Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

“Huh. Look at a map.” Feen shrugs.

“Okay, look. Before this careens headlong into a stone wall, let me just say that I met our family, I like them, they’re good people, and Alfred and I are in business with them. Yes, they are black, and they are also Italian.”

“Blah blah blah,” Feen mumbles.

“That’s right. They are both . And they’re beautiful people.” I sound like an idiot. But I realize, in the center of this ridiculous argument, I react like one.

“Of course you’d say that.” Charlie taps his fork on the table.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I turn to Charlie.

“You accept anything. You’re a liberal.”

“What does that have to do with our family in Argentina?”

“You’re happy to have black people in the family. Sure, sure, let everybody in.” He waves his arms around. “What’s the difference to you?”

“There is none. Who cares what color they are?”

“I do. I don’t want my girls coming home with black guys. Okay? I’m all for equal rights, and everybody’s one and the same in God’s rainbow. I just don’t want them to marry it.”

“Charlie!” June pushes her chair away from the table. “Are you serious?”

“He’s serious.” Tess shakes her head sadly. Clearly, they’ve been fighting about this for months.

Charlie looks around the table for support. “Dad, back me up on this.”

“Hey, since I got the cancer, nothing bothers me.” Dad holds up his hands. “I love the world and everybody in it.”

“Thanks,” Charlie sneers.

“It’s not my husband’s fault that we have blacks in the family,” Mom says.

“It’s not anybody’s fault , Ma,” I say.

“I didn’t mean that like it sounded.” Mom shakes out her hands as she does whenever she’s nervous. “It’s just that whenever we start talking about race relations, I never say the right thing.”

“You’re fine,” I reassure her. “There’s nothing wrong with having black relatives.”

“Not to you,” Charlie says.

I turn to him. “It’s not like I discovered our cousins are running a drug cartel.”

“How do we know they’re not?”

“Oh, Charlie-you’re really sick.” I can’t help it. I haven’t eaten, and I’m losing all perspective. I could bite the ass of a wild bear right now.

Mom defends me. “Look, Charlie. Valentine did not go to Argentina to unearth some family secret-”

“Oh, yes, she did-she found that goddamned drawing, Tess told me, and then she went on a hunt to find Ralph-”

“Rafael,” I correct him.

“Rafael-whatever-and then she gets on a plane and goes down there and gets in business with these people. Come on. What are we doing here?”

I find myself standing, leaning across the table. “Charlie, how dare you! Nobody has asked you for anything-ever. You rolled into this family, and we’ve been damn good to you. When you and Tess needed help buying a house, we all pitched in-”

“Oh, now you throw that up in my face-”

“It’s true. But you’re not grateful. Well, the black side of me loaned you the money, okay?” I yell.

Tess stands up. “Everybody calm down.”

Gabriel hands me a bread stick. He lives with me. He knows a low blood sugar dive when he sees one. “He needs help!” I point to my brother-in-law. I realize that I’m tipsy. I hold the table.

Charlie gets up from the table. “Sit down, Charlie,” my father yells. “Nobody leaves the room.”

Charlie sits down.

“I will not have this.” My father pounds the table. “I will not have a rift. Nobody leaves until we settle this.”

“Well, good luck on that front, nephew.” Aunt Feen picks her teeth with her name-tag flag from the pumpkin.

We sit in silence for a moment, not knowing what to say or do. “I’m leaving,” Pamela announces from the doorway behind us.

We turn to face Pamela, who stands in the entrance to the hallway. She has on her coat.

“Oh, Pam, you’re up, how’s that migraine? Come and eat. The stuffing is as good as my mother’s,” Mom says.

“Don’t condescend to me.”

“I wasn’t condescending.” Mom looks around the table at all of us. “Was I?”

Tess and Jaclyn shake their heads that Mom was not.

“Go ahead. Stick together.” Pamela looks at my sisters.

“Are you all right, Pamela?” June asks. “Am I missing something?”

“This. This is what you’re missing. And what I’ve been missing.” Pamela hurls a piece of paper on the table. I pick it up and smooth it out. From the looks of it, Pamela has had it balled up in her angry fist for hours. It’s a printout of an e-mail.

“Read it,” she barks at me. “I printed it out at home and memorized it on the train. Go on. Read it.”

“Read what?” my father asks. “What’s on the paper, Val?”

Alfred puts his face in his hands. “It’s me. It’s my fault.”

“What is your fault?” My mom asks softly.

“Everything. It’s my fault.”

My mother strokes her turkey brooch and thinks. Then she says, “Did you…did you break the law? Did you steal, Alfred?”

He looks at her like she’s insane.

Mom leans back in her chair, relieved. “He did spend twenty-three years on Wall Street. Every day you pick up the paper and some other muckety-muck is on his way to the slammer for things he was unaware he was doing. The financial world is so complex.”

“Then what in God’s name did you do?” Feen barks at Alfred.

“He had an affair!” Pamela shouts. “An affair. He cheated on me. Happy Holiday, everybody!”

“Pam…,” my sister Tess says quietly.

“Don’t Pam me. I’m Clackety-Cluck-remember?”

“Clickety-Click,” Jaclyn corrects her.

“Whatever. Feel free to call me anything you want because I’m outta here! You made me feel like the outsider all these years, and guess what? It was true. I was different. I was normal-and you, you’re all crazy! I knew you were a pack of loonies before I married him, but it’s only gotten worse. And I only put up with you quirky bastards because I loved your son. But your son has decided he doesn’t love me anymore. He went out whoring around-”

Alfred leaps to his feet. “That’s not true, Pam. I love you.”

“Words! Words! That’s all you got for me? They got a million of those in the dictionary!”

Dad nods. “True, true.”

Pamela runs her hands down the sides of her body, from her bust to her waist and down to her hips. “Alfred. Look at me ,” she commands.

Alfred looks down at the table; his head hangs in shame.

Pam lowers her voice to a growl. “I said. Look. At. Me.”

Alfred looks up at Pamela, his eyes filled with tears.

“I kept the deal. I am the girl you married. I didn’t change. I didn’t gain fifteen pounds, then lose five and gain back twenty on that Jenny Craig seesaw your mother’s been on all of her married life.”

My mother gasps.

“That’s right!” Pam shouts. “Lose the damn weight already!”

My mother, horrified, pulls her tummy in and sits up straight.

“Look at me. Size two December 1994 and size two November 2010. How many women can say that at forty-one years of age when they’ve given birth to babies with heads the size of bowling balls?”

“Sweet Jesus,” my father mutters.

“I got you all pegged. Each and every one of you. He cheats, but you all cheat! You all lie! You spread stories, you gossip-”

“We discuss things, yes, but-” my mother tries to defend herself.

“Ma, you’re the worst!” Pamela charges the table. “Everybody knows you tuck tags into dresses you’ve bought and wear them once and return them for a full refund!”