Since, for the time being, I am unable to write about or review New York City restaurants, I have decided instead to print a serialized version of my (unpublished) novel Love and Pizza, which takes place in New York and Italy and  involves a young, beautiful Bronx woman named Nicola Santini from an Italian family impassioned about food.  As the story goes on, Nicola, who is a student at Columbia University, struggles to maintain her roots while seeing a future that could lead her far from them—a future that involves a career and a love affair that would change her life forever. So, while New York’s restaurants remain closed, I will run a chapter of the Love and Pizza each week until the crisis is over. Afterwards I shall be offering the entire book digitally.    I hope you like the idea and even more that you will love Nicola, her family and her friends. I’d love to know what you think. Contact me at loveandpizza123@gmail.com
—John Mariani

To read previous chapters go to archive (beginning with March 29, 2020, issue.

LOVE AND PIZZA
  

    Stefania Sandrelli and Dominique Sanda in The Conformist (1970)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

    Downstairs in the spacious courtyard the show was set inside a white canvas tent. Positioned around the interior were movie lights and the kind of props and technical equipment found on a movie set, including a boom microphone suspended above the runway.  Attendees were seated in folding canvas-backed chairs of the kind directors used, instead of the ubiquitous stiff gold chairs of the other shows.
    On the walls were posters of movies that featured Signora Palma’s stars—Sophia Loren in “Two Women” and “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”;  Gina Lollobrigida in “Flesh and the Woman” and “Come September”; Stefania Sandrelli in “Divorce Italian Style” and “The Conformist”;  Virna Lisi in “How to Murder Your Wife” (left) and “The Secret of Santa Vittoria”; and Claudia Cardinale in “8 ½” and “The Pink Panther.”
    Signora Palma had counted on it being a gray morning in Milan, so bringing down the lights inside the tent plunged the audience into brief darkness.  The designer was also counting on her belief that the audience—at least the Italians, who were all cinema buffs—could easily make the connection between the actresses and the outfits from specific movies, and those who could not could simply enjoy the show with a little less familiarity.
        Then, to the sound of the soaring violin strains of the theme from Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord,” the spotlights began scanning the tent’s ceiling as in a movie premier, then focused on the runway.  After a moment of quiet, with nerves running high backstage and the audience in a reserved state of amusement, the music from  the movie “Trapeze” began to play over the speakers and a girl appeared, with a pixie haircut and  bountiful cleavage, dressed in a shimmering gold beaded swimsuit that echoed the circus trapeze performer’s outfit in the movie. The model was smiling radiantly and it had its effect: the audience gasped or laughed or both, then applauded, suddenly recognizing the uncanny resemblance to Gina Lollobrigida—who as long ago as 1954 had been on the cover of Time magazine as the symbol of what it called “Hollywood on the Tiber.”
    Next on the catwalk was the German model, impersonating Virna Lisi in the movie “The Secret of Santa Vittoria,” wearing a highly modified red checkered peasant blouse and pleated brown wool skirt, with a printed kerchief tied artfully on the model’s blonde hair.  The dirge-like coronet and mandolin music from “Divorce Italian Style” (below) began and out walked a stunning facsimile of Stefania Sandrelli in one of the most famous bathing suits in cinema history, a tiny, strapless bikini she wore lounging on the yacht of her cuckolded new husband, played by Marcello Mastroianni.
    Signora Palma was well aware this was supposed to be a show exhibiting fall clothes, but she wanted the eye-opening value of showing swimsuits, too, which, if things and sales went well, she could have in the stores by June.
    Next would come her homage to Sophia Loren—who often attended the big shows in Milan, but not Patrizia Palma’s.  When the audience heard the music from “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”—not quite familiar to most—those who recognized it turned to each other and said, “It’s going to be Sophia Loren in that black bustier!” referring to a hilariously sexy striptease scene in one episode of the movie.   But instead, since Signora Palma didn’t have a lingerie line, she sent out her model in a beautifully tailored beige coat with a mink collar, which Loren wore in the episode “Anna of Milan,” as a wealthy industrialist’s wife with a lover played by Mastroianni.  The coat was an updated version of the one Christian Dior had designed for that movie segment, and the veteran fashion watchers in the audience nodded to each other knowingly that they saw the connection.
    Nicola was next up.  Her heart was pounding wildly, her hands shaky, lips slightly quivering.  Signora Palma was behind her, put her hands on her shoulders, and said, “Buona fortuna, cara,” and gave her a little push.  The first notes of Henry Mancini’s comically suspenseful theme from “The Pink Panther” played, and Nicola Santini, so very, very far from the Bronx, walked onto the runway.  From the rear she heard Signora Palma shout, “Smile, Nicola, big smile!”
    Nicola broke into a wide grin then a big smile and began walking girlishly on the runway, not shifting her hips this way and that as was then routine, but moving them easily, as young women really do when flirting.   But while the music played, the audience seemed puzzlingly quiet.  Signora Palma looked at her staff, lifted her palms and shrugged her shoulders, asking what the hell had gone wrong?
    Then, all of a sudden, the audience broke into wild applause, then shouts of “Claudia!” “La Cardinale!” “Bellisima!” and it went on for what seemed like hours to Nicola.  She was dressed in an interpretation of the actress’s stunning sequined black lace dress (right) worn in “The Pink Panther” (right) when she visited cat burglar David Niven’s hotel room, where she proceeded to drink Champagne and lie atop a tiger rug—a scene immediately recognizable to everyone in the room.
    The other models had gotten wild applause, but the acclimation for Nicola was well beyond theirs, and something like a chant of “Claudia” began as the audience clapped in unison.  Even in her terrified state, Nicola was not oblivious to what she heard, taking it more as a compliment to the actress she was portraying than to herself, as the waves of applause continued.  By the time she got to the end of the runway—always smiling, smiling—with the audience still roaring and clapping, she didn’t know quite what to do.
    And then she remembered Claudia Cardinale’s famous pout, how her lower lip would emerge from her perfect mouth, a signature look as identified with the Italian actress as a provocative wink was with Marilyn Monroe.  So Nicola stopped smiling—which actually caused a lessening of the applause—and then . . . she pouted, and the audience went crazy again.
    Signora Palma was ecstatic and told her staff,  “I knew this girl would be perfect!” then gestured for Nicola to come back.  At that moment Nicola sensed the power of her own, or Cardinale’s, very Italian appeal, the luminous smile, the darkness of the eyes, a dark complexion, a natural bust line, shapely legs and broad rounded shoulders—just about everything that distinguished her from the sallow, emaciated, empty-headed look of a thousand other models on Milan’s runways that week. 
    Was the audience’s reaction for the dress or for the model? By then it didn’t matter.  Signora Palma pushed Nicola out a few steps as many of the highly sophisticated attendees actually rose to their feet.  In the front row, editors, writers and buyers sat frantically scribbling notes in their notepads.
    But the show had only just begun: there were twenty more outfits to go,  which would include the elegant black and white silk gown and pearls worn by Sandrelli while dancing sensuously with actress Dominique Sanda in “The Conformist”; the slinky, low-cut tunic Lisi wore in “How to Murder Your Wife”; the loose print dress Loren (above) wore throughout “Two Women,” for which she received an Academy Award; and much more—skirts, blouses, coats, slacks, scarves and belts.
    Whenever Nicola appeared the applause was still loud and continuous, though by the end of the show more out of appreciation than astonishment.  After the “Pink Panther” dress, Nicola wore a printed blouse with rounded collar and a dark cardigan sweater as did the very young Cardinale in “Rocco and His Brothers”; a polka-dot shirtwaist and scarf from “8 ½”; the extraordinary white gown in the ballroom scene of “The Leopard” (right) where she danced with Alain Delon and Burt Lancaster; and the white shirtdress, headband and broad-brimmed straw hat  in the California sex farce “Don’t Make Waves” with Tony Curtis.
    Finally, the show ended, all the models dutifully came back onto the runway, followed by the designer, who received a great round of applause and a thousand “bravos!”—more than she had dared hope for in prior years.  She put her hand to her lips, failed to hold back tears, bowed slightly and blew a kiss the audience.
    Backstage everyone was bobbing up and down with elation, the models saying how much fun it had been, the stylists collapsing onto chairs, the seamstresses nodding that, si, va bene, va bene, it went pretty well.   Champagne was plucked from a small refrigerator,  foam blasted from the bottle, glasses were filled and Signora Palma stood up to speak, thanking everyone for their hard work, promising that they will all share in the line’s success.  Then, as glasses were refilled, she went over to Nicola, hugged her and said, “Bella, you know you helped save my show.” Nicola demurred, insisting it was obviously the clothes that made the show.
    “Si,” said Signora Palma, “the clothes were beautiful, but there was something molte speciale when you walk down the runway. It was la magica!  The people they fall in love with you.”
    “I think they were falling in love with Claudia Cardinale.”
    “C’e vero, cara, but you reminded them of everything they loved about Claudia, when she was young and was an Italian girl who make it very big as international star. She even make Western movies in America.  But, you listen to me: they saw something about you, Nicola Santini, they loved very much.  I hear, I see how they clap and shout.  Mio Dio, I never see this happen to a model.  Nicola, you can be a very big star, as a model, I mean. Maybe you become actress. You think about this, eh?”
    Nicola was herself beginning to tear up and her makeup began to run.
    “Ah, mia bambina,” said Signora Palma, taking out a lace handkerchief, “Look at my Cardinale now!  Ah, aspett’! This is the American Cardinale—Santini!  La Santini!”
    Nicola laughed a little and expressed her thanks for everything.
    Signora Palma said, “Is nothing. And, Nicola, I want you back this fall for my next show. I pay you to come, no worry about money.”
    Nicola smiled broadly and said, “Grazie, Signora, maybe I will.”
    “And now, Nicola, I want to invite you to my home tonight for a little dinner, just close friends.  Bring your friend—?”
    “Catherine.”
    “Si, Caterina. Bring her too.”
    “Are you sure, Signora? Catherine doesn't speak much Italian.”
    “With my friends that’s not problem. They all speak English, better than me.  I no take no for an answer.”
    Nicola assented, already beginning to worry about what to wear, asking,  “Will it be dressy?”
    “No, you wear whatever you want. When you beautiful as you, Nicola, you wear whatever you want.  Everybody will love you. Trust me. Capisce?”
    Signora Palma turned to her assistant and told him to call a driver to pick up Nicola and her friend that evening, then to Nicola said, “Okay, now I start to do business. See if I make any money this year!” And she was off to meet the buyers.
    The stylist asked Nicola if she wanted her make-up removed.  Nicola glanced in a mirror and said, “Maybe just the face, leave the eyes alone.”
    Almost miraculously, just as Nicola left the building, the clouds broke and revealed a struggling disc of sun. She noticed that some of those from the audience still milling about were turning in her direction and whispering to each other, “That one was Cardinale!”
    The odd thing about such recognitions was not that Claudia Cardinale was dead or even retired; neither were any of the other actresses: Cardinale was then only 48, Loren 51; Lollobrigida 58; Sandrelli 38, and Lisi 49.  Part of the awe was just the fun of seeing the models impersonating the actresses, but much more of it was tied to a nostalgic reverie of a Golden Age of Italian cinema when such actresses were considered goddesses on an international scale.  Patrizia Palma was well aware of that connection and had worked very hard to bring some of that faded glamour back to Italy in her collection.
    Nicola was well aware that she was not Cardinale and that she didn’t want to be regarded as anyone’s fantasy figure, even if she regarded all fashion as fantasy in some way.  And she also knew that, with Fashion Week ending the next day, she could return to her studies and go back to being Nicola Santini, the girl from Belmont who somehow had just had a very glamorous adventure. 
    The BMW was waiting for her, and as they began the drive back to her dorm, Nicola noticed it was half past twelve and that she was starving.  “Driver,” she said, “Do you know the pizzeria Paper Moon on Via Montenapoleone?”
    “Si, Signorina.”
    “Could we stop there? I want to pick up a pizza for my friends.”
    “Certo,” said the driver, making a turn in Paper Moon’s direction.
    And at that moment Nicola knew that there was nothing in the world she wanted right then as much as a good pizza.

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