The Queen of the Big Time

by Adriana Trigiani

  “Somebody should ask Father about the candles,” an altar boy says to the sodality volunteer.

  “I’ll take care of it.” The woman goes behind the altar to the sacristy, where she finds the priest sitting in his vestments, with his face in his hands. “Excuse me, Father?”

  The priest looks up. “Yes?”

  “The altar boys want to know about the candles.”

  “They can go ahead and light them,” he tells her.

  Father Lanzara looks in the small mirror on the wall and shakes his head. He is close to seventy, but his blue eyes still have the sparkle of a much younger man. He looks around the sacristy he knows so well: the closet with the crisply pressed vestments, the wooden bench under the window, the statue of the Blessed Lady on the sill. He opens his well-worn leather prayer book and reads. He can hear the shuffle of the mourners as they take their seats in the church. They are expecting a standing-room-only service. He hears the sweet strains of a violin and smiles sadly. There is a knock at the door.

  “Father, I don’t know if you remember me …” Celeste Zollerano Melfi extends her hand. Tall and slim, the brunette has familiar brown eyes, large and almond-shaped.

  “You’re Nella’s daughter.” Father looks at Celeste and sees Nella in her countenance and expression. He has to look away.

  “I found something I think Mama would want you to have.” Celeste gives Father Lanzara a letter. He looks down at it and recognizes his own handwriting. “It was in her jewelry box.”

  Father nods his head and puts the letter in his prayer book.

  “There was one other thing in the jewelry box … this poem.” She gives him the faded folded paper. “I don’t remember Mama ever reading it to me, but it was there, alongside your letter, so I was hoping you would know what it meant.”

  “I’ll look at it,” he promises.

  The altar boy pushes the door open. “Father, Mr. Fiori sent me. The hearse is outside.” Father takes a moment to remember that time has passed. The John Fiori he knew as a boy is long gone. The current one is his grandson.

  The mention of the hearse makes Celeste cry. She buries her face in her hands. Father Lanzara comforts her. “She loved you with all her heart,” he tells her.

  “I know,” Celeste says, and, pulling herself together, she goes.

  Father Lanzara opens the letter. When he reads the words, his words, written in his own hand, telling Nella that he could no longer see her, he cries. He tucks it in his prayer book. Then he unfolds the poem, in a handwriting he does not recognize. The familiar words of a Yeats poem—“When you are old …”—are written in perfect Palmer penmanship. He never read this poem to Nella, but it must have had some significance to her. He puts on his sash over his robe, picks up his prayer book, and goes, closing the door of the sacristy behind him. He follows the altar boy, who waits for him, out the back of the church and to the street.

  When he sees the family gathered at the foot of the steps on the church plaza, he is overwhelmed, but does not cry. He sees many familiar faces in the crowd, Chettie Marucci and her husband. He flashes to their double date to see a Garbo movie. The Maruccis, like him, are powdery with age.

  Father goes to the back of the hearse and sees a mahogany coffin resting there. He places his hand on the wood and bows his head in prayer. But he doesn’t pray; what he says to himself is “I’m sorry, Nella. I did everything wrong.”

  A group of handsome young Italian men, who Father Lanzara assumes are grandsons and nephews, stand by in suits and white gloves to take Nella Castelluca Zollerano into the church. He instructs them about how to process, and they listen carefully.

  The church is filled to capacity, with several generations of millworkers, family, and friends in attendance. The choir loft is filled, and there is standing room only in the side aisles.

  Father Lanzara has never seen such a crowd in the church, he thinks as he approaches the altar to begin the service. His heart is heavy, because this is not just any funeral Mass, it is the Mass of Resurrection for a woman he once loved. It is hard for him to reconcile his priestly duties with the personal loss he feels, yet as he recites the familiar prayers, he finds comfort in the repetition and reassurance in their meaning.

  When it comes time for the eulogy, he approaches the lectern slowly, putting his hands, which are folded in prayer, up to his lips, hoping to find some way to tell the people gathered in the church what Nella meant to him.

  “I’m as shocked by Nella’s passing as you all are,” he begins, and then stops, looking out over the crowd. “She died suddenly in her garden on Delabole farm. If you’re like me, you believed she was so strong and capable that she would live forever. Alas, that was not to be.

  “Nella was a woman who struggled to find her faith all of her life. Many years ago Father Impeciato asked her to start the Society of Mary in this church, and she did it, even though she had doubts. When I asked her why she took on the responsibility, she said, ‘I was asked.’ She never found any answers in church, and made a point to tell me this when I became a priest.”

  A small wave of laughter ripples forth from the pews filled with Nella’s machine operators, who look at one another and smile.

  Father Lanzara continues, “Nella shared with me that she finally found faith in the hospital room where her daughter, Celeste, gave birth to her first grandchild, Francesca. She understood then that life goes on.

  “Many of you in this church today know that I loved Nella Castelluca.… I did love her when we were young, but typical of Nella, she had a mind of her own, and wisdom in all important matters, and in the end, she found a better choice for a husband. Franco Zollerano was her true love, and with him she had two wonderful children.

  “Many of you worked for or with her in the blouse mill. You know her standards were high, but she would never ask you to do anything she wouldn’t do herself. And she was always grateful for the opportunity to work, and never took prosperity in its fleeting moments for granted. She was generous and kind and a pillar of this community. What she wasn’t was envious, a gossip, or a phony. She never put on airs or held herself above others.

  “She was an Italian girl who never forgot she was happiest with her bare feet in the dirt at Delabole farm. She loved her parents, who survive her, and was never less than grateful for their guidance and experience. She grew up to be brilliant at business, though her dream was to be a teacher. That dream was not to be, because she had to go to work in the mill when she was fifteen, when her father was hurt in a quarry accident. Everything about her determination and persistence was informed by that accident. That’s how her drive and ambition came to help the people of Roseto.

  “Nella and Franco gave me the money to build the school. She would not want me to share this with you, but I feel we must give credit to them. No one knew where the money came from, and while we raised a good sum with fund-raisers, when I went to her and Franco, they gave me the balance. When Franco died and she moved out to the farm, she gave her home to the town for conversion into the public library. She was not only unselfish, she was a visionary who knew what Rosetans needed to achieve the kind of success for their children that she enjoyed.

  “When she lost her sister Assunta in childbirth, it was another turning point in her life. She mourned her sister until the day she died. Years later, she mourned the loss of her husband, and yet soldiered on. We often take determination and will to live as a given, but I assure you, there were times when Nella was so brokenhearted she wondered if she would live through it. The lesson we can take away from her life is to be open to wonder, to look at the world as she did at the end of her life, as a garden of possibility. She told me Franco woke her up in the middle of the night once when Frankie was small, and they bundled him up and took him to watch the circus tent being raised in Philadelphia. She remembered that night always because it reminded her how important it is to be spontaneous and look at the world through a child’s eyes.

  “When I saw her in
Italy in Roseto Valfortore, she confided that she wished she had traveled more. She wished she had taken more trips with Franco instead of working and waiting for retirement. She learned to love solitude and quiet, two gifts that eluded her in her youth in a big family and in her adult life when she was surrounded by the constant hum of sewing machines at the mill. She found them, at last. She wrote to me in a letter: ‘If I knew what a tonic the farm would be, I would have moved here with Franco years ago. But I was a foolish girl who loved the clamor of Main Street, and the buzz of the mill. How I wish I would have had my dear Frankie and my darling Celeste on the farm, where I came from. It would have been just us. For all my life, it was never just us. And when Franco died, with him went the dream that I could fix it.’ Sleep gently, my dear Nella, and … wait for us.”

  Father Lanzara goes behind the altar and continues forth with the Mass, relying on rote memory to get through the old prayers, but his heart is broken, and everyone at Our Lady of Mount Carmel knows it.

  The funeral procession down Main Street to the cemetery is the longest anyone can remember. The line moves slowly as it passes all the places Nella held dear: Marcella’s bakery, Columbus School, the Zolleranos’ house, her own home with Franco. As the hearse turns at the end of Garibaldi, it passes the mill she and Franco founded together. Celeste looks back from the lead car and cannot believe how many people came to honor her mother. She takes Frankie’s hand.

  “Remember when Mama made us walk in the procession at the Big Time?”

  “The rosary in the hot sun—how could I forget it?” Frankie smiles. “She’d point to the statue of the Blessed Mother and say, ‘That’s the real queen of the Big Time.’ ”

  Frankie and Celeste laugh, remembering.

  Father Lanzara gathers the mourners around the grave site for the final prayer. Nella’s stone is already engraved:

  Nella Castelluca Zollerano

  Wife and Mother

  January 23, 1910–April 10, 1971

  He turns to the crowd. “Remember always what Nella meant to you. Love never dies. I promise you.”

  As the sun burns west over Garibaldi Avenue behind the Blue Mountains and the hillsides of slate slag, it throws a pink glow over the town, reminding everyone who knows that this is a good week for planting.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I have so many wonderful memories of my grandmother Yolanda “Viola” Trigiani. She told me great tales of life working in the blouse mills and on the farm in Pennsylvania. My favorite times were when we’d gather at her house for a visit and my mother, sisters, and I would hang out with her in her room, telling stories and laughing until the wee hours. So much of the weave of this novel is from her, and the rest comes from her son—my father, Anthony, who died in 2002. They were amazing storytellers, never short on color and texture, and I miss them every day. My great-uncle Don Andrea Spada of Schilpario, Italy, provided the spark for this novel, so I am also indebted to him.

  At Random House, I thank my editor, Lee Boudreaux, who has heart and a brilliant intellect, both which come in handy in this enterprise; the effervescent Todd Doughty, who works harder than ten men, with glorious results; the high-energy visionary Gina Centrello; and the perfect team: Laura Ford, Anna McDonald, Jennifer Jones, Allison Saltzman, Vicki Wong, Libby McGuire, Janet Cook, Anthony Ziccardi, Patricia Abdale, Karen Richardson, Beth Thomas, Allyson Pearl, Kim Monahan, Lauren Monaco, Carol Schneider, Tom Perry, Sherry Huber, Ed Chen, Maureen O’Neal, Stacy Rockwood-Chen, Johanna Bowman, Allison Heilborn, Kim Hovey, Allison Dickens, Candace Chaplin, Cindy Murray, and Beth Pearson.

  If you need someone in your corner—in fact, every corner and the middle of the room—I hope it’s my agent Suzanne Gluck, whom I admire and love professionally and personally. Also at William Morris: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Cara Stein, Alicia Gordon, Tracy Fisher, Karen Gerwin, Eugenie Furniss, Erin Malone, Michelle Feehan, Andy McNicol, and Rowan Lawton. At ICM, my love and gratitude to my champion, the fabulous Nancy Josephson, and beloved Jill Holwager. In Movieland, thank you, Lou Pitt, Jim Powers, Todd Steiner, Michael Pitt, and Susan Cartsonis, and at Deep River Productions, Julie Durk, Missy Pontious, Amy Schwarz, Felipe Linz, David Friendly, Marc Turtletaub, Michael McGahey, and Megan de Andrade.

  Thank you, Mary Testa, the world’s best sounding board; Lorie Stoopack and Jean Morrissey, for your eagle eyes; Jake Morrissey, for your insight, expertise, and laughs; Karen Fink, for keeping everything on track—I am lucky to work with you; and June Lawton, for your counsel and advice, both of which I treasure. Father John Rausch provided many facts of pre–Vatican II Roman Catholic dogma, for which I am eternally grateful. Thank you, Pat Bean, for the research materials for 1920s fashion.

  Elena Nachmanoff and Saul Shapiro, Dianne Festa, and Stewart Wallace provided inspiration, support, and humor, all of which I cherish, as well as their friendship. Michael Patrick King, your footsteps on the stairs is my favorite sound, second only to the whistle of your teapot.

  Every Italian family, if they’re lucky (and we were), gets one great Irish uncle. Mine was the Honorable Michael F. Godfrey, the beloved husband of my mom’s twin sister, Irma, and father to Michael and Paul. Uncle Mike was dignified and decent and had a great sense of humor. He served brilliantly as a circuit court judge in St. Louis, Missouri. He left the world better than he found it, and me better for having known him.

  My gratitude and love to: Ruth Pomerance, Sharon Watroba Burns, Nancy Bolmeier Fisher, Kate Crowley, Elaine Martinelli, Emily Nurkin, Adina T. Pitt, Eydie Collins, Tom Dyja, Pamela Perrell, Carmen Elena Carrion, Jena Morreale, Rosanne Cash, Ian Chapman, Suzanne Baboneau, Nigel Stoneman, Melissa Weatherill, Jim and Jeri Birdsall, Ellen Tierney and Jack Hodgins, Sally Davies, Dolores and Dr. Emil Pascarelli, Charles Randolph Wright, Bill Persky and Joanna Patton, Stephanie Trinkl, Larry Sanitsky, Debra McGuire, John Melfi, Grace Naughton, Dee Emmerson, Gina Casella, Sharon Hall, Constance Marks, James Miller, Wendy Luck, Nancy Ringham Smith, John Searles, Helen and Bill Testa, Cynthia Rutledge Olson, Jasmine Guy, Jim Horvath, Craig Fissé, Kate Benton, Ann Godoff, Joanne Curley Kerner, Max Westler, Dana and Richard Kirshenbaum, Sister Jean Klene, Daphne and Tim Reid, Caroline Rhea, Kathleen Maccio Holman, Susan and Sam Frantzeskos, Beàta and Steven Baker, Mary Ellinger, Eleanor Jones, Drs. Dana and Adam Chidekel, Brownie and Connie Polly, Aaron Hill and Susan Fales-Hill, Karol Jackowski, Christina Avis Krauss and Sonny Grosso, Susan Paolercio, Greg Cantrell, Rachel and Vito DeSario, Mary Murphy, and Matt Williams and Angelina Fiordellisi.

  Jim Burns, please continue to keep an eye on us from heaven.

  To the Trigiani and Stephenson families, thank you all.

  And to my husband and daughter, the best companions I could ever hope for on this joyful journey, all of my love.

  A CONVERSATION WITH

  CONCETTA “CHETTIE” RICCI MARUCCI

  Adriana: My readers are nuts for you, Chettie.

  Chettie: (laughs) Why?

  Adriana: They tell me that they have a best friend just like you.

  Chettie: That’s very sweet. But it wasn’t hard to be best friends with Nella. I looked up to her.

  Adriana: Tell me about her.

  Chettie: I wish I would have had a quarter of her pep. She had more energy than ten people. She was straight as an arrow, honest, and very decent. I miss her every day.

  Adriana: Tell me about your hometown.

  Chettie: I wish everyone could have the experience of being raised in a town like Roseto. It was very safe—we never locked our doors! Our parents worked hard, but they gave us a hundred percent of themselves. They tried very hard to show us the world. We’d go to Philadelphia and up to Connecticut, places that were close by but different. I loved when we went to the shore in New Jersey. Atlantic City is one of my favorite places.

  Adriana: Did your mother remarry after the loss of your father?

  Chettie: Never. She didn’t even go out on a date. She said she had the best and there would be no topping that. So, no, she didn’t
. But that wasn’t uncommon. Her friends who were widowed young didn’t remarry either. Maybe it’s just our culture.

  Adriana: So many readers have asked me about the Roseto Heart Study led by Dr. Stewart Wolf of Tott’s Gap. Can you tell me about it?

  Chettie: Well, it was a known fact that our people lived to be very old and didn’t die of heart attacks at the same numbers as the general population. In fact, our little Italian community in northeastern Pennsylvania had the lowest mortality rate for heart attacks in the country. And if you stepped across Division Street—just a few feet outside of Roseto proper into Bangor—the numbers shot up.

  Adriana: Just a few steps?

  Chettie: Literally, just a few! Dr. Wolf came with a team of doctors in the late fifties and early sixties and studied all of us, from the very old to the very young. At first they thought it was the food we ate—fresh from our gardens. Then they thought maybe it was the homemade wine that made us live so long, then the olive oil … Well, there were so many theories. But after the study was completed, Dr. Wolf said that it was our sense of community that made us live long. In Roseto, we had no fear, only a sense of family and community to sustain us. We knew that we would never go hungry, that we were safe from crime, and that when we were old we would not be put away somewhere, but rather would be taken care of in our own homes—so we didn’t have stress.

  Adriana: I’ve heard stress can lead to heart attacks.

  Chettie: Evidently. Stress can break your heart.

  Adriana: And the women in your community worked.

  Chettie: Of course. So many times, society’s ills are blamed on the working women, but we all worked, all our lives—in the factories, on the farm—and the men in the slate quarries. We did this while we raised our families! No one talks about that, but it’s true. We were traditional, and yet we had, as women, a sense of purpose outside our family structure. But you see, we had built-in day care. These two-family houses in Roseto were often home to grandparents, parents, and their children—so when I went to work, my mother watched my children. But the whole community participated. All the children felt safe, and the adults surely felt they could look after the children. It was like one big family, if you will.