“Hi, honey.” Roman’s voice is raspy. “It’s me. It’s five o’clock on Sunday morning. I’m still in the kitchen. It’s snowing. I wish we were together. I miss you. I’ll call you later.”
“Yeah, it would have been nice, Roman,” I say aloud. “But you have a wife. Her name is Ca’d’Oro and she comes first.”
I realize that I’m willing to overlook a lot because whoever is with me has to do the same. But I also remember how Roman made it his business to find out who I was in the very beginning, when the only clue he had was a glimpse of me on the roof. And now that I’m here for him, I might as well be a pair of those clunky clogs he keeps in the restaurant kitchen. Always on hand. Available. Comfortable. Reliable. The hunt is over.
I pour the boiling water into the coffee press, inhaling the rich earthiness of the dark espresso. I pick up the pot of foaming milk on the stove and pour it into a wide ceramic mug. I add the espresso until the milk turns the color of chocolate taffy.
I take my breakfast and climb the stairs to the roof, stopping in my room to pull on my boots, down coat, hat, and gloves. Pushing the door open and stepping out onto the roof covered in fresh snow, it’s as if I’m standing in a well of soft white candle wax, the shapes of everything familiar gone, replaced with smooth edges, rounded corners, and drapes of silver ice. I place my coffee and brioche on the snow-covered Saint Francis fountain, shake off a lawn chair, and open it to sit.
The sun, behind the thick, white clouds, has the luster of a dull gray pearl. The river has the texture of old, speckled, forest green and beige linoleum as the wind gently ruffles the surface. The walkway on the river is empty except for a couple of park attendants in their blue overalls sprinkling rock salt along the crosswalk at Perry Street.
A seagull hovers overhead, giving my brioche a studied look. “Shoo,” I say to him. He flaps away, his gray wings matching the morning sky. I nestle the mug between my hands and sip. I feel a pang of guilt as I remember Sunday mass. A good Catholic girl usually becomes a guilty Catholic woman, but I say a quiet prayer, and any nagging guilt about my whereabouts at the eight A.M. express mass at Our Lady of Pompeii is exhaled and sent out to sea. Doing the best I can, I remind God.
Snow begins to tumble down, throwing a white net over lower Manhattan. I pull the hood of my coat up over my head, put my feet up on the wall, and lean back.
Why is it, in the story of my life, that the moments I remember with the deepest affection are the times when I have been alone? I can line them up like faceted perfume bottles on an antique dresser.
When I was ten, I went to work with my father at the park. At the end of the day, when the summer sky over Queens was turning the color of smashed raspberries, he went into the supply shed and left me alone on the swings a few feet away. I had the whole of LaGuardia Park number fifteen to myself. I swung as high and as fast as I could, climbing higher and higher, until I swore I could see the blue lights on the top tier of the Empire State Building.
When I was a nineteen-year-old sophomore in college, I went to check my grade at two o’clock in the morning outside Sister Jean Klene’s advanced class, Shakespeare: The Comedies. And I got an A. I stood and stared at that letter A until the reality of it set in: I had achieved the impossible. The solid B student had broken the barrier and earned a perfect grade.
And I’ll never forget the night Bret dropped me off at my apartment in Queens, before leaving on his first business trip to some outpost like Dallas, Texas. I was twenty-seven years old and he had asked me to marry him. Sensing my uncertainty, he said, “Don’t answer now.” After he left to go to the airport to catch his flight, I felt the great relief that comes with being alone. I needed to seek my own counsel, to think things through. So I made a dish of spaghetti with fresh tomatoes from this garden, olive oil from Arezzo, and sweet white garlic. I made a salad of artichokes and black olives. I opened a bottle of wine. I set my own little table and lit candles. Then I sat down to eat a glorious meal, slowly savoring every bite and sip.
I realized that my answer to his proposal, upon his return, would not be the great moment; the great moment had already happened. He had asked. This was the first time in my life I recognized that I delight in the process and not necessarily the result. I was a good girlfriend, but wife? I couldn’t see it. But Bret could. And now, he has it, the life he dreamed of even then. The only difference? He’s with Mackenzie, not me.
I don’t crave a traditional life. If I did, I assume I’d have one. My own sister thinks I want a life like she has, with a husband and children. How can I explain that my thirties may not be about reaching some finish line everyone seems to be rushing toward? Maybe my thirties are about the precious time I have left with Gram and deciding which path to take in my life. Stability or the lark? Very different things.
When I observe Gram, I see how fragile the notion of tradition can be. If I take my eyes off the way she kneads her Easter bread, or if I fail to study the way she sews a seam in suede, or if I lose the mental image I have of her when she negotiates a better deal with a button salesman, somehow, the very essence of her will be lost. When she goes, the responsibility for carrying on will fall to me. My mother says I’m the keeper of the flame, because I work here, and because I choose to live here. A flame is a very fragile thing, too, and there are times when I wonder if I’m the one who can keep it going.
A wind kicks up. I hear the snap of the old screen door. I turn around, my heart pounding a little faster, hoping for a second that Roman made it over after all. But it’s just the wind.
That evening, I’m debating as I pace behind the kitchen counter. Do I heat up the lasagna now or wait until Gram gets home tomorrow night? One of the rules of etiquette my mother insisted upon on is that you never cut a cake before the company comes. You present it properly and whole to the guests, like a gift. The lasagna will become a leftover instead of a welcome-home gesture if I eat a square tonight. So I put it back in the refrigerator.
The buzzer sounds. I press the intercom. “Delivery,” Roman says. I buzz him in. Then I go to the top of the stairs and turn on the track lights.
“Hi, Valentine.” Roman smiles up at me from the bottom of the stairs.
His face is about the best thing I’ve ever seen. “I thought you were working tonight.”
“I’m playing hooky so I can be with my girl.” He climbs the stairs two at a time, wielding an enormous tote bag. He drops the bag when he reaches me, scoops me up in his arms, and kisses me. “You’re surprised?”
I kiss him tenderly on his cheek, his nose, and then his neck, hoping each kiss will make up for the doomed thoughts I had about us on the roof this morning. I’m not a good liar, so I fess up, “I’m surprised. I totally gave up.”
Roman looks at me, concerned. “Gave up what?”
“That I’d see you before Gram came home.”
“Ah.” He looks relieved. “Well, I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.” He kisses me again. I let the words I’m not going anywhere play in my head like a simple tune. Roman picks up the bag and follows me into the living room. “I’m going to make you dinner.”
“You don’t have to. I made a lasagna.”
“I don’t think so.” He pulls a bottle of wine out of the bag. “We’re starting with a Brunello, vintage 1994.”
“I wasn’t even legal drinking age then.”
“You were plenty old enough.”
Roman laughs as he pulls the cork out of the wine and places it on the counter. He takes two wineglasses from the shelf and fills them. He brings me a glass. He toasts and we sip. Then he kisses me, the lush wine on his lips making mine tingle. “Like it?”