I follow Gabriel through the lobby of the Carlyle Hotel. Art Deco mirrors conjure up a sophisticated era, a time of rumble seats, speakeasies, clean gin, and elbow-length satin evening gloves. The chandeliers dazzle, like open cigarette cases, sunbursts of silver, gold, and daggers of crystal glowing overhead. Every detail of the lobby is lustrous-the brass doorknobs, the hinges, and even the patrons gleam. The polished marble floors look like sheets of ice, pale silver marble in the center with crisp black hems of granite.
Gabriel leads me through the bar, where the frosted sconces throw low lights over the soft mushroom-colored walls. The neutral background shows off the stylish William Haines club chairs, covered in peach velvet and grouped around marble-topped bar tables.
We enter the Café Carlyle through etched glass doors. The room resembles a luxurious leather train case lined with sage green and pale pink bouclé. A series of murals painted by Marcel Vertes shows beautiful women flying, dancing, and leaping through the air, in a carousel of color; shades of strawberry, cream, sea green, magenta, and grass green fill the room in endless summer. The ceiling, painted dark blue, hangs overhead like a night sky. The neutral-patterned leather booths with a print of small circles, airy bubbles, seem inspired by Gustav Klimt. Small tables are grouped downstage, draped in crisp, midnight blue linens.
Gram and June chat shoulder to shoulder at our table, a large banquet shape to accommodate our family. Aunt Feen sifts through the mixed nuts in a silver dish, while June swishes the cherry in the bottom of her cocktail around like a pinball as the band members filter in and take their places onstage. A glossy black baby grand Steinway fills the small stage. A microphone and stand rests in the curve of the piano. Keely will literally be three feet from our table.
“You made it,” Gram says when she sees me, toasting me with her scotch. I give her a quick kiss.
“Happy birthday!”
“I love your ensemble,” June says.
“Thank you. And you look spectacular.”
“To old broads!” Gram raises her glass to June.
“We certainly are!” June touches her glass to Gram’s.
“Thanks to the cream at Elizabeth Arden, I am about a week younger than I was when I walked out of the house this morning.” Gram takes my hand and squeezes it. Tess, Jaclyn, and I treated Gram to a day of beauty at the Elizabeth Arden salon. She’s been pummeled, plucked, and primped since morning. “Thank you. It’s been a marvelous day, and now, we get Keely.”
Mom throws her arms around her mother from behind. “Happy birthday, Mama,” she cries in her black sequin tank with matching silk georgette palazzo pants and a wide hammered-gold chain-link belt that drips down her thigh with a fringe of rhinestones. She wears strappy gold sandals to complete the Cleopatra effect. Dad wears a black-and-white-pin-striped suit with a gray dress shirt and a wide black-and-white silk tie. They match, but of course, they always do.
June stands and gives Dad a hug. “Dutch, you look fantastic.”
“Not as good as you, June.”
“How’s your cancer?” Aunt Feen brays.
“My numbers are improving, Auntie.”
“I put you on the prayer wheel at Saint Brigid’s.”
“I appreciate it.”
“The last guy we prayed for died, but that wasn’t our fault.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t.” Dad throws us a look and sits down next to Aunt Feen for more abuse.
Tess waves from the check-in desk, in a strapless red cocktail dress. She makes an entrance worthy of my mother and is followed by Charlie, who wears a matching red tie. There are some inherited traits not worth fighting.
Tess gives Dad a hug. “Hey, Pop. How are you feeling?”
Before he can answer, Aunt Feen says, “How should he feel? The man’s full of cancer.”
Charlie reaches down and squeezes my shoulder. “Hey, sis,” he says. “Can’t wait to meet the Big Man tonight.” Charlie smiles supportively. It’s funny that Charlie would call Roman the Big Man when it’s Charlie who’s big. He looks like Brutus in every Hollywood Bible epic ever made. He’s also Sicilian, so he tans in twelve minutes and takes twelve years to forgive a slight.
“I can’t wait for you to meet him. Be nice.”
“I’ll be adorable,” Charlie says and sits down next to Tess.
Gabriel brings Jaclyn and Tom to the table. Jaclyn wears a short cream-colored wool skirt with a matching cashmere sweater and pearls. Tom, in his Sunday suit, looks like he’s been spit-polished for his First Communion. As Jaclyn and Tom take their seats, Alfred and Pamela join us.
Pamela turns forty next year, but she looks about twenty-five. She’s slim and has long, sandy blond hair, with a few pieces bleached the color of white chalk around her face for contrast. She’s a mix of Polish and Irish, but she’s picked up on our Italianate details when it comes to prints, sequins, and the size of her engagement ring. Tonight she wears a long, flowing, orchid-print evening wrap dress.
Alfred plants his arm firmly around her. He came straight from work, so he’s wearing a Brooks Brothers suit with a red Ronald Reagan tie. Pamela greets everyone with a kiss, but she’s not comfortable doing it. After thirteen years of marriage to my brother, whenever we all get together it’s as if it’s the first time she’s met us. We’ve made repeated attempts to make her feel a part of things, but our efforts don’t seem to take. Mom says Pamela has an “aloof personality,” but Alfred told Tess that we’re “intimidating.”
My sisters and I don’t think we’re scary. Yes, we’re competitive, opinionated, and discerning. And yes, at family gatherings, we yell, talk over one another, interrupt, and basically become the children we were at the age of ten minus the hair pulling. But intimidating? Must be. Pamela sits at the table gripping her evening clutch in her lap like it’s a steering wheel, staring at the Steinway with a patient, if plastered-on, smile as Alfred orders her a glass of white wine.
The waiters arrive, filling our table with hors d’oeuvres, delicate crab cakes, tiny potatoes with buttons of sour cream and caviar, clams casino on the half shell on an artful bed of shiny seaweed, oysters on ice, and a silver platter of baby lamb chops. Aunt Feen stands up, reaches across the table, and grabs a lamb chop, holding it like a pistol. She takes a bite before sitting back down in her chair. She chews. “Succulent,” she says through the meat.
The lights in the café dim, and the crowd applauds and whistles. I look to the door, hoping to see Roman rush in to take his seat next to me. I scan the crowd, and there’s no sign of him. The band strikes up, into a fizzy intro, and the applause escalates as Gabriel announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, Keely Smith!”
The glass doors push open and Keely enters the room, looking exactly like the cover art on her albums. Her hair is bobbed and jet black, with two signature spit curls on her cheeks. Her pale pink skin is flawless, her black eyes shine like jet beads. She wears simple gold silk pants topped with a bugle-beaded Erté jacket. The three-quarter-length sleeves reveal chunky Lucite bracelets that offset a diamond ring the size of a cell phone.
Keely weaves through the crowd like a bride at her third wedding, greeting the patrons with warmth, but just a touch blasé. Her manner is casual and familiar, as though she’s getting up to sing a few songs in her living room after dinner. She takes the microphone and scans the crowd, squinting at us as if to examine who we are and why we came. “Any Italians here tonight?”
We whistle and cheer.
“Louis Prima fans?”
We applaud loudly.
“We’re Keely fans!” Gram hollers.
“Okay, okay. I see I’m gonna have to work tonight.” She looks to her conductor, behind the piano, and says, “Here we go…” The band launches into a high-energy rendition of “That Old Black Magic.”