Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

“What?” June takes the sketchbook. “Valentine. This is brilliant.”

“That’s the shoe we’re going to make for the Bergdorf competition. At least, that’s the one I’m going to show Gram, and if she likes it, we’ll build it.”

“You really have the gift.” June puts the sketchbook down on the table. “Wow.”

“Genetics. It’s all in the DNA. Good taste cannot be learned or bought.” Mom tightens the belt on her trench coat. “It is inborn of natural talent and honed with hard work. Valentine, all the hours you’re putting in here are paying off.”

“That’s quite a shoe,” June says. “Complex. How are we going to build it?”

“Well, I’m hoping I can find some of the elements in Italy.”

“Good, because we don’t have embossed leather like that in this shop. And that braiding-I’ve never seen anything like it.” June shakes her head.

“I know. I just…dreamed it up.”

Charisma and Chiara run into the workroom. “Aunt June, do you have any candy?”

“What did you give up for Lent?” June, the fallen-away Catholic asks them.

Chiara stares at June. Charisma, no fool, steps forward and answers her, “Well, we don’t give up candy, we just try and do good deeds.”

“And what would those be?”

“I’m nice to the cat.”

“How kind of you.” June opens her purse and gives each of them a peppermint candy.

Charisma makes a face. “But these are free at the Chinese restaurant.”

“Yes, they are. So stop and thank them sometime,” June says. “The Chinese are the backbone of civilization. They invented macaroni and flip-flops.”

Unconvinced, Charisma and Chiara, holding their lousy candy, look at each other.

“Okay, kids, let’s go. Grandpop is waiting at our house.”

Tess helps the girls into their coats. “Mom, thanks so much for taking them for the weekend.” Mom herds the girls out the door.

June is happy to see them go, though only I would know it. “Aren’t they delightful.”

“Sometimes.” Tess says, pulling on her coat. “I’m late. I’m going to meet Charlie at the Port Authority. We’re taking the bus to Atlantic City.”

“Romantic weekend planned?” June asks.

“His company has a convention. I’m going to play the slots while he looks at the latest smoke alarms,” Tess says as she goes. The entrance door snaps shut.

“Smoke alarms? To put out what fire?” June whistles low. “I say buyer beware and run . There’s your best advertisement for marriage, Valentine. Take a good look.”

A cold draft from the open window wakes me. I sit up in bed and look out, pulling the cotton blanket and down comforter around me. Snow. Snow in March. The West Side Highway is a carpet of white, with black zippers of tire prints made by the early morning delivery trucks. There’s a doily of frost on the windowpane, and a layer of icy flakes on the sash.

I slept peacefully through the night. Alone. Roman was busy with a sold-out seating, and had to finish the prep work for a private party, so he crashed at his place instead of coming over and waking me. Gram comes home tomorrow night, and while I’ve enjoyed my run of the place, I have to admit I miss her.

I spent most of yesterday cleaning and putting things back where they belong. I did some research for our trip to Italy and found some new suppliers to visit in addition to Gram’s old reliables. I found some interesting new-guard talent who make braids and trims. I’m hoping to meet them on our trip, and add them to the roster of suppliers we currently use. I want to deliver a shoe to Bergdorf with embellishments that Rhedd Lewis has never seen before. Italian designers have recently been influenced by the in-flux of talent from a new sweep of immigrants, so I’ve come across lots of Russian-, African-, and Middle European-inspired accents in buttons and trim. I can’t wait to show Gram the new stuff.

When I finished my research, I scrubbed the bathroom, cleaned the kitchen, and made lasagna. The work in the shop is up to speed. Gram will return home to a clean house and a first-rate operation, with all existing deadlines met and orders filled.

I get up and pull on some comfortable sweatpants and a hoodie, and go into the bathroom. I pat on some of the rich botanical face cream that Tess gave me for Christmas. Might as well have a spa day, as I won’t be seeing anyone. It’s Sunday, and I have the day to myself.

I go down to the kitchen, take out the coffee press, and put a kettle of water on the stove. I get the milk out of the fridge and pour it into a small pan, putting the burner on low to steam it. I open the wax-paper sack from Ruthie’s, at the Chelsea Market, and pull out a soft brioche sprinkled with glassy raw sugar. I place the brioche on a frilly dessert plate and take a cloth napkin out of the drawer. My cell phone is beeping in the charger, so I flip it open and play the message.

“Hi, honey.” Roman’s voice is raspy. “It’s me. It’s five o’clock on Sunday morning. I’m still in the kitchen. It’s snowing. I wish we were together. I miss you. I’ll call you later.”

“Yeah, it would have been nice, Roman,” I say aloud. “But you have a wife. Her name is Ca’d’Oro and she comes first.”

I realize that I’m willing to overlook a lot because whoever is with me has to do the same. But I also remember how Roman made it his business to find out who I was in the very beginning, when the only clue he had was a glimpse of me on the roof. And now that I’m here for him, I might as well be a pair of those clunky clogs he keeps in the restaurant kitchen. Always on hand. Available. Comfortable. Reliable. The hunt is over.

I pour the boiling water into the coffee press, inhaling the rich earthiness of the dark espresso. I pick up the pot of foaming milk on the stove and pour it into a wide ceramic mug. I add the espresso until the milk turns the color of chocolate taffy.

I take my breakfast and climb the stairs to the roof, stopping in my room to pull on my boots, down coat, hat, and gloves. Pushing the door open and stepping out onto the roof covered in fresh snow, it’s as if I’m standing in a well of soft white candle wax, the shapes of everything familiar gone, replaced with smooth edges, rounded corners, and drapes of silver ice. I place my coffee and brioche on the snow-covered Saint Francis fountain, shake off a lawn chair, and open it to sit.

The sun, behind the thick, white clouds, has the luster of a dull gray pearl. The river has the texture of old, speckled, forest green and beige linoleum as the wind gently ruffles the surface. The walkway on the river is empty except for a couple of park attendants in their blue overalls sprinkling rock salt along the crosswalk at Perry Street.

A seagull hovers overhead, giving my brioche a studied look. “Shoo,” I say to him. He flaps away, his gray wings matching the morning sky. I nestle the mug between my hands and sip. I feel a pang of guilt as I remember Sunday mass. A good Catholic girl usually becomes a guilty Catholic woman, but I say a quiet prayer, and any nagging guilt about my whereabouts at the eight A.M. express mass at Our Lady of Pompeii is exhaled and sent out to sea. Doing the best I can, I remind God.

Snow begins to tumble down, throwing a white net over lower Manhattan. I pull the hood of my coat up over my head, put my feet up on the wall, and lean back.

Why is it, in the story of my life, that the moments I remember with the deepest affection are the times when I have been alone? I can line them up like faceted perfume bottles on an antique dresser.

When I was ten, I went to work with my father at the park. At the end of the day, when the summer sky over Queens was turning the color of smashed raspberries, he went into the supply shed and left me alone on the swings a few feet away. I had the whole of LaGuardia Park number fifteen to myself. I swung as high and as fast as I could, climbing higher and higher, until I swore I could see the blue lights on the top tier of the Empire State Building.