Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

“We came too soon,” Gram whispers to me after an hour passes. “This could take hours.”

“Remember when Jaclyn was born?” Tess says, sitting down next to me.

“You named her after your favorite Charlie’s Angel, Jaclyn Smith. I still can’t believe Mom went for that.” I put my arm around Tess.

Mrs. McAdoo shows up with her sister; they wait patiently for an hour and then go. To be fair, this is Mrs. McAdoo’s fourteenth grandchild, so the thrill is essentially gone.

Finally, Tess, too, gives up and takes Charisma and Chiara home. Dad falls asleep on the couch and snores so loudly, the nurse asks us to have him removed. And then, after six hours, two rounds of Starbucks coffee and an hour and a half of Anderson Cooper on mute on the TV in the waiting area, finally, at ten minutes after midnight on June 15, 2008, Tom comes out of the labor room.

“It’s a girl,” he says. “Teodora Angelini McAdoo.”

My mother cries, Gram clasps her hands together, honored and stunned. My father embraces Tom, slapping him on the back. Mom gets on the cell and calls Tess, and then Alfred, to tell them of the arrival of the newest member of our family. Gram, Mom, and I go into the recovery room to see Jaclyn. She lies back in the bed holding her daughter. She’s exhausted and puffy, her usually large and limpid eyes buried in her face like raisins in the top of a bran muffin. She looks up at us. “Isn’t she beautiful?” Jaclyn whispers.

We gather around her and coo.

“Never again.” Her expression changes from bliss to resolve. “Never again.”

In the cab ride home, I check my phone. I listen to the messages. There are three from Roman, the last one downright terse. I call him. He picks up. I don’t even say hello. “Honey, I’m so sorry. Jaclyn had the baby. We’ve been at the hospital all night.”

“That’s great news,” he says. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I just told you, I was at the hospital.”

“I left you messages everywhere.”

“Roman, I don’t know what to say. I was all caught up in it. I had my phone off. I’m sorry. Do you want me to come over now?”

“You know what? Let’s rain-check. We can do this another night,” he says, sounding exhausted, and truthfully, more annoyed than tired.

I snap the phone shut. Gram looks out the window pretending not to have heard the conversation.

“You’d think I left him stranded for a week alone on Capri. It was only dinner,” I tell her. “Men.”

Gram and I are weary the next morning after our long day at the hospital. Gram has called all of her friends to tell them that her new great-granddaughter is also her namesake. Never let it be said that it doesn’t matter who a baby is named for, in my family, it’s the highest honor. I’ve never seen Gram so happy.

I bring the mail into the workshop, sorting through it until I find an envelope from Italy. I hand it to Gram. “You got something from Dominic.”

She puts down the pattern she is working on and takes the letter from me. She opens it carefully with the blade of her work scissors. I pick up a brush and polish the kid leather on the Ines. When she’s done reading the letter, Gram hands me some pictures that came with the letter.

“Orsola got married,” she says.

In a vivid color photograph, Orsola is a stunning bride in a simple, square-necked white silk slip dress, with ornate trim made of white silk roses along the bottom. The hem of her dress stands away from her feet, like the edge of a bell. She carries a small bouquet of white edelweiss.

On Orsola’s other side is her groom, a match for her beauty, his blond hair slicked back for the big day. Next to the groom are his parents, a nice-looking couple. Holding Orsola’s hand on her other side is a woman I’ve never seen before, she must be Gianluca’s ex-wife, and Orsola’s mother. She is the same height as her daughter, with short hair, and the same delicate features. I can see that she’s tough, and she’s definitely got the number elevens going between the eyes. Gianluca described her well.

My heart races when I see Gianluca in the photograph next to his ex-wife. Maybe I’m embarrassed about kissing him, or maybe seeing his ex-wife, a woman around his own age, reminds me of our age difference. Gianluca wears a stately gray morning coat. He looks handsome and refined, not like the working-class tanner he is in life. His smile is full of joy for his daughter. Dominic, the Duke of Arezzo, wears a gray morning coat and a black-and-white-striped ascot, and stands proudly next to his son.

“Dominic writes that Gianluca asked about you.”

“That’s nice.” I change the subject quickly. “How’s Dominic?”

“He misses me,” she says. “You know, he’s in love with me.”

Gram says this as casually as she might when she places a lunch order. I put down my work brush. “Are you in love with him?”

She places the letter off to the side carefully. “I think so.”

“Don’t worry, Gram, soon a year will go by and we’ll need more leather and you’ll be with him again.”

She looks at me. “I don’t think I can wait a year.”

“You can visit anytime you want.”

“I don’t think a visit is enough anymore.”

I’m stunned. My grandmother is eighty years old; would she actually uproot her life to go and live in Italy? It doesn’t seem possible, and it certainly doesn’t seem like her.

She continues, “I’ve had a struggle within myself all my life. I’m always torn between doing what I want to do and what I should do.”

“Gram, when you’re eighty, I think you get a pass. I think it’s time to do what you want to do.”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” She looks off and then continues, “But it’s not easy to change what is fundamental and basic about yourself, even if you wish you could. I’ve been working in this shop for over fifty years, and I imagine that I always will.”

“But you fell in love…,” I remind her. “That’s a game changer,” I say aloud, as though it’s something I actually know to be true.

“Love only works when two lives come together without sacrifice. No one should give up who they are for someone else. People do it, but it doesn’t make them happy, not in the long run.”

The phone rings, interrupting our conversation. “Angelini Shoe Company,” I say into the phone.

“Rhedd Lewis calling for Teodora Angelini,” the assistant says.

I cover the receiver. “Gram, it’s Rhedd Lewis.”

Gram takes the phone from me. It seems like it takes twenty years for her to say, “Hello?” She listens carefully, then says, “Rhedd, if you don’t mind, I’d like Valentine to take the call. It’s her design. One moment please.” Gram hands the phone back to me.

“Valentine, I’ve sifted through every shoe submitted for the windows. I was wowed, disappointed, shocked, and appalled. There was real junk, and genuine genius…”

Why is she telling me this? I don’t need a critique on top of a rejection. Get to the point, lady.

Rhedd continues, “But nowhere in all the submissions was there such élan, such energy, such a new view but with a respect for the past. You rose to the occasion splendidly, and in creating the Bella Rosa, you married tradition with the pulse of the moment in an artful and seamless way. In fact, I’m in awe. We are going to feature Angelini Shoes in the Christmas windows at Bergdorf’s. Congratulations.”

I hang up the phone and scream so loudly, the pigeons on Charles Street take flight. “We won! We won!” Gram and I embrace. June comes in from lunch.

“What the hell is going on?” she says.

“We won, June! We’re doing the windows at Bergdorf’s!”