Mafia Chic (15 page)

P
ip left a message on my machine in his super-squeaky, always an octave higher than you thought a man could speak in, voice. The news was not good: “Theresa, you will not make payroll this month. I told Quinn this, but he seems to think he can…charm the numbers. He can’t. Numbers are numbers, Theresa. I need to talk to you. You’re the only sane one there.”

My head pounded. The cash wasn’t really an issue. Quinn and I both had savings, and we knew surviving in a city with a restaurant on every corner was not going to be easy. We planned for months like this. Well, I planned for them, and I
forced
Quinn to plan for them. But I also knew an infusion of cash was only a quick fix. Once you started infusing your business with cash for the payroll, you’d be infusing it month after month after month. And before too long, you were another bankrupt restaurant.

Much as I hated to say it, maybe it was time I met with
Lady Di and her literary agent friend. One Sunday, Lady Di had even mentioned it to the aunts, who all thought it was a great idea. They envisioned their names above recipes. “Aunt Gina’s Pasta Primavera.” But associating Teddi’s with the mob was never what I had in mind. I wanted Quinn and I to make it on our own. But in reality, we had borrowed the money from family to start with, anyway, so “on our own” was just a matter of definition. I was trying to reason with myself, to tell myself it was okay to “cheat” a little bit and to put the family name to real use. In truth, my entire life it had been a hardship, and if now it turned out to be an advantage, maybe that was all right.

I mentioned the idea to Lady Di when she came into my room in the morning to borrow a clean towel. Neatness and laundry—neither was her strong suit. At the mention of the cookbook, she was characteristically ecstatic.

“You’ll love this woman. She’s a genius! And think of it. You could end up a famous author. You know that ‘Nigella Bites’ lady—Nigella Lawson?”

“She’s British. And a chef. And beautiful.”

“Yes. But Nigella bites what? A penis? I think you can come up with a great cookbook title. And a great cookbook.”

That morning, when Quinn came in, I told him that Anna Friedman and Lady Di were coming to lunch and I was seriously considering doing a cookbook after all.

“You won’t regret it, little cuz. When we’re on a three-hour wait every night, it’ll be so worth it.”

Did I really want to be weeded every night? If Lady Di’s scheme worked, we’d have to hire more help in the kitchen. Let alone the front of the house. And Lord only knew if there was a waitress left in Manhattan who would consider
working for Quinn. I knew he saw dollar signs, women and fame. I saw more work in the kitchen…and, all right, four stars next to a review of the restaurant.

Nervously, I cooked lunch for Lady Diana and Anna Friedman. Then I left Chef Jeff in charge of the kitchen while I went out front to talk with them. Chef Jeff’s budding, so-called dreads looked seriously disgusting. He hid them under a red bandanna.

Up front, I sat down with Lady Di and Anna. Both women were in power suits, but Diana looked feminine. The cut of her suit was softer, and a colorful Hermès scarf framed her face. Her shoes were sexy and five inches tall. Anna, on the other hand, looked like a Russian Afghan hound in heels. Her face was pinched, and framed by long hair, and though Di told me she was thirty-four, she looked about forty-four, the way she carried herself and with her severe makeup (bright red lipstick you could spot from the other side of the room, and pale, pale skin).

I sat down, a bit uneasy. Anna started talking in a rapid machine-gun-fire staccato. Question after question:

The woman barely took a breath in between each question. No sooner had I spat out an answer that she was on to the next one, but you could see her mentally calculating the very next question, not really listening to what I was saying. She unnerved me. Finally, head swimming, I told Lady Di I needed to use the ladies’ room.

“I’ll come, too,” Di said.

Once we were alone in the stairway leading down to the bathrooms, Di cornered me. “Well?”

“She’s a horror show. My God, but she’s evil! Evil!”

“That’s what you want. You want a six-figure deal, don’t you? You want someone who is tough as nails at the negotiating table. That is what you want.”

“Maybe…” I said hesitantly. “But…”

“You don’t look yourself, Teddi. You seem off your game.”

“James Bond kissed me the other night.”

“What? How could you withhold such vital information from me?

“Because I told him I could never see him again.”

“Fool! He’s the one for you.”

“Robert is.”

“Poppycock!”

“Can we please stay focused on the book here?”

“I think you should do it.”

“I don’t know.” We went into the ladies’ room and washed our hands and conferred some more.

“Maybe I would be better off with a literary agent who isn’t like Eva Braun up there.”

“You want Eva. You want a deal. Come on. Let’s go back up.”

When we ascended the staircase and came out into the
restaurant, there was Quinn, sitting down with Anna, and she was laughing like a giddy schoolgirl. I should have seen it coming.

“Oh, Teddi, you didn’t tell me your partner was so charming. And so photogenic, I bet. Well…I’ve certainly seen that this cookbook idea is a winner. Let’s shake on it, shall we?”

I looked at Quinn, who batted his eyes at me and grinned. “Like the beautiful lady says, it’s a winner, Teddi.”

I looked at Lady Di. Her eyes were imploring. She considered the task of doing PR for Teddi’s to be her pet project. She was itching to do it.

The thought of Pip’s voice hounding me for payroll echoed in my mind. That whiny voice.

I found myself sticking out my hand.

And then I heard my voice: “It’s a deal.”

At Sunday dinner, I mentioned that I was going to do a cookbook of Marcello family recipes. My aunts were elated. They spent much of the day scribbling on a pad of yellow paper all the various bits of Marcello cooking advice they could think of, including some recipes. We all agreed we’d never reveal the secret to my grandmother’s wonderful pasta fajoli, as that recipe was sacred to us all, and we didn’t feel right sharing it with the public.

Poppy Marcello even seemed pleased that a book would leave a “legacy.” He took me aside.

“This is a good thing, Teddi Bear. Your grandmother—she woulda been proud. You make the family proud.
Capisce?
”

The more I thought about it, the more comfortable I got with the idea. When Quinn and I had opened Teddi’s, I envisioned a place that would make the critic from the
New
York Times
give us four stars. In the end, we were too much a small neighborhood place to attract the
Times
critic, so my goal became to make us famous in the neighborhood. To cultivate regulars who loved our food. And we had done that. In our own little sphere, our own little neighborhood world, which was the way New York City life was, we were a four-star restaurant. We had Mr. and Mrs. Goldfarb, who came in every Tuesday night for dinner; the Mangione sisters, two spinsters who ate there on Thursday lunch and always gave the busboy, Javier, a dollar because he reminded them of their little brother when they had all been children. There was Tommy Korn, aka, Tommy Special-K, a professional wrestler who swore my pasta gave him just the carb loading he needed. And every time one of the regulars walked through the door, Quinn smiled and treated them like kings and queens of a small nation. I loved what we had become, and if a cookbook let us stay open, let us grow, then I would do it.

“Hey Teddi!” My uncle Vito shouted down the table.

“Yes, Uncle V.?”

“Next week, your boyfriend still taking us to the Giants game?”

“Yes, Uncle V.” I noticed no one, including myself, ever answered questions in a normal tone of voice. It was always “yes” or “no” with a New York weariness. It was how we spoke to one another.

“We’ll have a good time. Good time. The Giants could go to the Bowl, you know. To the Big One.”

“Yes, I know.”

Simultaneously three of my aunts and assorted cousins and uncles made the sign of the cross. The Giants being in the Super Bowl not only meant the bookie business would
be very good, but it was something akin to a trifecta at the Kentucky Derby—actually, to a miracle at Lourdes. In short, we lived and breathed the Giants, and more than a few rosaries were said on their behalf…though I can tell you a few of their seasons had clearly shown all the rosaries in the world weren’t helping them any.

“Now, listen, you all.” I banged on my water glass with my spoon to get their attention. “Be easy on the poor guy, okay?”

“No problem.” Uncle Vito smiled. “We’ll treat him real good.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“No need to be afraid, Theresa,” my uncle Lou said. “If he has treated you like the princess you are, then he has nothing to fear from us.”

I felt relieved. “He has been nothing but a gentleman, and he has treated me very, very well.”

“See then?” my father said, using up two words and then a whole stream of them. “Your boyfriend has nothing to worry about.”

“Why—” I rolled my eyes heavenward “—do I find myself worrying, anyway?”

That night, my phone rang around ten-thirty.

“You owe me dinner,” Mark’s voice teased over the telephone.

“The Giants game today.”

“A bet’s a bet. You wouldn’t want word getting out to the bookies that you’re not good for your bets, would you?”

“I think that’s the least of my worries about now.”

“I’m putting in for a transfer, Teddi.”

“To where?” I felt a panic rising up in my throat.

“Another division. I think you wise guys are just a little too much for me.”

“What kind of division?”

“White-collar crime. I get to go after inside traders and corrupt CEOs. I kind of like the idea of putting away the millionaires who fuck over the little guy.”

“Will you leave New York?”

“Nah. Not me. If I moved away I wouldn’t get to go to my new favorite restaurant. Ever hear of it? A little place called Teddi’s. You know what I love about it most?”

I guessed he was going to say something adorable like “the chef,” but I was wrong.

“The pictures.”

“What pictures?”

“In the bar. You have to see them all. Pictures of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Pictures of family. Pictures of lovers and husbands and wives with a half-dozen kids around them. Pictures. That’s what I like.”

“I didn’t think anyone noticed.”

“I noticed.”

“You’re really complicating my life, Mark.”

“Yeah, princess, you ain’t exactly making mine easier, either.”

“I should go.”

“Dinner? When?”

“Let me straighten out a few things, Mark. I have your card.”

“Use it.”

“You’ll be the first to know when I’m ready for a new pair of shoes.”

I
needed to make a decision. Thunderbolt FBI agent or reliable but extremely handsome, sincere and attentive TV journalist. On Tuesday, hoping to figure out this mess once and for all, I decided to invite Robert over for dinner and to cook him an old-fashioned Italian meal. I didn’t work from a cookbook, but from an old, dog-eared index card with the Marcello family gravy recipe written on it in my grandmother’s shaky handwriting. Even at that, it wasn’t like any recipe most people have ever followed. For instance:

And the recipe went on and on. Lots of tasting involved. No measurements. No indication of when it was done. Making gravy was an all-day affair. Not surprising, with all that tasting, by the time dinner actually arrived, I never felt much like eating. It was almost like a built-in diet. Little tastes instead of a big calorie-laden meal. In fact, my hands reeked of garlic, and if I never saw a tomato again it would be too soon.

As I cooked, I took some notes. I would have to do some serious calculations if I was ever to turn these dog-eared index cards into real recipes that worked in a typical American kitchen.

Robert came over promptly at seven o’clock. Diana and Tony were planning on going to a Broadway show since my cousin Tony had never been to one.
Ever.
The closest my cousin came to culture was watching A&E on occasion. Di was wise to at least choose a musical. A serious play would have put Tony over the edge.

Robert arrived while Di was in her room dressing. I showed him to the living room, where the red roses he had sent to work were displayed, just a touch wilted, and poured him a glass of merlot.

“I’m putting the finishing touches on dinner.”

“Smells out of this world.”

“Thank you.” I went back to the kitchen, which was sickeningly hot. I opened the window and a rush of New York City coldness whooshed through, raising goose bumps on my arms.

I heard Diana emerge and greet Robert, and could hear their murmuring small talk. She came to the kitchen doorway, a vision of black velvet, and put on her coat to go downstairs to meet Tony.

“Don’t wait up for me.” She smiled, wrapping a cashmere scarf around her neck.

“I know better than to wait up for you. And when Tony sees you, he will definitely think that sitting through, in his words, ‘a bunch of gay gays and some babes singing and dancing’ will be worth it.”

“Let’s hope so. I’m slowly introducing him to a little culture. Though he’s really very bright. Reads the
Wall Street Journal
every day. Did you know that?”

I shook my head.

“Is that garlic bread?”

I nodded.

“I’d have a piece, but I don’t want garlic breath.”

“I’m sure there’ll be plenty left over.”

Suddenly, her eyes watered.

“What?” I asked, closing the oven door.

“Be careful,” she whispered.

“Of what?”

“Of him.” She jerked her head in the direction of the living room.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean just be careful. You don’t know much about him.”

“Diana, this isn’t like you.”

She wiped at her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.” She rushed forward and kissed my cheek. “Maybe I was just hoping for the FBI agent. It’s such a meet-cute story.”

“Di-i-i…” I whined, sounding suspiciously like my mother and extending the single syllable into three.

“But think of the stories you could tell people of how you met.”

“Diana, you’ve been a little odd before, but I always chalked it up to your British roots. Now I think you are just plain crazy. You don’t date people so you can tell ‘meet-cute’ stories.”

“I do…well, off I go.”

“Enjoy the show.”

“I will. And then the after-the-show.” She winked at me.

Lady Di left the kitchen and then the apartment. I was completely bewildered by her rush of weird emotions. But then again, Diana had some sort of…
disorder
is the only word I can put to it. She could never focus.

I put the garlic bread into a basket and brought dinner out to the table. “Dinner is served,” I said.

Robert got up from the couch. “Can I help you with anything?”

“No. I’ve pretty much got it under control.”

“Wonderful.” He sat down and put the napkin on his lap, and I sat opposite him.

Robert stared at me. “You look beautiful in candlelight, Teddi.”

I blushed. “Garlic bread?” I passed the basket.

“So…did I pass your family’s inspection?”

“Um, I think so. Of course, taking them to the Giants game will endear you more than anything else ever could.”

“I thought so. Diehard New Yorkers. Next you’ll have to meet my parents. They come to Manhattan several times a year. Stay at the Waldorf. Do the museum thing.”

The museum thing. I would wager no one in my family had ever seen the inside of a museum.

“And what do you think your parents would say about me?”

“They’d think you were beautiful, smart. I think I’d wait
until they fell in love with you before telling them everything.”

“Good thinking.” I was used to waiting until just the right moment to discuss my family.

“Jerry Turner thinks you’re amazing.”

“Really?” Personally, I was underwhelmed by America’s favorite muckraker.

“You know, he’d love to talk to you—off the record, of course—about this piece he’s doing on the changing face of crime.”

“Not a chance.” I played with my spaghetti and nibbled on my garlic bread.

“What if I told you I was thinking of doing a piece on the unsolved Corelli murder?”

“I’d have no opinion.”

My real opinion was a hybrid of panic and hysteria. Gino Cordelli had been gunned down outside his favorite restaurant in 1987. The person who stood to gain the most from his demise was Poppy Angelo. Since Corelli’s murder was never solved, every amateur sleuth with a theory had expounded on how it happened and why. Other culprits were occasionally named. But, despite miles and miles of wiretap, I am sure, and more than a few people turned rat, no one had ever definitively pointed to my grandfather. I knew resentments between the Corellis and Marcellos ran deep.

“No opinion?” He lifted a big forkful of spaghetti to his mouth.

“None. So tell me, what’s your favorite movie of all time?” I wanted to move to safer territory.

“The Godfather.”

“Great,” I said. Of course, people had claimed my grand
father was the basis for bits of Brando’s performance. The jowly appearance. The Old World ways. The garden in back of the house.

In that moment, I wondered if God was trying to tell me something. Become a nun, Teddi. Do yourself a favor and become a nun.

“New topic.”

He laughed good-naturedly. “You know…we’ve never discussed art. Who is your favorite painter?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Come on. None?”

“Robert, I know you may find this difficult to believe, but…the only time I have been in a museum was on school field trips.”

“Really?”

“Please don’t patronize me. You’ve seen my family’s choice of decor. Granted, you’ve only been to one house, but suffice it to say, ‘you’ve been to one, you’ve been to all.’ Call it post-modern Mafia. We don’t do art.”

“Your mother collects Hummels. She mentioned it at dinner.”

“Hummels? Little Swiss children with braids? Not art. No, what we need to discuss is your trip to the Giants game.”

“I have the limo. I’m picking them all up at your parents’ house—because that is where Sunday dinner is that particular Sunday. I have the limo bar stocked with Scotch, beer, red wine and vodka, according to the various favorites of your uncles and your father and your cousins. I think, my darling Teddi, that I am going to come sailing through the football game smelling like a rose.”

I held up my hands. “Whoa there, cowboy.
Many
a man
has thought he could handle an event with the Marcellos and Gallos, but I assure you there is a plethora of unknowns you haven’t even
begun
to think about.”

“You underestimate me,” he teased.

“For instance, strip club stop-off. Where do you stand?”

“Why would we stop at a strip club?”

“Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? Why does the pope wear a really big hat?”

“O-ka-a-a-ay.” I could almost see him thinking, his brain whirring through the possibilities. “I say no because I am dating you and that would make them think I am not a good guy.”

I shook my head. “You poor, poor fool.”

“Damn. I say yes?”

“Of course you say yes. Men who say no are either gay or pussies. You don’t want to be labeled either, trust me. But do you
enjoy
yourself at said strip club?”

“Jesus, Teddi, this is harder than taking the SATs and GREs combined. Enjoy myself at said strip club. I say yes, so they think I’m macho.”

“Robert…” I chided playfully.

“God, my brain is going to explode. Help me out here, Teddi.”

“No…you do
not
look like you are having
too
good of a time. Then they might think you are a little too devilish for the purer-than-the-driven-snow Teddi.”

“Okay. Got it. Anything else?”

“We’re just warming up.”

“Test me again.”

“You do not make any reference to the mob, the Mafia, the family business, anything that even hints at the fact that you think they are anything but a bunch of extremely well-
compensated waste-management executives or concrete workers.”

“Simple enough.”

“But…”

He grinned and sighed, twirling pasta on his fork. “I knew there had to be one of those.”

“You
do
need to be well versed in all the various mob movies. They love them.”

“Not a problem. I love them, too.”

“Would help if you knew a few of the best lines. The ‘Fredo, you broke my heart’ lines…you know, the best parts of the movies.”

“Got it.”

“Cigars.”

“I take it I have to smoke them. That was obvious when I went to dinner.”

I nodded.

“Should I be taking notes? Little crib sheets? Maybe I should write in a Sharpie up my arm.”

I laughed out loud and stood and went over to his side of the table. He pushed his chair back, and I sat on his lap. “I think it’s absolutely adorable that you’re willing to put up with their idiosyncrasies.”

“Is that what you call it? Well…I think you’re absolutely adorable, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

I leaned my head down and kissed him. He unbuttoned my blouse and slid his hand inside my bra.

“Mmm,” I said, pulling back. “Let’s finish dinner.”

“And dessert,” he said, squeezing me.

“Actually…I made crème brûlée.”

“You
do
know the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, don’t you?”

I kissed him again. “There are a few other ways, too.”

I climbed off his lap and returned to my chair. We finished dinner and then dessert. I brought out two sambucas with three coffee beans floating in the snifters.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Eight-fifteen,” I said, looking at my watch.

“Jerry’s on.”

“Well, then, let’s watch him.”

I actually had never watched Jerry Turner’s show, other than as a three-second sound bite as I flipped to another station. We turned on the television. Upcoming was a segment, pretaped, of Robert’s jailhouse interview with a rabbi who allegedly hired a hitman to kill his wife because she was insured for two
million
dollars, and he was deep in debt.

“This is very odd.”

“What is?” he asked.

“I’m sitting next to the ‘live’ Robert Wharton while the television Robert Wharton yaks at me from, as Lady Di puts it, ‘the idiot box.’”

“Yeah. Kind of weird. I remember the first time I saw myself on TV. It’s sort of like hearing your voice on a tape recorder or answering machine. ‘I don’t sound like that, do I?’”

After Robert’s segment, we watched Jerry Turner rip apart the D.A. for losing a major case. Next up was a celebrity he destroyed for being anti-American.

“How does he get people to be a guest on his show? No one stands a chance.”

“Ego,” Robert said. “People think that
they
will be the one to put the legendary Jerry Turner in his place.”

“Never works out that way, does it?”

“Nope. Yeah, he’s confrontational, but he’s also prepared. And very smart.”

“Sort of like Howard Stern.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he may be a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. If you listen to him, you realize he’s very prepared.”

“You listen to Howard Stern?”

“No. Ju-Ju-B does sometimes.”

“Who’s Ju-Ju-B?”

“One of my assistant chefs.”

I snuggled against Robert, and we watched the end of the program. But with my crazy work schedule, coupled with the juggling of dating someone for the first time in a long while, and my sleepless nights due to the dilemma of one Agent Petrocelli, I soon passed out.

“Teddi…Teddi…” Robert shook me gently.

“Hmm?” I checked my mouth to make sure I hadn’t been drooling. “I’m so sorry.” I yawned and stretched. “I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. Are there more than two ends?”

“It’s okay, sweetie. Do you know you’re adorable when you’re asleep?”

Yeah. Because I didn’t drool tonight. “What time is it?”

“Eleven-thirty. I’ve got to run. I have an early call tomorrow.”

“All right.” I stood. Had it been a week or so ago, I would have been halfway certain we would have slept together tonight. I would have been one hundred percent certain if Mark Petrocelli hadn’t kissed me in such a passionate way as to muddle my head. I just needed some distance from the whole incident. “Will you call me tomorrow?”