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Chapter 9: Junior
I had to be perfect. If I were perfect, my father would love me again. I obeyed my teachers to the letter. I got top grades, even in math, a subject that caused great agonies once I reached sixth grade. But King Olive spent less and less time at home. He went to Italy two or three times a year, often for several weeks. Sometimes my mother went with him. After the twins were born, we moved into a big apartment on Central Park West. We children always had a governess to look after us and a housekeeper to cook and clean. The little girls, Dahlia and Deborah, barely knew Father at all. On his part, he could never put the right girl’s name on the right face. Junior and I called them Dolly and Debo. Junior liked to tease them by holding a treat or a teddy bear out of reach until they wailed in frustration. I became their protector, especially if the governess at the time proved to be too harsh.
One governess, a young French woman named Monique, was our favorite. She was kind and patient. She never hit anyone, not even Junior, and he used to get into terrible mischief. He liked to throw bags of garbage on to the people below our sixth story window. While I was at the library, he tied the twins to their bedpost. Once he locked them out on the fire escape when it was raining.
One day we were walking with Monique in Central Park. I noticed some mothers watching us and whispering as we passed by. Their eyes traveled up and down, evaluating our clothing.
“Monique,” I said, “is Father rich?”
“Yes, I think he would be considered rich,” she answered.
“Very rich?” I persisted.
“I would say so. He has the company Salerno, and the car dealerships. He owns your apartment building and some others, too, yes?”
It was true. I glanced again at the staring women with their narrowed eyes and felt my cheeks get hot. The little fur-lined hat that I loved for its softness suddenly felt itchy and conspicuous. I took it off.
The society section of the newspaper began to show photographs of my parents at concerts and gallery openings.
“Anthony Salerno, known as King Olive, and his lovely wife, Adela, attended the opening night of Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera House.”
“Anthony Salerno, King Olive, shakes hands with the president of General Motors.”
“Adela Salerno, wife of Anthony Salerno (King Olive) cuts the ribbon on the season’s latest model Fiat just arrived at Salerno’s Fine Cars.”
Junior was in sixth grade and I was in tenth grade when he was kicked out of the public school. The upshot of that was Catholic school for all four of us. It was devastating for me to start anew in my second year of high school. At this point in our lives, Junior and I fought constantly. I was convinced that the girls at our new school avoided me because I was Junior’s sister, and his reputation had preceded him. Yet, after some weeks, I made a few friends and showed myself to be a star pupil.
Father believed the nuns would straighten Junior out, but they didn’t.
“Why can’t you be like Teresa?” Sister Margareta asked Junior every time he was caught.
Junior just scowled and mumbled and concocted a worse transgression. He peed out the window of the boys’ bathroom, plugged up the toilets with paper towels to cause floods, and started food fights in the lunchroom. Junior never lied about what he had done. He admitted guilt with a cold glitter in his eyes. When Father was home, he would yell at Junior in English and Italian. Then he’d spank Junior with a belt, but after a few whacks he’d drop the belt and take Junior in his arms, both of them weeping. “You’re my only son, my right eye. Make me proud of you, Junior. Be a good boy.”
My mother no longer worked in the Salerno office. Father had rented space in a building on Fifth Avenue. He had a secretary, Mrs. Romano. He brought one of Uncle Gio’s sons, Alberto, from Italy, and trained him to be his assistant. Without secretarial work to do, Mother played bridge, ate out with friends, or went shopping. She did not spend more time with us.
When I was a senior in high school, Junior did something seriously bad. He was fourteen. All I knew at the time was that it involved a girl in tenth grade, alcohol, and the police. He did it on the day of my graduation. I remember sitting on the stage in my white polyester robe and mortarboard, searching the faces in the audience for my father. My mother sat with the twins in the third row, her coat on the back of the seat beside her. I was, of course, the valedictorian. After the principal, Mother Mary Alice, gave her speech, it was my turn. The seat next to my mother was still empty. Swinging between rage and sinking disappointment, I managed to say the words I had memorized. For me, the day had gone as gray as cardboard, and as flat. At the end, I thanked the faculty and my parents for their support.
After the diplomas were handed out, we took a cab back to our apartment. Father had insisted on throwing a party for me.
“After all, you are the first person in my family to go on to university.”
Some of my friends stopped by. No one stayed long because they had celebrations of their own at home.
My best friend, Bridget, asked, “Where is your father?”
“Junior got in trouble.”
“Again?” she rolled her eyes. “What a jerk. What’d he do this time?”
“I don’t know.” Tears threatened. I refused to cry until later, when I retreated to my room after most of the guests had left. All those who remained were part of my parents’ inner circle, along with Cousin Alberto. I heard my father come in. He knocked on my door. I pretended to be asleep.
In the fall I began Columbia University. Junior was sent to the New York Military Academy.
“If the nuns can’t straighten him out, maybe the military can,” said Father.
Somehow Junior lasted for all four years. It was probably my father’s generosity that kept him enrolled that long. There’s a Salerno Gym and a Salerno Science Complex on the campus. Junior’s grades were barely passing, but they were high enough to get him into the Army as soon as he graduated. He died in Vietnam, by stepping on a land mine.
Tangled Magic 