Have a Seat Next to The Four Seasons
Coming home to The Jersey Boys at your dinner table is startling for a teenage girl.
My father liked to impress. He drove a Cadillac. He wore diamond rings and a gold chain. His suits were made by a tailor. He had cash in his wallet.
But when he really wanted to impress people, he brought them for dinner.
My mother was Irish but knew how to cook authentic Italian food. It was a requirement for being married to my father. When mom was first married, my Italian nonie taught her to cook. From sauce with meatballs and Italian sausage, braciole and manicotti, pasta fagioli and broccoli rabe, chicken cacciatore and homemade cannolis, mom could make a Napolitan’ drool.
And mom was expected to have everything ready for these meals in an instant. She never knew when dad would call and tell her he was bringing people for dinner. And by people, I mean celebrities. Dad believed everyone deserved a home cooked meal, especially ones on the road.
Mom was also expected to have anything a guest might need. Ripped stockings? Mom had a new pack. Raining outside and forgot your umbrella? Mom kept several still in plastic. Dad also was known to give away our stuff. If someone commented on how much they liked one of mom’s beloved platters or even one of our toys, dad would offer it up.
“Here, take it,” he’d say. This did not make neither my mother, sister, nor I, happy.
I remember one night when dad brought home the Andy Warhol actress, “Viva.” To this day, I still have no idea how my dad got to know Viva but he was going to make sure she had a home-cooked meal.
This girl was a trip. She was waif-like — maybe dad wanted to fatten her up — and wore a flowing pale white silky dress, tapestry belt, and velvet jacket. She talked in a way that friends of my parents didn’t. Even the celebrities dad brought home had some kind of mob swagger. But Viva was different. She sat at the dinner table without shoes, one leg under her body, the other flowing freely. She was artsy and cosmopolitan and spoke in a way that oozed intelligence. I was captivated by her.
After dinner, Viva passed on dessert but asked my parents if they had a cigarette. They did not. Why? Because my parents didn’t smoke. In fact, my father hated smoking so much that he threatened if I even tried smoking, he’d break all of my fingers, one by one.
But that didn’t stop dad from yelling at my mother after Viva left.
“Peg, what the hell is wrong with you? Why didn’t we have cigarettes? Don’t let that happen again.”
I can remember my mother’s conversation under her breath. Every other word was “asshole.”
One night my father decided to bring home a party of four to partake in a home cooked meal. As always, he called my mom.
“Peg, I’m bringing The Four Seasons for dinner in about an hour.”
My mother never flinched. She would just run around stuffing anything laying around the house in the closet and start browning garlic.
I remember reading once that Valerie Bertinelli dated Steven Spielberg until he told her he didn’t like garlic. She broke up with him. I totally get that. In an Italian household, garlic is the staple for all foods. Got a cold? Brown some garlic for chicken soup. Meatloaf or burgers? Better with garlic.
Mom was always prepared with lots of garlic and basil, cans of imported crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, packs of pasta, and at least three ground animals in the freezer ready to thaw with her “run under hot water and stab with a fork” method. And of course a big jug of red wine, some ice cream, and packs of Stella Dora Italian cookies.
So when dad called and told her guests were coming, she was prepared.
But I wasn’t.
I could handle dinner with Viva. I could even handle dining with Muhammad Ali or Sammy Davis Jr., but when I arrived home to find The Four Seasons sitting at our dinner table, I lost it.
“Have a seat next to Dimitri,” my mom said.
Seriously, mom? Dimitri Callas was the best looking guy in the band. I mean, this guy was so gorgeous that he was hard to look at. And I was wearing an unaltered Catholic school uniform with penny loafers, hair tied back in a pony tail, no makeup. Not even lipstick. There was no warning time given for hiking the uniform up to my ass. I looked like a Catholic school girl dork.
“Let me change my clothes, for Christ’s sake,” I said nervously.
I ran to my bedroom, let my hair down, sprayed up the roots with AquaNet, peeled off my uniform, and put on the shortest dress I owned. And lipstick.
I loved The Four Seasons. I could listen to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” over and over again. I watched the band perform live once and was immediately attracted to Dimitri Callas. He had these weepy eyes that tilted down slightly on the sides and a dimple in his chin. But those eyes.
And now he was at my dinner table. You would think my parents might be concerned for their daughter’s embarrassment, but mom was all about practicality. She wanted everyone at the table to be comfortable so she put a folding chair for my scrawny ass between Dimitri Callas and Joe LaBracio.
For the first time in my life, I had no appetite and no gift for gab. I think I ate half of a meatball and said three words. The evening is a blur.
But I do remember the goodbye. The band loved mom’s cooking and thanked her graciously for the meal. And then it happened.
Dimitri grabbed my hand, kissed it and said, “Goodbye, gorgeous.”
And then I threw up.
