Brava, Valentine

June places the letter on the table. “A man who can seduce with a turn of phrase will not disappoint in the bedroom.” June gets up and pours herself a cup of coffee. “We have all been waiting for this one, honey. And if I were you, I’d hurry up and I wouldn’t be late. Gianluca’s riding in on the night train, and the last place you want to be is the wrong stop. I’d be waiting with my bags, and by God, I’d get on board. I’d take that ride for you if I could. I have moments, even now, when I’d try. But he’s for you. You take Gianluca and run with it.”

“It sounds like I need to yank the emergency cord on the train.”

“The only urgent thing in life is the pursuit of love. You get that one right, and you’ve solved the mystery.”

“And I thought when I could figure out a way to survive in this shop by the labor of my own hands, that would be the mystery solved.”

“Two different things. Work is survival, and love sustains you. You can have work anytime. But love? Not always.”

“Why didn’t you ever get married, June?”

“I didn’t want to.”

“Maybe I don’t want to either.”

“No, you do,” she says quietly.

“How can you tell?”

“Women who take care of old people are the marrying kind,” she says.

“Gram took care of herself.”

“Yes, but you looked after her. It wasn’t a chore, it came naturally. Same with me. Nobody else calls me when I walk home from work in the snow. You always do.”

“Dear God. I sound pathetic!”

June laughs. “Not at all. You nurture people-and we need you to. But you don’t think about yourself enough. And time is passing-it really is. And when you get old, it passes even more quickly, like a lead foot on the accelerator. I hear old people on TV say they don’t have regrets. I have about a thousand.”

“Name one.”

“I would have asked for more. I would have had more.”

“But June…”

“I know, I know, I feasted my way through fifty years of men, all sizes, shapes, and proclivities. God only knows how many miles I schlepped and continents I crossed in the pursuit of pleasure. And when I look back over all the years, and all the men, I would have liked for just one of those men, to sit down, pen in hand, and tell me what he saw when I walked in a room.”

June looks out the windows and off into the middle distance.

“No, I had to guess. I had to fill in the blanks.” She whistles softly. “But you? He’s told you plain, right here on paper, what you mean to him. And if you can’t take these words in now, put the letter aside and reread it tomorrow when you’ve had time to think. Trust me, this Gianluca won’t come along again, not in your lifetime.” June picks up the letter and hands it back to me. “Unless you know something I don’t.”

June perches her reading glasses on her nose and reads the work list. I pick up a shoe and measure the welt to attach it to the heel. June opens her box of straight pins on the table, then takes her pinking shears out of their chamois pouch and places them on the table. She pushes the work stool under the table with her knee, she loads a bolt of raw silk on to the roller, and I help her snap the dowel and close the traps.

We are two women with so much more than friendship in common. We work together, and while I’m supposedly her boss, the truth is, she is mine. June knows more about the world than I ever will-and in matters of love, she would never mislead me. Teacher to student, she has never told me anything but the truth. Maybe I don’t believe Gianluca’s pretty words because he’s Italian and they’re known for their fleur-de-lis approach to life. Maybe I need hardware and nails when it comes to love, not the gentle curves of filigree. Maybe I don’t think the pretty stuff is strong enough to hold.

“I’ve always maintained that this house could use some drama.” Mom sits on one of the red leather bar stools behind the counter that separates the kitchen from the living area in Gram’s apartment. “Everywhere.” She thumbs through Interior magazine, tearing out “looks” that she thinks I might like. “The old homestead needs a total redo.”

“We’ll ask Gram.”

“You don’t have to. She turned the building over to you to do whatever you want. Go wild. Reinvent yourself in a new environment. Have some fun!”

My life is now developing a theme. Evidently, I don’t have enough fun. June wants me to spice up the bedroom, and my mother, the decor. It dawns on me that Mom has another motive entirely. “Has Dad put the kibosh on your renovations in Queens?”

“That has nothing to do with it. But yes, he has. When it comes to interior design, your father is a joy killer. He’d have the same bicente

“No,” I lie. I look down at my uniform: jeans and work smock.

“Then your home shouldn’t either. The same curtains for thirty years? Come on, people. Might as well live in a HoJo’s lobby. When your father got the prostate diagnosis, the first thing I did after I overhauled his diet with lycopene was to study color therapy. After intense research, I painted our bedroom soft yellow because yellow is conducive to healing. Now, I don’t want to take credit for his stellar remission, but you can’t tell me there’s not a co

“There’s a co

“If only he’d indulge me once in a while.”

“Ma. He does everything you want.”

“Eventually.”

The laptop screen sounds a small series of bells. Then Gram appears on the screen. “Can you see me?”

I sit down and click the camera icon. “Gram, we’re here. I can see you!”

“Hi, hon.” Gram waves. “Where’s Mike?”

“Right here, Ma.” Mom puts down her magazine, fluffs her hair, and presses her lips together to release the micro-beads in her twenty-four-hour lipstick. “I’m camera-ready.” Mom squeezes onto the chair with me and sees her image on the screen. “Dear God, the lighting is atrocious.”

“You look wonderful, Mike,” Gram tells her.

“No, I look over sixty. That’s what I look. I’ve been asking every Blue Cross hotline attendant if they have any idea who did Susan Sarandon’s face work. We are practically the same age, almost exactly, and she looks like she did in the Rocky Horror movie while I look like the Rocky Horror.”

“I don’t think Susan Sarandon had any work done,” I tell them.

“Now I feel worse!” Mom throws her hands up in despair.

“How’s it going with Alfred in the shop?” Gram looks at me and ignores my mother. I can’t believe Gram can pull that off on Skype. She knows if we go down the plastic surgery path with my mother, it will be hours on the line. “Are you two getting along?”

“Not bad,” I lie.

Gram gives me a look. “Alfred tells me it’s going fine.”

“Good. I’m glad you checked with him.”

“Now, now. He e-mailed me about some tax files.”

“Uh-huh.” I know good and well that Gram and Alfred e-mail every day. And I know he reports everything I do back to her. But what he doesn’t get is that Gram only wants good news to go with her positive new life. He should skip the budget and tax talk with her. “How’s Dominic?”

“I’m having the best time here. And our honeymoon. The Black Sea was a stu

“Ma, you won’t believe it.” Mom leans into the screen. “Every time I pick up a travel magazine, there’s something about the Black Sea. I never heard of it before you honeymooned there. You’re cutting-edge.”

“Magnificent. Russian palaces on the coastline-the best caviar I’ve ever tasted. It was cold, but the water was calm, like a smooth pane of mercury glass. Almost silver.”