CHAPTER TWO.

A Tudor in Tumult Besides the Villa di Crespi, the place where I feel most at home is the church of Our Lady of Fatima, a glorious Gothic structure that sits on top of the hill above town. Every Saturday afternoon I can be found here, dressing the altar with linens and flowers for the weekend services. My church was built in 1899 with monies raised by the first wave of Italian immigrants, shepherded by the Diocese of Trenton, which has always been known for its ambitious building projects and deep pockets.

The church, with an exterior of marble (imported from Italy) and sandstone (strictly local), has always been a mecca to me. When I was a boy waiting for Mama to pick me up from school, I would stand across the street and study the details of the facade, thrilled by the gargoyles nestled in the spires and mesmerized by the rose window, which seemed to spin in the light like a bejeweled wheel.

Whenever I enter its cool, dark interior, I feel an overwhelming sense of peace; it has always been this way for me. More than a few people in my family thought that I would become a priest, since I served nearly every Mass as an altar boy and never missed a holy day of obligation. What boy misses basketball practice to make a novena? Since 1962, I've been the only male voice in the choir. I have also been volunteer chair of the Altar and Flower Committee for nineteen years. I believe in giving back.

While the bachelor aspect of the priesthood was appealing, the poverty requirement seemed impossible. I love my suits and china too much to give them up. Also, my mother threatened to kill herself if I became a priest, and when you're the only son and a change-of-life baby, you try to add to your mother's longevity, not cut it short. I abided by her wishes, and she lived to be eighty-five and died in her sleep. I attribute this to my having done my best to make her happy. Sacrifice never hurt anybody-certainly not me.

As I push open the heavy brass door, I am met with the buttery perfume of beeswax candles, sweet smoke, and Lemon Pledge-an elixir that brings me back to the 1940s, pagan babies, and velvet knee pants (mine) with one whiff. I straighten the church bulletins on the entry table. When I notice they are last week's, I take the stack with me. I enter the nave, then dip my fingers into the cold, clear holy-water font, blessing myself and then kissing my hand, remembering my parents, grandparents, favorite aunts and uncles, all dead.

The clerestory windows fill the pews with afternoon light that turns to streams of pale blue around the altar. I become calm in God's house, and it has always been this way for me. The place is filled with soft light and sweet silence, much as I imagine heaven to be.

Behind the choir loft, the rose window makes a runner of pink light down the aisle that disappears at the gold-leafed Communion railing. Stained-glass windows, depicting scenes of miracles performed by saints, line the church walls like giant playing cards. Some of the windows are propped open at the bottom, leaving the occasional saint without feet.

A fresco behind the main altar, painted by local amateur Michael Menecola during the 1920s, peels with age. It depicts the miracle at Fatima, where three village children in rural Portugal were said to have seen Mary, the Mother of God. The mural dramatizes the precise moment on May 13, 1917, when the Blessed Virgin appeared to little Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta in the sky over a field where they were tending sheep.

I know many boys who fell in love with the face and form of this rendition of the Blessed Mother, hovering overhead like an angelic movie star. There were plenty of girls who tried to model themselves after her. The Holy Mother's clear, creamy golden skin and wet blue eyes look up to heaven in complete supplication. There is something almost dreamy about her. My mother told me that the Blessed Lady's pencil-thin eyebrows had all the girls in OLOF plucking to match them. The girls would light a wooden match, blow out the flame, and, with the charred end of the stick, draw thin arches over their own brows. Instant glamour.

I walk down the aisle and genuflect before the altar, then make my way to the sacristy, the small room where the priest and servers dress. I check the vestments first.

The priest's white cassock with billowing sleeves and fat hems hangs next to the smaller versions, surplice robes for the altar boys. On separate pegs, braided white satin belts hang in a row like nooses. When I was a boy, I made three knots in my belt in honor of the Holy Trinity. I remember another altar boy, Vinnie de Franco, a real cut-up, who used to make two knots in his belt, one for Martin and the other for Lewis.

The OLOF sodality does a good job with the spiritual laundry; the heavy cotton vestments are bleached to a bright white and pressed to a crisp. The smell of starch fills the tiny room like a vapor. Hanging to the side of the vestment closet, in a dress bag, are the altar cloths. Attached to the bag is a scrawled note from Nellie Fanelli, laundress to the church. It says: "B: the purificator is in the baggie. N."

I reach into the bottom of the dress bag, and there, just as she promised, is the pressed purificator, the official moppeen of the Mass celebration. The priest uses this starched dish towel to buff the chalice clean at the end of Communion. I take it out and place it on the credence table next to the cruets (for water and wine) and paten, a gold disc with a polished wooden handle held under the chin of the communicant by the altar boy to catch any fragments of the holy wafer that might drop during distribution.

I return to the sacristy and take the rest of the linens to the altar, where I kneel, then rise and carefully dress the marble slab with the snow-white cloth. It takes a touch of maneuvering, just as it does when you set a formal dinner table at home. I return to the sacristy and take a second cloth off the hanger, the smaller one known as the corporal, which is like a place mat on the altar for the chalice and paten.

I move the squat candles on their flat brass holders from the credence table to the altar. One candle has burned down haphazardly, probably from a draft, so I trim it with my pocketknife so it matches its mate. I walk around to the front of the altar to check the hems and placement. There is a large spray of pink gladioli and waxy green leaves behind the altar. I trim off a few dead leaves and arrange the flowers. Much better.

"Bartolomeo?" Father Porporino's gravelly voice says from the doorway.

"Yes, Father?" My voice squeaks. I was raised to be in awe of priests, and therefore was always scared of them. After all, they held the keys to my salvation. The last thing I wanted them to do was drop those keys down a sewer hole, so I always did my best to be perfect in their eyes. Still do.

"Father, I noticed the church bulletins are old." I hand him the stack from last week. Father Porp looks like a slim Mario Lanza with his full head of wavy gray hair and nice teeth.

"I haven't put the new ones out yet."

"Is there a problem? Marie Cascario said we need a new mimeograph machine."

"Marie needs to learn how to operate the thing. I'll put them out later."

I smooth the hem of the altar cloth. "Father, I was having dinner at Aurelia Mandelbaum's, and she told me about the renovation of the church."

"And?" He looks at me.

"Well, I'd like to come and talk to you about it sometime." Father does not respond, just looks at me, so I fill up the silence with babble. "You see, I have a lot of ideas, and I've already spoken to some of the members of the parish council. I could make this holy place dazzle." I think I see Father raise an eyebrow, but it's hard to tell in the slowly vanishing light. "I could come by next week, if that's all right. If that's not good, you can call me and we'll set up another time." Father Porp looks down the main aisle as though he's searching for something. I feel the creeping warmth of humiliation overtake me. I do what I always do when someone makes me feel uncomfortable. I chirp. "Well, see you at Mass, Father." I close my hand around the wax shards and rotten leaf stems I've collected and genuflect a final time. Father goes back into the sacristy. I shiver.

A beam of bright white light fills the foyer as Zetta Montagna pushes the brass door open. She wears a chapel veil studded with jet beads, even though head coverings for women went out with Vatican II. Once the chapel veils came off, the guitar Masses came in. No more Latin, no more fish on Fridays, and bareheaded women are no longer an affront to God.

Zetta's slim frame casts a long pencil-like shadow down the aisle. She is probably the most important person in our church besides Father Porp. Zetta is president of the sodality, the women's group that maintains the church, plans all the receptions, and sponsors the annual Cadillac Dinner, the fund-raiser for the Fatima elementary and middle schools. She is also the widowed mother of nine children, all of them grown, two of them doctors, and one, alas, a drug addict somewhere out west. Her beloved husband keeled over of a heart attack at the age of thirty-four, leaving her to raise all those children on her own. She is a woman who does not wear the tragedy of her life in any way; she always looks fresh and stylish. She might be sixty but looks fifteen years younger. She genuflects at the Communion rail.

"Hello, B. The altar looks lovely."

"Thank you."

"Who did the glads?"

"Fleurs of Fatima." I make a face.

"Awful," she agrees.

"I know. I trimmed them up. But you can't really balance glads and waxy leaves and wind up with a decent arrangement."

"Were the vestments all right?"

"Perfect."

"I worry. Nellie's eyesight is going."

"Well, she can still handle a hot iron," I reassure her. "Zetta, I hope you don't think this is bold of me . . ."

"What is it, B?"

"Father is going through with the renovation of the church, and I wondered if you could put a good word in for me."

"To do the design?"

"Yes."

"Of course I will."

"I'd appreciate it," I tell her.

"You're a devoted parishioner. I can't imagine a better choice for the job," she says.

With Aurelia Mandelbaum and Zetta Montagna on my side, I'm certain I can overcome Father Porp's unexpected silence on the subject.

Zetta walks over to the alcove next to the side altar and kneels before the statue of Saint Michael. What a saint he was, with his silver doublet and sword hoisted high in the air, his big feet planted firmly on the ground, and his mighty thighs lunging forward to defend the faith. Michael is our Superman, while Saint Theresa of the Little Flower, who hovers on a stand close by in her chocolate-brown nun's habit holding a spray of pink roses, is our Lois Lane. Pray to Saint Michael to save you from harm, and to Saint Theresa for what you want. They have never failed me in either department.

As Zetta makes the sign of the cross and kneels at the statue's feet, I remember that her husband's name was Michael. I feel the tip of my nose heat up, but I take a deep breath, swallowing the tears.

Whenever I see people humble themselves in prayer, I feel something deep within me stir, a sort of charismatic empathy that makes me want to sit down next to them and cry. You can imagine what a minefield of emotion Sunday Mass is for me, with all the kneeling and genuflecting. Perhaps it's best that I became an interior decorator instead of a priest. Who needs to call on Father Weepy when they have a problem? I want my religious leaders strong and at the ready. My temperament is better suited to making art than saving souls.

My first cousin Christina Menecola (related by marriage to Michael Menecola, who painted the church's fresco of the dreamy Virgin Mary) is my favorite relative, which is no small feat, as there are hundreds of di Crespis, not to mention the Crespys, who are related but, after some medieval falling-out, dropped the "di" and later replaced the "i" with a "y," probably because it Americanized them, giving them a leg up in business or when applying to fancy country clubs.

Christina and I have always been close. I was nearly five years old and allowed to be present at the hospital when she was born prematurely. (Not because I was ready to be around childbirth, but because Toot had a date and couldn't be bothered to babysit me, and Daddy had pressing business out of town.) I was ultimately glad for the experience because it gave me my first window into the power of prayer. I remember my mother on her knees in front of the incubator praying for Christina to survive. I also remember the nasty look the nurse shot at me when I asked if they could give the baby a blanket instead of a lightbulb for warmth.

Christina just turned thirty-five. I have a basket of childhood memories with her: collecting shells after the clambake at the Legion Hall, and taking them home, washing them up, and drawing lips on them to create a shell choir; rides on the Scrambler at Asbury Park, where we held hands (afterward, I would throw up and she would laugh); watching the fireworks at the St. Rocco picnic and being hustled back to the station wagon by my mother when the two of us accidentally discovered two teenagers having sex behind the security fence; swimming at the shore; and even starting up an imaginary business in her basement where we sold cement (her father was a bricklayer, so the materials were handy). We called ourselves the Mixmasters.

Christina's mother, Auntie Carmella, was a statuesque knockout who made cheese at the Hodgins dairy in Bradley Beach. She twisted glorious Italian love knots that looked like white satin bows out of fresh mozzarella. She died shortly after my mother, of a massive stroke following a terrible argument with her husband-who has since married Aunt Carmella's hairdresser, a portly blonde named Cha Cha Cerami. The word is they're very happy.

I decorated Christina's home on Cheshire Lane shortly after she married. English Tudors are, by nature, a design challenge because they're so dark and dreary. Most people are tempted to cheer them up with modern furniture, but it's a mistake. Contemporary just winds up looking ridiculous. (Always suit the interiors to the architectural style of the home. It's an obvious concept, but you'd be surprised how many people put a flokati rug in a Victorian or hang Renaissance tapestries in a split-level.) A Tudor with low-slung dormers, wrought-iron details, dark alcoves, and tiny nooks can feel like a claustrophobic dungeon, made creepier by the stucco plaster walls, rounded doorways, and menacing coffered ceilings. Why did Romeo and Juliet kill themselves? Because they lived in depressing English Tudors and couldn't take it another minute!

I brightened up Christina's house with pin lights, paint, and a color scheme of soft corals and earthy greens. Botanicals succeeded in giving it a garden feel. I bleached the dark brown wood floors a sandy off-white and painted the floorboard trims a light, toasty cinnamon color, which perked up the place considerably. You feel like you're entering Sherwood Forest when you walk into this house. I challenge any decorator here or abroad to do better than me with classic English. I may have the soul of an Italian and the joie de vivre of a Frenchman, but I have the classical eye of a Brit.

I went traditional with the fabrics-an array of calicoes in golden yellow (Greeff is the best with fine English prints) and sturdy linen in pale green (Rose Cummings has a knockout Fresh Meadow, #15677)-to offset the coral.

Christina's kitchen was so gloomy you would swear you had just missed the mutton-chop lunch following the guillotine matinee. I yanked all the dark cabinets out and put in a lime-green-and-white hutch, a bright matching dish rack on the wall to display all that wedding china (Haddon Hall by Minton), and lots of shelves covered in natural grass paper. I opened up the room with lots of low, warm, glowing brass lamps placed down the center of a long, rustic farm table. I painted the low-backed benches antique white and put a rocking chair in the corner with a crazy Pucci green paisley cushion and a standing brass lamp. The result is fizzy and fun. My inspiration: a creme de menthe cocktail.

As I pull into the driveway, I see Christina's daughter, Amalia, sitting under the maple tree with books spread around her, paper and scissors in her hands. I love to visit the houses I've decorated unannounced and see my work shining amid the grind of daily life. Amalia hears my car and looks up. She doesn't run to me like she used to; instead, she just looks at me with boredom. Of course, she has hit that age where droll is in and warmth is out. She is twelve.

"You look busy," I call to her as I get out of the car.

Amalia is slender with freckles and long coppery braids. She puts down her scissors and examines a leaf. Her coloring might be Irish, but her black eyes are Italian. "I have a science project. I'm doing a report on indigenous trees of New Jersey. I'm bringing in examples."

"Well, you don't have much of a selection here. You only have maple in your yard."

"I know. I'll copy the shapes in the book and cut the leaves to look like they're from all different trees." She holds up the butchered maple leaves. "See? Elm. Chestnut. Birch."

"Your teacher might notice that the leaves are doctored."

"I don't think so."

"But that's cheating."

"So?"

"Do they still have an honor code at St. Ambrose's Middle School?"

"No one checks."

"Then do what you will," I tell her pleasantly. It's not my problem if my second cousin gets punished by the heinous nuns of St. Ambrose. I did my bit in that POW camp of a school for twelve years. She's on her own.

"You got a new car," she says, looking at my new navy blue Dodge station wagon, fully loaded. The gold family crest underscored with my business's name is painted on the driver's side door. It looks impressive, if I do say so myself. "Why do you call your company the House of B?"

"Because everybody calls me B."

"You should have a flashy name, not just a letter. How about the Prince of Chintz."

"That's taken." New York designer Mario Buatta was lucky that someone anointed him with a catchy title. He's in more magazines than Pat Nixon. "Who died and left you in charge of BusinessWeek?" I ask a little testily. Honestly, if I have to start taking advice from a pipsqueak, I'll quit.

She ignores the comment. "Did you bring me M&M's?"

"Of course." I reach into my portfolio and give Amalia a sack of M&M's. "Where's your mother?"

"Inside." Amalia says. "She's still depressed." She pitches her long braids onto her back. "She's always gonna be depressed."

"Nonsense! Your mother will be back, I promise you. You must have faith."

"Faith? What's that?" She snorts. "God sits up there on a cloud and picks people to die. What a job."

I don't know whether to smack this kid or hug her. I haven't had this kind of philosophical discourse since I studied the essays of Montaigne under Father Otterbacher in the OLOF Catholic-college prep course I took my senior year of high school.

"It's not God's job to make sure everything goes your way," I remind her gently. "I know how hard it is to lose a father-"

"But your dad was old," she interrupts.

"That doesn't mean it didn't hurt."

"Yeah, but you had him around for a long time. Years longer than me. And my dad went fast. A car crash is instant. You can't even compare it." Amalia tries to sound defiant, but she comes off like a scared kid.

I would like to inform her that my father might have had dinner with our family every night, but he never said much to me. I recall no ball throwing, no trips to the movies, and no collecting fabric swatches to help me make uniforms for my iron soldiers.

On Saturday nights, Daddy had a mysterious ritual of getting all dressed up in his best suit. On his way out, smelling of citrus and patchouli, he'd give me a quarter, followed by a kiss on the head. After a quick wave to my mother, he'd climb into his freshly washed (by me) Buick, roll down the window, and say, "I have business up on Blue Mountain. I'll see you in the morning for Mass."

Toot, a teenager at that point, would simply shake her head when I told her Dad went up to Blue Mountain. When I pressed her repeatedly to find out exactly what went on up there in the Poconos, she would say, "You're just a boy. Someday you'll do dirty things like Daddy." That was hardly the explanation I was looking for. Eventually I understood that Blue Mountain was code for "Dad's got a girlfriend."

I loved my father, I just didn't know him very well. When he died, his comare (translation: girlfriend-I notice we use Italian words when we are ashamed, uncomfortable, or exhilarated-let's put Daddy's comare under the shame banner) showed up at the wake with a lily plant and wept into his casket. When my mother realized who she was, she grabbed the plastic pot out of her hands and threw it on the floor. No one said a word, we just went on saying our rosary aloud (sorrowful mystery, of course) while Dutch Schiavone, the funeral director, cleaned up the mess with a whisk broom. Evidently it wasn't the first potted plant that had been tossed during a wake.

I studied the plant lady for the brief moment she was in my presence before Dutch showed her the door. She had shiny lacquered red hair in a chignon that didn't move (even when Ma lunged at her), and no hips. That's how I knew she wasn't Italian. Italian women always have plump, peachy rear ends. My mother did and Toot used to (until it sank), not to mention all my girl cousins who had The Hips. For me, one of the characteristics of ideal feminine beauty is a plush caboose. This lady had none. You could have tucked her ass into the back of her boots.

Her red hair didn't make her a non-Italian, by the way, because all the brunettes in my family go red as they age. You'll never see an Italian woman with gray hair until the lid of her husband's casket is snapped shut. That's the moment she stops dyeing her hair. "What's the use?" my mother said to me when I was shocked to see her black hair turn white so soon after we buried Pop.

"Okay, Amalia, you got me. Your father's death was much worse than mine; you win the Sweepstakes of Suffering. Saint Amalia of the Maple Leaves." Finally she smiles.

"What are you two talking about?" Christina pushes open the screen door and joins us in the yard.

"Death," Amalia says.

"Oh, that." Christina looks at me and rolls her eyes. Christina is a whisper of a thing, but her chestnut-brown hair and black eyes indicate she's one of our tribe. Luckily her nose is razor straight, with no bulb on the tip. She is classically beautiful in every detail. Her lush eyebrows accentuate her almond-shaped eyes like black velvet piping on silk. "Toot called. I'm in charge of stuffed artichokes for your birthday party."

I can't respond, I'm so annoyed.

"Sorry, was it a surprise?"

"No, no surprise. I don't want a party, that's all. And my sister never gives me what I want. Now, if I wanted a party, you can bet I'd be sitting home twiddling my thumbs come May thirteenth."

Christina smiles. "You know what she calls me now? Honest to God, she called and said, Cousin Christina The Widow! As if that's my name!"

"Better to be Christina The Widow than Rosemary With The Lupus. Now, that's a nickname a girl can never shake, short of a cure. I'm taking a ride into the city. You want to go?"

"No, thanks."

There was a time when Christina would grab her purse, jump into the car, and come into Manhattan to shop for clients with me. She'd leave baby Amalia with her husband and we'd go. She was so spontaneous, we'd laugh all the way through the Holland Tunnel, have a quick bite in Little Italy, then head up the East Side to Scalamandre's to find the perfect taffeta. I can't tell you how much I miss our day trips. "I'm losing patience with you!" I say, trying to lighten the mood but not succeeding.