Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

“We’ll ask Gram.”

“You don’t have to. She turned the building over to you to do whatever you want. Go wild. Reinvent yourself in a new environment. Have some fun!”

My life is now developing a theme. Evidently, I don’t have enough fun. June wants me to spice up the bedroom, and my mother, the decor. It dawns on me that Mom has another motive entirely. “Has Dad put the kibosh on your renovations in Queens?”

“That has nothing to do with it. But yes, he has. When it comes to interior design, your father is a joy killer. He’d have the same bicentennial red, white, and blue shag carpet from our den in 1976 if I’d let him. He’s like his mother in that way. When you vacuum her rugs, there are permanent grooves in the carpet where the furniture is placed. Actual pits. Your father doesn’t get that surroundings matter, and that change keeps you fresh, young, and on your toes. You wouldn’t wear the same clothes every day, would you?”

“No,” I lie. I look down at my uniform: jeans and work smock.

“Then your home shouldn’t either. The same curtains for thirty years? Come on, people. Might as well live in a HoJo’s lobby. When your father got the prostate diagnosis, the first thing I did after I overhauled his diet with lycopene was to study color therapy. After intense research, I painted our bedroom soft yellow because yellow is conducive to healing. Now, I don’t want to take credit for his stellar remission, but you can’t tell me there’s not a connection.”

“There’s a connection.”

“If only he’d indulge me once in a while.”

“Ma. He does everything you want.”

“Eventually.”

The laptop screen sounds a small series of bells. Then Gram appears on the screen. “Can you see me?”

I sit down and click the camera icon. “Gram, we’re here. I can see you!”

“Hi, hon.” Gram waves. “Where’s Mike?”

“Right here, Ma.” Mom puts down her magazine, fluffs her hair, and presses her lips together to release the micro-beads in her twenty-four-hour lipstick. “I’m camera-ready.” Mom squeezes onto the chair with me and sees her image on the screen. “Dear God, the lighting is atrocious.”

“You look wonderful, Mike,” Gram tells her.

“No, I look over sixty. That’s what I look. I’ve been asking every Blue Cross hotline attendant if they have any idea who did Susan Sarandon’s face work. We are practically the same age, almost exactly, and she looks like she did in the Rocky Horror movie while I look like the Rocky Horror.”

“I don’t think Susan Sarandon had any work done,” I tell them.

“Now I feel worse!” Mom throws her hands up in despair.

“How’s it going with Alfred in the shop?” Gram looks at me and ignores my mother. I can’t believe Gram can pull that off on Skype. She knows if we go down the plastic surgery path with my mother, it will be hours on the line. “Are you two getting along?”

“Not bad,” I lie.

Gram gives me a look. “Alfred tells me it’s going fine.”

“Good. I’m glad you checked with him.”

“Now, now. He e-mailed me about some tax files.”

“Uh-huh.” I know good and well that Gram and Alfred e-mail every day. And I know he reports everything I do back to her. But what he doesn’t get is that Gram only wants good news to go with her positive new life. He should skip the budget and tax talk with her. “How’s Dominic?”

“I’m having the best time here. And our honeymoon. The Black Sea was a stunner.”

“Ma, you won’t believe it.” Mom leans into the screen. “Every time I pick up a travel magazine, there’s something about the Black Sea. I never heard of it before you honeymooned there. You’re cutting-edge.”

“Magnificent. Russian palaces on the coastline-the best caviar I’ve ever tasted. It was cold, but the water was calm, like a smooth pane of mercury glass. Almost silver.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Mom says.

As happy as we all are for Gram’s new life, and all the things that go with it that she deserves, like amazing trips and an attentive husband, I can’t help but wonder if she ever misses making shoes.

“Gram, you know the sketch I found? The one I scanned and sent to you?” I hold up the shoe design by Rafael Angelini. “Do you have any idea who Rafael is? I Googled the name but I couldn’t find him anywhere…But I did find a Roberta Angelini in Buenos Aires. Do you think she’s any relation?”

“She could be.”

“Do you know of other Angelinis?”

“Well, there’s an old story-but I have no idea how true it is. But your great-grandfather had a brother. There was some estrangement, long, long ago-I think it may have happened here in Arezzo. But I really don’t know any details.”

“My great-grandfather had a brother?” I look at my mother.

“Don’t look at me. I’m only an expert on my family after they arrived in America. Hoboken and forward…that’s my area of expertise.”

I can’t believe this. My mother knows the exact count of the family silver, and how we’re missing a ladle that she believes was lifted when she invited the Martinelli cousins over for brunch after the May Day crowning at Queen of the Angels in 1979. My grandmother stored and marked heirloom rosaries for each of her great-grandchildren on the day they were born to be given on their First Communions in the event of her demise. This is a family that knows the contents of every drawer, closet shelf, and jewelry box. Our wills are updated like our dental records (and we are fanatical about teeth!). Can it be possible that we have an entire branch of the family, sawed off the old tree for kindling, and nobody bothered to tell us?

“I didn’t know much about the brother,” Gram says. “They didn’t discuss it. And this is the first thing I’m hearing about Argentina.”

I just stare at the screen. I want to shout: Yeah, you don’t know much-or you just don’t remember to share it with me: just like you never told me this building was in hock or that Grandpop had a mistress until you were already in love with Dominic, who you told me about ten years after the fact!

I have a notion that if I opened the wrong box in storage, I’d uncover enough family secrets and vendettas to blow the roof off 166 Perry Street. “Well, I think it’s important. It would appear that there was another shoemaker in the family.”

“Why should that matter now?” my mother pipes up.

I look at Gram and then my mother. “Are you serious?” Don’t they get it? I’m attempting to grow the brand. I need to know everything about this company and our history. There may be something of value to use going forward-I shouldn’t be in the dark. What I don’t say is that between Alfred and Gram, I get the funny feeling that’s exactly where they’d like to keep me.

“Your mother is right,” Gram says. “Let’s look to the future. Besides, that sketch wasn’t as good as your grandfather’s-or your great-grandfather’s.” She smiles. “Or yours.”

“Could you do me a favor anyway?” I ask. “Go to the church there in Arezzo and see if you can find the baptismal records. If Rafael Angelini really was Grandpop’s uncle, he’ll be there.”

“I’m getting chills,” Mom says. “Maybe we should consult a psychic.”

“Ma, the last time we did, it was a disaster. We gave Aunt Feen a free session, and the lady promised her that she would win Powerball.”

“Right, right. And when Aunt Feen didn’t win the lottery she wanted to sue the psychic and the gaming commission.”

Gram interrupts us. “How is Feen?”

“I went to see her on Sunday.” Mom says. “She’s as crabby as ever. She signed up for water aerobics at the Y in Mineola. Better she drink pool water than Johnny Walker Red.”