When the World Was Young

by Tony Romano

  From this view at the window, Agostino realized that the life he’d chosen for himself was all within sight. A twin-size bed with tousled sheets behind him. His store not six blocks away, though it seemed closer now. He knew which bulb needed replacing on the marquee that held the bent arrow. The uppermost portion of his brother’s apartment window was even visible, something he hadn’t noticed before. At night, one would be able to detect whether the living-room lamps were on or catch a glimpse of a silhouette or two behind the shade. He thought about Angela Rosa gazing out this window ten or eleven months ago on a clear, cool September night, and he shuddered. God, what had he done?

  He pulled on his trousers and stumbled through the apartment ranting about a shirt he couldn’t find. He had to find the shirt, he told his wife. He had to get to the store. Some important deliveries. No, no, Vince would sleep through it. He had to be there himself. No time for breakfast. He’d come back for lunch. Pulling a T-shirt from the folded pile on the dining-room radiator, he threw it on, bounced down the back porch stairs, and left without having looked his wife in the eye.

  When he got to the store, both the front and back doors were wedged open, and Vince sat on the patio next to the bocce alley sipping coffee, scanning the newspaper. Alone, they always spoke the language of their paese. Broken English sounded ridiculous to them when no one else was around.

  “Who died?” Vince wanted to know.

  Agostino stepped back to catch a glimpse of himself in the window and shook his head. He patted down his hair and grumbled and sat across from his brother, who got up to retrieve another cup.

  “Here. Drink,” Vince ordered. “Leave the milk. Leave the sugar. Just the coffee.” Vince sat down again and leaned back, his legs straight as crutches under the table. “What is it this time? Vittoria smoking? Santo and some girl? Lupa? Is she moving in?”

  Though he hadn’t added anything to the cup, Agostino stirred the coffee. His elbows rested on the table. “A long time ago, back in Italy, when we were kids, do you remember Papa sent us into town with his pantaloons? That little place next to the milk store? Capellini’s? Capallano’s? What was the damn name? He had beads hanging from the doorway that separated the front of the store from the back, where he did his sewing.”

  “I remember.”

  “I was twelve, I think. We dropped off the pants and as we were leaving this woman came into the shop. Breathtaking. Just exquisite. Tight legs…I held the door open and she swept by me—I can still smell her—and you walked on ahead. You didn’t even notice. Capallano stepped out from behind the beads, and she seemed almost…happy to see him. He guided her to the back and I imagined all the measurements being taken. I could see those thick fingers pressing down the measuring tape along her thigh.” He paused and shook his head at the vividness of this. “That was the day I decided I would be a tailor.”

  “That was the day we should have sewn your dick to your pants.”

  Agostino lit a cigarette and puffed hard on it. He nodded. “You should have. Then I wouldn’t have my mess now.”

  “What mess is this?”

  Agostino rubbed his forehead, feeling like the foolish younger brother. He focused on the farthest point ahead of him, a short row of red bricks that jutted out between the first-and second-floor picture windows of a neighbor’s apartment, a ledge for flowerpots.

  “Seems like another lifetime. She came walking—” He gestured toward the alley right behind them, a catch in his throat. “I’d never seen her before. It was last year…August, September maybe. I was sitting right here, behind the store, a slow afternoon. No bocce players yet. And inside, two old men playing cards. That’s it. I was out here minding my own business. Are you the tailor? she wanted to know. Am I the tailor. What was I supposed to say?”

  She had milky-white skin and papery hands that appeared older than her twenty-two years.

  “She’d seen the painted sign in the front window one day. No one sees the sign. She saw the sign. Her godparents sent her money to get something nice for herself. She unfolded a picture. From a magazine.” Agostino recalled his amusement over the faded creases. “Sophia Loren. Next to a fountain. Wearing this dress. She wanted a dress like the one in the picture. To wear with a sweater over her shoulder. I looked at the picture for a long time. A plain, black, sleeveless dress with buttons down the front. Something you might see in a movie with Sophia Loren next to a fountain. I didn’t know if I wanted to spend three or four weeks. But—”

  How could he explain to his brother the slide of the chalk across the coarse brown butcher paper as he laid out the design of the dress? Gripping the white leather tape measure taut across the pattern. Calculating and recalculating. All his movements streamlined. All his thought funneled through his fingers.

  “So I brought her upstairs, took her measurements. Her left shoulder was a little higher than the right, and then—”

  “Tell me.”

  “Then we came back down. We drank coffee. Right here. Behind my own store.” And the two of them had talked. Just talked. He told her about the region in Italy where her godparents lived. She told him about her parents, how strict they were with her, their only child. Agostino could tell she’d never talked about her life in quite this way. But the words came easy to her. They spilled from her in a steady stream that would not be stemmed.

  “And then?”

  “We drank coffee.” Agostino put down his cup. “That was all. I told her to come back in two weeks. To try on the pattern.”

  “And then?”

  “And then she came back in two weeks.”

  “Where was I?”

  “How should I know where you were?”

  In fact, Agostino had told her to return on Wednesday, his brother’s day to drive his Caddy downtown and visit Carmel.

  “So the pattern.”

  “Yes, the pattern. I made a few adjustments. Minor. I showed her swatches of wool. Then we sat here again. A second time we sat.”

  She’d done something to her hair, brushed it differently, pulled it away from her forehead. She was eighteen and she was thirty. She spoke with more assurance. Agostino remembered thinking this one was off-limits. This one must not be had. In his mind, he’d been more or less faithful. Whatever straying he’d done had been just that. There had always been tacit agreements between him and the women. But this one he would have to forget.

  Agostino picked up a whiff of whiskey from his brother’s cup. “Your hip is hurting?”

  Vince shrugged and nodded. “So where is the mess?”

  Agostino sighed, his head sagging forward. “The next time. A week later maybe. The dress was finished. I didn’t want to stitch the seams yet. So everything was pinned. She came in for a final fitting and—how can I say it? She wasn’t right.” She’d been crying and had braced herself to get through this. “She wanted to know if I could finish the dress right away. It was her father. He collapsed in the kitchen. Right there on the linoleum his heart stopped. And now she needed the dress for the funeral. My God, I thought. Her father’s funeral.” Somehow she’d broken away from the wails of her family to see about a dress that couldn’t have meant less to her by then. No doubt she simply wanted to be with someone who had listened to her, maybe the only man who had ever listened to her, and Agostino didn’t mind that it was him. He offered coffee, asked her to sit, but she wanted to see the dress. “She insisted on seeing the dress, so I brought her up…”

  Vince rubbed his forehead and worked his hand down to his chin.

  “Vincenz…No. No, it wasn’t anything like that. It didn’t start out that way. I was just going to show her the dress. I swear to my God.” He stared down the alley. “Ah, damn,” he said, and hurled his spoon.

  Agostino led her upstairs to his old bedroom in the apartment, and with the dress draped over his arm he pushed it out to her. She slipped inside the bedroom then and eased the door shut. For the first time in that apartment, Agostino didn’t know what to do with himself.


  When she padded out a few minutes later, he could barely conceal his gasp. She was all liquid brown eyes and sleek black wool. He made an awkward motion with his fingers, directing her to turn. With her back to him, he moved toward her and pinched the dress at the waist and noted that he’d need to take it in two centimeters or so. But the shoulders were perfect. He asked her to turn around. To please turn.

  She pointed to the bottom of the dress and tears welled up in her eyes again. “Can I wear this?” she wanted to know. With her palms, she brushed down the dress, taking it all in. “Can this be worn at a funeral?” The tears flowed freely now, and she wiped them with the back of her hand.

  “Yes,” he said, backing away. “You can wear. With a sweater over the shoulders.”

  One more step of retreat, just a modest step, a small turn, any slight movement would have ended it right there. But Agostino wasn’t accustomed to stepping back. And standing there, he had another thought, a thought he knew now he’d never reveal to anyone, not even to Vincenzo. A thought that would bury him. He thought, I deserve this. He and his wife had barely touched in months. After Benito was born, a difficult labor, he waited on Angela Rosa, and it pleased him to do so. But it had been nearly five months now and he had needs. Undeniable needs. And needs were neither good nor bad. How could they be? I deserve, he thought. So he stood there on solid ground and asked if she was going to be okay. But—and this much was clear—he remained rooted there. Hands at his sides, he did not budge. He would not move forward, he would not move. As for his voice, he may have informed it with a softness that pushed her toward him. How could he say? He simply asked if she would be okay.

  She stumbled toward him then and fell into his chest, Agostino’s arms feeling weary as he raised them to embrace her. He knew even then that this holding would be the thing he’d miss most. The slow rocking and the warmth of her breath on his shoulder, too. As her sobs began to subside, he realized he’d held her too long, beyond the time two people use to comfort each other. She pulled away from him and reached across her body to the shoulder pin that held up that side of the dress and slipped it out. With the same hand she pulled at the other pin, and the shimmering wool cascaded to the checkered floor. Agostino felt the familiar tremble of that first glimpse at a woman’s shoulders and cupped breasts that he knew he’d soon touch. She took his hand and walked him back to the bedroom.

  “So what does she want from you?” Vince asked.

  “It’s what she has.” He told his brother about the feast, how the woman’s mother had threatened him. The old woman wanted justice. Old-world justice. “How can I even be sure it’s mine?”

  “It wasn’t her first time?”

  “I would say not.”

  “And that was the only time? Upstairs?”

  Agostino looked away and tried to locate the spoon against the glint of loose rocks in the alley. He didn’t want to answer. “She came back a few times after that.”

  “Ah, shit. What is her name?”

  “Her name?”

  His shoulders slumped, Agostino leaned back, reluctant to utter the name. Once he said it, the matter would become public knowledge, part of the official record of his life, a sordid matter. The story would no longer be his.

  “Gabriella Paolone,” he said evenly. “Ella.”

  “We must find this Ella,” he said.

  Santo liked this view from inside, liked the idea of being seen by people passing on the sidewalk. Ribbons of sunlight streamed through the open doorway, yet the rest of the club remained washed in shades of pale ruby brown that spoke faintly of privacy. A couple of painted fans spun listlessly below the gray spackled ceiling. Two guys Santo didn’t know shot pool. In the corner, Pooch flipped cards for solitaire. A bent toothpick dangled from the right side of his mouth.

  “So what time did your old man get home last night?” Eddie said.

  Santo shook his head. He reached for a Chesterfield from Eddie’s pack on the table.

  “Help yourself,” Eddie told him.

  “Right.”

  Eddie produced a book of matches from his shirt and flipped it across. Those long fingers.

  “About last night,” Santo said.

  Eddie scooted forward in his chair, his head cocked to one side, ready to listen. But Santo stopped.

  “What the hell happened last night?” Eddie said. “Me and Vicky was taking this nice walk—”

  “Shut the fuck up about your walking already.”

  “Then you creep up all pissed off about, what, I don’t know.”

  Santo began to feel the fury from the night before, but he couldn’t sustain it, almost as if he could house only one concern at a time. Which was why he was here.

  “Forget about me pissed off, would ya?”

  “And then your old man getting into it with that nutcake.”

  Maybe Santo had given Eddie too much credit. If the old woman was just a nutcake to him, Santo could walk out into that light right now and forget he ever set foot in their club. But Eddie was hard to read. He kept shifting in his chair, cocking his head to one side then the other, his ears a flaming red.

  “What a nutcake, huh, Sant?”

  “Yeah, a real nutjob.”

  “And you and Vicky didn’t need to take off like youse did.”

  Santo flicked his ash and nodded. There was no rush here. He’d paced Erie Street up and down for an hour before bumping into Eddie and acted convincingly reluctant about stopping by the club, shooting some stick maybe, so there was no need to push his hand now. As far as Eddie knew, Santo just wanted to warn him away from Victoria. A brother looking after his sister. They could both understand that. He wasn’t quite ready to concede any of that, but maybe they could arrive at some sort of agreement. A simple understanding. Two guys talking. Santo wouldn’t pounce on Eddie’s face over talking with Victoria. He’d still keep an eye on her, nothing wrong with that. But she could take care of herself. In turn—they both knew how rumors spread—Eddie wouldn’t say anything about last night.

  “Hey, Pooch,” Eddie called. “How ’bout a couple of bottles over here.”

  Pooch turned over a card. “What do I look like?”

  “You look like a pooch, you big jamoch. A couple of beers, huh.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Pooch pushed himself away from the table and shuffled to the fridge in the back.

  When the beers arrived, Santo took a deep slug and set the bottle between them. That was about all he ever drank. Working at the store and seeing his uncle’s staggering took away most of the allure for him. He wiped at the wet label with his thumb.

  “A little early for me,” Santo said.

  Eddie nodded. “I agree.” He took another swallow. “One hundred percent.”

  Pooch glanced over every now and then, that same pouty glare weighing heavy on him, as if he’d just been coldcocked.

  “So what’s the word on tonight? You and your sister gonna be feastin’ again?”

  Santo glanced out at the leafy branches and dragged on his cigarette. What would Eddie say here?

  “You gonna be there?” Santo said.

  “Gotta pass through. Make an appearance, you know what I mean?”

  “I don’t know. I figure one night might be enough.” He tilted the bottle and tapped it back down. Then he did something with his eyes, a slow hard blink meant to remind Eddie of what they’d seen last night. “More than enough,” Santo said.

  Eddie let out a sudden snort through his nose, the beginning of a laugh. “More than enough for your old man,” he said. “That’s for sure.”

  Eddie sank to meet Santo’s eyes, the left side of his face tightening into a smirk. He was laying down his hand. He knew what Santo knew. The whole dirty mess. From what he could surmise anyway. They could come to an understanding.

  “You know,” Santo said. He imagined returning to the club one day and shooting some stick. No one thinking twice about him being there. “I’m probably working tonight,” he said.


  Victoria could take care of herself. Better than Santo ever could. Or knew how to.

  “I don’t know about Vicky, though,” Santo offered, knowing that Eddie would take this as an offer. “She might be there.”

  Not a day went by that Angela Rosa didn’t think about dying. Flat white thoughts that blinded her with their suddenness. The physical act of dying didn’t faze her. She could endure the jolts of blaring pain, any duration of suffering. Pain, in fact, made her more alive, every nerve ending screaming for attention. It was the afterward that staggered her. How could she one day not be? How could everyone she knew not be in a hundred years? These paralyzing thoughts rarely intruded on her thinking during the day when she could busy herself with dishes and meals and more dishes. But in the middle of the night, feeling her way toward the bathroom, her body heavy and her breathing deep and labored, dying struck her as a maddeningly silent force that choked her. She’d have to turn on a light and fix her gaze on a towel or a shirt strewn across the floor, anything to root her in the ticking of the moment. Caro, Dio, she’d think. Damme un’altro giorno. Give me one more day.

  Now that she was forty, every tightening in her chest or racing of her heart was accompanied by a surge of panic, which only served to clamp her chest tighter. Benito wouldn’t have a single memory of her. He wouldn’t be able to place her voice or recall the softness of her cheek. Any photos would only make her seem more distant to him. Anthony and Alfredo were still young enough to believe they needed a mother. But who could say if they’d ever fully recover? The rest of them, even Vittoria, would get along all right. Whenever this dawned on her, a revelation each time, a thread of self-pity laced its way around her like a wispy cocoon. But mostly she was grateful.

  Angela Rosa was forty, but she blamed her back-porch neighbor, Louise, too, for the smoldering cloud that blackened her thoughts. Louise was the first American to make any real attempt at deciphering Angela Rosa’s tortured English. She had thin hair, tinted straw brown and set at the beauty shop each week. Even under the slatted back-porch shadows, her rose-red lipstick gleamed in the night. Though she was made up, ready to venture out, she sat on her porch most summer nights while her garment-worker husband perched himself in front of the ghostly light of the television inside, recovering from the day’s work.