“Okay, I’m an idiot,” Tony admitted.
“Go on.” Chi Chi sipped her soup.
“Instead of telling a girl it’s over, I show her.”
“I’m fairly sure Delilah would have preferred an honest conversation, instead of having the message delivered by a kick line of random girls telling her they’d been with her boyfriend behind her back. Whatever you did, she woke up humiliated this morning.”
“I feel bad about that.”
“Do you?” Chi Chi looked at him.
“Don’t look at me with those eyes.”
“They’re the only eyes I got.”
“Delilah wanted to get married.”
“She fell in love with you.”
“That’s what she said.”
“So you can’t blame her.”
“I guess not. But I wasn’t in love with her.”
“There’s an obvious solution to your problem.”
Tony leaned forward, eager for a solution. “There is?”
“Don’t behave like you’re in love when you’re not.”
He smiled. “That would make everything so simple.”
“Wouldn’t it? But it would leave half the women who buy tickets to our show bereft. Good thing that bus we’re on has wheels.”
“I’m not a hound,” Tony said defensively. “There are those eyes again. You make it sound like there’s something wrong with me.”
“I’m sure there’s a universe or a planet or a continent or a country or a city or a town or a corner booth in some diner somewhere where the likes of you and the way you behave is considered acceptable. But it ain’t Chicago.”
“If you’d listen to me for a second, you might be able to help me. I need it.” Tony leaned back in the chair. “There is something wrong with me.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t feel anything,” he said quietly.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing at all.”
Chi Chi put down her soup, went to the settee, and sat down next to Tony. “It won’t always be this way.”
“How do you know?”
“Life on the road isn’t for everyone. It’s not for you. You aren’t happy.”
“I don’t think about happiness.”
“Looks to me like you spend an awful lot of time pursuing it.”
“Where else do you find it, if not in someone else?”
“You have to know what you want. And don’t say it’s a pretty girl. That’s not enough. You may have it all wrong. You might need to walk into happiness, like it’s a joint, and once you’re inside, you own it. Think of happiness like an actual place, like a scene in a play. You know where the door is, where the chairs are, you placed the window and the table. There’s a bowl of roses on the table, and the sun’s coming in the window. Once you enter it, you understand it because you built it in your imagination, in your soul. If you try this, you might realize you need a home someplace with trees and a yard and a nice wife taking care of you in order to be happy. Maybe if you’re settled in this place you’ve dreamed of, and you have everything you need to make yourself feel secure, you’ll stop chasing strangers to find it. Because when you go with a girl to find happiness and expect her to provide it to you, that will never bring you happiness. You have to decide what it is before you seek it.”
There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Chi Chi hollered.
“Are you cooking?” Mort Luck, the dapper saxophone and piccolo player out of Milwaukee, sniffed the air. “Yes, you are cooking.” His black hair was slicked back with pomade, his bow tie hung in two wide ribbons against his starched white dress shirt collar. “The hallway has the aroma of a first course being served.”
“We ate the soup,” Chi Chi said apologetically.
“Here, take the rest of my sandwich.” Tony handed it to him.
Mort sat down and took a bite. “Delish.”
Tony stood and pulled on his dinner jacket.
“Before you go, I need a favor.” Chi Chi turned to Tony.
“Don’t do it, big Tony. Don’t do it. It’s a trap,” Mort teased. “Before you go are three words that can start a war or force a man to buy the wrong hat.”
Chi Chi ignored him. “My friend Rita is getting married in Sea Isle next month, and I was wondering if you could go with me.”
“All the way to New Jersey?” Mort made a face.
“I didn’t ask you to take me all the way from Milwaukee, Mort.”
“Couldn’t oblige you anyway, sweetie. Betty’s waiting for me while we’re on our break. And she’s a tasty morsel.”
“I’ll be in New York,” Tony said.
“Not too far from the shore,” Chi Chi said hopefully.
“Don’t you have a fella?” Mort asked Chi Chi.
“She has so many suitors, she can’t choose,” Tony said, rekindling the old joke.
“I can see how that might be the case,” Mort said. “Chi Chi, any fella in the orchestra would drive six or seven blocks to take you to that wedding.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“My point is: you can do better than this schlub.”
“Hey, I gave you my sandwich,” Tony reminded him.
“That doesn’t make me faithful,” Mort said. “Just full.”
“Sponger.”
“I wouldn’t ask if I had another idea,” Chi Chi explained. “All the guys I know are signing up for the service. The cousin I usually dance with—Nicky Palermo, he’s from Hazlet—got married, and his wife, Dianna, will not allow him to dance with any girl under the age of seventy-two. So I lost my Lindy partner.”
“Tradge-eek.” Mort rolled his eyes at Tony. “Please take this kid to the wedding before she regales us with another fascinating story about her relatives in Sea Foam.”
“Get out of my room, Mort.” Chi Chi pointed to the door.
“Bye-bye, Chi Chi. Thank you for the ham.” Mort waved on his way out.
“I’m sorry. I can’t take you to the wedding.” Tony placed the dish in the sink. “I promised Irv Raible I’d sing at his new club downtown.”
“My mother will be so disappointed.”
“Those are the words a man most wants to hear.” Tony draped the moppeen over the sink.
“Well, she will be. I told her I was going to ask you.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you disappointed I can’t make it?”
“Sure. It would be fun.”
“Why would it be fun?”
“It’s an Italian wedding. You’re Italian. You know. It’s the most fun you can have anywhere. At least, I think so. But don’t give it another thought.” Chi Chi smiled.
“I’ll see you over at the club. Lock this door behind me, will you?”
Chi Chi locked the door. She washed the dishes in the efficiency sink and placed them on the rack to dry. She checked her nails. The red lacquer looked pretty good despite having had her hands in water.
Chicago was an important town. Chi Chi knew Jimmy Arena would ask her to take Delilah’s solos in the show that night, so she would be sure to wear her best chiffon. She’d have to press it and steam the ruffles on the hem. The dress was blah unless there was movement in the fabric. Besides, that night the dress mattered. The band would need a boost. There was always a ripple effect when Tony Arma broke a girl’s heart and it had an effect on everyone but the man himself.
* * *
The pavilion on the boardwalk at Sea Isle City was packed to the rafters on Valentine’s Day 1942 as the newly married Mr. and Mrs. David Osella entered through the saloon doors and under a handheld canopy of bouquets created by the twelve bridesmaids, composed of the girls from the specialty department of Jersey Miss. Only Chi Chi, her maid of honor, was employed elsewhere.
The town had turned out for the football wedding.
Everything had gone according to tradition. After the nuptial high mass at St. Joseph’s that Saturday morning, the weddin
g party took the official photographs on the church steps. This took time, as both the Milnicki/Millix side and the Osellas had big families. However, it gave the guests the opportunity to stop at the Millix home to see the wedding gifts on display in the family dining room before the reception. Rita’s cousins served coffee and cookies as the guests walked through and surveyed the bounty of spiderweb doilies, handmade lace-trimmed sheets, place mats, embroidered tablecloths, monogrammed napkins, a sturdy set of kitchen pots and pans, a Lenox china tea service, Lady Carlyle china, Wedgwood silverware, nine place settings, including one given by the girls at Jersey Miss, a four-slice electric toaster, a mixer, an Electrolux vacuum cleaner, and a framed congratulatory wedding blessing from Pope Pius X. The couple had everything they needed to start their life together, and set a proper table for Sunday dinner.
“Ham or roast beef?” the boys stationed next to baskets asked guests as they passed. The sandwiches had been made fresh and wrapped the night before. The baskets were loaded; the groom’s nephews were assigned the chore of dispersing the sandwiches by tossing them to the guests, which is how football weddings found their name.
At the reception, a buffet of cold Italian salads, charcuterie, and fruit salad was prepared and served by the ladies of the church sodality. Set on each table around the dance floor was a centerpiece, a cookie tray, Italian and Polish delicacies made by the ladies in the Milnicki and Osella families.
Phil Costa and the Something Special Big Band, from Bethpage, Long Island, played as the guests filled their plates and claimed their seats. There were kegs of birch beer for the kids, and real beer for the adults. Jugs of homemade wine were set on every table. The wedding cake, a seven-layer masterpiece of white cake frosted in white buttercream icing, was topped with a miniature bride in a lace gown and a groom dressed in an army uniform, in anticipation of David’s pending hitch, set to commence the week after the couple’s brief honeymoon in New York City.
Chi Chi peeled back the cellophane wrapping on a centerpiece and stole a coconut cookie as Barbara and Lucille joined her.
“Just like the old days, stealing cookies,” Lucille said, poaching a cookie for herself.
“How long can you stay?” Barbara asked.
“I have a week off.”
“That’s all?”
“I’m lucky I got that, Lucille.”
“We just haven’t seen much of you. You’ve been out every night with Jim.”
“Can you blame her?” Barbara took a bite of a coconut cookie.
“He’s got it bad for you, Cheech. He never goes for a girl seriously, and he goes for you. The girls at the mill had a pool with odds about who he’d marry. We never split the pot.”
“He’s interesting. He went to college and he knows a lot about business. We have a lot in common.”
“Don’t forget your sisters. That’s all I’m saying. We’d like to spend time with you too.” Lucille swigged her birch beer. “They may be playing you on the radio, but remember where you came from.”
“I will. I still owe you twelve bucks for the taffeta.” Chi Chi went for another cookie.
“I hope you can come home when the baby’s born,” Barbara said.
“What baby?”
“Not mine.” Lucille put her hands in the air.
“You’re having a baby?” Chi Chi said in delight as she threw her arms around her sister. “When did you find out?”
“I went to the doctor last week.” Barbara grinned.
“Congratulations!” Chi Chi handed her the cookie. “Eat!”
The drummer in the band hit the snares to announce the first dance. Phil Costa leaned into the microphone: “I’d like to invite the bride and groom to the dance floor for the first dance. Mr. and Mrs. Osella, your future awaits.”
The crowd cheered as Rita and David joined one another on the dance floor. After a moment, Charlie led Barbara to the dance floor. Lucille’s boyfriend, Frank Communale, beckoned her to join him from the far side of the dance floor.
“May I have this dance, Chiara?”
Jim LaMarca was definitely the best-looking man on the Jersey shore between Atlantic City and Brielle. Tall, slim with thick, wavy, dark brown hair, he was what the girls at the mill called dreamy. He extended his hand to Chi Chi.
“You may, Jim.”
He looked at her and brushed some cookie crumbs off her upper lip.
“I hit the cookie tray early,” Chi Chi explained.
“I see that.” Jim smiled.
“You can’t get the frosted coconut ones just anywhere.”
“I know. They’re only for special occasions,” Jim said as he kissed her. “They’re my favorite too.” He took Chi Chi in his arms and spun her effortlessly across the dance floor.
* * *
Isotta watched as her daughters danced with the young men in their lives, as memories of Mariano washed over her.
“It’s got to be tough,” Cousin Joozy said behind her. “Here you lost your husband so young, and now your girls are starting their own lives.”
“I’m happy for them.”
“What mother wouldn’t be? But it doesn’t erase your pain.” Joozy sipped her wine and dipped a cookie from the tray on the table into the wine before taking a bite. A few drops of wine trickled onto her dress like droplets of blood. The fitted gold-sequined chemise with exaggerated sheer, short puffy sleeves grabbed the light.
“I do miss Mariano,” Isotta said.
“A fine man. And your girls aren’t doing too badly either. Charlie Calza, associate’s degree from business school. Frank Communale, sells doors and windows—who the hell doesn’t need those? And your Chi Chi? So creative and talented. And she’s about to bring in the net big time with the biggest fish of all: that Jim LaMarca. He is the ungettable get, you know. A six-footer, at least. Look at that face. Chiseled out of marble and set in brass like the doorknocker at First National. Polite too. Did you know he graduated from Rutgers with a degree in business? He didn’t need school, he’s going to work for his father with the trucks. I heard he volunteered for the Air Force.”
“My goodness, Joozy, you know everything about him.”
“Know the terrain, Isotta. When you know the terrain, the ride goes smoothly. You don’t hit the potholes. I understand Chi Chi has seen Jim every night since she’s been home.”
“Just about.”
“You may have a LaMarca in your future.”
* * *
On the dance floor, the band had switched it up from a waltz to a Lindy. As Jim and Chi Chi made the transition, Chi Chi leaned in. “It would be so much easier to leave for California if you were a lousy dancer.”
Jim laughed. “Is that all you’ll miss about me?”
Chi Chi took his hand and pulled him off the dance floor. “I hear there’s a list of your attributes that all the ladies covet. Did you know there’s a pool on who you’ll marry over at the mill? They even have money on the Vechiarelli girls. One of them is set to take you before you go overseas.”
“They’re beautiful girls.”
“Gina’s got the biggest crush on you.”
“Duly noted.”
“A tall Italian boy is as rare as a handsome pope.”
“But good looks are wasted on a pope,” Jim joked.
Jim poured Chi Chi a glass of wine and then one for himself. She found a table near the entrance to the boardwalk.
“Do you plan on being on the road for a long time?” Jim asked.
“How long are you going to be in the Air Force?”
“Three years.”
“I’ll stick with the band for three more years. I’d like to eventually write songs for big singers and orchestras. I don’t mind the travel now, but I might not like it as much someday.”
“When you get married and have a family?”
Chi Chi thought for a moment. “You never know what life holds.”
“No, you don’t,” Jim agreed. “It’s important to stay open.”
; “Yes, it is.”
“You have a talent, and you have to use it. You’ll probably write songs and sing them for the rest of your life.”
“I hope so.”
“It isn’t like what I do, or what most people do. We find jobs to make a living, or we work in the family business. What you do is . . .” He searched for the right word. “A calling.”
“I guess, but I look at it like it’s practical. Somebody has to write songs that amuse, you know, the kind that get sung at weddings.”
“Like Mama’s Rolling Pin.”
“Yep.”
“But even that song, in its fashion, is all about family. We come from people who live life around the kitchen table. It’s all about that.” Jim took her hand.
“Why didn’t we go together before I left?” Chi Chi asked.
“We went out a few times.”
“I liked you.”
“And I liked you.” He laughed. “But there’s something about the times now.”
“Because of the war?”
“Or because we’re older, and the things we want change.”
“What do you want?” Chi Chi asked him.
“The order changes every day.” He smiled. “We need to lick the Germans, for starters. My mother is worried about her family in Italy. It’s bad there.”
“So we win the war and you come home. Then what?”
“My father expects me to go into his business, and I could do that or I could do something else. I like real estate.”
“Me too! I have my eye on a property in New York City. I think it would be a wise investment. I like government bonds as a rule, but I want to expand my portfolio.”
“I don’t know about New York City. I think it will become less residential as the years go by.”
“Maybe. But people always need a place to stay in the city. Musicians travel through, and I could rent the place out to them. I want to buy a classic six. Two bedrooms. Two bathrooms.”
“You’ve made up your mind.”
“I have to think about the future. At Jersey Miss, it’s mostly women working in the mill. On payday, the girls would cash their checks and either give the money to their husbands if they were married or their parents if they still lived at home; others put it in the bank, and a few stuck the money under their mattresses, but nobody ever talked about what they should do with it or about the future. I never heard a woman talk about interest rates or stocks or bonds. And we should be. Look at what happened to my mom. Men die, and often they’re young. Women end up alone, and we aren’t prepared for it. The only difference, to me, between men and women is the purse. When we do control it, it’s a secret. We have a cookie jar or a bank account on the side. As if being responsible with the money you earned is shameful! I think it’s cuckoo. I’m on the road with a bunch of men and I have to hold my own writing the songs, getting them into the show, performing them, recording them, fighting for them. And since I have the time, I use it to study the men. It’s not ambition or talent that gives men the edge over women, it’s the money. So my philosophy is: ladies, get control of the money, and you’ll have control over your lives.”
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