Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

Alfred plants his arm firmly around her. He came straight from work, so he’s wearing a Brooks Brothers suit with a red Ronald Reagan tie. Pamela greets everyone with a kiss, but she’s not comfortable doing it. After thirteen years of marriage to my brother, whenever we all get together it’s as if it’s the first time she’s met us. We’ve made repeated attempts to make her feel a part of things, but our efforts don’t seem to take. Mom says Pamela has an “aloof personality,” but Alfred told Tess that we’re “intimidating.”

My sisters and I don’t think we’re scary. Yes, we’re competitive, opinionated, and discerning. And yes, at family gatherings, we yell, talk over one another, interrupt, and basically become the children we were at the age of ten minus the hair pulling. But intimidating? Must be. Pamela sits at the table gripping her evening clutch in her lap like it’s a steering wheel, staring at the Steinway with a patient, if plastered-on, smile as Alfred orders her a glass of white wine.

The waiters arrive, filling our table with hors d’oeuvres, delicate crab cakes, tiny potatoes with buttons of sour cream and caviar, clams casino on the half shell on an artful bed of shiny seaweed, oysters on ice, and a silver platter of baby lamb chops. Aunt Feen stands up, reaches across the table, and grabs a lamb chop, holding it like a pistol. She takes a bite before sitting back down in her chair. She chews. “Succulent,” she says through the meat.

The lights in the café dim, and the crowd applauds and whistles. I look to the door, hoping to see Roman rush in to take his seat next to me. I scan the crowd, and there’s no sign of him. The band strikes up, into a fizzy intro, and the applause escalates as Gabriel announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, Keely Smith!”

The glass doors push open and Keely enters the room, looking exactly like the cover art on her albums. Her hair is bobbed and jet black, with two signature spit curls on her cheeks. Her pale pink skin is flawless, her black eyes shine like jet beads. She wears simple gold silk pants topped with a bugle-beaded Erté jacket. The three-quarter-length sleeves reveal chunky Lucite bracelets that offset a diamond ring the size of a cell phone.

Keely weaves through the crowd like a bride at her third wedding, greeting the patrons with warmth, but just a touch blasé. Her manner is casual and familiar, as though she’s getting up to sing a few songs in her living room after dinner. She takes the microphone and scans the crowd, squinting at us as if to examine who we are and why we came. “Any Italians here tonight?”

We whistle and cheer.

“Louis Prima fans?”

We applaud loudly.

“We’re Keely fans!” Gram hollers.

“Okay, okay. I see I’m gonna have to work tonight.” She looks to her conductor, behind the piano, and says, “Here we go…” The band launches into a high-energy rendition of “That Old Black Magic.”

Keely stands before the microphone in the curve of the baby grand piano and taps the beat on the waxy finish with her long red fingernails as she sings. She makes time with her feet in gold stiletto sandals with inlaid tiger’s-eye straps. Her toenails are painted maroon. She notices that I’m staring at her feet, and smiles. The song ends, the crowd bursts into applause. She takes a step downstage and looks at me. “You like my sandals?”

“Yes. They’re gorgeous,” I tell her.

“A woman cannot live by shoes alone. Though there have been times in my life when I had to. I’ve walked many miles in my lifetime. I’m going to be eighty years old.”

A ripple goes through the crowd.

Keely continues. “Yep. Eighty. And I owe it all to…” She points heavenward.

“Me, too!” Gram waves to her.

“Today is her birthday,” Tess shouts.

“It is?” Keely says and smiles.

“Yes it is.” Gram didn’t need the creams at Elizabeth Arden, she’s getting a total rejuvenation right here. “You’re my gift.”

“Stand up, sister,” Keely says to Gram.

Gram stands.

Keely shields her eyes from the stage lights overhead and looks down at Gram. “You know the secret, don’t you?”

“You tell me,” Gram says, playing along.

“Never go gray.”

My mother whoops. “Tell her, Keely!”

“And the big one: younger men.”

“I hear you!” June, three straight-up whiskeys down, waves her napkin like a flag of surrender, to whom I’m not sure, but she keeps waving.

Keely points to June. “Now, not for the reason you think, Red. Although that’s important.” She continues, “I like a younger man because the men my age can’t see to drive at night.”

The drummer snares a rim shot. “I want to sing something just for you. What’s your name?”

“Teodora,” Gram tells her.

“Hey, you really are a paisan .” Keely makes the international sign for “I’m Italian,” making a slicing motion with her hand without a knife. “You got a boyfriend?”

Her grandchildren answer for her. “No!” we holler. Then, a man wearing trifocals, at the next table, whistles like he’s hailing a cab. “Lady didn’t say she was looking,” Keely chides him. “Tay, you got a man?”

“I’m with my family tonight,” Gram says with a giggle.

“And the less they know, the better. Take it from me.” Keely smiles and waves her hands over us like she’s a priest giving the final blessing. “Anybody who gets in the way of Grandmom’s fun will have to deal with me.” Then she extends her hand forward to Gram. “This one’s for you, kid. Happy birthday.”

Keely sings “It’s Magic.” Gram leans forward, puts her elbows on the table, and props her face in her hands and closes her eyes to listen. My father puts his arm around my mother, who nestles into his shoulder like it’s an old pillow. Tess looks at me with tears in her eyes, Jaclyn reaches across and squeezes Tess’s hand. Their husbands smile, sip their drinks. Pamela sits ramrod straight and blinks as Alfred picks the parsley off the mini crab cake before sampling it. My phone vibrates in my purse. As the magic song ends, the crowd bursts into applause and Gram stands and throws Keely a kiss. I look into my purse and check my BlackBerry. The text message reads:

Flood in the kitchen. Can’t make it.

So sorry. Kiss Gram.

Roman

Tess leans over and whispers, “Are you okay?”

“He’s not coming.”

“I’m so sorry.”

I feel my cheeks flush. I built up this whole evening in my mind. I pictured Roman sailing in to meet my family, handsome and glib, charming them, and pulling my father aside to tell him how much I mean in his life, and then later, my father would tell me that he’s never been more impressed with a suitor, and I’d have that feeling of security in the pit of my stomach, the kind that allows you to surrender to love when it comes your way. Instead, I’m embarrassed. No wonder Alfred believes I’m unreliable. It seems things never work out the way I plan. Of course the kitchen flooded, and of course Roman had to stay and take care of it, but to read the words: CAN’T MAKE IT means so much more than Can’t make it tonight. Can we ever make it? At all? Will Ca’ d’Oro always come first?

Keely sings “I’ll Remember You,” Gram’s eyes fill with tears, June gets misty, and even Aunt Feen’s face relaxes in a smile as she goes back in time to her youth. A tear rolls down my face, but as good as she is, it’s not because of Keely. Tonight, I could cry her a river on my own terms, and it would not have to be set to music.

GRAM AND I STAND ON THE CORNER of Jane and Hudson, surveying the Christmas tree selection as we inhale the cold night air, filled with the invigorating scent of crisp pine and clean cedar.