The Knotty Bride (20 page)

chapter 4

“C
OME SI PAGA L’AFFITO?” How are you paying the rent, Alice had asked exactly two weeks earlier as she charged through the front door of my new place with her arms full of groceries. It was Alice’s first time seeing my new place, and clearly she was not impressed.

The thing about my apartment is this—it’s a bit closet-like. There is a living room, a bump-out of a kitchen, two tiny bedrooms and a horrendous bathroom. It’s done up in a weird 1970’s tile of a color that I like to call “murky aqua,” or “murqua” for short.

The other thing about the apartment is that due to budgetary concerns, it is sparsely furnished. My living room contains only an orange flowered loveseat that I got real cheap off a guy in Novara, a coffee table from IKEA, a cheap computer on an even cheaper computer desk (with matching cheapskate computer chair) and a television which I basically stole from Enrico. After all, I thought, I should have something from my marital home.

Anyway, I answered Alice’s question about how I was paying my rent with some vague statement about giving English lessons and all she did was murmur an unconvinced “um.”

“Well, actually, Enrico paid my deposit and my first month’s rent.”

“As he should,” she blustered, thrusting the bags of groceries into my arms. Shoulders hunched, she shuffled over to put her purse on my coffee table before turning around and sitting down gingerly
 
on my tiny couch.

“Really, Alice, you shouldn’t worry. I get along fine with the money I make. Oh, and thanks so much for the fruit and veggies, you shouldn’t have.” With that I deposited her groceries on my kitchen table and returned post-haste to the living room where Alice was busy surveying my apartment.

“Would you like something to eat?” I asked.

She waved me away as she made a horrible wheezing sound. It was, I expect, Alice’s attempt at a dramatic inhale. “This is not a social visit, Lily. I’ve come to talk about something most serious.”

“Alright.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

“Yes,” she shrilled unexpectedly. “As you know, the boys mean the world to me. They are like my own grandchildren.”

Um, alright again. Honestly, I didn’t know she felt that way. During the three miserable years I had to live under her roof, she barely seemed to pay any attention to me or the children, except to give us sideways glances and make me feel as if I was a burden that had been thrust upon her. But okay, if she was telling me right there and then that she loved my children—well, that was good to know. I decided to make a mental note of it.

“And, of course, Enrico is like the flesh of my flesh!” Alice sirened on.

Oh my stars… Aunt Alice is cracked. Make no mistake—Enrico is her nephew by marriage. There is no blood between them, or flesh for that matter. Like me, Alice married into the Bettonina family.

But fine, whatever.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. Whatever it was, whatever she wanted, it would be over in a minute, and then hopefully she would go. But as I waited there, still shifting from one foot to the other, Alice didn’t speak. Instead, she began to tear up. She actually began to sob. She was sitting there on the very edge of my loveseat with big watery brown eyes like those of a cow. So watery, that she had to pull a white hanky from her miniscule purse and dab at her tear-streaked cheeks.

“And seeing the boys living here… in such… such…”

Such what? She better not say what I thought she was going to say. In anticipation of the insult, my whole body stiffened.

“…destitution!” she cried. “Well, Lily, it stabs at the heart!”

Oh for pity’s sake, this is not destitution, I thought. This is small. This is sparsely furnished. But it is not destitution. The children are not without food. They are not shoeless. Unfortunately, however, Aunt Alice looked like she had more to say on this subject. She puffed out her chest. She was coming to her melodramatic point with all the momentum of a freight train, and there was no stopping her.

“Lily, as you and I both know, you are very down and out, and in desperate need of a job. You need a profession. Enrico will have to give you alimony of course, but it will not be enough.”

“Child support. He’ll have to give me child support,” I said hotly, now more than a little annoyed.

“Whatever.” Alice waved her hands again in a random motion. “It just so happens that over at the villa we need some more help, and luckily I have a job for you.” She pronounced these last few words—IO. HO. UN. LAVORO. PER. LEI—with 
grand
 emphasis, as if she had solved some horrible problem such as the Middle East peace conflict or testicular cancer, after which she sat and looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to thank her. But I did not. I just watched her and thought that she looked ridiculous balancing her big bottom on the edge of my tiny loveseat. I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying not to move. She did not want to stir up dust. Because like many Italians, my aunt was convinced that foreigners are simply primitive when it comes to housekeeping.

“Lily, did you hear me? I said I have a job for you.”

“Uh, yes. I heard you.”

“Yes, well, you see, it just so happens that Ca’ Buschi needs a maid. And it’s perfect for you. Why the villa is only a quick fifteen minute drive up the lake from Arona, as you know. And that is not very far, not very far at all.”

Yes. True. It is not a bad commute for me but…

“A maid? Why, Alice, I am a college educated woman.” Partially college educated that is. I did two years junior college.

“Don’t you poo poo it.”

“I wasn’t going to ‘poo poo’ it,” I countered defensively.

“It is very hard work,” she rasped on, inching closer and closer to the edge of the loveseat. “But I have arranged for you to do it while Matteo and Luca are in school.”

“Seriously, Aunt Alice, it is very nice of you. But I can’t.”

“Well, that’s too bad. Too bad.” She looked glum and stared at her shoes. “Because you see, it pays 25,000 euros per year, plus gym membership.”

“How much?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

“25,000 euros,” Alice repeated.

Good gracious me! I tried to sum it all up in my head. Why, that’s almost $34,000 a year.

“Plus gym membership?” I asked for no reason. I had never really believed in exercise as one of life’s necessities.

“Yes, well, not exactly a gym membership, but the Signore has a private workout room in the villa that you can use when you like.” She fluttered her hands in the general direction of my body. What? Why was she waving her hands like that? Don’t tell me that even my aunt-in-law thinks I need to spend more time in a gym.

I ignored her. As it was, I was temporarily blinded by the number of euros swimming hallucinogenically in front of my eyes. 25,000 euros? For being a maid?

“How many weeks off?” I ask.

“Five, of course.” She shrugged as if it were a stupid question. “But listen carefully, Lily, you must work long hours when the Signore is at home. Okay? Only when he is at home, otherwise you can work while the children are in nursery school. You can build the hours around Luca and Matteo’s schedule. What could be more perfect than that? You know you won’t get an offer like this anywhere else. Va bene?”

“I—I need to think about it,” I said, and I meant it. I really needed to think it all through. As in, I wanted her to leave and I would call her later with my answer. But like the stubborn woman that she is, she clasped her hands in her lap and said, “Va, pensa pure.” (Go on, think well.)

Then she sat there and waited. There ensued a brief awkward pause, during which I considered her offer and could think of no sane reason to say no. Then, there ensued another brief awkward pause, as I thought about the fact that working for Aunt Alice would be difficult, quite possibly torturous. The truth was we had never seen eye to eye. I mean how could anyone really see eye to eye with a woman who thought that I was bringing my children up in squalor?

“Okay,” I broke down, ending my silence at the very moment that my aunt bounded from my loveseat with eyes wide in terror. The poor woman looked positively haunted; as if she suspected—no, truly believed—that a piece of dirt, or perhaps a deadly germ, had crawled off my recycled furniture and attacked her right on her ugly, misshapen wool skirt.

“Oh my, Lily, I forgot I am late for an, um, appointment,” she said, trying to think of some quick excuse. Gathering up her miniscule purse, she crossed my tiny living room, and yanked open my front door. Before she left she paused and said, “And you will take this job 100 percent seriously, not like a joke, not like your marriage. Okay?”

She slipped out the door before I could register the insult. Stealing out into the stairwell after her, I listened to Alice’s heels go clipitty-clop down the concrete stairs of my apartment building. For a while, all I could do was stand there—salivating at all those euros dancing in my head, reveling in the idea of my newfound economic independence. Because, as I previously mentioned, I have a theory. Economic independence = divorce = happiness. And now I had been given the opportunity to put that theory to the test.

October

(Mostly drizzle with a chance of sun)

chapter 5

U
NFORTUNATELY THOUGH, THE theory in test was an ugly thing. Trying to obtain economic independence by working for my dear Aunt Alice quickly ended my illusions that there would ever be anything good about my new job.

In fact, strike everything I said about my job being fabulous. It is not fabulous at all, not in any way. And on this first Saturday in October, at precisely 6:25 in the morning, as I grope around frantically in my dresser drawer for clean underwear, I reflect on the fact that with two small children I simply cannot make it anywhere on time. Especially in the mornings. And since both Alice and the headmistress at my children’s nursery school keep threatening me with vague statements of “If you are late one more time,” I am beginning to feel a lot of undue stress.

And for what? What would happen? I ruminate as I hastily pull thick black tights over my freezing legs. Would my children be tossed out of nursery school only two weeks after starting? Would Alice fire me from Ca’ Buschi? Did it really matter if I de-haired the sink in the downstairs powder room of the villa at 8:15 as opposed to 8 o’clock sharp? Did it really matter if my twins missed the frenzied
Buon giorno
song that the children sing over and over each morning at nursery school like a pack of rabid monkeys?

(Exactly what is this obsession with being on time? My job… the nursery school… What is it? Like we are all Americans or Swiss or something. Am I living in Italy or what? When did they become so adamant about being on time? And did anybody give the transportation department the memo? Because I have yet to catch a train that departs Arona on time.)

But none of that matters at 6:28. What matters right now is that today I 
will
 be on time. Yes. Today. Saturday. Because in this part of Italy, school is six days a week, which means I once again need to 
move out
in order to make it to work this morning. Briskly I pull a skirt on over the tights, and a turtleneck over my head. A moment later I rouse Matteo and quickly get him dressed. So far so good; it is 6:45 and I have to say I am cruising along nicely. I hit a bit of a roadblock when I try to get Luca up and dressed because he goes limp as a dishrag.

So at 6:50 what I am thinking is this: darn, darn, triple darn! (Well, in my head I use a slightly stronger word than darn.) As more experienced parents know—and I am just beginning to realize—it is quite surprising how long it can take to dress a small child who is almost completely supine. And in this particular case I am in possession of a supine child watching television in a seemingly transfixed state. A supine child whose mind is completely oblivious to everything except the current adventures of Pugsie and La-La, or whatever their names are on the Teletubbies.

Somehow, we make it. I pull his jeans on with a little shimmy maneuver and drag a shirt over his head. There, he looks great. Now it is 6:59. Not bad, not bad at all. Everybody is dressed and I still have thirty minutes to get out the door, drop the children off at nursery school by 7:45, and make it to work at 8:00.

That is totally doable. I start to feel smug. This, of course, is when everything goes downhill. Because you see, Teletubbies ends at 7:00 a.m. It just ends. And that is when Luca stops being limp as a dishrag and sits up. At first I think the fact that he is sitting up is a good thing, but then I realize from the smirk on his face that he is looking for trouble. He finds what he is looking for in the form of his sippy cup. With one quick tug, he yanks off the top of the cup, showering himself—and everything else in my living room—with freshly squeezed orange juice. Not a problem. Kids will be kids. I’ll mop that right up and get him another shirt. It’s not a big thing.

But it is a big thing! Because, when I change him into a nice clean green-and-black striped rugby shirt, the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins—and that is when Luca begins to assure me that today is “not a green shirt day.”

Definitely not.

“No mama, non quella verde,” he cries.

Fine. Not a problem. Perhaps it is a blue shirt day, so I give that a try. For a few brief seconds, all appears to go well. Luca ignores what he is wearing and concentrates on watching some gosh-awful show that comes on after the Teletubbies. (This one is also clearly made in Great Britain, replete with flashy lights and people dressed up in huge costumes of cloth pudge. Only these horrid little Teletubbies wannabes sleep in some kind of mesh net and can fly out at any moment like something from your worst nightmare. It’s absolutely horrid. I have to avert my eyes whenever the show comes on.)

But, anyway…

As it goes, this new show holds Luca’s attention for a good sixty seconds or so. Then, as if in slow mo, I see him glance away from the television and turn his eyes to his new shirt. This new shirt is promptly deemed to be—THE COLOR OF SHEER MISERY.

As if possessed by the very devil himself, he jumps up and begins running around in circles in a fit of hysterics no mortal could ever fix.

“Cosa c’è?” What is it? I ask mystified.

That is when I am informed that what is needed, what is most desired, is a LIGHT blue shirt and not a REPULSIVE dark blue one.

Not a repulsive dark blue one!

At this point it is 7:20 and I know with a sinking feeling in my heart that I’m going to be thirty minutes late to work—at least.

Right there on the spot, I fly into a tizzy. I switch off the television set. Grab both of my little monsters by the wrists. Heave the enormous diaper bags over each shoulder. Struggle down the stairs with Matteo now insisting he has the wrong shirt too. Wake every neighbor in my apartment complex with Luca and Matteo’s hideous shrieking chorus of “No, mama! Non è l’azzura giusta!” which translates to, “it’s not the right blue…” Strap everybody down firmly into car seats like the wicked witch of the west. Prepare to drive off. Drive one block before Matteo spits up his juice (which unlike Luca’s, had actually been consumed). Race back home. Unstrap everybody. Drag the boys back upstairs. Redress Matteo and Luca in shirts I make them pick out themselves. Assure myself that Matteo is not sick but just overly excited, as he is still adjusting to being away from his mother during the day. Traipse back downstairs, strap everybody back in, drive off with a peeling of tires, and finally drop the children off at nursery school—only to be thrashed out once again by the headmistress for not getting the children there “at the start of class.”(Which was a shame, really, because by the time we arrived the 
Buon giorno
 song was completely over. All ten ear-busting rounds of it.)

As I retrace my steps from the school to my car I wonder: why so much drama in the mornings? Why? I retrieve my keys from the bottom of my purse, unlock the door and fling myself into my Panda. A glance at the clock on the dashboard tells me it’s half past eight. At best I will be forty-five minutes late to work. Yet for some reason I don’t start the engine and race away. Instead I sit there, completely and totally exhausted.