Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

“Do you have any candy?” She tries to peer through the partially opened door and into my room.

“No, honey, I don’t.” I look down the hallway. Where in the hell is this kid’s mother? Why doesn’t Tess wake up and deal with her? I smile at Chiara. “It will soon be breakfast-and I’ll buy you a big jar of Nutella for the plane ride.”

“You will?”

“Yep, and a spoon. And you can eat for seven hours on the plane on the way home.”

“Do I have to share?”

“No, no sharing.” I give Chiara a hug, and then, closing my door behind me, walk her down the hallway and back to her room.

“Mom won’t let me eat it out of the jar.”

“Yes, she will. I will buy her a jumbo bottle of Coco cologne off of the duty-free cart.”

“Good.” Chiara pushes the door of her room open.

A woman’s loud scream, coming from my bathroom, peals through the quiet.

“What was that?” Chiara grabs me, afraid.

“Go in your room.”

I turn and run down the hallway and into my room. Gianluca is standing in front of the bathroom door.

“I frightened your sister,” he says as he points to the bathroom. “It connects.”

“I forgot to tell you.”

The hallway light flickers on. “Is everything all right?” my mother calls out from her room at the end of the long hall.

“I saw a mouse,” Jaclyn calls from her door, next to mine, covering for the shock of finding Gianluca in her/our bathroom.

“I’ll send Daddy,” Mom calls out reassuringly.

“What the hell can I do? Club it with a shoe?” Dad bellows.

“I don’t know, Dutch. Think of something,” my mother says.

“I’m not chasing mice,” he barks. “Hasn’t this day been bad enough?”

“I’m afraid!” Chiara comes out of her room and into the hallway and begins to cry. “Maaa-maaa!” Her voice echoes through the hotel like an Alpine yodel.

Tess opens her door, comes out of her room, and joins her daughter in the hall, groggy from sleep. “What’s the matter?” I hear her say.

“Aunt Jaclyn was screaming,” Chiara explains.

“You shouldn’t listen at people’s doors,” I hear Tess tell Chiara; clearly she thinks it was a pleasant scream that her daughter misunderstood. Tess then closes Chiara’s door softly behind her.

“I’ll go.” Gianluca kisses my hand.

“No, you’re staying.”

“I can’t, now. The children. Your family…”

“Right, right. A bloodcurdling scream knocks the starch right out of romance. How about…” I’m thinking we could go to his house-and so is he.

He shakes his head no. “Papa and Teodora.”

“Right, right.” I think again. “Is there a hotel?”

“This one.”

We look at one another.

“We’re doomed,” I whisper.

“No.”

“How do you figure? I’m leaving in the morning.” I throw myself against his chest.

“You might be going home,” he says softly, “…but you will never leave me.”

Gianluca’s lips find my own with such tenderness, then he kisses my cheek, and into my ear he whispers, “Never.”

THE FOLDERS LIE NEATLY ON Gram’s long dining room table, just as she left them, plainly marked in her own hand: House/Maintenance, City/Codes and Taxes, Angelini Shoe Company, and Personal. On top of the house folder are sets of keys, marked for every door and window of 166 Perry Street.

I open the file marked Personal first. Gram has written down her international cell phone number, the shop numbers at Vechiarelli & Son, her new address, and a current bank statement from Banca Popolare that lists me jointly with her on the account. It has $5,000 in the plus column and in her handwriting, a Post-it that says: For Emergencies.

I can’t imagine what emergencies she could be referring to-until I open up the House/Maintenance folder. Here are a few potential disasters: boiler breakdown, roof leaks, plumbing fiascos, and wiring/electrical issues. I put my face in my hands.

Now that I officially live here alone, the decor and placement of Gram’s furniture, the couch, the curtains, the old television set, all seem dated. I need to make the place my own. But where to start? I do revere and want to preserve the memories, the history, of this apartment, but every time I walk through, I miss Gram-and it’s because it’s still her house.

Before she left, she was uninterested in the fate of the contents. “Do whatever you want,” she said. But what I really want is for her to be home, and back in the shop with me, the way it used to be.

I make my way downstairs to the workroom. The hallway has the scent of lemon wax and leather, and a tinge of motor oil, because I greased the gears on the cutting machine before going to bed last night.

I push the glass door etched with a cursive A open. My anxieties seem to dissipate once I set foot in this shop. This is a magical place where I feel in total control. We call it a work room, and while we put in long hours, it’s actually a play room-where ideas are born.

The patterns June cut yesterday lie neatly on the table, layers of tissue paper and fabric pinned together without a bump or a gather. She propped my sketch of the Osmina on the shelf to remind herself to cut the pattern for our newest addition to the line of custom shoes first thing this morning.

I unlock the window gates and roll them back. It’s a bleak February morning with low winter clouds that hover over the West Side Highway like a sheet of gray-and-white marble.

Delivery trucks sit in a row at the stoplight heading for the Brooklyn Tunnel. It may snow today, and it wouldn’t matter. There’s plenty of work to be done inside. We were in Italy for five days, and even though June worked through, according to the schedule, we’re behind. There is no such thing as vacation in a family-owned business. When we take time off, we pay for it.

I pull on the overhead lights and sit down at the desk. I move the statue of Saint Crispin, who anchors a stack of bills and the paperwork from our payroll company. June left me a heap of mail with a note that reads, “Good luck.” I shuffle through the envelopes.

I open the bank statement. The coffers are full-for now. But the prospects for 2010 are bleak. Our custom line will suffer as luxury goods take a hit in the marketplace. Therefore, I am going to have to move very quickly to establish Angel Shoes , our new, economical line of flats. I designed the Bella Rosa , a durable yet elegant shoe with hip signature embellishments that I hope will be coveted by women sixteen to ninety. I also hope to get the inaugural shoe, the Bella Rosa of the Angel Shoes line, into mass production by the fall.

But there is much to do! I need financing to go into production on a large scale, so I can sell the Bella Rosa to as many vendors as possible. My ex-fiancé, Bret Fitzpatrick, survived the Wall Street meltdown and now works to finance new business. He took me on because of our lifelong friendship, but also because he believes in the vision I have for growing our brand.

We have to find a manufacturer to make the Bella Rosa . Research and leads, subsequent meetings, and conversations point to China, where most American-designed goods are made these days. My grandfather would be horrified at Angelini shoes being made anywhere but Perry Street, and anywhere but the United States, but I have to stay open to all possibilities.

There’s a knock on the window. Bret waves to me through the glass, motioning that he’ll meet me at the entrance. We’ve made a habit of these early-morning meetings. He takes an early train from his home in New Jersey and swings by before he makes his way to Wall Street. As he turns the corner, his navy topcoat flutters behind him in the wind, like the wings of a bluebird in a barren tree.