The Supreme Macaroni Company by Adriana Trigiani Read Free Book Online Page A

up with one nice thing to say about him,” Mom said drily.
    “It was hard. He was a real bargain, that one. The secret to happiness? Never marry an Italian. Never. Ever. If you can find any ambulatory gentleman on two legs who is not Italian and has never visited the Boot, marry him instead. But an Italian? Never.”
    “Ridiculous,” Gram said.
    “Never marry someone from the other side. That’s what Mama said.”
    “Mama was wrong,” Gram said.
    “Ignore our mother at your own peril.” Feen shrugged. “She told me to brush my teeth with salt and baking soda, and to this day, I have all my choppers.”
    “You make it sound like my grandmother disapproved of all Italians. I think she was referring to opportunists from the other side . . . ,” Mom said carefully.
    “Carpetbaggers,” Gabriel said.
    Mom continued, “Opportunists who wanted to marry an American to come over for a better life. Sometimes there were men looking for a hardworking woman here, and so all Italian men from the other side got a bad reputation.”
    “Whatever my mother said, she had her reasons.”
    “Well, she wasn’t always right about this one. I married Dominic, and we are very happy.”
    “Keep telling yourself that,” Feen said.
    “I don’t have to. It’s true.”
    Feen turned sideways in her seat and flung her arm over the back of the chair. “Giancarlo, what the hell, I’ll call you Johnny. Johnny, you watch stories?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Soap operas.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “I know you got bad scripts, cheap sets, and crap acting on those shows, but I’ve been watching them since 1962, and despite the schmaltz and corn, I’ve learned a lot from tuning in. One of the big lessons is family relations. Do you realize that when you marry Valentine, she will not only be your wife but your niece?”
    “I didn’t think about it.” Gianluca blushed again.
    “You wouldn’t. You’d have to be a soap fan to sketch a family tree. These are the kinds of things that occupy my mind. My mind is filled with scenarios.”
    “Oh, that’ s it,” Gabriel said, cracking a nut.
    “Scenarios large and small.” Aunt Feen waved her hand over the table as though she was imagining them.
    “Whose idea was it to serve the Irish coffee?” Tess asked accusingly.
    “Sorry,” Tom McAdoo said. “Wanted to bring a little of my culture to the holiday.”
    “Thanks,” Dad said. “Maybe next time you’ll bring a shillelagh and play a tune instead of getting Aunt Feen drunk.”
    “A shillelagh is a walking stick,” Tom said softly. “It isn’t a musical instrument.”
    “What do you want from me? I’m Italian. Both sides,” said Dad.
    “Anyhow, what you learn from soap operas is that you have to be careful when you get married, because you could be marrying a relative.”
    “Aunt Feen, please,” my mother implored her.
    “And then you marry that relative, and the children—dear God, the children.”
    “We have no blood ties, Aunt Feen,” I assured her.
    “If this was General Hospital , and we’re pretty close since we got divorced people marrying in, somebody would marry their uncle accidentally and wind up in a mental institution, that’s all I’m saying.” Aunt Feen snapped her neck and looked at Gianluca intently.
    “It’s just a story, Aunt Feen,” Tess said calmly. “Pure fiction. It’s important to accept a happy life when it’s presented to you. The only time you can go wrong is when you make a decision to please others and not yourself.”
    “What? You over your Charlie?” Aunt Feen cackled.
    “No, I love him more than I ever did. I’m saying that even though it’s a little odd that Gram’s stepson is marrying my sister, it’s wonderful that she has found a good man who loves her.”
    “You mean to tell me out of all the billions of available men in the world, we had to find two in the same tannery?” Aunt Feen cracked a nut.
    “What’s wrong with that?” Jaclyn