Although it made Iris feel guilty, it gave her the jitters when Auntie Rosa asked her whether she had ever told Iris about her little sister Teresa, and even though Iris replied yes, she had already told her about her little sister Teresa, Auntie Rosa went ahead anyway and told her the story all over again. One day, when Auntie Rosa was a little girl, not much older than Iris, she and her little sister Teresa took a shortcut home from school, and her little sister Teresa slipped down the embankment and into the Barge Canal, and drowned right in front of Auntie Rosa’s eyes. Hearing that story made Iris’s mind go berserk imagining her and Lily walking home from school, and Lily drowning in the canal, and when that happened, the visions of the dancers she was saving up for when she went to sleep scattered all over the place like the mirrors and beads of a smashed kaleidoscope. During prayers, Iris silently thanked God that there were no canals between Rugby Road and St. Augustine’s and that the worst thing that could happen was to step on a crack in the sidewalk or not find any good bubblegum wads.
When the prayers were over, Auntie Rosa would press Iris’s head to the soft flannel stretched over her enormous breasts, and wrap her arms and legs around Iris so tightly that she thought her ribs would crack. For the first few minutes, Iris didn’t mind, because feeling so loved and protected was even better than seeing dancers in her eyes. But then Auntie Rosa fell asleep instantly, just like that, and began snoring right in Iris’s ear, with her mountainous breasts shoved right in Iris’s face, and her arms and legs pinning down Iris’s skinny body. Unable to move, unable to breathe, Iris sometimes wished for a minute she were in her own bunk above Lily’s, with no one loving her quite so much.
Pink feathers of daylight flitted around the edges of the bedroom shades, tickling Iris awake. Sunday mornings at Auntie Rosa’s were nothing like weekdays on Rugby Road, with the chorus of bells and buzzes and voices resounding throughout the house, priming Iris for the first of the day’s battles with her brothers and sisters as they squabbled over turns in the bathroom. This morning, the blissful silence and the comforting thought of a clean, sweet-smelling bathroom at her leisurely disposal afforded Iris the opportunity to savor the fresh linen sheets tucked snugly around her legs, and the cushion of feathers cradling her head. Iris rubbed her eyes, and ran a hand over her face, feeling the impression left there by the embroidered pillowcase. Sometimes, she slept so soundly in this bed she didn’t budge all night, and in the morning when she looked in the mirror, she could see the initials RC imprinted on her cheek. Auntie Rosa said she had started sewing and crocheting and cross-stitching initials on all her linens when she was only slightly older than Iris, then stashed them away in her hope chest. Iris wondered what kind of hope was attached to sheets and towels, and then got to thinking that if they didn’t have such nice linens in her house, maybe her mother hadn’t been hopeful enough when she was a young girl. Or maybe that girls who grew up in Independence, Missouri had different hopes from the girls who grew up in Medina, New York.
Just enough light filtered in from the window for her to make out the shape of Auntie Rosa bent over at the foot of the bed, herding the pendulous breasts that had nearly suffocated Iris the night before into the capacious cups of a brassiere with a long row of hooks up the back. Making all that flesh fit inside the contraption and clasping all the right eyes together with all those hooks seemed an immensely annoying task to Iris. Not to mention the inconvenience of having those protuberances bouncing around on your chest when you ran or skipped or danced, which was probably why she never saw Auntie Rosa do any of those things. Terrified at the prospect of such an incapacitating development preventing her from engaging in the activities she liked best, Iris slipped a hand under her nightgown, and was greatly reassured to find her two tiny nipples still sitting atop her bony chest like two lonely pebbles on a tundra.
Once Iris was awake, she did not want to miss a minute of Sunday morning with Auntie Rosa. She adored driving around with her aunt in her cream-colored Ford Fairlane 500, with the Blessed Virgin Mary magnet stuck to the dashboard. When the two of them drove across the rickety old five-ton bridge, there was no one to laugh at Iris for frantically trying to sum up the weight of everyone in the car, certain the rusty iron trusses would collapse, sending them all to a horrific death by drowning in the Barge Canal. It was just her and Auntie Rosa, and when she got afraid, she just buried her face in Auntie Rosa’s lap and prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary magnet until the reassuring hum of the tires on the asphalt and Auntie Rosa’s declaration, “It’s over, Lover-dover!” confirmed they had made it safely to the other side.
Iris felt all cozy and comfy inside Auntie Rosa’s car, whose interiors were the same pretty shade of powder blue as Iris’s valise, and smelled of Estée Lauder (she knew that was Auntie Rosa’s favorite perfume, because there was always a bottle sitting on a lace doily on her dresser), which was a zillion times better than the stink of stale cigarette smoke and her brothers’ B.O. that made surges of hot saliva flow to her mouth when she rode in the back of her father’s station wagon. That flowery feminine fragrance, coupled with the privilege of sitting in the front seat next to her aunt, meant that Iris could ride in the car for more than ten minutes without wanting to puke. Sometimes, she did puke in her father’s car, but that was only when she couldn’t help it, just like she couldn’t help spraying with vomit whoever got stuck riding in the back with her. Her brothers always got grossed out and call her stupid names, then took revenge by laying bombs in her face, which made her want to puke again. Her sisters weren’t so mean about it, they just whined and looked at her in disgust, making Iris wish she could just disappear, together with the acrid taste in her mouth and the puke stains on her shirt.
“Lover-dover,” Auntie Rosa whispered when she saw Iris sit up in bed. “It’s early, go back to sleep.” Iris detected her aunt’s usual halfhearted attempt at injecting a tone of command into her suggestion, but knew she would have her way, because Auntie Rosa wanted to bring her along almost as much as Iris wanted to go with her.
“But can’t I come, Auntie Rosa?” she pleaded. “I’m awake now, and I’ll get ready real fast!” Not waiting for an answer, she hopped out of bed and swiftly exchanged her nightgown for the underclothes she had folded and placed neatly inside the blue valise that sat on a chair in the corner. A wide smile crossed her aunt’s face, as with an upward sweep of her arm she passed a silver brush gently over the short, thinning curls streaked with grey that had flattened against the back of her head during the night. Seeing her aunt’s smile reflected in the mirror as she dabbed perfume behind her ears, Iris noticed how unfamiliar and lopsided she appeared, with everything reversed, except for the nose that anchored her features in place. She wondered if her aunt saw herself the way she looked in the mirror, or the way Iris saw her.
“Skedaddle, then, Lover-dover! But don’t wake up Grandma!” Her warning was superfluous; the last thing Iris wanted to do was wake up her grandmother. Grandma Capotosti suffered from lots of pains, besides the ones in her blue feet. She slept in the room next to Auntie Rosa’s and had a little silver bell on her nightstand she was supposed to ring if she needed help. She usually started moaning when she heard Auntie Rosa get up, but it was hard to tell whether that meant she needed help, because that was what the little silver bell was for, and she never rang it. Iris supposed moaning was just another of Grandma’s ways of communicating, a notch or two more basic than the words of broken English she spoke to everybody except Auntie Rosa, because she spoke to her in Italian. Iris tried to imagine Grandma Capotosti running around like Auntie Rosa, or even walking, but she couldn’t, and figured it was probably the weight of all those hardships she suffered immigrating to America that crippled her. Auntie Rosa said Grandma had grown up in a little hilltop village in Abruzzo, just like those other Italian ladies with fat ankles that sometimes came calling on Sunday afternoons, and even though Iris didn’t understand what they said to her, she loved those visits because they brought the very best c
ookies Iris had ever tasted. Auntie Rosa told her everyone in that old village was hungry all the time, which maybe explained why they baked so many cookies in America, and that Grandma’s parents had wanted her to be a nun, but she wanted to marry Grandpa Capotosti, and that was why they had to run away. But even when they got to America and had Auntie Rosa and poor little Teresa (she couldn’t really call her “Auntie” if poor little Teresa died before Iris was born, could she?), and Uncle Bartolomeo and Uncle Alfred and her father, they were going hungry again, because they got the Depression, and then little Teresa ended up in the Barge Canal, to top it all off.
All those things happened a very long time ago, and Grandma Capotosti was old now, and spent her days in a rocking chair by the window, where she controlled the TV, the radio, Auntie Rosa, Uncle Alfred, Grandpa Capotosti (except when he snuck out the back door), and the sympathy of anyone who had any respect for sick, old people. Iris felt sorry for her Grandma, with all her pains and sorrows, and tried to think of all she had been through when it came time to rub lotion on her blue feet or comb her thin hair when really she would rather not. Grandma Capotosti may not have been real lucky, but Iris figured it must be better than being stuck in that little hilltop village. Good thing she left when she did, because she would never be able to get down from that hilltop now, in her condition. She couldn’t even get to the bathroom alone.
Whenever Auntie Rosa heard Grandma Capotosti moaning in her bed or groaning in her rocker, she dropped what she was doing and rushed to see what she needed, even if she didn’t ring the bell. Iris thought maybe she didn’t ring the bell because she didn’t like coming right out and asking for things, that she wanted Auntie Rosa to catch on by herself, or otherwise she would rather suffer in silence. But Auntie Rosa always heard, even without the bell, even without the words, and then when she got there, Grandma Capotosti would look at her with her watery old lady eyes and stitched white eyebrows, shake her head, and say “Perchè corri sempre, figlia mia? Lasciami stare.” Once Iris asked Auntie Rosa why she said the same thing all the time, and Auntie Rosa said it meant, “Why do you run all the time, my daughter? Let me be.” Iris thought it strange that it was Grandma Capotosti’s moans that made Auntie Rosa run, but then when Auntie Rosa got there, Grandma Capotosti told her to leave her alone. It seemed like it would be easier if she just talked in words instead of moans and groans, even in Italian words, because Auntie Rosa could understand those perfectly well.
St. John the Baptist’s church was just a few blocks closer to downtown Rochester than St. Augustine’s; Iris was not quite sure why Auntie Rosa sometimes preferred to attend Sunday Mass there rather than in her own parish. Maybe it was because the stained glass windows were more colorful, or there were more statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary to light candles for, or maybe she liked the priest’s voice better than Father Connor’s. But it was Iris’s hunch that maybe once a week Auntie Rosa just wanted to go someplace where everyone did not know her and stop to say how is your poor crippled mother, and your poor old father and my, how big Iris is getting, and are there any new additions to the family? Because as soon as they rushed through all those questions, they grabbed Auntie Rosa’s hand tight and wouldn’t let it go until they told her all about their problems, and asked her how to cure their ailments, and informed her so-and-so was in the hospital and had she heard about so-and-so dropping dead just like that, and all that talking made the big smile Auntie Rosa started out with whenever she ran into someone she knew flicker, then fade altogether. By the time they went on their way, all that was left was a whole slew of other people’s problems to pray about, and sick people to call on and funerals to attend. That must be because Auntie Rosa was a gifted listener, that was what everyone said. Auntie Rosa said Iris was just like her, that way, but Iris wasn’t sure if she was happy about that. Iris thought in her case maybe she was just quiet, and only talked when she had something to say, leaving all the space for other people to talk, so they figured she was listening, but maybe she was just thinking about root beer floats or the June Taylor Dancers.
It was a treat for Iris to attend a different church, too. She was all too familiar with every piece of stained glass at St. Augustine’s, where every Friday and Holy Day of Obligation she filed into the pews with the rest of her class and all the other classes, her head covered with a lace mantilla, and of course on Saturdays there was Confession and on Sundays Mass with her family. Iris had made her First Confession and her First Holy Communion at an early age, the year the bishop said children should make the Sacraments as soon as they were spiritually prepared. Iris did not know how she would know when she was ready, but since she was next in line, her father decided they should get it over with as soon as possible, so every evening after dinner she sat with him as he smoked cigarettes and drank coffee and tutored her on her Catechism lessons and tested her on the Act of Contrition and the Credo and all the other prayers that must be committed to memory before she could be committed to Christ. The day of her First Holy Communion came and went without much ado, though Iris got to dress up in the same frilly dress that Marguerite and maybe even her older sisters had worn for their First Holy Communion, which was still pretty white, except for a few stains her mother said wouldn’t come out. They also drove to church that day instead of walking, and Iris did get to ride in a window seat so she wouldn’t puke all over her dress and make more stains. Mass was the same as usual except that she, too, rose at Communion time and knelt at the rail with her parents and the Big Kids. She was elated when her very first Communion wafer was placed upon her tongue, and surprised to find it tasted like the top layer of the torrone candy sold in tiny cardboard boxes decorated with scenes from the Old Country at the Italian import store. The only problem was, the wafer got stuck to the roof of her mouth and to the back of her front teeth. When that happened on the rare occasions she got to eat torrone, she just scraped it off with her fingernail, but one of the things her father had taught her was that it was forbidden for a lay person to touch the consecrated host, which was why you had to stick out your tongue at the priest. Iris breathed a sigh of relief when the wafer finally dissolved on its own, just in time for her to join the congregation in the closing hymn.
Outside, a snapshot was taken by the shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary that graced the side lawn of the church, and everyone, including Auntie Rosa and Uncle Alfred, went home for a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, which was Iris’s favorite, but Iris knew that was not the reason why her mother made it, that was just what the Capotostis always ate on Sundays. Then there was a cake, although it was not like birthday cake because Iris didn’t get to pick what kind she wanted, and there were no candles or anything to make it seem like it was really her cake rather than everyone’s cake. While the adults were drinking coffee, Alexander and John made Iris follow them to the basement, where she hoped they would play the album with the wanna hold your hand song, maybe even let her dance to it, since it was, after all, a special occasion in her honor, even if her name was not written on the cake. Instead, John took a slice of Wonder bread from his pocket, and tore off the crusts, and Alexander flattened bits of the soft doughy part into little flat rounds. Under threat of tickle torture, Iris was forced to stick out her tongue and when Alexander raised the bread in the air and said, “Body of Christ,” she had to respond by saying “Amen,” then eat the bread, even though she knew it was wrong because if anyone, even her brothers, could turn Wonder bread into Communion and hand it out like that, what was the point of going to church? She certainly didn’t think her brothers would make very good priests, either, and apparently her father thought the same thing, because when he came down to the basement to get the plunger for the kitchen sink which always got clogged when they had spaghetti, he screamed and yelled like crazy, mostly at Alexander and John, though. Just the same, Iris crumbled into a mortified heap on the floor, her frilly dress puddled around her legs, her anger at her brothers for ruining her day bursting from her in tears. Iris cried at
thought of a fresh stain already marring her soul which, until her stupid brothers made her sin, she was envisioning pure and white after its first official cleansing. At that moment, she was struck with the realization that remaining in a state of grace was going to be more complicated now that she had crossed the line of First Holy Communion. Now she would have to take Communion every time she went to church, or everyone would think she was in a state of sin. And in order to take Communion every Sunday, she would have to make sure she remembered all her sins when she went to Confession on Saturday. To make matters worse, she would have to be especially careful not to shatter her state of grace by committing new sins on Saturday night or Sunday morning before church, which was easier if she slept over at Auntie Rosa’s because no one tricked you into sinning over there.
Having already received Holy Communion dozens of times by now, Iris was feeling pretty smug and smart sitting beside Auntie Rosa at St. John the Baptist’s, as she reflected upon the progress she had made. She worried less about her state of grace ever since she had stipulated a sort of insurance policy that covered the risks in the post-Confession-pre-Communion time span. She simply added extra prayers to the penance assigned by the priest on Saturday, and deposited them in an emergency account God could dip into directly as needed without using Father Connor as a middleman. Once Iris figured out the system, and settled the matter of how to reconcile the states of sin and grace, she was able to put the dilemma out of her mind, and enjoy all the good parts of going to church, like the quiet tones of voice, and the way the priest and congregation always knew whose turn it was to talk, without interrupting each other. Sometimes words were not even necessary: all it took was a nod of Father’s head, and the altar boys knew exactly what to do, just as parishioners knew when to stand, when to kneel, when to beat their chests, when to cross themselves. Iris took pleasure in reciting the responses and prayers she had memorized, and enjoyed the sound of hearing her own voice, as it chimed in chorus with the others, instead of being drowned out like at home. She decided she liked ceremony: Once you learned what to do, how to do it, when to do it, you would always fit in just fine.
[Iris and Lily 01.0 - 03.0] The Complete Series Page 8
