“You should get your mother to make this bread in your restaurant instead,” said Harry.
“You’re not running a charity,” Billingsworth chimed in. “Competent bookkeeping is non-negotiable. You need someone sharp to keep records for accounts payable—”
“Are you insulting my mother?”
“—Accounts receivable,” Billingsworth continued without pausing, “to keep payroll, to authorize repair work, and also to keep track of how much your daily operations are costing you and whether you can gain some efficiencies here and there. You need a real accountant for two restaurants.”
“Angela has a friend.”
“Does her friend have a qualification in accounting?” Billingsworth demanded.
They stared at Angela, who was sitting on the couch, pretending to mind her own business.
“He has a bank account,” she said.
“Well, that’s all you need,” said Harry. Gina tried not to laugh. Billingsworth was utterly without humor when it came to matters of money, and perhaps with all other things too. He shot Harry a glare of deprecation.
Warily Salvo and Mimoo watched Harry sit and drink the wine and eat the bread in big chunky bites.
“Don’t worry,” Harry said. “Billingsworth will find you someone good. He knows lots of good men. These are just details. What do you say, Salvo? Are we going to shake on it?”
Salvo was proud but not stupid. He extended his hand, even stood up. Harry shook hands with his Italian immigrant partner. They poured more wine, raised their glasses in a toast. Even Pippa heaved herself breathlessly downstairs from her bedroom to drink a glass.
“What will you name the restaurants?” Harry asked.
“One will be called Alessandro’s, for our father. The other Antonio’s, for our brother.”
“I didn’t know you had another brother.”
Mimoo became tearful; Pippa too. Salvo said, “He died a year before we came here.”
Harry glanced at Gina apologetically and reached for his hat. She walked him and Billingsworth out. She could barely breathe the whole time the meeting was going on, and despite Salvo’s intransigence, and Billingsworth’s concern for their business abilities, she thought it went rather well. Harry agreed. “But your Salvo is one tough customer,” he said to her on the porch with the broken swing. “I wish you’d said something about your other brother. I didn’t mean to put my foot in it.”
“I try to put the past behind me.”
“Well, this isn’t going to make him like me more, is it? He’s already not so fond of me.”
Gina squinted. Harry bowed to her lightly with an approving nod, and nudged Billingsworth. “Come on, Billingsworth,” he said. “Don’t just stand there. We have a train to catch.” To Gina he said by way of goodbye, “Billingsworth will have the papers drawn up this week. Let’s plan to meet next Saturday with a general contractor, to go over the construction details. If we want to open before the rush of summer, we don’t have a lot of time. Soon I hope to have a car, so I won’t have to take the damn train to Lawrence every week.”
“A car or a carriage?”
He smiled. “An Olds Curved Dash. Though I hear the Benz engine from Germany is astonishing. If only you could get a German car here.”
“Maybe Ben can arrange that through his Panama Canal.”
Even Billingsworth almost reacted to that with a half-smile. Almost.
She glanced back at the screen door, through which, in the cold March light, she could see her brother and mother watching her. She sighed.
“Billingsworth,” Harry said to his banker as they walked down the steps. “Did you hear they found more oil in Texas? Apparently it’s seeping out of the ground! They don’t even have to drill for it.”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this, Harry,” Billingsworth said. “Your father has been quite clear. We are never investing in oil.”
“A mistake, Billingsworth. Flagler and Rockefeller are two of the richest men in America.”
“Your father is no longer partnered with Mr. Flagler.” He paused. “Money is not everything.”
“Only spiritual wealth for bankers and merchants, eh? Well, let’s go. Get in and pray for rain.” Before hopping into the carriage, Harry turned around and tipped his hat to Gina, who was still on the porch looking after him with girlish longing. “Have a good evening, Miss Attaviano.”
“You too, Mr. Barrington.”
When she came back inside, her family was around the table having a spirited discussion about Harry.
“Salvo, come on, put away your pride.”
“It’s not pride, Mimoo. It’s something else. I don’t trust him.”
“Your horse sense is failing you,” Mimoo said. “He’s not like the other one. Now if that one came here, I’d be worried. But this one is a nice boy. What’s his mother like, Gina?”
“Dead.”
“Ah,” Mimoo nodded, “that explains a lot.”
“What?” Gina instantly wanted to know. “What does it explain?”
Salvo shook his head. “Mimoo, if it was the other one, I’d have fewer qualms.”
“The one who won’t heed your warnings to stay away from your sister?”
“Yes, that one. And he has heeded them. He hasn’t been around, has he?”
“So far as you know,” Angela contributed cheerily, which prompted everyone to glare at her, but Gina turned back to Mimoo.
“What does it explain about Harry, Mimoo?”
“You don’t see what I see,” Salvo was saying to his mother. “You don’t know what I know. Trust me on this, cara Mamma. I’m a man. I know these things better than you. The one who wears his heart on his sleeve is the one you as a mother should be least worried about. It’s the silent one who does nothing but fake indifference that’s dangerous.”
“You are being so Italian, Salvo!” exclaimed Gina.
Salvo ignored her, forcefully tapping the table with his finger. “And worse, Mimoo, what you don’t see is that your only daughter knows this with her whole heart, sees this clearest of all. Even better than me.”
“Tu sei pazzo, Salvo.”
“Non vedo niente,” disagreed Gina with no sincerity, her lips moving, her heart pounding. Please, please, Salvo, please don’t be wrong.
“I don’t want to do it, Mimoo,” said Salvo.
“You must do it. Listen to me, he doesn’t even notice your sister.”
Salvo simply shook his head.
3
Life was full of miracles in all shapes and sizes. As the spring thaw melted away the snows and frozen mud of New England, and renewal filled the April air, Harry came to Lawrence two or three times a week to oversee the renovation on Alessandro’s and Antonio’s. “It’s my father’s hard-earned money,” he said to Gina the first time she beamed at seeing him at the work site. “I want to make sure it’s being well spent.” He brought his books with him, he told her, and studied on the train.
Her life reordered, Gina now flew to Washington mill after school to pick up the wool and with the large sacks made her way, not to Haverhill and the mission, but to Essex Street and Alessandro’s. Or she ran across Broadway to Antonio’s. She spent whatever remaining minutes or hours at the site with Harry until his train home, and then walked slowly to St. Vincent’s, where she made an assorted number of springtime excuses, took her books and wool to the backroom, and studied not at all, but spun constantly, dreaming of silk and muslin, and ivory hats with chiffon bows and lace blouses, thinking of some clever questions to ask Harry the next afternoon about phases of plumbing codes and electrical wires and putty, all the while practicing contorting her face into businesslike seriousness.
She looked into her books just enough not to fail her exams as she twisted hundreds of skeins and paper cones and collected bark and blueberries.
“Why the inky fingers?” Harry asked her one afternoon. She tried to hide her pleasure at his noticing as she answered.
“I’m dye
ing the wool rovings in blueberries and vinegar,” she replied, and then hid her hands behind her back, swiftly recalling what her hands looked like. “Also beets and bark. The colors are so rich if I do it right after I card but before I spin. I now sell eight different colors at the market.” She must remember to save up for some thin silk gloves.
He studied her carefully. “I don’t even understand what you just said.”
She laughed, not with too much delight, trying to control herself. “A little bit like I feel when you talk of moral hazards of adverse selection on costs and probabilities.”
He laughed unabashedly. “You strung those phrases together randomly. Because I never talk of costs and probabilities.”
“You did that one time when you were trying to explain one of your economics courses to me. Investing in Human Capital, was it called?”
He shook his head at her in surprise, his mouth still in a reluctant smile. “I can’t believe I was so excruciatingly tedious. How ill-mannered and deadly dull of me. Please forgive me for my rudeness.”
“No apologies necessary,” she said trying to sound formal and less Italian. It was because of her immigrant immaturity that all she wanted to do was skip! She sold her fancy mulberry, maroon and scarlet yarn at a premium and saved enough for a paper pattern and material for a barely pink, combed-lawn dress for spring: soft, lightly lustrous, untextured. It had a slight flounce and sky-blue satin trimming around the waist. She sewed four rows of lace and ribbon ruching into the bodice over the smallest capped sleeves. She would need a shawl to go with it because her arms were bare, and it was just enough off the ground to see not just her shoes, but also her ankles. When could she possibly wear it? Every time he saw her, she by necessity and lack of choice was in her awful brown and white school uniform. And she spent every penny she had on the fabric, so there was no money for silk gloves … She despaired of her ugly hands!
Harry hardly noticed. Never anything but polite and pleasant, he carried himself unfailingly with an air of amused detachment—but Gina didn’t care. With all pretense on her part gone, she lay on her bed stomach-down, legs kicking up, whispering confidences into the bedspread to Verity and Angela about the latest thing he said about running steam pipes, and having a wider access to the back, anticipating crowds at the restaurants, planning for success. Verity and Angela taunted her, but the fantasy was strong, and real life wasn’t going to interfere.
Even Salvo became less hostile at the sight of his dream coming together under Harry’s watchful eye. While Mimoo was cleaning houses with Pippa and learning a new language by playing Le Lotto in the basement of St. Mary’s Church with all her new rowdy Irish friends, including Rita from upstairs, Verity studied hard for her final exams before graduating high school. Meanwhile Angela whispered to Gina about unions and women’s rights, dreaming of finding her own young man, who cared about both.
“Harry is not Gina’s steady,” Verity corrected Angela.
“Oh, Verity, the sucker of joy. Not yet. But can’t a girl dream?”
“He talks to you about plumbing and electricity. How do you get heady romance from this?”
“Angela talks to her young men friends about labor grievances and property rights. That’s better?”
“All of it just seems pointless and confusing,” Verity said. “Let’s see what the Gospel says about Love, shall we?”
Gina and Angela groaned, burying their heads under pillows. Verity, sitting up cross-legged on the bed, opened the Bible with closed eyes and stuck a finger into a red-letter passage.
Gina didn’t let her continue. “If I have the gift of prophecy,” she said, interrupting Verity, snatching the Bible from her hands, “and fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not Love, I am nothing. How is that for Gospel? That’s what Paul said. Non sono nulla.”
“Too little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” said Verity in exasperation, reaching for the Book.
“Too little Love also.”
Gina lay on her bed as spring deepened and dreamed. She lived so much inside the balloon of her desires that she didn’t want the needles of reality puncturing her carefully crafted, multicolored fragile daydream palloncino.
4
“He has fine manners,” said Angela. “You can’t fault him for his good breeding.”
“Oh, please,” said Salvo. “It’s just a ruse to get what he wants.”
“Which is … ?”
Salvo raised high his full-of-meaning eyebrows.
“Salvo, please. I disagree,” Angela said, coming to Gina’s rescue, and to Harry’s. “I’ve seen him, and I’ve talked to Verity about him. She has talked to him, and both of us agree—he is exceptionally well brought up.”
“You are so naïve.”
“Salvo, judge him for yourself. He is not coarse or overly familiar with anyone. He doesn’t presume friendship, or familiarity. He is unfailingly polite.”
“I can vouch for that,” Verity said. “He talks to everyone as he might have other men talk to his sister.”
Gina smiled at that most of all. Other men like Ben? She must remember to ask Harry about Ben. They hadn’t mentioned him in weeks.
“He doesn’t call attention to himself,” said Angela. “He doesn’t criticize other people.”
Salvo argued back. “That may be, but he is hardly kind.”
“Yes, but he also doesn’t promote himself. He is not glum or morose. He is polite and detached, that’s different.”
“He doesn’t seem vain,” Gina piped in. “He never talks about himself.”
“He hardly talks at all,” verified Verity. “It’s hard to get him to say anything.”
“In my opinion,” said Mimoo, “he seems ashamed of where he came from. He seems ashamed of his mother and father. He is embarrassed by his family.”
“No, not at all,” Gina defended. “He just doesn’t like to talk about their success.”
“A well-bred man is not embarrassed by his family.”
“He is not,” Gina said, defending him. “He is just quiet. He is shy.”
Heartily, throatily, Salvo laughed.
Gina had no words to describe Harry’s impassive silence. She couldn’t comprehend his neutral comportment—was it to keep in line with his noble heritage? She didn’t think so. There was something about his expression, the utter indifference to certain things like his wealthy background or his well-established social status that suggested a more serious approach to life. He couldn’t help being born a Barrington and enjoying the comforts of one, but his walk, his stare, the tilt of his pensive head, his bored manner suggested a laid-back drifter from the wrong side of the tracks—a man looking perhaps for trouble. He was not a man of many words; he acted like someone who took himself both too seriously and not seriously enough. He shared another quality with his famous ancestor Robert Treat Paine: while he was always the first advocate against a position held by someone else, he was not one to promote a particular position of his own. He just said no, as if the no by itself was sufficient.
After thinking about him obsessively for many weeks, Gina concluded that perhaps Salvo was right, that Harry wasn’t shy—although it was that very quality that so appealed to her in the first place—something else stifled him. He remained silent not because he was afraid to speak, but because speaking would reveal who he was to the world: someone who was not going to follow Billingsworth into a life in banking, or Barrington to the life of a merchant, or even Ben to a career in engineering. Silent—because speaking would reveal who he really was to her.
Gina knew she was not sophisticated enough for him. How could she be? She had no money to buy a camel coat, she was too young to wear heels, or so her mother said. Papa would’ve understood. Gina said this to Angela in bitterness, but her cousin would have none of it. “Did your mother wear heels to make your sainted father fall in love with her? There you have it, then. There’s your answer. She didn’t have a camel coat. She d
idn’t have high-heeled shoes, or a fancy bag.” Angela laughed. “What, do you suppose if you have these things, a man will fall in love with you? How little you think of him. How little you think of yourself.”
“If only we could all meet our lovers at the textile mill,” replied an irritated Gina. “Perhaps we’d find just the right kind of romance.”
“You’d certainly be happier.” Angela laughed.
But to see him was everything. Her self-consciousness, her shame at her poverty took second place to running down Broadway in flat shoes and dowdy frocks that covered her from her chin to the ground with long cardigans over them, unlike the coats that real ladies wore. Holding herself upright, shoulders squared, she slowed down just in time, and in calm, accented English, she milled around Harry, arms locked behind her back, asking him sober professional questions about mortar and spackle and plaster, questions about wiring, painting, wood floors, lacquer, the glass-fronted windows. At length they discussed signs over the restaurants, which color and how bright a blue. They discussed the shape and size of tables, the comfort of chairs, the quality of dishes, the drape of the curtains and the size of the trash cans out back. How big an oven should we get and do we need two?
But as she spoke to him about these things, she would offer him little bits of food that she brought from home. “Here, Harry, try this, you must be hungry, it’s bread with tomato and mozzarella over it. It’s called bruschetta.” “Harry, this is smoked Parma ham with a little bit of red pepper and mozzarella.” “Oh, this is very good, I hope you like it, it’s called tiramisu. It’s a liqueur and ladyfinger dessert.”
And Salvo too, while he was working out the menus, would make something more elaborate than the antipasti his sister carried on a plate and invite Harry back to Summer Street for a sampling of his famous gnocchi, potato dumplings with pesto, or pappardelle fra diavolo. And sometimes Harry came. He didn’t cry off, citing dissertations and seminars and charity functions. Instead he sat at her mother’s table, starved after a day’s work, and ate Salvo’s food with them. It was the one time when he said complimentary things to Salvo about his cooking. In private Salvo would say to Gina, “Why is he buttering me up? I’m not toast.” But even more privately, Salvo was pleased enough to devise every week some newfangled dishes from the south of Italy to further impress his silent partner. Harry was especially partial to the homemade crusty bread. Salvo toasted it lightly with garlic and mozzarella and a little Parmesan and salt and pushed it in front of him. Harry called it a complete meal, with red wine over candlelight, and he sat like this with Mimoo and Pippa and Angela and Salvo watching him cautiously but eagerly, to gauge the sincerity of his reactions to their immigrant cuisine, to their immigrant home. Only Gina milled around elsewhere in the room, so that no one could see her hand clamped in a fist over her heart.
Children of Liberty Page 18
