- Hot Gossip
Tanino held womankind in the highest regard, except for one thing: gossip. To him, anything from complaints about the weather to political slander was ‘gossip’.
Melina was late coming home from church and Tanino had a pretty good idea why. Her lateness had started when Anna, one of Melina’s church friends, had announced that her daughter was getting married. Tanino imagined the gaggle of women outside the church after evening Mass, gassing about flowers, wedding dresses and whatnot. Why did they love idle talk so much? Didn’t they know that it was the work of the devil, that it led to gossip and gossip led to catastrophe?
What he most disliked about their chit-chat was that their husbands often were the object. He dreaded to imagine all that Melina’s friends must know about him.
“I’m home!” Melina bounded through the door. She sounded breathless, which meant that she must have realized that she was late.
“It’s because of that silly wedding that you’re coming home late every evening, isn’t it,” he grumbled.
“Actually, no: we weren’t talking about the wedding tonight.” Melina dashed into the kitchen, turned on the oven and whipped her apron on. “We were talking about Anna’s husband’s hemorrhoid operations. The first one didn’t go too well because—”
“I don’t want to know!” Tanino covered his ears and made a mental note not to tell Melina if he ever suffered from embarrassing medical complaints.
Melina released the bread dough that was bursting through the gaps in the parcel she had brought from the bakery. Eagerly watching from the threshold, Tanino guessed that this must mean pizza tonight. She oiled a square baking tray, slapped the dough in and pushed it up to the corners, then opened a tin of tomatoes and sloshed them on top. She might as well have bought the pizza ready-made from the bakery if she was going to make it in such a hurry and with so little care. But he kept quiet because he was hungry.
“Did you know that Peppina’s gone on holiday with her sister,” Melina said with a hint of envy. “She’s left her husband behind at home all alone.”
Why was Melina telling him this? Did she too wish to go on holiday without her husband? “Rocco would have been much better company for her than her sister, if you ask me. Anyway, I’m not so sure that he will be staying ‘at home all alone’.” He winked.
These last words were simply meant as a joking threat, should Melina think of doing the same, but they grabbed Melina’s attention by the throat. Her cheese-sprinkling stopped mid-air and she raised one eyebrow. “Do you know something that I don’t?”
She sounded intrigued and a little resentful that Tanino might know a piece of information that she wasn’t in on. Tanino had absolutely no idea what Rocco had planned for his time without his wife, but the chance to shock Melina and gain credit with her was irresistible for Tanino. “As a matter of fact,” he breathed in importantly, “I do.”
Melina wiped her hands on her apron and slammed the pizza into the lukewarm oven. “Tell me everything,” she ordered.
“Nothing. It’s just that Rocco is not going to be waiting like a puppy all alone in the apartment.” Tanino floated out of the kitchen and Melina followed him to the door.
“Who is going to keep him company?”
Melina’s curiosity was thicker than the cheese she had dropped on the pizza. “Not a woman, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She followed him into the corridor. “Are you involved?”
“I was invited, yes, of course. But I declined. Parties are not my thing.” He continued to drift away, avoiding her gaze in case she read the bluff on his face. This made him look shifty and whipped Melina’s excitement up to the maximum.
“Ah, it’s a party then, is it?”
“Maybe.”
“Santo Cielo, good Heavens, Peppina would never approve of that! They’re going to leave an almighty mess in her home!”
Tanino did not fail to notice this description of their friends’ marital home.
“When is it? Tonight?” Melina whispered conspiratorially.
“Maybe.” Tanino’s vagueness wasn’t deliberate: he just hadn’t worked out the details yet. But his sibylline answers had the desired effect on Melina. She was flushed with excitement, hopping from one slipper to the other.
“What time?”
“I can’t tell you.”
At this point, Tanino’s fun abruptly came to an end. Instead of following him around the house, Melina scuttled to the phone. Oh no, she was going to tell her friends! He must call off his bluff before… before what? Melina embarrassed herself? Ah. That would teach her a lesson about the evil of gossiping, wouldn’t it? He thought about it: as soon as her friends heard the fake news, they would rush to their husbands and ask them if they were involved in the illicit party. Then it would become clear that Melina’s information was a hoax. So Tanino let her make all the phone calls while he, instead, went to check on the pizza.
***
“I need Peppina’s number immediately,” Melina whispered into the phone.
“Why? What’s happened?” Anna asked.
“I’ve just found out that her husband is giving a party in her house tonight.”
“Oh dear. She won’t like that.”
“That’s why I have to tell her.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have her cell number. I’m not even sure she’s taken her phone with her. Try calling Rosaria, but first tell me more about the party.”
“It’s tonight. Just the men. They are bound to drink and play scopone into the night, if you ask me.”
“Oh, my! I’d better check that Vincenzo isn’t involved.” At this point, they both quickly ended the call.
Melina called Rosaria.
“Sorry, Melina, I don’t have Peppina’s number but try Angela. First, tell me about this party!”
“Tonight. Men only. I bet they’ll be drinking and gambling. I wouldn’t be surprised if they watched unsuitable movies too.”
There was a gasp at the other end of the phone, followed by silence. Then, “Betting, drinking, blue movies… oh dear! Do you know who’s going?”
“Not my husband, of course. You’d better check on yours.”
That call came to a swift end too. Eventually, Melina gave up on trying to contact Peppina. Enough people knew about the illicit party now, so surely somebody would pass the message on to her. She tottered to the kitchen and found Tanino sitting at the table, the pizza in the center with half missing already.
“I had to start without you. It was going cold,” he muttered with his mouth full, blowing on the molten cheese.
She ate some pizza until the phone rang, when she jumped out of her chair and dashed to it.
“Valeria has tried Peppina’s mobile but it’s off. Nobody can get hold of her tonight,” came Anna’s voice from the other end. “By the time we speak to her, it’ll be too late for her to stop the party. Should we just keep quiet and hope that Rocco clears up really well?”
Melina thought about it a little. “I would rather know, if I was her.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Then we all must meet and discuss what to do: we should all be on the same page. Call everyone and tell them to come to mine in half an hour.”
“But there are the finals of Ballando con le Stelle, Dancing with the Stars, on TV tonight.”
“We can watch it at mine. Tanino doesn’t mind.”
***
Rocco was eating stale bread with tinned tuna and watching Commissario Montalbano when the intercom rang. Who could it be at this time in the evening? Pinuccia returning early from her trip? He put down his plate and walked slowly over to the receiver. “Hello?”
“Let us in, you cheeky Judas. Let us in!”
Rocco didn’t understand in what way he could possibly have betrayed his friend, but he recognized Vincenzo’s voice and thought that it would be easier to understand him face-to-face so he buzzed him in.
Moments later the apartment doors burst open and Vincenzo, Mimmo, Fabrizio, Giovanni and Peppe tumbled in with parcels and bottles. The landing filled with the heavenly smell of hot cannoli cakes, pizza and other baked goods. “How dare you give a party and not invite us!” They slapped him on the back.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” They glanced into his apartment, where the tuna panino was resting, sad and lonely, on the table. The TV showed a blonde flirting with stone-faced detective Montalbano.
“Is that what you call a ‘blue movie’, Rocco?” Everyone laughed except Rocco, who felt as confused as a knotted skein of wool.
“You just said all that so that people would come over!”
“Then he offers us a tuna panino!”
As they bantered, they all piled into his apartment. They sat around the TV devouring warm pizza and cannoli overflowing with sweet ricotta. They watched Montalbano expose the murderer instead of the blonde and then had a quick round of cards with Monopoly money, because their real cash had gone into buying the cakes and the wine.
At ten to ten, Vincenzo announced that it was time to go home before their wives returned from Melina and Tanino’s: the silly dancing show would be finishing soon.
“Ah, that’s why Tanino hasn’t come with you: he’s trapped at home with all the wives. Poor guy!” Rocco said. He had finally understood.
***
Tanino had hoped to watch his favorite TV serial, the one about detective Montalbano, but Melina had invited all her friends and they all wanted to watch the dancing. By the time he went to his usual café, he was desperate for male company. Luckily, Rocco was there.
“Hello, Rocco. Shouldn’t you be having something more substantial, considering that your missus isn’t cooking for you?” Tanino asked, looking at the tiny shot of espresso his friend was sipping.
“I’m on detox today. I ate too much sugar last night.”
Tanino’s ears pricked up. “What did you do last night?” he asked slowly.
“A few of the boys came to my house.”
Tanino felt like his eyes were about to jump out of their orbits. Rocco’s party was meant to be his fabrication, not a reality! “So you had a… party?”
“I wouldn’t call it that: we just ate takeout pizza and cannoli and watched Montalbano.”
No! They ate proper pizza and watched his favorite program, while he was stuck with Ballando con le Stelle and half the women in town.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t come,” Rocco said, perhaps moved by Tanino’s reaction. “I understand that you were ‘babysitting’ the wives. But don’t worry, we’ll do it again next time Peppina goes away.”
Still with his eyes bulging out of his head, Tanino swallowed his espresso, made his excuses and left before any more of his friends turned up to tell him how great a night he’d organized for them. Or who was the murderer in that Montalbano episode.
Back home, Melina was putting away her bags of shopping. “Tanino, you won’t believe what I found!”
Oh please, no more gossip. He didn’t reply. Melina tottered out of the kitchen with a grin and her hands tucked behind her back. “I was told by Rosaria who heard it from Angela that Valeria—”
“Please, no more gossip!”
“What gossip? Look here!” She pulled her arms out and thrust a box towards him. Commissario Montalbano, the full series. Tanino couldn’t believe his eyes. A big smile stretched across his face.
“Oh, thank you!”
“You see, I was told by Rosaria who heard it from Angela that Valeria bought a half-price box at the newsagent’s, so I went too. It was seventy per cent off, but only for today.”
Tanino smiled. “I see now, dear: you don’t gossip. You just share information.” He winked and hugged her.
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