Filomena was walking out her front door to sit on the top stoop as I was walking up the street at about 8:15. I had been waiting down at the front on a bench by the water; waiting for Ferdinand’s call to tell me he was ready for dinner.
“You want to come inside?”, she said. And she started to turn around to go back in and make me a cup of espresso or a pork chop.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Why not?”
Filomena is lonely. Her friend Giuseppe has gone to Italy for a month, so she has no one to talk to. She will smile at you if you are ambling past, and maybe a wave, but she doesn’t speak English, so that is it. I speak enough Italian to keep her happy.
“I have to make the pasta,” I told her. “Ferdinand called me and he is ready to eat.”
“He has gotta eat.” she said.
She wouldn’t even think to question my role as wing(wo)man. She has been doing it for 65 years. It is her calling. We talk one wing(wo)man to another. What we cooked last night, what we are going to cook tomorrow, where to buy the best meat, how much we paid for it, and how much they ate.
“He said he is hungry tonight, Filomena; I am going to drop the whole box of macaroni.”
“Brava ragazz’.”
That is me. Brava Ragazz’. That is why I love Filomena.