The Supreme Macaroni Company Read Online Free PDF

was still the captain.
    The children were decked out for the holidays in matching ensembles. Chiara and Charisma wore blue velvet party dresses. Tess had given them French braids in an upsweep with giant bows on the nape of their necks. Alfred Jr. and Rocco wore dress shirts with bow ties, miniature versions of my brother when he was eight and ten years old.
    Gianluca and I stood at the center of the back row, his arm around me. I placed my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, taking in the scent of his skin, fresh lemon and cedar, and imagining years of burying my face in his neck.
    “Get a room, Val,” Gabriel said as he snapped away.
    “Here,” Tess said, handing him her phone.
    Soon Gabriel was juggling the phones, snapping the group shot for each of us. He handed the phones back as he finished. Finally, he snapped a final photo with Alfred’s camera. “That’s it! Francesco Scavullo is done. I need carbohydrates. We’re all done here.”
    “I want you in a picture, Gabe.”
    “I have a thousand pictures with you.”
    “But you’re my best man.”
    “I am? I’m too hungry to be excited.” Gabriel lifted his phone to the best angle, put his cheek against mine, and snapped. “Got it.”
    “Everybody back to the table. We’ve got plenty of time to plan the wedding,” Jaclyn said. “But two more minutes on the stove and the linguini will be gruel.”
    “Throw it out if it’s not al dente,” Aunt Feen ordered. I guessed she’d decided not to call Carmel after all.
    “Nothing worsh than mushy homemades,” Charlie slurred. He was definitely drunk, and there was no way to sober him up with the overdone pasta. Maybe the clams would cut the insulin spike. Here’s hoping.
    “Red or white sauce?” Tom asked.
    “Both,” Tess replied. “Everybody gets to have what they like on Christmas.”
    Mom and Gram grabbed Gianluca and herded him into the dining room. The remaining Israelites turned tail and returned to the far shore as though the Red Sea had never parted. So went the biblical Roncalli/Vechiarelli family epic on that night before Christmas. No loss of life, but no miracles, either.
    I was about to join the family when I turned and saw my father standing alone by the twinkling tree, which was encrusted with more sequin crap ornaments than you could find in a January sale bin at the Dollar Store. He was checking his phone to make sure the photo was good enough. Satisfied, he turned off the phone and slipped it into his back pocket. He stood back and watched as the family took their places at the table. There was a small smile on his face, a look of near contentment. Dad is a man of peace, and for the time being, we had a sliver of it.
    Dad buried his hands deep in the pockets of his winter-white Sansabelt trousers that he ordered from the ad in the back of the Sunday Parade magazine. A New Yorker through and through, in his black dress shirt and white Christmas tie he looked like the holiday version of a black-and-white cookie. The expression on his face was just as sweet. No matter what, as long as I was making my own choices, my father was happy for me. What more could I ask for?

2
    T he family was crammed around Tess and Charlie’s dining room table, extended to the max with three leaves, covered in white damask, and lit with tiny blue tea lights. Tess had hung Christmas ornaments from the chandelier. The glass angels shimmered over the holiday table as though it were an altar.
    My sisters and I, as always, took the worst seats near the kitchen—we’d be up and down, serving the food and clearing the dishes between courses. The seat levels of the extra chairs around the table varied wildly from piano stool to lawn chair, making my family look like a row of mismatched tombstones. There’s an email chain amongst my sisters before every holiday about the possibility of renting a proper table and chairs from a party supply place, but we never do. Somehow, this weird mash-up of furniture is