Mrs. Delboccio shoots him a look.
“Well, they wouldn’t, Shirl. Face it.” Mr. Delboccio takes his knife and pushes some potato onto the meat already on his fork and pops it into his mouth. “They’ve got their own lives. It’s not like our generation. We took in all family members, regardless of their mental status. I can’t see our kids doing the same.”
“Why did you become a shoemaker?” Mrs. La Vaglio asks. She’s a tiny blonde with the Linda Evans haircut from Dynasty. Still. The La Vaglios live in Ohio, so I guess my story didn’t spread to the Midwest.
“I was teaching high school English in Queens-,” I begin.
“And then you had that bad breakup with your boyfriend. How many years did you go with him?” she interrupts. I guess my story seeped into Ohio after all.
“College and then some.” I’m not going to give these people a timeline. They’d brand an L for Loser on my forehead with the olive paste.
“Your first love,” Mrs. Delboccio says and looks at her husband. “Ed and I have the same story, except we have a different ending. I met him when I was eighteen. We were married at twenty-four. And here we are.”
“You’re an inspiration to all of us,” I say, oversalting my salad.
“Thank you,” Shirley says smugly.
“At the time, your mother was so worried about you.” Sue Silverstein reaches over and pats my hand.
“There’s nothing to worry about. I love the twists and turns my life has taken.” This is lovely. When my parents’ friends have too much to drink, they tell me things my mother won’t.
“A positive attitude is everything,” Max Silverstein says, shaking his fork at me.
“You know, our son Frank is totally available.” Mrs. Delboccio sips her wine. “He’s not gay,” she says quickly. “He’s just picky.”
“Well, I’m looking for picky.” I force a smile.
Mrs. Delboccio squeezes her husband’s thigh under the table so he’ll remember that I said something positive about Frank.
“How long ago were you dumped?” Mr. Delboccio asks.
“Ed!” his wife shrieks.
“Three years,” I mumble.
Mr. Delboccio whistles low. “Three years of your prime time.”
“Are you seeing anyone now?” Mrs. La Vaglio asks.
“If she was, she’d have brought him to the wedding.” Mrs. Delboccio talks about me as if the wine I’m guzzling is a magic potion that has made me invisible.
“She could get a date. Look at her.” Mr. Delboccio looks at my breasts as though they are two exotic fish swimming in opposite directions in a tank. “She must want to fly solo.”
“Let’s not worry about me,” I say, gritting my teeth. “I’m fine.”
“Nobody said you weren’t.” Mr. Delboccio finishes his bourbon and iced tea and clonks the glass down on the table like an ax. I look around to the waitstaff. Somebody cut this guy off, will you? The waiter interprets my signal and brings a gravy boat of jus instead. Mr. Delboccio takes it and douses what’s left of his meat. “Valentine, here’s the thing. As a woman, you got a window. A window of opportunity where you got the face and the figure and the pep to attract a man. Ergo, you got to grab a guy while the window is open, because once it closes, bam, you’ve lost your chance, and you’re in an airless closet. Alone. Okay? Oxygen is cut off. No man can survive in there. Got it? Tick. Tock. A man can always find a woman, but a woman can’t always find a man.”
“Ed, no more bourbon for you.” Mrs. Delboccio moves his glass. She looks at me apologetically. “Valentine has a lot of life in front of her.”
“I never said that she didn’t. But you remember my sister Madeline, who moved in with Ma when Ma got the brain tumor? My poor mother afflicted with a tension headache that turned into a cancerous mass overnight. Anyhow, how old was Mad back then? Thirty at the most. She moved in, took care of Ma until she died, may she rest in peace, and then Madeline stayed, where was she gonna go? She was the spinster aunt.” Ed looks for his roll to butter. He’s already eaten it so he reaches over and takes his wife’s. “Every Italian family has one of you.”
I open my mouth to disagree, but no words come out. Maybe he’s right. I imagine my future in an old-folks’ home for single women. The TV room in the Roncalli Home for Singles would have the heads of Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, and Susie Essman mounted over the fireplace. Big-game catches for girls who deliver big laughs. The way this evening is going, I may have to reserve my room sooner than I thought.
“Madeline was a saint. She took the burden off the rest of us. Of course, we were raising children and had our own lives,” Mrs. Delboccio says, smoothing the napkin in her lap.
“Being single is a life,” Mrs. La Vaglio pipes up.
The table falls to dead silence as the Friends saw their meat. I look down at my watch. Anyone who believes time flies should come and sit at the Friends’ table where the main course has lasted longer than the Peloponnesian War. I’d do just about anything to be stuck at the Rude table right now.
Mr. Delboccio leans over, practically peering down my gown. “God meant for man and woman to pair off.” I lean back and pull my dinner napkin up over my bodice and around my neck like a dickey.
“How many shoes do you make a year?” Mr. Silverstein wants to know, God bless him.
“Last year we made close to three thousand pairs.”
“How big is the staff?”
“Three full-time and four part-time.”
“Wow, that’s a pretty healthy operation.” Mr. Silverstein smiles approvingly.
The band plays the opening riff of “Good Vibrations”; the Friends drop their knives and forks. “Hi-yo, it’s the Beach Boys medley!” Mr. Silverstein announces. They get up; the women adjust the waists, hips, and rears of their dresses, then head to the dance floor with the husbands in tow.
I stretch out at the empty table and put my feet up. Tess slips into the seat next to me as Dad deposits Aunt Feen at the Dementia table. Dad surveys the room and then walks toward us at a clip. He’s only five feet six but well proportioned, so he seems taller. He has a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, the prominent Roncalli nose, and the tense lips of his people.
“Jesus crimanee, I’m broiling.” Dad adjusts his bow tie as though it’s a dial on an air conditioner. “I just took Aunt Feen out for a cigarette and I thought she was gonna have a stroke.” Dad sits down next to Tess. “You know she still smokes a pack a day? Her lungs must look like a spaghetti strainer. How you girls holding up?”
“Great,” we lie.
“Your mother wants me to sing ‘Butterfly Kisses’ to your sister, but I don’t know the song at all.”
“Cut off her liquor. Or else she’ll sing ‘You Gotta Get a Gimmick’ from Gypsy like she did at your twenty-fifth,” Tess says.
“She had sciatica for months afterward,” my father says and nods, remembering.
“Don’t try and sing, Dad. Tell them to play the CD and you can dance with Jaclyn instead,” I suggest.
“That’s what I said, but you know your mother, she thinks weddings are an opportunity to hold auditions for American Idol. I work for the parks department, not Simon Cowell. Any Roncalli, Angelini, or Coo-cootz off the street is expected to get up there and sing. Any minute my brother’s gonna get up and perform the first act of Man of La Mancha. Trust me. He’s one gin and tonic away from ‘The Impossible Dream.’”
Our sister Jaclyn is breathtaking in a simple strapless bridal gown with a fluffy tulle skirt. Her tiny waist twists as she threads through the tables looking like an electric-mixer beater dripping with white frosting.