—Mariapia, he said, to get her attention. This was the name spelled on the gold necklace she wore. She’d been Pia in Italy, but after coming to the States she’d begun to go by Maria. It was easier for Americans to understand. After a while she started missing her real name, but because too many people at that point knew her as Maria, she couldn’t simply and quickly change it back. My father got her a Mariapia necklace to ease the transition. Joseph Sr., who would have met her as Maria, was poking fun, flirtatiously.
My mother laughed. Even her laugh had a heavy accent. She turned away from me and toward Joseph Sr. with the cigarette between her lips. His Zippo had a pinup girl on it. Long brown hair with bangs and a pink bikini. My youth was marked by such images—seeing them on playing cards or drawn crudely on bathroom stalls. It’s possible I was just poised to notice them.
My father was telling the story of a friend of his, an Indian doctor named Madan. His wife, Barbara, who suspected him of having an affair, had placed a tape recorder in his big black Mercedes. My father was speaking in the conspiratorial and hushed tone he used when he was telling a story around me that wasn’t suitable for children.
It still hurts me to even think of my father’s face. He was short and he had a big nose and he was partially balding even then, in his early forties. But he was incredibly magnetic. He was always having a good time, always laughing, but he was also responsible. He could fix anything on a car or in a house. And because he was a doctor, he could save your life. In terms of his being a father, I know I am biased, but I can’t imagine a man loving his daughter more than he loved me. Whenever I walked into the ocean—even just a few feet in—every time I turned around, I could count on him to be propped up on his elbows, watching. He had a smile on his face but really he was just waiting to save me.
—So? said Evelyn. Did she catch him?
My father took a noisy drag of his cigarette. Joe Jr. was singeing pieces of dinner roll over the flame of a votive candle. I saw my mother listening to something Joseph Sr. was whispering. My father saw this, too. But the smile never left his face. I sidled closer to my mother. She’d put on her silky navy blazer with the pussy bow. I loved the feeling of her warm flesh through dainty material. She smelled like smoke and L’air du Temps. I pressed close to her to let her know I was there.
—Oh, she got him, my father said with a crooked smile on his face. She really got him.
For years afterward I would try to make sense of that. How had Madan’s wife gotten him? What did she pick up on the tape recorder? Was it the noises of sex? How did she know the other woman would be in the car with her husband? For a very long time, whenever I saw a Mercedes, I would imagine black panties stuffed into glove compartments and silver tape recorders slipped under passenger seats, their tiny red lights blinking.
The waitress brought a bruschetta appetizer to the table, plus a plate of too-thick mozzarella sticks for Joe Jr. and me. I didn’t like food meant for children. I always wanted to eat whatever my mother was eating; this included kidneys in mustard sauce, which she’d ordered a few times in Little Italy. The kidneys smelled like urine, tangy and old, but there was something about the way my mother held her fork, the way she enjoyed food, not voraciously, like my father, but picky and graceful.
I watched her select a piece of the bruschetta, drizzled with condensed balsamic vinegar. She had very white teeth and opened her mouth wide so as not to disturb her lipstick. I watched Joseph Sr. watch her. There were always at least two cigarettes lit at any moment, even when everybody was eating. It made those dinners last a long time. Unlike me, Joe Jr. ignored the adults and entertained himself. He had a mini pinball game and another little game box wherein the objective was to get miniature marbles into certain holes. He didn’t share any of his toys, but I didn’t care. I had both my parents to look after. That whole year had been tricky; I could tell there was something I didn’t know, and I felt I couldn’t miss a moment of observation.
What followed, I didn’t fully grasp at the time; like most of childhood, some darkness is downloaded, but you can’t decode it until later—after losing your virginity, for example. My father’s beeper went off. He left to call his answering service back. For short, it was service. So that any time I picked up the phone at home and it was for my father, I’d yell, Daddy, service!
The waitress came around to take our dinner order. My mother ordered the prime rib for my father. He cherished all kinds of meat except chicken. He liked his steaks bloody and once I saw him scoop some raw meat loaf filling into his mouth from a big glass bowl in the refrigerator.
I waited to hear my mother’s order, a pollo alla Valdostana, which I’d tried once and didn’t like. Then I ordered the surf and turf off the regular adult menu. Evelyn looked at my mother.
—Kid has expensive taste.
Joseph Sr. was looking at my mother like she was a prime rib. I have always wondered why men don’t do a better job of turning off their eyes.
My father came
