Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

“I don’t want to make a trip just to be rejected again.”

“Good point. Why don’t you invite him here for Christmas?”

“Because he’ll say no.”

“You don’t know until you ask.” My mother uses the same strategy she employed when I was sixteen and needed a prom date. She’d haul out the yearbook and paw through it, making a list of names just as she would from the phone book when the drain clogged and she needed a plumber. “Tell Gianluca that we’ll put on the dog for him. He hasn’t lived until he’s had the Roncalli Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.”

“What a lure,” I groan. “Hmm. Gianluca…please choose…me, a comely thirty-five-year-old or…a fish fry. Come one! Come all!”

“Hey, it’s the best I got,” Mom shrugs. “But Val…first we have to get through Thanksgiving. We could be in for a little tension at dinner.”

“Why?”

My mother lets go of me and pushes her Jackie O. sunglasses up the bridge of her small nose. “Tess and Charlie have been having a little ongoing argument about our family down in Argentina. And, well, it’s the race issue. Charlie feels that Tess shouldn’t tell the girls about the Argentinian side of the family.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Charlie feels it’s complicated.”

“You mean he’s prejudiced.”

“No, no, I don’t think that at all. It’s just new information. He doesn’t know how to tell his daughters.”

“You just say, we have family in Argentina and they’re black.”

“That’s what you would do, but the Fazzanis-you know how they are. Those people have airs. His mother wanted finger bowls at their wedding reception.”

“I remember.”

“They’re awfully proper for a bunch of carpenters from Long Island-but proper nonetheless. And small-minded. I cannot deal with pea brains, but in this instance, we have to.”

“Mom, I’m not going to hide my cousins.”

“I’m not asking you to hide them. I just would rather you don’t Skype Roberta in when Charlie’s around.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It is what it is.” My mother purses her lips together. “Give the man time to accept our new family.”

“I’m going to talk to Charlie.”

“No, don’t bother. Let it go.”

“I thought it was weird. Charlie’s been keeping his distance. I’ve hardly seen him-now I know why.”

“He doesn’t judge you. And he doesn’t blame you for going down there. Not entirely anyway. He doesn’t understand why you have to get into business with them.”

“I really don’t care what he thinks. Charlie can judge me all he wants. But I’m not putting up with this-and my sister knows better.”

“That’s her husband.” My mother throws her hands up. “We marry who we marry, and then we have to cope.”

“Then she better enlighten him.”

Mom shakes her head and goes back down the stairs. Something tells me this Thanksgiving won’t be a peaceful meeting like the one between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. I have a feeling this one could be war.

GABRIEL CHANGES INTO A SUIT for Thanksgiving dinner, or the Feast of the Cassoulets, as we referred to it during the preplanning stages. I throw on a skirt and heels, because wherever there are glittery pumpkins, dressy clothes are required.

Tess whistles when I enter the kitchen. “Put on the apron,” she says. “Cashmere is a bitch to clean.”

I throw it on. She gives me a pastry gun filled with cannoli filling.

“I made the shells myself,” Jaclyn says.

“They look divine.” I fill a delicate pastry horn with creamy filling. I take a bite.

“Excellent!” I tell them.

“Roll the ends in chocolate,” Jaclyn instructs. “I learned that from Giada De Laurentiis. She eats everything she makes on TV. How does she stay so thin?”

“I have no idea.” I shove the rest of the cannoli into my mouth and chew.

Tess places a bowl of dark chocolate curls on the counter. I pick up the horns and fill them, then roll the tip ends in the chocolate.

“Italians are the only people in the world who prepare dessert while they serve the main meal,” June says as she ladles mashed potatoes into a server.

“We like our sugar,” Jaclyn explains.

Aunt Feen is parked at the head of the table nursing a cup of weak tea, because that’s all my mother offered her. The new elephant in the living room of the Angelini family is Aunt Feen’s drinking problem. Our solution is to hide the hard stuff and hope she doesn’t notice. Alfred fills the crystal tumblers at each place setting with ice water.

Charisma, Rocco, and Alfred Jr. watch the recap of the Macy’s parade on TV in the living room, while Tom feeds baby Teodora a bottle. Charlie uncorks the wine. Dad carves the turkey on a cutting board on the counter. As he slices, my mother stabs the pieces and places them artfully on a tray festooned with spinach leaves.

“Chiara, call everyone to dinner.” My niece sits on a stool, playing with a handheld computer game.

She doesn’t look up at me. “Do you have a bell? Grandma Fazzani has a crystal bell with a little silver dinger.”

I look at her. “Yeah, I got a bell.” I take the computer game away from her and give my niece the egg timer shaped like a hen. “Crank it and ring it.”

“Nice attitude,” Gabriel whispers as he grabs the matches to light the candles down the center of the table. “Makes me happy my family is dead.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Well, they are dead. Can’t bring ’em back.”

“No, you can’t,” Aunt Feen bellows. “And you’re better off. I got a few relatives taking up space in the bowels of hell.”

It’s always fascinating that Aunt Feen pretends to be deaf when you want to send her a message, but when something is whispered, she gets it in total.

Chiara lets loose with the egg timer close to baby Teodora’s ear. The baby wails.

“Chiara!” Tess shouts. “You’ll make the baby go deaf.”

“Sorry,” she says, but the look on her face is anything but contrite.

“That’s the little devil who interrupted your coitus, isn’t it?” Gabriel says confidentially in my ear.

“The very one. That kid was on a mission.”

Dad takes his place at the head of the table, while Mom places the platter of turkey before her place setting, as she will serve it.

“I took a nibble of the stuffing, Gabriel-and it’s just like Teodora’s. You nailed it, seasonings and all,” Mom brags. “Savory. And light in texture.”

“Thank you,” Gabriel says proudly.

One by one, the family finds their seats as they check for their names at the place setting.

“Where’s Pam?” I ask Alfred.

“She’s upstairs. She has a migraine,” Alfred says, tapping his forehead.

“I told her to lie down in my room.” Gabriel places baskets of fresh rolls down the center of the table. “The serene green walls will cure whatever’s ailing her.”

“This year, we’re gonna join hands…,” my father begins.

“I am not holding hands,” Aunt Feen complains. “The Catholic Church went in the toilet when they started that-I don’t like it in church, and I don’t like it at dinner.”

“Okay, then we won’t hold hands,” Dad says.

“Wait a second, Dad,” I interrupt. “Aunt Feen, if Dad wants us to hold hands, we’re going to hold hands. He’s the head of this family. You’re our beloved great-aunt, but what he says goes.”

A silence settles over the table.

I bow my head. I close my eyes, and instead of picturing Jesus on his heavenly throne surrounded by a choir of saints, I see Gianluca. Our relationship may be as dead as the autumn leaves in the centerpiece, but the things I learned from him are very much alive. He would be proud that I defended my father and his role. Gianluca taught me that tradition isn’t something we do , it’s the way we are. And now that 166 Perry Street is my home and this is officially the first holiday where this is my table-and Gabriel’s-it’s my call. I make the rules in this house.