Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

I’m wearing a midnight blue coatdress with a wide embroidered belt that belonged to my mother. I’ve had my eye on it for years, and this summer, when she purged her closet, I got lucky. There’s a picture of Mom holding me at my baptism in the fall of 1975 and wearing this coatdress. Her long hair is secured with a headband, which is attached to a fall, giving her cascading curls to her waist. Mom looked like a Catholic Ann-Margret with one foot in the sacristy and the other on the Vegas strip.

I wear the coatdress with pants, as it’s much shorter on me. My mother wore it as a dress with sheer L’Eggs stockings, and I know that for certain because we used to collect the plastic eggs her hosiery came in and play farm.

Tess, Jaclyn, and I happily accept Mom’s secondhand clothes because we know how much she treasured them the first time around. Tess ended up with a few structured St. John jackets from the eighties, appropriate for PTA meetings, while I opted for coats and dresses she had made by a seamstress for special occasions. Jaclyn, with her tiny feet, inherited Mom’s collection of Candy platform sandals in every shade of fake python that was available during the Carter administration. Yes, tangerine snakeskin exists. Mom says that you know you’ve been around awhile when you own every possible variation of a heel in your shoe collection. She still has the Famolare Get There sandals with the wavy bottoms. My mother never needed the recreational drugs of her era, she just put on those sandals and swayed.

As the cab makes a quick turn off Madison and onto East Seventy-sixth Street, I see Gabriel outside the hotel entrance, talking on his phone. I pay the cabbie and jump out.

Gabriel snaps the phone shut. “You’ve got the best table ringside.”

“Great. Is Gram here yet?”

“Oh, she’s here all right. She’s on her second scotch and soda. I hope the show begins soon, because there will be a show, just not the one you’re paying to see.”

“Gram’s tipsy?”

“June is worse. The woman can put it away. Evidently, her legs are made of sea sponge. And your Aunt Feen looks stoned. What’s the deal with her anyway? Lipitor with an Ambien chaser? Do me a favor. Check her meds.” Gabriel motions for me to follow him inside. “Is Roman on his way? I hate latecomers.”

“Yep.”

“Have you had sex yet?”

“No.” I yank my belt tightly. Tonight may be the night, but I don’t have to tell Gabriel.

“You bore me. What are you waiting for?”

“I’d like to spend more time with him before I take him on my magical mystery tour. Our relationship is building beautifully, thank you.”

“Who said anything about a relationship? I’m talking about sex.”

“You know they are coffee and cream to me.”

“Go ahead. Have your high standards and enjoy them alone. Follow me, darling.”

I follow Gabriel through the lobby of the Carlyle Hotel. Art Deco mirrors conjure up a sophisticated era, a time of rumble seats, speakeasies, clean gin, and elbow-length satin evening gloves. The chandeliers dazzle, like open cigarette cases, sunbursts of silver, gold, and daggers of crystal glowing overhead. Every detail of the lobby is lustrous-the brass doorknobs, the hinges, and even the patrons gleam. The polished marble floors look like sheets of ice, pale silver marble in the center with crisp black hems of granite.

Gabriel leads me through the bar, where the frosted sconces throw low lights over the soft mushroom-colored walls. The neutral background shows off the stylish William Haines club chairs, covered in peach velvet and grouped around marble-topped bar tables.

We enter the Café Carlyle through etched glass doors. The room resembles a luxurious leather train case lined with sage green and pale pink bouclé. A series of murals painted by Marcel Vertes shows beautiful women flying, dancing, and leaping through the air, in a carousel of color; shades of strawberry, cream, sea green, magenta, and grass green fill the room in endless summer. The ceiling, painted dark blue, hangs overhead like a night sky. The neutral-patterned leather booths with a print of small circles, airy bubbles, seem inspired by Gustav Klimt. Small tables are grouped downstage, draped in crisp, midnight blue linens.

Gram and June chat shoulder to shoulder at our table, a large banquet shape to accommodate our family. Aunt Feen sifts through the mixed nuts in a silver dish, while June swishes the cherry in the bottom of her cocktail around like a pinball as the band members filter in and take their places onstage. A glossy black baby grand Steinway fills the small stage. A microphone and stand rests in the curve of the piano. Keely will literally be three feet from our table.

“You made it,” Gram says when she sees me, toasting me with her scotch. I give her a quick kiss.

“Happy birthday!”

“I love your ensemble,” June says.

“Thank you. And you look spectacular.”

“To old broads!” Gram raises her glass to June.

“We certainly are!” June touches her glass to Gram’s.

“Thanks to the cream at Elizabeth Arden, I am about a week younger than I was when I walked out of the house this morning.” Gram takes my hand and squeezes it. Tess, Jaclyn, and I treated Gram to a day of beauty at the Elizabeth Arden salon. She’s been pummeled, plucked, and primped since morning. “Thank you. It’s been a marvelous day, and now, we get Keely.”

Mom throws her arms around her mother from behind. “Happy birthday, Mama,” she cries in her black sequin tank with matching silk georgette palazzo pants and a wide hammered-gold chain-link belt that drips down her thigh with a fringe of rhinestones. She wears strappy gold sandals to complete the Cleopatra effect. Dad wears a black-and-white-pin-striped suit with a gray dress shirt and a wide black-and-white silk tie. They match, but of course, they always do.

June stands and gives Dad a hug. “Dutch, you look fantastic.”

“Not as good as you, June.”

“How’s your cancer?” Aunt Feen brays.

“My numbers are improving, Auntie.”

“I put you on the prayer wheel at Saint Brigid’s.”

“I appreciate it.”

“The last guy we prayed for died, but that wasn’t our fault.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t.” Dad throws us a look and sits down next to Aunt Feen for more abuse.

Tess waves from the check-in desk, in a strapless red cocktail dress. She makes an entrance worthy of my mother and is followed by Charlie, who wears a matching red tie. There are some inherited traits not worth fighting.

Tess gives Dad a hug. “Hey, Pop. How are you feeling?”

Before he can answer, Aunt Feen says, “How should he feel? The man’s full of cancer.”

Charlie reaches down and squeezes my shoulder. “Hey, sis,” he says. “Can’t wait to meet the Big Man tonight.” Charlie smiles supportively. It’s funny that Charlie would call Roman the Big Man when it’s Charlie who’s big. He looks like Brutus in every Hollywood Bible epic ever made. He’s also Sicilian, so he tans in twelve minutes and takes twelve years to forgive a slight.

“I can’t wait for you to meet him. Be nice.”

“I’ll be adorable,” Charlie says and sits down next to Tess.

Gabriel brings Jaclyn and Tom to the table. Jaclyn wears a short cream-colored wool skirt with a matching cashmere sweater and pearls. Tom, in his Sunday suit, looks like he’s been spit-polished for his First Communion. As Jaclyn and Tom take their seats, Alfred and Pamela join us.

Pamela turns forty next year, but she looks about twenty-five. She’s slim and has long, sandy blond hair, with a few pieces bleached the color of white chalk around her face for contrast. She’s a mix of Polish and Irish, but she’s picked up on our Italianate details when it comes to prints, sequins, and the size of her engagement ring. Tonight she wears a long, flowing, orchid-print evening wrap dress.