The Escort

by Gina Robinson

  "But he wanted more?"

  A blush crept up her cheeks. "Why else would I leave such a position?"

  Tonio felt cantankerous. Sleeping next to her on a hard board hadn't allowed him much sleep. "Being a rich man's mistress didn't appeal to you?"

  She plunked her fork down and pushed her chair back.

  He reached across the table and grabbed her wrist before she could fully rise. "I'm sorry. Please sit. I was out of line." He'd overstepped and he knew it. She was an innocent girl with honor, something he'd almost forgotten existed. He smiled apologetically across at her. She looked leery, but relaxed her arm in his firm grip and he released his hold. She settled back into her chair and scooted to the table.

  "The women in Wallace, where I live, are jaded, their innocence long since spent. I've forgotten about youth and protected virtue. I bet you haven't even been kissed, except perhaps at carnevale." Thoughts of carnevale made him smile.

  "I can see your parents parading you down the piazza every Sunday after mass, hoping to attract the attention of some worthy suitor, yet keeping you cloistered in their midst. And I can see the young men salivating, lascivious thoughts tucked protectively under the surface, but there nonetheless. Not daring to speak to you openly for fear of violating the code of social conduct so prized by Italian society. But later, alone with their buddies, enumerating your virtues for all their worth."

  She looked uncertain as to whether he complimented or made fun of her. He did neither. "Your lips are as full and red as a dozen roses. What young man wouldn't be tempted by them? Were you old enough to be allowed out at carnevale last year?"

  "Old enough! I'm nineteen!"

  He laughed softly. "Spoken with the pride of youth. Too many more years and you'll be hiding your age. You're dying to tell me, so go ahead. Did you collect many kisses?"

  "You speak openly of intimate matters. But if you must know—more than any other girl!"

  His mind traveled back to the annual celebration. Masked men paraded the streets, throwing confetti and candy coated almonds at women and children, their masks affording them the protection of anonymity, giving them boldness. Young men roamed the streets seeking the girls they favored, bestowing them with chaste kisses. Girls purposefully strayed from their parents and chaperones looked the other way but only for that day. Girls went home with pockets full of candy and a sense of romance heady with kisses.

  "So girls compare notes. I always imagined they did."

  "And you, I suppose you've kissed many girls?"

  "Many more than I should have." He pushed his plate back, suddenly full. "Tell me, what's the difference between marrying your old toad for money and taking money for favors from your rich Signor Costagnola? Surely he was much wealthier."

  "Marriage is honorable." She sounded sure of herself.

  He wished he felt her conviction about anything outside of the Jupiter.

  "Honor, what is that?" He laughed derisively. "So for honor's sake you find yourself banished to the United States." Her arranged married angered him. Although it was tradition in Italy for marriages to be arranged, he'd seen the damage they wrought. He preferred the American way of choosing one's own spouse. Soon enough Angelina's innocence would be betrayed when the realities of being married to a stranger twice her age became clear to her. She was a woman with such passion. She deserved more. As it was, he intended not to go far enough to witness her disappointment.

  "Only for two years."

  He stared at her until she felt compelled to continue. "In two years we will have enough money to return to Italy and live comfortably. Signor Allessandro has promised."

  "In two years he'll have to drag you back kicking and screaming, believe me."

  "How can you be so confident? You act as if you know me well."

  "I do. You remind me of a younger version of myself. So damned free-spirited you tried to take off on me and go it on your own. Once you get a taste of walking down the streets unaccompanied, talking to whomever you please, conducting your own business, you'll forget your longing for the shackles of the medieval life you led in Italy. American women will soon have the vote and with that—"

  "I won't stay. I miss Santa Croce already. When will you return?"

  "Never," he said.

  She gave him a look he was sure meant to pierce the truth out of him, but he didn't waver.

  He set his napkin on the table. "Stop looking at me like an angry cat. What would you have me do? Go back and marry some Northern girl? They don't have the shortage of men there that they do in the South, so I feel no guilt in that regard. Speaking of which, why didn't your Mr. Allessandro wait two years to marry, when he could go back and collect a handsome dowry from some desperate rich girl? Why send for a poor one without a dowry?"

  "Mr. Allessandro is forty-four years old. He doesn't want to wait any longer to start his family. Why don't you go back?"

  "I told you, I'm not the marrying kind. And if I were, it would be to an American woman. I like their sense of independence. They don't want men to rule them."

  "You've forgotten, sir, that the real ruler of the home is the Italian mama."

  He smiled, genuinely amused. "I haven't forgotten. I had one myself. But the woman can only cajole the man. She has no real power of her own. It's a crime for a woman to show any intelligence or initiative. When it comes down to it, if the man is strong, the woman has no say. My poor mother learned that the hard way."

  "What about your family?" she asked. "Don't you miss them?"

  "What's left of my family disowned me years ago."

  She stared at him questioningly. "You had an uncle."

  "Yes, I did." He stared back at her. "And now he's dead."

  "We should return to our seats." She rose, setting her napkin on the table and brushing a few inconspicuous crumbs from her skirt.

  Tonio came around to her side of the table and pulled her chair out, then leaned close to speak into her ear. She might as well know what kind of man he was. If she kept her guard up, he might be able to stay away from her.

  "I got a girl pregnant when I was nineteen, the same exalted, wise age you are now. I would have married her, but my father decided she was too far below our station to carry the Domani name. He sent me away. "

  She colored, a deep obvious scarlet.

  Her eyes were wide with surprise as he took her arm and guided her to the door. "After you."

  The rails clattered on endlessly as the train shimmied along on its boundless route. Tonio sat beside Angelina, reading yellowed letters from a bundle he'd carried aboard in his traveling duffel. Angelina studied him from the corner of her eye. His face was a placid mask as he read, but his eyes were hard and angry.

  She turned to look out the window but didn't process the scenery. Her mind was busy with other thoughts. She was more intrigued by Tonio than ever. Even as an uncomfortable silence settled between them, she wondered about him. Maybe it was true; women did prefer men with bad reputations. And his was more than a bad reputation. It was reality, spoken from his own mouth.

  She sighed. All she really wanted out of life was a decent, intelligent man. One who worked hard. One who loved her beyond reason. One like her papa. There were no such men in Italy; there were hardly any men at all. And now she found herself headed to a husband she'd never met, seated beside a man who, despite her best defenses and all good sense, stirred in her strange and unsettling emotions. One whose compliments and attentions she craved when she should have berated herself for even thinking about him. The more she tried to remember that she was married to a good, kind-hearted man and must uphold the family honor, the more she was drawn to Tonio.

  She'd never known a man who had affected her in any stirring way. She knew she possessed the ability to fluster them and turn their heads and she reveled in their attention, as much as was permissible under the tight constraints of the society she came from.

  Life in her home village of Santa Croce had been simple, bound by tradition a
nd social stature. Each day her father, Pasquale Di Maria, left when the sun rose to work in the fields of the rich landholders in the surrounding countryside, sometimes traveling for hours upon the family donkey to reach his destination. He was not a skilled worker, like the grafters who traveled the country carrying small black tool cases resembling doctors' bags. He was an ordinary field hand, poorly paid because of his lack of skills.

  Angelina, her sisters, and mother attended to the domestic duties. Their house was a small one, located in the village with all the others packed tightly together like row houses. In front and in back of the house were narrow cobblestone streets. There were no yards, but each family had a garden plot located across the stone bridge just outside the boundaries of the village. Angelina and her sisters tended the garden where they raised lentils, peas, fava beans, tomatoes, and herbs. On a warm spring day, her sisters would walk through the streets inhaling the smells of clay, warm straw, and sweet herbs. If it rained they would splash in the puddles that pooled in the holes left by missing cobblestones.

  It was down these same streets that her mother had walked her and the two sisters nearest her in age, the three considered old enough to marry, to the town square, the chiazza, as piazza was pronounced in dialect, to do the shopping or go to church on Sunday.

  The church was located at the far end of the chiazza from her home. Simple by Italian standards, it was made of aged gray stone. Inside it had a domed ceiling, a huge statue of the Christ and the Virgin Mary, and crucifixes hung or were placed in every available nook. On the walls were paintings of the Stations of the Cross. She and her family attended mass every Sunday; not to do so was a sin and would subject one to social condemnation. Besides, it was the social event of the week.

  She and her sisters dressed in their finest for these strolls to mass, hoping to attract the attention of the single young men. It was a tradition centuries old, this strolling along the streets and there were well-defined, though unwritten rules. Men walked with men, women with women, unless a man accompanied his wife. A man never spoke to a woman walking alone, or even stared at her, for she could uproot him with a glance. A woman was not greeted unless her husband was present. But the discreet, admiring sidelong glances Angelina received as she walked along behind Mama and Papa were not lost on her. And though that was as close as she was ever allowed to a single man not of her family, it had been a titillating experience. But it, and the stolen pecks on the cheek at carnevale last year, paled next to the maelstrom of emotion she felt as she sat next to the undeniably handsome Tonio.

  He folded the letter he was reading and returned it to its faded envelope with unexpected reverence. The gentle crinkling of paper caught her attention and she turned to watch him as he replaced the bundle of letters in his duffel.

  "You seemed entranced by the scenery," he said, "Anything interesting out there?"

  "I wasn't really watching. I was thinking."

  "About what?"

  She considered for a moment before speaking. "What happened to the girl?"

  "What girl?"

  "The one you almost married."

  "She died."

  His look gave nothing away. She couldn't tell whether he was sorry or not.

  "The baby?"

  "He died with her, in childbirth."

  "Oh! I'm sorry." She felt herself color. Perhaps she'd been too bold in asking. She looked down and played nervously with the finely crafted gold cross that hung on its long chain over her bosom, glad to be out of the avaricious city and able to display it.

  "It was a long time ago. I'm not even sure I'm sorry anymore. I'd never wish them dead, but I couldn't have changed what happened. The baby was too big for her. They would have died no matter what. That's what the midwife said."

  "But you know it was a he?"

  "Her mother was hysterical after she died. She insisted they take the baby. Her daughter didn't want to go to her grave pregnant and her mother had to know positively that the baby was dead and could not be saved. The baby was a boy."

  "How sad." She considered the tragedy and the shame, both for the girl and the baby. Illegitimacy was not accepted. "And the poor baby went to his grave a…"

  "Bastard. Are you too delicate to say it?" He seemed suddenly angry.

  She'd probed too far. He stared at her as she toyed with her necklace. She dropped her hands into her lap.

  "He wasn't. She married someone else. The baby was named after him and buried with his family. My father bought her a husband."

  "Oh." She paused but couldn't stop herself from asking. She wanted to know everything about him. "And your father, did he disown you then?"

  He saw the look on her face and frowned. "Don't get any romantic notions about me giving up my family for the love of a woman. It was rebellion on my part, pure and simple. To this day I have a hard time picturing her face. She was young and beautiful and innocent. Hell, we both were, if you can believe that." He laughed, but it was at himself and it had no humorous ring. "But to answer your question—yes, my father disowned me then. Actually, when he found out about her. But in reality, it had nothing to do with her."

  "Is that why you came to the United States? To get away?"

  "I came because my father cut me off without a penny and I had no way to support myself. Seems we have a common enemy in poverty, don't we?" He was looking straight ahead. His voice was bitter. "My uncle was here and he sponsored me to come over."

  "Is your family very wealthy?"

  "Extremely." Then he laughed, but his mood had turned and his laugh was lighter. He looked her in the eye and for a brief moment they connected.

  What she saw there made her feel as if her breath had been taken from her. For an insane moment she had the strong desire to lean up and kiss him, kiss away all past hurts, make him aware of only her. It was madness. She looked down, trying to collect herself, but she couldn't completely stifle her natural urge.

  "You like money?" he asked suddenly.

  "I'd like to have it."

  "So would I." He motioned with his head toward a group of men huddled around a pair of dice at the front of the car. "I can play craps with the best of them. What I win we'll use to travel first class from Chicago. Deal?"

  The breathless feeling returned as his eyes bore into her. "Yes," she said, but she felt she would have said anything to hold his look and the marvelous trembling feeling.

  He rose and stepped into the aisle. "Wish me luck."

  "Good luck, Tonio." It was barely a whisper, but his name sounded good on her tongue.

  She watched Tonio as he went to join the game. He stood outside the circle until the shooter passed and all bets were settled. The circle of men opened to welcome him into their midst. It was a mottled group that sat at the front of the coach near the vestibule, placing bets and tossing dice in the largest area of clear floor space available. They were immigrants mostly, like her, from all over Europe, yet they spoke a common language—English. She listened carefully from her seat only a few rows back from them. Each man had his own accent, some so heavy that at times it was a wonder that they understood each other at all.

  Only Tonio spoke like an American. Even as she listened for his deep voice as he called out his bets, she marveled at his ability to wash all trace of the lilting, romantic Italian out of his words. His r's were suddenly hard, not lightly trilled and rolling like when he spoke Italian. He pronounced his a's in the harsh, flat way of the Americans. She wished she spoke English better, and she envied his casual composure as he sat well at ease among the varied crowd of men.

  Tonio sat at profile to her, his left side toward her. One small, errant curl looped over his left eye giving a boyish appeal to his otherwise strong, masculine face. He sat off to the side with one long leg straight and one bent, leaning on the bent one with one elbow, using his free hand to set out his wagers in a pile in front of him. He rolled his shirtsleeves up as the shooter to his right passed him the dice, exposing powerful forearms with strong
veins that stood out in a purely masculine fashion.

  She marveled at the strong physical appeal of him. Everything, from the way his shirtsleeves tugged at his muscled upper arms to the way his shirt tapered into his jeans against a flat stomach, hinting of a narrow waist, spoke of masculinity. Tonio tossed the dice, rolling seven, a natural. The other players who'd faded him groaned as they tossed him their bets.

  The game interested her little. She'd watched hours of it beneath the hull on the Brezza Marina. The only way to win consistently was to bet with the odds, but fools frequently gambled recklessly in hopes of big payoffs. She stared transfixed at Tonio until he turned and caught her at it, then she made a point of concentrating on the other players.

  As the game picked up and the men were rapidly wagering and paying off, she noticed that one player skimmed coins off the top of his pile before he paid off. The game was becoming so heated that none of the others seemed to notice. He called and set out one wager, but paid another. The men were laughing and spirits seemed high. A few drank beers they'd evidently bought in the dining car. In light of the mood, no one suspected a cheat.

  She watched another round to confirm her suspicions then made her way past the game to the vestibule that connected their car to the coach in front of it. She stood looking out the tiny vestibule window pretending to take in the scenery and stretch her legs. But she watched the man in question in his reflection in the glass. She stood watching the cheat, unsure how to warn Tonio, until the conductor came through and said something to her.

  "He asked you to move out of the vestibule. If we have to stop suddenly you'd be crushed in the folds between cars," Tonio said in Italian without looking up from his game.

  She looked at him, surprised he'd noticed her presence. Pleased he was aware of her when his attention seemed elsewhere. It gave her the opportunity she sought. She stepped back into the car and leaned down to speak to him in an intentionally warm, hushed lover-like tone.

  "Thank you so much for your concern. The man with the blond mustache cheats. He holds back part of his wager. I've watched him enough to be sure."