“Lucia!” Mama is more shocked at the way I’m speaking to my father than angry about what I am saying.
“And I don’t want to hear anything else against this man. I don’t care what he does for a living, I don’t care what kind of family he comes from, and I don’t care what you think of him. He’s mine, and I want him.”
Papa’s temper ignites. “You will not speak to me in—”
“Won’t speak to you how? Honestly, for once? And Mama, you were more than happy to pass me off to Claudia DeMartino as a scullery maid, so you aren’t blameless, either. You just want me married. It could be John Talbot or any man in a suit with the proper hat.”
“That is not true!” Mama says indignantly.
I take John’s hand and walk him to the door. Mama and Papa do not come after us. “Good night.” I kiss John briefly but tenderly on the lips. He seems confused. “I’ll handle this. Go.”
I go back into the living room. Mama has sunk into her chair, and Papa stands, looking down at the garden with his back to me. “You know something?” I say, talking to Papa’s back. “If one of your sons had come home with a girl tonight and she was wearing a new diamond ring, you never would have behaved toward her the way you did toward John. You ruined the most beautiful day of my life. Rot in hell.”
I take the stairs up to my room two at a time. I hear my father calling to me angrily from the bottom of the stairs. No matter how old I am, he still is the leader of this household and will not tolerate disrespect. But I can’t tolerate his disrespect of me, either. I get into my room and lock the door. I go to my vanity and turn on the small lamp and open the drawer. I remove my savings register from the Chase National Bank and remind myself that I have the means to live my life outside of this house. The long row of deposits written in blue ink soothes me. I’m an independent woman, I tell myself, and when I look in the mirror, I believe it.
Ruth and I take our bag lunches to the garden behind the library for a change of scenery and some much-needed fresh air. Helen took a personal day to rest her swollen feet. Violet spends all her lunches with Officer Cassidy at the White Tower on Thirty-first Street.
It’s a beautiful day, so we linger on the lawn after finishing our sandwiches. Ruth has her legs stretched out in front of her and is leaning back on her hands, her face turned up to the sun, eyes closed. “Your father still hasn’t spoken to you?” she asks.
“I haven’t spoken to him,” I tell her, running my hand over the few blades of grass that haven’t been matted down. “Mama is so angry that she won’t even look at me.”
“Do you want to fix it?”
“Either I fix it, or I don’t go to Italy.”
“You should go to Italy. Once you’re married, and I can tell you this from my own experience, a trip to Queens becomes a big deal in a household budget.”
“Really?” I want to tell Ruth that may be true of Harvey and her, but I’m marrying an up-and-coming businessman. I don’t think travel will be strictly luxury.
“Trust me. Here’s what you should do.” Ruth sits up straight and pulls her legs alongside her. “Call your priest. Set up a meeting. Bring your parents in and make peace.”
“Are you sure you’re not Italian?”
“When Harvey and I hit the wall with his mother about the wedding plans, she heard me call her a not so nice name to Harvey. She shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but the damage was done. So I had the rabbi come over and settle the dispute. Parents are impressed when you have the maturity to go to the clergy.”
“Ruth, how is it you always know what to do?”
“I just got to this marriage thing first. That’s all. How’s John handling everything?”
“He delayed his trip to Chicago for a week.”
“What’s he doing out there, anyway?”
I wish I could answer Ruth, but every time I ask John about the business in Chicago, he gets impatient and mumbles something about a potential partnership. There is evidently a wealthy man who wants to do a project with him, and John needs to go out and meet with him. I start to clean up the remnants of our lunch and answer, “Oh, you know, some deal is brewing.”
“Have you had the talk yet?” Ruth asks as she screws the tops back on our thermoses.
“What talk?”
“The money talk. About how much you have, and how much he has, and what you’re going to do with it.” We stand and begin to fold the cotton we brought to sit on.
“No!” I find Ruth’s suggestion tacky. There will be plenty of time to set budgets and talk about saving.
“You’d better talk to him now. You don’t want any surprises.”
“I could never bring up money with John!” He’s always flush with cash, he lives at one of the best hotels in the city, he bought me a stunning diamond and takes me to the nicest places. I can’t imagine haggling over every dollar the way I’ve seen my parents do, bills covering the kitchen table, negotiations taking place well into the night.
“What are you going to do when you’re married and you need something?”
“I suppose I’ll go and buy it, Ruth.”
“Nooo. You have to ask him if you can go and buy it.”
“But I have my own income!”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re a team, and one half of the team can’t be writing checks the other half has no knowledge of.” Ruth brings her end of the fabric up to mine, then gives the material a final fold. I don’t say anything more as we begin the walk back to Altman’s.
I know Ruth means well, but the rules for her marriage don’t apply to John and me. I may still have questions about his career, but he doesn’t like answering them, and as long as he’s happy, I’m happy. That’s all that matters.
“Promise me you’ll have the talk,” Ruth admonishes me as we turn down Fifth Avenue.
“I promise.” I don’t mean it. Ruth is my best friend, but she has her way of doing things, and I have mine.
Mama, Papa, and I kneel in our living room as Father Abruzzi says a blessing over our heads. We spent an hour and a half discussing our disagreement, and Father Abruzzi sorted it all out, with the conclusion that what’s done is done. I am engaged. My parents have to accept it, and I have to accept their concern. Father Abruzzi then calls John in from the street, where he has smoked his way through a pack of Camels. He seems relieved when Papa shakes his hand and Mama kisses him on both cheeks.
“Lucia, when you return from Italy, I want you and John to come for instructions. When you choose a date, we will print the banns of marriage,” Father Abruzzi tells me. Personally, I think our priest is obsessed with the banns of marriage. As far as I’m concerned, the only people who need to hear about my marriage are those I will invite to the ceremony. The banns of marriage open up my private life to the entire community of Italian nonnas, who will insist on making a homemade hope chest for me, crocheting everything from blankets to shoe bags to commode seat covers for my future home. All I have to do is give them a color scheme, and the needles will commence clicking from Carmine to King Street.
“We’ll be there, Father,” John promises. For a non-Italian, my fiancé learns quickly.
I thought the rest of July would drag without John in town, but between work and getting ready for the Italy trip, the time flew. On the morning of our departure, Roberto, Angelo, Orlando, and Exodus leave early to take the heaviest luggage to the airport. Papa is carrying the rest to a taxi waiting at the curb, while Rosemary and I finish getting ready and Mama takes care of the breakfast dishes.
“Lucia!” my father barks from the bottom of the stairs. “How many hatboxes do you need to take to Italy?”
“Three, Papa.”
“But you only have one head,” Papa says, holding all three boxes up in the air.
“And it needs to be covered in the hot Venetian sun. It wasn’t my idea to go in the hottest month of the year to a place warm enough to grow olives.” I skip down the stairs and kiss Papa’s cheek. “You want me to fry over the
re?”
“Take them,” Papa says, giving in.
Mama pokes her head out of the kitchen. “She can twist you like a mapeen,” she says, wringing out her dish towel.
“So can you,” Papa says.
Rosemary squeezes my hand as we drive through midtown to the Queensboro Bridge, heading to the new international airport. “Look at this as one long shopping trip for the wedding and your new home,” my sister-in-law says. “We’ll be back in no time.”
The first thing I did, at Mama’s insistence, was register for my gifts at B. Altman’s. She wants my home to be furnished with the finest of everything, from Irish linens for the bed and Egyptian cotton towels for the bath to English china and silver for the dining room. John hasn’t had a real home since he sold his family’s house on Long Island and put his mother in Creedmore. The Carlyle Hotel is elegant, but I know I can do better.
Mama and I plan to buy furniture and all the fabrics we need for draperies in Italy. I will buy as much Murano glass as I can ship. John has shown me the plans for the house in Huntington, and I want a dazzling multicolored chandelier like I saw in the Milbank mansion when Ruth and I went to give the matriarch a private fitting.
Delmarr’s gift is my wedding gown, so he will be sketching while I’m gone. The girls have agreed to help. Helen’s last day of work is the week I return. They are saving me a tremendous expense by making my gown, the attendants’, and Mama’s. That will be money I can save for furniture.
It’s hard to believe that I’ve saved $8,988.78 in the six years I’ve been working. I never went on vacations, other than the ones with my family, or splurged on jewelry or a car. I made most of my clothes, and the things I couldn’t make I bought at Altman’s sales with my employee discount. I knew that someday I’d need a nest egg. I plan to spend about a thousand dollars on furnishings in Italy, and I will keep five hundred dollars in the savings account as a little emergency fund. The rest I put into the down payment for the construction of our house in Huntington Bay. My share is a pittance compared to what John is spending, but I gave it to him gladly, knowing that I am half of this partnership. Besides, I got to choose all the tile work, help design the kitchen, and push for an enormous bay window that overlooks the ocean, so my investment is worth every penny.
When we disembark the airplane in Rome, Papa actually drops to his knees, kissing the earth.
“Your father, just like the pope.” Mama throws her hands up. Then she helps Papa stand. “You’ll ruin your pants,” she says, brushing him off.
Papa gathers us around and begins speaking to us in Italian, but he speaks so fast, we have a hard time understanding.
Orlando says, “Papa, please, we’re Americans. Give it to us slowly.”
Papa explains, more calmly this time, that we will take the train to Treviso and spend the night. “Then we will drive home. Home to Godega di Sant’Urbano.”
Delmarr told me that Rome is a lot like New York City, but I don’t see it. New York doesn’t have parks of ancient ruins or the Coliseum or three-hundred-year-old fountains like the one in the Piazza Navona. Yes, there are thousands of people and the same crazy traffic, but for me that’s where the similarities end.
I have no trouble with the flirtatious Italian men because I’m traveling with Papa and four brothers, who guard me like a Brinks truck delivery. When I meander a few feet from the family to look at shoes in a shop window, men seem to gather around like pigeons ready to peck a stale hunk of bagel. Then Papa joins me and gives them the eye, and they scatter instantly. I’m not the only one they’re after. Even Mama gets her share of whistles. And when a man made an advance toward delicate-looking Rosemary as we were boarding the train, she barked in her finest Brooklynese, “Buzz off, buster, before I belt ya!”
As the train takes us from Rome to Venice, my first sight of the Adriatic in Rimini makes my heart pound. The roads curl down to the ocean like ribbons, and the white sand is barely visible, every inch covered with people and umbrellas in bold stripes of orange and white and green and pink. The water meets the shore and ripples onto the sand, forming a glittery hem. The houses, painted coral and sky blue, are set into the hills like sequins on silk. The air, though hot, is breezy and clean, leaving an endnote of citrus from the blood oranges growing on the trellis of nearly every home we pass.
Living in the middle of a city, surrounded by bricks and pavement all my life, I never knew that the water would matter so much to me. As I look out over the Adriatic, I think of my home in Huntington. I wonder if John is pushing the workers, whether they have poured the concrete base for the subfloor or mounted the support beams for the walls. John has assured me it will be ready well before we move in on our wedding night.
As the train brakes slowly to a stop in Faenza, children run alongside the train, frantically collecting the coins passengers throw out the window. The war ended six years ago, but you can see that the Italians have not recovered. We look downright opulent in our simple cotton dresses and white gloves, while they, though neatly dressed, wear shoes that are tattered and clothes that are obviously hand-me-downs.
There’s a barefoot little girl in an undershirt and white pants, the cuffs rolled to her knees. Her skin is the tawny color of caramel, and her black hair and eyes shine in the sun. Rosemary puts her hand on the window and rests her face against it, studying the girl while the train waits to take on more passengers. I know she is thinking about her daughter, wondering what Maria Grace would be doing, sitting up, eating pastina, cutting her first tooth.
“The candy!” Rosemary sits up and grabs her purse from overhead. “I have a bag of candy! Lu, open the window.” I stand and unhook our window. As the train begins to pull out, Rosemary calls out, “Vieni qua! Vieni qua!” The children follow her voice and run to our window. Rosemary tosses handfuls of gold-foil hearts filled with hard cherry candy. They jump and catch them like falling stars. The little girl in the white pants reaches for the candy but misses it; another boy grabs the piece that landed closest to her and runs away. I call out to her, “Corri! Corri!” As she runs toward our window, Ro throws her the last piece of candy, and she catches it. We look back at her as the train pulls away, her cheeks round with candy as she smiles.
Treviso has always been Papa’s dream city, surrounded by a wall and a manmade moat that give it the look of an island. It is softly lit and gauzy; lacy willow trees surround deep canals filled with mossy rocks and gurgling water.
The homes that line the moat are made of brick that has faded to a pale gold sepia. The three-story houses have long windows with simple black shutters. Small footbridges span the moat. The feeling in Treviso is that everyone and everything is connected. There are no freestanding buildings; the city is a fortress.
The streets are cobblestone, but not the typical gray color we see on our Dutch settlement streets in Greenwich Village. These have a smoky blue-green patina that reminds me of turned copper, maybe from the moss that comes from being so near the water. The moss makes Treviso quiet, as though it is lushly carpeted.
When we arrive at the hotel, the manager greets us with such enthusiasm, I wonder if Papa is long-lost Italian royalty.
“Who is Lucia?” he asks, looking at Rosemary, Mama, and me.
“I am,” I say.
“You have a telegram, signorina.” With great flair, he gives me the yellow envelope.
HAVE A WONDERFUL TIME.
I WAIT. MISSING YOU.
LOVE, JOHN
“How romantic!” Rosemary says wistfully. My brothers laugh. “Oh, you’re a bunch of lugs,” she tells them.
The manager makes a fuss about giving us rooms with a view of the canal and recommends a nearby restaurant for supper. After we have a nice nap and get dressed for the evening, Papa leads us to the open-air market by the river and explains that at the end of the day, the vendors throw the unsold produce and fish into the curve of the river, and it is carried downstream. Very different from how things are in New York City: Papa spends
a fortune to have his garbage hauled from the Groceria by truck.
The maître d’ at Lavinia Stella, the best restaurant in Treviso, happens to be the brother of the manager at our hotel. It’s clear from our reception that he was expecting us.
“My sons,” Papa says once we have taken our seats, “you see how it is in the homeland? Everybody works together. I want you to take a lesson from this.”
“Pop, we already work together,” Roberto says.
“Yes, but you fight too much.” Papa holds out his arms, drawing attention to the mood in the dining room. “See, here you never hear fighting.”
I lean in and whisper, “That’s because they’re duking it out in the kitchen.”
Orlando hears this and laughs, but Papa means what he says. His greatest goals in life are to leave a good business to his sons and for his sons to get along. “Niente litigi!” he always says. “No fighting!”
Our meal begins with a delicate fish salad of sweet white bream and baby shrimp nestled in greens. Afterward, the waiter brings us orecchiette pasta in a rosy sauce made with basil, tomatoes, sweet cream, and butter. Then we have a platter of grilled lamb chops dusted in bread crumbs and olive oil. For dessert is a small custard for each of us, spilling over with caramel crust.
“If every meal is going to be this good, I’ll have to put elastic in the waist of all my skirts,” I tell Rosemary, crossing my hands over my stomach and leaning back in my chair.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Today we walked about five miles, on top of the train ride. That’s like walking from Commerce Street over the Brooklyn Bridge to my mother’s house.” Rosemary smiles and takes another spoonful of custard.