Call Me Darling

Chapter Four

"Stop spinning around, Angelica, you're making your old papa dizzy just watching!" Mr. Martinelli reached out and placed his hand on Angie's shoulder. She stopped, blinking until the world righted itself, and grinned at him.

"Always a little girl in twirly dresses," her father said, tweaking her cheeks with affection.

"It's just so pretty," Angie said, glancing down at the white house dress with its bright blue flowers, and the skirt that floated out around her as she moved.

"Ma could make you a dress out of a paper bag and you'd still say 'it's so pretty,'" Ezio mocked, and Angie stuck her tongue out at him.

"I never make Angie a dress out of paper bag!" Mama called from the kitchen before Angie could retort. "Only the best for my babies."

Angie smiled broadly then, settling onto the couch and patting Ezio's knee when he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Her parents' apartment – a little bigger than the two bedroom Angie had grown up in, but not by much – was warm from the wall heater and the oven in the kitchen, and also possibly due to all of the people shoved into the living room. Ezio and Salvatore had brought their wives, two delightful, proper Italian girls that Angie had adored from the moment she'd met them. Franco's girlfriend had nearly given Mama a heart attack when she'd revealed that she was Jewish, but Mama had fallen in love just as hard as Franco when she'd asked Mama to teach her how to cook. Lounging alone in the corner near the tree, wearing his Howling Commandos vest, was Luca, the only Martinelli child who still lived at home. Marino was animatedly talking boxing with him; Angie knew that Papa didn't like her brother's "hobby," but it seemed to make him happy and brought him some extra cash he could use to take his newest girlfriend to the movies.

It wasn't a fancy house, Angie reflected. The wood floor was scratched and scuffed; the tile was coming up in places in the kitchen. There was old, faded wallpaper and the Christmas tree really couldn't qualify as a tree. But Angie's family sat on the floor and on worn furniture, with brightly-colored wrapping paper scattered around them, and Angie knew she was home. The sights and sounds of them all together was as familiar to her as breathing, even the newest addition of Sophia and Elene and Ruth. The ritual of her family was as important to Angie as the Christmas Eve mass they'd all attended the night before: she knew that Ezio would tease her about anything and everything; that Franco would sit quietly taking it all in; that Luca, only a year older than his sister, still had a boyish charm that made him seem far younger. She couldn't help but smile at her Papa, who was sat in his favorite chair next to the radio, calmly puffing from his brand-new pipe with a proud look on his face.

He may have only worked in a butcher shop, but the legacy he and his wife would be leaving their children was something far greater than money.

Angie wiggled her toes, clad in the new slippers Franco had given her, and sighed happily. She'd be going back to the Griffith with her new dress, new slippers, the pink pajamas Franco and Ruth had given her (and that Luca had laughed at), a few other little things... and a full stomach. That was the part Angie liked the most. Her mouth was watering with all the enticing smells coming from the kitchen. There was no turkey for this Christmas; no, Mama brought in the pan of lasagna, Ruth following close behind with heated cheeks and a plate full of bread.

The boys cheered and Angie laughed, and wondered if Peggy had ever had a Christmas dinner such as this.

She pushed that thought out of her mind, accepting Ezio's offered hand, and he tugged her to her feet.

"Save some lasagna for the rest of us, okay, Angie?"

"No way," she declared, pushing him to the table. "It's all mine, brother dear."