Brava, Valentine

“I got it.”

“…and take my shot glass-you know, the one with the Empire State Building on it?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the one. You dip it into the bowl of batter. I don’t know why the shot is the exact amount of batter you need, but it is. Pour batter onto the hot griddle-but in the back, not in the center. And it will spread-and when it bubbles up, lower the top half of the iron down-and then it’s seconds before it bakes through.”

“Thanks, Gram.”

“How’s Alfred?”

“He’s all right.” I smile. “You might even say we’ve hit a new level of understanding. It turns out that Alfred Michael Roncalli is a human being.”

“You didn’t know?” She laughs.

“You’re the one who made him a saint.”

“I think your mother had something to do with that.”

“A little. But you’re the one who encouraged her.”

“True. What did he do that made him human?” Gram asks.

“He failed.”

“Even bankers make mistakes.” Gram shakes her head. “Was it a doozy?”

“It was. And he was sorry.”

“I’m happy you could forgive him.”

“I did better than that, Gram, I helped him figure out how to forgive himself.”

“I’m proud of you,” Gram says, then adds breezily, “Gianluca stopped in this afternoon.” Gram’s nonchalance is completely transparent. She leans into the screen and whispers, “Am I not supposed to know anything?”

“He writes me letters, Gram.”

“That’s lovely.”

“They are.”

“He asks me a lot of questions about you.” Gram lowers her voice.

“Really? And do you present me in a fabulous light?”

“Always.” Gram laughs. “I may have married a Vechiarelli, but I’ll always be an Angelini.”

The Angelini Shoe Company resembles Santa’s Workshop in the North Pole on Christmas Eve, except it’s May and we’re on a deadline of a different sort. Boxes lie open everywhere, ribbons with the gold seal are spooled out on the table, and the sounds of packing tape ripping, tissue paper rustling, and our laughter thread through shipping day like music.

I run a tally on the computer as I count the finished shoe boxes and load them into the shipping boxes like I’m stacking precious gold bricks. Gram taught me that shipping is like presentation on the plate when preparing food. You want the recipient to open the box and gasp at the beauty of the contents before they even open a box of shoes. So we use bubble wrap around the edges to hold the boxes, and then over the top, we secure the boxes with a square of red velvet with an embroidered A in the center. Harlene Levin at the Piccardy shoe parlor makes throw pillows out of our packing materials-that’s how luscious the boxes look when she opens them.

Jaclyn and Tess are wrapping the pumps in tissue paper, placing felt shoe bags over the paper, and closing the lids. My mother affixes the gold medallion dead center on the red and white striped boxes. She is never a millimeter off-she’s been doing this since she was a girl.

My father does the heavy lifting. He checks my math, counts the boxes, and then weighs, seals, and closes them. Alfred then places the shipping label on the outside of the boxes and stacks them in the entry, ready for pickup by Overnight Trucks, who we hire to cart our shipment cross-country.

“Dad! Make her stop!” Tess hollers from the back of the shop. “Jaclyn’s rumpling the tissue paper.”

“Jaclyn, cut it out. You are not my favorite angel,” Dad chides her.

We laugh. My dad hasn’t used that line from the television show Charlie’s Angels since Jaclyn was a girl.

“What self-respecting Italian Americans name one of their children after the pretty one on Charlie’s Angels?” June says.

“They were all pretty on that show,” Mom corrects her. “I will always love Farrah the most. May she rest in peace. She was in my group.” Mom considers any movie or television star within five years under or over her age one of “her group”-never mind that she’s never met them, she considers them her cultural equal. “We let the children name the baby.”

“We almost named you Wonder Woman,” Tess says.

“Yeah. That was our other favorite show,” I tell her.

“Don’t let us interrupt.” Pamela stands in the doorway with Rocco and Alfred Jr.

“Hey, buddies!” The boys run to their father.

“I need some help over here, boys,” Dad teases them.

“Can I help?” Pam asks.

I look at my sisters. Usually, we never take Pamela up on her offers to help, whether it’s yard work or the dishes. But now that Alfred works here, Angelini Shoes belongs to all of us. It may be time to treat her like one of the family and not an in-law.

“What do you like to do?” I ask Pamela.

“Anything.”

“I think you’re a medallion sort of girl. Right, Ma?”

“Come over here, Pamela, and I’ll teach you the fine craft of affixing the company logo to the company shoe box. This way, if I’m ever hit by a bus, God forbid, somebody will know exactly where the logo belongs.”

“Great.” Pamela smiles and puts down her purse. She goes to my mother, who shows her what to do.

Rocco and Alfred Jr. are being carried through the shop by Alfred, who laughs as he hauls them like sacks of flour slung over his shoulders. He catches my eye. My brother smiles at me with the same relief my father had on his face when he got the last “all-clear” report from the doctors at Sloan Kettering. They are more alike than they know.

“June, when are you taking vacation?” Mom asks.

“Right after we finish the shipment. I’m going to take off when Valentine goes to Buenos Aires.”

“Who’s going to Buenos Aires?” Tess asks.

“I am.”

“I’ve always wanted to go there!”

“Well, maybe next time. Although, if we’re going to be fair, it will be Alfred and Pamela on the next trip. My partner gets first dibs on international travel.”

“And we’ll take it!” Pamela smiles.

“Who would have thought it? Valentine and Alfred are true partners,” Mom says. My mother has replaced Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible cases, with her son and daughter, the improbable partners.

“It’s a miracle,” Dad says. “You act like grown-ups. Well, you are, I guess. And I’m proud of youse guys.”

“Break time.” Gabriel enters the shop carrying a large tray of freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies. He places them on the desk. He checks the coffeepot. “Stone cold. How can we have cookies without coffee?”

Gabriel takes the pot back to the sink to wash it.

“This is like the old days,” Mom says.

“Yep, somebody always bitching about something,” Dad says.

“Now, Dutch,” Gabriel says. “Watch your language in front of the boys. And I mean…me.”

June spoons coffee grounds into the maker. “Let me make myself useful. I can’t teach my apprentice when the table is being used for shipping.”

“What apprentice?” Mom asks.

“Me,” Gabriel says. “That’s right, you Los Angelinis-you better look out. I’ve moved in, and I’m taking over. I started with the living room, and now, like a good Italian mold on veiny cheese, I’m seeping down into the workroom and into the shoe business. Soon you’ll all be wearing the Biondi.”

“He’s got a gift.” June breaks a cookie in half and tastes it. “And our lunches during the training sessions are to die for!”

The buzzer rings in the entrance. “It’s probably the truck.” I holler over the din of my family as they gather around the cookies, “Let them in, Dad.”

Dad goes to answer the door. He comes back into the shop, followed by Kathleen Sweeney. She wears a red trench coat. She stands out like a cardinal who lands on the roof in snow.

“Val, Alfred. Somebody here to see you.”

I look at Alfred. The color drains from his face. He doesn’t move. Luckily Pamela has her head down, concentrating on the medallions.

I spring into action. “Hi, Kathleen! Come on in. Everybody say hello to the patron saint of Angelini Shoes-Kathleen Sweeney, from the Small Business Administration.”