SERIES: Italiano Song

PART: 7 of 9

RATING: PG-13 (Adult content and Adult thematic material)

PAIRING(s): L/L; S/C; F/E; some Shirley/Anthony DeFazio

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, Myself and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine.  Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

 

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CATEGORY: Romance

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: During "Festival," after part one and just before part two; some alternate material from the established canon for the episodes.

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: What if Laverne's grandmother had taken a shine to Lenny instead of Squiggy during "The Festival"? 

NOTES: Basically follows the events and timeline of "The Festival," though using some alternate material. 

 

***

 

Andrew Squiggman was not having a cheerful morning. 

 

Firstly, it was an early one - seven o'clock - and he hated getting up anywhere before noon.  Secondly, he had been woken up by the eager licking of Lenny's mutt, which meant no one had bothered to feed the creature that morning.  Third, when he finally gave in to the poor dog's whining and got into the kitchen, he found Shirley Feeney sitting at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee and staring into space. 

 

"Figures you'd be up," he'd muttered.

 

Tears sprung to the brunette's eyes.  "And just what does that mean?"

 

Squiggy backed away from the intensity of Shirley's voice.  "Geez, can't a guy get up in this place without facin' the Spanish Exposition?"

 

"What are you doing up this early?" Shirley asked.

 

"I ain't 'up this early,'" he mocked, pointed at Maggie, who had begun pacing back and forth from Andrew to the cabinet where her food had been stored and dropped down onto her rear end, obviously expectant.  "She wanted breakfast."

 

"Oh," Shirley mechanically walked over to the cupboard, rummaging for the can of Alpo Maggie had been begging for.  She dumped the beefy mess into the dog's bowl and placed it on the floor, where the creature began lapping it up.  "Could you get her some water?"

 

"No!  Me and water ain't gotten together in two years, and that's how I like it."

 

"Only two years?" Shirley muttered lowly, turning to the sink and running the tap into a dish. 

 

Squiggy watched her, confused by the tension in her composition.  "What crawled up your kiester?"

 

She whirled around, leaving a puddle of water on the floor.  "That's none of your business!"  At his confused look, she mollified her anger.  "It's been a long night, Andrew."

 

"Yeah, I heard Laverne's cousin's havin' her kid.  She keep you up all night talkin' about it?"

 

"No - as a matter of fact, I haven't seen Laverne since the dance last night," Shirley nibbled her thumb.

 

"So that's it, eh?  Laverne ran off with some cop an' left you a wallpaper?"

 

"Wallflower?"

 

"I'm allergic."

 

The opening of a door and a few muffled words stopped their conversation dead.  They shared a worried look and simultaneously made for the door, Maggie on their heels.  The voices were mercifully familiar, but curiously intimate.

 

Shirley got to the door first, and Squiggy butted his head into her ribs in an attempt to stop.  They noticed at the same time that it was Lenny, trying to make himself bland and unremarkable on the couch. 

 

"Where've you been?" Squiggy whined.  "I had to get up early and feed your dumb..."

 

Maggie shoved Squiggy aside, then jumped onto the couch beside her master for a hug and a kiss.  "Aww, thanks!  You didn't have to do that for me."

 

"Your dog was lickin' my face off!  If I didn't get her dinner, she'd've eaten me."  Maggie barked happily, and Squiggy backed up a bit.

 

"Have you seen Laverne?" Shirley asked with urgency in her voice.

 

"Uh...I think she's in the bathroom..." Shirley pivoted out of the doorway and down the hall.  "I think she's on the..." The bathroom door shut, closing the girls inside.  "I warned her - didn't I, Maggie-waggie?" Lenny asked his dog, who strained up under his hand as he messed with her fur.

 

Squiggy pouted.  "I lost beauty sleep to feed that mutt and she still likes you better!"

 

"Maybe she'd like you if you didn't call her a mutt!"

 

"She don't understand me!  I could call her Godzilla breath and she wouldn't care!"  Squiggy bent over the couch and tried to pet Maggie, but the dog snarled and backed away.  "Control that thing!" Squiggy ordered his friend.

 

"She thinks you're gonna hurt me.  Maggie's being a good girl!" He allowed the dog to lave his face with her tongue before gently dismissing her to the floor.  Lenny stood up, stretching his muscles and yawning.  "Did Shirley put any grub on the stove?"

 

"She made coffee," Squiggy tossed himself onto the unoccupied sofa and picked up a Life Magazine which had been left on the coffee table.  He became very absorbed in a layout of Ann-Margaret swimsuit photos until his roommate’s piercing whistling distracted him.  Lenny's whistling - one of the few things that could break his concentration - came directly from his nose in a shrill whine that cut down Squiggy's spine.  He tossed down the magazine and glared at the kitchen door.  He couldn't fathom what his roommate was so cheerful for, and he only tended to whistle when he was overjoyed.  Usually after a really good date.  Usually, he leered to himself, after a sleepover.  Very, very slowly, the puzzle slipped into place in Squiggy's mind. 

 

Lenny emerged, with an apple and a cup of coffee.  Squiggy grinned.  "You sly dog!"

 

A flicker of panic crossed Lenny's features, but Squiggy was ignorant of such subtitles.  "Anyone with half a brain could find a coffee cup."

 

"Did you do it?"

 

"Huh?"  He took a large bite of his apple, anxiety in his eyes.

 

"You did!  You did it with Laverne!"  Lenny choked on his apple.  "Didn't you?"  Lenny gave Squiggy a miserable look as he cleared a few chunks of fruit from his lungs with a brisk cough.  "You really did.  I don't believe it!  I guess Missus DeFazio is a smart chick after all," Squiggy said, somewhat awed that her plan had worked. 

 

Lenny smiled.  "Yeah, she is."

 

"One of the few," Squiggy squirmed around until he was on his knees, facing the back of the couch and following Lenny's progress across the room.  "So...how was it?"

 

He gave his head a proud tilt.  "Gentlemen don't talk."

 

"This ain't the eighteen hundreds!"  Lenny pulled out a dining room chair, examined his apple, then allowed Maggie to eat what was left.  "If you tell me, I'll tell you about my night of passion with one Miss Wilma Barber from Yeast."

 

Lenny was visibly tempted.  Squiggy had always held that story back, juicily out of reach.  He leaned across the table. 

 

"You first."

 

 

***

 

Laverne rested her head against the hard rim of her grandmother's antique tub.  Steam rose to meet the cool morning air, hydrating her sinuses and dampening her loosely tied hair.  She had poured twice the usual amount of her Grandma's special home-bottled bath oil into the tub, but beneath the complex scent of roses and freesia, she could still smell Lenny's musk.  Maybe it was a mental sensation, not an olfactorial one.  Every plane of skin tingled when recalling the night previous.

 

She had said she loved him.

 

What a mess.

 

Her minisecond of private reflection was shattered when the bathroom door opened, and a wild-eyed Shirley whirled into the room, shutting the door tight behind her.  With a modesty she'd never felt before, Laverne tried to arrange the mountains of bubbles pouring over the rim of the tub over her private parts - foolishly, everything was hidden from Shirley's gaze.

 

How had they woken her up?  She and Lenny had been very quiet in entering the apartment and saying their goodbyes.  There was a brick wall between the guest bedroom and the bath, so the running water couldn't have woken her.  With an over bright smile, Laverne sat up. 

 

"Good morning, Shirl."

 

"Good morning?  Good morning?!"  Her best friend's voice sent Laverne beneath the water, hiding beneath the mountainous bubbles.  "Laverne!" She heard Shirley shouting.  "I'm going to figure out the truth either way..." Laverne closed her eyes, holding her breath.  "Laverne! You'll drown!" In response, she began mentally humming "The Battle Hymn of the Republic.  "If you don't come up for air, I'll march right out of this door and tell Lenny and Squiggy that you went to the prom with your Cousin Vito!"

 

Laverne would have rolled her eyed.  They both already knew that.

 

A long period of silence.  "I'll tell them about the time you and Norman went out to Inspiration Point and..."

 

After Laverne filled her starved lungs with air, she squinted at Shirley through the bubbly froth covering her face.  "You play dirty."

 

"Only when I have to," Shirley uttered, sitting down on the rim of the tub, near Laverne's toes.  "What happened between you and Lenny last night?"

 

Laverne bit her lip.  "You can't tell my Pop..."

 

"I'd never tell your father anything without your permission."

 

"Me and Lenny...last night..."

 

Shirley let out a squeal of horror.

 

"That wasn't the reaction I was hoping for," Laverne finished rubbing her stinging eyes.  "I should feel as sick as you look, Shirl, but I can't.  Last night was wonderful.  It was so easy, like it was meant to be, and we were just another couple.  And the worst thing is that I think I always knew we were going to do it!  Like if we didn't do it then, somehow, we'd end up doing it anyway.  Like we were stuck in something so big that it didn't matter how we felt about things - it would happen and we should get used to it."

 

"Making love with Lenny Kosnowski was like getting a whooping cough shot?"

 

"No!  It was kinda like when you blow too much air into a balloon and it gets really big and it either blows up or you get a big yucky-tasting mouthful of air..."

 

"Laverne."  Without another word, Shirley urged her friend to continue.

 

"And Len was so nice, and he took a lot of time with me and - and - he was wearing leather pants, Shirl!  Leather pants!  And I hated it!  They made me realize how easy it would be for another girl to get him.  How easy it would be for him to change.  I could lose him before I even had him - that make sense, Shirl?  It's like he's been under my nose the whole time and I ain't seen him 'cause I could've had him..."

 

"Are you crazy?"  Shirley screeched.  "You made love with Lenny Kosnowski!  You've wanted him to find another girl for years!"

 

"That's what I learned, Shirl," she took her best friend's hand in hers.  "I think I love him - don't scream!  But I think I do.  Not because I can have him when I want him.  Because it felt like I could lose him last night, and if I let him go I'll be making the biggest mistake of my life." She said the words as they came to her, realizing them as she meant them.  Her fear gradually dissolved, like the bubbles upon her chest.

 

"It must be the city," Shirley said moodily.  "There's something about New York that's taken me out of my element.  I can't wait to get home."

 

"That's not the only reason you wanna get home," Laverne said sharply.  "You're messed up about Antony, and you can't admit it!"

 

"You don't know how messed up I am!"  Shirley wailed. 

 

Laverne, tired of her best friend's waffling, simply closed her eyes and rested against the tub.  "Just let him down, Shirl, before you break his heart."

 

"It's too late for that," she muttered.  "When your father and Edna  went to the hospital and Squiggy went off with that bearded girl after the dance, Antony offered to stay here with me so I wouldn't be alone.   One thing led to another...."

 

Laverne's eyes nearly fell out of her head.  "No...No!  Eww, I don't wanna know about this!"

 

"He was wonderful.  I told him it was my first time, and it felt so special..oh, I'm so confused!"

 

"Do you think you love him?"

 

"I don't know.  Last night was beautiful..."

 

"What about Carmine?  He's been waiting ten years for you to be ready for him!"

 

Shirley wailed again, and Laverne wrapped her arms around her shoulders.   "Why couldn't it last forever?"

 

"Shirl, you're scarin' me here!" Shirley kept her eyes closed.  "Just what makes that little ol' ant...think he can move a rubber tree plant..."

 

"I'm not in the mood," Shirley sniffled.

 

"Everyone knows an ant can't move a rubber tree plant...You're smilin', Shirl."

 

She laughed, which led into a melancholy sort of sigh.  "Where did you and Lenny go last night?"

 

"The rooftop."

 

"Gee, the roof?  I so wanted your first time to be as special, too."

 

"It was."

 

"Good."

 

"Fonzie got me a nice blanket and everything."

 

"YOU DID IT WITH FONZIE?"

 

"And Norman...and a few other guys...Shirl, don't pass out on me," Laverne reached down and unplugged the tub.  "Can you get me a towel?"  She passed it over.  Laverne rubbed herself dry with a few brisk motions and then grinned at her flummoxed best friend.  "You don't have to marry a guy just 'cause you vode-o-do-doed.  If I did that, I would be Missus Arthur Fonzarelli."

 

"You don't regret that?"

 

Laverne grimaced.  "We couldn't get through a dinner date without fighting.  Marrying him would be like living on a roller coaster - all thrills, no quiet," she looped the towel around her middle.  "Did what I said get through to you, Shirl?"

 

She grinned.  "What would I do without you, Vernie?"

 

"Live alone with sixty cats," Laverne grinned. 

 

"Oh, you," Shirley embraced her sudsy friend.  At that point, the bathroom door opened a crack.

 

"Hey, Laverne, your Pop's back," Laverne winced at the overly-intimate tone of Squiggy's voice. 

 

"Andrew!" Shirley squealed, nearly breaking Laverne's eardrum.  "Don't look!  Laverne's not decent!"

 

"Who cares about Laverne - what about you?"

 

Shirley left her friend's arms, wrenching the door wider and pulling Squiggy away by his hair worm.  His squalling arguments were negated by the louder voice of Frank DeFazio.  Laverne sped up her toilette, hoping to reach the outside world with greater speed.

 

After dressing, she peered out to see her Shirley and Squiggy sullenly eating, while Frank and Edna showed pictures of Philomena's new baby daughter to Lenny.  In the kitchen, pots clattered - her Grandmother making breakfast.  The excited voices outside made Laverne grin.  No matter how the scenery changed, she still had her family.

 

"You see?  She's got your Cousin's eyes," Frank handed Laverne a Polaroid.  The baby in the black-and-white photo was curled and wrinkled - an unremarkably shaped lump in whitish blankets. 

 

"He's a cutie."

 

"SHE," Frank corrected.  As Laverne handed the picture back, she caught Lenny staring at her.  Cheeks reddned, she managed a small smile.  Frank pushed out her chair and she sat beside him. 

 

"Laverne," Lenny said, very quietly.  Whatever he wanted to say was lost in a rapid clap from Frank DeFazio. 

 

"All right!  Everyone around the table!  We've gotta talk about strategy!" he bellowed.

 

Grumbling filed the room.  Lenny's eyes pinned Laverne with full sincerity, but it wasn't the time to bring her revelations to light.  Grandmother DeFazio entered the room, carrying a platter filled with pancakes.  When her eyes lit upon her granddaughter, Laverne felt a keen shame and blushed.

 

Alessia's smile was all-knowing, fit for both a boardroom and a coffee klatch, and brighter than ever as they sat down together to break bread. 

 

***

 

The morning's sunshine felt unbearably hot to Laverne as the competitors for the greased pole competition gathered before her grandmother's building.  After breakfast and her father's 'strategy meeting - which proved he had no real plan for the day = she had changed into old jeans and a green tee-shirt.  Looking over at Shirley, Laverne realized she had chosen something similarly workmanlike for the day's festivities.  Both girls stared at the rickety pipe with trepidation as a group of young volunteers slicked it up and down with engine grease.  Shirley's thoughts were a closed box to Laverne - she had become unreadable when Anthony arrived with Laverne's cousins Gino and Mando an hour before.  It was obvious that both men were aware of what had transpired between Shirley and their cousin - and if he hadn't spoken a peep, his deferential treatment of Shirley revealed the entire story. 

 

"Hey, Shirl - can I take you on the Ferris wheel when this is over?"

 

Shirley's expression froze.  She could see Mando and Gino over Antony's shoulder, poking each other and trying to hide their snickering smiles.  "Excuse me," she said placidly to Laverne, before pulling Antony away from her friend and to a less densely packed place near the outside corner of her grandmother's stoop.  What was said was inaudible, but Antony's eyes were a raging storm when they separated - and Shirley's were as fathomless as wading pools.  Laverne's preoccupied mind shrugged it off.  They had gone through their 'break up,' and now Shirley could return to Carmine with a clean concious.

 

Her thoughts scattered as she caught sight of Lenny, talking avidly with her Grandmother.  He had changed into an old white tee shirt and jeans, and was in the process of leaving her his Lone Wolf Jacket.  She saw him pointing to the "L" and making large, looping gestures.  Her cheeks heated as she wondered what he was saying.  At least she seemed to be laughing. 

 

With less tolerance, Laverne cast worried eyes on her Pop.  Frank DeFazio stood directly in front of the pole in a grey sweat suit drenched in sweat from a "warm up run", sizing up the greased pole with the delight of a toddler. 

 

"Eight feet," Frank uttered.  "They call that a greased pole!  In my day, they used to be twelve feet!"

 

"Pop, I don't want you on the bottom," Laverne worried.  "You holdin' up Lenny and me don't seem real possible..."

 

"Whatt're you talkin' about?  I used to be a shot putter in high school!"

 

"But now you're sixty now!"

 

"Age don't mean nothin'!  It's a number!"

 

A whistle blew.  From the bandstand came "Will Team DeFazio please report to the pole?"

 

Shirley, Anthony, Lenny, Squiggy, Gino and Mando gathered around Frank.  "Remember!  Don't touch the pole!" He barked.  "That means you two!" he glared at Lenny and Squiggy.

 

"Gee, you don't gotta tell me twice!"  Squiggy complained.

 

"Yeah, you gotta tell 'em three times!"  retorted Lenny.

 

A whistle blown by a practical-looking man with a clipboard intruded into their midst.  "All right - three people climb up at two-minute intervals.  Capture the flag before your tower collapses and you win a cruise to Italy.  No more than eight people in a pile!  When I blow the whistle, you climb."

 

"All right!  Here we go!" Frank cheered.  He noticed Laverne had drifted by nature toward Lenny.  "Hey, Dopey, you go last!"

 

Laverne drifted back - it had been a wholly unconscious action on her part.  He smiled blandly before the first whistle blew, and Frank and Laverne's cousins made a ring around the pole.  Another whistle blew -  Lenny and Squiggy's cue to climb up on Frank and Anthony’s shoulders.  Lenny did so clumsily - he could feel Frank shifting beneath him. 

 

Another whistle.  The girls ran toward the group of men, carefully climbing up their backs and onto the shoulders of Lenny and Squiggy.  Laverne could feel every bone in Shirley's clavicle as she tried to push herself up the pole, belly-down, the toes of her shoes digging into the grease.

 

Laverne reached out - her fingers were inches from the top of the pole.  She met the brunette's eyes.  "Shirl!" Laverne cried out.  "I can't reach it!"

 

Shirley reached out, her wrist flailing - her fingers, too, missed the Italian and American flags at the tip of the pole.    "Me neither!!"

 

A horn sounded in the square below.  Laverne pressed her cheek to the pole and stared down, her eyes wide with horror as she saw a very familiar-looking pink Cadillac parting the crowd.  The curly head behind the wheel was unmistakable.  "CARMINE."

 

Shirley nearly teetered off of Squiggy's shoulders - only his hand on her rear end kept her in place.  "What the hell?" she blurted out, and Laverne would have laughed, were she not completely afraid.  Grunting and groaning distracted her, and she felt a violent tugging at her ankle.  Suddenly, she felt Carmine pulling at her pants, climbing up her legs.

 

"Shirl!!  I've been trying like hell to get in touch with you!" he panted

 

"Carmine!  How - how funny to see you here!" Shirley released an eerie laugh into the air.

 

Laverne tuned out their ensuing argument - Carmine's angry words were background noise to her.  She saw those flags waving, felt them within reach.  Carmine was like a weight on her back  - double the weight on Lenny's back, she realized. 

 

"Laverne!" 

 

She looked down.  Lenny's desperate expression said everything.  Putting his hand between Carmine and Laverne, he provided her with necessary leverage, cupping her rear end and pushing her up the pole toward the flags.  Laverne reached over her head, groped for the top of the poll, and pulled down two little flags!

 

She nearly cried as the whistle blew!  Laverne turned toward the cheering crowd, grinning as she began waving as if for invisible cameras.  Carmine and Shirley kept arguing, the pyramid began to collapse, but she had finally done something to earn the DeFazio clan's pride. 

 

Lenny shook Carmine from his shoulders like a backpack - Carmine simply disengaged himself with Lenny and continued to argue blindly with Shirley.  As far as Laverne was concerned, they might have been inhabitants of the moon - they were distant and indistinct, barely real.  The world suddenly consisted only of herself and Lenny as he placed her on Gino's shoulders.  "You did it!  I'm so proud of you!" And then he kissed her, on the mouth and in front of the family. 

 

And she didn't care.

 

The warmth of the embrace was suddenly non-extant.   Lenny was gone, and she realized that he had tumbled off of poor Gino and to the ground.  "Lenny!  Are you all right?"

 

"Yeah - Squiggy broke my fall."

 

"Mommy?"  Squiggy mumbled.  "Is that you?"

 

Laverne lowered herself off of poor Gino's shoulders, running over to Lenny and picking him up off of the ground.  They were both covered head-to-toe in grease and sweat, but not even that mattered.  They had each other, and the world was right and good.

 

Until a flat, motherly voice came over the public address system.  "Attention: The DeFazio family has been disqualified for using an extra participant.  The winners of the round-trip cruise to Italy is the Mallaci Family!"

 

Laverne felt herself wilt in Lenny's grasp.  She turned to chastise Carmine, but Shirley was doing a pretty good job of that herself.   The entire trip, all of her father's hopes and dreams - gone.  She walked toward Frank, who had been celebrating with his mother.  "Pop..."

 

Frank was staring at Lenny.  "You!  Whatt're you doing with my daughter?"

 

Lenny came to stand behind Laverne, putting his arm around her.  "The sorta stuff that people do when they're in love."

 

Frank's eyes bugged out.  "LOVE?  WHATTYA MEAN, LOVE?"

 

"Fabrizio," his mother's tone was warning.  "Leonardo is a fine man.  It's good that he loves the bambina!"

 

"Good?!  This character tried to pay my girlfriend the rent in Monopoly money!  Is that the kinda man who's gonna support my daughter?"

 

"I don't need Lenny to support me!" Laverne said sharply.

 

"Vernie," Lenny began.   Helplessly, he added, "I love your daughter, Mister DeFazio."

 

Frank viciously sized up his daughter.  "You!  You dope!  Fallin' for a meatball like this!"

 

"Lenny ain't a meatball!  You're mad 'cause we lost that trip to Italy - which is Carmine's fault - and now you think Grandma don't like you!"

 

"Fabrizio..." Alessia began, but he shrugged away from her touch. 

 

"You!  You broke my trust!  Abandanzo!" he bellowed, charging up the street.

 

Laverne leaned heavily against Lenny's shoulder.  The wind had been sucked from their beings.  Alessia watched Frank's retreat with a sigh of disgust.  She then looked at the arguing Carmine and Shirley, the confused Anthony, the aching Mando and Gino, and the dazed Squiggy and seemed inspired.

 

"Come inside.  Come inside, everyone!  I will make you some tea!"

 

Carmine and Shirley quit arguing.  Gino and Mando looked inspired.  Laverne marveled once more at her Grandmother's ability to build nations - and then followed her to the safety of the apartment.

 

To Part 6
To Part 8