Mafia Chic

“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.”