Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

Dad and Alfred load the sticks with marshmallows and hand them to the kids, who gather around the grill like little match children, holding the white puffs into the flames. Roman puts his arm around me.

“Time to light the torches!” Mom calls out. “Ambience inside and out, I say.”

“She’s exactly as you described her,” Roman whispers in my ear, then joins Charlie and Tom as they fan out and light the torches on the corners of the roof.

Dad helps Alfred Junior and Rocco hold their marshallows on sticks to the flames. Charisma, a little pyro, lets her marshmallow burst into flames, open like a bomb, and ooze onto the hot coals. Chiara waits patiently, toasting each side of her marshmallow uniformly. My sisters stand behind the girls, guiding them as another holiday tradition is handed down from my generation to the next one.

“Great-gram?” Charisma asks. “Tell the story of the velvet tomatoes.”

“Great-gram has had too much great wine.” Gram sits down on the chaise and puts her feet up. “And I’m having some more. Have Auntie Valentine tell the story.”

“Tell the story!” Charisma, Rocco, Alfred Junior, and Chiara jump up and down.

“Okay, okay. When I was six years old, my mother brought me over to stay with Gram and Grandpop when she went to see Phantom of the Opera for the eighth time.”

“I love an Andrew Lloyd Webber show,” Mom says unapologetically to Roman, who shrugs.

“Alfred and Tess were at summer camp…”

“Camp Don Bosco,” Tess clarifies.

“…and baby Jaclyn was in Queens with Dad. I had Gram and Grandpop all to myself. And I came up here to play on the roof. First I had a little tea party, using garden tools for utensils and mud for scones. Then I decided to be like Gram, and I went over to the tomato plants and started to dig around in the dirt. But when I looked up through the vines, there were no tomatoes. So I ran downstairs, right into the shoe shop, and I said, ‘Somebody stole the tomatoes.’ And I started to cry.”

“She almost had a nervous breakdown,” Gram says wryly.

“She was worried! No tomatoes,” Chiara says in my defense.

“Right. So Grandpop explained that sometimes the plants don’t bear fruit, that sometimes, no matter how well you take care of them, it’s just too rainy for the plants to make tomatoes. The plants are so smart, they know not to bloom, because the tomatoes would come in all mealy and tasteless, and what good would they be?”

“And then I said we might have to wait until next summer for the tomatoes to grow. But Valentine was heartbroken.” Gram lifts her glass of wine.

I pick up the story again, looking at Roman, who is as engrossed as the kids in the fate of the tomatoes, or maybe he’s just being polite. “The next Sunday, everyone came over for dinner, and Gram said, ‘Go up to the roof, Valentine. You won’t believe your eyes.’”

“And everybody raced up the stairs!” Chiara says.

“That’s right.” I put my hands on Rocco’s and Alfred Junior’s shoulders. “We all came up to the roof to see what had happened. And when we got here, there was a miracle. There were tomatoes everywhere. But they weren’t tomatoes to make sauce, they were velvet tomatoes, made with red and green fabric, and they dangled from the barren plants, like ornaments. Even the tomato pincushion from the shop was there, hanging from the vine. We jumped up and down like it was Christmas morning even though it was the hottest day of summer. I asked my grandfather how it happened. And he said, ‘Magic!’ And then we all celebrated the harvest of the velvet tomatoes.”

My mom gives me a thumbs-up as the kids eat their marshmallows and we drink our wine. I look around at my family, feeling blessed and full. Pamela remains glued to my brother’s hip, like a gun holster, while Gram lies with her feet up on the chaise. Tess and Jaclyn pull Mom away to watch a Norwegian cruise ship make a lazy entrance into New York Harbor. I look at Roman, who seems to fit into this crazy family without too much fuss. The moon peeks out between the skyscrapers looming behind us, looking an awful lot like a lucky penny.

Dad holds up his sexy elves plastic cup of wine. “I’d like to make a toast. To Dr. Buxbaum at Sloan who took my prostrate numbers from north to south. Which is a good thing.”

“To Dr. Buxbaum!” we toast. My father is beating prostate cancer and he still can’t pronounce it.

“Many, many more years, Dutch,” Mom says, raising her glass again. “We have lots of sunsets to see, and lots of places to go. You still have to take me to Williamsburg.”

“Virginia?” Tess asks.

“That’s your dream trip?” Jaclyn says. “You can get there in a car.”

“I believe in setting goals that one can achieve. Low expectations make for a happy life. I can die without seeing Bora-Bora. Besides, I love glassblowing, Georgian architecture, and Revolutionary War reenactors. Aim for doable, kids.”

“I think you mean it.” I swig my wine.

“I absolutely do. I have dreamed of the attainable and the attainable has found me. I wanted a nice Italian boy with good teeth, and that’s what I got.”

“I still have all my choppers,” Dad says, nodding.

“You think small things don’t matter until you consider teeth,” Gram toasts Dad from the chaise.

We sip our wine as we ponder Dad’s bite and Mom’s dream of Colonial Williamsburg. The only sound we hear is the faint pop of the marshmallows as they ignite into orange flames, only to turn bright blue before charring to black. Roman supervises the operation and actually seems to be having fun. He looks over at me and winks.

The kids have gone downstairs to play with some of those minuscule Polly Pocket dolls, while the grown-ups remain on the roof, sitting around the old table finishing our wine. A cold wind kicks up as the fire in the grill dies down. I collect the cups, and I’m about to head downstairs to start the dishes when I hear Alfred lean over and say to Gram, “Scott Hatcher’s offer is still on the table.”

“Not now, Alfred,” she says quietly.

I knew this was coming. I could barely look at Alfred all night, knowing he was calculating square footage and interest rates with every mouthful of manicotti. He’s made remarks and dropped hints until I’m good and sick of it. So I turn to my brother and say, “It’s Christmas! She doesn’t want to talk about Scott Hatcher and his cash offer. And besides, you told us Hatcher was a broker, not a buyer.”

“He’s both. He sells properties, but he also buys them for investment purposes. Anyhow, what difference does it make?”

“A lot. A broker comes in and gives an opinion. It’s a process. After a few months, when you’ve gathered enough information and gone out to competitors to get the best price, then, and only then, if you want to sell, do you hire your own broker and name your price. But that’s not what’s going on here. He’s a developer.”

“How do you know?” Alfred counters.

“I did my research.” If only Alfred knew how much research. I know more about Scott Hatcher than I ever wanted to. “It isn’t prudent for Gram to sell the building after one offer. That’s bad business.”

“And you know from business?” Alfred sneers.

“I’ve been putting together my own numbers.” My family looks at me. Funnyone is artistic, not a numbers person. I’ve blindsided them.

“You’re not serious.” Alfred turns away from me.

“I’m deadly serious,” I say, raising my voice.

Alfred turns back and looks at me, confused.

“Not now, Valentine,” Gram says firmly.

“Anyhow, it’s Gram’s decision. Not yours,” Alfred says dismissively.

“I’m Gram’s partner.”