“All great artistes begin with a blank canvas,” Nancy DeNoia announced as she applied pancake makeup the color of Cheerios to my forehead. I almost said, “Anyone who uses the word ‘artiste’ probably isn’t one,” but why argue with the woman who has the power to turn you into Cher on the reunion tour via the tools in her hand?
I kept quiet as she patted the sponge on my cheeks. “We’re losing the schnoz…,” Nancy said, exhaling her spearmint breath as she applied small, deliberate strokes to the bridge of my nose. It felt exactly like the firm pressure applied on an ice bag by Sister Mary Joseph of the MASH unit at Holy Agony when I was hit by a line-drive baseball in seventh-grade gym. For the record, Sister Mary J. said she never saw so much blood come out of one person’s head in her life, and she would know, as she had a hitch as a nurse in Vietnam.
Nancy DeAnnoying, like an architect, stood back and surveyed my face. “The nose is gone. Now I can salvage.”
I closed my eyes and pretended to meditate so Nancy might take the hint and stop the play-by-play of my crap features. She picked up a small brush, dipped it in ice water, and swirled it around on an inky chestnut brown square. I felt my eyebrows tingle as she painted on tiny hairs. I grew up on Madonna, and when she plucked, I plucked. Now I’m paying for it.
My face felt cold and painterly until Nancy dipped a Kabuki brush into the powder and buffed my skin in small circles, like the wax-finish feature at Andretti’s car wash. When she was done, I resembled a newborn puppy, all big, wet eyes and no nose.
In the ladies’ lounge, I’m taking one of many lipstick timeouts because I actually eat at weddings. After weeks of dieting to fit into my dress, I figure I deserve a round of pink ladies, all the passed hors d’oeuvres I can throw back, and enough cannolis to leave a dark crater on the lazy Susan in the center of the Venetian table. I’m not worried. I’ll work all this food off dancing to the long-play version of the Electric Slide. I fish the tube of lipstick out of my purse. There is nothing worse than bare lips with a suction-cup tattoo of plum pencil around the rim. I fill in between the lines where the color has faded.
My sisters and I have played a game since childhood; when we weren’t dressing up as brides, we played Planning Our Funerals. It’s not that my parents are morbid, or that anything particularly horrible happened to us, it’s that we’re Italian, and therefore, tit for tat, it’s the law of the Roncalli universe: for every happy thing, there has to be a sad thing. Weddings are for young people and funerals are the weddings of old people. Both, I have learned, take long-term planning.
There are two unbreakable rules in our family. One is to attend all funerals of any known persons with whom we have ever come in contact. This mandate includes people we are related to (blood relatives, family by marriage, and cousins of family by marriage) but also extends beyond close friends to encompass teachers, hairdressers, and doctors. Any professional person who has rendered an opinion or given a diagnosis of a personal nature makes the cut. There is a special category for those who deliver, including “Uncle Larry,” our UPS man who went quickly on a Saturday morning in 1983. Mom pulled us out of school the following Monday to drive us to his funeral in Manhasset. “Respect,” she said to us at the time, but we knew the real reason. She just likes to get dressed up.
The second rule of the Roncalli family is to attend all weddings and dance with anyone that asks you, including icky cousin Paulie who was kicked out of Arthur Murray for groping the instructor (the case was settled out of court).
There’s a third rule: Never acknowledge Mom’s 1966 nose job. Never mind that her remodeled nose is a dead ringer for Annette Funicello’s, while we, her biological children, have the profiles of Marty Feldman. “No one will ever guess…unless you tell them,” my mother warned us. “And if anyone asks, you simply say that your father’s nasal gene was dominant.”
“There you are!” My mother bursts into the lounge like a frapped tangerine, all chiffon and feathers, as though someone stuffed her ensemble into the blender and hit Crush. “Aren’t these mirrors amazing?” Mom turns away from the mirror and then looks over her shoulder to check the back of her dress. Satisfied, she says, “I’m a sylph. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise, Jenny Craig works. How’s your table?”
“The worst.”
“Oh, come on. You’re at the Friends’ table. You’re supposed to”-and I hate when she does this, but she does it anyway, makes two fists and egg-beats them-“liven things up.”
“Mom, please.”
“That toxic attitude is holding you back. It’s spilling out of you like offshore oil.” My mother looks at me as she applies her lipstick without looking in the mirror. She snaps the silver cylinder shut. “You should have brought a date if you didn’t want every couple we know offering up their single sons to you like meatball skewers.”
“The Delboccios want to set me up with Frank.” I lean against the wall and cross my arms because God knows I can’t actually sit down in this dress. The Spanx would crush my spleen.
“Fabulous news! See, it was kismet to seat you at the Friends’ table.”
“Ma, Frank is gay.”
“Oh, you girls. You use that gay card every chance you get. So what if the man’s forty-three and never married and takes his mother’s entire mah-jongg club to the islands every spring? That doesn’t automatically mean he’s gay. Maybe he’s just a straight man who happens to smell good, knows how to dress, and talks to old people like they matter. Do me a favor. Date Frank. Go dancing! Go to museums! Restaurants! You’ll be dressed up and out on the town and having fun with a good-looking fella who knows how to treat a woman! Party hearty-now that’s the true meaning of the word gay.”
Mom looks at me, and whatever expression she sees on my face melts her heart, and it has since I can remember. She’s on my side and I am always aware of that. “You have so much to offer, Valentine. I don’t want you to lose out. You’re a winner! You’re funny!” My mother gives me a big hug. “Now, let me look at you.” Mom puts her hands on my face. “You’re a total original. Your big, beautiful brown eyes are set just far enough apart. Your lips, thank God, take after my side of the family. The Roncalli lips are so thin they need Velcro to chew. And your nose, despite what Nancy said today-”
“Ma, I’m okay.”
“She was rude. But I bit my tongue because there are two people you should never argue with: makeup artists and plumbers. Either can ruin you. And your nose is perfect. You’ve got a sleek bridge, which is lovely in profile, and it’s straight, whereas mine had a bump.”
I’m stunned that my mother refers to The Operation. “It did?” I’ve never even seen her old nose. There’s only one photo of Mom’s face with the old nose in existence, but it’s a group shot of her high school French Club and her head is so small, it’s hard to see.
“Oh yes, there was a hideous bump. But you know, I looked at that bump for exactly what it was. A glitch I could fix. There are things in this life that you can fix. So fix them, then move on.”
“Are you saying I need a nose job?”
“I wouldn’t touch it. Plus, a tall person can carry a nose. So be grateful that you got all the tall in the family.”
“Thanks, Ma.” In the general population, five foot eight is hardly tall, but in my family, I’m a giant redwood.
Mom opens up her sequined martini purse and takes out an atomizer of Dolce & Gabbana red cap and sprays it on the back of her neck. “Want some?” she offers.
“Nah. I think I’ll go with my natural musk at the Friends’ table.”
Mom raises her arm high and spritzes above her hair, a croissant-shaped upsweep dotted with coral sequins, which, depending upon your latitude and longitude under the dance floor lights, could blind you for life.