Mafia Chic

“It’s as Italian as sheep’s head. Trust me. You don’t have to understand. All that’s important is that, with the exception of a woman in a micromini with very big hair, my cousin Tony loves cannoli more than anything in the world.”

“Should I change into a micromini?”

“No. The cat suit is sexy, but trust me, he sees you with a box of pastry from my third cousin Tessa’s bakery in Brooklyn and he’ll be in love.”

Lady Di adjusted her cell phone earpiece.

“All this because you’re the only granddaughter of Angelo Marcello.”

“’Fraid so.” My Poppy Marcello had five daughters and one son. One of his daughters, my aunt Connie, wasn’t able to have children. She and my uncle Carmine owned a pizza place and treated me like a daughter. My aunt Gina had five sons, always figuring this “one last time” she would have the little girl she dreamed of. After the last son, my cousin Frankie, she packed the crib up to the attic for good and decided to hold out hope for a granddaughter one day. My aunt Marie had four sons. Though Uncle Vito held out hope for an even five—for a basketball team—she’d had enough. My uncle Lou and his wife had three sons—including the hunky Tony, though their oldest son, Sal, died. My grandfather watched pregnancy after pregnancy result in male heirs—and what he wanted was a little girl, he told my mother when she married, to spoil rotten, and to buy fancy dresses and Madame Alexander dolls for. He wanted to build a dollhouse. First my mother had my brother. No pink dresses there. Then she had three miscarriages before I came along. My baptism was celebrated with a party—including an eight-piece band—for three hundred. Three hundred people!

I did get the fanciest party dresses and doll strollers that were more expensive than actual baby strollers. Poppy built me a three-story dollhouse—a turn-of-the-century town house he even rigged with electrical wiring to light up the miniature chandeliers. I had expensive dolls with wardrobes that rivaled the real Princess Di’s. But eventually, when I outgrew dollhouses and dolls and crinoline dresses, I was left with one very protective grandfather who was determined to see me married off in the grand style that befitted the last virgin in Manhattan—which, of course, he believed I was. And my cousin Tony was, in turn, my keeper. This was because he did not have a real job, and in the words of the family, he was a little lost. I knew it was because, though he could hustle a pool table with the best of them, and liked to go to the track with all my cousins and uncles, he wavered on whether he wanted “the life”—the “family,” and all that went with it…including, possibly, ending up in prison like John Gotti’s son. So rather than give him a job with too much responsibility, he was assigned to watching me, and in general acting as a driver for his father, whose glaucoma made driving impossible. The old guys of the family…well, they were getting old.

“Okay,” Lady Di said, “I’m ready as I’ll ever be.” Lady Di lifted the box of pastries. “Off I go.” She dialed my cell phone as she stepped out the door of our apartment. I had a walking commentary as she went downstairs.

“Entering the elevator…won’t be able to chat until the lobby.”

As I listened to dead air, I threw on my black velvet swing coat and grabbed my evening bag.

“Teddi?”

“Yeah?”

“Entering lobby. The cute doorman is on duty tonight. Winking at him—”

“Stay focused on the mission at hand!”

“Sorry. Oh, this is so Cold War, so On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Staying focused. Mr. 12B just gave me a very sexy look. I’m walking. Can you hear my heels clicking? God, I love these boots. Walking…walking. Mrs. Melman from the third floor just gave me the evil eye. Like I’d want to hit on that flabby, balding husband of hers.”

“Focus, Di!”

“Okay then…at the revolving doors. Time for you to come down to the lobby.”

I dashed out the door, locked it, then made my way down to the lobby. I listened to my phone.

“Walking across the street. See your cousin Tony. Waving and smiling to him.”

Now I could hear traffic sounds, cabbies beeping their horns, then muffled conversation and her replies to Tony.

“You must be simply starving out here.”

Mumble, mumble from my cousin.

“Well…I know how you find these positively delicious. Just wanted to say hello and bring you a dozen… No, it was nothing. Nothing at all for one of my favorite, most favorite chaps.”

Mumble, mumble.

“Oh…you like this outfit? Just threw it on…. You know, Tony, one of these days we have to go out for dinner and get to know each other better.”

Mumble.

“Smashing, then. You know, you’re looking terrific. You working out?”

Mumble.

“Tony…I’m a little cold just standing still here. Positively shivering. What do you say we take a walk around the block? Get the blood pumping.”

Mumble.

“Grand!”

And that was my cue. I dashed out the door, much to the bemusement of the doorman, who, I think, was on to our charade—this wasn’t the first time we’d gone to such ridiculous lengths. I made a sharp left and raced around the corner for a cab.

Flawlessly executed. Or so we thought.

But it turned out that Di’s pastry hand-off was to have devastating consequences.

I plead an overflow of sake. The piping-hot liquid must have, like some alcoholic Drano, busted through my brain’s tiny capillaries and rendered me stupefied. So stupefied that I revealed more than I usually do on a first date.

Robert Wharton was dressed like a power player. Maybe that was it. I was overwhelmed by his expensive suit and silk tie, and his dimpled smile and flawless TV-teeth. His manners, as he pulled out my chair for me.

Or maybe it was just the sake.

“So do you have any brothers or sisters?” he asked, leaning in to better hear me, his face illuminated by a single candle in a Japanese-inspired lantern on our table.

I had been mid-lift of a delicious piece of eel on the ends of my chopsticks. Oh, God, here comes the obligatory family discussion, I thought. I dropped the eel in the little dish containing my soy sauce.

“A brother. Actor. He lives in Hollywood.”

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