He laughs.
The sound of his cruel laughter goes through me, devastating my self-confidence, as it has all my life. Then he says, “With what? You’re dreaming!” He waves his arms around like he already owns the Angelini Shoe Company and 166 Perry Street. “How could you possibly afford-this? You couldn’t even buy the iron.”
I close my eyes and fight back the tears. I will not cry in front of my brother. I won’t. I open my eyes. Instead of buckling, as I always do, I find the deepest register of my voice and say definitively, “I am working on it.”
Scott Hatcher appears in the entry, puts his hands in his pockets, and looks at Gram. “I’m prepared to make you an offer. A cash offer. I’d like to buy 166 Perry Street, Mrs. Angelini.”
I pull my knit hat down tightly over my ears, which sting from the cold. As I walk through Little Italy on this Tuesday night, the streets are empty, and the twinkling arbor over Grand Street looks like the last tent pole left to strike before the traveling circus leaves town. I turn onto Mott Street. I push the door to Ca’ d’Oro open. The restaurant is about half full. I wave to Celeste, behind the bar, and go back to the kitchen.
“Hi,” I say, standing in the doorway.
Roman is garnishing two dishes of osso buco with fresh parsley. The waiter picks them up and pushes past me to go into the dining room. Roman smiles and comes over to me, kissing me on both cheeks before pulling the hat off my head. “You’re frozen.”
“It’s gonna get worse when I’m jobless and homeless.”
“What happened?”
“Gram got an offer on the building.”
“Want to come and work with me?”
“My gnocchi is like Play-Doh and you can’t count on my veal. It’s rubbery.”
“I take back my offer then.”
“How do you do it, Roman? How do you buy a building?”
“You need a banker.”
“I have one. My ex-boyfriend.”
“I hope you ended it nicely.”
“I did. I’m not one for drama in my personal life. Which is a good thing given how much drama there is in my professional life.”
“What did your grandmother say?”
“Nothing. She heard the offer, put down her work, went upstairs, got dressed, and went to the theater.”
“Did she actually tell the guy she’d sell him the building?”
“No.”
“So maybe she’s not going to do it.”
“You don’t know my grandmother. She never gambles. She goes with the sure thing.”
Roman kisses me. My face warms from his touch, it’s as though the warm Italian sun has come out on this bitter-cold night. I feel a draft from the back door, propped open with an industrial-size can of San Marzano crushed and peeled tomatoes. I put my arms around him.
“Have you noticed that since our first date, I’ve brought nothing to the table but bad news? My father got cancer and I have business problems?”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“It doesn’t seem to you like I’m walking bad luck?”
“No.”
“I’m just standing here braced for more bad news. Come on. Lay it on me. Maybe you’re married and have seven screaming kids in Tenafly.”
He laughs. “I don’t.”
“I hope you’re careful when you cross the street.”
“I am very careful.”
The waiter enters the kitchen. “Table two. Truffle ravioli.” He looks right through me, and then, impatiently, at his boss.
“I should go,” I say, taking a step back.
“No, no, just sit while I work.”
I look around the kitchen. “I’m good at dishes.”
“Well, get to it then.” He grins and turns back to the stove. I take off my coat and hang it on the hook. I pull a clean apron from the back of the door and slip it over my head, tying it around my waist. “I might like you more than Bruna,” he says.
I catch my reflection in the chrome of the refrigerator; for the first time today, I smile.
6. The Carlyle Hotel
GRAM AND I ARE RIGHT ON TIME for our meeting with Rhedd Lewis at Bergdorf Goodman. Gram gets out of the cab and waits for me on the corner as I pay the driver. I scoot across the seat and join her on the corner of Fifty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue.
Gram wears a simple black pantsuit with a chic, oversize sunburst pendant on a thick gold chain around her neck. The hem of her pants breaks in a soft cuff on the vamp of her gold-trimmed black pumps. She holds her black leather shoulder bag close to her. Her posture is straight and tall, like the mannequin posing in a Christian Lacroix herringbone coat directly behind her in the department store window.
The exterior of Bergdorf’s is stately; it was once a private home, built in the 1920s, with a soft gray sandstone exterior accented with lead-glass windows. It was one of several grand residences built in Manhattan by the Vanderbilt family. This corner lot is one of the most prestigious in all of New York City, as it overlooks the grand piazza of the Plaza Hotel to the north, while it faces Fifth Avenue to the east.
Gram smiles at me, her bright red lipstick applied beautifully. “I love your suit.”
I’m wearing a b michael, a navy silk-wool cropped jacket with a generous pilgrim collar and matching wide-leg trousers. I made the designer a pair of shoes for his mother, so this suit is a barter deal. “You look great, Gram.”
We enter the store through the revolving door at the side entrance. This part of the store resembles a solarium except that the glass cases are filled with designer handbags rather than exotic plants. The blond wood-parquet floor is lit by a chandelier drenched in honey-colored prisms. Gram and I head straight for the elevators and our meeting. I have high hopes, and Gram has done her best to temper my expectations.
As we get off the elevator on the eighth floor, it’s quiet, even the phones ringing on a soft pulse. There is no hint of the shopping bustle happening below us, in fact, it feels like we’re in a tony Upper East Side apartment building rather than a suite of offices. The tasteful décor is a wash of neutrals, with the occasional pop of color in the furniture and artwork.
I check in with the receptionist. She asks us to wait on the love seat, covered in apple green moiré and trimmed in navy blue. The coffee table is a low, modern Lucite circle, with copies of the Bergdorf winter catalog featuring resort wear fanned across its surface. I’m about to pick it up and peruse it when a young woman appears in the doorway. “Ms. Lewis will see you now. Please follow me.”
The young woman leads us into Rhedd Lewis’s office, which has the subtle fragrance of green tea and pink peonies. The desk is a large, simple, modern rectangle covered in turquoise leather. The sisal carpet gives the room the fresh feel of a Greek villa by way of Fifth Avenue. The lacquered bamboo desk chair is empty. Gram and I take our seats on Fornasetti chairs, two sleek modern thrones with caramel brown cushions. Gram points to the park, beyond the windows. “What a view.”
I rise up out of my chair. With the last of the autumn leaves gone, the bare treetops in Central Park look like an endless expanse of Cy Twombly gray scribbles.
“It must’ve been a dream to live in this grand house,” a woman’s deep voice says from behind us. I turn around to see Rhedd Lewis in the doorway. I recognize her from her profile on Wikipedia. She’s tall and willowy, wears red cigarette pants with a black cashmere tunic and a necklace that could only be described as a macramé plant hanger from the seventies. Somehow, the strange piece works. On her feet, she sticks with the classics, black leather flats by Capezio. She walks to the front of her desk, practically on tiptoe.
Rhedd Lewis is around my mother’s age, and her upright posture and grand carriage are the tip-off that she was a dancer in a former life. Her honey blond hair is cropped short in wispy layers, with a fringe of long bangs that sweeps across her face like drapery. “Thank you for slumming uptown.” She smiles, extending her hand to Gram. “I’m Rhedd Lewis.”