Eggs & Exits

We sat in our usual corner booth at Julia’s Diner; a family favorite in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. We visited Julia’s Diner exactly one time a year, every morning after SmithTech’s annual holiday party in Atlantic City. Every year, my father’s company, SmithTech, hosts a massive holiday party organized by myself and my mother, Vivienne. Planning a party for approximately eight hundred people, which includes all our employees, their significant others and a handful of our biggest clients and partners, takes a herculean effort for two people with full-time jobs aside from our annual party planning responsibilities. When August rolls around, Viv and I put our heads together and begrudgingly begin our work on hiring vendors and venues, booking hotel rooms and transportation for the out-of-staters, selecting food and beverage menus and stressing about who will get the drunkest and sloppiest that year (or rather, who HR will have it out with on Monday after the party). I am so exhausted come December, I like to have two or three or five drinks in honor of the festivities.

The waitress stopped at our table to fill our mugs  with steaming, hot coffee as we huddled together in our little booth, hunched over our menus with raging headaches and hangovers. (Well, some of us, at least.) Santa, my little brother, downed his coffee and choked on the heat, burning his tongue and sputtering on my sister Gerry’s sleeve, who complained loudly, warranting a smack on the back of both their heads by my mother. My stomach grumbled for my favorite dish, Julia’s Favorite, or as I like to call it, the Hangover Bangover, a greasy fried egg sandwich on a toasted Kaiser roll with a thick slab of pork roll, melted provolone cheese and a heaping side of home fries and roasted onions.

“Yous ready to order?” the waitress asked our table. She had a handwritten name tag on her apron with “Norma” written on it. Her eyeliner was smudged under her eyes, her lipstick in desperate need of reapply. She had a weathered, spray tanned face and reeked of cigarettes. She looked worse than the five of us, who spent all night drinking and celebrating “to another successful year.” I felt queasy looking at her. I blamed it on the vodka.

“No, I need another minute please, hon,” said my father.

“Dad, come on, we’re starving,” Gerry pleaded. “Just figure it out quick. Yes, we’ll order now, thank you.”

“Giovanna, your father said he’s not ready!” My mother snapped.

“Ma, please! He gets the same thing every time, the Greek omelet with sliced tomatoes on the side, home fries and wheat toast with butter and orange jelly. Just order and be done with it,” Gerry snapped back. Viv clamped her mouth shut and raised her hands to make her irksome I-don’t-know-what-you-want-me-to-tell-you gesture.

“It’s okay, Ger, relax,” Santa said, placing his hand on Gerry’s arm.

“This is fuckin’ ridiculous,” Gerry said, getting a simultaneous “hey!” from everyone at the table. Except me, because I completely agreed. I needed my Julia’s Favorite right now or everyone would suffer the consequences.

“You better apologize to your mother right now, Giovanna,” my father said. Gerry and my father stared at each other in a fuming silence, neither party blinking.

“I am so sorry, we are a bit tired from this morning,” my mother started telling the waitress. “You know, we come here every year after our company’s holiday party in Atlantic City, we own SmithTech, have you ever hea-”

“Alright, Ma, she gets it,” Santa said, quieting our mother. “I am so sorry, Norma, we could really use another minute or two.”

Norma, who was stiffly standing over our table and watching our family unravel in our regular Voltolini fashion, awkwardly returned her order slip to her apron pocket and shuffled away.

“Giovanna Amalea,” my mother started on Gerry in a sharp, irritated whisper. “You need to learn to control yourself in pub-”

“Let’s just let it go, okay?” I said. I was so tired of listening to the same fight between Gerry and my mother, always stepping on each other’s toes. Especially now, while I was fighting off hunger pains and a growing migraine. I put my elbows on the table and started massaging my temples. I could feel the coffee and migraine waging a war inside my brain. I had an expensively soft bed and clean, quiet home waiting for me after this infuriating family breakfast. I did not need this childish behavior from anyone right now. I needed a meal and a nap.

My father looked up from the menu, took off his glasses and looked at me. “You okay, A?” he asked.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine, I just want to order, I’m really hungry.”

“Here, A, you need a Tylenol?” Santa said, handing me a small red pill across the table.

“Santino Lorenzo! Don’t you dare give out drugs at the table! What if a police officer drives by outside and sees you holding that and thinks it’s an illegally-obtained oxycodone or somethin’?” my mother said, still whispering in her sharp tone.

“Jesus Christ, Ma, seriously?” said Gerry. 

“Guys!” I said. “Please, let’s just order, I’m starving. Thanks, San.” I took the pill and washed it down with a swig of black coffee.

It took another five minutes for everyone to decide on a plate, my father settling on the same meal he always gets, much to the grumbling of my sister and eye rolling of my brother. Poor Norma wrote down our orders and scurried away from our table as quickly as possible to avoid any further confrontation.

Once the orders were in and food was certain to be on our table soon, the mood lightened and everyone began their idle chatter across the table. Gerry and Santa made fun of my mother and laughed while avoiding head smacks from Viv.

Despite the bickering and insults being thrown around constantly, our family worked well together, both professionally and personally.

My father, Mario Santino Voltolini, founded SmithTech thirty years ago after leaving his comfortable, high-paying position at FIBER, a large multinational telecommunications conglomerate headquartered in Philadelphia, after ten years of employment. He started his telecom equipment manufacturing company, when I was three years old, with the promise of delivering only the highest quality parts to his clients at affordable prices. Today, due to my father’s  firm leadership and smart business tactics, SmithTech is the largest telecom manufacturing company on the east coast, with five hundred employees and four offices across three states.

My mother has handled all SmithTech’s administrative support since the company’s inception, going back to work full-time once Gerry was old enough to drive Santa and me to and from school. I started working for my father in 2013, during my third year of college, and never left. We made a deal that I could study abroad in London that summer if I “interned” for SmithTech’s marketing department until I graduated college. Basically, I became my father’s indentured servant for two years in exchange for an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe. My father would get red in the face every time I referred to it as such, so naturally I used the term all the time to get under his skin. It turns out, though, that I was a natural-born communicator and advertiser and truly enjoyed my role at the company. SmithTech’s marketing director left the company while I was finishing my last year of college and my father was in immediate need of someone to fill her shoes. I signed the contract the day I graduated.

Gerry joined SmithTech’s sales team in 2015 after her previous company had major cutbacks and half its employees were let go. For the next three years, we worked closely together and made huge strides in the way SmithTech’s marketing and sales teams were run. My father was so elated with his influx of business, he gave us both promotions and raises. Gerry is now the Director of Sales and I the Director of Communications. Santa is going to school to be an auto mechanic and wanted to make some extra cash to move out of the family home until he graduated (he was the only Voltolini child left in the nest and my mother can be a bit overbearing with her house rules), so my father hired him in 2017 to work in our main warehouse as a packer-sorter. He hated the mundane work, but loved the prospect of being out of our parents’ house.

“So, A, talk to me,” my dad said. “I have some great plans for the company over the next two years and I want yours and Gerry’s ideas.”

“Well, I’m only going to be able to help you out for one of those years, Dad,” I said before realizing what fresh chaos just came out of my mouth.

“One year? Why?” my father looked at me quizzically.

“Uh… Dad, I thought we talked about this a while ago. I am planning on leaving the company by January 2021,” I said. Everyone around the table stopped talking and was looking at me.

After what felt like a full minute, Gerry said, “What the hell, Aida?” followed by more “heys!” from the rest of the family. “Why didn’t you tell me at least?”

“I didn’t tell anyone, but Dad, because I didn’t have a definite plan yet,” I said. I looked at my dad who had a shocked expression on his face. My heart dropped. “I’m sorry, Dad. I did talk to you about this though, remember? Back in March? I need to branch out and grow.”

“Sweetie, I didn’t realize you were serious. I thought you were just pulling my leg to see how I would react, like you always do,” my father said. My mother was surprisingly quiet. I had discussed with her the possibility of leaving two years ago and she supported the then-hypothetical decision, but did not say a word as Gerry and my father started hammering me with questions and guilt.

Where are you going to go? What is your next move? Is anyone at the company making you want to leave? It’s not going to be like SmithTech anywhere else, you know, working with your family. Do you know what you’re giving up? Did John put you up to this? John, my husband, had nothing to do with my decision. Well, maybe he did a little. He worked in finance and made at least three times as much as I do. I have always supported his passion and dedication to work and it made me start to question my own. I wanted to be somewhere where I did not work solely out of duty to my family, who would function perfectly fine after I left, but rather because I was passionate and excited about what I was marketing. And a little salary boost never hurt anyone, right? John also had to listen to me complain every night after work about “this guy did this” and “that woman is a nightmare” and “those people hate me.” I am afraid I might rant his ear off. There was no way I was telling my father any of that, though.

“I have been working for SmithTech since I was twenty, Dad. I have more work experience than most kids my age and I want to see where my skills and experience gained at SmithTech can take me.” I had rehearsed this line in the mirror six months prior when I originally told my dad my plan to leave after the company’s thirtieth anniversary party in March.

There was a tense silence when Norma and her associate, a young, pimply boy wearing a stained white T-shirt and faded blue jeans, arrived at our table with trays of eggs and potatoes.

When Norma and the boy she called “yous” finished serving our food and walked away, Santa said, “A, you gotta do whatcha gotta do, y’know? I’m not workin’ with Ma and Pa forever either, so you should do what you love too, y’know?”

“Yeah, San’s, right, Aida. Get outta here,” said Gerry. I looked up surprised, but smiled when I saw the goofy grin on her face.

“Thanks, Ger. I can’t leave without your approval.” We were sisters way before we were colleagues and she understood my position better than anyone since we worked so closely. Gerry could be a bit stubborn and especially opinionated on family matters, but she was always the first person I consulted (other than John) when I was having a problem with our parents or any company-related drama. She always gave me the best advice, being just a few years older and wiser than I. “Ma?” I said. “What do you think?”

“Oh, Aida Giana, of course I don’t want you to go… but you’re young! You need to do what makes you happy,” Viv said.

“Thanks, Ma,” I smiled at her. My mother had a flare for the dramatics, but she is the woman who bore me and I will always love her and my father above all else for raising me in such a loving and supportive home (minus all the arguing and yelling, obviously). “Dad?” I looked at my father expectantly.

My dad didn’t say a word. He just looked at us all in turn, smiled and said, “let’s talk about this later, huh? Our food is here and getting cold.”

I looked at my sandwich, oozing hot, melted cheese down the sides of the bun and under the crispy potatoes. I looked up at my family who had already dug their forks into their meals, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, bundled together in our favorite, cozy diner we visit one day every year. The snow fell lightly outside our window and I thought of where I might be one year from now. December 2020 was definitely going to be different for all of us, I could feel it. I took a bite of my sandwich.