The Queen of the Big Time

  “I’m taking you to Italy for your fiftieth birthday,” Franco says from his desk at the mill.

  “It’s a bad time of year, hon. We have our biggest shipment for the spring line in January.”

  “If we don’t go now, we’re never going to go,” he warns. “I want to take you to Venice, Florence, and Rome. And then we’ll drive south to Roseto Valfortore.”

  “Okay, plan it.” I kiss Franco on his head. “But make sure it’s two weeks between shipping and starting the new line.”

  “You got it, boss.” My husband pinches me as I pass.

  My husband, always the romantic, wants to see Roseto Valfortore.

  “The house is too quiet with Frankie and Celeste married. I can’t believe both of my kids left Roseto.” Franco shakes his head. “We need some new interests.”

  “We have plenty to do with this mill,” I remind him.

  “Why don’t we sell it?”

  “What? Are you crazy? We’re making money hand over fist.”

  “I know. But how much do we need? We own the house outright, and this building. Who knows what we would get for the business? Probably what we ask. Let’s just let it go and see the world.”

  I sit down on the edge of my husband’s desk and fold my arms. “And then do what?”

  “Relax.” He slides his hand under my skirt.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, that’s only a few minutes of activity a day.”

  He laughs. “I could make it last longer.”

  I lean down and kiss the top of his head.

  “Aren’t you tired of working?” he asks. “You’ve been doing this since you’re fifteen.”

  “I can’t help it. I’ve grown to love it.”

  “But it can’t love you back.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. It does a pretty good imitation of it when the checks come in.”

  “Okay, you win. Two weeks in Italy. That’s it. No early retirement.” Franco goes back to his paperwork. I watch him put on his glasses and put his head in his hand as he works. He reminds me of Mr. Jenkins, who must have been around Franco’s age when he hired me. Would I ever make a sixteen-year-old girl a forelady? Never. But old Jenkins saw something in me.

  Sometimes it seems like it was yesterday, and then there are days when my life feels double the fifty years and I can stop moments in my memory and relive them, actually feeling the things I used to feel. When it’s bitter cold on a winter morning, I remember going to the barn at Delabole farm and milking the cows with Mama. When the weather turns to spring, I think of Renato Lanzara giving me books on the shore of Minsi Lake. When the summer comes, I remember Franco’s kisses on the porch on Dewey Street, and then, when it’s winter, I remember my sister who died as her baby was born.

  The deep wells of desire, the sting of regret, the passion of my youth, all of those things have made me who I am. But I know that what Franco is telling me is true. I am incapable of change. I reach certain plateaus and stay there, out of comfort sometimes, and out of necessity other times. God bless Franco. He brings home travel brochures and I look at them, but places outside my mill and home don’t seem real to me. Taking care of business, taking care of my family, these are my ideas of time well spent. And don’t we have lots of time to travel? If we work another ten years, my Franco will still only be sixty-two. That’s plenty early for retirement.

  “I’m going to check the shipment.” Franco goes out of the office. I pour myself a cup of coffee. I flip through the brochures of Italy from the travel agent. How lush and romantic it seems. Maybe my husband is right, a trip would do us a lot of good.

  “Mrs. Zollerano, come quick!” Donna Mugavero, my collar setter, says, pushing the door open. “It’s Mr. Zollerano!” she says in a panic.

  I rush out into the main room; the hum of the machines grinds to a halt. The machine operators stand and look aghast at my husband, who lies on the floor. The only time the machines stop in a mill is for lunch or break time, or disaster. I look at their faces and know that something is terribly wrong.

  “What happened?” I kneel down next to Franco. “Honey, what’s wrong?” I touch his face and squeeze his hand. Nothing.

  “I’ll call the ambulance.” Sally Viglione runs to the office. But it is too late, my Franco is gone.

  The cars on Garibaldi are double- and triple-parked as my family and our friends gather in my home. Celeste and Frankie came as soon as they heard the news. They went with me to choose their father’s casket, Mass cards, and flowers. We hung on to one another, choosing the best of everything they had to offer at the Fiore Funeral Home.

  My sisters are in the kitchen arranging the platters of food that have been dropped off. They laugh, remembering funny stories about their brother-in-law, but I can’t listen for long. Franco is not a story to me, he shared my life and my bed, and I can’t imagine going forward without him. The widows of Roseto have come in one by one to offer their condolences. The first thing they tell me is that at fifty-two, Franco was too young to die. I can’t believe God would take such a young man from us. I suppose I should be praying, but I can’t.

  The girls at the mill have stopped by to leave notes and see my children. Sally Viglione chastises herself, wishing that she could have done something, maybe seen something different in Franco that would have led her to call the doctor. But I assure her that moments before he died, we were laughing and talking as always. There was nothing to be done.

  That night I crawl into bed exhausted. How strange it is to go to my side of the bed and turn to spoon with Franco and find him gone. Celeste and Frankie are in their old rooms. I called my parents in Italy, and they are on their way home.

  I haven’t shed a single tear. I know there is a river inside me, but so far, I am so closed off that I cannot imagine crying.

  “Ma?” Celeste comes into our room in her nightgown, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sad.”

  I lift the blanket on the bed and she crawls in next to me.

  “What are we going to do?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. But I know the answer, because I’ve already lived it: You go on. You have no choice, you go on.

  “He was too young.”

  “I know.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “We were talking about going on a trip. Then he … just collapsed. I didn’t hear him say another thing.”

  “Poor Pop. He never got a vacation.”

  “We went to the shore every summer.”

  “I mean a real vacation. One of those long months off.”

  I don’t know if Celeste means to, but she makes me feel terrible. And I know she’s right. “I wish we would have done it.”

  “He was happy, though,” she says kindly.

  “I think so.”

  Celeste snuggles in close to me. “Ma, he always used to tell me about you.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. When you and I would fight, it would upset Daddy, and he’d always come and talk to me. And he’d tell me what you were like when you were young. He said before he kissed you, you were a real block of ice. But he said he just kept chipping away at it. He said he devoted himself to the religion of Nella Castelluca. He loved you more than you ever knew.”

  “I knew.”

  “He used to talk about how you ran a factory when you were just a kid. How you acted like you knew what to do even when you didn’t. He told me about a fire where you saved people—”

  “He saved the workers, I didn’t.”

  “He said it was you.”

  “That was your father. Always giving credit to someone else.”

  “He told me that you made him work hard to win you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. He said a man should always have to work hard to win a woman’s heart, because when he gets it, it’s worth it, and he’ll never take it for granted. I remembered that when I got married.”

  We lie in the quiet for a long time. Celeste blows
her nose. “Ma, why don’t you cry?”

  I think about it for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  My husband’s funeral was just like he was, warm and down-to-earth. The only royal touch was the Knights of Columbus (the one group my husband was a member of), who wore their plumed hats and tuxedos with sashes. When they formed an honor guard with their swords on either side of the church aisle for my husband’s casket to pass, it was a stirring moment. Franco was devoted to their causes, in particular charity work on behalf of children. No one would call my husband a religious man, but he was always involved.

  Father Les Schmidt spoke of my husband’s generosity to the church, not just financially, but in ways that he gave of himself, helping to build the school and the new rectory. Papa and Mama made it back in time for the service, but not soon enough to change from their traveling clothes.

  Alessandro and Elena have been steadfast. Roma came from her home in Philadelphia and Dianna from hers in Pen Argyl. My nieces and nephews were a great comfort. A big family is a treasure at times like these. My in-laws’ grief is painful for me to witness. They have suffered the worst fate, losing their son. His brothers are bereft.

  Chettie and Anthony showed up with an album of pictures from when we were young. I look at Franco and me; he is so handsome and tall, and I have the steely jaw of a Rosie the Riveter. Perhaps my Franco was right: I’m as hard as a block of ice, and the only person who could ever chip away at it was him.

  Back at the house, Celeste goes through the pantry, making a list of all the cakes, pies, and cookies that have been dropped off. There is a roasted turkey and three honey-baked hams. The phone rings. Celeste answers it. “Just a moment,” she says into the phone. She comes into the kitchen. “Ma, it’s for you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Father Lanzara.” She rolls her eyes.

  I go to the living room and sit down on the edge of the sofa and pick up the phone.

  “Nella, I’m so sorry to hear about Franco.”

  “Thank you for calling.”

  “How are you doing?” he asks.

  “With all your years working with the broken and downtrodden, don’t you know you’re never supposed to ask a widow how she’s doing?” I try to laugh. “It’s terrible. I never thought I could be this sad.”

  “It’s a huge loss. And so young.”

  “Yes. We had a lot of plans.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  There is a silence, but it isn’t awkward. “Where are you, Renato?” For some reason I call him by name. It seems silly for me to call him “Father.”

  “I’m at St. John’s University, in Queens.”

  “Are you chaplain?”

  “No, I’m teaching literature.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I say.

  “Nella, I’m afraid I have to go, but please know that I’ll pray for you and for Franco,” he promises.

  When I hang up the phone and go back into the kitchen, Celeste and Frankie are sitting at the kitchen table. Their spouses and some friends are on the back porch.

  “What did he want?” Celeste asks.

  “To express his sympathy.” I pour myself a glass of water.

  “To ask you out on a date,” Frankie jokes.

  “That’s not funny,” I say. What has gotten into these kids tonight?

  “Pop always said he liked you.”

  “We were friends when we were young, Frankie.”

  “Well, the way Pop saw it, Father Lanzara wanted more than friendship. That’s why we went to St. Elizabeth’s. Right, Celeste?”

  She grunts in response.

  “Oh yeah, Pop had his problems with Mount Carmel.” Frankie points in the direction of the church.

  “Frankie, do you mind? You’re talking about the house of God and priests.”

  “They’re no different from you and me, Ma. They have all the same problems. And all the same wants and needs. Our priest in Jersey drives a Cadillac. Vow of poverty? Some poverty. How do you like that?”

  “Let’s change the subject.” I look at my son, who no matter how old he grows still seems like a six-year-old boy determined to test my patience until I blow.

  “Okay, Ma.”

  Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cemetery rests high on a hill above Garibaldi Avenue. As cemeteries go, this one is lovely: wide roads that separate green fields filled with headstones. Franco bought our plots soon after we opened our own mill. It had always bothered him that he did not make the arrangements before he went off to war.

  “It’s nice, Mama.” Celeste takes my hand as we look at Franco’s headstone for the first time.

  “What do you think, Frankie?”

  “It’s fine, Ma,” he says, his eyes filling with tears.

  The stone is simple. It reads:

  Franco Zollerano

  Husband and Father

  March 17, 1907–November 18, 1959

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Now, don’t get your hopes up,” Papa says to me as he drives along a dusty back road to Roseto Valfortore. “It’s not like our Roseto in America. It’s old, not modern.”

  “Papa, please, don’t make excuses. I think it’s beautiful already.” Papa convinced me to come to Italy with my mother and him. They invited me many times, but this year, since it was one of my husband’s dreams for my fiftieth birthday, I decided to come. Franco wanted to see where we came from, and if he were here, he would have loved the winding back roads, the low rolling mountains, and the hillsides covered with wild roses. Roseto has earned its name. Everywhere you look, pockets of red roses, from deep ruby to the palest pink, bloom across the green hillsides.

  “Looks like Delabole, doesn’t it?” Mama says.

  “It does,” I tell her. The manicured, plowed farm fields are offset by rough, stony ground. The only difference is that the earth here seems dry and ancient, the fieldstones deeply embedded in it, some so large, you could sit in the shade under them. Fig trees bask in the open sun on hilltops, while groves of olive trees line the road from Biccari. Papa points out the marble mines in the distance. Deep gashes in the earth, surrounded by piles of slag and rubble, remind me of the slate quarries of home.

  “Now I see why you like to come here. It is just like home.”

  I look at my father as he drives, and I am convinced he will outlive me. His life of hard work on the farm has kept him in excellent health. He has even overcome the injuries he sustained in the quarry back in 1925, when I was in school. He gets a pain in his leg when it rains, but that is the only residual problem he has from the accident.

  “What’s the matter?” Papa looks over at me. “You thinking of Franco?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, cry.”

  “I can’t cry, Papa. I try. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “It’s no good. You must cry. I remember something my father told me.”

  “What was that?”

  “He said that you teach your children everything, even how to grieve. You must show Celeste and Frankie how to grieve.”

  “Oh, Papa, they know better than I do.” I wish my father knew how much I learn from my children. They are far more astute than me, though they have no idea how deeply I feel things.

  As we drive deeper into Bari toward Roseto, the hills turn a deep emerald green.

  Papa reads my mind. “It’s more green here because of the ocean.” I begin to understand how Roseto, Pennsylvania, came to be. The forefathers rebuilt their beloved hill town, and as we drive up to the entrance of Roseto Valfortore, it is not unlike the steep hill of Division Street that gives way to Garibaldi Avenue. As Papa drives down the main street, I feel as though I have been here before. So many of the details are identical. The same two-story houses with their porches on the second story line the main street just as ours do. The look of the people—the dark hair and flashing black eyes, the prominent noses—the features of our Rosetan people, are here. As much as the people look like the folks at home, it is their
posture and carriage that give them away as Italians from the other side. People who do heavy labor, either on a farm or busting rocks in a quarry, have a strength in their neck and shoulders that gives them an upright carriage. I remember Miss Stoddard telling me to stand up straight. My people came by that posture naturally. Papa has it, Mama too. I worry that years behind a sewing machine, slumped indoors in the mill, took a toll on my bones. I see it in all of us who work in the mill. We aren’t what we once were, and it isn’t just our advancing age.

  “You see why your mother and I come here every year?” Papa points. “It’s just like America, without the noise.”

  I laugh. “Oh, Papa, our town isn’t so noisy.”

  “No? Here they still ride horses. This car is a rare exception in this town.” Papa pulls up to a gold stucco two-story house in the middle of the main street. “This is my brother Domenico’s house. This is where we stay.”

  “Come stai!” Papa’s youngest brother, a compact, sturdy man of sixty with sandy brown hair, comes out of the house. “Nella!” Domenico embraces me. “Agnese, vieni!” He throws his arms around Mama. Zia Agnese comes out of the house, and I am stunned at how youthful she is. She is my age, but looks a full ten years younger. Her shoulder-length black hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her skin is golden bronze with pink cheeks. She has full lips and beautiful teeth. She gives me a big hug. “Nella!” Their daughter, Penelope, comes to greet me. She’s around twenty, and built like her papa. She is a beauty, but different from her mother in every aspect.

  “You come in, you rest.” Zia Agnese helps me with my bags. Penelope shows me a breezy front room with shutters that let in the sun. She puts my bags down and surveys me from head to toe. I remove my hat and place it on the nightstand. Then I take off my gloves. “You won’t need your hat and gloves here.” She smiles. “I hope you brought sandals and skirts.”

  “I did.”

  “No stockings, okay?”

  “Okay.” Well, that settles that, I think, and sit on the edge of the bed. This trip is off to a terrible start. I brought a suitcase full of new clothes: two serge suits, a wool bouclé coat dress, and plenty of new stockings. The only casual clothes I brought are a full black cotton skirt and a white blouse (made at Nella Manufacturing, of course). The white blouse is called the Kim Novak, though the Hollywood connection to our blouse mill grows slimmer every year. Movies are not what they were; their influence has lessened. We turn to brand-name designers now. They seem to be more important than the stars.