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“What,” he said evenly.
“Don’t forget the kitchen,” I replied in a singsong voice. “You’ll find everything you need under the sink…sponges, dish towels and detergent.” I twirled around and veritably pranced into my bedroom and shut the door. I looked at my clock radio—10:37 p.m. I gave Dave ten minutes before he left and slammed the door.
He only took five.
Lady Di knocked on my bedroom door a moment later and poked her head in. “What an insufferable ass,” she said, then squealed with laughter and flopped down on my bed.
“He deserved it.”
She squeezed my hand. “You are something else, Teddi ol’ girl. This calls for champagne cocktails.”
She climbed off my bed, went into the still-dirty kitchen and returned with two champagne flutes with sugar cubes nestled in the bottom, a splash of bitters on each and a bottle of Moët. She popped the cork and poured us each a glass right to the rim.
“To Teddi, for knowing much more about boxing than Dave will ever know—and to her hundred dollars.”
“And to my grandfather Marcello, for owning Tony ‘the Dancer’ Jackson—and to Garcia.”
We clinked glasses and sipped the bubbly champagne. Lady Di sat down on the antique rocking chair in the corner of my room, next to a small pie table I inherited from my great-grandmother and covered in pictures of family and friends encased in silver frames.
“You’re always complaining about your family, Teddi, but it seems to me they come in terribly handy at times. My parents are pathetically boring—so utterly devoid of any life. Their faces are so stiff, they look like Botox patients whose treatment went horribly awry. I’d much rather be in your family. The food on Sundays is better, too.”
“Well…you’re an honorary member, anyway. They adore you. But trust me, you really wouldn’t want to be in my family if you had a choice. My childhood wasn’t about snooty British boarding schools, Miss Fancy Pants. I didn’t learn to ride English on Thoroughbred horses, and I didn’t ski in St. Moritz on vacation.”
In fact, Di knew very well that I learned three-card monte before I started kindergarten. I learned how to score a boxing match on the ten-point must system before I learned my ABCs—and it wasn’t too long after that when I found out most of the matches were fixed. I know about the over-under in football, and I can shoot pool better than Minnesota Fats—well, maybe not him, but I can outshoot almost anyone. This does not make for a) an idyllic childhood orb) the kind of skills you like to show off to men. I mean, on what date do you tell the man you potentially want to sleep with that before you discuss birth control it might be a good idea to see how he feels about the Witness Protection Program?
“Hmm.” Lady Di frowned, squinting her blue, almost-violet eyes. “I’d hate to give up my ski vacations. Nonetheless, your family is much more fun than my own pathetic ’rents.”
“Maybe, but then there’s the little problem of surveillance. Go to the window.”
“Oh, not again.” She shook her head. “Don’t tell me…”
“Go on. Peek out the blinds.”
She did as I asked.
“Let me guess, Di. A long, black Lincoln Town Car? A guy leaning on the hood? He’s sort of just hanging around—maybe even reading a newspaper?”
“You know very well that, yes, he’s there. Appears to be your cousin Anthony—who I will reiterate for the thousandth time is very hunky, by the way—and your uncle Lou again.”
“Of course, because we two nice single girls shouldn’t be living alone in the big city.”
“Puts a crimp in things, doesn’t it?”
“Tell me about it.”
“You’d think they would have grown tired of this by now.”
“Please…my uncle Tony once waited fifteen years to extract revenge from a guy who screwed him in a casino deal in Atlantic City. My family is nothing if not patient.”
Lady Di and I had moved in together two years ago when my father “persuaded” someone to rent us this place for a song. I realize how extremely hypocritical it is to complain about my family at the same time that I enjoy a two-bed-room apartment with a view of the East River in a doorman building. Of course, the spacious apartment and the view came with the vigilant watchdog eyes of various members of my family. My cousin Tony—whom Di has a crush on, and vice versa—seemed to have drawn the short straw or something as he is the one who watches over us the most.
Lady Di came over to the bed and sat down. “So we ignore them. There’s nothing exciting going on here, anyway. Eventually, they’ll go home. What do you say we hit some clubs tomorrow, Teddi? It’s your night off.”
“I don’t know.”
“Please,” she pleaded, “I have a smashing new outfit that I’m dying to wear. And now that Dave appears to be out of the picture, you can’t expect me to spend the brisk and bitter days of autumn in New York alone, can you? It’ll be winter before you know it.”
“No, I suppose I can’t. Though Lord knows I’ll be by my lonesome.”
“Don’t say that, Teddi.” She smiled and refilled my glass. Standing up, she kissed me on the top of my head. “I have a feeling you’ll meet the right one before long. See you in the morning, love.”
“Good night, Lady Di.”
She shut my bedroom door. I turned on my stereo and listened to a vintage Bruce Springsteen CD. I stripped and pulled on a sleep shirt, then I padded over to the window. Tony was pacing the sidewalk. I knew he and my uncle would stay another hour, then head over to Mario’s for some pizza and a card game.
I went into my bathroom—my bathroom…in New York City where most people live in apartments the size of bathrooms. Our apartment has floor-to-ceiling windows, crown molding, Ralph Lauren paint and hardwood floors glossed to a sheen. I washed up and brushed my teeth.
Back in my room, I sat on my bed and pulled out a photo album I kept on the shelf near my bed. In my life, I hit the crime-family genetic lottery. My mother’s family, the Marcellos, own one of the largest pizza chains in New York. They also are bookies and gamblers, loan sharks and pool hustlers. Suspected of money laundering, they are what New York newspapers call “an alleged crime family.”
Flipping through the album, I thought back on the birthday parties in the pictures I had slid into plastic photo sheets. Other little girls had parties with ponies and pizza, clowns and confetti. I had parties that lasted until the morning of the day after. I had ponies, too, and cake with real whipped cream frosting, and spumoni. But there was always a craps game going on in the basement, or even the occasional fistfight between the Marcellos and the Gallos.
Turning another page in the album, I landed on photos of my cousin Marie Gallo’s wedding. The Gallo clan was Sicilian—which some might think is the same as Italian, but it’s not—at least not in Brooklyn. Where the Marcellos were prone to angry outbursts, the Gallos were always picking on one another and pulling elaborate practical jokes, all in good fun—until the fistfights started, usually for reasons no one could remember the morning after. Two of my father’s six brothers were on the fringes of the five families. My uncle Jackie and uncle Tommy are both serving hard time in prison for murder. My father managed to squeak through life with a rap sheet a mile long but no major convictions. I can’t say what he actually does for a living. Not because I won’t say, but rather I can’t say, as in I’m not quite sure. However, because of the family, I grew up hearing clicks on the telephone because we were bugged, and catching sight of unmarked federal cars in my rearview mirror as I learned to drive.
I sipped my champagne and crinkled up my face. Champagne and Crest toothpaste don’t mix. I swallowed another swig anyway and sighed. In between these two crazy families was me, a mix of both. I had inherited dark masses of curly Italian hair from the Marcellos and the olive skin of the Gallos. Green-eyed (a Sicilian trait), I have a very ethnic look—whatever that means. I’ve been told, by less-than-gracious dates—and haven’t I had enough of those?—that I look like I “just got off the boat.” And when I get fed up with said lousy dates, when I want to see whether or not a man is really interested in me, I say that on my mother’s side, I am one of the Marcellos. That usually makes most men turn pale.
Because while all this may sound delightfully colorful, it ceased to be even remotely amusing when I became an adolescent. Suddenly, I had to explain my “family,” in more ways than one. And bringing a date home to meet the Gallos or the Marcellos was like subjecting the poor, hapless guy to an FBI interrogation. My male relatives would corner my date to find out his intentions. My solution? Stop dating. (Not really.) I just became as devious as my family—only far less criminal. I hid my dating from everyone. Lady Di became my conspirator from the moment we met when we were freshmen in college. Once we moved to this apartment, I also relied on my doorman, Michel, to frequently slip me out the back of my apartment building, enticing him with fresh cannolis from his favorite bakery.
I shut the photo album. Walking over to the window, I saw that my cousin Tony and uncle Lou had left for the night. They had my best interests at heart. They all did. But both sides of the family were pressuring me to marry and have babies. And while I did feel a baby urge when I saw mothers and their rosy-cheeked little cherubs in Central Park, the likelihood of ever meeting anyone who would find my extraordinary three-card monte skills endearing—let alone maternal—was not likely. And what man in his right mind is going to sleep with a woman whose father says, “You hurt her, we’ll break your legs”—and means it? The truth is that despite America’s obsession with all things Mafia, from the Godfather to the Sopranos, being a Mafia princess is most decidedly not what it is cracked up to be.
Chapter 2
“So I hear a man was over at your apartment last night.”
It was my mother, of course, calling me at work to remind me that my biological clock was tick, tick-tocking away.
“Gee, wonder where you’d hear that from?”
“A little bird told me.”
“Little? Uncle Lou weighs a good 250 pounds, Ma.”
“Does it matter where I heard it from? Just tell me who he was.”
“Mother, how many times must I tell you I’m a lesbian?”
She audibly sighed at my feeble attempt to throw her off my trail. My mother feels the need to call me once a day, whether we have anything to say to each other or not—and we usually don’t.
“Don’t give me that crap, young lady.”
“Ma…I have a million things to do.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the morning vegetables being delivered. My cousin Quinn and I own “Teddi’s,” a little Italian bistro just barely in the black. We’re struggling to survive in a city with restaurants on every corner and sky-high rents. The fact we rent from family does help things a bit. I cook. Quinn runs the front of the house and tries to bang all the waitresses. He’s good at both.
“‘A million things to do…a million things to do.’ But apparently one of them is not to tell her mother about the man in her apartment last night.”
“He was Lady Di’s date, Ma.”
“Oh.” Her voice was flat, emotionless—and spoke volumes. My older brother Michael moved out to Hollywood to become an actor. He lucked into a couple of minor roles and has a recurring bit as the boyfriend of a character on a WB television show. He never visits home, and we spot him in cheesy tabloid magazines squiring beautiful but vapid actresses around town. His idea of commitment is staying for breakfast, and, assuming he knows what a condom is, there’s not a chance that he’s going to settle down and make my parents happy by marrying and having a baby. Which leaves, reluctantly, me.
“You don’t have to sound like that, Ma. The guy was a jerk, anyway.”
“Jerk, schmerk,” she said. “You can reform a jerk. Look what I did with your father. You need to stop being so picky, Theresa Marie.”
Ah, the dreaded official first name and—worse—the use of my middle name. This was serious—at least where my mother was concerned.
“Ma…I will find someone eventually, but I’m not in any hurry.” Sure, let me get struck by the thunderbolt and end up visiting prison in widow’s garb. Not a chance. “Besides, Ma, running this place takes up so much of my time. I barely have enough time to sleep. I eat standing up…. I’m not looking for a relationship.”
“Theresa…darling—” My mother continued nagging. “You’re not getting any younger—and neither am I! I want grandbabies. I want to see my daughter walk down the aisle. Is this so wrong, Theresa? Isn’t this what every mother dreams of? I just want you to be as happy as your father and I are. I want you to have someone to grow old with.”
I tried to avoid howling into the phone with laughter. My mother and father can’t be in the same room without arguing. She henpecks at him constantly, and he hollers that he can’t enjoy any peace in his own home. He hates the plastic slipcovers on our furniture, and she hates the fact that he’ll drop a thousand on the ponies. They sleep in twin beds. Have for as long as I can remember. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the institution of marriage. I am convinced Michael and I are, for the record, immaculate conceptions. Something in the water in Brooklyn.
“I’ll get a cat.”
“Not funny, Theresa Marie. Not funny at all. Do you like to torture your own mother like this? To break my heart in every phone call?”
When my mother talks, I envision the old Peanuts specials whenever the teacher spoke. “Mwah, mwah-mwah, mwah-mwah.” I tuned her out.
“No, Ma, I don’t. Listen, it’s getting busy here. Let me go.”
“I wish you never got into the restaurant business. It’s not right for a woman.”
“Please, Ma…I was born with it in my blood.”
“You coming Sunday?”
“If I didn’t, there’d be a hit ordered. Of course I’m coming.” Sunday was an eating extravaganza that most Americans reserve for an occasion like Thanksgiving. The piles of food are downright nauseating. Attendance was pretty close to mandatory.
“And how many places should I set?” she asked hopefully.
“Two. One for me…and one for Lady Di.”
“Even if it’s short notice, if you meet someone, there’s always room for another plate at the table.”
“I know, Ma. Thanks. Gotta run.”
I replaced the receiver on the hook. She never gave up. She married at eighteen, right after high school. I don’t know if she was struck by the thunderbolt. Hard to picture someone feeling that way for my father with his ugly bowling shirts and beer belly. Still, to my mother, her husband and family are everything to her. When Michael and I were little, we were her universe. But if she only saw what I saw. The health spa where I take the occasional yoga class in an attempt to convince myself I’m not getting out of shape is a perfect example. A microcosm of pickup lines and outright seduction. A revolving door of hookups. Everyone has baggage. Failed marriages and relationships, messed-up childhoods, resentments and unhappiness. But I lug around a steamer trunk of baggage. I’m from a family of “made” men and wise guys, with a true nut job or two thrown in for good measure. Do you bring this up with a date over dinner? Dessert? When it starts to get serious? And even if a man thinks he can handle my background, he’s just kidding himself. Spending time with my father makes all those movie mobsters look like pussycats. He frightens people.
The phone rang again. It was Lady Di.
“Hello Teddi, ol’ girl,” she said, as if we were going to meet for a fox hunt.
“Hey…what’s going on?”
“I am bored out of my mind.” Lady Di works as a PR agent, which means she has invitations to all of New York’s hot spots. But as much as she likes the night life, she loathes being in the office. I accuse her of being part vampire. She abhors daylight.
“Sorry. I just got off the phone with my mother, who reminded me yet again that I am depriving her of the chance to see me in virginal white gracefully gliding down the aisle and into a happy life like her and my father. I could hear my ovaries shriveling as we talked.”
“She never gives up, does she? My parents are too afraid to say anything like that to me. It’s decidedly un-British. Sticking their noses in like that. Besides, if they make me angry, I’ll never visit them again. As it is I hate that damn drafty house and the sons of their equally stiff friends. Besides, the thought of marriage and babies gives me hives.”
“Well, my parents have never kept their opinions to themselves.”
“All right, ol’ girl. I’ve got just the ticket for your ennui. We’re going to Shangri-la tonight.”
“What?” Shangri-la was the hottest bar of the moment, in a city where “the moment” changes faster than the revolving door at Macy’s.
“Yes, my little Mafia darling! Lady Di has done it again. So what will you wear?”
I sighed. Lady Di tried to dress me in fuck-me pumps, a micromini and a halter top with a “jaunty” scarf tied around my neck…some sort of Euro-look, with bright red lipstick and sultry, smoky eyes to boot. However, she just could not transform me into a mystery woman. She could carry off a look like she was born on Page Six of the Post, where she actually appears from time to time. Me? Between my unruly hair and my slightly lopsided smile, my dimples (which admittedly are cute—but cute isn’t what we’re aiming for) and full cheeks, I always look like I’m playing dress-up.
“I don’t know, Di. I’ll figure it out when I get home.”
“Think about it, darling. Because I have a feeling tonight will be lucky. My Chinese horoscope says so.”
Leave it to Lady Di. The regular zodiac doesn’t do. She consults the Chinese version. She’s a dragon. I’m a mouse or a rodent of some sort. Need I say more?
“Well, let me go, Di. I need to start today’s soup.”
“Kisses, love!”
“Back at you.”
Much as I adored her—with all my heart—she just didn’t understand. She only heard from her parents once a month, if that. They saw one another every other year. Remembering my conversation with my mother, I rolled my eyes. Lady Di had no idea just how lucky she was.
Shangri-la was packed with the black-clad denizens of Manhattan. The women all seemed to be tall (I’m only five foot four) and anorexic, and the men looked like refugees from the fashion spreads in GQ. But Lady Di, of course, had access to the VIP room, where we promptly headed. She spotted one of the owners, a restaurant impresario who always filled his restaurants and clubs with supermodels, hip-hop stars and A-list Hollywood. He immediately gave us a table and sent over a bottle of champagne. Lady Di’s PR skills were unparalleled. She knew all the right people, and she charmed the ones she didn’t know until they couldn’t resist her. And unlike a few other “über-bitches” who worked PR in New York City, she somehow managed to do it by being tough yet never alienating anyone. It also didn’t hurt that her father was wealthy beyond imagination—even if, as she put it—he was as “stiff as a piece of plywood.”
We sat down, and our champagne was uncorked and placed in an ice bucket. Lady Di was dressed in a simple black minidress with a Hermès scarf wrapped around her thick blond hair. Her makeup wasn’t even a brand you could buy in the States. Her father flew to Japan on business regularly; she gave him a list and he bought it there, then shipped it to her. She wasn’t someone who dressed outlandishly in the hopes of being the center of attention, yet she had her own distinct style—not to mention perfect porcelain skin. If we weren’t best friends, I could hate her.
I had decided, with Lady Di’s prodding, to wear a black miniskirt and a silk kimono-style jacket her father brought me back from Japan on Lady Di’s orders. It was a brilliant blue, and though I felt out of place in New York with its sea of black clothes, it did feel beautiful on, and I caught admiring glances. I envisioned myself, for a change, as glamorous, rather than like the Italian girl from Brooklyn with the mass of unruly hair. I had even blown dry my hair nice and straight, and it had cooperated for once.
We sipped champagne, and Di leaned in close to me and gave a running commentary on every person who walked past.
“A-list actor… Cocaine fiend.”
“That one’s wife left him for another woman.”
As for the women: “Fake tits…real…real…oh, my God, fake. They’re like boulders perched there.”
She went on: “Does she not own a mirror? She’ll be in the next edition of Us Weekly under the ‘what was she thinking?’ category.”
“Her hairdresser should be shot.”
