Mafia Chic

Chapter 2

“So I hear a man was over at your apartment last night.”

It was my mother, of course, calling me at work to remind me that my biological clock was tick, tick-tocking away.

“Gee, wonder where you’d hear that from?”

“A little bird told me.”

“Little? Uncle Lou weighs a good 250 pounds, Ma.”

“Does it matter where I heard it from? Just tell me who he was.”

“Mother, how many times must I tell you I’m a lesbian?”

She audibly sighed at my feeble attempt to throw her off my trail. My mother feels the need to call me once a day, whether we have anything to say to each other or not—and we usually don’t.

“Don’t give me that crap, young lady.”

“Ma…I have a million things to do.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the morning vegetables being delivered. My cousin Quinn and I own “Teddi’s,” a little Italian bistro just barely in the black. We’re struggling to survive in a city with restaurants on every corner and sky-high rents. The fact we rent from family does help things a bit. I cook. Quinn runs the front of the house and tries to bang all the waitresses. He’s good at both.

“‘A million things to do…a million things to do.’ But apparently one of them is not to tell her mother about the man in her apartment last night.”

“He was Lady Di’s date, Ma.”

“Oh.” Her voice was flat, emotionless—and spoke volumes. My older brother Michael moved out to Hollywood to become an actor. He lucked into a couple of minor roles and has a recurring bit as the boyfriend of a character on a WB television show. He never visits home, and we spot him in cheesy tabloid magazines squiring beautiful but vapid actresses around town. His idea of commitment is staying for breakfast, and, assuming he knows what a condom is, there’s not a chance that he’s going to settle down and make my parents happy by marrying and having a baby. Which leaves, reluctantly, me.

“You don’t have to sound like that, Ma. The guy was a jerk, anyway.”

“Jerk, schmerk,” she said. “You can reform a jerk. Look what I did with your father. You need to stop being so picky, Theresa Marie.”

Ah, the dreaded official first name and—worse—the use of my middle name. This was serious—at least where my mother was concerned.

“Ma…I will find someone eventually, but I’m not in any hurry.” Sure, let me get struck by the thunderbolt and end up visiting prison in widow’s garb. Not a chance. “Besides, Ma, running this place takes up so much of my time. I barely have enough time to sleep. I eat standing up…. I’m not looking for a relationship.”

“Theresa…darling—” My mother continued nagging. “You’re not getting any younger—and neither am I! I want grandbabies. I want to see my daughter walk down the aisle. Is this so wrong, Theresa? Isn’t this what every mother dreams of? I just want you to be as happy as your father and I are. I want you to have someone to grow old with.”

I tried to avoid howling into the phone with laughter. My mother and father can’t be in the same room without arguing. She henpecks at him constantly, and he hollers that he can’t enjoy any peace in his own home. He hates the plastic slipcovers on our furniture, and she hates the fact that he’ll drop a thousand on the ponies. They sleep in twin beds. Have for as long as I can remember. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the institution of marriage. I am convinced Michael and I are, for the record, immaculate conceptions. Something in the water in Brooklyn.

“I’ll get a cat.”

“Not funny, Theresa Marie. Not funny at all. Do you like to torture your own mother like this? To break my heart in every phone call?”

When my mother talks, I envision the old Peanuts specials whenever the teacher spoke. “Mwah, mwah-mwah, mwah-mwah.” I tuned her out.

“No, Ma, I don’t. Listen, it’s getting busy here. Let me go.”

“I wish you never got into the restaurant business. It’s not right for a woman.”

“Please, Ma…I was born with it in my blood.”

“You coming Sunday?”

“If I didn’t, there’d be a hit ordered. Of course I’m coming.” Sunday was an eating extravaganza that most Americans reserve for an occasion like Thanksgiving. The piles of food are downright nauseating. Attendance was pretty close to mandatory.

“And how many places should I set?” she asked hopefully.

“Two. One for me…and one for Lady Di.”

“Even if it’s short notice, if you meet someone, there’s always room for another plate at the table.”

“I know, Ma. Thanks. Gotta run.”

I replaced the receiver on the hook. She never gave up. She married at eighteen, right after high school. I don’t know if she was struck by the thunderbolt. Hard to picture someone feeling that way for my father with his ugly bowling shirts and beer belly. Still, to my mother, her husband and family are everything to her. When Michael and I were little, we were her universe. But if she only saw what I saw. The health spa where I take the occasional yoga class in an attempt to convince myself I’m not getting out of shape is a perfect example. A microcosm of pickup lines and outright seduction. A revolving door of hookups. Everyone has baggage. Failed marriages and relationships, messed-up childhoods, resentments and unhappiness. But I lug around a steamer trunk of baggage. I’m from a family of “made” men and wise guys, with a true nut job or two thrown in for good measure. Do you bring this up with a date over dinner? Dessert? When it starts to get serious? And even if a man thinks he can handle my background, he’s just kidding himself. Spending time with my father makes all those movie mobsters look like pussycats. He frightens people.

The phone rang again. It was Lady Di.

“Hello Teddi, ol’ girl,” she said, as if we were going to meet for a fox hunt.

“Hey…what’s going on?”

“I am bored out of my mind.” Lady Di works as a PR agent, which means she has invitations to all of New York’s hot spots. But as much as she likes the night life, she loathes being in the office. I accuse her of being part vampire. She abhors daylight.

“Sorry. I just got off the phone with my mother, who reminded me yet again that I am depriving her of the chance to see me in virginal white gracefully gliding down the aisle and into a happy life like her and my father. I could hear my ovaries shriveling as we talked.”

“She never gives up, does she? My parents are too afraid to say anything like that to me. It’s decidedly un-British. Sticking their noses in like that. Besides, if they make me angry, I’ll never visit them again. As it is I hate that damn drafty house and the sons of their equally stiff friends. Besides, the thought of marriage and babies gives me hives.”

“Well, my parents have never kept their opinions to themselves.”

“All right, ol’ girl. I’ve got just the ticket for your ennui. We’re going to Shangri-la tonight.”

“What?” Shangri-la was the hottest bar of the moment, in a city where “the moment” changes faster than the revolving door at Macy’s.

“Yes, my little Mafia darling! Lady Di has done it again. So what will you wear?”

I sighed. Lady Di tried to dress me in fuck-me pumps, a micromini and a halter top with a “jaunty” scarf tied around my neck…some sort of Euro-look, with bright red lipstick and sultry, smoky eyes to boot. However, she just could not transform me into a mystery woman. She could carry off a look like she was born on Page Six of the Post, where she actually appears from time to time. Me? Between my unruly hair and my slightly lopsided smile, my dimples (which admittedly are cute—but cute isn’t what we’re aiming for) and full cheeks, I always look like I’m playing dress-up.

“I don’t know, Di. I’ll figure it out when I get home.”

“Think about it, darling. Because I have a feeling tonight will be lucky. My Chinese horoscope says so.”

Leave it to Lady Di. The regular zodiac doesn’t do. She consults the Chinese version. She’s a dragon. I’m a mouse or a rodent of some sort. Need I say more?

“Well, let me go, Di. I need to start today’s soup.”

“Kisses, love!”

“Back at you.”

Much as I adored her—with all my heart—she just didn’t understand. She only heard from her parents once a month, if that. They saw one another every other year. Remembering my conversation with my mother, I rolled my eyes. Lady Di had no idea just how lucky she was.

Shangri-la was packed with the black-clad denizens of Manhattan. The women all seemed to be tall (I’m only five foot four) and anorexic, and the men looked like refugees from the fashion spreads in GQ. But Lady Di, of course, had access to the VIP room, where we promptly headed. She spotted one of the owners, a restaurant impresario who always filled his restaurants and clubs with supermodels, hip-hop stars and A-list Hollywood. He immediately gave us a table and sent over a bottle of champagne. Lady Di’s PR skills were unparalleled. She knew all the right people, and she charmed the ones she didn’t know until they couldn’t resist her. And unlike a few other “über-bitches” who worked PR in New York City, she somehow managed to do it by being tough yet never alienating anyone. It also didn’t hurt that her father was wealthy beyond imagination—even if, as she put it—he was as “stiff as a piece of plywood.”

We sat down, and our champagne was uncorked and placed in an ice bucket. Lady Di was dressed in a simple black minidress with a Hermès scarf wrapped around her thick blond hair. Her makeup wasn’t even a brand you could buy in the States. Her father flew to Japan on business regularly; she gave him a list and he bought it there, then shipped it to her. She wasn’t someone who dressed outlandishly in the hopes of being the center of attention, yet she had her own distinct style—not to mention perfect porcelain skin. If we weren’t best friends, I could hate her.

I had decided, with Lady Di’s prodding, to wear a black miniskirt and a silk kimono-style jacket her father brought me back from Japan on Lady Di’s orders. It was a brilliant blue, and though I felt out of place in New York with its sea of black clothes, it did feel beautiful on, and I caught admiring glances. I envisioned myself, for a change, as glamorous, rather than like the Italian girl from Brooklyn with the mass of unruly hair. I had even blown dry my hair nice and straight, and it had cooperated for once.

We sipped champagne, and Di leaned in close to me and gave a running commentary on every person who walked past.

“A-list actor… Cocaine fiend.”

“That one’s wife left him for another woman.”

As for the women: “Fake tits…real…real…oh, my God, fake. They’re like boulders perched there.”

She went on: “Does she not own a mirror? She’ll be in the next edition of Us Weekly under the ‘what was she thinking?’ category.”

“Her hairdresser should be shot.”

All right, taken out of context, she sounded catty, but she just likes to “dish.” I bet she could make even the guards at Buckingham Palace laugh, if given the chance.

Suddenly a WASPish blonde approached our table. “Robert Wharton.” He smiled. “And you two appear to be the only interesting women in this place. Can I join you?” We were seated on a bloodred velvet couch, and Di immediately scrunched closer to me.

“Okay…we’ve moved on over. But you can only join us if you are terribly amusing and promise to make us laugh,” Di said, and smiled.

“Promise.”

Turned out Robert Wharton, who looked vaguely familiar, was an on-air reporter for a major cable news network. He had the bland yet handsome looks of a news anchor, a side part in his perfect hair, and an angular build encased in an expensive suit jacket. His chin was dimpled, and his nose was straight without a trace of ethnicity. Everyone in my family looked like they had been on the wrong end of a strong right hook. His hazel eyes peered out from behind wire-rimmed glasses.

“I scored the first post-trial interview with Connie Benson,” he said when Di pressed him to tell us just where we’d seen him before.

“Oh, my God! The Hamptons Harlot!”

Connie Benson was a 40DD porno actress who married the king of Long Island real estate, who promptly died under questionable circumstances. And despite a murder trial that lasted for six months and riveted the media, she’d been acquitted, though the prosecutors had thought it was a no-brainer.

“So dish. Do you think she did it?” Di asked.

He nodded.

“Well…” I chimed in, “she’s laughing all the way to the bank. He froze out his kids in the will.”

Robert nodded. “And she has the spending habits of a Rockefeller. She went through a cool half million just adding mirrored ceilings in all the bedrooms, and her own state-of-the-art screening room. She likes to watch her old porn movies with popcorn and her new lover. The old man was forty years older than she. This new guy is only nineteen.”

“Truth is always stranger than fiction,” I said.

“I’m so glad you sat down,” Di added. “I was hooked on that case. Watched the recaps every night on Court TV. Cheers!” She lifted her glass and elbowed me to lift mine, and the three of us toasted.

“You look familiar, too.” Robert studied me.

I wriggled uncomfortably in my seat. Of course, he could have eaten in my restaurant and have recognized me out of context. But A&E also profiled my family a year ago, complete with family trees and fuzzy photos. Because I was the only granddaughter of Angelo Marcello in a sea of seventeen male cousins, I had been filmed from a distance crossing the street and labeled “The Mafia Princess.”

“Do you work out at Parallel Spa?”

He shook his head. We were all growing hoarse talking over the music.

“Ever eat at a tiny little place called Teddi’s?”

“No. Where is it?”

“East Side. Mid-Sixties.”

He shook his head. “You work there?”

Lady Di wrapped an arm around me. “She owns it. And it has absolutely the most delicious food in New York City. I would starve without Teddi. Would curl up on the floor and die. Her spaghetti carbonara is rapturous.”

I rolled my eyes. “Spoken like a true PR agent.”

Robert laughed. “Well, sounds like I should visit Teddi’s, but…I still feel like I know you from somewhere.”

“No, I don’t think we’ve met before,” I said firmly.

“But now we have. Can I invite you to dinner? I promise I’m not a serial killer. Just an honest boy from Philadelphia.”

Di dug her heel into my instep, urging me to say yes. I glared at her, then nodded at Robert.

We spent the rest of the night making small talk. Turned out the “honest boy” from Philadelphia was from Main Line Philly and old money. I cringed. Talk about worlds colliding. We ordered more champagne and discovered that Robert liked horses, specifically polo, and had attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School. And yes, there was some relation to the original Wharton way back in his lineage.

“Is Teddi your real name?” he shouted over the music.

I shook my head. “Theresa. But my grandfather called me Teddi Bear, ridiculous as that sounds, and it stuck.” Of course, I didn’t point out that Angelo Marcello, one of the most celebrated of the old-time mobsters, was my Poppy. I was his teddy bear, his angel, and if anyone thought about touching a hair on my head, there wouldn’t be a federal safe house safe enough for the man, whoever he was.

“That’s really cute.”

I shrugged. “I like it better than Theresa, that’s for sure.”

Lady Di stood and waved to a client. “Back in a jiff, Teddi.”

Robert focused on me again. “I wish I could place you. I just have this feeling we’ve met before.”

“I promise you, we haven’t.”

“I know this is the oldest line in the book, Teddi, but if we haven’t met before, then I have a serious case of déjà vu. I must have known you in another life.”

He was near enough to me that when he bent his head to better hear me, I could smell his cologne. Maybe it was the loud music, but he leaned in so close to me that he gave the impression that he wanted to hear every word I said.

“Maybe…” Anxious to change the subject, to steer him away from the Marcello and Gallo family names, I asked him how he got into journalism.

“Please. Every kid who ever saw All the President’s Men wanted to be the next Woodward or Bernstein and packed off to college…and I was no exception. I changed my major from business. I found I had the stomach for journalism. I wasn’t squeamish at crime scenes. I didn’t mind working my way up from the bottom. I was always comfortable at public speaking, so speaking in front of a camera wasn’t a big deal.”

“I’d rather do just about anything than speak in front of a group of people.”

“Number-one fear for most people.”

Should I tell him that in my neighborhood, the number-one fear is having my uncle Lou show up to collect a bad debt? I opted to shut up.

Around two o’clock in the morning, I realized my alarm was going to ring mighty early for opening the restaurant. By this time, Di had rejoined us, and we’d ordered another bottle of champagne. As we poured the last of it into our glasses, I nudged Di and said we had better go.

“What time is it?” Robert pushed up the cuff of his shirt and read his Rolex. “Jesus! The night flew by.”

We all stood. Robert kissed my cheek, took a card from the restaurant and promised to call to arrange dinner. (If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that line, I could have bailed out my uncle Jackie the last time he was arraigned.)

Lady Di and I said goodbye and made our way through the packed main club, its dance floor so crowded you couldn’t fit a slip of paper between the dancers, and went outside. The doorman hailed us a cab. Nestled into the back, Di was both drunk and ecstatic for me.

“Robert Wharton…old money, handsome and a high-profile job on top of it. I think this is your lucky night, Teddi, you Chinese mouse, you! Or is it a rat?”

“Lady Di,” I slurred, the champagne long since gone to my head. I could only imagine the hell of standing over a hot stove the next day. “Given the unfortunate incarceration of half my family, and the fact that there are one hundred hijacked Betsey Johnson dresses in the basement of my parents’ house, do you really think a high-profile relationship is such a good idea?”

“Fuck it all,” she said. “Then a toss in the hay and you’re done with him. But really, Teddi, do they expect you to marry a mobster?”

I frowned. “No…I guess not.”

“Trust me, darling. He seemed positively mad about you. If this works out, your parents will be delighted.”

“I doubt it. But let’s take it one step at a time.”

As the cabbie raced through the streets of Manhattan, I tried to quell the feelings of nausea in my stomach. But whether it was from the champagne or the prospect of telling “old money” Robert Wharton about my family tree, I wasn’t exactly sure.

The next day I walked the twenty blocks to work. I’m one of the few New Yorkers blessed with an easy commute—a brisk walk instead of clinging to a subway strap for dear life, or exhaust fumes filling my nostrils as I ride the bus. The only tough thing is three days a week I work early. As in really early.

At six-thirty, on three hours’ sleep, and my head pounding as if some heavy-metal drummer had taken up residence in my left temple, I was already starting a pot of gravy—what we Italians call spaghetti sauce—which would be used for the manicotti, as well as several pasta dishes. I took out fresh parsley and began chopping, finding a rhythm as the sharp knife hit the cutting board—chop, chop, chop—my fingers curled to control the blade. My cousin Quinn only worked nights, and the sous chef, Leon, wasn’t due in until nine-thirty, so I had the place to myself. Leon favored a serious hip-hop station on the radio. Chopping to DMX and Eminem can be kind of therapeutic. It can also get on your nerves. So I spent my mornings alone in silence, humming to myself, thinking of nothing in particular. This morning, however, I was thinking that Lady Di and her wild nightlife were going to be the death of me very soon. And I was thinking that Robert Wharton was very cute in a nonethnic kind of way. I couldn’t imagine someone with the last name of Wharton being struck by the thunderbolt. Somehow, I found that comforting—if he even called, which I doubted. So I put him from my mind and concentrated on the simmering pot after popping two aspirin.

Next, I busied myself making the soup of the day—a pasta fajioli—then went to the front of the house—restaurant talk for the dining room—and fetched a cold club soda from the bar. I looked around the restaurant—my place. Or at least half mine and half Quinn’s. Though to be technical about it, the bank owned a big chunk, too.

I had wanted my own restaurant since I could remember. My grandfather owned a restaurant in Brooklyn, and though he owned it for business reasons—Mafia business reasons—I had spent much of my childhood sitting at its checkered-tablecloth tables, eating authentic food prepared by men who spoke only Italian.

When Quinn and I found our place, it was suffering from neglect. The floors were filthy, the lighting dim and roaches roamed freely across the stainless counters in the kitchen. But Quinn and I saw past all that. Now, with room for twenty-two tables, Teddi’s sparkled. We had the walls painted with a faux finish that resembled stone walls, vaguely reminiscent of Florence, sort of ancient-looking. The ivory tablecloths were crisp, and the plates on each table bore handpainted flowers on the rim. When nighttime came and the small votives on each table were lit, with fresh flowers in each bud vase and a crowd at the bar waiting for a table, it was magical. At the end of every shift, Quinn and I would each have a sambuca with three coffee beans floating for good luck and go over the night and unwind. I had never, not even for a moment, wanted to do anything else, despite the long hours. Despite the fact that it was back-breaking sometimes. Despite the fact that I had a hangover and was staring at a double shift.

I went back into the kitchen—my domain—and continued prepping for lunch. Around ten o’clock the back office phone rang. “Teddi’s,” I answered on line two.

“Is Teddi there? The owner Teddi?”

“Who’s calling?” I was used to food and beverage sales guys calling, trying to get our account. Linen companies. Wine sales reps.

“It’s Robert Wharton.”

“Robert? It’s Teddi.”

“Thought that was your voice.”

I managed to sputter out a hello. A man in Manhattan who actually called when he said he would?

“You gave me your card,” he offered, as if the reason I sounded a little stunned was I didn’t remember him. As if I could forget his anchorman smile.

“Of course.” I finally regained my composure. “It’s nice to hear from you, Robert.”

“Listen…I would love to take you to dinner.”

“Um…great.” Nit-twit, as Di would call me. So much for witty repartee.

“What’s your schedule like?”

“Thursdays are good. I usually work Friday night. My sous chef does Thursday night. I do lunch Thursday instead.”

“What about Sunday? I’m off on Sundays.”

I crinkled up my face in a wince he couldn’t see. Sunday was sacrosanct—family dinner in Brooklyn. “Sundays are no good.”

“Thursday then. Next Thursday okay?”

“Sure.”

“I’m a little nervous taking a chef out for dinner. You probably have high standards.”

“No. I was born in a family of professional eaters. But honestly, I’m not that fussy. I like to enjoy someone else’s cooking for a change.”

“How about if we meet at a little Japanese place called Yama’s at Fifty-fifth and Seventh?

“I’ve heard of it.” Heard of it? I’d heard it was one of the priciest new restaurants in the city—and the sushi chef was a temperamental master. I knew I’d love to scope out their menu. Japanese was a style of cooking I’d longed to experiment with. My mother mocked my Manhattan eating adventures. “Raw fish,” she’d once said. “What’s next? Cold monkey meat?”