Gina's Gift
Gina’s Gift by Timothy J. Dewey
copyright 2006
The view from the train might as well have been open ocean as far as the eye could see. I look at it, but I don’t see it. I just see her. Not the way she looks now, but the way she looked when she visited our home in New Mexico.
My cousin Rick, not at all familiar with how to handle news of this nature, left me a message on my answering machine. “Hey, Nick, Gina is dead… natural stuff. Hell, she was what, eighty something?” You get the picture. I must have stood there for fifteen minutes looking at the machine and the little red light, remembering. I wasn’t sad about the news, just sad for the fact that I never got a chance to see her where she lived.
Gina is my grandma. We call her by her first name because it carries something fresh within it, like a rose or something, a spark of life you wouldn’t expect in your grandma. Gina loved the city of San Francisco, her home for fifty or sixty years. She lived there by herself for much of that. Her husband, my grandfather, died before I was born, and I am thirty-four.
Now Gina has extended the invitation to me to come see her since I was twelve years old and able to fly on my own. But when I’m a kid we don’t have the cash to be flying out to Cali for little Nicky to visit his grandma. I had a good childhood, but we weren’t flush with funds. Now I am self-employed for the last ten years, computer networking, and go all over the western states, but never made it to Gina’s, not once. It’s not that I hadn’t tried to, or at least thought about it, but things happen. The job runs too long, another comes along back-to-back, girlfriend calls to tell you she is moving out as we speak, things happen.
Now here I am, on a train to the city to see where Gina lives. I spent three hours taking the one-hour flight from Vegas, where I live and work, to San Jose where Gina’s lawyer has relocated. There was a reading of the will about an hour ago. I didn’t care for it.
My cousins, I don’t really know them. There are three of them. Two that show up, one is in Somalia or Ethiopia or someplace like this with the Peace Corps.
The two that showed up were not Gina’s favorites by any means. I was her favorite. How do I know this without having seen her face to face for twenty years? One word… letters. I sent Gina a letter every month. I was religious about sending her those letters since I was eight years old. She knew as much about my current events and me as I did with hers. And in every letter she sends me back is a little red flower… a friendship flower she calls it. She says she only gives those to her special friends. I doubt the cousins ever saw one from her, and if they did they probably smoked it.
My cousins, they saw her as a bag of money that they couldn’t keep their hands out of. She wasn’t rich by any means, but when her husband died his life insurance went into the hands of some pretty savvy investment counselors that were friendly towards Gina. Needless to say, the original investments paid, and she parlayed that into a pretty nice nest-egg.
Now Gina doesn’t spend a lot. She lives in the same apartment, owned by the same landlord, for forty years. He isn’t trying to make it rich off of his tenants, and they all are like family. So she has some funds to spread around to the relatives. I saw plenty of it in birthday cards and little gifts here and there, but I never asked her for any of it. The cousins on the other hand were constantly playing her for a few hundred here for bills; a couple of thousand for a car they had to have for “school”. Hell, if these guys were in school as much as they claimed they would be doctors and lawyers by now. But no, David manages a video store and Rick is an unemployed roofer at the moment.
At the reading they both smile ear to ear when the lawyer hands them the manila envelopes from Gina’s estate. I even see a tear in Ricky’s eye, but I don’t think it is for her. Ricky is probably crying out of relief that he can pay back a little money he borrowed from the wrong people. He had tried to shake me down for a grand for the same reason a while back. I didn’t have it, but even if I did I wouldn’t have given it to him. Notice I didn’t say lend it to him.
Me, I don’t get an envelope from the lawyer. Instead he hands me a letter, written on Gina’s stationary, that and a bowling bag.
“What’s in the bowling bag? Gina doesn’t bowl.”
The lawyer leans forward in his chair and motions toward the sealed envelope.
“It’s all in the letter, Nick. Read the letter and then we will talk about it.”
The cousins both stand. Ricky wipes his eyes.
“We, uh… we’re done here, aren’t we?”
The lawyer looks at them, a flash of contempt in his eyes at their disregard for Gina’s memory. He had been her friend for almost twenty years, and knew how much she loved her family. He is sure it wasn’t reciprocated by these two.
“Yes, unless you want to know what is going to happen with Gina’s ashes?”
“Hey, she’s gone, you know. I’m not much for visiting cemeteries. I’ll keep her here.” He pats his chest. It sounds hollow. With that he and David slip out of the office and leave me and the lawyer to talk.
The letter is in Gina’s hand, written three years ago. It is a request for me to take her ashes to the city, to her apartment. There I will receive instructions on where to spread them. There is also a check. The lawyer says it is twice what the cousins took home. He tells me that they had gone to her so many times that she had already let them spend a lot of their inheritance.
“I didn’t read anything about the bowling bag.”
The lawyer smiled and hefts it up to the top of the old oak desk.
“Gina.” He says with a smile as he unzips it and pulls a container out of the canvas and imitation leather. It is not ornamental at all, not like the pretty urns you see in movies. It looks more like a thermos.
The lawyer can see the question forming, “Yes, it’s a thermos. She wants you to spread her ashes in the city, Nick, and she doesn’t want you to get in trouble doing it.”
From the train station it’s a fifteen-minute cab ride to Chestnut Street and Gina’s apartment. Before you know it I’m standing in the street with Gina in hand, a daypack slung over my shoulder, looking up at the window boxes on the top floor, her apartment. The street noise is heavy, but seems blocks away. Here it is a little less hectic, a little more trees, a gentle breeze that carries aromas and sounds that never find their way to my senses in Vegas. The tang of seawater, a hint of garlic, baking bread and fresh roasted coffee, it all mingles with the exhaust of my departing Yellow Cab.
I buzz the door into the courtyard until I hear a voice calling to me from inside. “On my way. Keep your pants on and your finger off that button.”
From around the corner comes the old man, Tilly. I know it was him from Gina’s letters. She had a thing with him once. I think Ike was President then. They remained friends all along, and now here he is, in the flesh.
“Hey, Tilly, I’m… “
“Nicky, I know who you are. I couldn’t make it through the day without her showing me a picture of you.” He unlocks the gate and it swings open with a squeal. Tilly draws the can of WD-40 like a gunfighter and hits the hinges with a couple of squirts. “Damn sea air.” I wait for him to twirl it back into tool belt. It doesn’t happen.
He motions to the bag, “Is that her?”
“Yeah, Tilly, that’s her.”
He smiles sharply and then turns, choking back a sob. With a wave of his hand he motions me to follow. I feel bad. Guys like Tilly watch their friends drop like autumn leaves, one less person to talk to, to relate old times… the good old days. A future full of ungrateful strangers who can’t remember what it took to get this far.
We step into a small, wall-stacked office that dares any earthquake to bury its occupant. Tilly sweeps some papers aside and grabs ball of keys that looks like a metal porcupine. He gives me a little nudge as he steps past me toward the stairway in the courtyard, waving me along. “Gina was on three.”
He walks by a small elevator nearly hidden from view by a heavy black security gate. I stop, he continues. “Hey, don’t you want to take the elevator?”
“In the worst way.” He starts up the stairs, “Damn thing has been out of service for a month. He stops on the steps and turns, “Don’t know anything about elevators, do you?”
“No, but I can recommend a good slot machine,” I shoot back. Nothing. “I don’t know if Gina told you, but I live in Vegas.”
He starts up the steps, “I’ve seen the pictures you sent her.”
He moves up the steps slowly, telling me about how long Gina had lived in the building, how they used to go out dancing at night. He tells me how during the Big War the town would be going twenty-four hours a day. You could dance all night and then walk to Chinatown for a late dinner… or early breakfast depending how you looked at it.
“Can’t do that now-a-days, end up robbed and busted up in some alley, even the girls. Gangs of kids ruined it for everyone.”
By the time he is done talking, we are standing outside of Gina’s apartment as he unlocks the weathered door. “They haven’t taken anything out of here yet. It is just as she left it. In three days, they come and clean it out.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, “You let me know if you need anything, Nick.”
I don’t know what to expect, maybe something between an old folks home and old memories, and maybe that old person smell. But Gina’s apartment is clean and perfect, an extension of her, of her simple beauty. I can feel her there with me, a sweeping gesture as she displays her home to me. I had never seen it, not once.
Out of the windows is a view worth millions, from the Golden Gate to Alcatraz. No postcard or snapshot can contain the magnificence, the movement. At the bottom of the window are the little red flowers growing in the window box.
“Wow, Gina, this is beautiful.”
I opened the windows and let a gentle breeze work its way into the corners of the room. A small table with two chairs was placed under the window in the kitchen. The floor under one of the chairs was scarred and worn. Under the other chair… cat hair.
She must have taken her tea there at the table in the afternoon. I knew from her letters that she did coffee in the morning at some caffé down the street.
I take Gina’s seat at the table and look out over the bay. I can see through her eyes; the afternoon paper or a magazine next to a steaming cup of Earl Grey, shipping traffic and tour boats on the bay, a gentle sea breeze, and at the bottom of her view the red flowers in this window box as well.
I look through the kitchen. It is small but effective. A refrigerator holds the smell of fresh vegetables and a hint of smoked meat, someone has stocked it for my visit. On the counter she has strings of garlic, an ornamental bottle of olive oil, and a bottle of wine. Near the sink is a handwritten note. It is from one of Gina’s friends that knew I would be coming. There are directions to a bakery several streets down, it will be easy to find. I will know why. I am to come as soon as I am able.
Outside on Chestnut Street a slight breeze moves the seventy-degree air at tree top level. From the sketch in my hand, I am to cut through the alley and over two streets. Next to Gina’s building is a wide alley, a single lane that would allow someone to pull into the garages on the bottom floor of each building.
I hear music, Sinatra, echoing about overhead. Laundry dances in the slight breeze. The heavy scent of garlic from somebody’s kitchen as they cook their lunch wafts down from above.
My footsteps echo off of the concrete canyon of single car garages. On two or three of them the taggers left their mark, little bastards, like a moustache on the Mona Lisa.
I step out of the alley into the street and walk past the storefronts. Ahead of me on the right is the bakery on the corner of the next street. I can tell because of the little red flowers in the flower box outside. Before I reach the door, I can hear the two women inside announcing my arrival.
“Nicky!”
The younger of the two women moves quickly around the counter, tells me her name is Carla, and grabs me in a bear hug.
“Oh, Nicky, Gina would be so happy to see you here.” She brushes a tear away but doesn’t let it dim the moment. “Gina talked about you all the time.”
She guides me over to a chair by the window and has me take a seat. Outside the window was the flower box, a burst of little red flowers that burns into the pastels of the buildings.
“Nicky, this is my mother Tesa.” She brings her around the counter and I stand to greet her. She has a sweet smile for such an old lady, in her nineties I would suspect. I don’t have to wait long for confirmation.
“Mama is ninety-three years old. She and Gina would sit here in the morning and make the walnut potica and some of the cookies. They would just talk the old language and chatter away for an hour or so, then Gina was on her way to her next stop.”
Tesa holds my hand in both of hers and smiles. She is crying at the same time, but not sad, you know. She rattles off something in Italian and pats my hand.
“Mama says your Gina’s little angel. Gina talked about you all the time. “How did that trip to San Diego go, anyway?”
I flash a smile. Gina must have talked about me. My San Diego trip was only ten days ago and I had only told her about the day before she passed. “It was fine. A lot of work, you know.”
Tesa’s eyes brighten and she heads back around the counter and then to the back. On cue Carla pours me a cup of coffee and they both meet me back at the little table by the window. Tesa sets a plate down in front of me with several thick slices of bread with a spiral design. Then she tells me what it is but I can’t understand a word.
“Mama wants you to know that she and Gina made this walnut potica about a five days ago. It is hand made with a walnut paste that Mama has made forever. She and Gina would make three of these every week.” She gestures to the coffee, “She loved the smell of this coffee.”
I take a sip of the jet-black brew. It tastes like tar.
“Oh no,” Carla moves the cream and sugar over, “You can’t drink it like that.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” I smile and pour a lengthy stream of cream into the blackness until it lightens up to a rich mahogany. She takes the liberty of adding two heaping spoonfuls of sugar to the mix and then takes a seat, along with Tesa, at the small table.
In the silence that follows I realize that they are waiting for me to taste the potica. It is wonderful, like bread and pastry all in one.
“This is marvelous.” I take another bite and follow it with a swallow of the powerful Italian blend coffee. It is rich marriage of flavor that you know are meant to be enjoyed together.
By my expression alone, Tesa knows that I get it, that I appreciate the effort and the love. She stands and bends over the table and kisses my cheek, then presses the side of her face to mine. It is a very familiar show of affection, one that Gina would bestow upon each day of her visits. Tesa grabs my hand and walks me behind the counter, talking all the while. Behind me Carla translates every word as we walk in the back.
We stop at an old black and white photo pinned to the wall. It was the Cliff House on the coast, the sidewalks filled with tourists. Two women smiled for the camera, dressed in Sunday clothes.
“Mama says this was her and your grandma back in the day.” From the looks of the clothes and the cars almost out of frame, it had to be shot in the 1960’s.
“How long has she known Gina?”
“Mama has known your grandma since Gina moved here.”
Tesa understands the conversation, a nod here and there in the right spots. She can probably speak English well enough to converse after sixty years here in the states, but can express herself better in Italian.
She reaches up and touches the photo. I expect her to break into tears but she doesn’t. She reaches up to an old cork bulletin board and pulls another hand written note from beneath a pushpin. Tesa holds the note to her chest and speaks to me. Carla whispers in my ear like she is translating something top secret.
“This is a five hundred year old recipe from the old country for a soup that Gina would make momma.”
Tesa turns the paper over and there is Gina’s writing; a recipe and a shopping list. She presses the recipe in my hand and then says something to Carla.
“Momma says you are to go down the street three blocks to Boca’s store and buy these ingredients. It is part of your journey today.” Carla nods and smiles. All of this is some kind of plan that has been arranged for my benefit.
I hug them both, shoot down the rest of my coffee and take my last bite of potica, and then I am out the door. Carla sends me off in the right direction, says I won’t miss the place.
It is mid afternoon and the sound of the city is mild here. Traffic isn’t as hurried, tempers aren’t flared, and people seem to be a little more content. I walk by a truck double-parked, flashers blinking, unloading cases of wine into a restaurant. Both the driver and the manager say hello as I pass. Not in Vegas.
I walk until I see them, the little red flowers, this time in a small patch of earth surrounding the tree out in front of the old store. An old man sits on a stool on the sidewalk amongst the produce on display. He is reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe. As I approach he hobbles off of the stool and straightens his sweater.
“Nicky!” He says, “Welcome… welcome, Nicky.” He reaches out a leathered hand and puts a stone hard grip on mine and shakes it. These hands have seen some heavy labor.
He motions me in the door to a small table and chairs and we both take a seat.
“I am Vin Boca.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you sir.”
“Gina and I would sit here in the late morning and we would play checkers.” He pulls an old board up from under the table and a small wooden cigar box that looks like it had seen a thousand uses. “She would always win. I think she cheats.” He says, trying to puff his pipe back to life.
I haven’t played checkers for fifteen years, and then it was something a young man would do to please his grandmother. But with checkers, it isn’t a thinking man’s game. That is what Gina liked about it. She use to tell me…
“You know,” Vin interrupts my thought, “Gina would say that they should fight wars this way, by playing checkers instead of killing each other.” He smiled at me and then overturns the cigar box and dumps the checkers on the board. “She thought that it put everyone on a level playing field.”
“She told me that before every game, sir.”
“Hey, Nicky, not so formal. I know you like I’d know my own grandkids if I ever had any. You call me Vin, or Vinnie.” He takes his pipe and does what pipe smokers do to prepare it. I watch the ritual for a moment and then look out into the small store. No one is here but the two of us.
“Vin, this is nice. When is rush hour?” I don’t mean anything by it, just an observation.
Vin looks around, aware of the lack of patrons. He leans forward, like he has a secret that no one else should hear. “You know what, Nicky, these Italian women here in North Beach, they won’t go to a big super market. Even if they wanted to, there isn’t one for miles, and most of them don’t drive or even own a car.”
He finishes the pipe loading ceremony and then puffs it to life. It smells great. He continues.
“When you want to buy groceries, you get in your car and drive to the store and buy enough for the next week or two, and then come home and unload into the freezer. My customers, they don’t come from there. Where they come from they didn’t freeze anything, hardly refrigerated anything either. They buy for the day, sometimes for the meal they are cooking. And I have a delivery boy that brings it to them. So I do alright, regardless of how it looks.”
He has the board set up and takes the first move. The war is on. “Gina would kick my butt every day, but it was fun to talk to her." He looks up at me, "How was your trip to San Diego, Nicky?”
He makes quick work of me on the checkerboard, then goes in the back and returns with a paper bag full of groceries. “You got that list Tesa gave you?”
I pull it from my pocket and hand it to him. He pulls some reading glasses from his pocket and puts them on, scanning the list to make sure he got it all. “That is everything.” He hands me the bag, and I thank him.
“What do I owe you?”
“It is all taken care of. Let’s just say I’ll trade you for the artwork.” Vin smiles and nods to the old cash register. On the front of the machine is a drawing of the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Pointe, one that I had drawn for Gina from a postcard she had sent me.
“Oh my God, I was ten when I drew that.”
“It has been here ever since. Gina put it there the same day she got it.” He smiled and winked at me, “That is what she would say to me when she would show up here, that she wanted to come sit and look at her picture… and kick my butt at checkers.”
I’m choked with emotion. It hits me.
Vin puts a hand on my shoulder, “Gina was the highlight of my day.”
Now I am walking up a side street. Four blocks up and one over I will find the coffee shop she goes to each morning. I’ll know when I am there. Along the way I see the same little red flowers, not everywhere, but just in certain spots; an old beauty parlor, a doctor’s office, a book store, they all have some of the flowers planted in a window box or a planter outside. I look in the window of the beauty shop as I pass by and the two women inside wave at me like they know me. I smile back.
I feel comfort where I never have felt it before, just walking down a city street. It is soft and warm, the breeze is just right, the aromas authenticate the moment like an artists signature on a masterpiece. I can feel Gina’s presence as I turn the corner four blocks up.
The front of the Café Piccolo is alight with a burst of the little red flowers in the planters on each side of the door. It is not so busy in the early afternoon, but still there is a presence. As I approach the low hum of conversation spills out of the open bay windows onto the narrow street. Outside there are three men sipping strong brew, involved in a heated discussion in Italian, the sports page passing between them for reference.
I walk in unnoticed and take a look around. This place has been here for a while. It seems to have never been redecorated, just continually decorated, an eclectic old world version of TGI Fridays. Back in one corner there is an old upright piano that is closed for business, now used to display the twenty or so pictures in frames on the top, some on the music stand and closed keyboard. There are shots of the café during one celebration or other, everyone having fun. There are posters on the wall for happenings at the Geary Theater from the old days, and rock and roll events from the 60’s and 70’s at Winterland. On the wall behind the counter is blown up picture of a man playing the piano and a woman standing behind him. Just from her expression you can tell she is in love with him.
“Nicky?”
I turn and there in front of me is a shorter, and much older version of the man playing the piano in the photo.
“That was your grandmother and me many years ago. She would come in evenings and we would play the piano and sing songs, have a few cocktails.” The old man stopped talking and shook his head, “I’m sorry, Nicky, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Joseph Tribante. Just call me Joe.”
“Joe Tribante. Now there is a name that needs no introduction.” I smile and shake his hand. “I have heard your name in Gina’s letters just about every time she wrote me.”
Joe was the constant with every letter Gina sent me. When she went somewhere, it was usually with Joe. He was her company, her confidant, and with every word she wrote I realized that this was her love.
“Joe, I’m so sorry.” I feel the need to comfort him about Gina’s passing more so than with the others. If he was the love of Gina’s life, then she was certainly the love of his.
Joe stops for a moment to gather himself, he was hit hard by her passing, but would not let me see that side. “We had fun, me and her. Gina never stopped being the young girl I fell in love with.” He looks up at her picture and back at me, “Come with me.”
We go in the back. It is neat and clean, and very hot. There is a coffee roaster turning in the far corner, being watched over by two of the guys that were outside moments ago. The smell of the coffee is the same one that greeted me when I left my cab four blocks away.
Joe goes into a small office and comes out with a cassette tape and a cd. “This is me and Gina from a long time ago. I had a man record it on vinyl back in the day, and then we had it transferred to cassette.” He turns the tape over in his hand, “I played this so many times that I thought I better transfer it to a cd before it is lost.” He hands me the disk, “This is yours, Nicky. She would want you to have it.”
We go back out front and he walks me to the door. “Look familiar?” He gestures to the red flowers.
“Yeah, I get it, they seem to be wherever Gina goes, huh?”
Joe nods, not quite letting me in on it. We sit at one of the small tables. “You coming tomorrow to take care of the ashes, Nicky?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You make this your first stop. We’ll have a cup of her favorite and you can put a little of Gina in the planters.” He nodded to the large sidewalk urns bursting with the little red flowers. “Then you make your way on her path, but in the end you save a little for the bridge. You and I will do that one together, okay?”
The sun is setting on the phenomenal view out of Gina’s windows. I stand and watch the traffic, the tour boats on the bay, a scattering of gulls in abstract flight fill the void between sea and shore. The cat that was at Gina’s front door is rubbing up against my legs, it misses her too.
The fragrance of Gina’s secret recipe takes me back fifteen years ago, and countless visits before that when she would come to visit and make her “friendship soup”. Along with her making the soup would come the explanation;
“Friendship soup comes from the old times when you would walk the village and collect from each of your friends and neighbors an ingredient for the soup. Then you would all get together and share in the end result.”
As the steam rises from the pot I put Gina’s music on. The recording was ancient, but the songs are beautiful. I don’t know who it is, maybe Cole Porter, maybe not. But I can hear Gina’s voice. I can hear her smile in the words.
I open the bottle of wine that was left on the counter. I sit down at her seat by the window, the cat takes the spot under the other chair, and I enjoy the view, the wine, the peace that is Gina’s apartment, and the Friendship soup. Outside the window night has come. The edges of the Bay sparkle with light from Sausalito to Richmond.
I pour a second glass of wine and take a walk in her apartment. It is truly as she had left it, neat and clean, as though she had just stepped out to run an errand.
In her bedroom there are pictures on the nightstand. Different generations smile back from this celebration or that, an old black and white of Gina and my grandfather. I am reminded that he was younger than I am right now when he passed.
I see teenage versions Rick and Dave in a couple of group shots, and a large picture of me with my arm around Gina fifteen years ago in New Mexico. I shake my head at my ignorance; at thinking that time would wait for me to see her.
The wine is working on me. I can feel my emotions on the surface. I have to wipe them from my eyes as I walk to the closet. I open it to the wonder of Gina’s wardrobe, some bright like a garden of wildflowers, some elegant for a night on the town, and some just for walking the park trails in New Mexico with her grandson.
I pull the string on the bare light fixture and the top shelf of her closet reveals five shoeboxes stuffed with correspondence, the tops held down with some thick rubber bands. I pull them down and bring them to the table in the kitchen.
In the candlelight I pull one of boxes close. Inside are personal letters, all from Joe, and after the first paragraph I put them back, embarrassed. This is something meant only for Gina’s eyes. This one I will give to Joe tomorrow on our trek to the bridge. I put the top back on and scoot it to the other side of the table.
In the next I find cards and letters from the family, some very old anniversary cards, birth announcements, and plenty of birthday cards. In the bottom of the box I find pictures of family, of Rick and Dave when they were just boys, of my mom and dad, of aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors. I put the top back on that one and push it out of the way.
In the last three boxes are every letter and card I had ever sent her. I can’t believe she kept every letter. I leaf through the boxes, the envelopes date from only last week all the way back to when I was a kid. I pull a letter from the middle of one of the boxes. In it is a drawing of a desert scene complete with a horse and a cactus. I smile; I remember when I drew it. With each letter I pull I read pieces of my life, from cub scouts to college graduation, it is all there. Some with school pictures missing my two front teeth to the cool stages of high school. She has them all.
I swallow the rest of my second glass of wine and stretch. I can’t seem to stop smiling, happy with what Gina had here with friends, her place, her daily routine. She had a very full life, no regrets. I am the one with regrets.
I am about to put the top on the box when I see a card poking out of an envelope. It is the very first card ever put in the box. I pull the envelope and the card is in it sideways. It is a friendship card, one that isn’t sent for any other reason other than just to make a friend feel special. The postmark on the envelope was from when I was eight years old, just after we moved away to New Mexico. Inside, the card is something an eight-year-old boy thinks his grandma will like. It is a simple message, “To my Best Friend” above a basket of little red flowers, and on the inside the message “Let’s keep our Friendship Growing!” Below that is a little package of seeds long since empty.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, and then shake my head at my callousness. I try to tell myself that I didn’t know how special she thought I was. I didn’t know how much of her world seemed to revolve around me. In the same thought I know it is bull. She made me feel special every day of my life, even when I wasn’t around to notice.
Sleep in Gina’s apartment is surreal. I dream of home in New Mexico, of sunny mornings at our kitchen table, of Gina and I making plans to hike and then get an ice cream cone. Then she is here, with me in the apartment. It is dark out and the city lights here and around the bay are trying to shine through a mist of fog. She stands at the window, her back to me. I join her and I am eight years old as she hugs me close.
Now we are walking through town; the bakery, Vin Boca’s store, down the avenue to the caffé. She doesn’t speak to me, but I can feel her meaning, her joy. We walk through the door of the caffé and we are on the Golden Gate Bridge. She takes me to a spot out over the water and places my hand on the outside of the railing. I feel something under my fingers.
I awaken to the sounds of traffic and a knocking on the door. “Nicky, you up?”
When I open the door the cat bolts into the daylight. I forgot to let it out when I laid down last night. I figured it was an outside cat, and not Gina’s from the lack of cat food and litter box. I apologize as it disappears into the shrubbery.
“Hey, Nicky, we better get going. There is a hell of a breeze that kicks up off the bridge in the afternoon. We will want to get out there before that happens or she will end up on the road.”
“Yeah, hey… Joe,” I rub my eyes and hunt for a fresh shirt. “I am glad you own a coffee shop. I could use some something to wake me up.”
“This her?” Joe looks in the bowling bag, a little smile on his face. When he looks up his eyes are welled up. I am hoping the whole day isn’t going to be like this.
“This thermos is Gina’s. We took it on long walks, drives.” He mentally shakes it off and is fine again.
I stuff the shoebox with Joe’s letters in the bowling bag. As an afterthought I grab an old wooden spoon from her kitchen and throw it in as well and we head off to the caffé.
At the caffé I sit down with him at one of the tables next to the flowerpot to the side of the entrance. One of his employees brings me a double espresso macchiato. I load it with a generous amount of sugar. Even then I grimace at my first sip. The rest are heavenly.
I pull the shoebox from the bowling bag and push it across the table, “Joe, this is yours.”
It is an awkward moment for both of us. Joe isn’t accustom to crying in front of anyone, but we are family of sorts and it is okay. He pulls a couple of letters from the box and just looks at the envelopes. I have the feeling he has the matching set of letters in a box at his house.
“Wait for me,” he says and then disappears into the shop to stash the letters.
When he returns we begin. He pulls the thermos from the bowling bag, and then holds the bag up with one finger, “Do you want this?”
I shake my head. We both agree that it isn’t Gina. “Must have been that lawyer’s idea.” He gets up to throw it away, but I remember.
“Wait, Joe.” I reach into the bag and pull out the wooden spoon.
When he returns, we begin. I open the thermos and pour a little of Gina in the flowerpot, stirring her in with the wooden spoon. Joe nods his head and we move on.
With each stop; the bookstore, the beauty shop, the doctor’s office, we have an audience on our secret quest. They each, in turn, pay their silent respects to Gina as I pour a little into each place and fold her in with the wooden spoon. At the bakery, I am sandwiched in hug from both Carla and Tesa after I stir some of her into the window boxes. They give us the last of Gina’s walnut potica and we are off to the bridge after we grab Joe’s car.
It is almost noon as we walk out on the span. I am hoping it isn’t too much for Joe. If you do the math he has got to be in his eighties. But he just keeps on truckin’. For the first time I am leading the way, letting my dream guide me.
“Where are you going, Nicky? This is probably fine right here.” Joe is trying to tell me that he is nearing the point of no return. He will make it back if we stop right now.
“Wait for me Joe, I have to see something.”
I walk ahead and start running my hand under the outside of the rail. After about thirty feet, I start to wonder if it was just a dream.
“Come on, Nicky, let’s do it,” Joe calls after me.
I am just about to pull my hand back and it glides over something. I stop in my tracks. The breeze blows at my back, my hair dances over my face as I feel it.
“What is it, Nicky?” Joe is beside me now.
I peel the tape off of the underside of the rail and pull it up for inspection. It is a piece of cellophane tape, about six inches long, with a little red flower, long since picked and dried with age. I fold the ends of the tape over the flower to protect it and then put it in my pocket. This is the spot.
Without a word I open the thermos and dump the contents into the wind. Gina’s ashes float out over the bay and disappear. I feel Joe’s hand on my shoulder. I put an arm around his waist and we share the moment.
The next day, after an early evening meal at Joe’s with Gina’s North Beach family, I am back on a plane, headed for the bright lights of Vegas. This morning I had the ladies; Carla and Tesa, and the gents; Tilly, Vin Boca, and Joe, come up to her place and take something of Gina’s that they felt was special. Both of the girls took a piece of Gina’s wardrobe to wear at the Bakery, Tesa an old button up sweater that Gina wore every day, and Carla a flowery blouse that Gina would wear on special occasions.
Tilly wanted to move the window boxes with the little red flowers down to his apartment. He would keep the tradition alive. Vin grabbed the decorative olive oil and the garlic, I had the feeling she had won both in a checker game. Joe just wanted to keep the thermos.
I left instructions and money with Tilly to have the movers box up Gina’s stuff and send it my way. At some point in time the family would probably make it out to sift through some of it.
Now I am sitting, eyes closed, trying to make the next couple of hours go by without notice. There is a massive vibration and acceleration, and I am on my way as though shot from a cannon. Conversation blends with the deep hum of twin engines, lulling me into semi-consciousness. Before long the smell of fresh brewed coffee pulls me back. I smile, my heart warmed with recent memories. My hand slips into my pocket and grasps the little red flower in cellophane and I close my eyes once more.
copyright 2006
The view from the train might as well have been open ocean as far as the eye could see. I look at it, but I don’t see it. I just see her. Not the way she looks now, but the way she looked when she visited our home in New Mexico.
My cousin Rick, not at all familiar with how to handle news of this nature, left me a message on my answering machine. “Hey, Nick, Gina is dead… natural stuff. Hell, she was what, eighty something?” You get the picture. I must have stood there for fifteen minutes looking at the machine and the little red light, remembering. I wasn’t sad about the news, just sad for the fact that I never got a chance to see her where she lived.
Gina is my grandma. We call her by her first name because it carries something fresh within it, like a rose or something, a spark of life you wouldn’t expect in your grandma. Gina loved the city of San Francisco, her home for fifty or sixty years. She lived there by herself for much of that. Her husband, my grandfather, died before I was born, and I am thirty-four.
Now Gina has extended the invitation to me to come see her since I was twelve years old and able to fly on my own. But when I’m a kid we don’t have the cash to be flying out to Cali for little Nicky to visit his grandma. I had a good childhood, but we weren’t flush with funds. Now I am self-employed for the last ten years, computer networking, and go all over the western states, but never made it to Gina’s, not once. It’s not that I hadn’t tried to, or at least thought about it, but things happen. The job runs too long, another comes along back-to-back, girlfriend calls to tell you she is moving out as we speak, things happen.
Now here I am, on a train to the city to see where Gina lives. I spent three hours taking the one-hour flight from Vegas, where I live and work, to San Jose where Gina’s lawyer has relocated. There was a reading of the will about an hour ago. I didn’t care for it.
My cousins, I don’t really know them. There are three of them. Two that show up, one is in Somalia or Ethiopia or someplace like this with the Peace Corps.
The two that showed up were not Gina’s favorites by any means. I was her favorite. How do I know this without having seen her face to face for twenty years? One word… letters. I sent Gina a letter every month. I was religious about sending her those letters since I was eight years old. She knew as much about my current events and me as I did with hers. And in every letter she sends me back is a little red flower… a friendship flower she calls it. She says she only gives those to her special friends. I doubt the cousins ever saw one from her, and if they did they probably smoked it.
My cousins, they saw her as a bag of money that they couldn’t keep their hands out of. She wasn’t rich by any means, but when her husband died his life insurance went into the hands of some pretty savvy investment counselors that were friendly towards Gina. Needless to say, the original investments paid, and she parlayed that into a pretty nice nest-egg.
Now Gina doesn’t spend a lot. She lives in the same apartment, owned by the same landlord, for forty years. He isn’t trying to make it rich off of his tenants, and they all are like family. So she has some funds to spread around to the relatives. I saw plenty of it in birthday cards and little gifts here and there, but I never asked her for any of it. The cousins on the other hand were constantly playing her for a few hundred here for bills; a couple of thousand for a car they had to have for “school”. Hell, if these guys were in school as much as they claimed they would be doctors and lawyers by now. But no, David manages a video store and Rick is an unemployed roofer at the moment.
At the reading they both smile ear to ear when the lawyer hands them the manila envelopes from Gina’s estate. I even see a tear in Ricky’s eye, but I don’t think it is for her. Ricky is probably crying out of relief that he can pay back a little money he borrowed from the wrong people. He had tried to shake me down for a grand for the same reason a while back. I didn’t have it, but even if I did I wouldn’t have given it to him. Notice I didn’t say lend it to him.
Me, I don’t get an envelope from the lawyer. Instead he hands me a letter, written on Gina’s stationary, that and a bowling bag.
“What’s in the bowling bag? Gina doesn’t bowl.”
The lawyer leans forward in his chair and motions toward the sealed envelope.
“It’s all in the letter, Nick. Read the letter and then we will talk about it.”
The cousins both stand. Ricky wipes his eyes.
“We, uh… we’re done here, aren’t we?”
The lawyer looks at them, a flash of contempt in his eyes at their disregard for Gina’s memory. He had been her friend for almost twenty years, and knew how much she loved her family. He is sure it wasn’t reciprocated by these two.
“Yes, unless you want to know what is going to happen with Gina’s ashes?”
“Hey, she’s gone, you know. I’m not much for visiting cemeteries. I’ll keep her here.” He pats his chest. It sounds hollow. With that he and David slip out of the office and leave me and the lawyer to talk.
The letter is in Gina’s hand, written three years ago. It is a request for me to take her ashes to the city, to her apartment. There I will receive instructions on where to spread them. There is also a check. The lawyer says it is twice what the cousins took home. He tells me that they had gone to her so many times that she had already let them spend a lot of their inheritance.
“I didn’t read anything about the bowling bag.”
The lawyer smiled and hefts it up to the top of the old oak desk.
“Gina.” He says with a smile as he unzips it and pulls a container out of the canvas and imitation leather. It is not ornamental at all, not like the pretty urns you see in movies. It looks more like a thermos.
The lawyer can see the question forming, “Yes, it’s a thermos. She wants you to spread her ashes in the city, Nick, and she doesn’t want you to get in trouble doing it.”
From the train station it’s a fifteen-minute cab ride to Chestnut Street and Gina’s apartment. Before you know it I’m standing in the street with Gina in hand, a daypack slung over my shoulder, looking up at the window boxes on the top floor, her apartment. The street noise is heavy, but seems blocks away. Here it is a little less hectic, a little more trees, a gentle breeze that carries aromas and sounds that never find their way to my senses in Vegas. The tang of seawater, a hint of garlic, baking bread and fresh roasted coffee, it all mingles with the exhaust of my departing Yellow Cab.
I buzz the door into the courtyard until I hear a voice calling to me from inside. “On my way. Keep your pants on and your finger off that button.”
From around the corner comes the old man, Tilly. I know it was him from Gina’s letters. She had a thing with him once. I think Ike was President then. They remained friends all along, and now here he is, in the flesh.
“Hey, Tilly, I’m… “
“Nicky, I know who you are. I couldn’t make it through the day without her showing me a picture of you.” He unlocks the gate and it swings open with a squeal. Tilly draws the can of WD-40 like a gunfighter and hits the hinges with a couple of squirts. “Damn sea air.” I wait for him to twirl it back into tool belt. It doesn’t happen.
He motions to the bag, “Is that her?”
“Yeah, Tilly, that’s her.”
He smiles sharply and then turns, choking back a sob. With a wave of his hand he motions me to follow. I feel bad. Guys like Tilly watch their friends drop like autumn leaves, one less person to talk to, to relate old times… the good old days. A future full of ungrateful strangers who can’t remember what it took to get this far.
We step into a small, wall-stacked office that dares any earthquake to bury its occupant. Tilly sweeps some papers aside and grabs ball of keys that looks like a metal porcupine. He gives me a little nudge as he steps past me toward the stairway in the courtyard, waving me along. “Gina was on three.”
He walks by a small elevator nearly hidden from view by a heavy black security gate. I stop, he continues. “Hey, don’t you want to take the elevator?”
“In the worst way.” He starts up the stairs, “Damn thing has been out of service for a month. He stops on the steps and turns, “Don’t know anything about elevators, do you?”
“No, but I can recommend a good slot machine,” I shoot back. Nothing. “I don’t know if Gina told you, but I live in Vegas.”
He starts up the steps, “I’ve seen the pictures you sent her.”
He moves up the steps slowly, telling me about how long Gina had lived in the building, how they used to go out dancing at night. He tells me how during the Big War the town would be going twenty-four hours a day. You could dance all night and then walk to Chinatown for a late dinner… or early breakfast depending how you looked at it.
“Can’t do that now-a-days, end up robbed and busted up in some alley, even the girls. Gangs of kids ruined it for everyone.”
By the time he is done talking, we are standing outside of Gina’s apartment as he unlocks the weathered door. “They haven’t taken anything out of here yet. It is just as she left it. In three days, they come and clean it out.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, “You let me know if you need anything, Nick.”
I don’t know what to expect, maybe something between an old folks home and old memories, and maybe that old person smell. But Gina’s apartment is clean and perfect, an extension of her, of her simple beauty. I can feel her there with me, a sweeping gesture as she displays her home to me. I had never seen it, not once.
Out of the windows is a view worth millions, from the Golden Gate to Alcatraz. No postcard or snapshot can contain the magnificence, the movement. At the bottom of the window are the little red flowers growing in the window box.
“Wow, Gina, this is beautiful.”
I opened the windows and let a gentle breeze work its way into the corners of the room. A small table with two chairs was placed under the window in the kitchen. The floor under one of the chairs was scarred and worn. Under the other chair… cat hair.
She must have taken her tea there at the table in the afternoon. I knew from her letters that she did coffee in the morning at some caffé down the street.
I take Gina’s seat at the table and look out over the bay. I can see through her eyes; the afternoon paper or a magazine next to a steaming cup of Earl Grey, shipping traffic and tour boats on the bay, a gentle sea breeze, and at the bottom of her view the red flowers in this window box as well.
I look through the kitchen. It is small but effective. A refrigerator holds the smell of fresh vegetables and a hint of smoked meat, someone has stocked it for my visit. On the counter she has strings of garlic, an ornamental bottle of olive oil, and a bottle of wine. Near the sink is a handwritten note. It is from one of Gina’s friends that knew I would be coming. There are directions to a bakery several streets down, it will be easy to find. I will know why. I am to come as soon as I am able.
Outside on Chestnut Street a slight breeze moves the seventy-degree air at tree top level. From the sketch in my hand, I am to cut through the alley and over two streets. Next to Gina’s building is a wide alley, a single lane that would allow someone to pull into the garages on the bottom floor of each building.
I hear music, Sinatra, echoing about overhead. Laundry dances in the slight breeze. The heavy scent of garlic from somebody’s kitchen as they cook their lunch wafts down from above.
My footsteps echo off of the concrete canyon of single car garages. On two or three of them the taggers left their mark, little bastards, like a moustache on the Mona Lisa.
I step out of the alley into the street and walk past the storefronts. Ahead of me on the right is the bakery on the corner of the next street. I can tell because of the little red flowers in the flower box outside. Before I reach the door, I can hear the two women inside announcing my arrival.
“Nicky!”
The younger of the two women moves quickly around the counter, tells me her name is Carla, and grabs me in a bear hug.
“Oh, Nicky, Gina would be so happy to see you here.” She brushes a tear away but doesn’t let it dim the moment. “Gina talked about you all the time.”
She guides me over to a chair by the window and has me take a seat. Outside the window was the flower box, a burst of little red flowers that burns into the pastels of the buildings.
“Nicky, this is my mother Tesa.” She brings her around the counter and I stand to greet her. She has a sweet smile for such an old lady, in her nineties I would suspect. I don’t have to wait long for confirmation.
“Mama is ninety-three years old. She and Gina would sit here in the morning and make the walnut potica and some of the cookies. They would just talk the old language and chatter away for an hour or so, then Gina was on her way to her next stop.”
Tesa holds my hand in both of hers and smiles. She is crying at the same time, but not sad, you know. She rattles off something in Italian and pats my hand.
“Mama says your Gina’s little angel. Gina talked about you all the time. “How did that trip to San Diego go, anyway?”
I flash a smile. Gina must have talked about me. My San Diego trip was only ten days ago and I had only told her about the day before she passed. “It was fine. A lot of work, you know.”
Tesa’s eyes brighten and she heads back around the counter and then to the back. On cue Carla pours me a cup of coffee and they both meet me back at the little table by the window. Tesa sets a plate down in front of me with several thick slices of bread with a spiral design. Then she tells me what it is but I can’t understand a word.
“Mama wants you to know that she and Gina made this walnut potica about a five days ago. It is hand made with a walnut paste that Mama has made forever. She and Gina would make three of these every week.” She gestures to the coffee, “She loved the smell of this coffee.”
I take a sip of the jet-black brew. It tastes like tar.
“Oh no,” Carla moves the cream and sugar over, “You can’t drink it like that.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” I smile and pour a lengthy stream of cream into the blackness until it lightens up to a rich mahogany. She takes the liberty of adding two heaping spoonfuls of sugar to the mix and then takes a seat, along with Tesa, at the small table.
In the silence that follows I realize that they are waiting for me to taste the potica. It is wonderful, like bread and pastry all in one.
“This is marvelous.” I take another bite and follow it with a swallow of the powerful Italian blend coffee. It is rich marriage of flavor that you know are meant to be enjoyed together.
By my expression alone, Tesa knows that I get it, that I appreciate the effort and the love. She stands and bends over the table and kisses my cheek, then presses the side of her face to mine. It is a very familiar show of affection, one that Gina would bestow upon each day of her visits. Tesa grabs my hand and walks me behind the counter, talking all the while. Behind me Carla translates every word as we walk in the back.
We stop at an old black and white photo pinned to the wall. It was the Cliff House on the coast, the sidewalks filled with tourists. Two women smiled for the camera, dressed in Sunday clothes.
“Mama says this was her and your grandma back in the day.” From the looks of the clothes and the cars almost out of frame, it had to be shot in the 1960’s.
“How long has she known Gina?”
“Mama has known your grandma since Gina moved here.”
Tesa understands the conversation, a nod here and there in the right spots. She can probably speak English well enough to converse after sixty years here in the states, but can express herself better in Italian.
She reaches up and touches the photo. I expect her to break into tears but she doesn’t. She reaches up to an old cork bulletin board and pulls another hand written note from beneath a pushpin. Tesa holds the note to her chest and speaks to me. Carla whispers in my ear like she is translating something top secret.
“This is a five hundred year old recipe from the old country for a soup that Gina would make momma.”
Tesa turns the paper over and there is Gina’s writing; a recipe and a shopping list. She presses the recipe in my hand and then says something to Carla.
“Momma says you are to go down the street three blocks to Boca’s store and buy these ingredients. It is part of your journey today.” Carla nods and smiles. All of this is some kind of plan that has been arranged for my benefit.
I hug them both, shoot down the rest of my coffee and take my last bite of potica, and then I am out the door. Carla sends me off in the right direction, says I won’t miss the place.
It is mid afternoon and the sound of the city is mild here. Traffic isn’t as hurried, tempers aren’t flared, and people seem to be a little more content. I walk by a truck double-parked, flashers blinking, unloading cases of wine into a restaurant. Both the driver and the manager say hello as I pass. Not in Vegas.
I walk until I see them, the little red flowers, this time in a small patch of earth surrounding the tree out in front of the old store. An old man sits on a stool on the sidewalk amongst the produce on display. He is reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe. As I approach he hobbles off of the stool and straightens his sweater.
“Nicky!” He says, “Welcome… welcome, Nicky.” He reaches out a leathered hand and puts a stone hard grip on mine and shakes it. These hands have seen some heavy labor.
He motions me in the door to a small table and chairs and we both take a seat.
“I am Vin Boca.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you sir.”
“Gina and I would sit here in the late morning and we would play checkers.” He pulls an old board up from under the table and a small wooden cigar box that looks like it had seen a thousand uses. “She would always win. I think she cheats.” He says, trying to puff his pipe back to life.
I haven’t played checkers for fifteen years, and then it was something a young man would do to please his grandmother. But with checkers, it isn’t a thinking man’s game. That is what Gina liked about it. She use to tell me…
“You know,” Vin interrupts my thought, “Gina would say that they should fight wars this way, by playing checkers instead of killing each other.” He smiled at me and then overturns the cigar box and dumps the checkers on the board. “She thought that it put everyone on a level playing field.”
“She told me that before every game, sir.”
“Hey, Nicky, not so formal. I know you like I’d know my own grandkids if I ever had any. You call me Vin, or Vinnie.” He takes his pipe and does what pipe smokers do to prepare it. I watch the ritual for a moment and then look out into the small store. No one is here but the two of us.
“Vin, this is nice. When is rush hour?” I don’t mean anything by it, just an observation.
Vin looks around, aware of the lack of patrons. He leans forward, like he has a secret that no one else should hear. “You know what, Nicky, these Italian women here in North Beach, they won’t go to a big super market. Even if they wanted to, there isn’t one for miles, and most of them don’t drive or even own a car.”
He finishes the pipe loading ceremony and then puffs it to life. It smells great. He continues.
“When you want to buy groceries, you get in your car and drive to the store and buy enough for the next week or two, and then come home and unload into the freezer. My customers, they don’t come from there. Where they come from they didn’t freeze anything, hardly refrigerated anything either. They buy for the day, sometimes for the meal they are cooking. And I have a delivery boy that brings it to them. So I do alright, regardless of how it looks.”
He has the board set up and takes the first move. The war is on. “Gina would kick my butt every day, but it was fun to talk to her." He looks up at me, "How was your trip to San Diego, Nicky?”
He makes quick work of me on the checkerboard, then goes in the back and returns with a paper bag full of groceries. “You got that list Tesa gave you?”
I pull it from my pocket and hand it to him. He pulls some reading glasses from his pocket and puts them on, scanning the list to make sure he got it all. “That is everything.” He hands me the bag, and I thank him.
“What do I owe you?”
“It is all taken care of. Let’s just say I’ll trade you for the artwork.” Vin smiles and nods to the old cash register. On the front of the machine is a drawing of the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Pointe, one that I had drawn for Gina from a postcard she had sent me.
“Oh my God, I was ten when I drew that.”
“It has been here ever since. Gina put it there the same day she got it.” He smiled and winked at me, “That is what she would say to me when she would show up here, that she wanted to come sit and look at her picture… and kick my butt at checkers.”
I’m choked with emotion. It hits me.
Vin puts a hand on my shoulder, “Gina was the highlight of my day.”
Now I am walking up a side street. Four blocks up and one over I will find the coffee shop she goes to each morning. I’ll know when I am there. Along the way I see the same little red flowers, not everywhere, but just in certain spots; an old beauty parlor, a doctor’s office, a book store, they all have some of the flowers planted in a window box or a planter outside. I look in the window of the beauty shop as I pass by and the two women inside wave at me like they know me. I smile back.
I feel comfort where I never have felt it before, just walking down a city street. It is soft and warm, the breeze is just right, the aromas authenticate the moment like an artists signature on a masterpiece. I can feel Gina’s presence as I turn the corner four blocks up.
The front of the Café Piccolo is alight with a burst of the little red flowers in the planters on each side of the door. It is not so busy in the early afternoon, but still there is a presence. As I approach the low hum of conversation spills out of the open bay windows onto the narrow street. Outside there are three men sipping strong brew, involved in a heated discussion in Italian, the sports page passing between them for reference.
I walk in unnoticed and take a look around. This place has been here for a while. It seems to have never been redecorated, just continually decorated, an eclectic old world version of TGI Fridays. Back in one corner there is an old upright piano that is closed for business, now used to display the twenty or so pictures in frames on the top, some on the music stand and closed keyboard. There are shots of the café during one celebration or other, everyone having fun. There are posters on the wall for happenings at the Geary Theater from the old days, and rock and roll events from the 60’s and 70’s at Winterland. On the wall behind the counter is blown up picture of a man playing the piano and a woman standing behind him. Just from her expression you can tell she is in love with him.
“Nicky?”
I turn and there in front of me is a shorter, and much older version of the man playing the piano in the photo.
“That was your grandmother and me many years ago. She would come in evenings and we would play the piano and sing songs, have a few cocktails.” The old man stopped talking and shook his head, “I’m sorry, Nicky, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Joseph Tribante. Just call me Joe.”
“Joe Tribante. Now there is a name that needs no introduction.” I smile and shake his hand. “I have heard your name in Gina’s letters just about every time she wrote me.”
Joe was the constant with every letter Gina sent me. When she went somewhere, it was usually with Joe. He was her company, her confidant, and with every word she wrote I realized that this was her love.
“Joe, I’m so sorry.” I feel the need to comfort him about Gina’s passing more so than with the others. If he was the love of Gina’s life, then she was certainly the love of his.
Joe stops for a moment to gather himself, he was hit hard by her passing, but would not let me see that side. “We had fun, me and her. Gina never stopped being the young girl I fell in love with.” He looks up at her picture and back at me, “Come with me.”
We go in the back. It is neat and clean, and very hot. There is a coffee roaster turning in the far corner, being watched over by two of the guys that were outside moments ago. The smell of the coffee is the same one that greeted me when I left my cab four blocks away.
Joe goes into a small office and comes out with a cassette tape and a cd. “This is me and Gina from a long time ago. I had a man record it on vinyl back in the day, and then we had it transferred to cassette.” He turns the tape over in his hand, “I played this so many times that I thought I better transfer it to a cd before it is lost.” He hands me the disk, “This is yours, Nicky. She would want you to have it.”
We go back out front and he walks me to the door. “Look familiar?” He gestures to the red flowers.
“Yeah, I get it, they seem to be wherever Gina goes, huh?”
Joe nods, not quite letting me in on it. We sit at one of the small tables. “You coming tomorrow to take care of the ashes, Nicky?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You make this your first stop. We’ll have a cup of her favorite and you can put a little of Gina in the planters.” He nodded to the large sidewalk urns bursting with the little red flowers. “Then you make your way on her path, but in the end you save a little for the bridge. You and I will do that one together, okay?”
The sun is setting on the phenomenal view out of Gina’s windows. I stand and watch the traffic, the tour boats on the bay, a scattering of gulls in abstract flight fill the void between sea and shore. The cat that was at Gina’s front door is rubbing up against my legs, it misses her too.
The fragrance of Gina’s secret recipe takes me back fifteen years ago, and countless visits before that when she would come to visit and make her “friendship soup”. Along with her making the soup would come the explanation;
“Friendship soup comes from the old times when you would walk the village and collect from each of your friends and neighbors an ingredient for the soup. Then you would all get together and share in the end result.”
As the steam rises from the pot I put Gina’s music on. The recording was ancient, but the songs are beautiful. I don’t know who it is, maybe Cole Porter, maybe not. But I can hear Gina’s voice. I can hear her smile in the words.
I open the bottle of wine that was left on the counter. I sit down at her seat by the window, the cat takes the spot under the other chair, and I enjoy the view, the wine, the peace that is Gina’s apartment, and the Friendship soup. Outside the window night has come. The edges of the Bay sparkle with light from Sausalito to Richmond.
I pour a second glass of wine and take a walk in her apartment. It is truly as she had left it, neat and clean, as though she had just stepped out to run an errand.
In her bedroom there are pictures on the nightstand. Different generations smile back from this celebration or that, an old black and white of Gina and my grandfather. I am reminded that he was younger than I am right now when he passed.
I see teenage versions Rick and Dave in a couple of group shots, and a large picture of me with my arm around Gina fifteen years ago in New Mexico. I shake my head at my ignorance; at thinking that time would wait for me to see her.
The wine is working on me. I can feel my emotions on the surface. I have to wipe them from my eyes as I walk to the closet. I open it to the wonder of Gina’s wardrobe, some bright like a garden of wildflowers, some elegant for a night on the town, and some just for walking the park trails in New Mexico with her grandson.
I pull the string on the bare light fixture and the top shelf of her closet reveals five shoeboxes stuffed with correspondence, the tops held down with some thick rubber bands. I pull them down and bring them to the table in the kitchen.
In the candlelight I pull one of boxes close. Inside are personal letters, all from Joe, and after the first paragraph I put them back, embarrassed. This is something meant only for Gina’s eyes. This one I will give to Joe tomorrow on our trek to the bridge. I put the top back on and scoot it to the other side of the table.
In the next I find cards and letters from the family, some very old anniversary cards, birth announcements, and plenty of birthday cards. In the bottom of the box I find pictures of family, of Rick and Dave when they were just boys, of my mom and dad, of aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors. I put the top back on that one and push it out of the way.
In the last three boxes are every letter and card I had ever sent her. I can’t believe she kept every letter. I leaf through the boxes, the envelopes date from only last week all the way back to when I was a kid. I pull a letter from the middle of one of the boxes. In it is a drawing of a desert scene complete with a horse and a cactus. I smile; I remember when I drew it. With each letter I pull I read pieces of my life, from cub scouts to college graduation, it is all there. Some with school pictures missing my two front teeth to the cool stages of high school. She has them all.
I swallow the rest of my second glass of wine and stretch. I can’t seem to stop smiling, happy with what Gina had here with friends, her place, her daily routine. She had a very full life, no regrets. I am the one with regrets.
I am about to put the top on the box when I see a card poking out of an envelope. It is the very first card ever put in the box. I pull the envelope and the card is in it sideways. It is a friendship card, one that isn’t sent for any other reason other than just to make a friend feel special. The postmark on the envelope was from when I was eight years old, just after we moved away to New Mexico. Inside, the card is something an eight-year-old boy thinks his grandma will like. It is a simple message, “To my Best Friend” above a basket of little red flowers, and on the inside the message “Let’s keep our Friendship Growing!” Below that is a little package of seeds long since empty.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, and then shake my head at my callousness. I try to tell myself that I didn’t know how special she thought I was. I didn’t know how much of her world seemed to revolve around me. In the same thought I know it is bull. She made me feel special every day of my life, even when I wasn’t around to notice.
Sleep in Gina’s apartment is surreal. I dream of home in New Mexico, of sunny mornings at our kitchen table, of Gina and I making plans to hike and then get an ice cream cone. Then she is here, with me in the apartment. It is dark out and the city lights here and around the bay are trying to shine through a mist of fog. She stands at the window, her back to me. I join her and I am eight years old as she hugs me close.
Now we are walking through town; the bakery, Vin Boca’s store, down the avenue to the caffé. She doesn’t speak to me, but I can feel her meaning, her joy. We walk through the door of the caffé and we are on the Golden Gate Bridge. She takes me to a spot out over the water and places my hand on the outside of the railing. I feel something under my fingers.
I awaken to the sounds of traffic and a knocking on the door. “Nicky, you up?”
When I open the door the cat bolts into the daylight. I forgot to let it out when I laid down last night. I figured it was an outside cat, and not Gina’s from the lack of cat food and litter box. I apologize as it disappears into the shrubbery.
“Hey, Nicky, we better get going. There is a hell of a breeze that kicks up off the bridge in the afternoon. We will want to get out there before that happens or she will end up on the road.”
“Yeah, hey… Joe,” I rub my eyes and hunt for a fresh shirt. “I am glad you own a coffee shop. I could use some something to wake me up.”
“This her?” Joe looks in the bowling bag, a little smile on his face. When he looks up his eyes are welled up. I am hoping the whole day isn’t going to be like this.
“This thermos is Gina’s. We took it on long walks, drives.” He mentally shakes it off and is fine again.
I stuff the shoebox with Joe’s letters in the bowling bag. As an afterthought I grab an old wooden spoon from her kitchen and throw it in as well and we head off to the caffé.
At the caffé I sit down with him at one of the tables next to the flowerpot to the side of the entrance. One of his employees brings me a double espresso macchiato. I load it with a generous amount of sugar. Even then I grimace at my first sip. The rest are heavenly.
I pull the shoebox from the bowling bag and push it across the table, “Joe, this is yours.”
It is an awkward moment for both of us. Joe isn’t accustom to crying in front of anyone, but we are family of sorts and it is okay. He pulls a couple of letters from the box and just looks at the envelopes. I have the feeling he has the matching set of letters in a box at his house.
“Wait for me,” he says and then disappears into the shop to stash the letters.
When he returns we begin. He pulls the thermos from the bowling bag, and then holds the bag up with one finger, “Do you want this?”
I shake my head. We both agree that it isn’t Gina. “Must have been that lawyer’s idea.” He gets up to throw it away, but I remember.
“Wait, Joe.” I reach into the bag and pull out the wooden spoon.
When he returns, we begin. I open the thermos and pour a little of Gina in the flowerpot, stirring her in with the wooden spoon. Joe nods his head and we move on.
With each stop; the bookstore, the beauty shop, the doctor’s office, we have an audience on our secret quest. They each, in turn, pay their silent respects to Gina as I pour a little into each place and fold her in with the wooden spoon. At the bakery, I am sandwiched in hug from both Carla and Tesa after I stir some of her into the window boxes. They give us the last of Gina’s walnut potica and we are off to the bridge after we grab Joe’s car.
It is almost noon as we walk out on the span. I am hoping it isn’t too much for Joe. If you do the math he has got to be in his eighties. But he just keeps on truckin’. For the first time I am leading the way, letting my dream guide me.
“Where are you going, Nicky? This is probably fine right here.” Joe is trying to tell me that he is nearing the point of no return. He will make it back if we stop right now.
“Wait for me Joe, I have to see something.”
I walk ahead and start running my hand under the outside of the rail. After about thirty feet, I start to wonder if it was just a dream.
“Come on, Nicky, let’s do it,” Joe calls after me.
I am just about to pull my hand back and it glides over something. I stop in my tracks. The breeze blows at my back, my hair dances over my face as I feel it.
“What is it, Nicky?” Joe is beside me now.
I peel the tape off of the underside of the rail and pull it up for inspection. It is a piece of cellophane tape, about six inches long, with a little red flower, long since picked and dried with age. I fold the ends of the tape over the flower to protect it and then put it in my pocket. This is the spot.
Without a word I open the thermos and dump the contents into the wind. Gina’s ashes float out over the bay and disappear. I feel Joe’s hand on my shoulder. I put an arm around his waist and we share the moment.
The next day, after an early evening meal at Joe’s with Gina’s North Beach family, I am back on a plane, headed for the bright lights of Vegas. This morning I had the ladies; Carla and Tesa, and the gents; Tilly, Vin Boca, and Joe, come up to her place and take something of Gina’s that they felt was special. Both of the girls took a piece of Gina’s wardrobe to wear at the Bakery, Tesa an old button up sweater that Gina wore every day, and Carla a flowery blouse that Gina would wear on special occasions.
Tilly wanted to move the window boxes with the little red flowers down to his apartment. He would keep the tradition alive. Vin grabbed the decorative olive oil and the garlic, I had the feeling she had won both in a checker game. Joe just wanted to keep the thermos.
I left instructions and money with Tilly to have the movers box up Gina’s stuff and send it my way. At some point in time the family would probably make it out to sift through some of it.
Now I am sitting, eyes closed, trying to make the next couple of hours go by without notice. There is a massive vibration and acceleration, and I am on my way as though shot from a cannon. Conversation blends with the deep hum of twin engines, lulling me into semi-consciousness. Before long the smell of fresh brewed coffee pulls me back. I smile, my heart warmed with recent memories. My hand slips into my pocket and grasps the little red flower in cellophane and I close my eyes once more.
posted by Jake Allen at 11:46 PM
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