Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

“Do you need a haircut?” I ask him.

“No,” he laughs.

“Too bad. There’s an open chair here and I’m pretty good with scissors.”

“I’m going to pass on the haircut, but not on you. Okay? But here’s the hard part. I’m pretty much chained to this place.”

“It’s the same for me in the shop. How about I call you for coffee? After lunch sometime?”

“That’s good.”

I close the cell phone and slip it into my pocket. I meet Tess outside the salon. She motions to me as she talks to her husband. “No special night. Absolutely not. You tell Charisma to stay away from that canned frosting, and Chiara is not allowed to sleep in our bed. Okay, honey. I’m going back to Gram’s with Val. I’ll be home by bedtime. Love you.” She hangs up her phone. “Charlie has his hands full. Charisma was playing on his cell phone and called his boss by accident.” Tess looks at me. “Well?”

“I had a date.”

“And?”

“And he’s very interesting.”

“A Poindexter?”

“Not at all. He’s hip.”

“Complicated?”

“Aren’t they all?”

“Even my Charlie. Complicated even in his simple demands. He likes pasta every Tuesday, a movie on Fridays, and sex on Saturdays.”

Tess has never mentioned sex with her husband. Obviously, the haircut has freed her. I laugh. “That’s a doable schedule.”

“I’m not complaining. But you gotta watch out for the routine. You need to keep a man on his toes. Charlie’s getting close to forty, and you know what happens. New car, new wife, new life.”

“That will never happen to you,” I promise my sister.

“It happened to Mom.”

“Yeah, but that was the eighties. Back then, it happened to everyone’s mother.”

“History has a funny way of repeating itself.” Tess buries her hands in her pockets as we walk. “Even Gram had her problem with Grandpop.”

I stop and face my sister. “What?”

“Yeah, Mom told me that Grandpop had a…friend.”

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t know her name or anything, but Mom told me about it before I got married.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“As if tales of infidelity are some sort of heirloom we need to share like the family silver?”

“Still.” I feel bad that Gram hasn’t confided this to me. “Gram’s never mentioned it.”

“You idolized Grandpop. Why would she?”

I unlock the front door to our building. Tess and I go into the vestibule. The door to the shop is propped open, the worktables are bare, and the small desk lamp throws off the only light in the room. There’s a note on the desk in Gram’s handwriting. “Meet me on the roof-the chestnuts are in.”

We race up the stairs, out of breath as we reach the top. “In my next life,” I gasp, “I want to live in one of those fabulous lofts, all the space without the stairs.”

“The original assisted living,” Tess pants.

I push open the door to the roof. Gram has the grill going, with two large frying pans covered in tinfoil over the red charcoal flames. The smoke from the charcoal offsets the scent of sweet chestnuts as they roast, a delicious smell of honey and cream.

“They’re good this year. Meaty,” Gram says, shaking the pan, gripping the handle with an oven mitt. She wears a kerchief over her hair, and her winter coat is buttoned to the top. “Oh, Tess, I love your hair.”

“Thanks.” She tosses her head. “Scott is very good. You should go to him, Gram.”

“Maybe I will.” Gram lifts the spatula off the hook on the side of the grill. She lifts the foil off one pan with her oven mitt, then she whacks the chestnuts with the flat side of the spatula, cracking them open. She scoops them onto a stainless-steel cookie sheet. Tess and I sit down on the chaise longue and take the tray. We blow on them, and then take one apiece, pulling the sweet, translucent chestnut out of its burnished shell. We pop them in our mouths. Heavenly.

“My mother hated chestnuts,” says Gram. “When she was growing up in Italy, money was tight and they made everything with chestnuts-pasta, bread, cakes, fillings for ravioli. When her family emigrated, she vowed she’d never eat another chestnut. And she never did.”

“It just goes to show you, sometimes you can’t shake the things that happened to you in childhood.” Tess looks off toward New Jersey, where her husband is probably locked in a garage while Charisma and Chiara paint the automatic doors with frosting.

“I’d like to shake some of the things that happened to me in adulthood,” I say as I crack open another chestnut.

The door to the roof swings open. “Don’t be alarmed, it’s just me,” Alfred says as he places his briefcase by the door. He goes to Gram and gives her a kiss.

“This is a surprise,” says Tess as our brother kisses her on the cheek and then me.

“Gram called and said the chestnuts were in,” Alfred says stiffly.

“I’m glad you could make it.” Gram beams at her only grandson with enough love to fill the boat basin on Pier 46.

“I’ve been to the bank,” he says, drawing a deep breath. “They want some numbers, a new appraisal on your property.”

“Do you think we’re going to be okay?” I stand up.

“I don’t know yet, Valentine. There’s still a lot of information to gather. The more I dig, the more I believe you should think about selling the building.”

“Oh, so you didn’t come for the chestnuts, you came here to nail up a For Sale sign,” I tell him.

“Val, you’re not helping,” Alfred says.

“And you are?” I shoot back.

Gram moves the chestnuts around with her spatula. “Bring the brokers through, Alfred,” she says quietly.

“Gram…,” I protest but she cuts me off.

“We have to, Valentine. And we’re going to.” Her tone tells me the subject is closed. Alfred takes a chestnut from the tray Tess holds, cracks the shell, and eats it. I look at Tess, who looks at me. Then Tess says, “Just don’t forget Valentine, Gram. She’s the future of the shoe company.”

“I think of my grandchildren first.” She takes the tray from Tess. “All of you.”

THERE ISN’T A SOUL on the E train as Gram and I board at the Eighth Street station to go out to Queens. It’s a quiet Sunday morning, but the evidence of a wild Saturday night is visible as we skirt empty liquor bottles and soda cans. As we push through the turnstile, the subway platform is filled with the pungent scent of motor oil and Dunkin’ Donuts. I’ve never understood how the doughnut smell can waft down from street level but the fresh air can’t.

A train pulls into the station, its dull gray doors open wide, and I quickly step in and scan the car to make sure it’s a good one. A good car has no abandoned food on the seats, odd riders, or mysterious moisture on the floor. Gram chooses two seats in the corner and I sit down next to her. As the train lurches out of the station, Gram pulls the Metro section of the New York Times out of her purse and begins to read.

“You know this is a setup,” I tell her. “We’re going for Sunday brunch, but there’s something else brewing. I’m very intuitive about these things.”

“Aren’t we going to see the pictures from Jaclyn’s wedding and watch the video?”

“That’s only part of the agenda.”

Gram folds the newspaper into a square. “Well, what do you think they’re up to?”

“Hard to say. What do you think?”

I attempt to be direct with Gram, who is known to keep important details to herself, only to drop the bomb when there’s a room full of relatives. When she doesn’t answer me, I try another tack. “Alfred called. What did he want?”