Lucia, Lucia

  “Roberto. Your mouth,” my father says.

  “Papa. What is Roberto talking about?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.” My mother pushes her plate away and leans back in her chair.

  Exodus rests his elbows on the table. “Is there a curse on our baby sister? Is it Venetian like Pop, or Barese like Mama?”

  “The Barese one would involve some sort of gunplay,” Orlando says. Again my brothers laugh.

  I look at Papa. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wouldn’t let him!” Mama interjects. “Sometimes knowing something like that makes it come true.”

  “That’s better than keeping secrets,” I say.

  “Not necessarily. Secrets do a great deal of good. You take my aunt Nicolette. One of her legs was shorter than the other. There was no need to tell her fiancé before they married. He may have run off. Instead, they were married fifty-seven years.”

  “Well, Ma, I’m different. I want to know everything.”

  “What difference does it make? A curse is a curse.” Mama takes a sip of Papa’s wine.

  “It’s Venetian,” Papa begins. “Long ago, in Godega di Sant’Urbano, on the farm fields above Treviso and Venice, my brother, Enzo, and I were young men, around twenty. And we were farmers. Godega is a fertile valley beneath the Dolomites; you could grow anything there in the spring and summer. But we had a bigger dream. When we would harvest the corn and bring it to market in Treviso, we admired the elegant mercato that we saw there. It was a full city block, open, with vendors selling fruit, vegetables, fish, anything. So we saved our money, what little we had, and we came to America in 1907. We wanted to build our own market, exactly like the one we saw in Treviso. Enzo and I were a team. When we got here, the shops were called grocery stores, so we made the English sound Italian and called our place Groceria. Soon after, I met your mother at the home of my cousin. And Enzo met a girl named Caterina in Little Italy.”

  “Papa, we know about your brother.” I don’t want to listen to Papa’s stories about the old country. “We know you don’t speak to him. We know he’s a farmer in Pennsylvania, and we’ve never seen him or met our cousins because you’re still angry with each other. What does this have to do with a curse?”

  “Mama and your aunt—”

  Mama raises her voice. “Don’t call her ‘aunt.’ She is not worthy of any title of affection.”

  “Mama and Caterina did not get along.”

  “Pop, that’s an understatement. I remember screaming fights,” Roberto adds.

  Papa continues, “It was very bad. It caused a rift between Enzo and me, one that we could not repair. So we decided that we must end the partnership. We would flip a coin, and the winner would buy out the loser. The winner would keep the Groceria and this building, and the loser would take his money and move out of New York.”

  Angelo clucks. “We could have been a bunch of hilljacks in Pennsylvania.”

  “There’s a lot of dignity in farming,” Exodus corrects him.

  “The day of the coin toss came, and your mother was expecting Lucia. This was the summer of 1925. When Enzo lost the coin toss, he wept. Caterina became so enraged that she began to shout. That’s when she placed the curse on you.” Papa turns to me.

  “I don’t believe in curses. That’s Italian voodoo,” I tell him.

  “What kind of curse, Pop?” Angelo asks.

  “She said that Lucia would die of a broken heart.”

  “I hate that woman,” Mama mumbles.

  “So you actually believe that my broken engagement is the result of that curse?”

  “It looks that way,” Roberto says.

  “Hold on! I ended my engagement. Nobody made me do it. No witch came to the door with a rotten apple, no strange bird sat in the window, and I’ve never walked under a ladder, so let’s forget about this curse. It’s irrelevant.” I wave my hand, dismissing the hocus-pocus.

  “You do seem to have some bad luck with boys,” Orlando says tenderly. “There was the Montini guy. Didn’t he go home to Jersey when you turned him away, and threaten to drive his car into the ocean?”

  “That wasn’t my fault. He was nutty,” I say defensively.

  “And what ever happened to Roman Talfacci?” Orlando asks.

  “I beat him up. He said something untoward about Lucia, so that one was my fault,” Exodus explains.

  We sit in silence for a few moments. No one knows what to say. Mama’s hair has come undone, and strands of white hang down around her face like strings. Papa swishes the last swallow of the wine in his glass over and over again, as if he’s looking for an answer inside the faceted crystal. My brothers lean back in their chairs. Maybe they believe the curse, too. Maybe they’re wondering how they’ll protect me in a world of spells and spirits.

  The phone rings. Roberto excuses himself to answer it.

  “It’s DeMartino for you,” he tells me from the doorway.

  My mother looks at me pleadingly. “Talk to him. He’s such a nice boy.”

  I go into the kitchen and take the phone from Roberto. “Dante.”

  “I got the ring back from Papa,” Dante says.

  I don’t say anything.

  “Lucia, I still want to marry you. Mama is all mouth. She doesn’t mean half of what she says.”

  I still don’t say anything.

  “Lucia, what’s going on? Have you met someone else?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that.” Although that’s not exactly true. I did meet someone new: Dante DeMartino, the good son, so good he is weak, a man whose happiness comes from pleasing his parents.

  “I’ve waited a long time for you, Lucia,” he says softly.

  “I know.” I’m very aware of how long I have made him wait. Sometimes I’ve felt guilty, but then I remember that complete surrender is for wives, not for betrothed career girls.

  “I want to get married. Don’t you feel it’s time?” Dante says.

  How can I tell him that when I’m at work, time seems unimportant, that I see my life ahead of me, full of exciting things to learn, and a world where the creative possibilities are endless? He wouldn’t understand. I remember his face when I told him about my raise. He was pleased for me, but he wasn’t proud.

  “I’m sorry, Dante.”

  Dante sighs as though he is going to respond, but he doesn’t. He says good night and hangs up. We’ve gone together for a long time, and usually our spats are over quickly. But somehow, this argument feels like the end of us. I wipe my forehead with the dish towel and go back into the dining room, where my father and mother wait at the table. My brothers have left.

  “Lucia, what did you say to him?” My mother looks at me hopefully.

  “I can’t go through with it.”

  Mama exhales and looks at Papa with a disappointment I have not seen before. In her eyes, I have failed. I chose a good man from a fine family, and I’ve ruined it. How can I tell her that love should inspire me, not drain me? How can I tell her that I cannot, no matter how much I love Dante, marry him and live in his family home, where I know I’m not valued beyond the chores I do and the meals I prepare? This is my mother’s life, and to say those things would only hurt her. The idea that I have caused unhappiness to so many people in one evening upsets me, and I begin to cry. Instead of making a scene, I climb the stairs two at a time.

  When I get to my room, the collar on the dress Mrs. DeMartino gave me feels like it’s choking me. I yank it open, tear the buttons all the way down the bodice, and step out of the dress. I pull on my bathrobe, lie down on my bed, and look up through the skylight at the moon hanging overhead like a silver charm, far away with barely a glint of light coming off its surface. Here in my attic room, high off the ground, I am Rapunzel, though I know I am no princess. I sent the prince away, even though I believe that I will not love any man more than I love Dante. I simply don’t love him enough. I reach for the phone and call Ruth. The phone rings and rings. I hang up when I remember that she’s
out with Harvey and her in-laws. I hope she’s having a better evening than I did.

  “I’m tired,” I call out when I hear a knock at the door.

  “It’s Papa.”

  He comes in and sits down on the stool of my vanity, as he has done so many times when I’ve been hurt or disappointed or I’ve let someone down. No matter what happens to me, my father always knows what to say.

  “Your mother is worried,” he begins.

  “I’m sorry, Pop.”

  “I am not worried.”

  Hearing this gives me hope. “You’re not?”

  “No. You know what you’re doing. Why should you marry when you aren’t ready? What good would come of that? I don’t believe in the old ways when it comes to marriage. When I was a boy, our wives were chosen for us long before we even knew what a wife was. I was engaged to a girl in Godega. I knew I didn’t want her, but my father insisted.”

  I sit up. “I thought you came here to start the market. But you were running away, too?”

  “I was.”

  “So you do understand!”

  “Your mother thinks I’ve put crazy ideas into your head. She thinks you’re too independent. But I wish for you the same things I wish for my sons: to work hard and to live a good life. I hope you will always be independent. That means you will always be able to take care of yourself.”

  “Mama is old-fashioned.”

  “Her way works for her. It doesn’t work for you. I tried to explain that to her, but she doesn’t want to hear it. She believes a mother and daughter should be the same.”

  “But we’re not the same, Pop. I can’t get along with Mrs. DeMartino just because I’m supposed to. I don’t feel any duty toward her! How dare she tell me that I must quit my job as though it’s her decision to make. If she decides that, what else will she say and do? I’d be miserable on First Avenue with her. I want so much more. I have so many goals.”

  “But you’re a woman, Lucia. Listen to me. A woman is not like a man. She doesn’t get to choose. She follows her heart, and that’s what makes the map of her life. You love to work, and that’s good. But to be a good wife and mother, that’s a decision of the heart. If you don’t feel it, you must not do it. You will be unhappy, and your children will be worse. The unhappy man finds compensation outside the home. He works, he lives in the world, he can find joy outside of himself. But a woman builds the home, and if she is unhappy there, she suffers, and her children suffer. Your mother wanted a big family. She had a picture of this house, her kitchen, her children, long before she met me. She knew, you see. She was happy each time she found out she was having a baby. She wanted twelve! I told her five was plenty. It was in her to be a mother, like it is in you to work. You’re a happy girl because you have a happy mother, a mother who wants to be a mother. And I’m a happy husband because she’s a good wife. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I do, Papa.”

  “Now, someday you may meet a man who you will give up everything for. And when that happens, you will want to make a home for him. When that man comes along, you will know it. It isn’t Dante, because you didn’t want to sacrifice everything for him.”

  “I know, Papa. I didn’t.”

  “And . . .”

  “And what?”

  “And his mother, Claudia, is a strega.” Papa says this so nonchalantly, I can’t help but laugh.

  “You’re right, she is a witch. But I could have handled her.”

  “You say that, but I doubt it. I don’t think a lion tamer for the Ringling Brothers could control that woman.”

  “I know one thing: if I ever find a man who wants me to be happy as much as you do, it will be a miracle,” I say.

  “Maybe I’m not the best judge of what you should do. You know, an artist should never stand too close to the canvas while he paints, because when he does, he cannot see what he is doing. The same is true of a father. I am too close to you to truly understand what you are. If it were up to me, I would have you stay here with me and Mama forever. But I know that’s selfish. You deserve your own life, Lucia.”

  Papa goes to the door and turns to face me. “Career girls.” He closes the door behind him.

  I look down at my hand where the white diamond nestled in gold used to rest on my finger. How plain my hand looks without it! These are the hands of a seamstress, not a wife, I think as I study them. Maybe there are times when the curse lands on the right girl.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The sun is so bright in the Hub, Ruth has thrown clean muslin over the hot-pink bouclé suit she’s finishing. “Nothing worse than ordering a bright pink suit and winding up with faded Pepto-Bismol,” she tells me.

  “Should I close the shades?”

  “No, no, I’m almost done. If you need refuge, Delmarr has his shades down.”

  I haven’t seen much of Delmarr this morning, so I knock on his office door. He doesn’t answer, but I know he’s in there. I can smell the cigarette smoke through the transom. I knock again.

  “Go away,” he says.

  I push the door open. “Are you all right?”

  Delmarr sits back in his chair with his feet propped up on the windowsill, staring out at Fifth Avenue. “I’ve been shafted again.”

  “What happened?”

  “I brought the red gown to Hilda, she met with the McGuire Sisters, they flipped for the dress, ordered three in red and three more in emerald green.”

  “But that’s great news!”

  “For Hilda Cramer, the name on the label. For me? I get so little credit for designing the gown, I might as well be the bonded messenger who delivered the thing.”

  “Someday you’ll have your own label.” I take a seat opposite Delmarr.

  “Not if I stay here.”

  Delmarr is right. In this business, the designer who does the work never gets the credit. Delmarr takes his orders from Hilda Cramer and follows through with her wishes.

  Hilda Cramer looks exactly as I imagine the head of design for a major department store should look. She must be close to sixty years old, and she is long and thin, like a dress model, which she once was. She never made the leap to magazine work because she didn’t have the face for photographs. Hilda has a high forehead, a long nose, and thin lips. She wears her hair in a short black bob, streaked with white. Hilda possesses confidence and an aristocratic air that makes her a good front woman for the Custom Department. She fancies herself a Pauline Trigere or a Hattie Carmichael or a Nettie Rosenstein, a designer of refined elegance and Fifth Avenue style, but we all know that Hilda hasn’t picked up a sewing needle since the Great Depression. She’s a figurehead, and short of having her likeness on the coin of a B. Altman charm bracelet, she rules us like the empress she is. And we obey. We know the rules: this is fashion, so it’s about the dress and the name on the label, not the great mind who created it or the team who assembled it.

  “She’s old, Delmarr.”

  “Not old enough. I’m looking at twenty more years of indentured servitude with good pay. She’ll never retire.”

  “Did she thank you, at least?”

  “You know how her eyes bug out of her head when she’s pleased? Well, her eyes bugged. Then she grabbed the gown out of my hands and said, ‘I’m late.’ Then she was gone, and someone from retail placed the rest of the order.”

  Delmarr swings his legs off the windowsill and swivels around in his chair. “No matter how hard I try, and what inroads I make, I cannot get to the top. It’s a conundrum. How does talent climb to the top? How did Hilda do it?”

  “By sheer ambition.”

  “Not enough. She figured out how to make the big cheeses around here believe she knew something. Or everything. How do you do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And that’s why I’ve got the phony title of chief designer when in fact all I am is Hilda Cramer’s valet. A talented valet, but still a servant.”

  “I think you should talk to her.”

 
“And say what? ‘Out of my way, old bag’?”

  “No, you should tell Hilda that you want to start meeting with clients to get their input, since you’re making the adjustments and modifications—” I stop talking because Delmarr’s face has turned as white as the bolt of cotton pique propped behind his desk.

  “Really, Miss Sartori?” Hilda Cramer’s deep voice says from the doorway. “Now a sewing-machine operator is weighing in on how I should run my department? Please!” Miss Cramer holds a pair of red beaded shoes. For a moment I am shocked that she remembers my name, but I feel as though I might throw up, so I grip my stomach with my hand. I look at Delmarr, who is standing but has closed his eyes. “Out, Sartori,” Hilda orders. Then she turns toward Delmarr. “I want to speak to you.”

  I scurry out of the office and back to my desk. Ruth pulls me behind the changing screen. “It was too late to warn you when I saw her coming. She moves like a python! What did she say? Did you see that suit? It’s a Schiaparelli.”

  I can’t believe Ruth is thinking about fashion at a moment like this. “She’s going to fire Delmarr,” I whisper. “And then me.”

  “No, she won’t. Who will do all the work? Do you know how hard it is to find talented people? She’s not a fool. She knows we’d pick up our pincushions and head over to Bonwit’s before she could say ‘whipstitch.’ ”

  “Sartori. Kaspian. I need to see you,” Delmarr announces from his office. Hilda Cramer pushes past him and goes out through the Hub’s double doors.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell Delmarr. “Did she hear me?”

  “Only the last part.”

  “I’m fired, aren’t I?” The thought of losing my job is like death to me.

  “No, you’re okay. For Godsakes, when you smell Je Reviens, she’s in the area, so put a lid on it.”

  “So what did she say?” Ruth asks.

  “Well, we have to make the gowns for the McGuire Sisters. And then . . . we have to build twenty-seven nuns’ habits for the novitiates at Sacred Heart in the Bronx.”

  “No!” Ruth flings herself against the wall melodramatically. “She’s trying to torture us.”