No, when Mom really wanted to scare us, she’d say, “That’s it! I’ve had it! I’ll go out and get a job! You heard me! A job! Then you’ll see what it’s like with no mother around here to wait on you hand and foot!” Or the big jab delivered loud and singsongy, “I’m going back to work!” Never mind that my mother never had a job outside our home. She graduated from Pace with a teaching degree and never used it. “When would I have gone back into the classroom?” she used to say. “When?” As if the classroom were this mythical place that swallowed women with teaching certificates whole in the land that time forgot.
The truth is, my mother had other plans. She was busy building Roncalli Incorporated. She had Alfred ten months after she married Dad. Then Tess was born, followed by me, and finally Jaclyn, and we became her high-powered career. Lee Iacocca had nothing on my mother. Motherhood was her IBM, her Chrysler, and her Nabisco. She was the CEO of our family. She woke early every morning, “put on her face,” and dressed like she was going into an office. Mom made lists, organized six lives on a giant eraser-board calendar, got us to and from wherever we needed to be, and never complained, well, not much. One year for Christmas, we made up business cards for her that said:
MICHELINA “MIKE” RONCALLI
Mother Extraordinaire
Available 24/7
Forest Hills, Queens, New York, USA
She was so proud of those cards she handed them out to strangers, like she was running for borough president. She could’ve handled that job, too, believe me. Mom is a born leader, a taskmaster and a visionary. She also toots her own horn, which doesn’t hurt in politics.
“How are the boys doing on the roof?” Gram brings the soup bowls to the counter.
“I’ll check.” I head up the stairs to the roof.
“And call the kids please,” Mom calls after me. “We’re ready.”
I climb the stairs two at a time to the third floor. I do a quick check of the bedrooms. I stop and check the clock in Gram’s room. Where is Roman? He said he’d be here fifteen minutes ago. Now I’m worried Tess and Jaclyn are beginning to think he’s a phantom. I put it out of my mind; he’ll be here.
The kids are scattered everywhere, playing dress up and hide-and-seek, or maybe Charisma is calling Japan like she did the last time she was here (twenty-three bucks on the long-distance bill). Whatever they’re up to, no one appears to be bleeding or crying so I breeze past them and go up to the roof.
The men are in charge of preparing a fire in the charcoal grill on the roof. After dinner, we bundle up in our coats and head to the roof to roast marshmallows. This was my grandfather’s Christmas chore, and it’s not lost on us that it takes Dad, Alfred, Charlie, and Tom to do what Grandpop did by himself.
I step out onto the roof and into the cold night air to check the grill. The charcoals are still black, their edges turning deep red. In an hour, they’ll be just the right temperature for the marshmallow roast. A swirl of gray smoke rises from the fire as Alfred holds court in his Barneys topcoat.
My brother points to buildings on the West Side Highway. He’s conducting what sounds like a tutorial on real estate, with Pamela at his side shivering in a fur capelet. Charlie, Tom, and my father listen carefully, rapt at his knowledge. He points to a building on the corner of Christopher Street. He rattles off the asking price, followed by the recent sale price, like he’s reciting the names of his children. I stand in the cold long enough to hear him drop some big numbers.
“Dinner is ready,” I interrupt.
“Do you need any help down in the kitchen?” Pamela asks.
“We’re okay.” I smile at her. “Could you help corral the kids?”
“Sure.” She follows me down the stairs. I almost ran to the Home Depot on Twenty-third Street and bought those rubber step guards because I knew Pamela was coming and I was afraid she’d take a tumble off those five-inch stilettos and somersault down three flights of stairs, winding up in the workshop in a bloody heap.
“I like your dress, Pamela,” I tell her, genuinely admiring her red silk-shantung shift with a matching bolero and red ankle-strap sandals. “You look as young as you did the day you met my brother.”
She blushes. “Your brother told me that change was nonnegotiable.”
“What?”
“Well, he said, no matter what, he didn’t want me to change from the day he met me.”
“Isn’t that sort of impossible?”
“Well, maybe. But I’m trying to keep up my end of the deal. Plus, his eyesight keeps getting worse, so it all evens out.”
As Pamela gathers the kids for dinner, I return to the kitchen. Mom, Gram, and my sisters place garnishes on the platters for the Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes. I’m about to tell my sisters about Alfred’s No Change Clause and kvetch about how controlling our brother can be, but decide not to. Pamela, after all, is only doing what we tried to do for all these years-make Alfred happy. If that means she has to wear her jeans from 1994 and fit into them for the rest of her life, so be it. I feel sorry for my sister-in-law. When I picture Pamela at family parties, I see her on the outside, peeking through twists of crepe-paper streamers as if they’re prison bars. She never participates at weddings when we form a soul-train dance line, or joins the card games we throw together after Sunday dinner. She sits in a corner and reads a magazine. She’s just not one of us.
The buzzer sounds.
“Are we expecting someone?” Mom asks.
“Who could it be? Last-minute FedEx?” Tess teases, looking at me, knowing full well that I’ve been waiting for Roman to arrive so I can put him on display like the radish rosettes in the crudité dish. “A testy bride maybe?”
“On Christmas Eve? Never,” Gram answers. “Or any other day, for that matter.”
“It’s probably June. You invited her, didn’t you, Gram?” Jaclyn plays along with Tess; after all, it’s Christmas, so let’s have some fun with Funnyone.
“She’s with her wild East Village friends eating a seitan turkey and smoking weed,” Gram says and shrugs. “You know those show people.”
I press the button on the monitor. “Who is it?”
“Roman.”
“Come on up,” I say cheerfully into the intercom. I turn to my sisters. “Behave yourselves.”
Tess claps her hands together. “Your boyfriend! We’re finally going to meet him!”
“I wonder what he’s like!” Jaclyn trills.
“Girls, let’s not put pressure on Valentine.” Fully aware of the power of the first impression, my mother checks her lipstick in the chrome reflection of the toaster. Then she adjusts her posture, throws back her shoulders, lifts her neck, and parts her lips ever so slightly to show off a shallow dimple in her left cheek. Now she’s ready to meet my boyfriend.
Roman comes into the kitchen carrying a large baking pan covered in foil and then Saran Wrap. He wears a tailored black cashmere overcoat that I’ve never seen before. “I thought you could use dessert. Cobbler. Merry Christmas,” he says.
I give Roman a kiss. “Merry Christmas.”
I take the pan from Roman and place it on the counter. He unbuttons his coat and hands it to me. “You look pretty,” he says softly in my ear.
“Introduce us please, Valentine.” Mom looks Roman up and down like she’s studying the statue of David on a group tour. She actually goes up on her toes, craning for a better look at him.
“Ciao, Teodora.” He kisses both of Gram’s cheeks before turning to shake my mother’s hand.
“This is my mother, Mike.”
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Roncalli,” he says warmly.
My mother offers her cheeks, and Roman picks up on her cue and gives her the European double-kiss action, too. “Please call me Mom. I mean Mike. Welcome to our Christmas celebration.”