by Leslie Martinelli
“Anna Banana,” Nonni called from the kitchen, “don’t forget to wipe your feet.”
Anna’s red rubber boots were covered in muddy slush from the long walk home from school. It was always a battle to pry them off without leaving a shoe inside, but Nonni would have a fit if she tracked filth on her clean floors. Leaning on the door for balance, Anna pressed the heel of her right boot down with her left toe while yanking her leg upward. Some forceful wriggling later, the boot finally let go its grip on her shoe. She dropped the wet boot on the mat.
One down, one to go.
Nonni appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She motioned for Anna to raise her still-booted left foot. Nonni yanked the boot and shoe off together and handed them back to Anna along with the towel.
“Clean the mess,” she said, and returned to the kitchen.
Anna dried the icy water off the floor, abandoning her trapped shoe for later.
Anna’s stomach rumbled as she caught a whiff from the kitchen. The smell was wrong. Not bad, just wrong. She stopped by the stove and sniffed. Tomato sauce. It wasn’t a Friday smell. She was positive today was Friday. More than just the end of the school week, Friday meant two days without slogging a mile to school and back in the snow. It meant Star Trek and The Wild, Wild West and frozen fish sticks and French fries.
It was as regular as the seasons. Pasta on Wednesday, fish sticks on Friday.
Anna opened the oven door a crack. Eggplant Parmesan. A Sunday meal. The world was out of balance.
“Don’t let the heat out.” Nonni swatted her hand and the oven door banged shut.
“Why are we having eggplant parm tonight?”
Nonni shook her head and muttered an Italian phrase Anna wasn’t allowed to repeat. “Go do your homework.”
Anna always left her weekend homework until Sunday night, but it didn’t feel like a good time to remind Nonni of that. She dropped into a chair at the kitchen table. Something was up, something that bothered Nonni more than the jumbled weekday meal schedule. Nonni rinsed greens in the sink. She lined them up on a towel and dabbed them dry. Anna waited to be seen.
“You should change your clothes.” Nonni dumped the greens into a large bowl. “Your father is bringing company.”
Company? It was an explanation, but it didn’t make sense.
Daddy had never brought company for supper before. Sometimes Anna was allowed to invite a friend, but they got whatever was on the menu for the night. Never something different. Whoever Daddy was bringing must be special. Eggplant Parmesan special.
Anna carried her books and lone shoe to her room. Nonni had already laid out clothes for her to wear. A green wool jumper with a white turtle-neck top, green tights and black patent leather shoes. Sunday church clothes. Could things get any weirder?
Dressed in her jumper and turtleneck, Anna slipped past the kitchen into the family room. If she kept the sound low, she might get away with watching Lloyd Thaxton before Daddy got home. She plugged in the rotating color wheel that projected onto the fake silver Christmas tree, turning it red, then green, then yellow, then blue.
“No TV,” Nonni called from the kitchen. “Your father will be home soon.”
Anna tugged at her collar. With the oven on, the house had reached open-a-window temperature. “Why do we have to go to all this trouble anyway?”
Nonni stopped tossing the salad and glared at her. Anna cringed, blaming the heat for her sassing.
“I mean,” Anna looked at the floor, “Who’s coming for supper?”
Nonni sighed. “It’s someone your father wants you to meet.”
*
“This is my friend, Eleanor Peterson.” Daddy helped her out of her coat and hung it in the hall closet. Rubbing his hands, he turned from Nonni to Anna, his eyebrows raised. Anna waited for a cue from Nonni.
“Nice to meet you,” Nonni said. “Call me Maria.”
“It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you.” Eleanor held out what looked like a corsage of roses. “These are for you.” Nonni nodded and handed the flowers to Anna.
Daddy coughed. “And this is my daughter, Anna.”
“Anna,” Eleanor said, “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Anna wrinkled her brow. “Okay.” Nonni gave her a nudge.
“Dinner smells great,” Daddy said. “I hope we have time for a cocktail before we eat.”
Anna barely caught her mouth from dropping open. She’d never seen her father drink anything as fancy as a cocktail. Nonni let out a loud sigh.
“That’s okay, Vince. I’m pretty hungry, and it smells so good.” Eleanor edged around Nonni and headed for the kitchen. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Guests don’t work in the kitchen.” Nonni motioned toward the table. “Sit. Vincenzo, help me put the food on the table.”
Instead of the usual plastic placemats, the round kitchen table was covered by a floral tablecloth. The place settings matched what Anna had learned in Home Ec., right down to the crystal water goblets. The only thing missing was a bowl of flowers in the center. Maybe that’s what the roses were for?
“What a lovely table,” Eleanor said. “You didn’t need to go to all this fuss.”
Nonni gave Daddy a side-eyed glance. He opened a cabinet over the refrigerator and brought out a bottle of wine. It was the kind they’d have in an Italian restaurant, with green glass and wicker wrapping the bottom. He muscled the cork out and poured some into his and Eleanor’s glasses. Nonni hefted a baking dish of eggplant parm from the oven and brought it to the table. Daddy showed her the wine bottle; she shook her head.
Anna stood awkwardly in the middle of the action watching Eleanor sit in what was her customary place.
“Sit next to me,” Nonni whispered to her.
When everyone was seated, Eleanor asked, “Do you usually say grace?”
“No,” Daddy said, “we just dig in.”
Daddy filled Eleanor’s plate with food. Another thing Anna had never seen him do before. Who was this man who looked like her father but acted like someone on TV? Eleanor smiled at him in a way that gave Anna a squiggly feeling in her stomach. This lady wasn’t a regular friend, like the ones he worked with or who bowled in his mixed league. She was wearing makeup and high heels. Her hair was teased and Aqua-Netted into a perfect flip. She was dining room company. If they’d had a dining room.
Eleanor cut her eggplant into tiny pieces and lifted them daintily to her mouth. After each bite she raised her napkin – a cloth napkin – to her lips and dabbed away traces of sauce and lipstick. Anna gazed in fascination, her own food forgotten.
No one like this woman had ever eaten at this table. As far back as Anna could remember, it had been the three of them, Daddy and Anna and Nonni. Anna’s mother was gone. No one talked about her. Nonni crossed herself whenever she asked questions about her. Daddy would change the subject. Anna didn’t know if she was dead or alive. She didn’t even know her name. It was like she’d never existed.
“So,” Eleanor broke the silence, “Mrs. Magnano, what was Vince like as a boy?”
Nonni’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. It hung for a second before clanking to her plate. Anna gaped first at her father, then at Nonni.
Daddy coughed. “El, Maria is my ex’s mother.”
“Oh.” Eleanor placed her fork on her plate. “Oh, I…”
Redness crept over Daddy’s collar into his cheeks. He swallowed some wine. “It’s my fault. I should’ve told you before we got here.”
“Well,” Eleanor said. “I’m sorry she’s…”
“Gone,” Daddy said.
“Dead,” Nonni said, and crossed herself but left out the words Anna wasn’t supposed to repeat.
After that, the meal finished quickly. Anna helped Nonni clear the table while Daddy and Eleanor took their glasses and the rest of the wine into the living room. While Nonni washed the dishes, Anna lingered at the doorway. The only light in the room was reflected off the multicolored Christmas tree.
Daddy held Eleanor’s hand while they talked. “She left when Anna was a baby,” he said. “The doctor said she had some kind of depression. Her mother moved in to help out, just until she came back.” He took a sip and rested his head on the back of the couch. “A few weeks went by, and we didn’t hear from her. I called everyone she’d go to, but no one knew where she was.”
“Why did your mother-in-law say she’s dead?”
He shut his eyes. “I think she wants to believe that. For a woman to abandon her husband and baby? She’d have to be dead.”
“And she never came back?” He shook his head. “Oh, Vince. I’m so sorry.” She put her hand on the side of Daddy’s face. Anna felt cold inside.
Nonni pulled her by the arm into the kitchen. “That’s not your business. Dry the dishes.”
“Ma,” Daddy called from the hallway, pulling on his coat. “El and I are driving up to Hartford to see the Christmas lights on Constitution Plaza.” He held Eleanor’s coat open while she slipped her arms in.
Eggplant did the Watusi in Anna’s stomach. Her mind time-travelled back five years to 1963, the first annual Festival of Lights in Hartford. Anna and Nonni had grudgingly bundled into the car along with Daddy and his camera equipment. The lights on the naked branches of the Plaza trees twinkled against the black sky like swarms of fireflies. By the time Daddy got his pictures, her toes, fingers, and nose had gone past numb to aching. Thinking about it now, though, all Anna could remember was the radiance of the lights and her father’s excitement as he attached his Leica to the tripod and took readings with his light meter. And the hot chocolate when they got home. She didn’t realize how precious this memory was until Daddy announced he was remaking it with this stranger.
Daddy held the door open for Eleanor. Anna and Nonni stood silently watching.
“Thank you so much for dinner,” Eleanor said. “It was a pleasure meeting you both.”
“C’mon, El.” The cold air caught Daddy’s words in midair. “It’s not getting any warmer out here.”
Eleanor gave them a wave and Daddy shut the door. Anna looked at Nonni. Before she could ask the question, Nonni shook her head. It would have to wait.
Leslie Martinelli earned an MA in Writing Arts from Rowan University. Her work has been published in Glassworks, the literary journal of the Rowan University Writing Arts Department; as well as Better Than Starbucks Magazine. She is a former lawyer and a retired teacher of composition at Rowan University.
Photo by Cara Denison: https://www.pexels.com/photo/colorful-urban-night-scene-with-lit-trees-35159934/
