“Now, Teddi, you strike me as a very intelligent woman.” He spoke soothingly. “You don’t really think that, do you?”
“All I know is this little cat-and-mouse game you’re playing here is bullshit. You and your friends need to leave my family alone. And now you’ve sunk to spying on me and my roommate. You want to tell me why?”
“Like I said, you’re very intelligent. You’ll figure it out. In fact, I bet you already know. Or if you don’t, Diana Kent, who at this moment is freezing her ass off on the hood of our van, does.”
“Diana!” Something about Agent Petrocelli unnerved me. I had forgotten about poor Di and her broken Jimmy Choos. “Di! You can come down now.”
“Right-o!” she called out. “I’m coming.”
Turning back to the agent, his hair trimmed to regulation-perfection, I snapped, “Why don’t you go follow around the members of the Gambino crew? They’re into a lot more shit than my family.”
“What makes you think we’re not tailing them, too?”
“Listen…I don’t know what you think Diana and I know, but whatever it is, we don’t.”
Lady Di came limping around the corner of the van, half
hopping on one foot and holding out a very broken shoe. “You!” she seethed at the agent, “stop stalking Teddi. And you owe me for the price of my shoes. Who can I send the bill to?”
He smirked. It wasn’t only his grin that was crooked—he had a very deep dimple in one cheek, and no dimple on the other side. Yet, this made him look boyish, despite his build and demeanor. “I don’t know if Uncle Sam is going to buy you new shoes, Diana.”
“And how do you know my name?” she demanded.
“Di,” I answered before the FBI agent did. “
This
is where our taxes go.” I pointed to Agent Petrocelli. “Welcome to the wonderful world of our government at work.”
“It’s not
my
government,” she retorted. “In
my
government the most we have is a completely loopy royal family. Remember our infamous illicit tape recordings, with Prince Charles wanting to come back as that horsey-faced Camilla’s tampon and things like Squidgy-gate? But we
don’t
have big burly men frightening innocent women and causing them to break their Jimmy Choos!” And with this she shoved her shoe, hard, right into his chest.
I looked up at Agent Petrocelli. I expected that at any moment five more agents would come swarming out of the van and put cuffs on us both. Instead, still smiling, he reached into his jacket pocket, took out his wallet and handed me his business card.
“You send me a bill for your friend’s shoes,” he said, “and I’ll pay for them out of my own pocket.”
“I bet!” Di snapped. “You’re probably all talk, no trousers.”
Agent Petrocelli looked at me.
“Means she doesn’t believe you.”
“I’m completely sincere. Now, if you’ll excuse me, ladies, I think since our cover is blown, we may as well call it a night.” Looking right at me, he winked. “See you around, Teddi.”
With that, he opened the van door and climbed back in. As they pulled away, Diana elbowed me. “Well, how do you like that?”
“What?”
“Agent Hunk is smitten with you.”
“No, he’s not.” I offered my arm, so she could lean on me as we started back toward the corner to hail a cab.
“Is, too. I saw the wink.”
“He had something in his eye.”
“No. It was a wink.”
“Maybe that’s just his way.”
“Well, he didn’t give
me
his card. And
I’m
the one with the broken goddamn shoe. I could just cry. They were my favorite pair.”
I looked down at the card in my hand—Special Agent In Charge. What did that mean? Did the FBI have un-special agents?
We got to the corner, and I shoved the card into my purse. “Listen, Di, don’t tell my family about this.”
“Why not?”
“Well, at first I thought we should, but on second thought, I think it would be better if we didn’t. That would make my family even
more
paranoid. Speaking of which—” Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my uncle Lou’s Lincoln, with Tony at the wheel, careening over to the corner. He barely put it in Park before he was out the door.
“Diana! Are you hurt?” He looked down at her naked foot and assumed, I guess, that she’d sprained her ankle.
She glanced sidelong in my direction. It was up to me to concoct a lie. But I wasn’t raised in the mob for nothing.
“She got her heel caught in a sidewalk grate. Twisted her ankle, poor baby.”
Tony, muscular as a bodybuilder, lifted her into his arms and carried her over to the car. “Let’s get you home and put some ice on that ankle.”
“Right-o, Tony.” She patted his chest and then leaned against him. “Working out, are you?”
I followed behind. He opened the rear of the car. It was empty.
“Where’s Uncle Lou?” Diana asked.
I shot her a look. In my family, you learned early on not to ask too many questions.
“He had business to take care of,” Tony said gently. He had to be in love with her. If I had asked something as naive as that, he would have snapped at me. But he said it to Diana as gently as a kindergarten schoolteacher explaining how to mix red and blue to make purple.
I slid in next to Diana, and Tony drove us home, then carried Diana through the lobby and up to our apartment. Setting her on the couch, he remarked, “Thank God, Diana, it doesn’t look too swollen. Let’s get some ice, though.”
He went into the kitchen, and I heard him opening the freezer.
“Go help him,” Di urged. “He doesn’t know where we keep the plastic bags.”
“I would follow him, but I’m in too much shock that he knows how to open the freezer door himself. He actually
is
a member of the twenty-first century.” In all my years of Sunday dinners, I had never seen a male member of the family in the kitchen except to bitch that the women were tak
ing too long getting food on the table. And though I knew Tony did like making pastries—in fact had asked me for recipes—he was hardly known for waiting on anyone. In my world, that was for the women. The men didn’t clear their plates. They didn’t make their beds. Even if they moved out of the house, they brought their laundry home to their mothers.
I walked into the kitchen, where Tony had, all by himself, figured out where we kept both gallon Ziploc bags and kitchen towels. He had her makeshift ice pack all ready. I felt like I was Dorothy, and I’d just stepped foot in Oz.
I went to the refrigerator and opened it. Typical refrigerator of two single women. Stacks of old Chinese takeout and to-go boxes from Teddi’s. A jar of mayo. Twelve cans of Diet Coke. Four bottles of champagne. I pulled one out and uncorked it, pulled down three glasses from the cabinet and went into the living room, where Tony had Di’s foot propped up on two pillows on top of his own lap, and was holding the bag of ice, wrapped in a dish towel, on her ankle.
“Champagne?”
Di nodded. “I could sure use a drink after tonight.”
I stared at her, willing her to shut up.
“What happened tonight?” Tony asked. “You mean your ankle?”
“Yes,” she recovered, and smiled, batting her eyes.
“I’ll take care of you.” He patted her knee.
I blinked hard at him as I poured three glasses of champagne. Tony was my closest cousin in age—twenty-seven. And he and I had grown up in the strange and colorful Marcello clan. He had tormented me when I was a kid, hiding my favorite doll, Verushka (having already tired of my un
ruly family as a child, I aimed to name my dolls something as far-flung and removed from Italy as possible), and playing monkey in the middle with me
always
in the middle. When my teen years arrived, he was only too happy to point out to all my boy cousins that I was wearing a training bra. And when I went through a slightly chubby summer, the year before ninth grade, he called me Porky.
We both went to college—not everyone in the family did. Uncle Carmine had put himself through night school to get a degree in business, but he was the only one of that generation, though two of my aunts had gone to Katharine Gibbs secretarial school. In my generation, most of the cousins were pool hustlers and bookies, and a half dozen worked for the Marcello pizza chain managing restaurants. My brother, Michael, started college but dropped out sophomore year. Only Tony and I had actually earned degrees. And Quinn, but he was from the Gallo side of the family. However, Tony and Uncle Lou ate at Teddi’s three times a week for lunch—the Marcellos and Gallos all ate at Teddi’s to be certain we survived. And over time Tony and I had developed a sort of grudging affection.
I sipped my champagne and looked at the two of them, cozy on the sofa. “You know, I think I’m going to go to bed.”
“Don’t, Teddi. Please…stay out here with us,” Di urged. That was a trait I truly admired in her; even if she was interested in a man or had a boyfriend, she didn’t pull the “I’ve got a boyfriend and now I have amnesia where my friends are concerned” act.
“That’s okay. I’m really, really—” I affected a yawn “—tired.”
“Good night, Teddi,” Tony said a little too quickly.
“Good night, you two,” I said, and turned to go to my
bedroom. As I walked down the hall, I could hear the faint murmurings of sweet nothings between my cousin and Lady Di.
I punched my pillow and kicked my covers onto the floor. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw Agent Petrocelli’s smirk, and I heard him say that Diana would know why he was tailing us. Nothing made sense. Most especially this strange feeling in my stomach every time I pictured his face.
I finally gave up on anything close to resembling sleep at one-thirty in the morning. I flicked on the light in my room and listened in the darkness. I had heard Tony leave around midnight. No sounds emanated from Lady Di’s room across the hall. If she were awake, she would be listening to George Michael. Instead, I turned on the television for companionship.
Flip. Flip. Flip. I used my remote to move from channel to channel, until I found one of the many cable stations showing
Law & Order
reruns. I think it’s federal law that one of the incarnations of that show must run 24/7 on some cable channel.
It was midway through the episode. So now the suspect was in court, being hounded by the prosecution. I hated the prosecution. Which is not to say I rooted for the criminal. I didn’t. But the men in the “law and order” part weren’t perfect, either.
Growing up, I lived in a world of television fantasy. Enough of my peers avoided me because of who my family was, and the ones who didn’t were more apt to want access to things they thought I stood for—drugs and stolen property—than to want to be true friends with me. The ma
jority of my Gallo and Marcello cousins were male and wouldn’t have played Barbie dolls with me if someone was aiming a .45 at their testicles. So I felt terribly alone much of the time, no matter how surrounded by boisterous family I was.
Television was my companion, and I now see all my viewing was divided into two areas: law and detective shows and shows with white-bread families.
I watched
Law & Order, Magnum, P.I., NYPD Blue.
Even
The Rockford Files,
which ran in reruns on one New York channel. My mother had a crush on James Garner. It didn’t matter to me whether the show was first run or an old rerun, as long as a cop or detective was on it. I was intrigued by the characters. What was different about them? What made them choose that side of the law and my family the other?
I also watched
The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Growing Pains
and
Family Ties.
Would Michael Gross as Mr. Keaton hide shoe boxes full of cash in the attic? Would he have hollowed out Mallory’s Raggedy Ann doll to hide stolen jewelry? I think not.
So I watched the shows as a way of seeing how the other half lived. I watched as Dian Fossey might have studied the apes. I didn’t understand why I was so different. I watched with longing. I watched with envy. And it wasn’t until I met Lady Di that I made a true friend (besides Quinn) to whom I could tell all my secrets.
I flicked on the light. Agent Petrocelli had no idea what I had been through. He also couldn’t know how much my father and grandfather and aunts and uncles loved me. He couldn’t know about our world because he was trained to hate it. I climbed out of bed and padded over to a shelf on my wall where a few trinkets and memories of childhood
perched. There sat my Raggedy Ann doll. I lifted her from the shelf and held her to me. She smelled of childhood. Of a world a lifetime away. I lifted up her petticoat and there it was. Carefully sewn into her belly was a great, big scar where diamond bracelets and rings and Rolex watches had once been hidden. My father told me if Raggedy Ann was ticking, it would help me sleep.
“Poor Raggedy,” I whispered into the night. I took her and climbed back into bed. On TV, the suspect was breaking down on the courtroom stand.
“The prosecution always wins,” I told Raggedy. And sometime after the show ended, I finally fell asleep, my old rag doll clutched to my chest.
T
ony must have tipped off my uncle Vito that Diana broke her Jimmy Choos, because when we next arrived for Sunday family dinner, stacks of the designer’s shoes were piled up in my aunt Marie and uncle Vito’s formal living room.
“These can’t be real. Can they?” Di whispered to me, turning over a stiletto with a rhinestone strap in her hand.
Uncle Vito overheard. He pulled his chewed-on cigar out of his mouth and said in a voice like rough gravel, “I hear from a very good source that these, young ladies, are the real deals. Now, you two take your pick before all the
comares
arrive.”
My family made a great distinction between Diana, an unofficial adopted daughter, and me—both “good” girls—and the big-haired “sluts” my male cousins occasionally brought home to Sunday dinner. At the moment, my cousin Vito Jr., whom we called VJ, and my cousin Bobbie were both engaged to women whose version of big Jersey hair would put the Adriana character in
The Sopranos
to shame.
Uncle Vito swept his arm toward the stacks of Choos. “Take as many pairs as you want, sweethearts,” he said. Then he stuck his cigar back in his mouth and went to join the men in front of the big-screen television in the den.
“He can’t be serious,” Di said. “These can’t be real. This would be the equivalent of—” she made a mental calculation as she ran her finger along boxes, counting them “—of…God…of forty-thousand dollars’ worth of shoes.”
“He’s serious, and if you don’t think that those hairspray addicts are gonna claim every pair they can get their acrylic-fingernailed hands on, you’re crazy.”
“Where did he get them?” Di asked me.
“They fell off a truck.”
“Really? How lucky then that your uncle Vito spotted them. They could have been run over. These precious, glorious, ab fab shoes!”
I stared at her.
“What!” she snapped. Then I saw understanding come to her eyes. “Aah…I get it. Another one of your sayings. They didn’t
really
fall off a truck, did they?”
I shook my head.
“Stolen?” she whispered.
I nodded.
“Really?” She eyed the stacks. “Are you morally opposed to wearing stolen shoes, Teddi?”
“No. I figure it’s one of the few perks of being in this overprotective family. Besides, we can’t really give them back….”
We went digging through the stacks, trying on dozens of shoes, until we each selected three pairs. Uncle Vito had even left us shopping bags, so we put our shoes in bags and
went and put them next to our purses in my aunt and uncle’s guest bedroom. While we were in there, away from the family, Di said, “He kissed me.”
“Uncle Vito?”
“No, you sarky ass…your cousin Tony.”
“Well, I would have expected no less from you. You’re right, Di, there’s some kind of…something…between the two of you.”
“Yes. I’d say it rivals the kismet between you and the FBI hunk.”
“Blasphemer!” I joked.
“What?”
“Di…let me make this abundantly clear.” I placed both hands on my chest. “
Me,
Mafia princess.
Agent Petrocelli,
one of the supposed ‘good guys’ and a mortal enemy.”
“But that’s why it’s so perfect. It’s so Romeo and Juliet.”
“It’s so
stupid.
It’ll never, I repeat…it’ll N-E-V-E-R happen. So get it outta your mind.” “Outta”—why did coming home to Brooklyn always bring out my accent I strived so hard to shed in college?
“I won’t get it out of my mind because he is perfect for you.”
“You said that about Robert Wharton—with whom I shared a fairly fabulous kiss of my own.”
“Yes, Robert is fine. He’s lovely. But the man with the badge and handcuffs…he’s beyond divine. And there’s something between the two of you. I saw it. I was there.”
“Change the subject. How was the kiss?”
“In my top three.”
“Who’d he dislodge?”
“He dislodged Jeremy Talbott, the actor. He may, in fact, move into the number-one or number-two spot. God…
Teddi…I turn to mush just thinking about him. I can’t wait to go out on an actual date next Sunday.”
“It’ll be wonderful. And what about today?”
“Well…it’s rather a pain in the ass, actually. I have to pretend limp.”
I rolled my eyes. “The things we do for love.”
“No, Teddi, dear, the things we do for the…
family.
” She winked at me. My God, my roomie was turning goomba on me! “By the way, Teddi girl, do you think your aunt has any Pepto-Bismol?”
“No, why? Your stomach upset?”
“No,” she shuddered, and looked a little green.
“Hungover?”
“No.” She winced.
“What then?”
“I promised Tony I would try a little lamby head today, and I thought I’d better be prepared.”
“Gross!”
“I know. But I draw the line at the eyeball.”
“Good for you.”
“I keep thinking of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ The cute little lamby followed her to school, Teddi. That nursery rhyme said nothing about beheading the poor little thing and eating its eyeballs.”
“Stop thinking about it as a…live little lamby. You’ll never be able to try it then.”
She shuddered. “Here goes nothing,” she said, and turned and limped out to the kitchen where the women gathered over the weekly gravy.
I wondered, as I saw her later, closing her eyes and tasting the sheep’s head, whether Robert Wharton would try an eyeball for me.
The next day, the thought of eyeball-eating briefly popped into my mind when Robert Wharton called me at Teddi’s in the middle of the lunch rush. He had called the day after our date, but conflicting schedules had intervened.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said. “I am so sorry that I haven’t called again until now. I’ve been following that triple murder out on Long Island—the guy who killed that family because he was secretly obsessed with the mother.”
“His dental hygienist?”
“Yeah, that one. I swear this job gets to me sometimes. Anyway, I had a really great time on our date.”
“I don’t mean to sound distracted…I, too, had a wonderful time the other night,” I said, phone resting on my shoulder, “but I have three saucepans going and a table for ten out front.”
“Sorry. Really sorry, Teddi. I didn’t think of the rush. Can I call you at home?”
“Sure. Listen…I’ll be up late. Tonight I close. I wouldn’t be able to talk until the wee hours. You ever up at midnight?”
“Sure. I’m a night owl myself.”
“Great.” I gave him my number and promised to speak to him that night.
He called at 12:01. God, this guy was a gentleman who kept his word.
“Hey, Teddi.” He spoke softly, in sort of a bedroom voice.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“Lying on my bed in my boxers—just in case you were going to ask if I was a boxer or briefs man—and thinking of you…. And what are you doing?”
“To be honest, having a sambuca. I worked a double and
am so wound up. Part of the dangers of working in the restaurant business. We get this adrenaline rush. Me and Quinn are hooked. We love it.”
“Who’s Quinn?”
“My cousin. We own the restaurant together.”
“So what are you wearing?” he asked teasingly.
“You naughty boy… Well, if truth be told, a big old T-shirt. Not terribly sexy, I’m afraid.”
“Now, there you’re wrong. All wrong. There is nothing sexier than a woman in a man’s shirt, no underwear, with that sort of just-rolled-out-of-bed hair thing going on. Half sleepy. No makeup.”
“Well then you’d be in heaven. The restaurant biz can be murder, and that is often my very look. Especially the bed hair. Can’t say you’d find my typical at-home attire on the pages of
Vogue.
”
“
Vogue
women are overrated. I like real women. I like you.”
“I…like you, too.”
“So when can I see you again?”
“Wednesday is the next chance. Just the lunch shift that day.”
“Wednesday it is. Good night, sexy Teddi.”
“Good night, Robert.”
I hung up the phone. No makeup. Rolled-out-of-bed hair. I felt the rat’s nest piled into a scrunchy on top of my head. This guy could be a keeper.
Quinn was merciless.
“So who is this guy?”
“Shut up, Quinn. I just want to make sure I get out of here on time today.”
“Oh, no, sweet partner. Not until you tell all.”
“All right then. He’s a TV guy.”
“As in repairs TVs?” Quinn, dressed in a fashionable black Versace shirt and pants, stolen by his brother who had, he’d told us the previous week when he came in for dinner, hijacked a truck in the garment district, looked aghast.
“No, you status hound. Not that there would be anything wrong with a TV repairman. It’s an
honest
living.” When Quinn and I opened Teddi’s, having had this crazy dream for years (we designed menus in high school) we each took out on-the-books loans from our grandfather Gallo, my Poppy Marcello and Quinn’s grandpa O’Reilly on his mother’s side. And I insisted we pay it all back—something we were still doing after two years. Poppy and Grandfather Gallo were completely repaid by both of us, but his grandfather O’Reilly still had a hefty IOU. His grandfather’s many businesses were legitimate, however, and the terms of the loan were generous. Quinn, on the other hand, who definitely went to the Belmont Raceway a little too often for my taste, would have done all our deals illegally. It seemed that everyone I knew believed in cutting corners.
“You looking for honest, Teddi? Why not date a garbage man?”
“That’s exactly what half of the Marcellos claim they do, Quinn. But no…he’s a TV guy, as in on the air.”
“No shit. An actor? What show?”
“Not actor. News. GNN. He does on-air investigative pieces.”
“I never watch the news, though that’s very cool, little cuz. You fuck him yet?”
I rolled my eyes. And though, I suppose, Quinn sounded
crass, no one, other than jealous boyfriends of women he stole away, ever got mad at him for long. It was his grin, his whole aura, as if he knew a joke the entire world wasn’t let in on yet. People liked being around him. He gave off an energy and shared it with anyone in his vicinity.
“What’s his name, at least?” he asked.
“Robert.”
“Bobby, eh?”
“No. Robert… Why is it all Italians shorten everybody’s name? Joseph becomes Joey, Robert becomes Bobby, Charles becomes Charlie and Louis becomes Louie. His name is Robert. And so long as we’re talking, the new waitress is very good. She handled the lunch crowd Saturday as if she’d been working here since we opened. Everyone loved her. So—” I tried to give him my most serious look “—do not…I repeat…do
not
fuck her.”
“Cammie is gorgeous. Blond—”
“We haven’t had a brunette work here since Christmas of last year.”
“—and delightfully perky, but not cheerleader perky. She has just the right amount.”
“Of perk?”
“Yes, of perk.”
“The right amount?” I slammed down my knife, startling Chef Jeff—not really a chef, but a young kid anxious to learn the restaurant biz—who was lugging in large cans of tomatoes.
“You’ve fucked her already, haven’t you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say that, but I can tell. I’ve been able to tell since you were fourteen goddamn years old, Quinn. God…pretty soon there won’t be a waitress in New York
City who hasn’t worked here and quit. Which may be just as well—we can then hire only male waiters and stop with the soap opera up front.”
“This one could be a keeper.”
“None of them are keepers, Quinn. Because you can’t
keep
it in your pants.”
“You have no faith in me, your favorite cousin.” He came over to me and kissed my cheek.
“You shouldn’t come near me when I have a knife in my hands.”
“I promise…I swear…this time I will not fuck this up.”
I just shook my head and went back to chopping scallions. “You know Quinn, I’ve known you too long. It’s like the ponies. You can’t stay away.”
“Blame it on my upbringing. But you still love me.”
“Yes, I do. Blame that on mine.”
Robert and I met at a restaurant in Little Italy. He had chosen a place right out of the movies. I felt like Robert De Niro in
GoodFellas
should have walked in. It was totally authentic. There were no menus. The waiters came over to the table and recited the night’s offerings in Italian.
I gave up all hope of privacy, however. Not only did my cousin Tony park outside the restaurant, but I spotted Agent Petrocelli in the bar. He gave me a wink (again!) as I walked past him, and I nearly tripped in my heels. Robert offered me his arm.
“You okay, Teddi? Lose your balance?”
“Yeah. New shoes.” I smiled. Looking back over my shoulder, I glared at Agent Petrocelli.
“Very sexy shoes, I might add.”
Over dinner, Robert and I picked up where we left off.
The conversation never lagged, and he had an uncanny ability to make me laugh. After we ordered our dinner—a pasta marinara for him and a seafood special for me—he reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
“I have big news.”
“What?” I asked excitedly.
“I’ve been asked to join the
Jerry Turner
show on GNN as an associate producer and on-air talent. I’ll get to pick and choose my own stories, produce them. The sky’s the limit from here. Think of the exposure. His ratings are number one on cable in his time slot.”
“Congratulations,” I said, because that was the appropriate answer when the man you are dating tells you about a big promotion. But the
Jerry Turner
show, I have to confess, was one step up from the
Pond Scum Show
in my book. Turner thrived on controversy, and if he couldn’t find any, he delighted in creating some on his own. His favorite technique appeared to be the “blindside.” He would invite guests to be on a segment, and then, in front of a live camera, he would suddenly turn on them and make them look like ass-holes. Every few weeks, he also did a really big, really taste-less, show…some kind of ratings-grabber. Like college girls working their way through school as prostitutes.