17
Married to the Mob?

I placed my suitcase in the trunk of the rental car that Brian, my boyfriend, had parked in front of my apartment building on Columbus Avenue and Eighty-Ninth Street. It was the summer of 1996 and Brian and I were finally moving to Washington, DC. We were at a good place in our relationship. We were in love and had a deep respect for one another, which by that point in my life I realized was hard to find.

“You almost ready to go?” Brian asked, leaning out the window.

“Almost,” I said. “I have to run back upstairs one more time.”

“Hurry up,” Brian said, smiling anxiously. “I can’t stay parked here for too much longer.”

I rushed back into the building. I had to retrieve one last bag, pick up my dog, and say a last goodbye to my roommate Kara.

Brian and I had met during our sophomore year in college at Florida State, at a football keg party. I still remember how his eyes locked onto me the minute I entered the room. He was cute, with boyish features, blonde hair and blue eyes, and a dimple in his cheek when he smiled . . . but at first, I had no interest.

“Can I use your phone?” I asked him that day, a few minutes after I’d arrived. “I have to call my boyfriend.”

Brian and I became friends, and later, when I was single, we started seeing each other. That lasted about a year, but like many young undergrad couples, we broke up during our senior year. I wanted to date other guys, and I was feeling confused about my future. You see, Brian was the person I’d lost my virginity to and I was in love with him—but I couldn’t decide if he was my future husband without testing the waters to see what else was out there. At least, that was my rationale at the time.

After the breakup, Brian and I stayed in touch and two years later we decided to meet up while I was visiting Tallahassee to attend the Miami versus Florida State football game. (While living in New York, I always tried to come back at least once a year for a game.) Then, by coincidence—or a twist of fate—I ran into Brian’s parents at the game. His mother coyly invited me to dinner at their home, since they lived in town.

At dinner, as I looked at Brian sitting across the table, I had an overwhelming realization that I missed him and that I wanted his family to be my family, too. Fortunately for me, Brian felt the same way. After that trip, we began dating long distance, since he was still living in Florida working as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch and I was finishing up graduate school in New York City. Within a year, Brian moved to New York City to attend Columbia University for his MBA.

By the time we were ready to move to Washington, DC, we had been dating for three years.

That day, I said a tearful goodbye to Kara, my roommate and grad school classmate. She was a short, blond firecracker, and we had lived together for two years, sharing many memorable moments, like our summer trip to the Caribbean, escapades caring for two Maltese puppies, Roxy and Madison (Kara’s idea), and supporting each other as we started our stressful social work careers.

“Well, I guess this is it,” I said, misty eyed, and I leaned in to hug Kara with the dogs smushed between us.

“Oh gosh, this sucks,” Kara said, wiping away her tears.

“I know,” I said. “But I’ll visit and you’ll visit. Right?”

The two dogs would now be separated—Roxy stayed with Kara, Madison went to DC with me—which seemed to make everything more tragic. I left the apartment in tears and scurried down the stairs, dog in tow, to begin my future with Brian.

As we drove over the George Washington Bridge, the city now receding behind us, I felt relief and sadness that my time as a New Yorker had come to an end. I had lived in Manhattan for nearly four years but it surprised me that I was sad about leaving, especially since I had been desperate, for so long, to get away. New York had never been a natural fit for me—I had merely learned to cope with it, biding my time until I could leave. While some people thrive on the city’s fast pace, I found that it just drained me. But for all the things that I disliked about the city, I was still grateful to have had the experience. New York City changed my life and my perspective on everything.

*

Brian and I arrived four hours later at Aunt Rose and Uncle Gabe’s house in Potomac, Maryland, for an overnight stay. We’d be moving into a brick townhouse in Arlington, Virginia, the following morning. My aunt and uncle were excited about our move to the area, and they liked Brian. Uncle Gabe had even graciously introduced Brian to his business contacts, which had led to Brian’s job as a financial analyst at KPMG even before we moved. This, as much as anything, had made our move possible.

But as much as they liked Brian, they still weren’t altogether comfortable with me living with my boyfriend with no ready intention of marriage.

“If you ever need someplace to live, our door is always open in Potomac,” Uncle Gabe said.

I thanked him, and I appreciated his concern but his traditional thinking didn’t make much sense to me. And it was especially puzzling because Aunt Rose and Uncle Gabe were about to divorce after thirty years of marriage. Uncle Gabe would later marry a soulless blonde who became a toxic element in our family, poisoning everyone’s relationship with my uncle. They divorced after only five years. No one in my family, it seemed, had the perfect formula for a happy, lifelong marriage.

*

Brain and I discovered that we loved the suburban Washington, DC lifestyle. Simple things excited us, like driving a car, shopping at a normal-sized grocery store, and having access to green grass. And as far as our careers went, DC was on the cusp of the dot-com boom; there were business opportunities all around us for Brian, as well as great non-profit and political work for me.

Through my uncle’s connections, I landed a full-time job as a legislative assistant at The Dutko Group, a lobbying firm on Capitol Hill. At Dutko, I found myself in the same awkward position I’d faced many times before and I hesitated to mention anything about my father’s career. So I did my best to avoid the subject entirely, partly to spare my uncle any uncomfortable moments and also to establish my own career in DC without dealing with people’s negative perceptions about pornography. This seemed easy enough to do, and mostly I was just thought of as “Gabe Battista’s niece.”

I was enamored with Capitol Hill during my first years in DC. Sometimes at lunch I would walk up to the edge of First Street and Independence Avenue just to take a glimpse of the white gleaming Capitol Building. This work experience was, in every way, a stark contrast to my days at The Burden Center. Now, I spent my days attending hearings for the firms’ oil, telecommunications, and health insurance clients. I didn’t always agree with our clients’ assertions about the impact of certain legislation on their businesses, but despite this, I worked hard churning out hearing reports and attending lavish fundraisers. Even though the work wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, it was an important first step in a career in public policy and advocacy. As dysfunctional and messy as it could be, there was something about DC that made it an almost magical place—a true democracy.

*

In December 1997, Brian and I planned a trip to New York City to attend a friend’s wedding. While in town we wanted to go back to one of our favorite Indian restaurants in the city, Nirvana, which overlooked Central Park West. I had a feeling we were about to get engaged.

“How do you know for sure?” Kara asked me over lunch at a bagel shop on the Upper West Side. Her eyes widened as she flipped her short, blonde hair.

“Brian’s been acting suspicious,” I said. “And more nervous than usual.”

“Well, knowing Brian, he’s probably spent forever planning this.”

I laughed. Kara knew Brian very well.

“So, Brian, you got anything special planned?” Kara asked jokingly when we returned to her apartment.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Brian responded, his voice deadpan, like he had nothing else on his mind other than hanging out on Kara’s couch.

Behind Brian’s back, I gave Kara a dirty look and shook my head no.

“Well,” Kara said, ignoring me, “I’m sure you guys will have a nice time tonight.”

We arrived at Nirvana just after sunset and the sky was orangey-red, silhouetting the dark green trees of the park.

“I know you think we’re getting engaged tonight,” Brian said. “I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“It’s okay,” I said, staring down blankly at my menu. “I’m not disappointed.”

“Well,” he said, “then the good news is that we are getting engaged tonight.”

“I think he’s pulling out a ring,” I heard someone at a nearby table whisper, even before I saw the case he was easing out of his pocket.

“Will you marry me?” Brian said. As typical with a New York City dining experience, the tables were too close together for him to get down on one knee, so he just smiled at me and held out the ring.

“Oh, my God! Yes!” I stared at the stunning two-carat, marquee-cut diamond with deep blue sapphires set on both sides.

“Awww,” I heard from all around me and I felt the intense gaze of restaurant well-wishers.

Afterward, we walked to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree. Fifth Avenue was decorated for the holiday season, my head was light with excitement, and New York City was, once again, the backdrop for another life-changing moment.

*

My parents were ecstatic about the engagement, especially my father, who had always liked Brian. By this time, Dad had been divorced twice, so I didn’t quite understand his excitement, since marriages never seemed to go well for him. But his encouragement pleased me, nonetheless.

Brian and my father had similar interests in business and they shared a deep love of Italian culture and food. My father would reminisce with Brian about his days as a stockbroker, always sounding a little regretful at not being able to fulfill his dream of conquering Wall Street. I enjoyed the fact that I’d brought home a man to make my father proud.

That Christmas, just a few weeks after our engagement, Brian and I traveled to Florida where both of our families lived. Once there, we shuttled between Brian’s sister’s home in South Miami and my mother and father’s places in Fort Lauderdale. My father took us to his favorite Italian restaurant, Fra Diavolo, which was next door to a Jewish deli of which he had recently become part owner.

Fra Diavolo’s owners, Carol and Raul Oliveros, had also become close friends with my father and my future stepmother, Angie.

When we opened the door of Fra Diablo, the smell of garlic triggered a memory of my Aunt Mary’s house packed with relatives on Christmas Eve. “We’re so glad you will be celebrating your engagement here tonight,” Carol said, giving me a hug. She seemed like one of my relatives, with her dark hair, glasses, and Philly accent.

We were escorted to a table in a quiet corner. Angie sat across from me, her red hair nicely coiffed in smooth round curls. I had known Angie my entire life as she had been a family friend for years before dating my father.

“Your father couldn’t be happier about this engagement,” Angie said.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling at my father. “That’s nice to hear.”

“When do you think you’ll set the date?”

“This fall, we think. DC is so nice that time of year.”

“Oh!” Angie chirped. “What a wonderful idea to have the wedding in DC! We weren’t sure if you’d have the wedding in South Florida or not.”

“Well, I think DC is our home now.”

Halfway through our meal, Raul visited our table. He was a thin, short man with thick glasses, and he wore black-checkered pants, a white apron, and a beret-type hat, which hid the perspiration forming at his temples from his labors in the kitchen. “Hello, beautiful daughter of Tony and fiancé!” he bellowed in his boisterous Cuban accent. “Welcome! And congratulations on your engagement! May you have a happy life together. This is what life is all about!”

“Well, thank you,” I said, looking at Brian and smirking. I smelled marijuana and liquor on Raul’s breath and realized he was totally stoned.

“Your father is a good man,” he said, slapping my father on the shoulder. “The best!”

“What’s up with that?” I asked my father after Raul had disappeared in to the kitchen.

“Raul?” my father said. “He’s amazing. I’ve never seen anyone drink and smoke as much as he does and still get a hundred plates out for a dinner rush.”

Raul was yet another addition to my father’s wide collection of eclectic pals.

Later, after having a few too many glasses of wine, my father became unusually talkative and he began to share stories with Brian about Deep Throat. “People were up in arms about pornography, like it was a witch hunt. I felt like I was just caught in the middle.”

“It sounds like it was . . . really something,” Brian said genuinely interested in the story. “Kristin’s told me about your involvement in that trial.”

“Yeah,” my father said, taking another slug of red wine. “There were some interesting people involved. Like the Perainos. Oh God, the Perainos. They owned the distribution rights to Deep Throat. Most people thought they were in the mafia.”

“What?” I chimed in. This was a detail I’d never heard before.

“Sure,” my father said. “They even approached me and my partner, Tony Arnone, about going into business with them at the Premier in Orlando.”

I shook my head in confusion.

“Tony and I didn’t think it wasn’t good to, you know, ‘marry into the mob,’” Dad continued. “Then the old man, Anthony Peraino, came to us and said, ‘We either part now while we can as friends, or work together for life.’”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Have you heard this part of the story before?” I asked Angie, cocking my head to one side.

“Oh, yes,” Angie said in her deep smoker’s voice.

“It sounds dangerous,” I said, turning to look at Dad. Was my dad in the mob? I thought. Was I a mafia princess? “So what happened?” I asked insistently.

“Well,” my father said, “Tony and I decided it was best to get away from them.”

“And they just let you walk away?”

“Yes.”

“But doesn’t the mob, like, usually get what it wants?”

My father shrugged. “Not this time, I guess.”

Later, on the way home, Brian and I rehashed the dinner conversation.

“I never heard that story about the mob before,” I said in a worried tone.

“It was interesting. Your family is definitely more . . . unusual than mine.”

Brian was right. His parents had been married for thirty-five years. They seemed so normal. The only oddity in his family was an eccentric aunt who owned an alpaca farm.

“I guess you didn’t know you’d be married to the mob yourself?” I said jokingly.

“I guess not.” Then Brian laughed and glanced at me quickly. “Don’t worry so much. It all happened a long time ago.”

And this is what I love about Brian: all of my family’s craziness has never been big deal to him.

*

Shortly after we returned home from Florida, Brian asked me, “Do you think we’ll be together forever?”

Our conversation leading up to it had been playful but it now took a serious turn.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ll do the best that I can to make it forever.”

Brian looked at me in shock. I realized he wanted reassurances, but instead I’d given him an answer like I was an accountant calculating the odds.

“I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t have faith in us,” I said defensively. “But let’s face it. Fifty percent of marriages fail.”

I hoped he would appreciate the statistics, but I also knew that his parents had been happily married for decades and that he aspired to be just like them. By the time Brian and I got engaged, my father had already divorced his second wife, and my mother had just married for the second time. Many more of my relatives, as well as the parents of most of my friends, had gone through divorces. I didn’t have a lot of faith in the institution of marriage.

“Look,” I said. “We’ve been together a long time already. We’ve been through a lot as a couple, and we still decided to get married. So that gives us a head start, right?”

“That’s a good point,” Brian said, smiling and looking relieved.

I had faith in our relationship, but I guess I was just being too much of a realist. We had taken a thoughtful approach to marriage and I knew we were very different than my parents. The stress my parents endured in their marriage surely wouldn’t be repeated.

*

For my wedding, my mother wanted me to wear her first wedding dress. At Grandma Maria’s condo, we pulled both my mother and grandmother’s wedding dresses down from the top of the hall closet.

“I just loved this dress!” my mother gushed when we opened the large dress box.

“It’s very nice,” I said, though I wasn’t nearly as excited.

“Silk organza is the best material. You just can’t find dresses like this anymore.”

“I remember when we purchased this at John Wanamaker’s,” Grandma Maria said, smiling at my mother. “You looked so perfect in this dress.”

I looked at them both oddly and thought, Why are they so excited about a wedding dress for a marriage that went down in flames?

“What?” my mother asked, noticing my puzzled look.

“It just seems weird how you feel about this dress,” I said, shaking my head.

“It’s not weird,” she replied. “You’re weird.”

“Very funny,” I said.

As we removed the dress from the box, my mother and grandmother gasped slightly.

“It’s held up so well,” my mother said.

“The material is only slightly discolored,” Grandma Maria said. “But the cream color still looks beautiful.”

It was a beautiful dress, but the silk lace and tiny beading all over the length of the gown was definitely not my style. The straight cut with a matching pill box hat and small veil gave the dress a 1960s look, while I was hoping for something with a full skirt.

“Go try it on,” my mother urged.

I hesitated for a moment. “What if it’s cursed?” I asked, shocked at my own gall in giving voice to my visceral response. I didn’t even want to touch the dress, let alone put it on. It symbolized failure and dysfunction—which was nothing I wanted in my marriage.

“Listen to you!” my mother cried. “What if it’s cursed? Kristin, that’s ridiculous.” A moment later, she pushed me into the bathroom with the dress.

I stood in the bathroom alone, holding the dress against my body and studying myself in the mirror. I realized that if my hair were darker and shorter, I would look almost exactly like the wedding photograph of my mother I’d seen in an old photo album. I took off my clothes, stepped my legs into dress, and tried to pull it up over my hips. But I couldn’t. The dress was too small.

“Mom, how much did you weigh on your wedding day?” I yelled through the door.

“I don’t remember. Maybe 118 pounds?”

“I can’t even get this on,” I said. Then opened the door and said through the crack, “If I pull this on, it’ll tear. Come here and look.”

She peered in, and I could tell she was terribly disappointed when she realized that the dress would never slide over my hips.

“Did you gain weight or something?” my mother asked.

“No,” I said, annoyed. “I think you were just really skinny back then.”

“Certainly not anymore,” my mother said.

I hoped this would end the discussion, but when I came out of the bathroom, the conversation continued.

“We can take it to a seamstress to add material to make this bigger,” my mother kept on.

“But wouldn’t it be impossible to find the same material?” I argued. “And wouldn’t that be expensive anyway?”

My mother persisted, but I cut her off. “Mom, I’m sorry,” I said. “I just don’t want to wear this dress.”

She looked at me and sighed. “Okay, if you feel that strongly about it. I guess we can just save it for another family member.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Grandma Maria inserted delicately. “Why don’t you try on my wedding dress?”

Much to my mother’s consternation, I loved the idea of wearing my grandmother’s dress. It was a beautiful 1920s style dress, made of pure satin, with long sleeves and buttons from the cuffs to the mid-forearm. And there was no lace, flowers, bows, or beads, which was exactly to my taste.

And on top of that, my grandmother had been married for more than sixty years. I thought this dress might bring me luck. I carefully removed it from its box. The satin looked even more fragile than my mother’s dress.

I went into the bathroom to try to slip it on, and this time, I couldn’t even fit one leg into the dress. Then I remembered that my grandmother had only been fifteen when she was married, and five feet tall, so I should have known that it would be too small.

“Grandma, your dress is smaller than Mom’s!”

Weeks later, my mother and I went wedding dress shopping on Las Olas Boulevard, where all the fashionable boutiques in Fort Lauderdale can be found. But despite the fun we had that day, I still didn’t find the perfect dress.

Back at home, I went shopping alone. It seemed easier than having people with me, all giddy with excitement and the expectation there would be this magical moment when I found the perfect dress. In Alexandria, I finally selected a dress in less than an hour.

I loved the dress, but still, I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t gushing with excitement about planning this wedding. I had no doubts about Brian, whom I knew was the love of my life—but all this hoopla just didn’t seem worth it.

*

As it turns out, I was a very laid back, complacent bride. I didn’t care much about the details of the wedding party, nor things like the flowers and table settings. In my mind, as long as the party was nice and the flowers weren’t dead, I’d be happy. My father was willing to pay for an expensive wedding, which was generous, of course but also a bragging right—Italian fathers love shelling out for large weddings for their daughters.

So it was left to Brian to meticulously manage our budget, and he outlined all the costs on an Excel spreadsheet, which I thought was hot (his thorough nature was one of the reason I was marrying him).

“So, when you think about being marriage, what are your expectations?” asked Reverend Alice Anderson, the minister who was going to marry us.

“I just don’t want it to be like my parents’ marriage,” I said.

She looked at me, waiting for me to go on.

Then, in the space of about thirty seconds, I went from a calm bride-to-be to a crying, blubbery mess.

Brian just sat beside me and squeezed my hand.

“Your marriage will not be your parents’ marriage,” Reverend Alice reassured me.

I nodded my head in agreement and I quickly wiped away my tears.

Reverend Anderson’s question had touched upon the heartbreak I had always felt about my own parents’ divorce and about the tumultuous time leading up to it. To me, marriage seemed like an overwhelming burden, like you had to be a perfect person to succeed. I knew I wasn’t perfect and that I wasn’t ever going to be. I also feared coming to a point in my relationship with Brian when we’d end up disliking or even hating each other. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where that would actually happen, but still, I couldn’t silence the memories of all the arguing my parents had done when I was a child.

I was embarrassed by my sudden emotion. But after a lot of talking, both with her and with Brian, I began to alter my expectations little by little. My marriage couldn’t be about “not being like my parents.” Rather, my marriage had to be about what would truly make Brian and me happy.

*

At my wedding dress fittings, the seamstress snitched the waist so tight I could barely breathe. “You’ll lose weight before the wedding,” the seamstress said. “All brides do. Because of nerves.”

“I’m not nervous,” I said. “So you can go ahead and loosen it.”

“Okay, dear,” she said, smiling a little condescendingly. “We’ll let this out a bit.”

Three weeks before the wedding, the alteration came back too tight. I just wasn’t the bride everyone had expected. In other words, I wasn’t a nervous wreck.

The best part about our wedding day was reconnecting with everyone we knew—both family and friends—and having them all in one place.

“Are you ready?” my father asked when the day finally came.

I smiled at him as we waited together outside the church. He looked so dapper in his tuxedo. “I’m ready, Dad.” I saw a lifetime of faces as I made my way toward Brian waiting at the altar. My father lifted my veil, a little teary eyed, and he gently kissed my cheek. Then he gave my hand to Brian.

*

The reception was well underway, and as the Italian men of my family stuffed envelopes brimming with cash into Brian’s jacket pocket, my father-in-law, George Frazee, said to him, “Everyone on Kristin’s side of the family looks like they should be in the mafia!”

When Brian told me, I knew George was joking and I couldn’t stop laughing. Even though my family had brushed company with the Perainos, I wasn’t a mob princess, nor was my father a gangster. Brian’s parents had learned long ago about what my father did for a living and they’d accepted it. I was now, like I’d wanted to be, a part of their family.