Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

“Thank you.” Gram beams. “I wanted a new look for my trip to Italy.”

“Well, you’ve got it,” I tell her.

“I mean our trip to Italy.” Gram looks at me. “Valentine, I want you to go with me.”

“Are you serious?” I have only been to Italy on a college trip, and I would love to see it with my grandmother.

In all the years my grandparents traveled to Italy, the trips were strictly business: to buy supplies, meet fellow artisans, share information, and learn new techniques. Usually, they would be gone about a month. When I was small, they went annually; in the later years, they would stagger the trips and go every two or three years. When Grandpop died ten years ago, Gram resumed her annual trips.

“Gram, are you sure you want to take me?”

“I wouldn’t think of going without you. You want to win those Bergdorf windows, don’t you?” Gram flips through her work file. “We need the best materials to make them, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.” We are waiting for the dress design that Rhedd Lewis promised us. I’m learning that in the world of fashion, the only people who work on deadlines are the ones making things, not the ones selling them.

June puts down her scissors and looks at Gram. “You haven’t taken anyone to Italy in years. Not since Mike died.”

“I know I haven’t,” she says quietly.

“So, what gives?” June pins down her pattern paper on the leather.

“It’s time.” Gram looks around the shop, checking the bins for something to do. “Besides, someday Valentine will run the shop, and she needs to meet everybody I deal with.”

“I wish we were leaving tonight. I’m finally going to see the Spolti Inn, and meet the tanners, and go to the great silk fabric houses in Prato. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”

“And those Italian men have been waiting for you ,” June says.

“June, I’m taken.” Did she even hear the cleaned-up version of my Christmas night?

“I know. But it’s the law of the jungle. It’s been my experience, whenever I have a man, I attract more of them. And in Italy, trust me, the men line up.”

“For tips. Porters, waiters, and bellboys,” I tell her.

“Nothing wrong with a man who can do some heavy lifting for you,” June says and winks.

“Valentine will have plenty of work to do. There won’t be time for hobnobbing and socializing.”

“Too bad,” June sighs.

“That’s really why I’m taking you,” Gram says to me. “You’ll do the work while I hobnob and socialize.”

I think about those late-night calls from Italy that seem to go on for longer than necessary to order leather. I think about the man in the picture buried at the bottom of Gram’s dresser. I remember our conversations about time being like ice in her hands. Is she really taking me to Italy for an education so that she might eventually hand off the Angelini Shoe Company, or is something else going on here? I expected Gram to go to Eva Scrivo and come home with a version of her old haircut, short, full, and silver, instead she walks in here looking like the senior-citizen version of Posh Beckham at an assisted-living bingo night. What gives?

There’s a knock at the door.

“Let the fresh hell begin,” June says gaily.

“Gram, Bret is here for our meeting.”

“Already?” Gram says in a tone that tells me she would rather not take this meeting at all.

“Gram, I want you to have an open mind. Please.”

“I just changed my hair completely. You can assume I’m open to new things.”

I push the door open. Roman stands in the doorway with a paper cone of red roses in one hand. The other hand is behind his back. “What a surprise!”

“Good morning.” He leans over and kisses me as he hands me the flowers. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“They’re beautiful! Thank you. Come on in!”

Roman follows me into the shop. He’s wearing jeans, a wool bomber jacket, and on his feet: yellow plastic work clogs over thick white socks.

“Aren’t your feet cold?”

“Not in my Wigwam socks,” he says, smiling. “Worried about me?”

“Just your feet. We gotta work on your shoe selection. You’re with a cobbler now. You made me give up Lean Cuisine lasagna so I can’t let you go around in plastic clogs. I’d love to make you a pair of calfskin boots.”

“I won’t say no,” he says, grinning. From behind his back, Roman produces two more bouquets of flowers. He gives one to Gram and the other to June. “For the babes of Angelini shoes.” They fall all over him in gratitude. Then Roman notices Gram’s hair. “Teodora, I like your hair.”

“Thank you.” She waves the bouquet at Roman. “You really shouldn’t have!”

“Valentine’s Day isn’t for another month.” June inhales her bouquet.

“Every day is Valentine’s Day for me.” Roman looks at me in the process. “Now, how many of your boyfriends have used that line?”

“All of them,” I tell him.

In the powder room, I fill two pressed-glass vases with water and deliver one to Gram and one to June. I find a third vase and fill it with water for my bouquet.

Gram arranges her roses in the vase. “It’s gratifying to see that there are still men out there who know what pleases a lady.”

“In all ways.” June winks at me.

Gram places June’s flowers in the other vase as the shop falls into deadly silence save for the rustle of the pattern paper as June cuts it. Roman, good sport that he is, spins the brushes on the buffing machine, waiting for someone to say something that isn’t related to his/mine/our sex life.

“And you haven’t even had my cooking yet,” Roman says to June.

“I can’t wait,” June growls.

“Now, June,” I warn her. It’s one thing for June to take us on a jazz tour of her love life when it’s just us girls, but it’s another thing entirely for her to paint the frisky picture of The Good Old Lays in front of Roman.

The front door pushes open.

“Good morning, ladies,” Bret calls out from the vestibule. Bret enters the shop in a navy Armani suit, with a splashy yellow tie on a crisp, white shirt. He wears polished black Dior Homme loafers with tassels.

Bret extends his hand to Roman. “Bret Fitzpatrick.”

“Roman Falconi,” he says, giving Bret a firm handshake.

“I take it you’re here for wedding shoes?” Bret jokes.

“What do you got in a thirteen?” Roman looks to Gram, June, and then me.

And here it is, my past and my future in a head-on collision. As I size them up, it’s obvious to me that I like tall and employed. I am also my mother’s daughter, and therefore, critical. Roman’s clogs look like giant clown shoes next to Bret’s sleek loafers. Given a choice, I would have preferred serious shoes on my boyfriend in this moment.

“Bret’s an old friend of ours,” Gram says.

“He’s helping us with some new business opportunities here at the shop,” I explain.

Roman looks at Bret and nods. “Well, I won’t keep you. I’ve got to shove off. Faicco’s has some amazing veal shanks from an organic farm in Woodstock. Osso bucco is our special tonight.” Roman kisses me good-bye.

“Thank you for the flowers,” Gram says and smiles.

“Mine, too,” June says.

“See you later, girls.” Roman turns to go. “Nice to meet you,” he says to Bret.

“You, too,” Bret says as Roman goes.

“That wasn’t awkward at all,” June says as she holds a straight pin between her pursed lips. “Something old meets something new.”

“That’s your new boyfriend?” Bret looks off at the door.

“He’s a chef,” Gram brags.