Elley Arden - Baby by Design

“Are you sure you don’t want that nightcap?” He parked in front of her house and flashed a suggestive grin.

“I’m sure.” She’d rather have a baby. “My stomach isn’t feeling right.”

“Maybe it was the cake,” he said as she opened the car door. “Who likes anise birthday cake anyway?”

She stood up and spun around. “I like anise birthday cake.” And with that, she slammed the car door on his bewildered face.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he sputtered out his open window as she clip-clopped around the front of the car to her stone walk.

Don’t bother, she thought.

Talk about a disappointing night. She should’ve had a second piece of cake.

Tony pulled the burlap tight around the wingchair’s retied springs and fired staples from his gun into the wooden frame. He could tell a lot about a person by the condition of their furniture. This particular piece belonged to a newly minted chief of radiology and his wife, a friend of Trish. Before Tony could repair the split and crumbling frame, he’d had to remove three layers of dollar-table, outdated fabric, foul-smelling Dacron, and way too much foam rubber. The haphazard upholsteries told a rags-to-riches tale. When Tony was done, these once sad and neglected chairs would flank the finest fireplace in a Trish DeVign-decorated home. Something that didn’t come cheap.

“Why don’t you ever answer your freaking phone? Ma’s been trying to get ahold of us all day.” Angie barged into the garage like she owned the place… Well, technically she did. It was attached to her house, but Tony paid rent to use the space as his sometimes-upholstery shop. He couldn’t very well upholster sofa-sized items in his downtown efficiency.

He kept his eyes on the staple line. “What’s wrong with your phone?”

“My phone? I was onsite all day. You expect me to hear a phone ringing over a floor sander? You weren’t here, were you? You were out on your bike.”

“Maybe. What’s it matter to you?”

“It matters, Tony. It matters.”

That’s what the women in his life—and there were a lot of them—were always telling him. Nonna, Ma, Angie, and his aunts were forever pressing him to sell the bike, cover the tattoos, and quit playing with furniture so he could take his place at the helm of Pop’s carpentry company.

No, thank you.

Becoming a carpenter and taking over the business hadn’t done Angie any good. The responsibility robbed her of free time and fun. Besides, Tony already owned his own business, contracting out his upholstery services. The business was small and nondescript, which left his freedom intact.

“What’d Ma want?” he asked, rather than stoke his sister’s perennially pissy mood by defending his life’s direction.

“I don’t know. I can’t reach her now. The line’s busy. How hard is it to get call waiting and caller ID?”

For a woman who still couldn’t figure out the TV remote? Hard.

Strains of “Born to Be Wild” echoed above the air compressor.

“That’s her,” Angie yelled, pointing in the direction of his phone.

“You answer it,” Tony said, preferring to spare himself the gory details of which cousin said what, more than a week ago at Nonna’s birthday party, and why aunts X, Y, and Z were no longer speaking.

Angie kicked his thigh with her steel-toed boot as she walked by on her way to answer his phone. “Why is nothing ever important to you?”

As he listened to his sister answer their mother’s call, he winced at his stinging thigh and traded the staple gun for an old-fashioned hammer and tacks. Wailing on the metal wedges would help. He had news for his too-serious-for-her-own-good sister, lots of things were important to him. Fun topped the list, with happiness running a close second, followed by friends who fed the fun and happiness.

“Oh God, no,” Angie sobbed, and then wailed. “Tony, Nonna has ovarian cancer.”

The mallet slipped from his hand.

As much as they drove him crazy, family was important, too.

An hour later, Tony was packed like a sardine into Nonna’s galley kitchen with a collection of aunts and uncles who watched the stricken woman stir sauce despite the horrible news.

“I give it to God,” she announced, raising one palm to the ceiling. “I no take it back.”

There were a few amens, but as Tony looked around the room, he was struck by the paleness of the usually olive faces. And there were tears, but only when Nonna wasn’t looking. And there were whispers of sentences he couldn’t quite catch.

Stage IV. Too late for surgery. Chemo. Radiation. Prayers.

He felt sick, like he swallowed a jar of lug nuts and couldn’t cough them up, let alone crap them out. And when the bowls of food started around the table, he couldn’t eat.

He pushed away his chair, knowing the bathroom was the only rational escape. If he left the house, someone was bound to snitch, and once again he’d be a disappointment; the Corcarelli son not man enough to face the truth. Away from the heavy emotions, he flipped the lid down on the toilet and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Rather than dwell on the turmoil twisting his guts in knots, he’d dwell on his fantasy football team’s lousy performance. His wide receivers tanked, and there were never any good ones available after the draft.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tony looked at the door. “Occupied.” And yet he couldn’t stay much longer, knowing someone waited, unless he wanted to look like an inconsiderate pig. So he hurried up and dropped a running back, picked up a defense, and took a deep breath before he opened the bathroom door.

Nonna stood on the other side. “Antonio.” She smooshed his cheeks in her scratchy, onion-scented hands and smiled the saddest smile he’d ever seen.

All he could do was hug her, squish her weathered body against him and wish he were strong enough to expunge the cancer with one good squeeze. “Love you, Nonna.”

She pushed out of the hug and patted his cheek. “Why you want to be alone?”

Of all things…she was bringing up his marital status today. “I’m not alone, Nonna. I have all of you.”

Both of her hands patted his face. “Life should be shared.”

“And I am sharing my life.” He slid his hands around her wrists and held them in his.

“No wife. No bebe.” She nodded. “You make a good priest.”

He bit back a laugh. A tattooed, Harley-riding priest. Come to think of it, he’d like to see that. But not him. No way. He was pretty sure celibacy was bad for his health.

“I’m fine, Nonna.”

But she wasn’t.

She nodded and shuffled past him to the bathroom. He wondered if she was going in to get away—like him. But if losing Pops taught him anything, it was that cancer left nowhere to hide.

“Tony, you need to be out here for this.” Ma poked her head into the hallway and flagged him back into the dining room.

Aunt Josie was speed talking in a whisper when he walked into the room. “How do you know she can fly?”

“I’ll check with the doctor,” Aunt Carmella said.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Ma added.

“Aunt Carmella and Uncle Gene have offered to take Nonna back to Lucca for a couple weeks,” Angie explained in Tony’s ear. “And when she gets back from Italy, Aunt Jo and Uncle Mike are going to surprise her by flying her brother in from California. Sort of like a surprise bucket list.”

Tony nodded. A lot could happen during ten minutes holed up in a bathroom.

“I’m going to become Catholic,” Ma announced. Her sisters-in-law gasped.

Angie flashed a look at Tony. Even Dad’s illness hadn’t prompted a gesture like that. But in the years after his death, Ma and Nonna had grown close, close enough that Ma declared her the mother she’d never had. And now this? Talk about grand gestures.

Tony watched as Angie wrapped her arms around their mother’s neck and squeezed. “I want to do something, too,” Angie said. “I’ll have to think about it though. Tony, what about you?”

If the burn from the air hitting his wide eyes was any indication, he looked like a deer in headlights. His family stared back at him.

“Take your time, Tony. Something will come to you.”

But all around him, they didn’t look convinced.

Nonna shuffled into the kitchen. “Mangia. Mangia.” She pointed at the table full of food.

With the conversation stalled, everyone took their seats and ate—everyone except for Tony. He stared at his pasta, in between glances at Nonna. His family was united in giving her months—hopefully years—to remember. They expected him to join in. He’d ignored their expectations without a care before, but this time was different.

Something will come to you.

Nonna slurped a noodle into her mouth and offered him a small smile. She wanted him to join the priesthood or fall in love.

Anyway Tony looked at it, he was screwed.

Trish squeezed a Murano vase between her forearm and bicep while she carried a trash bag stuffed with throw pillows. Using her free hand, she punched a code into the lock box hanging from the Jorgen’s front door, and removed the key to the monstrous French provincial home. Once inside, she dropped the bag of pillows on the Carrera marble floor and admired the glossy white woodwork and matte gray walls. The design was crisp, clean, and sterile, which was exactly what Johann wanted. However, the colorful vase in the crook of her arm and the whimsical chandelier hovering above the entryway were bright, fun, and creative, which was exactly what Amanda wanted. To an interior designer, few things were as satisfying as fusing opposite tastes into one harmonious space.