Unforgettable (24 page)

“Don’t worry about it,” Rett said. She shaded her eyes to survey the house. They’d painted over with the existing colors. It was a lovely two-story house — a soft ivory with brick-red trim and gardenias in the upper window boxes. “You had some competent help.”

“The boys did all right,” Mr. Martinetta allowed. “I was going to do it last month, had the paint all ready in the garage, but then we had that heat wave and the paint will crack when it’s that hot. I’m hardly done with my breakfast when I hear them out here clattering about. Went and borrowed ladders from the neighbors.” He was clearly pleased, and his sons had handled the matter with enough diplomacy to avoid bruising their father’s independence.

“Angel,” Mrs. Martinetta called. “Bring Rett in out of the sun.”

“Yes, Mama.” They stopped on the way for Angel to say to T.J. in a low voice, “This was great.”

“I didn’t want him up on a ladder, did you? Maybe you can get Mama to sit down for two minutes.”

“I’ll try,” Angel said. “But timpana”

“Timpano,” T.J. echoed.

The aroma of too many good things to identify assailed Rett’s senses. Tomatoes and garlic and onions — something bacony and a smell like fresh bread. The last remnants of cigarette and beer stench were vanquished.

“Rett, cara mia, welcome to our home.” Mrs. Martinetta’s hug was heartwarming. “Please come in and be one of the family.”

“These are for you.” Rett proffered a lavish bouquet of daylilies, iris and gladioli. 

“You shouldn’t have.” Mrs. Martinetta inhaled the heavy scent of the lilies. “These are one of my favorite flowers. How thoughtful.”

Angel’s sisters, Tia and Carmella, were tearing greens and chopping vegetables at the farm-style table in the kitchen. Rett accepted a glass of red wine from Angel, who then excused herself to change into something more comfortable than her crumpled suit.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You’re our guest. Just relax,” Mrs. Martinetta said. She was stirring a pot of something that smelled divine.

“You told me to be one of the family,” Rett reminded her.

Tia grinned. “Good one — but it’s no use. We had to beg for this job.”

“Mama let me grind the meat for the timpano,” Carmella added. “That was the limit of her tolerance for anyone else in her kitchen.”

“Nana, where do these go?” If Rett remembered right, the teenager with Angel’s eyes and nose was Carmella’s oldest daughter, another Angelica, but everybody called her Angie. She had a handful of relish forks.

“I’ll show her,” Tia said.

Carmella’s other daughter, Margie from Margaretta, banged in the front door. “Mama, does paint come out?” She was spattered from head to toe with the same brick red the windowsills sported.

Carmella wasn’t fazed. “With soap and water, so hit the shower or you’ll miss the timpano No one in this family will save you a slice.” 

“Got it, Mom.” She dashed off.

Carmella grinned at Rett. “I was so proud. You should have heard her this morning. She informed her uncles that their decision to have a gender-based work crew was a denial of her basic civil rights. She threatened to file an action under Title Nine.”

Rett laughed. “She obviously got her way.”

“She can be very persuasive. Angie of course wanted to watch Nana assemble the timpano, which took most of the day.”

“Forgive my having to ask, but what is timpano?”

“A little of this, a little of that,” Mrs. Martinetta said, as if the timpano practically made itself from leftovers in the icebox.

Tia said from the dining room, “It’s a pastry drum filled with layers of meatballs and peas and angel hair pasta and sauce and pigeon breast—”

“I couldn’t get fresh pigeon, so I had to use chicken,” Mrs. Martinetta corrected.

“Chicken breast, then, and a sauce that simmers for hours — pancetta and sausage, onions and garlic.”

“Wow,” Rett said. “I’m honored.”

Carmella’s lips twitched. “You should be. Mama has a way of telling you how she feels about you with food. The first boy I brought home? Bottled sauce. When I brought home Michael it was two-day cacciatore.”

Tia sat down at the table again and resumed chopping olives for the salad. “Remember what she made for Big Tony’s first serious girl?”

“She was not a girl,” Mrs. Martinetta interjected.

Carmella was giggling. “Ragu di puttanesca” She and her sister went into peals of laughter. 

Rett took note of Mrs. Martinetta’s innocent smile. “I wish I knew more Italian.”

Tia filled her in. “This woman was fifteen years older than Big Tony — who was what, eighteen? She’d already been married twice and she went around the house picking up things as if appraising their value.” Tia was still giggling. “So Mama put the ragu Neapolitan — that’s a traditional, homey marinara sauce — in the icebox and throws the ingredients for ragu di puttanesca in the frying pan. Whore’s sauce. So named because it’s fast enough to make between … appointments.”

“She said she liked anchovies,” Mrs. Martinetta observed. “My recollection is that she loved the meal.” It was obvious Mrs. Martinetta was not above using any means to steer her children in what she felt was the right direction. No doubt the children at times resented her interference. Angel objected to it on principle even when she agreed with the end goal — being with Rett, for example. Rett wanted the time to get to know her and understand how a woman her age, who wore a crucifix, could throw herself with such energy into matchmaking for her lesbian daughter.

The men began tromping in for cold drinks and to get in line for showers. But when the timer on the oven dinged everyone froze.

“Do you need help lifting it out?” T.J.’s voice was hushed.

“Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Martinetta said. She opened the oven. A puff of fragrant steam drenched the kitchen with the most savory aroma Rett had ever smelled.

There was a collective oh and then an ah when she pulled out the oven rack. The earthenware baking dish was shaped like a drum and about thirteen inches around.

Mrs. Martinetta gave the oven mitts to T.J. “I think I would like some help after all.”

T.J. put on the mitts as if they were sacred vestments. Rett found herself holding her breath like everyone else as he lifted the heavy dish to the counter to set it gently on the cooling rack his mother pointed out.

There was a collective exhale, then Mrs. Martinetta picked up a tray of sliced bread drizzled with olive oil and spices and slid it into the oven. Only when the door was closed did normal talk resume.

Angel slid into the chair next to her. “How you doing?”

“I love your family.” She blinked back sudden tears.

“They’re not too bad,” Angel said. “The Tonys have only come to blows twice and even though Tia took my favorite blouse when I was fifteen, I haven’t mentioned it.” An olive bounced off Angel’s chin. She started to throw it back at her sister, but grinned and ate it instead. “Do you want some more wine?”

“I’ll do impulsive things,” Rett said. She tried to say with her eyes that she’d found the name for what her heart ached to say.

“Like what?” Angel’s lips curved in a just-between-us smile.

“Propose to your mother.”

Angel laughed and Rett didn’t miss the significant look that Tia gave Carmella. Their affection for their sister was as tangible to Rett as the aroma of the timpano. They were Catholic — Angel had said so —but their love made whatever qualms they had for the fate of their sister’s soul remain neither spoken nor implied. Love and family came first. Free your heart and the rest will follow, Rett thought.

After a short but heartfelt grace of thanks from Mr. Martinetta, Rett was presented with the first slice of timpano. She savored a delectable mouthful, looked around the long table gleaming with china, crystal and silverware and saw the expectant expressions of Angel’s family — faces she hoped would fill her future. She told them the truth. “In my life, I have never tasted anything so delicious.”

There was a collective sigh and plates were passed while Mr. Martinetta sliced the drum into wedge after wedge of layered pasta, meatballs, chicken and a thick pancetta and tomato sauce. The two salad bowls made it around the table, then passed back to the table in the kitchen where all the teenagers were devouring the timpano with an obvious eye to seconds.

“That was just an appetizer?” Rett’s voice was squeaky when she saw the giant bowls of penne and sauce arrive at the table. Strips of garlic-rubbed steak that had been holding in the warming oven appeared on platters — it was like something out of a food fantasy.

“We’re Italian,” Mr. Martinetta said. “Food feeds the soul.”

After the meal the younger crowd was offered use of family cars to go to the movies in St. Cloud, but only if the kitchen was cleaned up first. The older group settled with groans of full stomachs in a large greatroom that Rett loved for its homey informality.

“I love this room,” Rett told Mrs. Martinetta. “Was it part of the original house?” 

“Oh, no. We bought this house when it was just the two of us. Even on an accountant’s salary we would never have managed without a veteran’s loan. We didn’t know God would bless us with five children. My Tony added this entire section on when the kids were still in grade school. It took an entire summer, but we needed the space. That’s when I got my large kitchen and we managed to squeeze in a bathroom for the boys and one for the girls.” She chuckled. “Otherwise, the girls were going to kill their brothers for leaving the seat up.”

Rett found herself telling Mrs. Martinetta about her travels and future singing engagements. As the light lengthened and Rett could actually have contemplated eating the tiramisu Mrs. Martinetta had chilling in the icebox, Mr. Martinetta took an ancient but obviously well-loved concertina from a case near the upright piano.

He settled back into his chair and his fingers played over the keys and buttons.

” ‘O Sole Mio,’ Papa.” Tia put her head on her husband’s shoulder.

The song flowed out of the little instrument with clarity and feeling. Angel took her hand and they sat in the dim light until the final notes became memory. “That was beautiful, Papa.”

“Play something for us, Carmella.”

Rett was fairly certain the piano piece was from an opera, but she was going to have to bone up if she wanted to understand why everyone smiled as Carmella played.

Mrs. Martinetta turned on a light or two and everyone became livelier after consuming the tiramisu. The coffee was as rich and satisfying as Mrs. Bernstein’s Viennese roast. It made Rett feel like she’d been reborn into a perfect world. The afternoon’s trauma seemed utterly irrelevant to the future.

“I don’t want to impose,” Mrs. Martinetta said, “but I would be honored if you would sing for us, Rett.”

“It would be my pleasure. I would gladly sing for my supper anytime.”

She knew her way around a piano just enough to accompany herself to “So in Love.” At the song’s bridge her poor playing was bolstered by Mr. Martinetta’s more expert performance on the concertina. By the time she got to “in love with my joy delirious,” her hands were in her lap and Mr. Martinetta followed her mood to a closing that was almost a bossa nova. T.J. and his wife were swaying together at the far end of the room and Angel gave her a look that made Rett’s stomach flipflop. Angel’s look said she had melted bones.

“That was lovely, thank you,” she said to Mr. Martinetta. “I should have paid more attention to instruments.”

“Your voice is your instrument,” he said. He began to play “And the Band Played On,” and Rett was joined by the rest of the family.

She went back to her seat by Angel after that.

Angel whispered, “I’ve just made a decision and I want to tell everybody. I was going to think it over for a few days and … and … and talk to you, but I want to tell them now. I know it doesn’t make sense. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you first — don’t be upset. We can work it out, I know we can. Oh, I should have told you. Say we’ll work it out later.”

Rett was puzzled, but Angel was looking at her with such a plea for understanding. “We’ll work it out later.”

“I want to tell everybody something,” Angel said immediately.

Mrs. Martinetta looked hopefully at Rett. “You have some news?”

“Yes, Mama. I just made up my mind and I think you’ll be happiest of all. As you know I’ve been up to the Mayo Clinic twice to do the usual talk-talk that scientists do.”

Of course, Rett thought. Her brain went click. The Mayo Clinic had put Rochester, Minnesota, on the map. She should have connected that dot earlier.

“This afternoon they offered me the lead of a two-year research project into ovarian cancer, population clusters and nutrition, herbal supplements, et cetera. I’ve decided to take it. So I won’t be going back to UCLA after all except to pack up.”

She turned to look at Rett, who was numbly aware that the eyes of the family were on her. So much for her idea that they would be together, share a home. The evening had been too perfect. She’d forgotten to look for the other shoe and she felt as if she’d been thumped on the head. She didn’t know what her expression was, but she managed to say, “You’d be a fool not to.”

“Oh, Angel,” Tia said. “That’s wonderful, wonderful news. To be so near home …” Her voice trailed away and Rett realized they were all thinking of their father’s health. Of course — she would want to be here. She’d been listening to her father play and realizing the times she would hear it were definitely limited.

I can’t hold her back from being with her family, Rett thought. If we have any chance at all it can’t have a price tag that high. What were they going to do? Two years was a long time, her body said. Her heart said it was nothing. Her mind was in turmoil.

They were in Angel’s rental car heading toward Rett’s motel when Angel broke the heavy silence. “I’m sorry.”

“I understand.” She did understand. It didn’t make her hurt any less, but she understood.

“I was going to tell you when I picked you up, but when I saw you all I wanted was to go back to L.A. with you and be together. I want to spend every night with you.”

“You have to take it. You need to be here.”