My mother’s old bedroom, opposite Gram’s, is decorated for an only child reared in the 1950s. The look is fussy, a prim wallpaper with bunches of violets tied with gold ribbons, a small desk and chair painted white to match the bed, which is covered in a ruffled, lavender organza spread with matching round pillows placed along the carved headboard.
My room, which used to be the guest room, is next door to Mom’s. When Gram was lonely after Grandpop died, Aunt Feen lived here for a while. Ten years have passed, but her nearly empty flask of Bonne Nuit remains on the dresser, a thin puddle of amber perfume at the bottom of the bottle. A simple double bed with a headboard and a white coverlet is positioned between two windows with white cotton Roman shades.
There’s an old writing desk against the wall on one side, and on the other, a wingback chair, slipcovered in white corduroy. This room has the best closet in the house, a walk-in, with shelves in three-quarter surround. We played Big Business in it when we were kids. Tess and I were secretaries, while Alfred was chairman of the board.
I turn on the air conditioner. Gram can’t sleep in the cold, and I can’t sleep without it. I close my bedroom door behind me so the cool stays in. I pass the bathroom that has the original four-legged tub and forest-green-and-white-checked tile my great-grandfather installed when he bought the building.
Outside the bathroom, at the very end of the hallway, is a primitive set of stairs made of rough-hewn oak that leads up to the roof. My grandfather built the steps after years of using an old ladder to get to the hatch. There are endless discussions about these stairs, and my mother sends workmen over to fix them or to replace them with regulation steps with treads, but Gram sends them away. She refuses to change them. Gram is determined to squeeze the last bit of purpose out of every gizmo in this house, whether it’s these stairs, the 1940s alarm clock on her nightstand, or the body she lives in.
I unlock the screen door to the roof garden and push it open. There was a time when there was no bolt on the door, but now we lock every window and door.
I stand and close the door behind me, surveying the most beautiful garden in the world. There’s just enough light from the streetlamps on Perry to blanket the roof in blue. It’s our official outdoor space, which is what you call anything that has open air around it in Manhattan. In the summer, Sunday dinner is moved to the roof, where we push the furniture against the side walls so the grandchildren have their run of the space.
Through the fall and winter, Gram and I often take our coffee breaks up here, bundled in our coats and gloves. We’ve had some of our best talks under this city sky, just the two of us. Even though we spent a lot of time together when I was growing up, it was never one-on-one. When we’re on the roof, the workshop, the pressures of business, and our family problems seem miles away.
The décor of the garden hasn’t changed since I was a girl. In the south corner, there’s a large, circular, wrought-iron table painted white, with matching chairs. The table is flanked by three miniature evergreens in terra-cotta pots. The water fountain features a bronze Saint Francis holding a water jug, a small bird perched on his shoulder.
Along the fence line, in full surround, is our official garden, a series of plain wooden boxes four feet deep planted with dense, green tomato vines. We alternate the dependable big boy tomatoes with the heirloom style, which have proved trickier for us to grow. Our vines are planted in the same wooden boxes my grandfather built, their branches tied with remnants of ribbon from the shop, on the same stakes he used.
We cultivate around thirty plants a year, yielding enough tomatoes to can sauce for the entire family, with plenty of tomatoes left over to eat like apples all summer long.
A two-foot chicken-wire fence is attached to the fence line of the roof above the plants. It’s partly for safety, but also to train the tomato vines to follow a straight path as they grow toward the sun. The dense, fragrant leaves create a spicy green wallpaper that lasts until the end of summer.
Growing tomatoes is all about patience and process. We place the plants carefully in rich mulch in late spring. Soon, the tender vines fill with white blossoms. Weeks later those flowers become waxy clusters which, in turn, become small green orbs that grow larger before turning orange, finally ripening to a robust red before we pick them. In full harvest, the fat red tomatoes hanging from the green vines look like rubies dangling on a charm bracelet.
I lean against the front wall and look past the West Side Highway to the Hudson River. The streetlamps throw bright pools of yellow light the color of butterfly wings onto the walkway by the water’s edge.
In all the years I have watched the Hudson River from this roof, it has never been the same color twice, nor has the sky overhead. One day the sky is a mottled-gray leopard print, then blazing streams of white on hot orange, then a light blue expanse with a smattering of smoke-colored clouds. Just like the sky, the river’s mood changes in an instant, like a temperamental lover with a short memory. Sometimes there’s a wild surf, and other times it’s calm, with waves like the rippled flutes on a teacup. Tonight, the river rolls out like a bolt of silver organza, past the Statue of Liberty and under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, where it drops off into a midnight blue pit of ocean. It seems to go on forever, and that reassures me.
It’s a slow summer night with only a few cars on the West Side Highway. There aren’t the usual sounds of truck brakes, car horns, and sirens; tonight it’s quiet, as if all of Manhattan is drenched in honey. The sky overhead has turned teal blue, with a border of pale white light that looks like lace over the clutter of buildings across the Hudson on the Jersey side. I can’t find the moon, but the Circle Line sails toward the shore of Manhattan, glittering in the dark night like a smoky topaz.
“Sorry, guys,” I tell the bright red tomatoes as I press them, their tough, glassy coats in need of the morning sun to ripen fully. The earth under the vines is as dry as sawdust. I unloop the old green hose from its stand and crank the water dial. Warm pulses of water turn cold as it gushes. I turn to water the plants. My bridesmaid’s gown is so tight it won’t move with me, so I put down the hose and unzip the back of the dress and slip out of it. My instinct is to save the dress, but for what? I look sickly in taffy colors and I can’t imagine any scenario in which I’d put this thing on again.
The gown stands before me like a stiff pink ghost. I turn the hose in its direction. Drenched, the sateen turns the color of a fizzy cranberry cocktail, the exact shade of the paint wash on Palazzo Chupi, Julian Schnabel’s West Eleventh Street creation that looms behind our building like a Tuscan villa. Now that shade of red would have looked good on me.
All that remains on my body is the Spanx, which looks like a salmon-colored bathing suit from the 1927 Miss America pageant. The boy legs grip my thighs like bandages. My midriff is bound so tight, you’d think the fabric was setting a broken rib. My breasts look like two pink snowball cupcakes sealed in plastic wrap. There’s not a ripple on me as I douse the vines along the front of the building, feeling free of the dress, the shoes, and the role of bridesmaid.
As I stand making rain over the tomato vines, the air fills with the scent of black earth and the slightest aroma of coffee. We put our coffee grounds around the roots, an old gardening trick of my grandfather’s. I think about him, and how Gram has a whole different view of the man I remember and loved. There seem to be some issues under the crisp white tablecloth he demanded be draped over the table at every meal. Maybe Gram will open up to me someday and tell me the story of their marriage, which is also the history of the Angelini Shoe Company.