The Queen of the Big Time (35 page)

My life as a decorator began not with a sudden flash of inspiration, but with a problem. I was born without symmetry. This is not my real nose. As soon as I was old enough to pull myself up onto the stool in front of my mother’s dressing table (an Art Deco red enamel vanity
with a pink velvet seat circa 1920), where I could pull the side mirrors in and study my face from three angles, I realized that something had to be done. From the east, my nose looked like a fin on a Cadillac, from the west, a wedge of pie, and dead on, a frightening pair of black caverns, two nostrils so wide and deep you could lose your luggage in them. It had to go.

As an Italian American, I was born into a family of prominent noses. The di Crespi clan was known for their fish (Pop had a dinghy for clamming and crabbing, and a storefront in town to sell his catch) and their profiles. We were not alone. Our neighbors were also of Italian descent, many from the same village, and they, too, had versions of the Schnoz. The variations included all possible shapes, angles, and appointments, all with the same result: too large.

I was raised to be proud of my cultural and nasal heritage, so it wasn’t shame that brought me to the surgeon, it was a desire for perfection. My instinct is to create balance. Faces, like buildings, require good bones.

As soon as I could save up enough money (I worked after school and for five summers in the Mandelbaums’ bank as a coin roller sorter), I took the bus from Our Lady of Fatima (or OLOF) to the office of Dr. Jonas Berman on East Eighty-sixth Street in Manhattan. I was eighteen years old with a spiral-bound sketch pad under my arm and a checkbook in my pocket.

First, I’d drawn a self-portrait in charcoal, showing my original nose. Then, in a series of detailed drawings, I fashioned the nose I wanted from every angle. Dr. Berman flipped through the pad. Amazed at my artistic skill, he cited Leonardo da Vinci’s pencil sketches of early flying machines as being substandard to my talent.

If I was going to have rhinoplasty, I wanted to make sure I had the nose of my dreams. I didn’t want a hatchet job that would leave me with a Hollywood pug. I wanted regal, straight, and classic. In short, Italianate without the size. I got exactly what I wanted.

My sister, Toot (as in the song “Toot, Toot, Tootsie,” not the toot of a horn), who is eleven years older than me, was the first person to see my new nose when the swelling went down. She was so thrilled at the result that she convinced my father to sell his car so she could have the same surgery. My father, never one to tell a woman no, paid for her to have the Operation (as my mother came to call it). Never mind that I had worked like a farmer to earn my new profile. But I don’t hold a grudge.

Toot elected to have her nose done not in New York City by my capable surgeon, but rather by a doctor in Jersey City who was rumored to have given Vic Damone his signature tilt. (I am the only person in my family who does not believe in medical bargains.) When Dr. Mavrodontis peeled Toot’s bandages off, Mom, Pop, and I were there for the unveiling. Mama clapped her hands joyfully as Papa got a tear in his eye. Talk about change. Her new nose had a sharp tip with an upturn so steep you could hang a Christmas stocking off it. Gone was her old nose, which looked like an elbow, but was this delicate Ann Miller version an improvement?

To be fair, the new nose gave my sister the dose of self-confidence she needed. She suddenly believed she was beautiful, so she went on a spartan diet of well-done steak and raw tomatoes and lost a good thirty pounds, tweezed her eyebrows and straightened her hair (by sleeping on wet orange juice cans every night for a year) and, shortly thereafter, in the right pair of black clam diggers and a tight angora sweater, fell in love with Alonzo “Lonnie” Falcone, a jeweler, at a Knights of Columbus weenie roast in Belmar. Six months later they had a big church wedding at Our Lady of Fatima, and three sons followed in short order. Her nose may not be perfect, but it was lucky.

817 Corinne Way has been Toot’s address for eighteen years. After they lived for a couple of hardscrabble years in a row house in Bayonne, Lonnie’s business took off, so they bought a home in OLOF to
be near my folks. When Toot and Lonnie divorced she got the house, a lovely Georgian with grand Palladian columns anchoring a polished oak door trimmed in squares of leaded glass.

The lawn is freshly mowed and green. The boxwood hedges are trimmed and tidy. Everything about the exterior of the house is appropriate, except for one glaring design misfire: My sister mucked up the entrance with a countrified porch swing she found at a tag sale in Maine. I tell her that a Georgian with a porch swing is like a hooker in a girdle, but she keeps the swing and I keep my mouth shut. The truth is I’m a little afraid of her. Toot has always been a second mother to me, and any Italian son will tell you that two Italian mothers in a lifetime is a handful. I’m not complaining, because we adore each other; I defer to her on family matters, and she to me on aesthetic ones (most of the time; after all, she kept the swing).

I pull up in the driveway next to my sister’s chartreuse Cadillac and go inside. “I’m here!” I holler cheerfully. Toot’s house always smells of anisette and fresh-perked coffee, the lovely bouquet of our mother’s home.

“Back here, B,” she yells.

Carrying a footstool I’d re-covered in pale blue wool for her boudoir, I make my way down the long hallway, which is papered in a Schumacher pale yellow and white paisley print. I decorated the entire house, but my favorite room is her kitchen. I did a real number on it.

First, I sent my sister to Las Vegas to visit Cousin Iggy With The Asthma for three months. Then I gutted the kitchen. I installed a bay window on the back wall to maximize the light and designed a Roman shade of pure white muslin to let in the sun but keep out the nosy neighbors. Underneath I built a window seat with cushions covered in a practical red cotton twill (Duralee Hot Red #429). I believe that any fabrics used in a kitchen should be washable.

For fun, I used oversized zippers on the seat cushions to pick up the metal accents of the appliances. To bring nature indoors, I used rustic
white birch paneling on the wall around the window area. I papered the remaining walls with a bold Colefax and Fowler red-and-white stripe and installed white Formica cabinets with red ceramic pulls. The result is peppermint-candy delish!

The countertop, in white marble, has an extension that swings out in an L shape to make a breakfast nook, with sleek bar stools covered in white patent leather with brass-stud trim. The studs are an excellent accent to the shimmering copper pots that hang over the sink area like charms on a bracelet. The refrigerator (side by side) and stove (gas) were purchased in white, but I had them delivered to Chubby’s Garage, where they were jet-spray-painted a bright, shiny, fiery red. I’m forever thinking of ways to give design that extra kick, using unlikely sources. Take note.

The kitchen table is topped with wide, white ceramic tiles. Beneath the table, I installed a cutting board that pulls out for additional workspace. It comes in handy when Toot makes pasta. The table is surrounded by cozy booth seating in a cheerful red gingham. The palette works. It’s vibrant! It’s up! When you stand in this kitchen you feel as though you are on the inside of a tomato, the exact effect I wanted.

“You like my pants set? It’s new.” Toot does her version of a model’s twirl, pointing her right foot out in front of the left and holding her arms out waist high like a milkmaid. The sweater is a disaster, an enormous white pilgrim collar on a cable-knit orange cardigan. (I can see that the wool is a fine cashmere, but what good is it when the eye sees round, round, round instead of sleek? My sister needs length, not width.) The brown slacks have a wide bell hem. She looks like a piece of candy corn. “It’s a St. John knit,” she says, giving me an in-the-know wink.

“Only a saint could get away with such a color combination,” I say.

Like all Mediterranean girls, my sister is aging well. By soft candlelight or with the help of a dimmer switch, she has the look of a plump Natalie Wood. In broad daylight, she’s a dead ringer for our great-grandmother,
the pleasantly round Bartolomea Farfanfiglia, whom we never knew, but who stares at us with disgust from a sepia photograph on the television set.

“I’m going to get my teeth capped,” my sister announces.

Keep in mind, it is always something with Toot. Self-improvement is her Holy Grail. If she isn’t going on a diet of Metrecal shakes or installing an in-ground pool (inspired by the Summer Olympics), there’s some other project under way that, alas, she never sees through to completion. I’ve learned to play along. “Why would you touch your teeth? You have a lovely smile.”

“Only when clenched. In repose, I’m a knockout.” Toot looks at her reflection in the oven window. “But when I throw my head back and laugh, it looks like I’ve been eating black jelly beans for a living.”

“So get the caps.”

“Darn right. I’m fifty-one years old and I’ve been grinding my teeth all my life. That’s how I work off my nervous energy, and now I’m biting my tongue all the time. See? ” Toot pulls the sides of her mouth open with her forefingers. “I’m afraid the constant gnashing is gonna give me mouth cancer. Not my fault though. I use the Waterpik. My oral surgeon said everything shifts when you go through the Change.” Toot motions for me to sit down. “Another reason to throw myself out the attic window and not look down.”

Toot goes to the sink and washes her hands while I display the re-covered boudoir stool on the window seat for her appraisal. “Well, do you like it?”

“It’s cute,” she says. “I’ll put it next to the chaise lounge.”

“Toot, how many times do I have to tell you it’s chaise
longue
, not lounge.
Longue
means ‘long’ in French.”

“When I’m lying on it, I’m lounging. What’s the damn difference what we call it?”

“Because it’s
wrong
. I don’t make these things up.” I try not to snap. “These are historical terms we use in the design field. Please respect them. Make an effort.”

Toot shrugs as she pries open a large Tupperware cookie saver and carefully lifts iced coconut cookies out onto a plate. “I’ve got so much on me, B.” She breaks off a corner of a blue frosted cookie and eats it, then hands me a pink cookie. Soon our blood sugar reaches a comfortable high and we relax into the soft booth like spoons in cake batter. Toot pours hot coffee into two red-and-white polka-dot mugs. She scoots the sugar bowl and creamer toward me and places a small silver spoon on a red-and-white gingham napkin next to the mug.

The crease between her eyes relaxes as she takes a larger piece of cookie and dunks it into her coffee. I can’t count the number of times in my life I have sat at my sister’s kitchen table and dunked something sweet into a mug of something hot. The ritual always brings me great comfort. Toot picks up the cookie like it’s the sacred Host at Mass and says, “After the new year, I’m giving these up for good.”

“It’s April.”

Toot chews. “I need a few months to practice.”

My sister has delicate hands for her size. Her given name, Nicolina, means “Little Nicky,” but I don’t remember her ever being small. I remember my mother taking us shopping for bathing suits when I was little, and Toot weeping behind a muslin curtain, saying, “The size sixteen is too tight.” Of course, I was young during the final sputtering of the Great Depression. The girls wore one-piece, black wool bathing suits to the shore, and the only embellishments were buttons. Toot had her heart set on a boat-neck maillot she’d seen Myrna Loy wearing poolside in
Modern Screen
magazine. No one had the heart to tell her that the only thing she had in common with Myrna Loy was the occasional freckle. My mother, God bless her, kept steering her toward the old-lady styles and away from the Young Sophisticates, knowing that Toot wouldn’t fit into the fashionable suits. Toot kept arguing, telling Ma, “I’m young! I want a girlish suit!” Finally my mama lost patience and said,
“Non puoi uccidere una mosca con un cannone,”
which, loosely translated, means, “You can’t stuff an olive with a drumstick.”

“Good, huh?” Toot watches me chew. I give her an okay sign with my fingers so as not to choke on the crumbs. “So are you with me on the teeth?”

“Whatever you want to do is fine.”

“It’s not just cosmetic, B. Though, at my age, you look for little avenues of self-improvement even if they lead you up a blind alley of ugly. I wish it were just naturalism—”

“Narcissism.”

“Uh-huh. But it’s medical. I can’t chew. I have to chop my salad so fine it’s like soup. What the hell, maybe I’ll lose a couple of pounds.”

It occurs to me that my sister has grown larger over the years out of necessity. Without a man around she had to stay the size of her sons to keep order in this crazy home. I did all I could to help, but it wasn’t enough. My nephews, Nicholas and Anthony, are, sadly,
gavones
. Yet there’s a ray of hope: Her youngest son, my namesake, Bartolomeo the Second (whom we call Two), seems to have my artistic eye. He’s a theater major at Villanova.

“Well, who are you going to?”

“Dr. Pomerance. The man is a genius. They say he did Hubert Humphrey’s teeth.”

“He had his teeth capped? It doesn’t look it.”

“Old pictures.” She shrugs. “Listen. I need a flavor.”

“Uh-huh.” My sister, who doesn’t know “longue” from “lounge,” has always said “flavor” instead of “favor,” and I’m not about to start correcting her now.

“It’s my Nicky. He’s moved into a house in Freehold with … her.”

“The girlfriend?”

“Ondine Doyle. Sounds cheap, doesn’t it?”

“Actually it sounds like a flounder special at the Mayfair.”

“That’s not even slightly funny.” Toot fans herself. “It makes me sick. Rosemary Callabuono has loved my son since high school, and he won’t give her a tumble.”

“Rosemary With The Lupus?”

“Yeah, but it’s in remission. Better a woman with lupus than a woman with no virtue. Of all the girls in the world, he chooses
that
. Please.”