“Buona sera, Signore Floris, how was your day?”
“Ciao! Perfecto!” he said, and clasped his hands. “I just want to know from the big boss how the trip is going. Are your guests happy? Can we do anything for them? I just booked a return trip for two of the gentlemen. They are coming back in two weeks and bringing their nieces. Isn’t that a wonderful idea? I have to say that Americans are so generous…”
“Massimo?”
“What a country!”
“Massimo?”
“Sì?”
“I’ve got a hundred euros that says they aren’t nieces at all.”
Massimo covered his mouth in mock horror and widened his eyes. He whispered across the counter, “Prego! Bella! What have I said?” Then he winked at me and we started to laugh.
“People are so stupid,” I said. “Don’t worry. Our suspicions go to the grave with me.”
“You wouldn’t believe what I see.”
“And you wouldn’t believe what I see either.”
Later that night after dinner, after drinks, after pleasant good nights and inquiries about my grandmother’s health (the story had traveled throughout the group), I found myself alone in my room, unable to sleep.
I had a sudden realization.
Sometimes young women just needed to cry. You needed a good cry, where the tears would run down your shirt or your nightgown and you could wail in private about all your disappointments. And since they might have seemed petty to others, that privacy thing was essential. Maybe it was hormonal. Maybe it was hormonal, with reality thrown in. But I had my reasons.
My mother was miserable on a very deep level and I had never done a thing to address it. What did that say about me? That I was a terrible daughter. I had recently admitted to myself that my father was an embarrassment, but I still took his support. What did that say about me? That I was a terrible daughter. Michael was acting strange and that was completely unnerving, so how secure was I in his love? And I made my living this way. With all these people.
I made a brave effort to defend myself as I stood looking out at the dark waters of the Mediterranean and made a few brief calculations about life—brief out of deference to the hour.
One, I had gotten into this business because I loved to travel and maybe there was a part of me that loved running away to have an adventure.
Two, I had never felt like my clients were so frivolous before today, so therefore I must have been suffering a hormone surge or deficit. Or maybe they were a bunch of jerks, but I should remain professional and overlook it. After all, they were the source of my ability to support myself.
Three, I loved Michael, and I would never abandon him despite the ravings of my family; his love was the most important thing that had ever happened to me. It was the first time I had really taken the risk of emotional mutilation and I wasn’t going to get paranoid just because of a couple of strange phone calls.
Four, Nonna’s broken hip was not the fault of my poor mother. Well, if I had anything to do with it, she wasn’t going to be poor mother anymore.
Five, I found it strange that for the past few days I had developed the habit of invoking God’s name when I was shocked or surprised or annoyed. For someone who wasn’t sure about a warm, loving and personal God’s true existence, why did I keep calling? Was it an old habit, conditioned response, or was I truly searching for something?
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHOOTING FROM THE HIP
I landed in Charleston at four-thirty on Wednesday. I was dead bone tired. I had been offered a hop on Dylan Holmes’s Gulfstream, but I declined. For all the traveling I did, crossing the Atlantic Ocean strapped into something only slightly larger than my sofa still scared the liver out of me. So I sucked it up, flew commercial and obsessed about the two people on my mind—Michael and my mother. My brother Frank might have called me paranoid, but I’d had female guts long enough to know that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean something’s not out to get you.
The flight from Rome to Atlanta was long enough and then there was the short flight to Charleston. By the time it was all over, I had been flying and waiting around, flying and waiting around, forever. There was something so strange about crossing time zones. I always felt like part of me had been left behind. Jet lag. Although over time I would feel normal again, I didn’t feel whole when I unlocked my door. Part of me was still flying. Part of me was still in Sardinia somewhere. If I’d had a fishing rod with a special hook, maybe I could have reeled the rest of me home. That might sound crazy, but I would have bet a couple of dollars that somebody in a lab somewhere was figuring out how to do just that.
Jet lag caused even my initial perception of my surroundings to appear different. The bedroom looked smaller, the living room seemed sterile, the kitchen felt unfamiliar. I knew that by tomorrow the place would feel like mine again, but meanwhile it looked like it could use brighter lightbulbs, a coat of paint and some fresh flowers.
Michael wasn’t home. It was late afternoon and I was glad that I had time to unpack, take a shower and figure out dinner. And to call my mother.
Yesterday when we’d spoken, she told me Nonna was driving the nurses crazy. Nonna wailed about the food, the room was too hot, the room was too cold, the neighbors were too noisy—she had survived her surgery and was pissed off in purple plaid and lavender paisley. The physical therapist was seeing her once a day and doing some gentle exercises with her to move her hip. Nonna screamed the whole time. Nice, I thought, very nice. I couldn’t wait to see her!
Mom was still beside herself. If Nonna needed additional pain meds, Mom needed something for nerves. She answered on the second ring.
“Hi! I’m home!”
“Thanks be to God! Are you coming tomorrow?”
“You know it. I’ll be there before lunch. Give me the update.”
“Update? Oh, Lord, Grace. She’s fighting with the orthopedic surgeon. She’s fighting with the physical therapist.”
“Not the model patient?”
“Not the model patient.”
“Is she giving you a hard time?”
“Are you kidding me? If I was the kind of woman who liked alcohol…”
“Got the picture. Hang in there, Connie. Your widdle girl is coming to the rescue tomorrow. What can I bring you?” Oh, no! I had used the Marianne voice!
“Nothing. Just come.”
“I was planning to pick up a lot of magazines. Listen to me. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. You and I need to have a serious talk.”
There was a long silence and then she said, “About what?”
“About your personal happiness and about our mother-daughter relationship.”
“We’re fine, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, but I could be a little more useful. I think we need to figure out why Nonna and Dad are always picking on you, and put a stop to it. I don’t like the way she talks to you and—”
“Ah, Grace. Don’t worry about it. She’s an old lady with a broken hip, and even if I turn one hundred years old and she’s one hundred and twenty-five, she’ll still add salt to my gravy and tell me what’s wrong with everything I do. It’s how she is.”
“And so what’s Dad’s excuse?”
“He’s not so terrible.”
“Okay, we’ll talk. I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you…”
We hung up and I thought, Shoot, she didn’t even ask me how my trip was. She must be stressing.
I dialed Michael’s cell and got his voice mail.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said. “Just wanted to let you know that I got home in one piece. I’m sure you’re busy, so gimme a shout when you have a minute and let me know what you want to do about dinner, okay? Love you…”
I decided a bowl of pasta was in order for our meal that night and that making the sauce before the exhaustion of the trip set in was probably a good idea. I unpacked, threw my dirty clothes in the wash, made a pile for the dry cleaners and put cold water on my face about five times in the struggle to
stay awake.
I chopped and sautéed two large onions and three cloves of sliced garlic, added two large cans of whole tomatoes, which I cut into chunks in the pan, and a handful of fresh basil from the garden, and I let it simmer for an hour, periodically adding a little white wine or a little olive oil. It smelled divine. I filled a large pot of water to boil the noodles and rescued a loaf of frozen garlic bread from the very back of the freezer. All I would have to do was boil water and throw the foil packet of bread in the oven.
I was putting the second load of laundry in the washer when Michael finally called.
“Welcome back,” he said. “I missed you.”
“Hey! Come home!” I said. “I need a man in a very desperate way.”
“ASAP,” he said. “Just gotta tie up a few things here. Can I bring anything?”
“Yeah, a bag of radicchio and endive and your gorgeous bod,” I said with a smile in my voice. “Oh, and a lemon.”
“Sure thing. See you before six and don’t give me the business about you being tired. I have expectations, you know.”
“Thank God. Hey, how are you feeling?”
“What? Oh, I’m fine. I spoke to this guy who’s a neurologist and he said it was most likely seasonal allergies. There’s been some nasty sinusitis going around—anyway, no big deal. So he sent me to see this ENT guy and I’m taking an antihistamine. I feel a heck of a lot better.”
“Good! Well, I can’t wait to see you…”
Wait to see him? I was sinking like a stone from the trip and I thought that maybe a nap might be the ticket. On the other hand, I knew that if I closed my eyes, I was gone for the night.
“Cold shower! Coffee!” I said out loud.
The shower helped. I was dressed and stirring the sauce when I heard Michael coming up the walkway. Stay inside and be coy, or run outside like a schoolgirl and tackle him? I opted for the tackle.
“Wow!” he said when I threw my arms around him and one leg over his hip, nearly toppling us into the azaleas and boxwood. “That’s what I call a welcome home!”
“I am so glad to see you. You have no idea.” He looked so good to me I thought I might faint. I laughed instead.
“Feed me,” he said, and kissed me like he was starving for more than a hot meal.
“Yes, sir!”
I served dinner, we talked a little about my trip and more about my grandmother. I was too tired to relive it all, but I told him I was going down to Hilton Head to check on her the next day.
“You have to go,” he said. “And if you don’t like the looks of things, we can have her moved up here in a heartbeat. I mean, I’m sure the hospital there is great, with all the geriatric population and all that, but MUSC is state-of-the-art, right?”
“Right,” I said. “My grandmother would be thrilled to be under your watchful eye. We could put Big Al and Connie on the sleeper sofa while we’re upstairs doing the wild thing, and—”
“Well, give them my best anyway and tell them I made the offer, okay?”
“You know I will. Thanks, baby.”
As a result of the time change, morning came early for me. I slipped into the bathroom and, making as little noise as possible, showered and dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from an old Rod Stewart concert, and with my flip-flops over the hook of my finger, I left Michael a note.
Hi, sweetie. I’m off to see the Wizard and I’ll be back before ten tonight. Call me later. Love you!
I stopped at a Krispy Kreme and bought my grandmother a dozen glazed doughnuts because I knew she loved them. And I bought her an armful of tabloids with cover stories on such important happenings as definitive proof of alien babies, Elvis sightings and real photographs of Bigfoot because I knew they were one of her guilty pleasures. Not that any of this would truly please her, because while she was an old battle-ax, she loved her independence. As long as she was confined to a bed and working with a physical therapist, she was going to be insufferable.
It was eight-thirty when I arrived at my parents’ house. Dad’s car was gone and I was slightly relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with him. I could envision Mom washing up the breakfast dishes and I was right. I came in through the garage and there she was by the sink with CNN blaring in the background. I had tooted my horn to let her know I was there, and a second pot of coffee was already brewing. The house smelled like it always did and in the space of that moment I was a child again. Well, not a child exactly—maybe a teenager.
“Hi, Mom!” I said, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Oh, Grace!” She dried her hands on her apron and hugged me. “I’m so glad you’re here! Did you eat, baby?”
“No, but I could sure go for an Eggo or something. What’s in the house?” I went digging in the freezer, pulled out a box of frozen waffles and dropped one in the toaster. “Do you have peanut butter?”
“Smooth or chunky?” She pulled out a jar of each variety from the cabinet.
“No one buys groceries like Connie Russo.”
I sat at the table and spread a knifeful over the waffle. Mom sat down with two mugs of coffee and sighed. She brushed the nonexistent wrinkles from the tablecloth and sighed again.
“Cream?” she said.
“Sure.”
I watched her get up again and go to the refrigerator. She opened the door and, as though in a trance, poured a measure of half-and-half into the little ceramic cow she had used as a creamer since I gave it to her for her birthday when I was about ten. I loved that she was so tenderhearted. That cow and the old potholders and all the things we kids had given her over the years were precious to her. It must have been wonderful to be satisfied so easily, I thought. But then she sat down again and sighed again and I thought I would lose my mind then and there.
“Talk to me, Connie. You’re sighing too much. Excessive sighing is a sign of depression. What’s going on around here?”
“Oh, well, let’s see. Nonna is doing fine. They want to put her in a rehab facility at the end of this week and she won’t go. She says it’s a nursing home and she’d rather die than go and she says that I am a lazy good-for-nothing daughter to say that I can’t take care of her at home. She just doesn’t understand that she needs physical therapy and not just someone to make her meals. But your father says that if Nonna doesn’t want to go to this rehab facility, then she doesn’t have to, that I can take care of her right here.”
“Did he really say that?”
“Grace, you have no idea. They think…I don’t know what they think.”
“Mom, this is exactly what I mean about there being some very big issues between you and them. Why, for the love of God, would Dad think it’s okay for you to be in charge of Nonna’s day-to-day recovery from something major like this? You’re not their slave! Just because Dad and Nonna want you to do something, you don’t have to go along with them, you know. How about if you just say no?”
“Grace, you know I can’t do that.”
“This is crazy. Get in the car. Watch how we’re gonna figure this out together. You and me, Mom. We’re gonna figure this out.”
“I can’t go now. I have to shower and fix my hair and then I have to wait for the sprinkler man to come…”
“Your hair is fine. Get your pocketbook. We can leave the sprinkler man a note.”
“Oh, Grace, I don’t know…”
“I do! Where’s a pen and some paper?”
She handed me a notepad and a Bic pen and left the room. I turned off the television and the coffeepot and wrote on the paper.
Hi! Please fix the sprinkler and clean the heads. If you need us you can call us on my cell at 843-555-7788. Thanks a lot! Connie Russo
“I could use a cell phone,” Mom said as we rode toward the hospital. “But Al says it’s not necessary. Why spend the money?”
“You’ll have one before lunch,” I said. “They’re a crummy ten dollars a month or something. Dad’s wrong. Not having one limits your ability to go where you want to go when y
ou want to go. You have to blow your morning waiting around for a sprinkler man? I don’t think that’s the best use of your time. Do you?”
“You’re right. But I don’t want to defy your father, Grace. You know he’s got a temper.”
“Like a freaking wild animal he’s got a temper, but so do I. You can have a phone on my account, okay? Call it a Christmas gift.”
“I don’t know, honey. I don’t want trouble.”
“Mom! Stop it! We’re gonna organize Nonna’s recovery, get you a cell phone and then figure out why you think it’s okay for them to treat you like this. Okay? That’s what we’re gonna do.”
During the ride to the hospital and as we made our way down the hall toward Nonna’s room, I could see my mother wring her hands and wipe perspiration from her forehead. She was completely unnerved at the thought of upsetting Nonna and my father. But how in the world could they expect her to be Nonna’s primary caretaker? Nonna weighed almost two hundred pounds and, as you already know, was one cantankerous walrus when she felt like it.
“Stop fretting, Connie. We’ve got doughnuts.”
We pushed the door open and there was my grandmother, half-reclined, pushing the buttons on the television remote like a madwoman. She spotted my mother and started complaining.
“I want to watch General Hospital, but I can’t get this stupid thing to work! Get me out of here! I want to go home!” But when she spotted me her voice softened and she smiled. “Oh! Maria Graziana! Bella mia! You finally came to see your poor old dying grandmother! Did you bring me doughnuts? You good girl! There’s nothing to eat in this whole place. Put them right here and come let me look at you.”
“Hi, Nonna,” I said. “You’re looking pretty spry for someone with a cracked hip. How are you feeling?”
“I’m going to miss my story and Julie Barr is going to a big party today. I have to see her dress! You understand, don’t you, bella? Now fix this for me. Prego!”
Even though I never watched the soaps, I knew what she was talking about. Nonna had watched All My Children and General Hospital since before I was born. I changed the station and Nonna smiled.