15. Keith
KEITH
TOO MANY COOKS? TOO MANY GUESTS!
“And this is our altar to the moon,” one of the older women said. At least, that’s what I thought she said. It was difficult to tell with the accent and natural warble, not to mention that I nearly had to bend in half to be at eye-level with her.
“She means it’s for astrology,” Rolando said quickly beside me, sounding a little panicked. Why would he be panicked about the pretty thing I was looking at? Maybe he thought I would judge them for being spiritual?
“It looks lovely,” I said, taking in the small structure stuck in the hallway between the foyer and the family room.
I hadn’t expected to be taken on a tour of the house by the group that had swarmed us, but I decided to go with the flow, even as more people filtered in and out. More names were given to me, but they mostly faded into white noise as I tried to absorb as much information as I could.
Beside me, Olivia looked miserable. I kept trying to herd her away to check on her, but it was difficult to manage the throng.
“Auntie, why don’t you show him the fireplace Papa built?” Rolando suggested, but I held up a finger.
“If you don’t mind, I need a moment.” I said it to be polite, but I was firm enough that I managed to step away and gently loop my arm through Olivia’s.
“Step into the hall with me?” I tried to ask lightly, so she didn’t panic, and quiet enough that not everyone within our vicinity instantly knew something was up.
She nodded, face pale. As soon as we were alone, I pulled her into my arms. It only lasted a moment, though, because Rolando popped his head around the corner and asked the question I was about to.
“Everything okay?”
Olivia shook her head against my chest. “They weren’t all supposed to be here.”
“I know, I know. Do you want to go? I don’t mind pretending to be sick,” I offered.
Her eyes went wide. She and Rolando exchanged a look I didn’t understand, like they were afraid people could hear my plot. But I was whispering, so unless the place was bugged, I doubted they could.
“No. We’re already here, so let’s get this over with. This is exactly what I was afraid of. My family can be a lot.”
She was so quiet that I could barely hear her even with her pressed against me. I nodded along. I wasn’t going to call her paranoid for being worried about being overheard, but it was pinging a whole lot of red flags in my mind.
“It’s okay. A lot or a little, they’re yours, and I’m happy to be here.”
She took another couple of deep breaths, then looked up at me with those gorgeous, amber eyes of hers. “Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I assured.
“Oh, I worry, baby. I worry.”
I chuckled softly as I kissed her forehead. “It’s gonna be okay. I’m chill, I promise.”
We headed back into the room, and I was immediately bombarded. Someone was clinging to my other arm. Normally, I wouldn’t be so okay with random people grabbing me, but a quick look down told me it was the same little older auntie who had told me about the astrology spot.
“You see windows here? They are special, to magnify the light of the moon.”
“Really?” I asked, keeping my tone interested. “Is there a significance to extra moonlight?” It probably had to do with that astrology spot, but I figured it was polite to ask.
The older woman looked up at me like I’d asked her if she was capable of flight and I couldn’t figure out where I’d gone wrong.
“Are you teasing this old lady?” she asked, gray eyebrows going up to her nearly blue hairline.
“No, he’s not, Auntie,” Olivia said quickly. “Remember, he’s from a different culture, si?”
Ah, so it was an Italian thing. Fair enough. I guess I had a lot more to learn about their traditions than I thought.
“Oooooooooh, si, si, si. è un essere umano. I forgot.”
That was the second time I’d heard that word—umano—and it was pinging something in my head I couldn’t quite place. Maybe they were calling me the white guy? Or big guy? As far as I knew it wasn’t a slur, so I let it go.
“You, big man, come, let me show you our pride!” one of the older men called. Olivia gave me a small nod, and I headed through another door to see the eldest-looking relative standing next to who I believed was introduced as Olivia-Two in what looked to be a secondary sitting room.
Huh.
I didn’t get rich people. I had just walked out of a massive family room with large couches that could comfortably hold a Christmas celebration by the Von Trapp family, and now I was in yet another room with its own couch facing a love seat and a recliner around a long, low coffee table.
I made a sitting room next to your sitting room so after you sit, you can get up and then sit somewhere slightly to the left, I thought to myself.
“Someone said something about seeing your pride?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t a common phrase or idiom. I didn’t want to sound like an idiot for not knowing what he meant.
“Si, grande signore, right here.”
He pointed behind me and I turned to see another much smaller, less ornate fireplace than the one in the family room. The entire wall above it, however, was covered with trophies and medals.
“Whoa…” I murmured, instantly spotting a whole lot of soccer, track-and-field, mathletics, and awards from English competitions based on their wordy titles such as “Excellence in Performance: International Competition in Literacy.” There were also trophies for bowling, baseball, basketball, softball, Battle of the Books.
If a sport existed, it was represented up there in either gold or bronze.
Strange, no second places, I mused to myself. What were the chances of that?
“Here you see our excellence. You know, other branco would always say we will dilute ourselves coming here, but you see, the bambinos are mighty when they are even of two generations on this soil!”
I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about a horse, so I figured branco was a slang phrase for his bros back home, or whatever someone from his generation would call them.
“Clearly they were wrong,” I said with a whistle. The man was trying to connect with me one of the few ways he knew how: bragging about his grandchildren. “Because all I see here is a bunch of thriving.”
“Thriving! Exactly. This is a good word. I like it; I like you, grande signore.”
“You’re too kind.” Even as I said it, I couldn’t help but think, One down, who knows how many to go. “I would be proud of this kind of legacy too.”
“Si, si. Very proud. All beautiful babies, the little ones. Although some are not so little anymore, yes? Makes a man feel his bones, si!”
“I know the feeling. Sometimes I see a client’s kid entering kindergarten when I was sure they were still a baby, and I wonder if I need to start dyeing the gray out of my beard.”
“Cli… client keed?” he repeated, somewhat mystified.
Olivia-Two looked up from her phone for the first time since I entered. “Il figlio del suo cliente.”
“Cliente?” He turned his attention back to me, still looking perplexed. “No, no, not work people. Um, famiglia! Like children.”
“Ah, I don’t have kids,” I said, chuckling. But the old man didn’t seem satisfied with my answer.
“Si, this is good. But, uh, of the brothers and sisters.”
“Nah, didn’t have that either. Only child.”
His head tilted in the same way Olivia’s and Rolando’s did whenever they were trying to puzzle out something, but it looked like the man might be about to twist himself in a circle. “But surely cousins from the aunties and of the uncles?”
“Ah, no. My mother was an only child too. It was just the two of us, but like I said, I understand what you mean by being surprised at how fast kids grow from other little ones more adjacent to my life.”
Dead silence. He turned to Olivia-Two and started speaking rapidly in Italian. He didn’t sound angry, but confused, like I was the one speaking in a foreign language. I didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted.
To her credit, she didn’t seem annoyed at us interrupting whatever she was doing on her phone, and it seemed like she was defending me. Which was confirmed when the man made a couple of gestures before the young woman said something with finality.
“Ricordare, è americano.”
“Ah, si. Americano!” He looked back to me and seemed a lot less lost. “Coworker’s kids, yes! They grow!”
“Keith, are you in here?” Olivia called, even though she knew where I was.
“Coming, honey!” I called back, tilting my head to the older gentleman before hurrying out and sighing in relief.
However, I didn’t get within five feet of Olivia before a feminine voice called from the kitchen.
“Tesoro, cara dear, will you come help me with something in here?”
Olivia grimaced, and I saw a sliver of that more nervous, quiet woman who’d been trying to fall through the floor in my first class.
I opened my mouth to tell her that she didn’t have to go if she didn’t want to, but she was already calling back more loudly than I’d ever heard her speak before, and I’d watched Italian soccer matches with her.
Italian football matches.
“Coming, Mama! I’ll be there in a second!” And then her attention was back on me. “You’re doing great, you really are. Ignore the kooky things my older relatives say; a lot of it is stuff that doesn’t translate well into English. Slang, you know?”
“Yeah, I totally get it. And for what it’s worth, I get at least eighty percent of things.”
“Perfect! And stick close to Rolando. He’ll be your translator if anyone is a little too off the wall. They’re not really used to talking to people who don’t understand Italian.”
If she had told me that before, I would be a little suspicious, because didn’t they talk to anyone outside of their family?
But I’d only met a handful of her family members.
They could probably talk to a different person every day and not repeat a meeting with another relative for multiple months.
It was so the opposite of how I’d grown up that I was stuck between wonder and being overwhelmed.
I’d heard the phrase “it takes a village” a lot, but Olivia’s family was nearly a whole damn city.