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  The second floor sported three bedrooms and one bathroom, to be shared by the remaining six Mangiarmi’s. The immediate plan was to add a three piece bath in the attic space. There was a powder room on the main floor along with a large, eat-in kitchen, formal dining room, smallish den and a sizable living room. The basement was only partially finished but Massimo had already drawn up a design to add studs, a vapor-barrier, insulation, electrical outlets, pot lights, a three-piece bath and a summer kitchen, which he thought would round-out the house, providing more than enough space for parties and other social gatherings. He couldn’t have been happier; he ignored the debt he would be incurring while allowing himself to feel the pride of home ownership.

  Massimo’s intentions had not only been to redesign their living space to meet their collective needs, but also to teach his children discipline and patience by demonstrating the necessity of methodological execution, one minute process at a time. It took seven long years to complete the entire renovation after which Antonia insisted that the outdated kitchen be ripped to its studs and remodeled with a better, more efficient layout. The boys broke out their sketch pads and rulers and drew up the design, showing it to an ecstatic and proud Massimo Sr. They methodically laid out which sections of cabinetry each one would fabricate, hanging them with precision, laying ceramic tile over the cement underlayment, and giving her an island, replete with a bull-nosed granite slab and vegetable sink, that she had not even requested but one that immediately won her heart.

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  Massimo expected an ancillary benefit of his children’s newly acquired technical skills to be assurance that one day they’d be able to effect repairs in their own homes, not having to pay exorbitant fees to another craftsman, bypassing that expense and putting their money to better use. His wish was eclipsed on the day that his sons advised him they were going to establish a family construction business. They had reluctantly resigned themselves to naming their company John Max Construction, the Americanized derivation of their given names, rather than the Mangiarmi Brothers, as neither one wanted to spend the remainder of his professional life trying to convince people that their company name was not meant as a joke.

  Massimo Jr. felt especially proud to have solely established the corporate structure of the construction company and then become the successful co-owner of a business that managed to turn a tidy profit by the time he turned twenty-five. He deferred his ambition to kick-start the company until Giovanni graduated from high school so as advised by Marcella and Antonia, decided to spend those two years earning an Associates degree in Business Administration. Time well spent, was how Marcella argued in its favor. While Giovanni was listed as his fifty-fifty partner, his effortless charm and disarmingly good looks allowed him to serve as the forward facing, better looking, more creative and persuasive sales side of the equation, equally dedicated to building their company into a mini empire but insisting that they focus their efforts on kitchens and baths because that’s where the money was and an area in which their talents could readily shine through. Anyway, he reasoned, not many people possessed the multi-discipline skill set necessary to renovate either one so they’d be able to charge a premium and would always have plenty of work. Plus, they could hone their proficiency if they kept a narrow focus.

  Once the brothers recovered from the sticker shock over the outrageous cost of securing liability insurance, they were able to, with the help of their parents, purchase a truck and create a realistic budget that factored in every expense they were likely to incur. Antonia acted as their part-time receptionist, relaying messages from clients and vendors alike, setting up appointments with prospective clients while managing their expectations given the staffing issues they faced, remaining current with code requirement changes and working closely with vendors to ensure her boys received the best possible pricing for materials and equipment. All four men provided her with hands-on tutorials in which the names of the plumbing mechanics, parts and equipment, various construction materials, diagrams and narratives on exactly how kitchens and bathrooms are constructed and problems that can arise, so that she could intelligently respond to queries, complaints or requests without overpromising their services or discarding new business.

  Realizing that his boys’ business venture was beginning to take root as a serious enterprise, with contracts extending six-months into the future, Massimo Sr. was finally comfortable with taking an early retirement from the waste treatment plant and agreeing to become an adjunct employee of John Max Construction Inc. He agreed to work with the boys four days per week, not to exceed ten hours per day, at a respectable hourly rate; he also agreed to allow the boys to work under his master plumbers license but admonished them that they’d better hurry and secure their own since he didn’t expect to work or live forever, in that order.

  Already in his fifties, with thirty-plus years of working to fill someone else’s pockets, he thought long and hard about how to improve the quality of his life and that of his family’s. He’d managed to move up in both responsibility and pay scale at the waste treatment plant but the extensive hierarchy at the unionized plant prevented him from enjoying much independence of movement, a restriction that began to make him weary and fatigued. Antonia’s insistence that they maintain discipline over their finances allowed him not only to have amassed a sizable retirement fund, but also to have paid off the mortgage in fifteen years’ time. Under those conditions, he was afforded the relative luxury of comfortably bidding a final adieu to the plant and working with his sons – like old times but now they’d actually be getting paid for their efforts; he nicknamed the salary he would be receiving from John Max Construction, as cake. When Massimo Jr. apprised him of the bonus structure, to be paid out if John Max earned over a specified profit margin, his heart nearly exploded with pride.

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  Massimo’s prized memories revolved around the times he spent with his family, especially the weekends after having purchased the house, hunkering down in the makeshift workshop in their two car garage with his father and his boys to work through a structural problem while designing the reconfiguration of structural beams, pipes and ductwork that would allow the house to become more functionally suitable for its eight occupants. He tried desperately to include Toni and Marcella but Marcella’s attention was always diverted to the kitchen to concoct a new dessert – his little mad scientist as he had nicknamed her, and although Toni was amenable to assisting, her interest was nominal, preferring instead to read or watch television, so was more an extra pair of hands than someone whose input was crucial to the successful completion of any project. Overall, they worked well as a team, only infrequently arguing but always able to set aside their disagreements to share a meal together during which they would discuss the matter far more calmly. Antonia soon realized that their work day had to be apportioned to include periodic food breaks; their collective calm was disrupted far more easily when they were hungry.

  Marcella made a pointed joke by employing the adage, ‘all work and no play’, as an attempted admonishment to her father, the slave-driver, that he was pushing her brothers too hard. He took the criticism to heart so suggested that they allocate one weekend per month in which he, his father and the boys would do something just for fun, fishing being their number one leisure activity of choice. He toyed with the idea of purchasing a fairly sizable boat with a sleeper cabin but became shocked at the outrageous expense of it so opted instead for a slightly used twenty-foot center counsel fishing boat with a 90 hp motor that allowed them to cast their rods in the ocean while enjoying the comfort and privacy of their own space. Antonia would pack breakfast and lunch in a cooler in hopes that if they were well fed, no one would get tossed off of the boat plus, they’d have a better chance of returning from each trip with enough fish to feed the family for a few weeks.

  The boys cherished the time spent with their father and grandfather as they were provided with a safe, supportive environment in which to explore and develop
their individual competencies. Neither elder was so insecure as to have a need to tamp-down the boys’ burgeoning prowess; they looked forward to mentoring the boys, believing it to be their responsibility to impart life lessons that would add value to the boys’ lives once they became men and started families of their own. Early on, Massimo identified his namesake as a serious young man whereas his youngest was a glib, free-spirited jokester – much like he was in his youth. He marveled at how his boys, only two years apart, could be so different in temperament from each another. He worked diligently at hiding his natural inclination to favor his youngest son.

  Giovanni possessed an abundance of artistic ability, a quality he attributed to his self-purported status of ‘family love-child’. He had been the product of his parent’s unabashed passion while enjoying the better part of one summer in Italy. Massimo and Antonia had decided to bite the financial bullet and splurge for an extended vacation in their native Italy, not having been back since they both left in their youth. They defrayed costs by staying with his relatives, who resided just outside of Naples. She would have preferred staying in Calabria at the home of her parents because she missed them terribly and also as she believed, rightly so, that the environment would be far safer for the children, but the accommodations would not have afforded them with sufficient privacy to become amorous outside of their children’s field of vision, so Naples it was.

  Toni and Marcella were old enough to have found the environment exciting and bustling, and offering a vast array of gastronomic pleasures the freshness and variety of which they had not experienced to the same extent in Bensonhurst; they were wide-eyed and curious about everything. Massimo Jr. was still a barely ambulatory little jelly bean so required very little by way of special handling. Every introduction with each new relative was met with a strong cheek-pinch, an almost suffocating hug and a piece of fruit.

  Old world traditions were alive and thriving in many New York neighborhoods as its diversity of nationalities provided an unparalleled primer into any culture or culinary inclination imaginable but in Bensonhurst, and its preponderance toward all things Italian, the Mangiarmi’s were allowed to remain squarely in their comfort zone. They found a similar pocket of compatriots in Eltingville, but with ‘others’ ever-encroaching on the neighborhood’s periphery, they knew it would be only a matter of time before their tiny enclave fell victim to the inevitability of ethnic diversification. They were still able to obtain indigenous food stuffs from several local grocers but their palates never lost their ability to distinguish between an accurate tasting of individual recipes, and a second-best, thousands of miles removed, rendering. So many of those imported foodstuffs lost their pungent bite after suffering through such lengthy transportation; those flavors were rediscovered anew during their trip to Italy.

  Toni and Marcella made their parents laugh uproariously each time they became wide-eyed with wonder after discovering new foods or ones whose freshness was unparalleled when being plucked directly from the tree in its state of perfect ripeness; the day that they discovered and fawned over the taste of rabbit stew, fresh figs and tree-ripened olives solidified their reputations as true Italians in the hearts of their extended relatives, which prompted the family to be offered an open invitation to return every year – kids in tow.

  During a visit to Antonia’s parents in Catanzaro, a city in the southern province of Calabria, for which Massimo borrowed his cousins car to make the trip rather than suffer through a transit system in which the trains may or may not arrive, Marcella, being all of eight years old, experienced a gastronomic epiphany after being deposited into a grove of fig trees. After eating one and salivating so much that she nearly had a choking fit, she plucked down as many as her apron could hold and ran into the house, immediately placing the figs into a ceramic bowl, smashing them, then requesting, nay almost demanding, whatever preserves they had – she claimed a preference for red fruits, dates if they had any, flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla, lard, dark chocolate and walnuts. Antonia had been watching from the doorway, alternately crying and laughing at how adorable, how utterly focused her daughter was. She was able to control herself long enough to help Marcella knead the dough and spoon out that mixture between thinly rolled-out four-by-four cutouts that, after baking, she then covered with a thick, sugar-based icing, topping it off with round candy confections.

  Although Antonia helped with the kneading and heavy lifting and suggested the best order in which to combine the ingredients, dry first, then wet, and made measurement corrections where necessary, she allowed Marcella to decide on the ingredients and flavor additions, the request for Tahitian vanilla extract forcing a bellowing laugh from deep within that she found impossible to suppress – much to the dismay of poor little Marcella, who hadn’t quite learned to appreciate the distinction between laughter saturated with love and that of ridicule.

  After taking her first mouth-watering bite, Antonia put the pastry down and scooped up a shocked Marcella, holding her tightly, kissing her head while repeating ‘bella mia, bella mia’. The treats were devoured by the family so quickly that by the time Toni returned from her tree climbing expedition with her cousin Bartolomeo, all that was left was the one quarter of Antonia’s cookie she had saved for her voracious namesake. Toni gobbled it up and as she washed it down with an orangiata, told Marcella that was the best thing she’d ever eaten. Antonia and Toni were soon to become Marcella’s taste testers, Toni’s girth suffering as a result whereas Antonia’s metabolism seemed perfectly suited to the efficient elimination of extra calories without allowing them to take up permanent residence on her butt, hips or thighs.

  Learning about the myriad methodologies for the preparation and creation of baked delectables, and that minor variations could produce significant differences in taste, texture and visual presentation, took shape during that first summer in Italy. Marcella had never before heard of or eaten the Italian pastry known as cucidati, so was considered to be some kind of pastry savant for having ‘invented’ a variation of it, carrying that moniker with her well into adulthood. Her future creations were never anything less than intensely flavorful, texturally sensual and visually appealing, the combination of which coupled with her attention to detail would make her a highly desirable commodity in numerous commercial kitchens.

  In retrospect, that summer vacation in Italy sealed Marcella’s decision to pursue a career as a pastry chef. Her mother also considered it a foregone conclusion so proudly started an educational fund that would pay for Marcella to attend the best possible culinary institution, and with every one-hundred dollar increment, would squeeze Marcella’s chubby cheeks and request that she prepare desert for the family’s Sunday meal. Marcella would always associate pastry with love; what most people didn’t realize about her was that when she graced their home with one of her personal creations, she was actually giving that person a piece of herself.

  Gene was the one to have initially made that discovery, bringing it to her attention for the first time. He knew that she would accept his proposal of marriage after she brought to his apartment for their first shared effort, home-cooked meal together, the most sensuous series of mini cakes he had ever laid eyes or tongue on. They were meticulously crafted works of food art so before he allowed a fork to ruin their beauty, he pulled out his best camera and snapped several artistically rendered pictures, some with her gracing the frame, others capturing only the cakes. He was relieved to already have the engagement ring in his possession as he simply could not have let her leave his apartment without placing that ring on her finger. Marcella knew he was the right man for her from their first date. She looked forward not only to living her life with the man of her dreams but also to changing her last name. Marcella Agapi – she couldn’t marry him quickly enough.

  During their Italian summer vacation, Toni and Marcella managed to hone their conversational Italian with an impressive ease. The adults would simply sit back on comfortable chairs while nib
bling wine-soaked peaches and beam like the proud parents they were, listening to their precious little American daughters navigate the lexical landscape like naturals, even while making the inevitable idiomatic faux pas. Toni and Marcella also grew rather fond of wine, peaches notwithstanding, a taste their parents were more than happy to oblige them to continue once they returned stateside, never mentioning to anyone outside of the family that they allowed their eight and four year old daughters to imbibe a few ounces of red wine with each Sunday meal.

  Concerned that his daughters might lose that most precious gift of a second language, especially one indigenous to their cultural heritage, Massimo Sr. declared Sundays to be Italian-only day, a tradition that lasted into present day. Toni and Marcella especially loved having mock-arguments in Italian because even the most vulgar comments sounded so wonderfully mellifluous, as to be rendered perfectly innocuous. Their cousins had provided them with a trove of idiomatic insults, mostly involving ones mother or sister, but also a series of perfectly vulgar reflexive verbs and other sundry expressions one should never repeat in a civilized environment.

  One evening, not long after returning from their vacation, Massimo and Antonia were sitting on their postage stamp sized back deck relaxing after a rather long, hot day of non-stop work; they watched as Toni walked past them, holding at eye-level a rubber duckie she intended to bring with her into the kids’ plastic wading pool, looking intently at it with one raised eyebrow and employing an interrogative inflection as she demanded to know, ‘che catso hai fatto?’ in her squeaky little voice.

  They had to run back into the house to prevent her from witnessing them fall to the floor, heavy with irrepressible laughter. Nonna had also overheard from the kitchen window but merely shook her head disapprovingly. She had been advised early on by her son not to interfere with how he and his wife chose to raise their children. Antonia was the alpha male of the house, easily intimidating everyone, but their child-rearing decisions were always mutually agreed upon. She spoke with Toni the next day about curtailing her usage of that crude expression. It wasn’t until Toni was much older that she understood why her mother spoke with a barely concealed smile the entire time she was being scolded.