“I’ll make champagne cream puffs!”
“Champagne cream puffs?”
“Zeppole dough baked in the oven and filled with Asti Spumante-based zabaglione!”
“It’s a bake sale, sweetheart, not a four-star dessert cart.”
Just then our shop bell rang and a young woman with fluffy, crumpet-colored curls walked across our main floor. “Hey, everyone!” Vicki Glockner waved at me.
“Mike, I’ve got to go. My relief is here.”
“Okay,” he said, “but that’s why I called. It’s my turn to relieve you. Don’t worry about cooking tonight. I’ll get us takeout.”
By the time I drove down the Queensboro Bridge ramp, dusk had fully descended, and streetlights were flickering on, their halogen bulbs pouring pools of blue-tinged light into an ocean of deepening darkness. Madame and I had been late getting started. Then a pileup on the bridge left me inching and lurching my way across the mile-long span. Now we were more than an hour behind schedule.
“Do you want to try calling again?” I asked, swinging my old Honda beneath the subway’s elevated tracks.
“It’s all right, dear,” Madame replied. “I left a message apologizing for our tardiness. Let’s hope Enzo picks it up.”
Enzo was “Lorenzo” Testa, the owner of Caffè Lucia. He’d called Madame that morning, telling her he’d been cleaning out his basement and came across an old Blend roaster and a photo album with pictures of Madame and her late first husband, Antonio Allegro. While Madame was thrilled about the photos, I was itching to get my paws on the old Probat, a small-batch German coffee roaster, circa 1921. Enzo had bought it used from the Blend in the sixties.
“So this man worked for you and Matt’s father,” I asked.
Madame nodded. “He came to us fresh off the boat from Italy. An eager aspiring artist.”
“Marlon Brando-ish? Isn’t that how you described him?”
“More Victor Mature, dear. The young female customers absolutely swooned when they saw him in our shop or Washington Square Park — that’s where he liked to set up his painter’s easel.”
“So he was hot stuff?”
“Oh, yes. Smoldering male charisma, liquid bedroom gaze...
“My. Don’t
“I think we’ve already established that.”
“Well, the answer to your question is
“Uh-huh.” The last time Madame characterized herself as a “free agent” she was in East Hampton, enjoying a fling with a septuagenarian expert on Jackson Pollock.
“And, besides,” she added. “I’ve wanted you to meet Enzo for ages. Given your background, I thought it was about time.”
“Whatever became of Enzo’s art career, anyway?” (Myself an art school dropout, I couldn’t help wondering.) “Did his work ever sell?”
“Oh, yes. Enzo’s female admirers bought many of his paintings. Restaurants and caffès hired him, too. At one time, you could see his trompe l’oeil frescos in dozens of pizzerias around town. But most of them are gone now. Irreplaceable because Enzo stopped selling his work.”
“Why? What happened?”
Madame shrugged. “Life.”
“Life?”
“His lover became pregnant,” she said, glancing at the fast-passing rows of storefronts. “The same year her father died. Angela asked Enzo to marry her and take over her family’s caffè in Queens, save them from financial ruin.” Madame shrugged. “Enzo adored her...”
I nodded at Enzo’s story (half of it, anyway) because I knew just how many hours it took to run a successful business, and just how much love it took to give up on a dream. Suddenly, without having ever met the man, I liked him, very much.
“Caffè Lucia is a pretty name,” I said.
“He renamed the place for his daughter. A lively, outspoken child, as I recall; all grown up by now. And sadly, last year, Angela passed away during their annual visit to Italy...”
As I turned onto Steinway Street, I noticed Madame glancing at her watch.
“This trip isn’t over yet,” I warned.
“I know, dear. I’m looking.”
“There! There! A spot on the right! Get it! Get it!”
“Fire hydrant,” I said. “I’ll circle again — ”
“Look! Look! That car is leaving! Go! Go!”
I zoomed into the spot, right behind a mammoth SUV. As I climbed out from behind the wheel, I could almost feel the adrenaline ebbing from my bloodstream. (Not quite as stressful as driving a golf cart through a war zone, but close.) Unfortunately, I wasn’t off the battlefield yet. More trouble was heading our way — in size-twelve Air Jordans.
“Hey, lady!” (The greeting was quintessential Jerry Lewis but the accent was definitely foreign.) “You can’t park here!”
A scowling man barreled toward us, gesturing wildly.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“You have to move your car!”
Stone black eyes under tight curls the color of Sicilian licorice; a slate gray leisure suit (sans tie) over incongruous white tube socks. I couldn’t place the guy’s accent, but that was no surprise. While this area used to be primarily Greek and Italian, more recent arrivals included Brazilians, Bosnians, and natives of Egypt, Yemen, and Morocco.
The guy stopped right in front of us, hands outstretched to keep us from moving down the sidewalk. For a moment, I stared at his day-old jaw stubble.
“You have to move that junk heap! I can’t have it in front of my club!”
Madame glanced at me, then back at our human road block. “I don’t understand, young man. Are you saying this isn’t a legal parking spot?”
“I’m saying you can’t park here unless you’re going to my club.”
“Your club?” I said.
He jerked his head at the shadowy doorway behind him. Under a scarlet neon
Madame’s large, expressive eyes — so intensely blue that tricks of light turned them lavender — displayed
