Invitation to Italian Page 17

  Today, though, as her soft-soled slippers touched the gleaming hardwood floors, Zora wouldn’t have minded a little tardiness, maybe even a last minute cancellation.

  “Can you get the door?” Lena called from her bedroom. “I’m getting dressed for tennis.”

  Zora stopped at the foot of the steep stairway. The bedrooms of the small nineteenth-century house were all located upstairs. “I’ve got it. It’s for me anyway,” she shouted up. She took the few remaining steps to the front door and hesitated.

  The bell rang again.

  Resigned, Zora opened the wooden door. Katarina stood there, holding a bundled baby against her front, an umbrella hanging from her crooked elbow, poised to knock yet again.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, seemingly unaware of her mother’s dilemma. “I wasn’t sure if the doorbell worked. I know Babika said something a while back about having to fix it, and I didn’t know if she’d got around to it.” Katarina stepped over the threshold. She shifted the baby to one arm and passed Zora the umbrella. “Could you just leave this here. They claimed rain is in the forecast, but you could have fooled me.”

  Zora stashed the umbrella in the stand by the door and pointed her daughter toward the kitchen. “Of course she fixed the doorbell. Have you ever known her not to know how to fix something?” Zora replied. Lena had owned a hardware store and been widowed early in life. The combination made her extremely handy around the house.

  Zora liked to think she could be handy when called upon. She’d just never owned a house, so…well…there hadn’t been much call. But she could have been, she reassured herself and watched her daughter progress to the kitchen, the nerve center of the house.

  Katarina seemed so confident, so natural as a mother. The way she strode serenely, even with the slight limp. While she’d been working in California, Katarina had been shot in a botched robbery, and afterward had returned to Grantham to recover. Zora had been in Antarctica at the time and offered to come home, but Katarina had insisted there was no reason. Rehabilitation was a solitary effort, her daughter had said over the phone. Truthfully, Zora had been relieved—but she also felt guilty.

  “But I did make it back for the wedding,” she muttered under her breath, still smarting from the memory of Babika walking Katarina down the aisle and not her. Zora passed the dining room and entered the cozy kitchen that ran the width of the narrow house.

  The old cabinets were painted a cherry sunshine yellow. Café curtains, in yellow-and-white checked gingham, graced the back-door window and the bay window surrounding the window seat. The round table was covered with a Provençal patterned yellow cloth, and a handmade pottery bowl sat in the center filled with lemons. Sunlight streamed through the windows and its warm rays spilled over the patterned tablecloth. All that was needed to complete the country French tableau were some buzzing bees and a scratchy recording of Edith Piaf.

  Zora scrunched up her mouth. She had always found her mother’s taste prosaically Old World. She preferred clean lines, no fuss. She didn’t think she even owned a tablecloth.

  She stood there mute as Katarina lifted a bouncy chair from the back of the window seat and placed it smack-dab in the middle of the table, pushing the bowl to the side.

  “Here, let me.” Zora moved the lemons to the counter. She turned and watched while her daughter unwrapped the receiving blanket from around Rad. She fastened the Velcro tabs to secure the baby in the seat, then tapped on the base to make the springy metal frame bounce gently.

  “What a good little boy you are,” Katarina cooed. “So happy.” She reached for one of his little hands and kissed the fingertips.

  Zora cleared her throat and sat on the window seat opposite Katarina. Rad, perched on the table like royalty in a recumbent throne, gurgled. “You’re a natural mother,” Zora commented.

  Katarina glanced over but still held the baby’s hand. “Are you kidding me? Before Rad was born, Ben and I practiced diapering this old stuffed gorilla I still had back in my old room here. I didn’t know one end from the other.” She smiled. “But, boy, did I learn the difference fast. And anything else…well…I just watched other moms, besides Babika and Amada, my housekeeper, of course. They’re old pros. But then, I guess you did much the same thing.”

  Zora swallowed. “Not totally,” she answered cryptically. In point of fact, Zora would have died before asking her mother for advice, and it was only when she was completely strapped for cash that she’d relied on her for babysitting. It had been a point of pride that she could have a baby on her own without anyone’s help.

  Zora turned her head when she heard a stomping coming down the stairs, followed by the sound of a bag plopped on the floor in the hallway. Her mother and her tennis gear. Thank God, she was leaving. All Zora needed was to have her here when she discussed Paul with Katarina.

  Lena came bustling into the kitchen, making straight for the baby. “Is that my man?” She tickled the baby under the chin and spoke to him in a high, singsongy voice. Rad responded instantly, focusing on Lena with a rapt expression.

  Lena glanced around. “Look at that. Did you see? He smiled.” She bent back and squeezed a little curled foot in a polka dotted sock. “What a treat! I didn’t know you were coming over this morning,” she said to Katarina.

  “Zora invited me over to talk about Matt’s college applications,” Katarina explained. She leaned toward her grandmother and patted the baby’s belly.

  “What’s to explain?” Lena asked. “He’s applied early action to Yale and he’ll hear the end of November.” She made kissy faces at the baby. “You know, I think he looks bigger.”

  “You’re right. He had his three-month checkup the other day and weighed two pounds more and grew a whole half inch.”

  “Of course you grew.” Lena winked at the baby. “You have such a good mommy who takes such good care of you.”

  Zora felt a sucker-punch to the stomach. She was sure Babika’s comments were an oblique criticism of her own parenting. Well, not everyone is born to bill and coo, she thought defensively. She tucked her arms at her sides and crossed her legs. “I’m glad to hear that Matt has set his goals so high and applied early…early…” She wasn’t quite familiar with the term her mother had used.

  “Early action.” Katarina made the effort to include her mother. “It’s not the same as early decision.”

  Which didn’t help Zora at all.

  “It means you’re not obliged to commit if you’re accepted,” Lena explained like a seasoned pro. “Not like when Katarina applied early decision to Stanford and got in.”

  Zora had no memory of that. “And I thought you had to go play tennis?” she asked her mother.

  “Oh, I have plenty of time. We switched our reservation to later because Wanda had to take Fred to the vet for Sarah and Hunt. His annual shots. You may have noticed that she wasn’t here this morning when you got up?” Wanda, Lena’s housemate and Zora’s old high school math teacher, was helping out with child care and doggy care for Katarina’s good friends around the block.

  Zora thanked heaven for small favors.

  Katarina leaned over and fished a piece of paper from an outside pocket of the diaper bag. “Here’s a printout of the colleges that Matt’s interested in, in rank order. To tell you the truth, I try not to bug the kid too much about the whole thing because they’re all under such pressure, and I figure he’ll have plenty of time to fill out the other applications in case he doesn’t get into Yale. It’s all the common app these days.”

  Lena nodded in agreement.

  Zora didn’t have the faintest idea what they were talking about. Common app? She might be an academic, but her main focus was research and her interactions were mostly with graduate students, not undergrads.

  “But if you really want to get involved…” Katarina offered.

  “Why don’t I look at the list later,” Zora said. There was no point prolonging the inevitable—even in front of her mother.

  “I didn’t really
want to talk to you about Matt,” Zora confided. “I mean, I’m happy to talk about Matt, but that’s not why I wanted to speak to you this morning.”

  “It’s not?” Katarina looked confused.

  “That’s right. I want to talk about you…and me.”

  “Me and you?” Katarina asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, well, there are many things I don’t understand about us, but let me try to explain a few things.” She took a moment to organize her thoughts. “When you were born, my life changed.”

  “I can imagine, having a baby at such a young age on your own couldn’t have been easy,” Katarina said.

  “No, it wasn’t, but it was my choice and I never complained.”

  “No, never,” Babika confirmed. She crossed her arms and studied her daughter.

  “I also decided that despite the obvious limitations that motherhood imposed I would continue my education.”

  “I know, you don’t have to explain. I understood why you used to leave me in Grantham every summer,” Katarina responded. “I mean, I can’t say I didn’t feel a little abandoned at times, but I had Babika, and we managed.”

  Zora sniffed. “You did better than manage. You turned out to be a fine woman who seems to have found a balance to the whole career-family conundrum far better than me. But I’d like to think that I contributed in a certain way to your success, too.”

  “Of course, you’ve always been supportive,” Katarina said.

  Zora shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I wasn’t there for half the things in your life. No, I’m talking about the fact that I left you in Grantham every summer. You say you felt abandoned sometimes. Well, sometimes so did I.”

  “Please, don’t tell me you did it as a sacrifice to yourself,” Katarina said with a show of disbelief. Finally, her patience was beginning to crack. She turned her attention to her baby son, obviously trying to avoid making further accusations.

  Zora waited until Katarina looked up before addressing her. “You’re right, Katarina, I was selfish—it was easier for me in terms of travel and research. But, in my own way, I was also selfless because I realized that here in Grantham you could get something I could never give you. A sense of family.”

  “I know. Babika.” Katarina looked gratefully at Lena.

  “Yes, Babika. She was a real trouper. I admit it. You developed a relationship with her that I never had. Sometimes I think it would have helped if there weren’t just the two of us, if my father hadn’t died when I was young.”

  “It wasn’t easy. For either of us,” Lena admitted.

  Zora focused on Katarina. “But I’m talking about more than Babika. Here in Grantham you became part of a larger family—the Antonelli family. I remember after that first summer, you telling me about Julie-this and Julie-that.”

  “Yeah, I really tagged around after her,” Katarina admitted with a laugh. “She was like the gang leader, the way she was so big and confident.”

  “It was more than Julie. It was her whole family,” Zora went on. “I’d hear about how you’d had barbecue at their house or how they took you to Six Flags or New York City. Or how her brothers were little brats.”

  “Especially Dom.” Katarina nodded with a smile on her face. “I remember—”

  “I’m sure you do,” Zora interrupted. “But the point I want to make is that Julie and her mom and dad and brothers provided you with the big, noisy family life that you seemed to crave and thrive in. So, you see, leaving you here every summer was my way of giving you something that I couldn’t or, let’s be frank, wouldn’t give you. I did it knowing that at the end of every summer when I’d come to pick you up, we’d have grown further apart.”

  Outside, the rain began to fall.

  “Listen, I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me,” Zora said. “It was my decision, and I lived with it. We all have to live with our decisions, good or bad.” Zora took a deep breath. “Which brings me to the next part of this little discussion.” She leaned to Katarina. “I want to talk to you about Paul Bedecker.”

  Katarina’s confused look returned. “Paul Bedecker?” She rested her hand on the bottom of the baby seat and stopped rocking it.

  “Carl Bedecker’s son, who’s back from Hollywood or wherever?” Lena asked. She had her mouth open as she gazed at her grown daughter. “Why would you want to talk about him? Wanda told me that he’s back because he had a drug problem and lost all his money. But of course we all make mistakes and deserve a second chance,” she added quickly.

  How typical of her mother, Zora thought. Critical but somehow charitable. It made it difficult to resent her, yet impossible to please. “Yes, well, that’s true. Paul is trying to turn things around. You know—” she paused as she inched her way to the truth “—I don’t know if you know it but he was in the same class as mine at Grantham High School?” She looked at Katarina. Could her daughter intuit what she was trying to say?

  “Oh, I didn’t know,” Katarina said without much interest. She went back to bouncing the baby chair and blowing air kisses at Rad.

  “Yes, he was in my class, and I was in his.”

  “That’s usually how it works. I think you both went off to Cornell, correct?” Lena lifted her chin and peered out the window. “That rain has started to really come down. It was in the forecast, but I was hoping we could still get our game in. I may have to call the others if this keeps up.”

  “Listen, I need you both to pay attention,” Zora insisted.

  Katarina reluctantly turned away from the baby. Lena pursed her lips.

  “What I need to tell you—you both…is something important.”

  Her mother and daughter waited.

  “The thing is, yes, we both went off to Cornell, but what you don’t know is that while we were students there, we had an affair.”

  Lena inhaled and held her breath.

  “Mom, I mean, Zora, I really don’t need to hear about this. It’s one thing to relive happy childhood memories with Julie and the Antonellis, but to rehash your past old affairs…” Katarina said, the awkwardness in her voice apparent.

  “Oh, but in this case you do need to hear. How can I put it simply? My past sex life is relevant, very relevant because…because…” She took a large gulp of air yet still felt light-headed. “Paul Bedecker is your father.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “IF YOU’LL EXCUSE ME,” Sebastiano said. He crossed the room and flicked on the office lights. “That’s better. I was having trouble seeing you it was so dark. You would think it was evening not the morning.” The overhead spotlights and standing lamps provided a warm glow as rain lashed the windows. The windows were closed, but the vertical blinds shimmied against the glass from the force of the downpour.

  “The Weather Channel forecast rain today,” Rufus commented. He was seated in one of the winged chairs facing Sebastiano’s desk.

  “Yes, I heard that we could be expecting even worse weather in a few days—the side effects of the hurricane in the Gulf,” Iris added. She rested her fingers on the folders on her lap. Her yellowing pearls gleamed in the artificial light, beacons of secure wealth.

  Sebastiano settled behind his desk again. He momentarily closed his eyes, feeling the tiredness burn his dry eyes. Then he willed himself to focus and rested his forearms on his desk. “Now, where were we?”

  “You know, before we go on, I just want to thank you for responding to my call so quickly last night,” Rufus said. “I figured you were the one to handle the situation.” He glanced around the room. “I’m being discreet here, you must understand, since it involves someone we all know.”

  Iris held up her hand. “No need to worry. I stopped by Bedecker’s Nursery this morning to get some mums for the flower pots on the back porch, and I heard all about it from Carl, Paul’s father. He couldn’t stop singing Sebastiano’s praises for the way he intervened to prevent a relapse. Thank goodness, Paul mentioned your name.”

  “There really are no se
crets in Grantham, are there?” Sebastiano asked, suddenly aware that Rufus, and no doubt Iris, realized he and Paul knew each other from A.A. meetings. He wondered if that might jeopardize his plans here in Grantham.

  Rufus chuckled. “You only just discovered that?”

  “I know I counseled you only last week on getting more involved with the community, but I never anticipated you would go to such lengths. Truly commendable,” Iris said with a nod. “You know, we may be a privileged community in many ways—”

  “Others might say snobby,” Rufus added.

  “I don’t agree, but, true, they might,” Iris responded. “But that doesn’t mean we aren’t understanding or incapable of embracing people for whom they are—warts and all.”

  Sebastiano got the message and was grateful. “Thank you,” he said simply. “But as for preventing any crisis, I think more credit goes to Paul himself. I was there merely to reassure him that he had the strength to remain on course.” He looked down at his hands as if seeing every line and knuckle for the first time.

  “Sebastiano.”

  Iris’s lockjaw enunciation of his name brought him back to the present.

  She picked up the top folder from her lap and flipped it open. “I am intrigued with the proposal that you have presented us here, though naturally I’d need to know more details,” she said. “This idea for a combined health clinic/community center as a cornerstone of the hospital?”

  Sebastiano cleared his throat. “Yes, I wanted to take the negative feelings in the neighborhood about the expansion of the hospital and turn them into something positive. Right now, the neighbors are concerned that tearing down houses and replacing them with a monolithic structure will rip the heart and soul out of the adjacent community. Am I right?”

  “I’d say you’re spot on,” Rufus agreed. “Already when the hospital bought those houses and turned them into offices, people got upset. Now they see this new building campaign as further encroachment on their quality of life. As far as they can tell, the neighborhood is suffering so that other, wealthier members of Grantham benefit.”