Curse of the Gugliametti
The Woman of His Dreams
Welcome to False Choices where I write fiction every week, and non-fiction about our farm as the mood strikes. Enjoy and
“We don’t pronounce the second ‘g’ and the first ‘g’ is a ‘j’, so it’s really ‘Juliametti’, but after years and years of explaining we realized it was futile, and we just gave up; we accepted ‘Gugliametti’,” Jerry explained, “but in the family we still use it correctly. Sometimes I feel like it’s a curse, like I’m walking through the world invisible, like a ghost, without a proper family name. There’s a woman, I see her everywhere; on the train in the morning, and again in the evening. At lunch I’ve seen her dozens of times in the Financial District and around Faneuil Hall, at one place or another. I’ve even seen her at Fenway Park. But she has never seen me. As far as I know she’s never laid eyes on me; I’m invisible in the world with a this hard ‘g’ last name. Man, I want to meet that woman.” The other man, an intern on Jerry’s municipal bond desk, had asked about the pronunciation after picking up a personal call. Satisfied with the answer, he rose and left with a hand wave.
The weekend ticked by till, once again, it was Sunday afternoon and Grandma Gugliametti was making dinner, as she had every Sunday of Jerry’s life. To be honest, you had to admire the woman’s desire to serve and love her family, but you also had to admit she was not a good cook. Well, not a great cook, but certainly passing if she stuck to the old family recipes. Recently though she became enamored of watching cooking videos online, some boy in Brooklyn doing Italian food, and suddenly she served the family room temperature squid soaked in olive oil, and a new type of lasagna made with a white sauce?
On Patriot Sundays, football Sundays, Jerry got into his old beater at exactly 12:38 in order to arrive at Grandma’s house at the exact moment the Patriots kicked off at 1:00. If they opened the door at the exact moment and across the room the ball left the tee, well that was a sure Patriot win. Jerry, normally an analytical man, was wedded to this superstition. And this was a perfect fall day for football and family and Jerry was not in the least put off by the halftime dinner ahead, whatever it may be. He hoped for meatballs and Uncle Pete’s homemade Italian sausage with a little too much red pepper flakes, but if Grandma wanted to serve something new, that was fine as well.
When he turned onto Prince Street and entered the North End, the streets were quieter than normal. Jerry smiled knowing other Italians like him were all in front of their tv, waiting for kick-off. And there she was, the girl he’d seen and thought of a thousand times, standing next to a car with a flat tire. Jerry found a spot across the street, just a few doors from his Grandma’s home and walked over, nearly overcome by the opportunity to finally meet this woman who haunted his brain.
“Got a flat, huh? Jerry asked the young lady. “I’d be happy to help, if you want me to put on the spare.”
“What?” she muttered, staring at him as if he spoke a different language.
“Oh, I was jus gonna say that I could help out, but if you…” Jerry struggled to explain.
“Really you can help me out?” the woman asked.
“Uh, yeah, sure, I’m just having dinner with my Grandma and family, you know, just there,” Jerry replied, pointing at a building within view on the opposite side, “but I could change your tire in a few minutes.”
“Ok,” the woman said, still staring at him, as if she wasn’t sure what the next step was. This kind of amused Jerry and he smiled broadly.
“Well, if you could open the trunk we’ll get your spare out and your jack,” Jerry explained.
“Oh, right,” the woman said. And they began. The woman at Jerry’s request stood a foot out into the street to make traffic slow down a bit and go around Jerry, who worked quickly to break the lugs on the wheel and then crank the car up. He had the spare on in a few minutes, the lugs snug and then he uncranked the jack and did the final tightening of the lugs. He wasn’t a pro but he’d done it a few times before. It went without a snafu.
“So you work over in the financial district,” Jerry said to the woman, which made her back straighten up and her brow crease.
“How would you know that,” she asked. He was surprised by her tone, like she suspected something nefarious. God, she really had never noticed me, after all this time; I’m invisible, he thought.
He couldn’t think of any way to explain it so he just told the truth. “I work at Headley, a hedge fund. I’ve seen you on the D train from time to time. I’m just, you know, pretty good with faces.”
“Really?” she asked, not believing him at all. In fact she was not amused by his familiarity, however slight it was.
“Yeah, really,” Jerry said. He put the flat tire into her trunk, along with the jack. “By the way, you have a nail in your tire, should be an easy fix," he said, closing the trunk.
Without another word, the woman got into her car and left. Jerry walked across the street and up the stairs to Grandma’s, thinking what a mess he made of meeting the woman he had for so long longed for. “Snafu,” he said aloud, and then the door opened and the game was already eleven minutes old.
He thought he smelled fish, and Uncle Pete was quick to explain that he’d made a fine batch of sausages the day before, but, well, Grandma wanted to try something new, a fish stew from Sicily! “You know, Jerry, seafood is very expensive these days,” his Uncle reminded him, a hint to mind his manners. Of course the Patriots lost, the stew was edible, and Jerry Gugliametti never saw the woman of his dreams again.