”?

Tony Mancetti: Now, don’t get mad.

Diana Kent: I won’t get mad.

Tony Mancetti: My father made some—let’s call them inquiries. Everyone was really upset after the shooting and everything. You know, being extra careful.

Diana Kent: And?

Tony Mancetti: That scumbag is using Teddi. He is planning on doing a show about the Marcello family. A huge two-hour special, and he was using her to get some access to us. Not only that—

Diana Kent: Robert? That bastard.

Tony Mancetti: I’m not done yet.

Diana Kent: There’s more?

Tony Mancetti: A lot more.

Diana Kent: Oh, God! I can’t stand it.

Tony Mancetti: He’s bangin’ some blonde. She does the show before Turner’s.

Diana Kent: Nancy Austin?

Tony Mancetti: Bingo, baby! That’s the one!

Diana Kent: I’ll kill him myself. Serve him his shriveled testicles for breakfast.

Tony Mancetti: No. We have better plans.

Diana Kent: Tony—

Tony Mancetti: Nothing illegal. At least not very.

Diana Kent: What, then?

Tony Mancetti: You just leave it to the family. In the meantime, when all is said and done, you help Teddi get over her broken heart.

Diana Kent: I know just the cure for that. But you won’t…kill Robert or anything?

Tony Mancetti: Never say things like that on the telephone, Diana. No. But we’ll teach him a Marcello family lesson he won’t soon forget.

D
iana came in for dinner every night through Saturday. Tony, too. Besides everyone being over-the-top concerned for me, the two of them seemed determined to spur me on to make the book the greatest Italian-American cookbook ever published. Anna Friedman, with the taming of Quinn, was actually effusive on the phone as she pulled the proposal together and continued to pitch the idea to her favorite editors. Teddi’s was busy, too. With Thanksgiving and Christmas literally around the corner, visitors flocked to Manhattan. Though we were crammed with regulars, out-of-towners laden with shopping bags seemed to find their way to our tables, too. Not to mention extra doses of Marcellos and Gallos. Pip would be pleased.

Quinn also seemed to settle down. Tatiana was glowing, and I guessed that could only mean he was with her for more than his usual one night. Chef Jeff’s dreads were coming in. Life was making sense.

Sort of.

Robert called me daily, genuinely excited for the upcoming football game. And twice I spotted Mark Petrocelli, once outside my apartment building, once in the deli Diana and I frequented. Each time he avoided making eye contact with me, and I tried to pretend he wasn’t there. He was a figment of my imagination. Robert was flesh and blood.

Sunday dinner was missing the contingent of men, except for some of my cousins—after all, Robert couldn’t take them all.

My mother was in a foul mood. “You need an Italian, Teddi.”

“
Now
she’s fussy,” I retorted. “
Now
she’s fussy. Any man in Manhattan with a pulse has been fine for all these years, but now that I have someone, you can’t stand to see me happy, can you?”

Her eyes welled.

“I’m sorry, Ma.”

“I’m gonna cry again.”

“Ma, I’m safe. Chris Corelli is on Riker’s Island.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re still off in Manhattan instead of here, where you belong.”

Putting aside our differences, we compared recipes. Seems not
one
of my aunts or my mother used the same ricotta-and-sauce proportion for making eggplant parmigiana. Italian cooking, cooking in general, was about improvisation. About taste.

“It’s like lovemaking,” Aunt Rose offered.

“Lovemaking!” my mother scoffed.

“It is. A little give, a little take, a little of this, a little of that, and then…magic.”

Di piped up, “A little magic. That’s what we all need.”

The Giants lost. A colossal loss that would surely have my uncles and father in a foul mood. This could only mean a visit to a strip club afterward to drown their sorrows in “tits and tonic,” as my mother calls it. I hoped Robert remembered my coaching.

Di came into my room, and we watched
Law & Order
reruns. Di was very bad about remembering past episodes, so even if she saw one before, she was always surprised at the verdict.

Sometime around midnight, we both must have fallen asleep in my bed. Around two o’clock in the morning, the phone rang. I bolted awake.

Di grabbed it first, fumbling in the half light of the television.

“Hullo?…what?…what?!…
What!
”

I slapped her. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, that’s rich!

“Right-o!

“And his name is?

“Right-o!”

I slapped her again and she slapped me back.

She motioned for a pen and then wrote down an address.

Of a police station.

In Jersey.

“Well…” Diana said when she hung up the phone. “That was Tony.”

“What?” I said, dread building in my gut.

“I’m afraid I’ve kept a secret from you. I took a vow of silence thingie. With Tony.”

“Oh, God. Am I ready to hear this?”

“Well, perhaps we should get a drink. Not champagne. A stiff one.”

She went to the living room, where we kept liquor in a cabinet, and returned with a bottle of vodka and two glasses. She poured us each a shot.

“I need this.” She tossed hers back.

“What is it, Di?”

“Okay, then…your Robert…was cheating on you. With Nancy Austin. That stupid bottled blonde on before Turner.”

I tossed back my vodka. “Oh, God. How do you know?”

“Well, there’s more. He was ready to do a show on the Marcellos, lovebug. And he was using you to get to them, I’m afraid.”

I suddenly lunged from the bed to the bathroom and hurled up the vodka. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What an idiot I am!” I slumped to the bathroom tile.

She came to the bathroom and bent over and stroked my hair. “Don’t feel badly. Sometimes I throw up shots, too.”

“Not that, Di…Robert. How could I have been so unbelievably fucking stupid?”

Then she whispered, “More bad news…strike three…he came on to me. That night he was here for supper. My dear, dear Teddi, he’s just an all-around lugubrious creep. I’m so very, very, sorry, pumpkin.”

I looked up at her. “Did everyone know but me?”

“No. Most of this is a very recent turn of events.”

“Does Quinn know?”

She nodded. “Tony told him.”

“It must be serious. Quinn didn’t even tease me tonight.” I felt tears on my face. I had been trying to talk myself into liking Robert, when he hadn’t deserved liking. I felt great racking sobs coming up from my gut where the vodka had been.

Di, like the wonderful best friend she has always been,
just let me bawl. She rubbed my back and occasionally passed me reams of Charmin to blow my nose.

Suddenly, I pulled myself up from the floor. “Oh, my God…Jersey police. What has my family done to him? I hate him, I hate him, but please tell me he is not in little pieces in the Meadowlands. Or fed into a meat grinder. He’s not worth it. He’s so not worth it.”

“Uh, no. That was Tony. His one phone call. The family attorney—”

“Griselli?”

“Yes. He certainly does earn his keep, doesn’t he? He is bailing out all of your relatives for public drunkenness and hijacking a limousine. Tony says that may be dismissed.”

“And Robert?”

“Appears they let him think they were going to cut him into little pieces like you said, to rest with Jimmy Hoffman.”

“Hoffa.”

“Yes, him.”

“And?”

“And they left him naked, in the frigid Jersey cold, locked out of his limo. He has frostbite on his pinky toe and is swearing he is suing. The toe may even fall off.”

I looked at her, and despite my tears, we both started laughing. We laughed until we couldn’t stand anymore, then we slumped down on the floor of my bedroom, in the doorway to the bathroom.

Di looked at me. “You are so neat. Your bathroom floor is so clean you can eat off of it. Mine is a mess.”

“Yes, I know.”

“But you are a mess. You are not a pretty crier, Teddi.”

“Is anyone?”

“Well, ever notice in Hollywood movies when the ac
tresses cry, snot never dribbles down, their noses don’t get red. They don’t get splotchy.”

“Yes. But that’s not real life.”

The phone rang.

“One of my uncles, no doubt. I should hate them, but for once, I think they’re all wonderful. I can’t wait to kiss them all. I hope Robert froze his testicles off.” I lifted the phone.

“Teddi?”

“Yes?”

“Mark.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I know I should have called. I just had to do some thinking.”

“One minute.” I covered the phone. “It’s James Bond,” I whispered to Di.

“I believe this is my exit. Go get him, Octopussy.”

She left my bedroom, shutting the door behind her. But not without kissing the top of my head first. Boy, she was becoming a real Mafia girlfriend—her first arrest of her boyfriend since they’re together and she was almost happy about it.

“Hello, Mark.”

“Seen the news? Your entire family’s in lockup.”

“Hadn’t realized that would make the news.”

“Sort of a light piece.”

“They telephoned from the precinct.”

“Robert Wharton deserved it. Nothing will stick. Wanted you to know that. Nothing. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m really sorry about that Wharton, Teddi.”

“It’s all right,” I sniffled at sympathy from Mark. I exhaled,
regaining my composure. “I have to be honest. He wasn’t rocking my world, much as I was trying to talk myself into it.”

“You remember what we called it?”

“What?”

“You weren’t struck by the thunderbolt.”

“Oh, that. No…I guess I wasn’t…. So, Mark, sell any shoes today?”

“Today was a good day. Sold a few pairs. Made a few people happy. Also heard about one woman…got her toes pinched a bit. Felt badly about that.”

“She’ll recover.”

“I’m not going to stay away from you, you know.”

“What?”

“Can’t. Holding you on that sidewalk while bullets flew overhead? I never want to go through that again. I told myself I couldn’t take it. Pops Petrocelli once told me, ‘Mark, you only get hit by the thunderbolt once.’ You’re it. My thunderbolt. I’ll get my reassignment. Soon.”

“You’d do that?”

“I’d do that.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not. I’ve been waiting for my thunderbolt my whole life.”

“So what are you wearing, Agent Petrocelli?”

“I’m calling you from home. From bed. Nothing but my boxers.”

I smiled, thinking of him, perfect FBI haircut and all, lying in his bed in boxer shorts talking to me with that smirky, sly grin on his face that he always seemed to have around me.

“I’m a boxer gal myself.”

“And what are you wearing?”

“My clothes. Di and I fell asleep on my bed until we were rudely awakened by a jailhouse telephone call at two. Jail-house calls are kind of common in my family.”

“Really? I thought your parents were schoolteachers.”

“Protesters. Always arrested. You know. No nukes….” I stood and, balancing the phone, started taking off my clothes.

“What are you doing? I can hear you moving around.”

“Getting naked. What else would I be doing when talking to my thunderbolt?”

“You know that kiss?”

“Which one?”

“Not the end-of-your-nose Central Park one. The kiss.
The
kiss.”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty intense.”

“Yes. Pretty intense. Better than Bruce Springsteen.”

“You’ve kissed Bruce Springsteen?”

“No. It’s a silly game Di plays. She rates the kisses in her life with George Michael—of his Wham! days, not his Satanic-look goatee days—being the pinnacle.”

“Has she kissed George Michael?”

“No.”

“Isn’t he gay?”

“Yes, but it’s just imagination so sexuality doesn’t count. And Tony is her first kiss. First place. And you have displaced my mystical Springsteen kiss.”

“Springsteen, huh? I can handle that.”

“Can you, now?”

“Are you naked now?”

“Yes.”

He moaned. “You drive me wild, Teddi. When you came
out of the kitchen all hot and tired, I knew it. I mean…you were so real. So absolutely real.”

“So can a woman with Mafia chic and an FBI agent find true happiness?”

“Can I come over and try to show you they can?”

“I’ll be waiting.”

It was almost dawn before he got to my apartment. The city was starting to rise. Diana was blow-drying and singing to Wham! And there was a knock on the door.

I opened it. He came in the door and kissed me, as strongly and passionately as the night at the restaurant. We kissed and made our way to the couch.

Diana came out to see us, dressed for work.

“I couldn’t have created a happier ending if I had engineered it all myself. If it isn’t James Bond and Octopussy. How are you?”

“Diana…” He smiled.

“Just because you’re making nice with my flatmate now doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about my pair of shoes, you know. One pair of Jimmy Choos. Jimmy bloody Choos!”

“And what about all the pairs you got from Vito?”

“Oh, God.” Her face went pale. “Are you going to handcuff me? I’ll return them.”

“Relax, Diana…. It seems the Marcellos are honest waste management executives. You can keep the shoes.”

“Good. We’ll call it even, then.”

I snuggled against Mark, aware of how delicious he smelled.

“You two make a cute couple.”

“Don’t know if my boss will think so, but…”

“Your boss?” I turned to him. “Wait until my family finds out.”

Diana just smiled. “I think they’ll think it’s grand. Simply grand! And like I said…just
think
of the meet-cute story you can tell your grandkids!”