Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 105.1: 1995, Georgina

"Happy early birthday, Georgina. I saw the bakery and I couldn't resist. I thought of you, and well... Happy Birthday." So warm. These words.

"Oh?" I peered down at the golden brown sweets on my lap, so sudden. So these were the almond smell, of course. "Pignoli," I sighed, a rushing wave of their charming smell came over me and I breathed in. They had lightly vanilla colored nuts on them, thick little cookies in more of a sphere than flat.

"Yes, I was at my favorite deli and a few doors down I always pass this little Italian bakery. Well, today when I passed the window I thought of you. I couldn't resist. Its your birthday soon, well not for a couple of weeks, but I needed to...get you something. I had to."

Oh, sweet. So sweet. She was so... I slowly gazed over at her face. She was staring at me with a new, slight smile. A hopeful one. I could read that immediately, unlike her almost unemotional fake one just seconds earlier. When she'd spoken of Genesis, so sudden.

"Pignoli? Oh, I said 'piggies' to the cashier!"

I was giggling, oh sweetness, I was laughing. I looked over at her again, and she was cracking up. Then she was laughing with me. Her beautiful laugh.

She contained herself after a few precious, too short seconds. "I hope you like them. I realized I have no idea what you like when I was trying to pick out something. What do you like, Georgina?"

"You know," I smiled, containing myself also, taking her hands in mine. Her eyes softened, her mouth opened slightly. What was that emotion? "You know," I repeated, just so she got it.

She smiled then, a small but gorgeous smile of comprehension of knowing.

She knew.

It was some minutes later, and she'd gone to the kitchen to make a phone call. The pignoli were on the couch where she'd been, her seat cushion. I held one up to my face, smelling it in. Baby Doll had followed her into the kitchen, at her bright yellow heels.

The pignale was euphoric, and I had my secrets also. But only, I'd tell her if she'd wanted to know. If she knew the right words to ask. I breathed in. The pignale was so familiar to me. It was as if she'd known, but she hadn't, had she? It was impossible for her to know, right? Or had someone told her? Was it a front, or something else? Because these sweets. There were a lot of Italians in our lives back then, way back when. She'd heard us talk. There were so many Italians at the club.

These were holiday cookies. For celebration, usually Christmas. I'd had these wherever I lived at Christmas, they always seemed to be there. They reminded me of things unsaid.

A flash of another face brought me into a fog, a scruffy face with dark hair. Wandering brown eyes. He'd been so tall to me, powerful, the lights of our apartment's kitchen slightly obscuring him to me and I'd been jealous. Jealous of what? All I knew was I'd wanted a cookie. A selfish tantrum of a child, wailing and flailing and crying "Babbo, Babbo" for all of the party guests to hear. A dark drink was in his hand, the ice of the glass tinkling as he put it on the high table. I banged into his legs until he picked me up and the party guests laughed at me, making me more self-conscious, more upset. I was in a sailor costume, my shiny patent leather shoes clacking together in anger. My little hands shoved my daddy's face away, angry at him for their laughter.

But, ah. "You wanted a cookie? Don't cry, George. You can have a cookie. You can have one." And suddenly a nutty pignale was in my little, dirty hand.

My daddy's voice. Distant, faded. Not really his voice at all anymore. Assuaging my tears, my grief. Giving me the greatest gift at a holiday party so long ago. I couldn't remember his voice, not really. But his breath. It was whiskey. So familiar, even more familiar than his voice now. How shameful. How awful. How... My hand was squeezing the pignale now. So sorry. My long red fingernails were biting into the blonde nuts, too weak, just like before when I was a little sailor costumed child.

"A potluck? You want what? But I was just calling to... You want- okay, okay. Si, si. How is- wait, what? Oh, right. Right. Of course it is. That's not going to work on me, you know."

Cha Cha's voice brought me back to reality. Sudden, but needed. Lucidity. She sounded slightly annoyed.

"Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know what to bring. It will not be hot by the time... Okay. Jello? That isn't good enough. Don't- Don't laugh!"

Who was she talking to? Who was it? She was laughing now. That gorgeous, full-bodied laugh. Who was making her laugh like that?

"Okay. Yeah, that would work. Okay, I'll be there. Well, we will. Yes, 'we'. It's a surprise. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You get back to work! Don't you try... Haha, si. Siii, okay, bye. Bye, bye. Haha!" I heard the phone clutch into its hook loudly from the kitchen. I resettled my look on the cookies next to me, remembered the pignale in my hand.

As I heard Cha Cha clacking down the hallway, I brought the familiar pignale towards my face, smelling its sweet yet melancholy memories, and bit into it so she could not guess my struggle, just as I couldn't begin to guess at her own struggle or her laugh.