“I have a friend on Forty-Eighth Street who deals in secondhand.”
“Would you ask him if he’s interested in some used equipment in excellent condition?”
“Are you selling off your dad’s studio?” asked Tony.
“Yeah. Are you interested in any of it?”
“Nope. Staying loose. But maybe someday I’ll have my own studio in a house by the ocean.” He smiled.
“I can offer you a good deal now,” Chi Chi promised.
“Rule number one in business. You can’t force a sale, Chi Chi,” Lee said.
Chi Chi sipped her coffee. “Too pushy?”
Tony shook his head. “One day in the city, and she’s already a noodge.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’m just getting started,” Chi Chi assured them.
* * *
Chi Chi laid out every article of clothing she owned on the twin bed in the bedroom she shared with her sister Lucille.
“Do you have enough dressy dresses?” Lucille asked as she studied the list of cities for the tour. “It looks like one show a night.”
“I’ll wear the same gowns in different cities and I’ll follow Mama’s rule. Never eat in a fancy dress. Treat it like a costume. I won’t even sweat. That should help.”
“We can sew and send you some new things on the road.”
“Thanks, and no offense, but I’m a better seamstress. I’ll be sewing all day and singing at night.”
“Take this, then.” Lucille presented her sister with five yards of sumptuous emerald-green silk taffeta, folded and tucked neatly into a triangle shape.
“No, that’s yours. You were saving it for good. You keep it.”
“I’m not going anywhere special anytime soon. Use it.” Lucille placed the fabric on Chi Chi’s bed.
Chi Chi loaded the trunk with her undergarments, in separate pressed-cotton drawstring bags embroidered with her initials. She owned two nightgowns, light cotton for summer and flannel for winter. She folded her blouses with the technique she had mastered in the finishing department at the mill: Arm fold, arm fold, one sheet of tissue paper, and fold over once. Add one layer of tissue between the blouses. Upon arrival, one shake and hang. Chi Chi could wear the blouse straight from the suitcase without having to iron it again.
Barbara carried a basket of foodstuffs and the Farmer’s Almanac into the bedroom. “I packed everything nice and tight, and wrapped it double so no leaks.”
“Thanks. I’m like a zoo animal. I need to eat on schedule.”
Barbara sat on the bed and scanned the pages of the Almanac. “They say snow in October in Indiana.”
“Pack your boots,” Lucille advised.
“I don’t have room.”
“Make room—you’ve got a blizzard when you get to Minnesota.”
“You’re just trying to keep me here, aren’t you?” Chi Chi crammed her snow boots into the trunk.
Barbara shrugged. “You hate the snow.”
“I’ll learn to like it. Every tour stop isn’t Miami.”
“Looks like you’re on the sleet and ice tour, sis.”
“Until the very end.” Chi Chi pointed out the southern swing on her schedule.
“Everybody ends up in Florida in the end,” Barbara joked.
Isotta stood in the doorway with a box.
“What have you got there, Ma?” Chi Chi asked.
“Just put it in the trunk,” her mother said.
Before she did, Chi Chi opened the box. She lifted out a formal evening wrap made of dove-gray silk charmeuse, delicately embroidered in silver thread. Hand-knotted rosettes of velvet trimmed the creation. “Ma, it’s gorgeous!”
“You can wear it with your black faille gown, and you’ll look like Lady Astor. My cousin Francesca sent it from Treviso.”
“It’s so elegant.” Chi Chi kissed her mother. “Thank you.”
Isotta sat on the edge of Lucille’s bed as Chi Chi snapped the trunk closed. She placed her hatbox and purse on top of the trunk.
“They said two pieces of luggage. We did it.” Chi Chi stood back proudly before sitting down. “Well, that’s it. That’s everything I own.” She looked around the room. “Except . . .” Chi Chi went to her desk and lifted her manual typewriter into its case. She snapped the hard shell closed and placed it with her trunk by the door.
“That makes three items,” Lucille observed.
“It will be fine. It’s my instrument. One fella’s trombone is my typewriter.”
The Donatelli women sat in silence. It was the first time they had taken a break since Chi Chi began to pack that morning. The only sound was the rustle of the pages of the Farmer’s Almanac as Barbara turned the pages, consumed with weather predictions for the winter of 1939 into the spring of 1940.
“Mrs. Calza?” Charlie hollered from the bottom of the stairs.
“Have you gotten used to that yet?” Chi Chi asked Barbara.
“Nope.” Barbara smiled. “That was the ‘I’m hungry, what’s for supper?’ call.” She stood and went to the doorway. “I’ll be right down, hon.”
“Being married is a lot like working for the WPA. You learn to read the signs,” Chi Chi said.
Barbara laughed. “Because like the WPA, you’ve signed on for the duration. You’ll find out someday for yourself.” She pulled an envelope from the back of the Farmer’s Almanac and handed it to her sister. “For you.”
Chi Chi looked down at the thick envelope before she opened it. Inside was a greeting card.
No matter where you go, you’ll always have a place with us here. Safe travels and take our best wishes with you!
The interior sleeve was covered with the signatures of the roster of her coworkers at Jersey Miss Fashions. It was stuffed with cash.
“But they only do this when a girl gets married,” Chi Chi said quietly.
“They know how much your music means to you,” Lucille said.
“They wanted to buy you something, but didn’t know what you’d need, so they said to get whatever you need with the money. Rita pulled the whole thing together.”
Chi Chi cried. She wiped the tears with her sleeve. She had worked hard at the mill, but so did every operator on every machine. She was moved that they were so generous with her, giving her money she knew they needed themselves.
As she tucked the envelope into her purse, she remembered lunch breaks on the church steps across from the mill, where she’d shared her dreams of leaving the factory. She worked on song lyrics on their breaks and would read them to the girls. For many years, her coworkers were her only audience. She was sad to leave behind the best group of women she had ever known. They had come up together, and as it had gone with her mother’s generation, these would have been the friendships that sustained Chi Chi throughout her life, no matter what lay ahead. Typically, the girls would marry, and their factory friends would help with the wedding. Once there were children, the ladies would help one another with childcare, school, and sacraments. Whether there were costumes to sew, cakes to bake, parties to throw, sympathy dinners to organize, or money to raise for the local school and church, the women locked arms and put in the hours to make the world beautiful for their families. And, they did it after a forty-hour work week in the mill. The solidarity of the line, which fostered the loyalty among the machine operators, was the great bonus of the factory life.
“I’ll write to every girl,” Chi Chi promised.
“They’ll want to know your every move,” her mother assured her.
“So, what would you like to do on your last night in Sea Isle City?” Barbara asked.
“It’s too cold to ride the roller coaster,” Lucille joked.
“We made you dinner.” Isotta put her arms around Chi Chi.
“What did you make?”
“Your favorite. Bracciole in gravy. Ravioli.”
“Leave your bags,” Barbara said. “Charlie will bring them down in the morning.”
Her mother and sisters left her alone to r
eview her baggage. Chi Chi sat on the bed and went through her notes a final time, making certain that she had packed everything she needed for the tour. Satisfied that she was prepared for life on the road, she ran a brush through her hair and slipped into her loafers before going down to the kitchen for dinner.
As she skipped down the steps, the first floor of the house was in total darkness. “Ma, I think the fuse blew,” Chi Chi hollered. “Get the flashlight, will you?”
The lights blazed on, and from every corner of the house, a roar of “Surprise!” rang out from the crowd that had gathered.
From the kitchen to the living room, the Donatelli home was filled with the women from Jersey Miss Fashions. Rita placed a sash on Chi Chi that read Buona Fortuna in gold glitter as her coworkers surrounded her.
Chi Chi embraced each operator, committed their place on their machine in the mill to memory. She had spent eight years of her life working with these ladies. They had been with her through plenty, and she had been there for them.
Rita sat to her left on the buttonholer; the Vechiarelli sisters were in pressing; the Pipino sisters, in shipping; the Watkins sisters, in accounting, and in the office, the beloved Lavinia Spadoni handed out the pink checks in the blue envelopes on payday. Mrs. Spadoni was too pretty to be Santa Claus, but she might as well have been, as much joy as she brought to the working girls every other Friday.
One by one, these fine women, her beloved friends, celebrated Chi Chi’s good fortune, happier for her than they would be for themselves, than the singer-songwriter was for herself on the eve of her big break. The fifty-eight women who surrounded her that night believed she could not fail. That conviction made Chi Chi want to succeed all the more for them, as proof of the faith they had in her.
Jersey Miss had been Chi Chi’s life; the time she spent there had defined her. The girls assured her that if the music business didn’t work out, they would welcome her back and never mention the swing era; they would even ditch their transistor radios in solidarity and never listen to Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, or Benny Goodman again. Whatever it took, they wanted her to understand that she always had a place beside them in the mill, no questions asked.
That night Chi Chi had a feeling that the love of her friends, their pride in her accomplishments, and their admiration of her courage in taking a risk, would get her through whatever challenges lay ahead. No one was thinking about what might go wrong that night; they were too busy anticipating Chi Chi’s success. Their belief in her lifted their friend off the line and into a new life, giving Chi Chi the push she needed to take flight on the wings of her musical dreams.
* * *
Chi Chi was dressed and ready to go the next morning, plenty early to catch the 4:00 a.m. train that would take her into New York City. She would transfer to the train for Chicago at Pennsylvania Station, and then take another train to South Bend, Indiana, where she would meet up with the tour.
As she made the rounds through the dark house, she reminded herself that home as she knew it would remain; she would only have to picture it when she needed courage. She kissed her sister Lucille goodbye as she slept in her bed, went into her mother’s room and did the same, leaving an envelope of cash on her dresser, and finally into Barbara and Charlie’s room, where she embraced her sister and thanked her before leaving the only home she had ever known.
Charlie had already loaded Chi Chi’s typewriter, trunk, and hatbox into his roadster. She grabbed her purse off the kitchen counter and went outside. The sky was still dark; she shivered as she walked down the front path, inhaling the scent of the sea a final time as the sand crunched under her dress shoes. The sand from Sea Isle Beach was forever underfoot, an essential element of their lives. No matter how many times a day Isotta swept, sand managed to creep back onto the walk and porch and inside the house. Sand had been as much a part of her life growing up as macaroni had been, and now, she would miss it.
Chi Chi stopped at the gate. She said a silent Hail Mary and invoked Mariano in heaven to look over the house that only one year before had almost been lost. The thought of her mother and sisters safe in her father’s house comforted her. She could focus on the work ahead, knowing that they were secure.
For Chi Chi to make records and perform on tour with a name band had been as much her father’s goal as it was her own. Mariano had not had the good fortune to live long enough to see her take this step, but that did not matter now. He had believed in her, and the confidence he had instilled in her would remain with her wherever the tour would take her.
Charlie started the engine. “Cheech, we should get going.”
She nodded and closed the gate behind her without looking back. Chi Chi Donatelli had to leave home to become the person she was meant to be because the world had something to offer her that the people who loved her the most did not.
As Charlie and Chi Chi drove off, the sun rose in a fan of gold and magenta light that pushed through the woolly gray clouds. Only the garage where her father had built the recording studio with high hopes fell into shadow because Chi Chi had taken the music with her.
* * *
Jimmy Arena sat at the piano inside the Syburg rehearsal hall in South Bend, Indiana, plunking keys on the piano while making notes on his charts. The youngest of the new crop of big bandleaders, he was looking to shake up the scene with a new format.
Jimmy liked an eclectic show: long orchestral interludes of swing, peppered with comedy sketches, singing sister acts, and dance routines. As he squinted at the charts, he leaned back in the chair, balancing on the back legs and lifting his feet off the ground, suspending himself in the chair like a trained seal on a circus lift. The maestro wore horn-rimmed glasses. His thick brown hair was slicked back neatly, and there were leather patches on the elbows of his corduroy sports jacket. He came off as a quirky professor with a secret, a good-looking philosopher who also blew a mean saxophone.
Chi Chi stood in the doorway, nervous as the new kid in the portal of the classroom on the first day of school. She searched the room for the only familiar face she knew. Saverio Armandonada—Tony Arma, she reminded herself—who himself had joined the band a few days earlier as the new lead singer. Lee had sent him out ahead to rehearse the music he would perform as the front man. Chi Chi was hired to be the centerpiece of the novelty portion of the show, so Lee had arranged for her to arrive later.
Chi Chi couldn’t find Tony anywhere in the room, even though the boys in the orchestra were on a break. A few of the musicians were taking a smoke; some tuned their instruments, others updated their charts, and a couple chatted up the pretty dancers who were working on a routine.
When the stage manager called the band back into rehearsal, Chi Chi made her way through the crowd and introduced herself to him.
“Dancer? Singer? What?” he barked impatiently as he motioned for the band and the dancers to move quickly back into their positions.
“Singer. Songwriter. I’m doing the novelty songs and routine with Tony Arma.”
“Go to rehearsal room A, down the hall.”
Chi Chi went outside and exhaled. She walked down the hallway and peered into each rehearsal studio through the window in the doors. She stopped to stare when she saw a row of tall, strapping, muscular young men attempting ballet on the barre. Chi Chi was mesmerized as they attempted deep pliés. They were not very good, which made them hilarious.
“May I help you?” a man said gruffly from behind her.
“I’m looking for room A.”
“This ain’t it.”
“Who are the ballerinas?”
“That’s the offensive line of the Notre Dame football team. The coach thought they needed grace.”
“Are they getting it?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Chi Chi continued down the hallway until she found room A. She knocked on the door. She was both relieved and happy when Tony opened it.
“Welcome to the road, Cheech. How was your trip?”
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p; “Long.” She removed her hat and surveyed the room. “But I liked the train.”
“Too bad. It’s a bus from now on.”
“I can handle it.”
“You got the charts? Jimmy wants Mama’s Rolling Pin in the show by Elkhart. We have twenty-four hours to make it work.”
Chi Chi sat down at the piano, opened her binder, and unfolded the music. She warmed up on the piano. “Let’s sing it through a few times, and then we’ll get it on its feet. Okay?”
“Can do.” Tony stood behind her.
Chi Chi played the piano and Tony sang when the stage manager burst in. “We just lost the Rutledge Sisters. Evidently Cynthia threw a telephone at Jayne at the Morris Inn, and she quit the tour.”
“Better than a rolling pin,” Tony said, not looking up from the charts.
“How about a novelty all-male ballet?” Chi Chi offered.
“What? Where am I gonna get that?” The stage manager looked at Tony. “Who is this kid?” He looked at Chi Chi. “Are you loony or what?”
“I just saw something funny. A bunch of guys who can’t do ballet attempting it. Listen. The band plays something like this—” Chi Chi played a classical riff, which she spun into swing. “That’s just an idea for the music. You take a few guys from the orchestra and you do the ballet with them—they’re terrible, but they can swing. It’s a funny segue into something, or you can expand it. I mean, I can. If Mr. Arena likes it.”
“I’ll take it to Jimmy,” the stage manager said on his way out.
“Where were we?” Chi Chi asked Tony.
“At the corner of the rich and famous,” he joked.
“Just sing, Tony.”
“I’m serious.” He leaned over her shoulder to read the charts. Her hair had the clean scent of vanilla and peppermint. “You calling me Tony now?”
“Isn’t that what it says on the marquee?”
“Yes, but we’re old friends.”
“I just got here. Don’t flirt with me, Italian boy. My clothes are wrinkled and I’m hungry. I don’t feel rich or famous. I want to try not to get fired.”
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