Lucia, Lucia

  “That’s right. Worsted black wool and white linen.”

  “She overheard me, and she’s punishing us,” I say wearily.

  “No,” Delmarr says, sounding more exhausted than consoling. “Remember, this land is leased to Altman’s by the Holy Roman Church, and the least we can do is keep their devoted nuns in costume.”

  “But she jobbed them out last year.” I look at Ruth. “This is all my fault. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s much better than that,” Delmarr says. “It’s my fault. The McGuire Sisters know the truth.”

  “They know you designed the gowns?” I am flabbergasted. No wonder Hilda looked mad enough to rip wool with her bare hands. “Who told them?”

  “I was at El Morocco for cocktails after work, and I had the sketch of the gown in my portfolio. I was sitting at the bar, and a cute dish who was there with a couple of friends asked what I did for a living, so I showed her the sketch. Well, the dish turns out to be the hairdresser for Phyllis McGuire. She told Phyllis all about me, so when Hilda walked in for her consultation, Phyllis said, ‘I want to see Delmarr’s gown.’ ”

  Ruth and I look at each other and squeal. What a coup! What luck that Phyllis McGuire remembered Delmarr’s name and repeated it to Hilda.

  “Ladies! Please,” Delmarr says, though he can’t help smiling. “So the nuns’ habits are Hilda’s little way of keeping me in my place.”

  Ruth and I go back to our desks. I look at her and know that she is thinking what I’m thinking: Hilda Cramer won’t be able to keep Delmarr in his place for long, no matter how many nuns in the Bronx need new habits.

  The first rule of life in a large family is that someone is always in the hot seat, but the turnover is frequent, so no one ever stays in trouble for too long. When I broke off my engagement, Mama didn’t speak to me for a while, but eventually she warmed up, and now things seem almost back to normal. It helps that the ladies at our church are offering their sons as potential suitors, as if they’re sweaters and all I have to do is choose the best cashmere. Mama is anxious for me to find a worthy husband, and when I hear her weeping in the kitchen, I worry that her tears are for me.

  “Mama, what’s wrong?” I ask, putting my arms around her.

  She cracks an egg into a bowl with ricotta cheese and adds a pinch of salt. “I’m a terrible mother.” She motions for me to add the flour slowly as she beats the mixture with a fork, forming a dough to make pasta.

  “Why do you say that? It’s not true.” I take the bowl from Mama and finish folding the rest of the flour into the dough. She sprinkles flour across the pastry board on the kitchen table and then throws the dough onto the board with a thud.

  “It is true. Your brother Roberto is getting married.” Mama kneads the dough, adding handfuls of flour to thicken it.

  “What?” Roberto has not brought a girl home for Sunday dinner or announced that he was attending another family’s Sunday dinner or made mention of any serious girlfriend. “Mama, are you sure about this?”

  “Yes. Tomorrow. At Our Lady of Pompeii. In the back.” Mama shudders. “In the sacristy.” She rolls the dough into a large circle, then takes a paring knife and cuts it into long strips.

  “Oh my God! You’re serious.” I sit down. Mama does not have to explain what this means. As they say in the movies, this is a shotgun wedding. A girl does not get the ceremony at the big altar in Our Lady of Pompeii unless she’s earned it. “To whom?”

  “Rosemary Lancelatti.” Mama cuts the strips of dough into small rectangles.

  “Who is she?”

  “The girl carrying his child. He told your father and me this morning. We’re supposed to shut up and accept it.” Mama takes two fingers and begins rolling the small rectangles one at a time into tiny tubes. She flicks the finished cavatelli into a pile. I roll the pasta with her. We have spent so many afternoons like this, the two of us, making macaroni. There’s something soothing about mixing the dough, rolling it out, and pressing it into shapes. “I don’t know, Lucia. I just don’t know.”

  A hundred things go through my mind at once. This is a fine way for the eldest son of the Sartori clan to start his family. What a bad example he sets for his brothers, though they are far from boys. They are men, but they act like teenagers. Not one of them has settled down. Why should they? They work at the market, eat their meals at home, have their laundry done by their sister, come and go as they please, and stay out late without question. Mama takes care of them with the same zeal she did when they were children: she cooks and cleans and makes sure everyone goes to Mass each Sunday. Yet the boys have their freedom; most of their dalliances are never discussed, never mentioned. Occasionally I’d walk in on them talking about a date, but they would clam up when they saw me. Now I wish Roberto had said something. Maybe we could have avoided this. This is awful. It’s 1950. Girls know better, at least the girls I know.

  “She trapped him,” my mother says, reading my thoughts.

  “Oh, Mama, maybe not. Maybe it was a onetime—”

  My mother bangs the bowl on the table. “Your brother is weak. How many times have I told him to be careful? The world is full of girls who are looking for a home like ours.”

  “Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Why? We know what kind of girl she is, Lucia.”

  “Sometimes things happen out of order.” I wish I could explain the world outside 45 Commerce Street, where there are all sorts of new rules and customs, where sophisticated people make their own decisions about their lives without checking with the parish priest, but that’s a discussion I will never have with Mama.

  “Out of order! What do you mean? Your brother knows better. Carrying on like that without being married is a sin! I better never catch you—”

  “Don’t worry, Mama.”

  But she is too angry to listen. “I am so ashamed. I was so proud of Roberto! The first Sartori to serve his country. He was such a fine example, Orlando and Angelo followed him into the service. Even Exodus signed up when he was old enough, because he wanted to be just like Roberto. Your brother has ruined everything we built.”

  “Mama, we aren’t ruined. Roberto is going to marry her.”

  My mother doesn’t listen; she cannot hear me as she stays focused in her tirade. “I worked so hard to teach my children to be decent, to have morals, to have standards, to be responsible and . . . aware. Stay awake, I told your brothers. Check the girl’s background. What are her parents like? Where are they from? Be careful, Sicilians are different, I said. And what does he do? He finds a Sicilian and makes a baby!”

  “I’m sure he didn’t intend to do anything to us, Mama.” I make myself useful, transferring the cavatelli from the board to a tray lined with waxed paper.

  “It’s too late!” she cries. “The story is all over Brooklyn already. Everyone knows you can’t keep bad news secret. It’s like trying to hide a dead body!”

  “Mama, we’ll get through this.”

  “No, no, never. Where do you go to win back your good reputation, Lucia? I’ll tell you, nowhere. It is gone forever.” Mama pulls open the utensil drawer and removes all the spoons, wooden, stainless, and slotted, then rearranges them.

  “What did Papa say?” I ask.

  “He cried.” Mama shakes her head. “Roberto broke your papa’s heart. He will never get over it.”

  “Is she nice, at least?” I ask. I correct myself. “ ‘Nice’ is the wrong word. Is she a good woman?”

  “How could she be a good woman?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’s a nice girl who made a mistake.”

  “Impossible! You think before you do these things!” Mama slams the utensil drawer shut and sits down at the table.

  “Are they going to live here?” I ask.

  “Where else?”

  The last time the Sartori family processed to Our Lady of Pompeii Church on foot, with Mama in tears, was when our grandmother Angela Sartori died. We seem to have the same grim
gait on Roberto’s wedding day as we did the day we put Nonna in the ground. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. This kind of wedding gets the least desirable time slot. Mama already pointed out that it’s at the exact time Jesus hung from the cross on Good Friday.

  Papa wears his good suit, a navy gabardine with a white shirt and a dark blue silk tie. Mama wears her black funeral dress, a simple A-line sheath that buttons down the back. I decided not to put on the shroud, so I’m wearing a light brocade suit with a petal collar. The pattern of the brocade is autumnal, small gold leaves caught in an embroidered mesh of green. My shoes are simple gold satin pumps. In my purse I carry a small orchid for Mama, who refused to pin it to her dress.

  The name of our church seems appropriate. Mama is convinced that the Sartori family is doomed and that Roberto’s fate is worse than the people of Pompeii buried under the hot lava of Mount Vesuvius.

  I love our church, situated on the corner of Carmine and Bleecker in the center of a traditional Italian neighborhood, with its cross high on the dome, and inside, the white marble walls with glittery gold veins, high ceilings, and statues of saints peering out over the glimmer of candles lit for intentions. Father Abruzzi took pity on Papa and offered to do what he could under the circumstances. I’ve noticed that clergy can be oddly comforting once the deed is done; it’s when the sin might happen that they become righteous.

  I look around the back of the church for Roberto, but there is no sign of him. Mama, Papa, Angelo, Orlando, Exodus, and I stand in a subdued clump near the holy-water font and wait. Mama keeps looking at the floor, hoping that when she looks up, she will have imagined this scene and we will be at home, playing records and eating fried dough with powdered sugar as we do every Friday night.

  The main doors creak open, and Roberto comes in wearing a brown suit, holding the door for his new family. The bride is a tiny thing, all of nineteen years old, with a high jet-black chignon and small features. She is pretty, even though she lacks confidence, as she bites her lip and looks down at the floor. She’s wearing a pale yellow suit (where she found it this time of year, I’ll never know) and black patent-leather pumps. She has a whimsy net over her eyes on a small hair band. Her mother and father stand behind her, slight and birdlike, looking wounded. There are several small children behind them. Evidently Rosemary is the eldest, like Roberto. The youngest, a girl, seems to be around eight or nine.

  “Pop, this is Mrs. Lancelatti and Mr. Lancelatti. And this is Rosemary,” Roberto says.

  “Nice to meet you,” Rosemary says too loudly. I can see that she’s scared.

  “Hello,” my mother mumbles. The most my father can manage is a nod.

  Father Abruzzi comes down the main aisle carrying a prayer book. He invites us to the sacristy through a doorway behind the altar. We follow him in a group, and I’m sure every person who genuflects before the altar is having the same thought: Not good enough for the main altar. Though Father Abruzzi tries to be pleasant, you can tell he doesn’t like the situation, either. He likes rules, order, and a sense of organization in his parish, and he believes in announcing the banns of marriage in the church bulletin weekly for six Sundays prior to the wedding, another nicety we have not observed in this case.

  Father wears his black cassock without the beautiful white and gold wedding vestment (we really are being punished!). I take Mama’s hand as he says the opening prayer. This is one of those moments when only a daughter can comfort her mother—sons don’t understand piety and virtue, they are ruled by more earthly passions—so when Mama squeezes my hand, I feel useful in a situation that, for her, is hopeless.

  Mr. and Mrs. Lancelatti gather the rest of the young children near. I’m sure they won’t explain the details to them anytime soon. Angelo shakes his head in judgment. Orlando is trying to avoid getting the church giggles, a problem he’s had since he was a boy. And Exodus puts his arm around Papa in a gesture that says, “Don’t worry, Pop, this will be the last time this happens.” We shall live in hope.

  Poor Papa. He can’t speak to me about this because it would involve discussing the sexual relations of humankind, a subject he’d never bring up with his daughter. I know he’s heartbroken, maybe more so than my mother, who, even angry and disappointed, sees a child coming into the world as the ultimate miracle. With Rosemary’s help, the workload around the house will lessen, so something positive will come of this for Mama. But for Papa, this is a personal failure, a violation of his code. How many times has he lectured the boys on respecting women; how often has he taught by his example? How many times has he disciplined them, trying to teach them how to be good men? This is a terrible ending to Roberto’s story. Weddings are supposed to be the beginning of new life and love, but I can’t see it here. Rosemary is too young to know what she is getting into, and Roberto, with his bad temper and immaturity, will be the worst husband in the world.

  I wipe away a tear with my glove, and the advertisement in our store circular comes to mind: “As the day grows long, so do her gloves.” I’ve always been taught that gloves are a sign of a true lady, but the bride isn’t wearing any. She clutches the modest bouquet of yellow roses tightly, as though it’s a rope she is swinging from over a giant pit. She has no idea what she’s in for. I’ve lived with Roberto for twenty-five years. He’s not easy. A wife with a moody husband never has an easy time of it. I feel someone staring at me, and I follow the gaze to Rosemary’s mother. Her eyes are watery, too, but she manages a scant smile for me. Maybe it will bring Mama some consolation to know that she isn’t the only disappointed mother in this sacristy.

  After the ceremony Papa takes us all out to eat at Marinella, a cozy restaurant on Carmine Street owned by a pal of his. I try to make small talk with the Lancelattis, who are as upset with Rosemary as my parents are with Roberto. Rosemary talks to Roberto, but I can tell that he doesn’t really listen to anything she says. He keeps looking over at Papa. He still needs Papa’s approval, but he knows it will be a long time before he wins it back.

  After the reception I change out of my suit and into a sweater and skirt and loafers. Mama and Papa are still too upset to show Rosemary the house. I was certain the dinner reception would thaw them out, but it only made things worse. It reminded Mama that her oldest son will never have a proper reception in a big hall with a band. I hope Roberto is making his new wife feel at home. When I get down the stairs to the foyer, I see a pile of stuff that must belong to her.

  “Rosemary?” I call out.

  “I’m in here,” she says from the living room. I find her sitting on the edge of the sofa alone. She is still wearing her wedding suit, and her veil is slipping off the back of her head.

  “Wouldn’t you like to change?” I ask her.

  “I would love to, but I don’t know where to go.”

  “Where’s Roberto?”

  “They have a delivery at the store.”

  “Oh.” I smile, but I’m furious. I can’t believe my brother would leave his bride alone so soon after their wedding ceremony. “Are those your things in the hallway?” I ask her. She nods. “Well, come on, let’s take them to your room.” I walk Rosemary through the dining room and show her the kitchen and the garden, which she loves. “The living room you know all about. Now follow me.” I grab a suitcase and a box and start up the stairs. Rosemary tries to pick up a suitcase, but I stop her. “Don’t! No lifting!”

  Rosemary smiles at me. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Or Roberto will when he comes home.”

  I look down at her on the landing. She seems even tinier than she did at the church. “I know this is hard for you,” I say softly. “But everything is going to be all right.” Rosemary doesn’t say anything. She closes her eyes, trying not to cry. “On with the tour!” I say cheerily.

  “Can I bring Fazool?”

  “What’s Fazool?”

  “My parakeet.” Rosemary lifts a scarf off a small birdcage, and a turquoise and yellow parakeet chirps when he sees
her.

  “That’s Fazool?”

  “Say hello to Lucia,” Rosemary instructs the bird.

  “Pretty girl! Pretty girl!” the bird says.

  “Well, that settles it. Fazool, you can stay,” I tell the parakeet as he flutters on his trapeze.

  Rosemary laughs as she follows me to the next floor. I show her the door to my parents’ room at the back of the house. It’s closed. Then I push open another door with my elbow. “This is it.” Rosemary comes into the room and immediately goes to the windows. She looks out onto Commerce Street. She turns and inspects the room, approving of what she sees. It’s spacious, with two twin beds neatly made up in white linens, a large mirror, and an old rocking chair. Mama has cleared the closet for Rosemary. “Roberto and Angelo used to share this room, but we kicked Angelo upstairs with Orlando. Exodus has the room directly overhead.”

  “Where’s your room?”

  “My room is at the top. It’s the attic, really.”

  “So far to climb,” Rosemary says, sitting down on the corner of one of the beds.

  “I don’t mind it. Here’s your bathroom. Luckily, you have your own.” I show Rosemary the bathroom. “It’s small but convenient.” Mama has placed a stack of fresh white towels on the sink. “Papa intends to make the street level into your apartment, so you’ll wind up with the garden. Things happened so fast that there wasn’t time to—” I hear what I am saying and stop myself. “Well, they’ll get to it soon, I’m sure.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I hope you’ll be comfortable here.”

  Rosemary starts to cry. “I hope so, too.”

  I feel so bad for my new sister-in-law, I put my arms around her. “Don’t cry. It was a long day, and you did very well.”

  “Thank you,” Rosemary says again.

  “I know it’s far to walk, but you can always come upstairs and see me. If you need anything at all, you let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “Okay, I’m going to leave you to unpack and settle in. On Friday nights we make fried dough. It’s a lot of fun. I’ll come and get you if Roberto works late.”