Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

“What is it?” he says groggily.

I want to tell him everything. But instead, I don’t. I can’t. So I whisper, “Nothing. It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“I don’t care if it’s Lent. A bribe is a bribe and they work,” Tess tells me as she fishes two Hershey kisses out of the bottom of her purse. “Charisma? Chiara?” The girls clomp down the stairs to the workshop, then burst through the door like two pink bottle rockets.

Tess looks down at them. “Enough with the running and the jumping and the noise. Young ladies should have some finesse. You sound like a longhorn cattle drive on those stairs.”

“Well, you called us.” Charisma stands before her mother in a shiny pink T-shirt that says PRINCESS and a full tulle skirt that conjures up the lead swan in the ballet. Her black laceless Converse sneaker slips-ons have two rolls of knee socks clumped around her ankles. Chiara is still dressed by my sister, so she wears a pressed pink-striped corduroy jumper, a blouse with a Peter Pan collar, and Stride Rite lace-up boots.

“Cool down. There’s a chocolate kiss in it for you if you do. Mommy is trying to talk to Auntie Valentine.”

Charisma and Chiara put their hands out. Tess drops a kiss in each.

“I’m saving mine!” Chiara hollers as she follows her sister back up the stairs.

“I’m the worst mother. I use payola.”

“Whatever means necessary,” I tell her.

“How’s it going with Roman?”

“Not so great.”

“You’re kidding. What happened to making 166 Perry Street into a love spa while Gram’s on retreat?”

“It’s so not a love spa. I work all day. I sketch all night. He works all day and all night, gets here at three in the morning, goes to sleep, and wakes up the next morning and goes. I’m getting a little taste of what a permanent relationship would be like with him, and let’s just say that the only permanent thing about Roman is that he’s perpetually in motion.”

“That would change if you married him.”

“ Married him? I can’t even get him to commit to go to the movies.”

“You have to make Roman focus on you. When we were dating, Charlie was so invested in his job it scared me. After we got married, his priorities shifted. Our family comes first. Now he goes to work, and when he comes home, life begins.” Tess puts her hand on her heart. “Us. The part of his life that matters.”

We hear a loud crash upstairs. We run to the vestibule. Chiara appears at the top of the stairs with Charisma.

“What was that?” Tess yells. The hand on her loving heart has turned into a fist that she shakes in the air.

“I spun Charisma in a pas de deux. Don’t worry. She landed on the rug.”

“Stop throwing your sister around. Sit and watch your show.”

The girls disappear into the living room.

Tess looks at me. “Don’t look at my children as an example of what yours might be someday. You might have ones who behave.” Tess looks up at the clock. “Mom can’t get here fast enough. She knows how to handle those two.”

June pushes the door open with her hip. She carries two green plastic flowerpots filled with purple hyacinths. “We need some spring around here,” she says, handing the pots off to Tess.

“Val is going to break up with Roman.” Tess takes the flowers to the sink and runs water into the pots.

“I didn’t say that.”

“It sounded like it to me,” Tess says.

“Why on earth would you give him the boot?” June asks.

“We hardly see each other. He’s busy, I’m busy.”

“So?” June buries her hands in her pockets and looks at me.

“So? It’s a pretty big deal that we barely lay eyes on each other.”

“Everybody’s busy. Do you think people get less busy as time goes on? It gets worse. I’m busier now than I’ve ever been, and if I sat down and tried to figure out why, I couldn’t. There’s no ideal situation out there. A shot of a good man even once in a while is not a bad thing.”

“I hear you,” I say. When it’s good with Roman, it’s the best it can be. I sometimes think that the good stuff blinds me to reality, sways me to keep trying. But is that enough? Should it be?

“You have a perfect situation.” June pours herself a cup of coffee. “You see each other, you have fun, then you go your separate ways. I’d be with a man myself right now if they didn’t eventually nag me to move in. I don’t want somebody in my house twenty-four/seven. I like my own life, thank you.”

“My sister wants a family someday.” Tess puts the hyacinth in the front window where the sun can get to the clusters of starburst petals. “She’s traditional,” Tess says.

“Am I?” I ask aloud. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly traditional. I guess I appear to be one of my tribe, but the truth is, whenever I have the opportunity to walk the hard line of tradition, I balk.

The entrance door creaks open. “Hi-yo!” Mom calls out in the vestibule.

“In here, Mom,” I holler.

Mom comes into the shop roaring like a March leopard in a spotted trench coat fit for the random rainstorms of spring. She’d be a March lion but she looks pasty in solid beige, and besides, leopard print is her trademark. Mom wears black leggings, shiny black rubber rain demiboots, and a wide-brimmed patent leather rain hat tied under the chin with a bow. “Are the girls ready?”

Tess goes to the foot of the stairs and calls for her daughters. They don’t answer. We hear her shout, “Okay, I’m coming up.” Tess goes up the stairs.

“She really needs to get a grip on those children,” Mom says softly.

“She’s hoping you will. Where’s Dad?”

“Home. He’s not feeling so hot today.” Mom forces a smile. “He’s exhausted from the treatments.”

“They’re working, aren’t they, Mom?”

“The doctor says they are. The radiation team at Sloan is very optimistic.”

For the first time since Dad was diagnosed, Mom looks tired to me. The constant appointments have taken a toll on her. When she’s not running my father to the doctors, she’s educating herself about his illness. She reads about what he should eat, how often he should rest, and which holistic supplements to take and when. She has to go out and find all the stuff, the organic food and medicinal herbs, then go home and prepare the dishes, strain the tea, and, then, the hardest part of all: force my father to follow the regimen. This is a man who would sprinkle grated cheese on cake if he could. He’s not exactly a compliant patient, and it shows on my mother’s face. She hasn’t had a good night’s rest in months, and it’s clear to me that she needs a break.

“Mom, you look exhausted,” I say gently.

“I know. Thank God for Benefit’s LemonAid. I smear that concealer on the dark circles under my eyes like I’m buttering bread.”

June pours Mom a cup of coffee. Mom takes the mug and is about to put the cup down on my sketchbook. I push it aside and give her a rubber cat’s-paw heel for a coaster instead.

“What can you do?” Mom sighs and sips her coffee, holding the mug with one hand and opening my sketchbook with the other. She absentmindedly flips through it. Then, she focuses and stops on my recent sketch for the Bergdorf shoe. I’m just about to pull the notebook away when Mom says, “My father was so gifted.” She holds up the sketch and shows it to June. “Look at this.”

June looks at the drawing and nods. “That man was ahead of his time. The wide straps, the button details. Look at the heel. Wide at the base, into a spindle at the tip. Completely courant and the man has been dead ten years.”

“That’s not Grandpop’s sketch.” I take a deep breath. “It’s mine.”