Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

2009

IM NOT THE PRETTY SISTER.

Im not the smart sister either. I am the funny one. Ive been called that for so long, for so many years, in fact, that all of my life I thought it was one word: Funnyone.

If I had to die, and believe me, I dont want to, but if I had to choose a location, Id want to die right here in the ladies lounge at Leonards of Great Neck. Its the mirrors. I look slimsational, even in 3-D. Im no scientist, but theres something about the slant of the full-length glass, the shimmer of the blue marble counters, and the golden light of the pav chandeliers that creates an optical illusion, turning my reflection into a long, lean, pale pink swizzle stick.

This is my eighth reception (third as an attendant) at Leonards La Dolce Vita, the formal name for our familys favorite Long Island wedding factory. Everyone I know has been married here, or, at least everyone Im related to.

My sisters and I made our debut as flower girls in 1984 for our cousin Mary Theresa, who had more attendants on the dais than guests at the tables. Our cousins wedding might have been a sacred exchange of vows between a man and a woman, but it was also a show, with costumes, choreography, and special lighting, making the bride the star and the groom the grip.

Mary T. considers herself Italian-American royalty, so she had the Knights of Columbus form a crossing guard for our entrance into the Starlight Venetian Room.

The knights were regal in their tuxedos, red sashes, black capes, and tricornered hats with the marabou plumes. I took my place behind the other girls in the procession as the band played Nobody Does It Better, but I turned around to run away as the knights held up their swords to form a canopy. Aunt Feen grabbed me and gave me a shove. I closed my eyes, gripped my bouquet, and bolted under the blades like I was running for sane.

Despite my fear of sharp and clanging objects, I fell in love with Leonards that day. It was my first Italian formal. I couldnt wait to grow up and emulate my mother and her friends who drank Harvey Wallbangers in cut-crystal tumblers while wearing silver sequins from head to toe. When I was nine years old, I thought Leonards had class. Never mind that from the passing lane on Northern Boulevard it looks like a white stucco casino on the French Riviera by way of Long Island. For me, Leonards was a House of Enchantments.

The La Dolce Vita experience begins when you pull up to the entrance. The wide circular driveway is a dead ringer for Jane Austens Pemberley and also resembles the valet stand at Neiman Marcus, outside the Short Hills mall. This is the thing about Leonards: everywhere you look, it reminds you of elegant places you have already been. The two-story picture windows are reminiscent of the Metropolitan Opera House, while the tiered fountain is strictly Trevi. You almost believe youre in the heart of Rome until you realize the cascading water is actually drowning out the traffic on I-495.

The landscaping is a marvel of botanical grooming, with boxwood sheared into long rectangles, low borders of yew, privet hedges in cropped ovals, and bayberry sculpted into twirly ice-cream-cone shapes. The manicured shrubs are set in beds of shiny river stones, an appropriate pre-motif to the ice sculptures that tower over the raw bar inside.

The exterior lights suggest the strip in Las Vegas, but its far more tasteful here, as the bulbs are recessed, giving the place a low, twinkling glow. Topiaries shaped like crescent moons flank the entrance doors. Beneath them, low meatball bushes serve as a base for the birds-of-paradise, which pop out of the shrubs like cocktail umbrellas.

The band plays Burning Down the House as I take a moment to catch my breath in the ladies lounge. Im alone for the first time on my sister Jaclyns wedding day and I like it. Its been a long one. Im holding the tension of the entire family in the vertebrae of my neck. When I marry, I will elope to city hall because my bones cant take the pressure of another Roncalli wedding extravaganza. Id miss the beer-battered shrimp and the pt rillettes, but Id survive. The months of planning this wedding nearly gave me an ulcer, and the actual execution bestowed on my right eye a pulsating tic that could only be soothed by holding a frozen teething ring I bogarted from cousin Kitty Calzettis baby after the Nuptial Mass. Despite the agita, its a wonderful day, because Im happy for my baby sister, who I remember holding, like a Capodimonte rose, on the day she was born.

I hold my martini-shaped evening bag covered in sequins (the wedding-party gift from the bride) up to the mirror and say, Id like to thank Kleinfeld of Brooklyn, who knocked off Vera Wang to strapless perfection. And Id like to thank Spanx, the girdle genius, who turned my pear shape into a surfboard. I move closer to the mirror and check my teeth. It aint an Italian wedding without clams casino dusted in parsley flakes, and you know where those end up.

My professional makeup job provided (at half price) by the brides best friends sister-in-law, Nancy DeNoia, is really holding up. She did my face at around eight oclock this morning, and its now supper time but I still look fresh. Its the powder. Banane by LeClerc, my older sister, Tess, said. And she knows: she was matte through two childbirths. We have the pictures to prove it.

This morning, my sisters, our mother, and I sat on folding chairs in front of Moms Golden Age of Hollywood mirror in the bedroom of their Tudor in Forest Hills, pretty (almost) maids all in a row.

Look at us, my mother said, lifting her face out of her neck, like a turtle. We look like sisters.

We are sisters, I reminded her as I looked at my actual sisters in the glass. My mother looked hurt. and youyoure our teen mother.

Lets not go that far. My sixty-one-year-old mother, named Michelina after her father, Michael (everyone calls my mom Mike), with her heart-shaped face, wide-set brown eyes, and full lips glazed the color of a terra-cotta pot looked smugly into the mirror. My mother is the only woman I know who arrives fully made up for the makeup artist.

The Roncalli sisters, minus our eldest sibling and only brother, Alfred (aka the Pill), and Dad (called Dutch), are an open-all-night, girls-only club. We are best friends who share everything, with two exceptions: we never discuss our sex lives or bank accounts. We are bound together by tradition, secrets, and our mothers flat iron.

The bond was secured when we were small. Mom created Just Us Girls field trips; shed schlep us to a Nettie Rosenstein retrospective at FIT, or to our first Broadway show, night, Mother. As Mom hustled us out of the theater, she said, Who knew shed kill herself at the end? concerned that shed scarred us for life. We saw the world through Moms elegant opera glasses. Every year, the week before Christmas, she took us to the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel for holiday tea. After we filled up on fluffy scones smothered in clotted cream and raspberry jam, wed take our picture, in matching outfits, including Moms, of course, under the portrait of Eloise.

When Rosalie Signorelli Ciardullo started selling mineral powder makeup out of her trunk, guess who Mom volunteered as traveling models? Tess (dry), me (oily), and Jaclyn (sensitive). Mom modeled for the thirty to thirty-nine age group, never mind that she was fifty-three years old at the time.