When in Rome (9 page)

My family lives in the suburb of Camilluccia, in a cluster of villas surrounded by plants and trees. Thirty-two years ago, when my mother met my father, she moved from Calabria to the sunny suburbs with delusions of grandeur about what it would be like to have a wealthy husband. Her delusions were quickly stifled. But all the aunts followed her lead, migrating like a flock of hawks to turn the neighborhood into their own microvillage. Their stretch of houses—with their large gardens, kidney-shaped swimming pools, tiny dogs, and garish fountains—look like they belong in Los Angeles.

I open the gate and walk very slowly up my Aunt Palma’s driveway, enjoying the silence that pulses through the trees. Furious chaos awaits me a few hundred feet away—a swarm of people and lights, and a circus tent erected in the garden. I’ve never seen so many tulips. They must have wiped the Netherlands clean to fill the lawn, the balconies, the Aphrodite-shaped fountain, the steps, and the gazebo.

When I see my mother with Aunt Porzia, I try to hide behind a giant cactus plant. But she notices me immediately and drags my aunt over.

“Are you alone?” she says without even saying hello. “Well then, I’m going to call Catello.”

She disappears, while Aunt Porzia eyes me from behind her Swarovski-studded glasses. She’s shorter than I am, but her hug crushes me. She is wearing a ridiculous headscarf, and she’s so tan she must have spent the last month in a tanning bed. I ask how she’s doing after we exchange pleasantries.

She pinches my cheek, frowns, and says loudly, “You’re too skinny. Are you too poor to buy food?”

“I either go to the soup kitchen or feed on roots and berries. It depends on the day.”

“Didn’t you bring your boyfriend? You can’t keep a man! You should learn from your sister, with that pretty boy, Jess. They’ve been together for a lifetime.”

“No doubt,” I say under my breath. “Erika knows how to do things for a lifetime.”

“If you don’t find a husband,” Aunt Porzia goes on, “you’ll never have children, and you’ll die without heirs.”

“That just means no one will be killed over the division of my assets.”

“Always witty, aren’t you, big sister?” Erika’s charming and treacherous voice catches me off guard. To say that she is beautiful would be like saying the sun is warm. She’s wearing gloves and a long, backless sapphire dress with a slit that goes all the way to her pubic region. She looks like she’s not wearing makeup (which means she spent several hours in front of the mirror to achieve this look), and her hair slides down her bare back like a silk cloth, swaying with every movement. A bald, muscular guy is standing next to her. Aunt Porzia practically forces him to kneel to receive her affection and kisses. She calls him Jess, which would make him the thousandth Jess in my little sister’s sex life.

“This dress is so pretty,” Erika says in a tone that a stranger might perceive as caring. But I know her too well. I shift the coat to make sure the dress is completely shielded, and she lifts a corner of her mouth. “It looks great on you. It makes you look tan.”

“At least I don’t have to worry about getting sick,” I say, pointing to her outfit, which is really more of an optical illusion than a dress. “Won’t your colon freeze?”

“Oh, I’m still so young, I won’t get cold. So why are you here alone?” She smiles, and I can tell she’s swinging between the displeasure of having her sex appeal taken down a notch and the triumph of knowing I’m as alone as an unmatched sock.

At that moment, my mother returns, Catello in tow. It’s the touchy guy with the nose ring, only it’s gone, and so is the hair. He’s not quite completely bald, but his forehead—topped with a horrid comb-over—glistens under the lights. He’s a little pudgy, and he hasn’t kicked his smoking habit. He’s wearing a red jacket and a pair of black jeans. He shakes my hand and licks the tip of his cigarette in a way that warns me I’ll be in danger the whole evening.

Luckily, just then the bridesmaids are called to duty. Inside the house, I get rid of the coat and overnight bag and emerge in all my poop-colored glory. Beatrice is in her room just finishing getting dressed. The room is full of women all over the age of forty, and for a moment I think I’m in the wrong place. It’s only the abundance of brown garments that lets me know I’m not. Beatrice has chosen only spinsters as her bridesmaids, and I’m the only one not on the verge of menopause. What an honor to be first in a line of losers. I don’t see Beatrice at first, and then I remember that I shouldn’t be looking for a nun with a mustache, but a pregnant bride dressed in white. And then I see her. She’s dressed in dazzling white. Her injected lips are boatlike, her new nose too small, and her eyebrows dyed to match her newly blonde hair. As we wave hello, my eyes burn from the glow of her dress. Aunt Palma squeezes me, and so do all my mother’s sisters.

Once the procession of spinsters begins, I’m embarrassed to find myself part of a wedding that seems to be straight out of a rom-com. We descend the stairs holding bouquets of thorny thistles, then head over to the gazebo, where the tulle-covered wooden benches for the guests resemble clouds. The ashen sky threatens snow, but only a few guests are hiding underneath puffy fur coats.

Photographers hop around like grasshoppers. A few babies start to cry. The organist plays the wedding march. I must admit the groom, Pablo, is rather handsome; his long hair is tied back in a ponytail, and he has strong Spanish features and a sensual expression. I wonder where they met—he doesn’t seem like the type of guy to frequent a monastery. The bridesmaids take their places as the celebrant speaks of eternal love. A tenor sings Schubert’s “Ave Maria” in the background. Finally, deafening cheers ring out.

After about eight hundred more or less identical photographs, we reach the refreshments tent. I grab a glass of champagne and hover close to the walls to try to hide from Catello. I must look like a spy on the run. Just when I think I’m safe, half hidden behind a decorative urn at the back of the tent, my persecutor hunts me down.

“There’s my beautiful partner!”

“Um . . . ,” I say, folding my arms tightly across my breasts like a freshly embalmed corpse to prevent Catello from grabbing onto them.

“Can I get you a sandwich? Would you like to dance? Tell me what you want to do; I’m here for you!”

“Thanks, but—”

“Would you like to take a walk, just the two of us?” Both his eyes and his forehead glisten. I shudder. If we were alone, I’m sure he’d make some kind of obscene proposal, and I’d have to crush his balls.

“I wouldn’t mind a sandwich,” I say, hoping that will send him away. But I underestimated him. He yells out to a waiter, and soon a tray appears for us. It’s full of adorable brown bites that closely resemble my dress. While Catello talks, I circle the tent slowly, hoping to find my father in the crowd. He’s the only one who can save me from this brute.

“You’re even more beautiful,” Catello says.

“Now, now,” I say tactfully.

“I’ve lost some hair, haven’t I?”

“No! What are you talking about?”

My mother is obviously thrilled—she’s walking around talking to people like she’s the pope and introducing everyone to her beautiful, practically naked daughter. Then, in the midst of all the chaos, I finally see my dad. I raise a hand to get his attention, and Catello seizes the opportunity. In two seconds his arm is snaked around my waist and his fingers clutched around my left breast. What a disgusting date! I’m getting ready to castrate him when someone swoops in and saves me.

I must have fainted and woken up in a dream. This can’t be true—my life is a disaster show, not a feel-good romantic movie. But it is totally, incredibly, and absurdly true: the pinch I’m giving my arm hurts—and bad!

Luca leans toward Catello and removes his hand. It must be forceful, because Catello cries out.

“If you touch her again, I’ll shatter your teeth,” Luca says with a smile, as if he were giving out friendly advice. I stare at Luca in a daze, almost expecting him to dissolve into thin air. But Luca takes my hand and asks me to dance. What is going on?

“Hey,” he says. “If you don’t shut your mouth, you’ll catch flies.”

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“I asked for the night off.”

“But how did you get here? How did you get the address?”

“There was an invitation on your bed. Geez, Carlotta, do you want me to leave? Do you want to go back to that guy?”

“No!” I yelp, grabbing him by the lapel. “I’m just amazed that someone who escaped the clutches of my family decided to show up here on purpose.”

“Were you a good bridesmaid?” he asks, holding me as we start to dance—not too tight, but just tight enough that I can feel his body enveloping mine. He looks very elegant. I don’t know where he got the tuxedo, but it fits him perfectly, emphasizing his shoulders.

“I was great! But . . . um . . . why did you come?”

“To keep you company,” Luca says. “Families can be cruel. You need to be able to make fun of them with someone. We’ll tell them that we’re madly in love, we’re going to have a big wedding just like this, we want to get pregnant within a year, and a whole lot of details to satisfy your aunts. All right?”

Confused and a little excited, I can barely whisper, “Sure!” We dance until my mother’s scream breaks the spell.

“Luca!” she cries. It’s so loud that the only people on earth who don’t hear are a couple of Eskimo tribes. Suddenly proud of her eldest daughter, she parades me around just like Erika. I can’t really blame her. Luca is quite appetizing, and she’s trembling with the desire to inform everyone that Carlotta has finally managed to do something right. The aunts crowd around us like goats around a single clump of tender grass. Luca smiles, feigns admiration for everything, and above all, listens to their bullshit patiently. I love him even more for it.

I escape the crowd after a minute and glance around. Catello has fortunately disappeared—perhaps my mother has stuffed him back in his freezer bag. I grab another glass of champagne and a sandwich, then head over to my father. The Russian nesting doll I met at his house is with him. I learn that her name is Coretta. She’s shy and gentle and smiles with her mouth closed.

“Your mother is so loud,” my father says, as my mother hoots like an owl a few feet away. “She’s so strung out that she introduced me to your sister. And then she almost crushed my wrist trying to show me that fine young man you were dancing with.”

“Mom’s always like this, even at funerals. Remember when great-aunt Prisca died?”

“They had to slap her when she laughed.”

“You look great, Dad.”

“So do you.”

As we talk, I discover that Coretta is an excellent listener. And it’s weird—this is only the second time I’ve met her, but I feel completely at ease around her. As people dance around us, I hear that my cousin Lisa has a boyfriend (whom Aunt Porzia also calls Jess). My dad invites me to dance with him as his quiet date grabs some dessert and holes up behind a plant like a hedgehog. He’s shorter than I am, and he dances like a child. He asks me about my life and wants to know if I have a boyfriend—with none of my mother’s motives, just the hope that I find completeness in my life.

He tells me a little bit about Coretta. A widow, she’s his same age. They share passions for gardening and cooking. She seems to be reserved, simple, and thoughtful. His eyes sparkle as he speaks of her. At the end of the song, he goes back to her, and they hold hands like teenagers. I smile as I watch them, but it immediately disappears when I realize I’ve lost sight of Luca.

I scan the crowd, sifting through the people dancing, the people stealing slices of cake, the people drinking too much, and the whole lot of people yawning in boredom before I find him. My mother has just introduced him to Erika, then left them alone to save the ice swans that have become the ball in a kids’ game of catch. Damn it! Erika’s date, who’s scarfing down food like he’s ending a hunger strike, is about to be replaced. I want to run over there and stop them, but instead I hover here near the Aphrodite fountain. I already know how this hackneyed plot will turn out. Lost in thought about how to dodge my family’s sympathy, I realize too late that the groom is crouched beside me. He’s taken his hair out of the ponytail and removed his jacket.

“
Tengo permiso de mi amada esposa para bailar un tango con usted
.”

I look at him aghast.

“What? Dance a tango? No way. Go ask someone who—”

Ignoring my resistance, Pablo drags me to the dance floor. The guests all move back into a wide circle, ready to watch (or, more likely, murder me for my lack of tango skills). Pablo leads me along to the dramatic music, his cheek pressed to mine, his face fixed in an erotic expression reserved for the tango. Pablo bites his lip, leaves me, takes me, dips me, and I’m sure I look like a rubber doll being tossed around. When it’s over, the audience applauds, and Beatrice looks ecstatic.

I run away with what little strength I have left before anyone has the chance to suggest an encore. Champagne churns in my belly, threatening to climb up to my mouth. At least if I throw up, no one will notice, as my dress will camouflage it nicely. As I stand by myself, hands pressed to my cheeks, Luca comes out from behind the gazebo.

“Always the center of attention, huh?” he says sarcastically.

“You defend yourself well,” I say. “You’ve finally met my sister.”

“She’s pretty great.”

I don’t reply; it’s a mean joke. My mother interrupts our short silence, pouncing on us like a lurking lioness.

“You’ll be staying at my house tonight, of course?” she asks.

“Actually, we don’t—”

“Of course!” Luca interrupts me with a grin. He winks and nudges me. I stare at him like a gaping fish.

“Have you met your father’s new girlfriend?” my mom continues, her voice venomous. “Beatrice insisted that we invite him, and he brought her along. What a dull woman! Always so quiet and brooding. She never laughs. I can’t stand people like that. Am I right, Luca?”

“A lady is never fully dressed without a smile,” he says innocently. Game, set, match.