Four
“You are not going to believe this, love. Hold on, I brought a blanket for this stupid bench. Okay, listen. You’re going to be so Goddamn happy.
I took that lunatic up on his offer. You know what that means, right?
I don’t have to rely on cheating husbands looking for a piece of ass, or fat old men who could never score any.
Don’t worry. The lunatic seems nice enough.
Crazy, but nice. I start writing in about a couple of weeks.
I gave him my number. He’ll call. He better call.
If he doesn’t, I know where he hangs out.
Plus, he told me he’s a boxer and there’s only one gym in town.
I sound like a stalker, eh love? He looks too skinny to be a boxer if you ask me.
Pretty eyes, though. Shit. Don’t be jealous.
They’re not as pretty as yours are. Were.
I’m going to go talk to my landlord now.
Hopefully the bastard won’t give me a hard time.
If he does, I’ll threaten to tell the Board that he hasn’t replaced my stove.
He told me the microwave works. Can you believe that?
How are you supposed to cook a steak in the microwave? I heart you. I’ll see you soon.”
Ma has worn the same apron for decades. The stains on it are more like splotches on a painter’s palette because that’s what ma is – a culinary artist. She once entered a cooking competition, vying for the grand prize of one hundred dollars in credit at Joe’s Grocery bread is for sopping up sauce. One day, I’ll have that embroidered on a pillow.
“Why aren’t you eating?” ma asked while joining me at the Formica.
Growing up, every kid in our neighborhood knew that if you didn’t eat, you weren’t allowed to go outside and play.
It wasn’t surprising that during a game of Hide-and-Seek, you could hear retching sounds coming from various darkened street corners.
I remember the time that Bambina Pucci emerged with half-chewed gnocchi in her long locks.
She had vomited in her hair and from that day forward, the kids teased her relentlessly and nicknamed her “Miss Potato Head” after the famous toy.
“I am eating.”
“You eat like a girl.”
“You know that I’m training. I can’t train when I feel sluggish. Besides, I have to keep my weight below one-hundred-and-sixty if I want to retain middleweight status.”
“Kilograms?”
“Pounds, ma.”
“Oh. Chiseler was a... what do you call it? Heavyweight.”
“Chiseler? What was his real name?”
“Charlie. Charlie the Chiseler. They called him that because he could mess up a guy’s face in the first round. Chisel it into something else.”
I tried to find a look of nostalgia or regret in my mother’s eyes, but there was only fatigue, and something resembling loneliness.
“Can I ask you something, ma?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“What happened with Charlie?”
“Dick was too small.”
It began with a smirk, and then a chuckle.
When my mother’s merriment morphed into a full-blown laugh, I knew she was teasing me.
Ma rarely drinks and when she does, it’s red wine, but I’ve only ever heard her tell bawdy jokes when she’s had too much vino.
It was comforting to know she was at peace with her life.
When laughter dies in a person’s throat, the heart is next.
“He moved to Spain,” she said, turning serious. “But we had different goals in life, so it didn’t hurt too much. Besides, it wasn’t written in the stars.”
I pierced a potato wedge and ate it in one bite. The crispy outside gave way to a fluffy middle and I could hear Cable screaming at me from across town.
“What do you mean?”
“When you know,” she said, standing, and clearing my half-eaten dishes, “you know. And something inside of you tells you that someone up there already mapped out your love life. I was meant to be with your father.”
I was waiting for a sign from pop. I thought the lights might flicker, or that I’d get a whiff of his aftershave, Aqua Velva, but there was nothing. “Do you really believe that?”
“What? That I was meant to be with your father? Yes, I do.”
“So, what you’re saying is that we’re only meant to be with one person? What if you never meet them? What if you never cross paths?”
“Faith,” ma said. To illustrate her point, she grasped the gold Virgin Mary medallion that she’s always worn.
Even at the beach, that religious relic has graced my mother’s neck.
One night while we were watching a rerun of “Bewitched”, she told me that she wanted to be buried with it so that no one else could get their “greedy little hands” on it.
She even made me clutch the Madonna and swear to God.
“I guess if you’re an atheist, you’re shit out of luck?”
“Don’t swear! And no, that’s not what I mean.
I mean you have to have faith that you will meet the one and stop forcing it to happen.
It should feel natural, and when it does happen, it will also feel like magic.
Whether God is the magician or not, it doesn’t matter.
Why are you so interested? Is there someone new in your life, Filippo? ”
Her eyes lit up at the exact moment that the butterflies invaded my belly. Nick would say it’s indigestion and that I should focus on the fight, but Alex has put a spell on me, and I wondered if that’s the magic that ma was referring to.
“Well? You can tell me. I’m your mother.”
“There might be someone.”
“Grazie a Dio! Thank God.”
“I thought God had nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t be funny. I was starting to worry about you. I thought maybe something was wrong with you. Who is she? It is a girl, right?”
She’s all woman, I wanted to say, but I simply said, “Yeah.”
“Well? Where did you meet? Is she nice? What do her parents do? Is she Italian?”
Ma was yelling over her shoulder from the kitchen sink. I took the soapy sponge from her hands and hip bumped her so that I could finish washing dishes. “She’s not Italian. I don’t know what her parents do, and we met at Nick’s.”
“Nick’s! She drinks?”
“Everyone drinks, ma.”
“Good girls don’t.”
A fork slipped from my hands causing a rattle. “Don’t send out the wedding invitations just yet. She’s doing a little... um... project for me. I don’t know if it will turn into anything else.”
“What kind of project?”
“Art.”
“Why don’t you go to il mercato and buy a painting?”
“Because” I said, drying my hands, and kissing my mother on the cheek. “She needs the money.”
“Who are you? What’s the word? Like Barbara Eden. Her genie?”
“No. Jerry. Jerry Lewis.” Leaving my mother with a puzzled look on her face, I picked up the large margarine container that was packed full of leftovers and quietly asked the Man upstairs to give me herculean strength in the ring so that I could eventually find out just how good a girl Alex really is.