Brava, Valentine

“What time are we expecting the family?” I ask.

“Noon. They’re going to the parade till eleven. Then they’ll catch Santa in Macy’s Square, hop the subway to Christopher, up to the roof for hot apple cider and chestnuts, and downstairs for carving of the bird. We’ll eat promptly at one thirty.”

“You play serious ball, my friend.”

“Have to. I’m doing soufflés for dessert. Can’t have those sitting around like Barney, the Macy’s balloon, when he hit the streetlight on Broadway and deflated. Not a good idea.”

“I love you for many reasons, Gabriel. Your soufflés might be number one.”

“Thank you. I love being loved by you. And I hope none of your love affairs work out-ever.”

“Well, Gabriel. You don’t have to worry about that. I am destined to be alone. You know what gay men and I have in common?”

“I’m dying to know.”

“We were not raised for happily ever after. That’s another reason why you and I have the perfect marriage. You understand that. I’m going up to the roof to start the grill,” I tell him.

“That’s a good wife,” he says as I go.

I grab the large cast-iron skillet and head up to the roof.

Gabriel winter-proofed the garden, and instead of putting old feed sacks on the plants, he took muslin from the shop and draped it over them, tying the material at the base of the containers with enormous red ribbons. Everything that man touches turns into art.

I load the charcoals onto the grill. I take a long matchstick and light it, throwing some lighter fluid on the coals. They ignite into orange flames, the exact color of the stubborn leaves that remain on the top branches of the maple trees across the highway.

I lean over the roof ledge and look down the Hudson to where the river opens up into the Atlantic Ocean. Gianluca is just an ocean away, I’m thinking, as I watch the white caps roll out to sea. “Stop it,” I say out loud. Stop thinking about that man! He does not want you anymore.

“Valentine.”

My mother hauls a sack of chestnuts across the roof. “Yoo-hoo.” Mom wears a pumpkin-colored suit with matching high heels. A brooch in the shape of a turkey, made with chocolate pavé stones, shines in the sun. “I didn’t want to scare you. What are you doing? You’re looking off to sea like a besmirched scullery maid in a Philippa Gregory novel.”

“Actually, I am pining. I’m going to be alone for my entire life, Ma.”

“I promise you that will not be the case.”

“How do you know?”

“A mother knows,” she says definitively. “In the meantime, you and Gabriel have put together quite the holiday. The table looks gorgeous. We picked up Aunt Feen on the way in. She’s down in the kitchen grousing about the traffic. June is here, and she’s helping.”

“I’d better get down there.”

“Alfred called from his cell. He’s bringing the boys. Pamela is coming in from Jersey on the train.”

“Pamela didn’t go to the parade?”

“No. You know she hates crowds. She’s such a tiny little thing. She’d have been tossed to and fro.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Any deviation from Alfred and Pamela’s routine gives me a jolt of worry. Alfred assures me that everything is fine, but is it?

“What’s the matter?” Mom asks.

“I can’t shake him, Ma. The Italian.”

“I’m sorry.” Mom puts her arms around me. “Maybe you can go to Italy when you get the Bella Rosa launched. Maybe if you go there, Gianluca will listen to reason.”

“I don’t want to make a trip just to be rejected again.”

“Good point. Why don’t you invite him here for Christmas?”

“Because he’ll say no.”

“You don’t know until you ask.” My mother uses the same strategy she employed when I was sixteen and needed a prom date. She’d haul out the yearbook and paw through it, making a list of names just as she would from the phone book when the drain clogged and she needed a plumber. “Tell Gianluca that we’ll put on the dog for him. He hasn’t lived until he’s had the Roncalli Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.”

“What a lure,” I groan. “Hmm. Gianluca…please choose…me, a comely thirty-five-year-old or…a fish fry. Come one! Come all!”

“Hey, it’s the best I got,” Mom shrugs. “But Val…first we have to get through Thanksgiving. We could be in for a little tension at di

“Why?”

My mother lets go of me and pushes her Jackie O. sunglasses up the bridge of her small nose. “Tess and Charlie have been having a little ongoing argument about our family down in Argentina. And, well, it’s the race issue. Charlie feels that Tess shouldn’t tell the girls about the Argentinian side of the family.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Charlie feels it’s complicated.”

“You mean he’s prejudiced.”

“No, no, I don’t think that at all. It’s just new information. He doesn’t know how to tell his daughters.”

“You just say, we have family in Argentina and they’re black.”

“That’s what you would do, but the Fazzanis-you know how they are. Those people have airs. His mother wanted finger bowls at their wedding reception.”

“I remember.”

“They’re awfully proper for a bunch of carpenters from Long Island-but proper nonetheless. And small-minded. I ca

“Mom, I’m not going to hide my cousins.”

“I’m not asking you to hide them. I just would rather you don’t Skype Roberta in when Charlie’s around.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It is what it is.” My mother purses her lips together. “Give the man time to accept our new family.”

“I’m going to talk to Charlie.”

“No, don’t bother. Let it go.”

“I thought it was weird. Charlie’s been keeping his distance. I’ve hardly seen him-now I know why.”

“He doesn’t judge you. And he doesn’t blame you for going down there. Not entirely anyway. He doesn’t understand why you have to get into business with them.”

“I really don’t care what he thinks. Charlie can judge me all he wants. But I’m not putting up with this-and my sister knows better.”

“That’s her husband.” My mother throws her hands up. “We marry who we marry, and then we have to cope.”

“Then she better enlighten him.”

Mom shakes her head and goes back down the stairs. Something tells me this Thanksgiving won’t be a peaceful meeting like the one between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. I have a feeling this one could be war.

12. Autumn in New York

GABRIEL CHANGES INTO A SUIT for Thanksgiving di

Tess whistles when I enter the kitchen. “Put on the apron,” she says. “Cashmere is a bitch to clean.”

I throw it on. She gives me a pastry gun filled with ca

“I made the shells myself,” Jaclyn says.

“They look divine.” I fill a delicate pastry horn with creamy filling. I take a bite.

“Excellent!” I tell them.

“Roll the ends in chocolate,” Jaclyn instructs. “I learned that from Giada De Laurentiis. She eats everything she makes on TV. How does she stay so thin?”

“I have no idea.” I shove the rest of the ca

Tess places a bowl of dark chocolate curls on the counter. I pick up the horns and fill them, then roll the tip ends in the chocolate.

“Italians are the only people in the world who prepare dessert while they serve the main meal,” June says as she ladles mashed potatoes into a server.

“We like our sugar,” Jaclyn explains.

Aunt Feen is parked at the head of the table nursing a cup of weak tea, because that’s all my mother offered her. The new elephant in the living room of the Angelini family is Aunt Feen’s drinking problem. Our solution is to hide the hard stuff and hope she doesn’t notice. Alfred fills the crystal tumblers at each place setting with ice water.