The Supreme Macaroni Company (5 page)

Mom poked her head in the kitchen and said, “Valentine, Daddy wants to make a toast.”

We threw down our moppeens and joined the family in the dining room. My dad stood at the head of the table holding a flute of champagne.

“I’d like to make a toast,” he said.

I tried to maneuver my way around the table to join Gianluca. He met me halfway, squeezing past the chairs filled with relatives.

“Gianluca, we’re happy to have you join our family. We’ve enjoyed getting to know Dom. He’s been nothing but an asset, and as the saying goes, figs from the same tree taste the same, so you’re probably as good a guy as your father.”

“He is,” Gram said.

“I’d like to say a few words about my daughter. When Valentine was born, she looked about forty-two.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I downed a swig of prosecco.

Dad continued, “She got her mother’s eyes and my bugle—that’s a nose by the way—but look how she grew into it. A beautiful smile, thank you Dr. Berger, and height—she’s almost taller than me.”

“I
am
taller than you, Dad.”

“Anyhow, she was different and she was special. We always told Valentine we named her after the saint, but that’s not true.” Dad reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He began to go through its contents, shuffling credit cards and paper business cards scribbled with his notes.

“Dear God, do the Roncallis run numbers on Christmas Eve too?” Gabriel asked. “I’m feeling nostalgic.”

“No, no.” Dad found a small square from a newspaper. “Your ma had a long labor with you. It took so long I read the paper cover to cover—and even the ads. Here’s where I found your name.

Valentine

An angel from heaven

I love you forever

Your husband Kevin

“I don’t know. It made me smile and then I laughed. It was a silly little poem but it meant something to me. And tonight I know why. I’ll be damned if it didn’t come true. You have made me smile and laugh all of your life. And now, another man will know that joy. Take care of my Valentine, Gianluca.” Dad raised his glass.

“Or he’ll make you replace his gutters in Forest Hills,” Tom said.

“Salute!”
As my family toasted us, I felt my past meet my future. I was drunk with happiness, but then again, it could have been the Asti Spumante.

Y
ou would think after the Feast of Seven Fishes, sweet timbale, cannolis, and cookies that we wouldn’t have any more room to stuff down one more bite. But our family wasn’t done eating until the overflowing nut bowls, nutcrackers, and silver picks had been placed on the dining room table. Somehow, there was always room for nuts.

“I’m going to have to cut off this dress with pinking shears,” my mother said. “I always say I’m not going to overindulge, but then I just can’t resist.” She daintily unwrapped another Baci kiss from the dessert tray before taking a bite.

Aunt Feen pulled a nut bowl toward her. She picked through until she’d found the walnuts, lined them up on the tablecloth in front of her, and commenced cracking them. “So you think this will be your only marriage?”

“My one and only,” I assured her.

“Uh-huh.” Aunt Feen cracked a Brazil nut. “Italian Stallion here is already on wife number two, so don’t count on it.”

“Aunt Feen!”

“Go on. Be indignant. Giancarlo, how many times you been married?”

“
Luca
,” Mom corrected her. “Gian
luca
.”

“This will be my second marriage.” Gianluca actually blushed.

“At your age, I guess we should count ourselves lucky that you only have one under your belt. But I never liked sloppy seconds, not for myself or my grandniece. You’re besmirched.”

“He is not!” Tess rushed to defend him and me.

“Tell it to the bishop. How you gonna get married in church with a divorce on your record?”

“I have an annulment. My ex-wife remarried in the church.”

“Oh, so you have connections. Cut a check for your freedom. That’s what it takes.
Soldi
. Let’s not forget the
soldi
. You pay mother church, and mother church sets you free. What a racket.”

“Aunt Feen, we’re not that kind of Catholic,” my father said.

“He is.” Feen snapped her nutcracker in Gianluca’s direction. “Wake up, Dutch.”

Before my father could respond, my fiancé spoke up. “I’m not perfect, Aunt Feen.”

“You got that right,
mammone
. You know what a
mammone
is? That’s a kid who lives with his parents when he’s old enough to be one himself.”

“It’s true. I was a
bamboccione
.” Gianluca took one of Feen’s walnuts and cracked it open.

“You understand that over here in America, you’re only forty and living at home if you’re feeble.”

“Aunt Feen!” My mother was horrified.

“In Italy, it’s different,” Gianluca explained. “It helped me to be with my father when I went through a terrible time. I was married for many years and lived with my father after the divorce. The only thing I know for sure about marriage is that what was right when I was twenty-one wasn’t so great at forty. Can you understand that?”

“The man I love was killed in the war, so I wouldn’t know. I never knew happiness after that. I was robbed, and the purse has remained empty ever since. I have a barren heart.”

“You had a second chance at happiness. You loved Tony when you married him,” Gram reminded her.

“I faked it because he had a nice car.”

“Could we change the subject? I actually liked Uncle Tony,” Mom said.

“You would.” Feen cracked a nut. “I liked his Bel Air town car. That wound up being his best feature.”

“At least you came up with one nice thing to say about him,” Mom said drily.

“It was hard. He was a real bargain, that one. The secret to happiness? Never marry an Italian. Never. Ever. If you can find any ambulatory gentleman on two legs who is not Italian and has never visited the Boot, marry him instead. But an Italian? Never.”

“Ridiculous,” Gram said.

“Never marry someone from the other side. That’s what Mama said.”

“Mama was wrong,” Gram said.

“Ignore our mother at your own peril.” Feen shrugged. “She told me to brush my teeth with salt and baking soda, and to this day, I have all my choppers.”

“You make it sound like my grandmother disapproved of all Italians. I think she was referring to opportunists from the other side . . . ,” Mom said carefully.

“Carpetbaggers,” Gabriel said.

Mom continued, “Opportunists who wanted to marry an American to come over for a better life. Sometimes there were men looking for a hardworking woman here, and so all Italian men from the other side got a bad reputation.”

“Whatever my mother said, she had her reasons.”

“Well, she wasn’t always right about this one. I married Dominic, and we are very happy.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Feen said.

“I don’t have to. It’s true.”

Feen turned sideways in her seat and flung her arm over the back of the chair. “Giancarlo, what the hell, I’ll call you Johnny. Johnny, you watch stories?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Soap operas.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I know you got bad scripts, cheap sets, and crap acting on those shows, but I’ve been watching them since 1962, and despite the schmaltz and corn, I’ve learned a lot from tuning in. One of the big lessons is family relations. Do you realize that when you marry Valentine, she will not only be your wife but your niece?”

“I didn’t think about it.” Gianluca blushed again.

“You wouldn’t. You’d have to be a soap fan to sketch a family tree. These are the kinds of things that occupy my mind. My mind is filled with scenarios.”

“Oh,
that’
s it,” Gabriel said, cracking a nut.

“Scenarios large and small.” Aunt Feen waved her hand over the table as though she was imagining them.

“Whose idea was it to serve the Irish coffee?” Tess asked accusingly.

“Sorry,” Tom McAdoo said. “Wanted to bring a little of my culture to the holiday.”

“Thanks,” Dad said. “Maybe next time you’ll bring a shillelagh and play a tune instead of getting Aunt Feen drunk.”

“A shillelagh is a walking stick,” Tom said softly. “It isn’t a musical instrument.”

“What do you want from me? I’m Italian. Both sides,” said Dad.

“Anyhow, what you learn from soap operas is that you have to be careful when you get married, because you could be marrying a relative.”

“Aunt Feen, please,” my mother implored her.

“And then you marry that relative, and the children—dear God, the children.”

“We have no blood ties, Aunt Feen,” I assured her.

“If this was
General Hospital
, and we’re pretty close since we got divorced people marrying in, somebody would marry their uncle accidentally and wind up in a mental institution, that’s all I’m saying.” Aunt Feen snapped her neck and looked at Gianluca intently.

“It’s just a story, Aunt Feen,” Tess said calmly. “Pure fiction. It’s important to accept a happy life when it’s presented to you. The only time you can go wrong is when you make a decision to please others and not yourself.”

“What? You over your Charlie?” Aunt Feen cackled.

“No, I love him more than I ever did. I’m saying that even though it’s a little odd that Gram’s stepson is marrying my sister, it’s wonderful that she has found a good man who loves her.”

“You mean to tell me out of all the billions of available men in the world, we had to find two in the same tannery?” Aunt Feen cracked a nut.

“What’s wrong with that?” Jaclyn asked.

“Path of least resistance.” Feen shrugged.

Gianluca and I looked at each other. We were being discussed as though we weren’t there.

“Or the only path,” Gram said as she stood in the kitchen door, holding a tray of linen napkins that she’d collected from the table. “Love has a funny way of showing up when you aren’t looking for it and didn’t plan on it. I think it’s wonderful.”

“You would. You always looked out for number one,” Feen said. “But I always admired that in you. You always did what you wanted to do.”

“And you could have.”

“That’s a matter of speculation.” Feen smiled.

“The only time people get in trouble,” Gabriel said, “is when they live their lives for someone else. It never works. You end up living a bitter life that’s not your own. And the very people you gave up everything for never acknowledge all you sacrificed for them.”

“That was a mouthful, but not the kind I was hoping for.” Aunt Feen frowned at her sister. “Are you going to serve that ricotta cake, or are we saving it?”

“How do you like it?” Gram asked.

“Shot of whipped cream.” Feen shrugged. “That should do it.”

3

T
here’s the famous Legoland, known for its plastics, and during the holidays, we Roncallis build our own version, Tupperware Land. After the table is cleared, the dishes are done, the silver is carefully placed into its chamois sleeves, and the piles of shells from the nuts are swept off the tablecloth, we disburse the leftovers in various plastic containers, which are handed out as guests, three to five pounds heavier than when they arrived, depart.

Our family never leaves a dinner party without providing a full takeout meal to reheat and serve the following day. For the ride home, you can count on our additional to-go snacks: a napkin shaped like a cone and filled with cookies, or a slab of cake in a sheet of tinfoil, or a paper sack filled with dinner rolls, just a little something to tide us over until the next food tsunami.

I went home with a tray of manicotti to freeze and a bag of biscotti for breakfast. Aunt Feen asked for cannoli, so she got a container of shells dipped in chocolate and nuts, with another snap lid bowl with the extra filling.

“Are you sure you don’t mind driving Aunt Feen home?” Tess asked, handing me a stack of containers, her bun askew, her lipstick worn off, and her kitchen apron splotched with gravy.

“I think she already said every mean thing she could think of.”

“I think you’re right,” Tess said.

I followed Gianluca and Aunt Feen down Candy Cane Lane. I looked back at my sister. “Go back inside. It’s freezing.”

Tess went back into the house and joined the remaining family members in the bay window. One of the hallmarks of our family life is that we gather at the door to greet you when you enter and also to say good-bye when it’s time to go.

My hands were full, so I nodded good-bye with a head bob as Gianluca navigated Aunt Feen into the front seat of his rental car. He reached around her and buckled her seat belt. For a moment, Feen looked like a kid at Coney Island getting strapped into the roller coaster. I climbed in behind the driver’s seat. Gianluca tapped the horn as we turned down the street.

The delicate scent of fried smelts lingered on our clothing and filled the car. Aunt Feen had been sitting in Tess’s house for hours. Her holiday sweater and wool skirt had picked up the scent of the seven fishes like a sponge.

“That was nice,” Aunt Feen said.

Gianluca shot me a look in the rearview.

“Another Christmas Eve for the history books,” I said.

“It’s important for families to share holidays,” Gianluca said.

“You think so? Then where’s your kid?” Aunt Feen asked. “Don’t you have a kid?”

“A daughter. Orsola. She’s grown up now. She’s in Florence with her husband’s family and my ex-wife and her new husband.”

“Cozy for a divorced bunch. Yours, mine, ours, and
them
,” Feen said. “We don’t believe in divorce.”

“I don’t either,” Gianluca said.

“But you’re divorced.”

“Sometimes we learn from our mistakes.”

“She dumped you?”

“In a way.” Gianluca smiled.

“Seriously. What happened?” Aunt Feen demanded.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Gianluca said.

It was fine with me that Gianluca avoided an autopsy on his first marriage with Aunt Feen, but I wanted to know what had happened. He had always been vague about his divorce, and when pressed, had said the distance that led to their split was about geography not emotions. She wanted to live in Florence, and he wanted to stay in Arezzo. But as much as I wanted to believe him, I wondered if that was the truth. I wondered what went wrong.

The GPS lady said, “Turn right onto Watchung Avenue.” Gianluca took the curve quickly.

“Whoa there, Mario Andretti.” Aunt Feen steadied herself by placing her hands on the dashboard. She chuckled. “I guess I hit a nerve. How do you say that in Italian?” The spaces between Aunt Feen’s dentures whistled as she exhaled.

“Che vecchia ottusa,”
Gianluca mumbled.

“I’m sure you did your best with what Fate, God, and your first wife handed you. No matter what you do, sometimes you can’t avoid failure. There’s no way to protect yourself. You can’t duck from the asteroid or hide from the bomb. Heartbreak will rain down on you as sure as you live and breathe free in the United States of America. Or Italy, Giancarlo.”

“Gian
luca
,” I corrected her softly.

Aunt Feen didn’t hear me. She kept talking. “Someday, and you will not know the day or the hour, heartache will return. It’s a bastard. It always comes back. It shows up unannounced like our cousins from Jersey.”

“Auntie, do you mind? I just got engaged, and I’d like to end the evening on a happy note.”

Feen was undeterred. “You can’t count on people. You fall in love, you take a shot, you hope for the best. But the truth is, you never
really
know what the other person is thinking. There is no wall between you and certain trauma. There is no way to stay safe. You try to dodge the bullet, but just like in the cartoons, it follows you around sharp corners and through doors until it lands like a bull’s-eye in your heart and kills your joy.”

“Continue onto Bloomfield Avenue,” the GPS lady said.

“I got a black cloud over me. And it has a stench. I stored the crèche from Italy in the basement—and it flooded. I put the family photo albums in the attic, and an electrical fire torched them. Everything ever given to me that was supposed to last forever hasn’t. Dollhouse, Christmas 1939: dry rot. Timex wristwatch, June 1950: stopped. Evidently I was given the only one in America that could
not
keep on ticking. I hid cash in books, and they went to the yard sale by accident. I had mammograms every year and missed the lump by one day. I fell in love for real on a Tuesday, and by the following Thursday he was shipped off to fight, and four months later he died in a blow-up raft in the Pacific Ocean. Can’t find him or his remains. Gone, baby.
Gone
.”

“But you bounced back,” I reminded her.

“Not really. It was all an act. I got no support. The things that were said to me in my darkest hours. ‘Take it on the chin, Feen,’ and ‘Don’t cry. Look at Nancy Lou down the street, who lost three sons and her daughter in the war. You lost one man. Buck up. You’re young. Love will come your way again, if it even was love.’ Oh yeah, cruel and stupid things were said, as if I didn’t know what I felt. ‘Stop crying,’ they said. ‘You’re wearing out your tear glands.’ Yeah, yeah, that’s the kind of sympathy I got in my hour of need. Those were the things said to me in my bleak nights of agony. So if you want to know about life, if you’re looking for the truth, you ask
me
. Remain unaware. Stay stupid. Pretend the worst isn’t happening even when it is. Don’t turn on the lights. It’s your own damn fault if you open that door and find the burglar with the kitchen knife.”

“Merge onto NJ Three E.”

“I have ADT, Aunt Feen.”

“There’s no burglar alarm that can keep you from being robbed of the important things. If you’re lucky, you get a dollop of happiness here and there, random moments of unintended joy that land in your lap like an old cat. It feels warm, but remember, it’s just a cat. You won’t be missing much when you’re my age and your brain is fried from dementia and Alzheimer’s.”

“You don’t have dementia or Alzheimer’s.”

“Not yet.”

“You appear to be very intelligent and alert,” Gianluca said.

“That’s because I exercise my mind. I play cards. Word search. Crossword puzzles. I’m a sudoku person.”

“Continue onto Lincoln Tunnel,” the GPS lady said.

Aunt Feen continued, “I try and stay alert so I can feel a tingle when something nice happens. I want to be ready to embrace those moments of bliss, those lucky breaks when the coat comes back from the cleaner and you reach inside the pocket and there’s Nonna’s ring you thought you lost. You can’t remember putting it there and you’re shocked that the bastards at the dry cleaners didn’t steal it, but you got it back so you can’t complain. You think to yourself, Oh, goody. But that’s not the norm. It’s an accident when a happy surprise rises up to meet you. When something you lost was found. When something you dreamed of comes true, and then just as quickly you lose him so you go ahead and marry another numb-nut anyway to ease the pain. You think it’s a balm on a burn, but it only aggravates the wound. Your great-uncle Tony was a horse’s ass and a poor substitute for the love of my life. There it is. The truth.”

“I’m so sorry,” I told her.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. When you get old and the Grim Reaper scratches your back, it feels good and you know it. Nothing but death will relieve you from the disappointments and endless purgatory of this life on earth. Whenever the Lord wants me, I’m ready to go.”

“Dear God.” I cracked the window, suddenly needing air.

Aunt Feen tried to turn around to face me, but the seat belt held her in place like a parachuter before he pulls the cord to jump. “Oh yeah, Val. The golden years are made of tin. Your body,
Madonne
! You just wait. Rashes, lumps, migraines, and varicosities. Hair grows in places it shouldn’t and falls out where you need it. Everything shifts, freezes up, and plummets. Last Tuesday my foot was pronated for three hours, and nothing I did would release it. I walked around on one heel for the good part of an afternoon. This morning I woke up on my side and found one of my breasts under my arm. You’ll see.”

“I hope not,” I told her.

“Your home takes a dive too: dust, peeling paint, termites, and mold. Who you are, you can’t remember, who you loved, all dead, where you live gets gamy and smells like canned corn. The world turns from fine silk to burlap overnight. You can’t see, you can’t hear, you remember sex but would rather kill yourself than attempt it because any jostling would snap your brittle skeleton in two like kindling. A moment of release for a lifetime in traction, no thank you. But it doesn’t matter anyway. What you once craved, you no longer desire. It’s all . . . all smoke.”

“You must believe in something beyond this life.” Gianluca looked over at Aunt Feen.

“Not really. Only death awaits me. I’ll wind up on the scrap heap like a broken toy. In the end, whatever remains of me and my contribution to this world will disintegrate in the valley of regret like the bones of a dead dingo. It will just be me, my immortal soul, and the memory of nothing. But I’m happy for your engagement. I’m going to give you money for the wedding, if that’s okay.”

“That’s wonderful, Aunt Feen, thank you, but you don’t have to give us anything.”

“You make a good point. What the hell do you need? He’s an old fox, and you’re almost middle aged. If you don’t have a nice set of dishes by now, you probably never will.”

“We have plenty of dishes. Mom is giving me the Lady Carlyle.”

“Those pink dishes? I hate pink.”

“I like them for the sentimental value,” I insisted.

“So, enjoy them. But you’ll still get cash from me. I can’t walk around Queens Plaza mall hunting for a food processor or candle holders without wanting to kill somebody.”

“I get it. No problem.”

“Giancarlo, I’m the next left,” Aunt Feen said.

This time neither Gian
luca
nor I bothered to correct her.

Gianluca helped Aunt Feen out of the car. The brown and white Tudor street-level apartments looked like a stack of Tootsie Rolls in the dark. I took Aunt Feen’s keys, went up the sidewalk, and unlocked her front door. I flipped on lights. The apartment was neat and clean.

Her Regency dining table was polished, and the plaid sofa’s chenille pillows were plumped. Her coffee table was neatly arranged with puzzle books, cards, and a carnival glass candy dish with a lid, the decor mainstays of every senior citizen in my family. She was right, her apartment smelled like canned corn, but the top note was Gold Bond foot powder. I would have to get her a basket of pungent potpourri or a candle or something for her birthday. That, or I’d bring in the Reiki healer Angela Stern and have her wave a bundle of burning sage around to smoke out the negativity. Come to think of it, she’d need to build a bonfire.

Gianluca guided Aunt Feen into the living room. She threw down her purse and gloves, and for the first time that night, she smiled. I understood. She liked to be home, where she controlled the thermostat, the remote, and the refills.

“I hope I wasn’t too rough tonight. I can be a little opinionated,” Feen said in a rare moment of self-examination. “You know I live alone and don’t have anybody to talk to day in and day out, so when I get an audience, I don’t modulate.”

Gianluca and I insisted that it was fine. We didn’t want her to feel worse. After all, it was Christmas Eve and she was alone.

“You know me,” Aunt Feen sighed. “I’m a negative Nellie. Every time I burp, I taste bitter.”

After saying good-bye, Gianluca returned to start the car so it would be warm for the trip home to Manhattan. I loaded Aunt Feen’s fridge with the leftovers, brought the box of Baci chocolates into the living room, refilled her candy dish, and handed her the remote control.

“Good night, Aunt Feen. Jaclyn will swing by and pick you up for Christmas dinner at my mom’s. Around three?”

“So early.”

“You want her to come and get you at four?”

“What time is dinner served?”

“Five.”

“We gonna nosh hors d’oeuvres for two hours? How much clams casino can I consume before it ruins my dinner? Besides, the filling repeats on me. The garlic.”

I gave up. I kissed Aunt Feen on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, Auntie.”

“Merry Christmas,” she said with a big smile. Aunt Feen was actually pretty when she smiled. She looked like the girl she was in 1946 when she had sausage roll curls and wore bright red lipstick.

As I turned to go, she grabbed my hand. “Congratulations, kid.”

I gave Aunt Feen a hug.

“Be careful on the road. A lot of loonies out there,” she said, breaking my embrace and pushing me away.

She closed the door behind me. I heard the dead bolt snap into place.

“She is impossible.” I slipped into the front seat next to Gianluca.