CHAPTER THREE
BECOMING EMMA PICCOLO
“TROI, YOU’VE TAKEN over my racks again!”
I squeeze between two overstuffed garment racks in what the more civilized amongst us would designate the living room. Not a heck of a lot of living can happen in here right now. The eight racks transform the room, though not the clothes they bear, into the sale section of a discount clothing store. I have bequeathed five of the racks to Troi, which clearly isn’t enough. His clothes have staged an invasion. I pluck hanger after hanger of his jackets from my rack, laying them over the rack behind me.
“Careful! The Paul Smith jacket cost a fortune. Come here, baby. Papa will take care of you.” Troi makes grabby hands at the hanger I’m holding.
I hand him the brick-red double-breasted linen jacket. “I organized our wardrobes three days ago. How is it possible for the room to devolve into chaos so quickly?”
Troi presses his lips together and draws an arc with his head. “I may have visited our storage unit yesterday.”
“You promised you wouldn’t bring home any new friends until we finish the renovations. I designed the perfect closet system for our spare room. It will double the number of hangers we can house. But until then, we have to manage with the available space.”
“Technically, I didn’t bring in anything new.” His coy shrug does nothing to shield him from my glare.
“Smart aleck. I don’t have time to argue with you. Have you seen my Stella McCartney jumpsuit? Black, one shoulder?”
“I might have moved it. Check your closet.”
“I can’t check my closet. I’m stuck. Before I try to extricate myself, be a doll and make sure the jumpsuit is where you think it is.”
While I wait, I relocate five of Troi’s jackets to the end of the rack that threatens to swallow me. Troi reappears in the doorway, waving a leg of my jumpsuit at me. “Ta da!”
“Well done, you. Give me a minute. Making it to the exit will demand a feat of engineering worthy of NASA. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten lunch today.”
“You can do it. I have faith in you.”
I shimmy between the racks, which sway and creak with each step I take. Phew! Fresh air and open space, how I’ve missed you!
“I need to get ready for tonight’s exhibit opening. You’re coming with, right?”
Troi extends his hand to me, guiding me along the wall past the ends of the racks. “I’m not a huge fan of Wilma’s, but I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to witness your brilliance.”
Before I closed on the old apartment, an artist friend of a friend hired me to help her curate a collection of her artwork to display in a pop-up exhibit. A dive bar in her neighborhood announced its impending closure, and she decided to turn the space into a gallery before they served the last beer.
She doesn’t care that the bar is in Staten Island, a decidedly unfamiliar borough to New York’s art world. The bar will still be serving its usual clientele while she presents her “organic yet contrived figurative studies of a post-gender world.” She has no problem with the possibility of inciting a riot. A “display of hyper-masculinity masking ignorance” will enhance the value of her message, or so she says. Wilma is pretentious like that.
“Brilliant is an overstatement. I’ll settle for meh. I had too little to work with. Her art, for starters. And the tar-stained wood walls on which it will hang. If the bar is full, you won’t be able to see any of the pieces, let alone go on a journey while the exhibit opens in front of you. I suggested she mount each drawing or painting on a box, letting the pieces protrude into the bar. Adding dimension should help spotlight the art amongst the sea of baseball caps.”
“The only word I understood from your speech was bar.”
“It’s not nice to tease a gal in danger of being impaled by a clothing rack.”
Troi covers the end of the rack to protect my soft parts. “You used to tease me. I miss having a readily available sparring partner. You’ve lost your edge.”
It seems so long ago, I barely remember having an edge to lose. “You and Lauren provide all the cattiness I need.”
“It’s about more than being catty. Snark shows you have fight left in you.”
“What’s there to fight about?” A highlight reel of images of Brandon and my old apartment flips through my mind in a blur. My arms press into my sides.
He studies me through slitted eyes. With a quirk of the corner of his mouth, he says, “Nothing. Forget I mentioned it. Are we taking the Staten Island Ferry? I could go with a nautical theme for my outfit. Or perhaps go home with a sailor.” Troi salutes. His pose would be wasted on the ferry crew.
“The bar is on the wrong side of Staten Island for the ferry.”
“Is there a right side?”
“Doubtful. But I do have a surprise for you!”
“Oh, goodie! I love surprises.”
“I’m driving us. I rented a car.”
Troi collapses onto the single chair we’ve managed to shoehorn into the living room/closet, muttering to himself.
I strain to hear him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying goodbye to everyone I know as my life flashes in front of my eyes. Do you even know how to drive?”
“My Aunt Donna taught me. I grew up in the outer boroughs, after all. We had room to park a car at our house and everything.”
“And when did you last drive?”
“Um...”
“Which translates into not recently enough. I’ll order a car.”
I smile, remembering a winding road overlooking a shimmering cerulean blue sea dotted with sailboats and surrounded by mountains. “The last time I drove was three years ago. Portofino.”
“Oh, honey, driving in Italy doesn’t count. The way they drive all fast and manly is great in the movies, but you’ll be hauling precious cargo.” He presses his hands to his chest with a pointed expression. “Promise me you won’t drive like a — what’s the Italian word for maniac?”
“I promise I won’t kill you in any language.”
“And you possess an actual driver’s license?”
“That’s the best part. Look!”
I hold the plastic ID I received today after submitting myself to Kafka’s world at the DMV in midtown. Three hours of my life sacrificed to bureaucracy, but it was worth it. “I am now the person legally known as Emma Piccolo!”
Troi rises from this thrown to give the crown of my head a kiss. “Welcome to the world, baby girl!”
My license — and my social security card — had long identified me as someone I am not. I decided to wait until I had a new residence before making the switch to who I am now. It wasn’t only Brandon’s name I longed to ditch; I had a clunker of a first name I previously never had the courage to change legally.
My parents named me after my mother’s grandmother, Mavis. God, I hated that name! I used to sign my homework M. Piccolo because I refused to say or write my proper name. In high school, thanks to a friend’s suggestion, I lengthened the M to Emma.
When I changed my name from Piccolo to Davis upon marrying Brandon, he insisted I keep my first name to continue to honor my great-grandmother. No matter that I had never met her or that her granddaughter — my mother — had ghosted me in my youth. Anchoring me to my hideous name represented the kind of power Brandon had over me. He was important and mature, which spurred me to do everything he asked of me. Including carrying the name of Mavis Davis around for over five years. Basta!