“I know it seems like a lot at first,” Lorraine said. “But I’ll be very honest with you. Some girls walk in here, and I can see in two seconds that they’ll never make it in this business. I could take their money, put them and their rich mothers through a lot of heartbreak, years and years of classes and shoots, and make life easy for me and my husband—we run the agency with Bianca, and between the three of us we have four children to raise—but I don’t. I take only a few girls who come along.” She sat back. “You’re one of the few, Mrs. Grasso. And with the Italian angle—it’s a lock.”
She was begging her, Maddalena thought, the way a friend would if she were about to make a terrible mistake. She believed no woman could look another woman in the eye like that and lie. It heartened her. So she said, “I was just thinking. Maybe I could work here in the office a few times a week.” She glanced at Antonio. “I can’t read or write English so good yet, but I could clean and dust and straighten up. Maybe do some sewing for the costumes?”
Lorraine looked closely at her. “We have an old Spanish lady who does that,” she said. “Besides, we can’t have one of our best girls mopping the floors. Can you imagine? What if Mr. Wana-maker walked in?”
Maddalena looked down. “So there’s nothing else we can do?”
“You can have faith in yourself,” Lorraine said. “You don’t have to trust me, that’s fine; but you do have to trust these pictures.”
Antonio stood, shaking his head. “I don’t believe you people,” he said. He reached for Maddalena, but she remained in her seat, her eyes fixed on Lorraine’s sculpted fingernails, the gloss of the polish, her creamy skin. “Come on, Maddalena.”
This chance was passing, she knew, and she would never get another. Would it kill Antonio to give her the rest of her twenty minutes, if just so she could hear Lorraine continue to beg them to change their minds? Did she not deserve to hear who she might have become if she’d had more money, more faith, a dreamer for a husband?
“If they really want you,” Antonio said, “they’ll call us on the phone first thing Monday. They have our number.”
Lorraine folded her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is the best we can do. We won’t call you.”
Antonio took Maddalena’s hand and lifted her from the seat. Head bowed, she was led out of the office, down the narrow hallway of women flirting and frowning and showing their teeth, through the empty waiting room, into the night.
They had nowhere to go. Without a good explanation for why they’d leave Giovanni Vitale’s at six o’clock, they could not go home. Neither of them felt like coming up with a good lie or enduring his mother’s thousand questions. So they drove around aimlessly downtown, hungry and disappointed and uncomfortable in their nice clothes.
After a while, Antonio headed out of the city, past the cemetery, where his parents had already purchased their plots, past Wilmington High School, where night classes were held. They passed the mansions of Westover Hills, with their stately pillars and round front windows that showcased enormous gold chandeliers. “Old Money Town,” Antonio called it.
Then he looped back around, and they found themselves in the budding developments of New Castle, where people with seventeen thousand dollars of new money could buy a two-bedroom home of fifteen hundred square feet. The streets were wide and quiet here compared to what they were used to, with strips of mown grass between the sidewalk and the curb.
They fell into a familiar game: pointing out which of the houses they preferred. Most looked alike—a brick front, white wood shingles on the sides, black shutters—but every so often they’d come upon a bay window or a hip roof or a double door. Generally they favored ranches over split-levels, but they’d take either one on a corner lot. They decided they would never let their children junk up the lawn by leaving their bicycles out after dark. They’d plant tomatoes and zucchini and lettuce in a small backyard garden, which they’d shield from the road with an inconspicuous fence. There would be no grape arbor, no stone lions, and no statue of Mary on a circle of pine needles (God forgive them). Nothing about their house would announce, “We’re immigrants!” except the aroma of garlic and basil floating from the kitchen window. In the city, on Eighth Street, they were Italians; in the suburbs, on a place like Myrtle Avenue, they would be Americans, no different from anyone else. Their neighbors would stop in for coffee and cake; they’d trade recipes and borrow tools and water the plants for them if they ever took a vacation.
They talked like this, agreeing mostly, until nine o’clock. Then they drove to Fourth and Orange, and Maddalena waited in the car as Antonio fetched a free pizza and two small sodas. They parked in an empty lot off Glen Avenue and ate in the warm car, on paper plates, trying not to drip grease on the leather. The Brandywine River flowed just beyond the edge of the lot, fifty feet down, but they could not see it through the thick trees.
“I’m sorry,” Antonio finally said, his features ghostly in the light of the streetlamp. “You know I’d give you the world if I could.”
“Let’s just pretend it never happened,” said Maddalena.
“There’s a small chance I’m wrong, you know,” he said. “They might still call. If they do, I tell you, I’ll start going to church again. But if you ask me—”
She covered her ears.
“They’re smooth,” he said. “That much I’ll give them.”
They stayed in the lot for a while. Antonio switched off the headlights, raised the volume on the radio, and put his arm around her shoulders. Nat King Cole sang “Mona Lisa.” She laid her head on his chest, closed her eyes, and imagined herself at the kitchen window of their ranch house in Collins Park. She’s drying dishes, watching her baby crawl across the grass. Her middle is fat and round with another one on the way. How quickly, she thought, how quietly one dream replaces another. How lucky it is, sometimes, when the ruby falls irretrievably through the sewer grate; only then can you let go of the nagging wish for someone to press it into your palm.
Antonio kissed the top of her head. He tucked her hair back to reach her ear, her neck, her lips. “We’re the only ones here,” he said. She nodded. The parking lot was empty. She let him pull down the straps of her dress—that flashy dress she’d loan to her neighbor and never want back—and spread her legs there in the cramped front seat of the Chevy, miles from Mario and Ida and their light-sleeping daughters. She relaxed, breathed easily, though her elbow smacked against the door and a sharp pain shot through her back when she arched it. And it occurred to her then—as Antonio fumbled to undo her zipper—that when Dr. Barone said she had a problem with her nerves, he may not have been referring to the sadness she’d felt every moment since leaving Santa Cecilia, or to her anxious failure to love her husband enough to forget she gave up her family and her country and another man for him. Maybe by nerves Dr. Barone meant something as simple as her fear of making even the slightest noise when Antonio made love to her, the rush of panic she felt when the mattress squeaked or a whimper escaped her mouth, the ever-presence of the eavesdroppers just beyond the bedroom wall. So here, in the empty parking lot, for the first time in her four years of marriage, she let out a wild cry—of surrender, of pleasure, of relief—and didn’t care if anyone heard. Her cry provoked a similar response from Antonio, and soon they were both howling loudly, and laughing, and sticking and unsticking themselves from the sweaty leather; and after it ended, she thought, breathlessly, that if this abandon brought forth a child, then the disaster at the Bianca Talent Agency had a purpose after all.
6
Common Sense
EVERY CHRISTMAS, ANTONIO relies on Renato and Buzzy to steal him a beautiful gift for Maddalena. If they don’t have an arrangement with someone on the inside of a department store, they show up in the middle of the day, and one of them distracts the salesperson with his broken English while the other stuffs his coat with a nightgown, a dress, a necklace. They store everything in the upstairs apartment, in what they call the Insurance Closet:
stacks of jewelry boxes and eyeglass cases, silk blouses and fancy gowns on hangers. They have shoes in all sizes, hats, even a blender or two for their more domestic girlfriends. In return for the free gifts, Antonio gives them discounted bottles of whiskey and wine from Ida’s brother’s liquor store and helps in the pizzeria on holidays. His chief function, though, is to troubleshoot their more elaborate schemes—most of which are full of holes—so they don’t get caught and ruin the system that has worked so well for nearly a decade.
“Time is running out,” Antonio says. He stands in front of the enormous back sink, which steams from the dishes he’s been washing. His apron is splattered with soapy water. He’s worked at least twenty hours here since the first of December, more than enough for this year’s worth of gifts. “What will Santa Claus bring my wife this Christmas?”
“Take your pick,” Renato says, wiping down the prep table. “The Closet is full.”
Antonio unties his apron. Water has soaked through to his shirt and wrinkled the tips of his fingers. Honest work for dishonest wages doesn’t bother him one bit. In fact, it gives him great satisfaction to punish Sears and Roebuck and its kind for overcharging. He knows better than anyone the wholesale price of parts and ingredients: armrests at the Ford plant, tomatoes at Renato’s and Mrs. Stella’s, yards of fabric at the Golden Hem. The markups from assembly to sale enrage him. In stores, he often can’t bring himself to purchase the product he’s brought to the counter. So he looks for ways to barter, to get around the evils of commerce. In his own restaurant, he tells himself, he will charge a fair price for food and entertainment. The profits will be just enough to pay his family’s basic expenses, nothing more. He won’t be greedy. Customers will recognize this and come to a place like La Bella Trattoria not only to eat the best food in town and dance to beautiful music, but to support his philosophy, to show him respect.
Halfway up the stairs to the apartment, he hears voices. He steps back down. “Is somebody up here?” he calls to Renato.
He rushes over. “Officer Stanley!” he whispers. “I forgot! Tonight he breaks it off with the Puerto Rican girl.”
“How long does that take?” Antonio checks his watch. “I’ve been here two hours.”
“Who can say?” is Renato’s reply. He twirls his rag around his index finger. “Maybe she changed his mind. They could be making up.”
Officer Stanley—the old Irishman who treats Renato’s like a cheap motel—is fully aware of the Insurance Closet. He has used it more than once this year on this same Puerto Rican girl. In exchange for his privacy, the officer makes sure the sidewalk and alleys around the pizzeria get swept and plowed and that an extra police car drives by each night.
“Maybe you should wait,” Renato says. “Come have a drink with me. We’ll talk business.”
Antonio tenses. Renato hasn’t mentioned Riverview Drive since that first night, now more than three weeks ago. Maybe the property has already sold to another “wop with a shop,” as he likes to say, and he and Buzzy want to sabotage it. Or he has found another investor, a young man unattached to a wife and child. Antonio has too much pride to ask what’s going on, to suggest a compromise plan to keep him involved; he must wait for Renato to make another offer. He has not admitted to anyone the new restaurant designs he’s sketched on the backs of envelopes and napkins. Nor has he told Renato or Buzzy that Maddalena is finally expecting a child. He cannot bear the conclusions they will draw, the teasing that will follow.
Renato heats up two sausage rolls. They eat them with their hands, and afterward the outsides of their whiskey glasses are coated with grease. Renato doesn’t mention Riverview Drive at all. He tells Antonio he wants to take Cassie to Italy for a vacation, then changes his mind and decides the Poconos are good enough. “Makes me sick to my stomach,” he declares, on the topic of the colored family who has moved into the Seventh Street row home adjoining his mother’s. He complains that the price of cigarettes has gone up.
When Renato gets up for another drink, Antonio’s pride buckles. “And the new restaurant?” he asks, trying to sound as though it’s just entered his mind. “What’s the story?”
Renato shrugs. “What can I say?” He looks him in the eye. “You broke my heart, and we lost the space. End of story.”
“You asked me one time,” Antonio says. “One time only. I didn’t know you were serious. If I knew—”
“Bullshit,” says Renato. He smiles, not playfully, and tosses the empty whiskey bottle into the trash. “I have to ask you over and over, like you’re some girl I want to take to bed?” He shakes his head. “It’s better if we drop this conversation.”
But Antonio has to know. “Who’d it go to?”
“Some Greek,” Renato says. “He’s already got the contractors in there. My man at the bank says he’s going to sell steak dinners.”
“I was the only one you asked?” Antonio says, but Renato doesn’t answer.
They are quiet. The pipe drips under the sink. Antonio finds a rag, ties it around the leak, and now the only sound is the buzz of the fluorescent lights above them. “It’s not a small decision,” Antonio says. “Especially now. I can explain better—”
“I already know your reasons,” says Renato. “Your wife, your job at Ford. Security. It all makes sense to me. I’m not angry with you, Antonio. What I am”—here he sits back in his chair and lowers his head—“is very very sad. Disappointed. You’re like a brother to me. You and Mamma are my only family in this country. I thought, maybe, if we opened the trattoria together—like we wanted ten years ago—I would feel—I don’t know—settled. And with Cassie back, it starts to look like a life. I had dreams like that.”
Antonio avoids his eyes. He wipes his hands and listens to the movement that has begun upstairs. It sounds as though a bed is being dragged across the floor. A radio comes on, murmurs staticky jazz for a while, then settles on Patti Page singing “Come What May.”
“In five years, you think I want to still be living here with Buzzy? With the policeman and his puttane?”
“It’s not such a bad life,” Antonio says. What he really wants to say is: What about me? Where will I go if you become another Gianni? Can you promise we’ll get another chance at the trattoria when my life is more settled? “You have all the freedom you want, your own money, nobody holding you down. Be sure before you throw it away.”
“I’m sure,” says Renato. “One hundred percent. And you know Cassie better than anybody. She’s like a wildcat. If I don’t marry her soon, some other man will tame her. And she’s too good to lose.”
Can Renato see the shock on Antonio’s face? Marry Cassie Donovan? He’ll never go through with it. Antonio gives him ten years at least before he gives up the bachelor life. Then he’ll find a wife in Italy, the way all smart men do. Renato would never poison a church marriage with Cassie’s dirty history, her nights with Antonio, Buzzy, and God knows how many other men. Even little Paolo has tasted her. The absurdity convinces Antonio that Renato is testing—or, worse, tricking—him. He takes the bait and says, mockingly, “You’re lucky she took you back, uaglio.”
“Lucky is right,” Renato says. “Most girls I’m with, I think: Look at me. I’m a know-nothing immigrant. I came to this country when I was eight, but I never finished the sixth grade. And still I’m smarter than you.” He laughs. “But with Cassie—that girl is sharp as a whip. She has ideas. The way her mind works sometimes, I can’t keep up. I can’t get away with anything.”
“That’s good?” Antonio asks.
“That’s very good,” says Renato. “That’s the best. It’s like—the same feeling I get when I’m walking around the jewelry store with a gold necklace in my pocket. They can catch me any second. My blood is pumping. I’m short of breath. That’s how it is with Cassie all the time.” He laughs again. “It’s like I can feel her eyes following me, but I think I’m home free; and then just before I walk out the door, she sticks a gun at my back and says, Gotcha.”
Antonio considers this. Maddalena lets him get away with everything. He is seven years older, has seen more of the world, can speak two languages without much trouble. He reads the newspaper. He can argue his way out of most of their disagreements, sometimes by inventing statistics, historical events, and laws to prove his point. “How can you want to vote?” he said to her last November. “You can’t even spell Philadelphia. You think Eisenhower should be president because he has a nicer face, and you’re tired of looking at Truman.” Though this brings on a wave of guilt, it is the quickest way to win their fights. She gives him a fierce look, her eyes welling with tears, and tells him he may have read more books, he may know fancy words and ideas, but she has something he’ll never have: common sense. She enunciates this term in English, with great care. She has taken it to heart. She believes common sense is her greatest strength, and she may be right.
Officer Stanley appears on the stairs, the Puerto Rican girl at his side. He kisses her forehead before she slinks out the back door. He tucks in his shirt and checks his face in the cracked oval mirror above the sink. “Thank you, boys,” he says as he approaches. Renato offers him a drink, but he declines. He is on duty.
“How did she take it?” asks Renato.
He shakes his head. “I’m a weak man,” he says. “We’ll be back tomorrow.”
After he leaves, Renato takes Antonio up to the Closet. They are not surprised to find it ransacked, shoeboxes and hangers strewn across the floor. Renato picks up the one empty box and says, “Looks like Prince Charming found his Cinderella,” and Antonio laughs along, though he does not know the reference.
“I need something special this year,” Antonio says. He picks through the hangers one by one, holding up blouses and scarves to the light. In the jewelry boxes are diamond pendants, plain necklaces, Italian horn charms, and gold crosses in various sizes—all of which Antonio has rejected before. He sighs and tosses a cheap silver bracelet onto the heap. “When’s the next shipment?” he asks.
The Saint of Lost Things Page 9
