“Are you going to open every door for me between here and the hotel?”
“You’ve been so generous. I’d drive you back in my dad’s truck, but it’s too risky. It breaks down all the time. We don’t have a car.”
“I don’t have a car either. But if you had a car, what car would you want?”
“A Packard.”
“Why?”
“Because everywhere you look, people drive Fords.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“That and I think a Packard is a work of art.”
Saverio checked his pockets. “Here.” He pulled out a small brown paper bag, opened it, and handed Chi Chi a scapular of the Blessed Mother on a silk cord.
“This is lovely. From your mom?”
“No, from me.”
“How thoughtful.”
“It’s blessed. The nun was out of medals.”
“You shop at the convent?”
“She was going door to door at the hotel.”
“Encouraging good behavior, no doubt. Why’d you give me a present? I should be giving you one.” She got up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
Saverio noticed Chi Chi’s hair smelled like vanilla, fresh like a summer cake. “It’s all I’ve got to give you. To remember this week. I bought my mom one, too.”
“Of course you did. Nice Catholic boy, you have a couple more in that bag. You should spread them around.”
Saverio laughed. “You caught me. I bought a few, but I didn’t wipe out the nun’s inventory.”
Chi Chi laughed. “Of course not.”
“My ma told me you saved a boy’s life.”
“Not at all.” She shrugged. “The lifeguard showed up.”
“Not what I heard. You went out and found him first. Take the credit,” Saverio insisted.
“I’m a middle child. I don’t like to.”
“I’m an only child. I have to.”
Chi Chi grinned. “I’m used to getting the blame, never the credit.”
“I got both.”
“Lucky you.”
“Girls don’t like to take credit.”
“Whatever our mothers do, we do.” Chi Chi put the scapular around her neck.
“Is it true of fathers and sons?”
“I don’t know. My father only had daughters.”
“I always wanted a sister or a brother.”
“You wouldn’t if you had them. They’d drive you crazy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What we imagine is always better than what we get,” Chi Chi said.
“You’re awful smart.”
“Not really. Observant.”
“You like my ma?”
“She’s lovely. Not too many Venetians around, you know. My mom is Venetian too.”
“No kidding.” Saverio needed to get back to the hotel, but he didn’t want to go.
“My father says you can never win an argument with a Venetian.”
“He hasn’t met my father.”
“Where is he?”
“Michigan. He doesn’t take vacations.”
“Why not?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“You two don’t talk?”
Saverio shrugged. “Not much.”
“Let me guess. He doesn’t like his son the crooner. He would rather his son have a traditional job.”
“Sounds right.”
“Can’t you change his mind?”
“Nope.”
“Do you want to?”
“It’s not about what I want.”
“I got it.”
“I think you might.” Saverio looked at Chi Chi, and then he checked his watch. “I wish we had more time.”
“I talk too much.”
“I like it.”
Chi Chi didn’t know what to say, and usually she knew exactly what to say.
Saverio folded his arms across his chest. “I go with a lot of girls.”
“So?”
“I think you should know that.”
“You want me to put it in the Sea Isle Express?”
“No, it’s just for you to know.”
“I don’t judge you. So, you go with a lot of girls. All that means is that one girl that really mattered broke your heart.”
Saverio wondered how Chi Chi knew, but he wouldn’t admit the truth so he lied. “Nah.”
“Whatever you say. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody chooses to get their heart broken. It just happens. But there’s an upside. It keeps songwriters in business. And singers singing.”
“What do you want?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you want from life?”
Chi Chi breathed deeply, taking a moment to admit her deepest desire. “I want to sing.”
“That’s a job. I mean, for the rest of your life. You know, when you grow up and get serious.”
“I want to sing and write songs.”
“Girls don’t do well in show business.”
“Says who?” Chi Chi placed her hands on her hips.
“Says me.”
“Forgive me, but how much can you observe about girls in business when you’re on the make?”
“Not much.” He laughed.
“So maybe a girl can be happy in show business. I think when you love what you do, that’s happiness.”
“But what about your home life?”
“I don’t think about anything but singing,” she admitted.
“You should.”
“Because I’m a girl?”
“No, because it’s not all there is, for anybody.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m living it.”
“I want to travel from city to city and sing in a different club every night and meet new audiences.”
“You’d get tired of it.”
“Never.”
“When you’re on the road, all you want to do is stay in one place. Have a home somewhere.”
“Maybe if you could go home once in a while, you’d like the road more,” Chi Chi suggested.
“Could be. But you wouldn’t like the road for long.”
“How do you know?”
“You come from a happy family. Why would you ever leave them?”
“Because I’ve already had that.”
“So you want to try loneliness and misery for a while?”
“I have my own plans. I don’t want what everybody else has. Never did. Never will.”
“You don’t think about your own house, windows, a little kitchen, a porch? A garden? What if you fall in love?”
“So what?”
“So when people fall in love they get married and make a home and have a family.”
“Says who?”
“Says everybody—says the lyrics of every song ever written. You should know. You write them. They’re always about love even when they’re not about love,” Saverio insisted.
“Maybe.”
A thought occurred to Saverio. “I think this is an act.”
“An act is when you go to the circus and a dog is riding a bicycle. This isn’t an act,” Chi Chi assured him.
“What if a fellow came along and changed your mind? Not the butcher or the tailor or the trucker, none of these Jersey jadrools, but someone else, and you wanted him more than show business?”
Chi Chi shook her head. “Not gonna happen. When I close my eyes, I don’t see that. I see a band. I hear music. The boys in the box stand up in white ties and tails and they raise that brass up high and they blow and I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world. I want to be there on the bandstand. I want to bring the song in—right there, in that moment, with my voice. What comes out of them and comes out of me is a creation. Sound. Music. Emotion. And there’s no fella, no vista, no clime, no thing, not even a hulking emerald or ruby or diamond, and I mean that, set in the finest gold, that matters more to me than bringing the song in.”
“But that’s only good a couple hours a night.” Saverio kicked a pebble across the sandy street. “The band plays so couples in love can come and dance.”
“But it’s a good living.” Chi Chi said the word living as though it were sacred.
“It can be.”
“It’s the living I want to make. I love my family. But I don’t want to make one. I just like making music.”
“Okay, okay, I surrender.”
“Good, because you can’t convince me.”
Saverio had to admit it: he liked this girl. She wasn’t like the others he knew. She was direct—honest, and he could talk to her and forget the time. He didn’t know what to make of that. When she talked about what she wanted her life to be like, she lit up, like something inside her was on fire. She was pretty, too. He wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t know how to ask.
“I don’t want you to kiss me,” Chi Chi said.
“You don’t?” Saverio wondered if she was a mind reader, a seer like the gypsy who followed the band, setting up a tent and a crystal ball, when they played county fairs.
“Nope. Save your pep. I have been sent to you because you need a true friend. You got girls lined up and down the boardwalk—the line’s longer than the one for funnel cakes. I saw them. You have girls from Wildwood Crest to Brielle sashaying to get your attention. You don’t need mine in that way.”
“They all want something,” Saverio admitted. “What do you want?” He put his hands in his pockets. “Besides my job?”
“I need a favor.”
“Sure you do.”
“It’s not a big favor. I’d just like you to give our record to Rod Roccaraso and see if he thinks we got something. I can get it pressed before you leave town. Maybe he can play it, and figure something out. Will you do that for me?”
“Why should I?” Saverio teased.
“Because we’re really good.”
She looked so hopeful, so eager, that Saverio almost laughed. “Okay, Chi Chi.”
“You’ll pass it along? I’ll have it ready for you tomorrow.” Chi Chi clapped her hands. “Thank you! You’re a prince!”
“Every Italian son is, you know.”
“I know. But you’re a good one.” Chi Chi turned to walk back into the house.
“Hey, Chi Chi?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re right about me.”
She smiled at him before walking up the porch steps. When she got to the top, she turned. “Hey, Savvy?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a romantic figure.”
“I didn’t think there was.”
“Then how come you act guilty?” Chi Chi went into the house and closed the screen door behind her.
Saverio stood on the sidewalk and surveyed the Donatellis’ Cape Cod with its weathered gray shingles and freshly painted yellow trim, and wondered what it must be like to live inside. Mariano had laid the slabs of slate that formed the front walk, a hopscotch pattern in shades of blue, set in cement he had poured himself. Italians, given a choice, will always do their own stonework.
The matching patches of grass on either side of the walkway in the front yard were neatly mowed; the seagrass hedges that hemmed the porch ruffled in the breeze, as wind chimes, small white glass discs that resembled communion hosts, clinked a tune. It was a fine house for a good family.
Saverio heard their voices, carried outside through the screens. The sound of their conversation sailed over him like music. It was the kind of communication that can only be found deep within a home, where a family thrives, close and connected, where the members understand one another and speak their own particular language.
Saverio couldn’t make out the words through the screen door and open windows, but when laughter pealed through the rooms, it sounded like bells, the kind the altar boy rang in church. A sacred sound. It was to him, anyway.
* * *
The late-afternoon summer sky was speckled with lilac clouds as an egg-yolk sun slipped behind the Cronecker Hotel.
Saverio greeted his mother with a kiss on the cheek as she waited for him on the veranda. The last of the beach crowd walked home after another day on the sand. They carried their umbrellas on their shoulders like muskets and swung their empty lunch baskets as they listened to the last minutes of Jimmy Arena and His SRO Orchestra on their transistor radios out of WSOU in East Orange. The seamless wail of Jimmy’s saxophone trailed off as they turned onto Seaforth Avenue.
Rosaria embraced her son. “I’m happy you could see me before the show.”
“You look good, Mama. You got a little Jersey shore bronzata.”
Rosaria looked at her arms. “I guess I did. Cousin Joozy is going to take me to the train.”
“You’ll be comfortable in the sleep car.”
“Oh, I know. Thank you for making the arrangements. You’re too good to me.”
Saverio smiled at his mother. “Not possible.”
“I love the Super Chief. Such interesting people. On the way here, I played cards with some ladies from Roseto, Pennsylvania. I find friends wherever I go.”
Rosaria sat in a wicker rocker facing Ocean Drive. She wore her best beige linen suit and leather pumps. Her suitcase, hatbox, and purse were piled neatly next to the chair. “I’ve had a wonderful week.”
“You came to every show.”
“I wouldn’t miss a note.”
Saverio sat down on the bench across from her. “Why don’t you stay longer?”
“Cousin would like that.”
“So stay.”
“Your father needs me.”
“I’m sure he’s getting along fine.”
“He does all right. But he does better when I’m there to take care of things.”
“Cook and clean.”
“That’s part of it. He’s all alone there.”
“Some people are better off alone.”
“He’s your father, Saverio. And he does his very best every day,” she said pleasantly.
“He threw me out, Ma. What kind of father throws out his only son?”
“It was terrible. But men do things like that to make their sons strong. It’s an old story you find in many books in the library. Fathers and sons have a rough time of it. But I assure you, he wants the best for you.”
“Even if that were true, he’s not nice to you.”
“Not always.”
“He does what’s best for him. You deserve kindness every day, all day, and all night too.”
“Thank you for that. But I can take care of myself.”
“Your husband should take care of you.”
“He does,” Rosaria tried to assure her son.
“I’ve been thinking. I’ve been on the road for a few years now and I’ve saved up a few bucks. I’d like to send you to Treviso. Why don’t you go home to Italy for a visit? Visit your cousins. See your aunts and uncles.”
“I was so little when we left. I hardly remember it.”
“You told me stories. You made it sound like some enchanted kingdom.”
“It was. But I was a child, and children make up things when they leave a place, to hold on to it. I probably wouldn’t recognize it now.”
“You still write to your family?”
She nodded.
“You would be welcome there, and happy too. It would be good for you. You just said you make friends wherever you go.”
“My place is with your father.”
She said it so firmly that Saverio knew it was unlikely that he could change her mind. “I can’t convince you, can I?”
“I made a vow to your father. Did you ever know me to break a promise?” She smiled.
“I’d forgive you this one.”
“Don’t be so hard on him. When you were born, he held you like delicate crystal. He was so afraid he’d drop you. He was so dear with you. You can’t remember it, but I do.”
“It would be comforting to remember nice moments. But I don’t have a
ny of those memories.”
“It won’t always be that way.”
“I don’t like leaving you there alone with him.” He struggled to put into words what he was feeling. “I have anxiety about it.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Maybe the only way a son can leave his home is to forget it altogether.”
“I hope not.”
“I’m not welcome there. You know that.”
“You can come home anytime.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you. He’s an animal with me around.”
“It’s hard for him. He doesn’t understand what you do. He thinks it’s frivolous.”
“He would. He loads a furnace with sand to make glass. And when it’s lava, he breaks his back pouring it into the molds. And after that he has to cut it to form. He saw a man lose his hand once.”
“I remember.” Rosaria nodded.
“His job is dangerous, and it requires total concentration. He’s been at it for over twenty years, and he must be numb inside and out from the rote work of it. He would say any man who wasn’t aching and bleeding and breaking the bones in his back wasn’t actually working. But Papa would be wrong. What I do isn’t easy, and not everybody can do it.”
“I know that.”
“I don’t really enjoy getting up in front of people.”
“I thought maybe you’d grown accustomed to it by now.”
“I haven’t. I shake from nerves sometimes. And I get sick.”
“Sick?” Rosaria leaned in, concerned.
“I get stage fright. Sometimes I vomit and sometimes I get feverish like I’m going to pass out.”
“The stakes are high,” Rosaria said. “It’s competitive.”
“Some of the boys drink to screw up the courage to get out there, and others smoke. There’s all kind of vice to get your mind off the fear. To numb it. But I remember the line at the Rouge, and that gives me the guts to stick with it. I don’t want to go back there. Not because I’m better than the work, but because I wasn’t right for it.”
“I tried to explain that to your father.”
“Pop never got it. He thought it was so simple. On the line, all I had to do was my operation, and hand it off to the next guy without making a mistake. But it was so much more than that. I had to stay the same, to be consistent, without change, alteration, or deviation, every day, week after week.”
“It’s not for everyone.”
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