Isotta Donatelli was an Italian of Venetian descent who understood the ways of the Neapolitans because of her long marriage to Mariano. Now in her midforties, she had soft brown eyes, a pale complexion, and the prominent, straight nose of the Italians of the north. Her full smile showed off lovely white teeth, and like her daughters, she had long dark hair, though hers had flecks of gray at her temples and was worn in a braided chignon.
“How does this happen?” Chi Chi complained. “I thought you were going to hold the number down this year, Ma. I don’t want to work on my week off. I want to take sun and relax.” Isotta’s middle child had tied up her wet hair in a topknot. She wore a two-piece red bathing suit that exposed a half inch of her tanned middle and grazed the top of her thighs; the bottoms were cut square, boy style. Chi Chi had hoped to spend the afternoon doing her hair. Later, she planned to put on a sundress and gold sandals and dance the night away at the pavilion on the boardwalk with the rest of the kids her age.
“This is the curse of living by the shore,” Barbara said as she placed a stack of dishes on the table. “Family washes up on the beach all summer long.”
“Who’s coming anyhow?” Chi Chi asked as she set the table.
“We’ve got the cousins from Michigan,” her mother began, counting the place settings as she went.
“Farmers,” Chi Chi said.
“Steelworkers,” Barbara corrected her.
“What’s the difference?”
“One brings you baskets of fresh peppers to can, and the other brings the Ford catalog with the rollout of the 1938 line,” Barbara said wistfully. “One gift is work to do, the other is my book of dreams.”
“Cousin Joozy—you remember her, she’s the daughter of my mother’s second cousin—well, she’s bringing her cousin Rosaria by marriage. The one that married the fella from Italy around the same time I married your father. Armandonada.”
“So we’re not related to Rosaria?” Barbara pondered.
“We should just open a restaurant. At least we’d be making money instead of feeding all these cousins and their cousins ten times removed for free,” Chi Chi groused.
“Rosaria’s son is a singer.”
Chi Chi’s eyes narrowed. “Does he have any records out?”
“You’ll have to ask his mother.”
Chi Chi placed the silverware on the table. “You know I will.”
“I feel sorry for the girl who gets stuck with that name. It sounds like a barge from the days of Nero.” Barbara followed behind her with the salad bowls, placing them on the table. “Why would anybody marry an Italian from the other side? It’s Victorian.”
Their mother smiled. “I don’t know, Barbara. Maybe love?”
“Love has a different definition for every person,” Chi Chi reminded her. “You ever heard the story of Monica Spadoni? Her parents made a match with a guy she had never met, from a village she had never visited, from a family she did not know, all based on a photograph sent via airmail from Napoli.”
“Was he handsome?” Barbara asked.
“Extremely. But that was his only asset. Monica had no idea what awaited her except his gorgeous mug, of course. The guy landed in New Haven, Monica was smitten. They got married, it turns out he was mean, she felt hoodwinked; in due course he wiped out her savings, left her flat, and went home to Italy to his wife and kids.”
“How romantic. Tell us another one, Cheech.” Barbara folded the napkins neatly and placed them on the plates. “Who doesn’t like a good old potboiler bigamy story?”
“The moral of all that? Yes, Monica got saddled with a real bargain from Catania. But she learned her lesson. Eat from your own garden, because you don’t know what you’re getting when you don’t.”
“That’s an exception, Chi Chi,” their mother said. “Usually when the family makes an ambasciata they take pains to find a suitable spouse for their daughter. They don’t just pick anyone off the street.”
“It only takes one mistake to ruin your life,” said Chi Chi. “Who taught us that, Ma?”
“I suppose I did.”
“Where do you want the birch beer, Iso?” Mariano, Isotta’s husband of twenty-four years, kicked the back gate open with his foot and entered the yard with a silver keg balanced on his shoulder. Compact and round, Mariano had the thick forearms of a stonecutter. He was bald and had recently grown a slim mustache like the movie star William Powell.
“Mariano, put that down. Girls, help your father.”
“Dad, what are you thinking?” Barbara rushed at him. “Use the hand truck!”
“You’re gonna break your back!” Chi Chi lifted the keg off his shoulder with Barbara’s help. They placed it on a low fieldstone wall their father had built himself.
“Look at me. I didn’t even break a sweat.” Mariano held his hands up in the air in victory. “I’m as strong as the day you married me, Isotta.” He pulled the tap out of his back pocket and handed it to Chi Chi, who attached it to the keg. “Have I got enough hot dogs?” he asked as he surveyed the table. “A lot of plates here.”
“You have enough hot dogs,” Isotta assured him.
“Ma, you want the trays in the oven?” Lucille asked from the kitchen window.
“Yes, honey, put it on warm. What did you bring?”
“I got four dozen fresh rolls. Two pans of sausage and peppers. One pan of pepper and eggs and one pan of eggplant. Aunt Vi sent three potato pizza and four pizza alige.”
“We’ve got more than enough food,” Barbara said as she set up the drink table.
“Who can help Papa with the gelato?”
“I will.” Chi Chi followed her father down into the basement for the equipment.
Lucille emerged from the kitchen, eating a plain roll.
“Save those rolls for company,” Barbara chided her.
“We got thousands,” said Lucille with a full mouth. Lucille was the baby of the family. At eighteen, she was the most beautiful of the daughters, but she was completely unaware of her charms. “Do I need to change?”
Isotta and Barbara looked Lucille up and down. She wore work boots and denim coveralls splattered with grease from the fryer at the sausage stand. “Yes,” they said together. Lucille rolled her eyes and went back into the house to change.
“If she knew how pretty she was, she’d be dangerous,” Barbara said quietly to her mother.
“Don’t tell her.”
Chi Chi and her father emerged from the basement. He carried the ice cream maker, a wooden barrel with a hand crank; Chi Chi followed with a sack of rock salt.
“What flavor should I make?” Chi Chi asked as she set up the machine, pouring the rock salt into the outer tray.
“Vanilla,” Barbara suggested.
“Bland vanilla? Come on, Barb, you can do better than that.”
“Why do you bother to ask for suggestions if you don’t like them?”
“I want to see if you’re ever going to go out on a limb and come up with something daring.”
“Vanilla goes with everything.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Mariano said as he dropped chunks of ice into the bowl underneath the mixer. “Especially when you throw some rum into it.”
“Great, Dad. Always fun when the great-aunts get tight on ice cream.”
* * *
The Donatellis’ Fourth of July feast spilled out of their backyard and onto the side porch, with some of the cousins taking their plates to the front porch and lawn. Up and down Sand Point Street, similar al fresco meals were being served, with shore families hosting their annual summer parties. The older folks sought the shade of the umbrella table, or the cool breeze beneath the grape arbor that canopied the walkway from the stone path on the side of the house to the backyard.
Isotta had trained her daughters well. Lucille and Barbara served the guests and made sure that their drinks were cold and their cups were full. In the kitchen, Chi Chi jabbed spoons into a series of glass cups filled with ice cream and fresh
sliced strawberries. She placed them on a tray and, opening the screen door with her hip, went outside into the garden and served the oldest guests first. Chi Chi tucked her head under the umbrella and offered dessert.
“Cheech, did you meet my cousin Rosaria?” Joozy Fierabraccio lifted two ice cream cups off the tray, handing one to her cousin. “Mrs. Armandonada. She’s from Michigan. Detroit.” Joozy wore a sleeveless sundress that exploded in a print of palm fronds on her sturdy frame.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Rosaria said as she tasted the gelato.
“Our pleasure. As you can see, we love a party.” Chi Chi grinned. “Go easy on the ice cream. It’s spiked.”
“Liquor burns off in the sun,” Joozy said, waving the spoon around before letting it land back in the cup. “You can’t get pie-eyed in the heat. It evaporates off the human body through the pores.”
“I was at the beach this afternoon—” Rosaria began.
“The weather has been perfect.” Chi Chi offered ice cream to the guests as they passed.
“You saved that little boy.”
Chi Chi blushed. “It was nothing.”
“No, no, it was everything to the boy and to his mother.” Rosaria turned to Joozy. “She just dove into the ocean to save a child. She didn’t even think about it. She didn’t wait for the lifeguard.”
“I was close to the water,” Chi Chi said softly. “Anybody would have helped.”
“Hundreds of people were on the shore,” Rosaria insisted, “but you went in and saved the boy!”
“I’m afraid of the water,” Joozy admitted as she spooned up another bite of ice cream. “The ocean is entirely too perilous and mysterious for me. Ah, Madone. All kinds of squish and foam under and around you, and then the strange fish that swim around in the depths. Many have teeth. You never know what you’ll run into. I don’t like that feeling. Of the unknown. Of the constant movement. To tell you the truth, I don’t even like boats. I stay on terra firma under an umbrella with a good book. That’s my idea of the shore.”
Chi Chi laughed. “Sounds like a fine vacation to me.”
“You have to know what you like in this life,” Joozy told them, “or you fritter away precious time doing things everybody else likes to do.” She ate a delicate spoonful of the ice cream. “Don’t be a follower, Cheech. Be a leader.”
“Got it.”
“Do you like big-band music?” Rosaria asked Chi Chi.
“Are you for true, Rose? The Donatelli girls are musical. This kid has an act with her sisters.” Joozy pointed to Barbara, who was serving birch beer, and to Lucille, who was carrying empty trays up to the kitchen. “They’re good, too. Sea Isle’s answer to the Dolly Sisters. They sing at church and at the Holy Name Society Dance.”
“We made a couple records, too,” Chi Chi offered.
“How nice.” Rosaria was impressed. “My son sings with the Rod Roccaraso Orchestra. They’re booked at the Cronecker Hotel all week.”
“Is he the lead singer?”
“Yes, they have a girl singer too. And they rotate specialty acts. Would you like to take your family tonight?”
“I think they’d love it.”
“I’ll arrange for passes.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Arman—”
Joozy held her hand up. “Allow me. ‘Armandonada.’ It’s a mouthful of macaroni plus a meatball. I don’t know how your husband squeaked by with that one intact on Ellis Island.”
Rosaria ignored her comment and looked at Chi Chi. “I’ll make sure Saverio knows you’re coming.”
Chi Chi moved through the crowd, delivering the rest of the ice cream. She looked back at Rosaria with the impossible last name. She was one of those Italian ladies who could wear a linen shift, sandals, and a locket and look regal.
For her part, Rosaria recognized Chi Chi Donatelli as a kind of angel. How could a woman so young possibly understand what it meant to that mother to have saved the life of her son on Sea Isle Beach that day? Chi Chi couldn’t know, but Rosaria did.
* * *
As they climbed the steps of the Cronecker Hotel, Chi Chi retied the bow of her dress on her shoulder tightly, as the strap kept coming loose. She had made the sundress herself, out of teal and pink madras. Lucille wore a blue cotton pique sundress with a large patchwork pineapple on the straight skirt. Barbara wore a sheer pink organza dress with a belt of embroidered daisies.
“Ladies, I’m here!” Charlie Calza called from the street below.
“Hurry!” Barbara chided him.
“Your boyfriend is never on time,” Chi Chi complained. “If we miss this show because of him, I’ll give him the business myself.”
“I’ll handle him. It has taught me patience,” Barbara admitted.
Charlie sprinted up the steps, weaving through the crowd to join the girls. “I’m sorry. I had to set up the cash drawers for the box office.” Charlie had been Barbara’s boyfriend since they were kids. He was tall and thick and wore his dark brown hair parted on the side and slicked down with pomade, as though it were always the first day of school. He was a bookkeeper for Sea Isle’s boardwalk pavilion, which is how the Donatelli sisters had seen every band from Fred Waring to Glenn Miller. He looked around. “Fancy digs.”
“Nice break from the pavilion,” Barbara said.
The Cronecker Hotel was a sprawling Victorian mansion hotel and restaurant on Ocean Drive that took up most of a city block. Painted in stately gray with coral trim, the hotel was known for its superb seafood and its elegant ballroom, which hosted the great touring dance bands.
Chi Chi gave Rosaria’s name at the door, and their party was promptly escorted to a ringside table at the front of the crowded ballroom. The large glass windows were propped open, allowing the night air to blow through, cooling off the crowd. The silk draperies billowed in the ocean breeze like ball gowns.
“Is that you, Cheech?” a familiar voice said behind her.
“Rita! What are you doing here?”
“I got a date. A real cutie.” Rita Milnicki, Chi Chi’s best friend from the mill, pointed to her table. “One of the Osella boys. You know them. Nice family. Saint Dom’s.”
“Yeah. I see. You got the good-looking one.”
“I know. David. But he’s not the rich one. Lynn Ann Minichillo nabbed him. What are you doing ringside? Are you gonna sing?” Rita adjusted her cocktail hat and straightened the folds of her dotted swiss tulle skirt.
“No, we’re here to see the band.”
“I hear they’re very good.”
“Shall we powder our noses?” Chi Chi asked Rita, taking her by the arm. “You need it.”
“My nose is fine,” Rita insisted.
“I’m as slick as a fried pepper. I’d like some company,” Chi Chi said as the pair made their way through the crowd to the foyer outside the ballroom. She looked up and down the hallway. “I want to say hello to Mr. Roccaraso,” she confided.
“Do you know him?”
Chi Chi didn’t answer her. Rita followed her down the hallway and into the kitchen. “The kitchen is the center of everything,” Chi Chi whispered. “You can even get to the stage from here.”
“How do you know?”
“Maria Barraccini is a waitress here. Gave me the skinny.”
“So you did your detective work?”
“I never miss a Myrna Loy picture.”
Rita followed Chi Chi through the sweltering hotel kitchen, a chaotic assembly line producing an opera of clangs, sputters, sizzles, and shouts as a row of cooks flipped steaks on the grill, tossed shrimp in pans over bursts of flames, and fished clams in delicate nets out of aluminum steamer pots while servers loaded trays with white dinner plates holding the finished prix fixe dinner specials. The busboys were so busy that they took little notice as Chi Chi and Rita slipped through the dishwasher’s station.
“I hope I don’t smell like grease.” Rita fanned her sleeves. “I’m wearing Houbigant. I think the steamers might cancel it out.”
“I bet he’s out there having a smoke with the singers,” Chi Chi whispered, pushing the screen door open. The wraparound porch was empty except for a small table with a mirror, set for touch-ups, a few rattan chairs, and two figures, a man and a woman who were sharing a private moment.
The woman was perched on the railing of the veranda as the man held her close, wrapped around her like a weed choking a rose. He kissed her neck urgently, his brown curls tumbling forward; she brushed them away. Her hands moved down to his neck, to his shoulders where she massaged them like macaroni dough. Chi Chi and Rita looked at one another and back at the couple.
The woman giggled and pulled away when she saw the girls staring at them. Her leg, which had been artfully wrapped around the man’s waist, slid down his leg, as her pale green kid leather dress shoe fell off and hit the floor. The young man looked down at the shoe, then over his shoulder at Chi Chi and Rita.
“Sorry!” Chi Chi blurted before pushing Rita back through the screen door and snapping it shut.
“Let’s get out of here!” Rita ordered.
The girls broke into a run and tore down the hallway, through the kitchen and out the galley doors, making tracks until they were safely back in the ballroom.
“How awful.” Rita was breathless. “I hope we never see them again.”
“We’re about to see them onstage.”
Chi Chi slipped into her seat at the front table while Rita joined the Osella family at theirs. Chi Chi fished her lipstick out of her purse and, using the butter knife on the table as a mirror, quickly applied a fresh coat to her lips. She placed the tube back in her bag, adjusted the straps on her sundress, and sat up straight.
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