Mr. J’s Construction Company has really grown since Jack and his partners, Mousey and Rick, began their venture as general contractors. Now, with the help of some adjunct courses from Mountain Empire Community College, they have expanded their skills to include plumbing, tile work, and even some design. The Southwest Virginia Museum has hired them to refurbish all the mantelpieces in the building (a considerable amount of work, since there’s a fireplace in every room of the old mansion).
Etta works with Jack now, mostly after school and occasionally on weekends. As I pull the Jeep into the alley behind the museum, I see that the load of marble from Pete Rutledge has arrived. Glistening planks of sea-foam-green granite with black veins are stacked on the back of Jack’s truck.
I find Etta and Jack in the front parlor of the museum, a grand sun-washed room with many windows. It’s a construction site now, with tarps covering the hardwood floors and windowsills. Jack has removed the fireplace facade to reveal a chicken-wire web of plaster underneath. Etta is on the floor measuring small squares of shiny black marble, which will become the border of the mantel. “Well, look at Michelangelo and his daughter.”
“It’s more like Michelangela and her father,” Jack says as he takes a brush and applies a wet coating to the plaster. “Your daughter figured out how to make a border within a border so the design pops three-dimensionally.”
“Where did you learn that?” I ask Etta.
“In math class. I took the measurements and made a grid. It’s not that hard.” Etta continues placing the small squares in neat rows on butcher paper.
“Pete sent you a present.” Jack stirs the plaster.
“He did?”
“It’s on the table there.” Jack points with the brush.
There’s a small black velvet sack. I untie the drawstring and pour the contents into my hand. There are about ten deep blue lapis lazuli marbles the size of pearls. They are streaked with gold stripes that glisten in the sunlight.
“Cool,” Etta says from behind me. “That’s the same kind of marble he gave you when we were over in Italy. Remember, he gave you a square when we visited the quarry?”
“I don’t,” I lie. I don’t want Etta to think that was a day I remember in particular, though it was the day Pete Rutledge took us to the waterfall in the Alps and told me how he felt about me. I remember the steam of the hot springs, the way the smooth stones felt on my feet, and how I felt in his arms when he carried me in the water.
“Ma, you put the marble on Joe’s grave at the cemetery when we got home.” Etta’s voice brings me back to the present.
“Oh yeah. Right. Right.”
“It’s still there. God. Don’t you remember anything?” Etta asks impatiently.
“I guess not,” I lie. The truth is, I remember everything in vivid detail, but that isn’t something I want Etta or my husband to know. Like every woman, I have secrets, moments really, that are just for me. It’s a way for me to stay a whole and private person while being a part of my family. I may seem to my daughter like a practical woman, but I am every bit the dreamer that she is; someday I hope to share that side of myself with her. But for now I’m a leader in her life, and boundaries are crucial.
Stefano Grassi’s much anticipated arrival date is finally here. My daughter is never on time, but today she corralled us to leave early for the airport. Etta has done a three-month countdown to this big day. I hope Stefano is as nice as I remember him to be. Otherwise, we’re going to have one long summer in Cracker’s Neck Holler.
“How will we know him?” Jack asks me as we stand near the gate at Tri-Cities Airport.
“He’ll look foreign. And probably like the picture Papa sent.” I fan myself with an old program from the Barter Theatre that I found in the bottom of my good purse. It’s only June, and already we’re hitting the nineties.
“I’ll know him,” Etta says impatiently, keeping her eyes on the gate. She looks stylish in her new jeans, white cotton blouse, and clear lip gloss. (I drew the line: no eye makeup till she’s fifteen.) “There he is!” Etta points.
No one is more shocked than me when a very tall and handsome Stefano Grassi sees us and separates from the crowd of passengers to join us.
“Mrs. MacChesney?” Stefano says politely.
“It’s good to see you again. Please call me Ave Maria.”
“And I’m Jack Mac.” My husband extends his hand, and Stefano shakes it heartily.
“My God. You grew up!” I blurt. And he did, he’s a man now. He still has the same curly blond hair and mischievous brown eyes and prominent nose, but the small orphan boy I remember is now six feet tall and obviously shaves on a daily basis. You wouldn’t call him classically handsome, but there is an appealing Henry David Thoreau quality to him; he looks like he belongs in another century, in a cabin with his sleeves rolled up, writing serious poetry about the woods.
“Do you remember my daughter?” I ask him.
“How could I forget Etta?”
Etta beams, and if she were on a runway, that smile would win her the Miss America crown. “Hi, Stefano.”
“Did you put some Coca-Cola in the refrigerator for me?”
She nods. “And Mountain Dew.”
As we drive back to Big Stone Gap, Stefano is full of questions and looks out the window often, drinking in the mountain vista. He and Jack have a long conversation about surveying and construction. Etta and I sit in the back of the Jeep. My daughter leans forward, listening intently to their conversation.
The sound of Stefano’s accent brings Italy back to me, and suddenly I am homesick for Schilpario and Bergamo and my people. I understand what Etta means when she complains that she doesn’t have any kin here. There are times when nothing can replace the extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins rounding out life and making it full. Today the sound of Stefano’s voice will have to do. Etta and I promised to speak Italian with him all summer. I grew up speaking Italian with my mother as much as English, and I taught Etta when she was a little girl. We use it occasionally, most often when we’re in public, like a secret language. It will be nice to hear it spoken with a genuine native accent every day. I’m sure that will shrink the distance between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Italian Alps considerably.
“You didn’t tell us Stefano was hot,” Iva Lou says as she dips her spoon into one of Fleeta’s sundaes. “That’s one good-lookin’ man. He’s got every single girl in town in an uproar. The women around here are more excited than they were when Tommy Lee Jones came through to make Coal Miner’s Daughter.” Iva Lou has rebounded beautifully from her surgery last fall, and evidently so have her hormones.
“It’s the accent,” Fleeta says, rinsing utensils behind the Soda Fountain. “Women love an accent. Especially Eye-talian accents. Makes ’em believe whatever the man is saying is true.”
“Serena Mumpower is all over him. Ole Stefano came down to the li-berry to check out some books, and she followed him around through the stacks like a hungry kitten. I didn’t discourage her from helping him, though. It’s the first time that girl left the desk and did any work.”
“That one will go for anything in pants.” Fleeta sniffs.
“Serena’s got appeal, I’m here to tell you,” Iva Lou says, defending her assistant. “She’s got movie-star looks. She resembles the young Natalie Wood, if Natalie Wood had a bigger nose.”
“Has he brought any girls ’round yer house?” Fleeta wants to know of me.
“No. If he’s entertaining girls, it’s elsewhere.”
“Where’d you put him?”
“Downstairs in our old bedroom. Jack and I moved upstairs into Joe’s old room. It’s nice.” I don’t elaborate on the reason for this switch—I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a thirteen-year-old girl on a separate floor with a male guest.
“I couldn’t stand a boarder. When I git home of a night, I like to peel down to my underwear and walk around. I couldn’t stand having a stranger mess up my schedule.??
? Fleeta sits down next to us.
“What do you do with Otto?” Iva Lou wonders aloud.
“He ain’t a stranger.” Fleeta shrugs.
“Stefano isn’t either,” I tell them. “He’s like family. He’s no trouble at all. And he talks about Italy a lot, and I like that. Jack says Stefano is a great worker and very ambitious.”
“You Eye-talians are good workers in general,” Fleeta comments. “Not as good as them Greeks, but close.”
“Thank you.” Over the years, I have grown used to Fleeta’s bizarre compliments (I’m not going to point out that she’s probably never actually met a Greek person).
“So having Stefano around is like giving Etta an older brother,” Iva Lou observes.
“Exactly,” I tell her. I don’t want to betray Etta’s confidence. Besides, it sounds like every girl in Wise County has a crush on Stefano Grassi.
I get stuck at work with a pharmaceutical salesman out of Middlesboro who talks my ear off, so I wind up buying two extra cases of antihistamines (that’s okay; it’s been a terrible pollen season!). It’s pitch-black as I head for home. From the lower holler road, I see that Jack has lit the mosquito torches around the house. When I pull up to park, I hear Etta’s voice in the backyard, so instead of going inside the house, I follow the sound to her. She has set up her telescope and is showing Stefano the night sky. Jack is cooking hamburgers on the grill; the smell of onions and peppers simmering in a small cast-iron skillet makes my mouth water.
“That’s Aldebaran,” Etta tells our guest as he looks through the telescope. “It’s the brightest star in the sky right now.”
“Yes, it is. It sparkles,” Stefano tells her as he continues to look.
“The best place to observe it this month is Schilpario, well, really any location in the Dolomites and the Italian Alps. The combination of perfect weather and position is rare.”
“You’re such an expert!” I say proudly.
“Hi, Ma.” Etta looks up at me and smiles. “Come and look.”
Stefano steps aside. I peer into the lens, and what I see is astonishing. The summer sky is a rich black punctuated by small silver stars that shimmer so, they seem to overlap like pavé diamonds.
“Do you see Aldebaran?” Etta asks.
One star glitters like the surface of water in sunlight. It is round and faceted, larger than the other stars, and a deep turquoise at its core. Maybe the blue is an illusion, but it gives a rich center to the dazzling white around it, burning hot around the edges. “I see it, honey.”
“You almost can’t describe it, right?” Etta asks me.
“It’s true. It would be impossible to describe something so beautiful.”
Jack comes up behind me and puts his arms around me. He looks into the telescope and is as mesmerized as I am.
“Dad, the burgers!” Etta cries.
Jack bolts back to the grill and flips the hamburgers before they burn. Stefano and Etta go into the house for the plates, utensils, salad, and drinks. I sit down at our old picnic table and put my feet up on the bench. I feel the workday, too long and too hot, settle down to my bones.
“How’s work?” I ask Jack.
“Stefano is a big help.” Jack nods toward the house.
“I’m glad.”
“He just fits in. I don’t know how else to explain it. All the guys like him. Even the lunch crowd at Bessie’s loves him. He’s great with Etta. It’s like he’s part of the family.”
Etta and Stefano throw a red-and-white-checked tablecloth onto the picnic table while I set the places for dinner. Jack joins us with a platter of burgers, the skillet, and roasted corn on the cob, which he wrapped in foil and grilled. “Smells delicious,” I tell him.
“Mrs. Mac, could I ask a favor?” Stefano says. “Could I borrow your Jeep Friday night?”
“Sure.”
“Are you going on a date?” Etta teases him.
“A gentleman never tells,” Stefano says, sounding a lot like Mario da Schilpario with that accent.
“You’re going out on a date,” Etta says definitively. “It’s Saturday night in Big Stone Gap. What else is there to do?” She acts like she doesn’t care. My girl is becoming a woman.
“Who’s the lucky girl?” Jack joins in the fun.
“Serena Mumpower.”
Jack, Etta, and I laugh.
Stefano looks worried. “Is there something wrong with her?”
“Nothing at all,” I tell him. “In fact, Iva Lou said that Serena likes you a lot.”
“I know. She told me herself. American girls are bold.”
“Yes sir, they are,” Jack agrees. “Gettin’ bolder all the time.”
“How do you know?” I ask my husband.
“I observe from afar, honey.” He winks at me.
“Why shouldn’t a girl be bold? I would ask a boy out if I was allowed to date.” Etta takes a bite of her hamburger.
“You would? Really?” I ask.
“Why not? It’s not like when you and Dad were young and boys did all the asking. That’s crazy.”
Jack and I look at each other. Etta continues, “If girls can ask boys out, then it’s more equal. Then boys do more stuff that girls usually do—like cooking.”
“Hey, there,” Jack says, feigning defensiveness.
“Or taking care of kids, or household chores like laundry,” Etta says.
“Etta. Are you a feminist?” I tease.
“I didn’t know there was a word for common sense,” she fires back as she pours the iced tea.
“I agree with Etta. All people should take care of themselves, regardless of sex,” Stefano announces. “I worked in the laundry at the orphanage. I was very good at it. The hard part was ironing the altar linens for church.”
“What was the orphanage like?” I ask him, moving the conversation away from men and women.
“It was fine.”
“Fine? They’re usually terrible. I think of Oliver Twist.”
Stefano laughs. “No, though I’m sure that there are many bad places. I was lucky. We lived in a converted monastery in Bergamo. It was a small group of us, boys only, and we were cared for by the nuns. They tried to be second mothers to us.”
“You seemed to have a lot of access to the town.”
“The nuns encouraged that. They wanted us to feel like part of a family. I was very lucky to have the Vilminores. They took care of me on holidays. Meals on the weekends. Once a year your uncle took me to buy shoes before school started. Your aunts bought me schoolbooks and haircuts.”
“Do you know what happened to your parents?” Etta asks Stefano.
“I only know they both died when I was small.”
“That’s terrible,” Etta says softly.
“But I didn’t feel alone. All the boys were just like me.” Stefano smiles.
As we eat our dinner, Jack steers the conversation to construction. Soon the three of them are laughing. I look at Stefano in a new way, thinking about the life he’s had. I wonder if there is anyone in the world who isn’t broken in some way, who isn’t full of questions about the past, who hasn’t wondered “what if” in the face of loss. Can a person who has lost his parents so young ever heal? Stefano seems to possess all the good qualities of a stable childhood, but can he be whole? Or is he complete in a different way, a way he earned on his own?
The best part about loaning my Jeep to Stefano on the weekends is that it comes back sparkling clean with extras like the engine tuned and the tires rotated. The perfect houseguest and the perfect contractor’s apprentice has also turned out to be the perfect mechanic. Everybody’s happy.
“Where are my girls?” Jack says from the bottom of the steps. It is the hottest night of the summer, and Etta and I are upstairs rearranging the furniture in her room (she’s bored with the setup).
“Why do you want to know?” I yell back.
“Let’s go sailing!”
Jack’s idea of sailing is borrowing a pair of old canoes from Otto
and Worley and heading up to Big Cherry Lake. As Etta and I pile into Jack’s truck with the canoes in the back, Stefano pulls up in my Jeep.
“Don’t you have a date?” Jack asks Stefano.
“She stood me up.” Stefano shrugs.
“You’re welcome to come with us,” I tell him. He smiles and jumps in the back of the truck.
Big Cherry Lake is most beautiful in the summer, its dark blue water surrounded by trees so lush, they look like draperies of deep green. “What do you think?” Etta asks Stefano as he surveys the lake.
“It should be called Big Blue Lake,” Stefano replies.
“No, it’s Big Cherry because of the cherry trees. See them?” Etta points across the water to a grove of cherry trees surrounded by pine trees so tall that they could touch the windows of the penthouse in Theodore’s apartment building.
“It’s a small lake.” Why am I apologizing for our lake?
“Ave, don’t put our lake down,” my husband teases me.
“Stefano’s from the Italian Alps. Near Lake Como and Lake Garda. He knows big lakes. Historic lakes, world-famous lakes.”
“But this is just as beautiful,” Stefano says.
“Thank you,” Jack and Etta say in unison, looking at me.
“Mama thinks everything in Italy is better than in America.”
“Except the husbands.” I put my arm around Jack.
“Too late for the suck-up. You’re gonna row anyhow.” He hands me an oar.