The Queen of the Big Time

  I change out of my traveling suit into my skirt and blouse. I forgo the stockings as advised, and slip into a pair of ballerina flats, comfortable for walking. There is a smoky oval mirror over the fireplace, and I lean in and look at myself. My hair, which used to be a mop of curls when I was a girl, is set stiffly in a medium pageboy. Even my bangs are stiff. I didn’t notice a hair salon in town. Luckily, like Papa, I don’t have gray hair, but in a new room, with new lighting, I see that my hair makes me look old. I run my hands over my face. The powder that I apply is too pink, and that makes me look old too. My lipstick, a light peach, does nothing for me. I look closely at my face, and though it’s not wrinkled, I have the overall expression of a pinched, imperious woman. Faint lines that slope south on my forehead give the impression that I’m always looking down on people. My nose is straight, and my lips full, but the set of my mouth is smug, as though I have all the answers. I look deeply into my eyes. And at last, I see myself. The waxy veneer of the woman I am seems to melt away, revealing the girl I used to be. Suddenly I can’t stand myself and I look away. All the things Celeste has said about me are true: I am nothing more than a profit-driven mill owner. I have become old Mr. Jenkins. Or worse, I have become his son, Freddie. I found my purpose in the mill and am driven by its success and profitability. What happened to me? What happened to the girl who loved to read books and live in her imagination? And how did I let it happen?

  There is a knock at the door. “Come in,” I call out. Agnese walks in, but I turn away.

  “What’s wrong?” She comes over to me.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me.” She puts her arms around me, and I don’t know why, but her warmth, as a stranger to me, moves me deeply. I begin to cry. It begins like small stabs of pain, deep in my gut, that turn into a great heaving: my husband, our life together, the possibility of our future, and my youth, all gone now. The grief comes pouring out of me. I try to stifle the sound and cannot. “Cry, go ahead. Cry. Let it out,” she says. And for the first time since I held Franco on the floor of the mill, I cry. “God help me,” I wail through my tears.

  When I wake up, I look at my travel clock and can’t believe it. It’s noon! That means I slept twelve hours. I sit up in bed; the only sound I hear is the curtain, whipping gently against the windowsill. Papa’s right, it is quiet here. I go down the hall to the bathroom. I listen when I reach the stairs but hear no one. I draw a bath. I sink into the hot water and breathe. I’m not sure why, but I feel good; I almost float. No wonder everyone was worried when I did not weep for Franco; there is great relief in tears.

  Usually when I soak in the tub, I wear a shower cap to preserve my hair set. This time, instead of being careful, I slide down under the water, immersing my chin, then my nose, then my entire head. I hold my breath underwater and feel the heat and warmth soothe my eyes. I stay under as long as I can and then sit up. I push my hair off my face and rest against the back of the tub. I look around the white room. There is a long window that overlooks a field in the back. A stack of thick white cotton towels sits neatly on a shelf near the tub. The white ceramic sink has a long antique mirror over it. There is a screen painted in bold peach and white stripes that obscures the toilet. A small white rug lies on the black-and-white-tiled floor. Except for the levers, handles, and drains, the bathroom is every bit as modern as ours in America.

  Once I’m dressed, I go downstairs. No one is home, which surprises me; it must be near lunchtime. I push open the front door and go out into the street. People are milling around, but no one I know. I walk up the main street, loving that I don’t have to say hello to anyone, just walk and look. The storefronts reveal very little. In America, we try to sell items with fancy displays. Here, it seems, you go in and get what you need. Roseto Valfortore is not a shopper’s paradise. When I make it to the end of the street, I see Agnese and Penelope coming toward me carrying a few small bundles wrapped in brown paper.

  “Ah, Nella, you’re up.” Agnese smiles. “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel good,” I say. And I do. I feel a mighty burden has lifted off me. I breathe deeply, hoping that more change will come. I have rested for the first time in a very, very long time.

  “Where’s Mama?”

  “She went into Foggia for the fish market with the neighbor. She loves the market.”

  “Come, we make the meal.” Penelope walks ahead.

  “You slept well?” Agnese asks.

  “So well. Thank you. Where’s Papa?”

  “He went with my husband. They go looking around. Who knows at what? Your father tells us you have your own factory,” Agnese continues.

  “We did.” That was interesting, I think; why did I put Nella Manufacturing in the past tense? I correct myself. “We do.” So far from the pressures, the machines that need to be fixed, the production that needs to be met—it all seems so far away. How could thirty-some years of work slip so easily from my mind?

  “Hard work, eh?” Agnese asks.

  “Very hard.”

  “You like?”

  “I used to.” I smile at her.

  I follow Agnese and Penelope into the house. Agnese shows me to a chair in the kitchen. I’m not to help but to sit and talk while they prepare the food. The kitchen is the largest room in the house. There is a long farm table with twelve chairs around it. There is another table and long counter where the food is prepared. The fireplace, which serves as their oven, has cast-iron doors. I watch as Agnese and her daughter unwrap the fresh fish, preparing it with lemon and herbs to be baked in the oven. Penelope puts a large pot of water on the stove to boil macaroni. Soon, instead of being lost in the details of how they are cooking, I watch their partnership. There is no correcting, and no leader. It always seems as if I tell Celeste what to do and how to do it, and then in frustration, when she does not do it to my liking, I get angry and do it myself. Here, a mother and daughter work together, but they truly like each other and respect each other’s way of doing things. When I think on the way I handle Celeste, I regret so much. I doubt she has ever felt like we are a team. Now, even when we are bonded by grief, the past hangs over us like a low ceiling in a dark room.

  Papa and Zio Domenico return from their rounds. They laugh and talk, and I am reminded how Papa was surrounded by women on Delabole farm. I knew he was missing something, but I never knew exactly what, until I see him here, in his homeland. He thrives in the place where he was born.

  After lunch, I slip into my sandals and go over to the mirror. Instead of putting on powder, I put on a little lipstick. Being around Agnese’s youthfulness is rubbing off. There’s a pink patch of sun on my nose and cheeks. I am starting to look like the happy girl I used to be.

  I decide to go exploring, so I take off up the hill, sort of like where Chestnut Street would be back home. The church is at the top of the hill. With the shards of stone surrounding the courtyard, the old stucco structure looks more like a fort than a house of worship. The apostles carved in relief over the door stand in welcome, their large feet almost comical. I push the old wooden door open. There is a small, dark vestibule and then another door. I push through it into the church. Once inside, I see the magnificent frescoes, in faded blues, greens, and pinks depicting the life of Mary. Here, behind the altar, she begins as a girl and the frescoes take her through the crucifixion on the back wall of the church. It makes me smile; this Blessed Mother as a woman is quite a beauty, with ruby-red lips and enormous blue eyes. I slip into the pew and begin to pray the rosary. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit …” I get lost in the repetition of the prayers, and when I stop I wonder if the meditative state I’ve lulled myself into has any spiritual consequences. I wonder, as I always have, Does God hear me?

  The village priest comes from the sacristy, genuflecting in front of the altar, and then goes on his way down the side aisle and out the back of the church. I think of Renato, the night before my wedding, when I first saw him in his black
cassock. How shocked I was! I could understand if he married a wonderful woman and had a family, but the far-fetched choice of becoming a priest has always seemed so wrong. I feel guilty thinking about him. After all, I lost my husband, whom I built a family, a business, and a life with—why ponder Renato Lanzara? The only thing he ever did with any consistency was abandon me. Maybe his rejection of me has something to do with the wall I’ve always had around my heart.

  I get up and walk out of the church and into the sunlight. I sit down on a bench overlooking the town and marvel at the view, the orange roofs on the stucco houses and the patterns of stone in the old roads. I hear a group of kids laughing and talking as they walk up the hill. I remember those sounds from Delabole School and then the Columbus School, how sweet that youthful laughter sounds, and how I felt I never got enough of it. How I wish I could have been young when I was young. It all ended the first day I set foot in Roseto Manufacturing Company.

  As the group rounds the corner on their way to the church, I see that they are older, probably college age. The bits of Italian I hear them speak have an American twang. What are they doing here in this village?

  A sick feeling churns in my stomach. My instincts, which I usually choose to ignore, gnaw at me. I am being presented with clues, but they’re not adding up fast enough. I remember my hair, a mass of fresh curls, and my skirt, simple cotton. I look down at my feet in sandals, no stockings. I want to run in the opposite direction, but there is nowhere to go. The courtyard of the church is a dead end.

  “Nella!” A wave of excitement and dread peels through me at the sound of the man’s voice. “What are you doing here?” There is no doubt. It’s Renato. I turn and face him and smile. His hair is still thick, but now it’s white. He is tall and trim, and wears small wire-rimmed glasses. He is dressed in a white shirt and khaki slacks, but no Roman collar.

  “I’m here with my parents. What are you doing here?”

  “These are my students from St. John’s. I wanted to stop and show them where my ancestors are from. And the frescoes in this church are astonishing.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “How are you?” he asks, without speaking directly of my loss.

  “I’m okay. Franco always wanted to come here, so I thought I should.”

  “It’s like home, isn’t it?”

  I nod in agreement. Renato and I are from the same place, the same people, and the older I get, the more valuable that bond is to me. Renato continues to chatter about the landscape, the vista, and the art, and I realize he’s nervous. He’s chattering as though he is trying to cover something; he’s telling the kids how he knows me, and all about Roseto, Pennsylvania. The students seem to notice how fast and furious he speaks. I put my hand on his arm to slow him down.

  “How long are you here?” I ask him.

  “A few days, and then it’s on to Rome.”

  I look at the students. “May I borrow your professor this evening?”

  The students laugh. One of the girls smiles. “He’s a priest, you know.”

  “Oh, I know all about it,” I tell Renato. “I’m at 127 Testa Street.”

  “I’ll see you around seven.” He turns to his students. “Let’s see the frescoes.”

  I walk down the hill slowly, afraid to trip. It is so steep; in my mind’s eye, I see myself falling on the rocks and rolling like a tire all the way to the Adriatic Sea. What strange fate to see Renato here. What does this mean? As I walk down Primo Street, I catch my reflection in the windows of the grocery. I look at myself sideways and stop. I turn forward. In the sun, with my hair a wavy mess and my skirt gently swaying around my calves, I could be a girl. I know I’m not anymore, but I could almost pass for one.

  There’s a restaurant at an old inn outside Roseto Valfortore on the Fortor River called Juno. The setting is lovely, an old stone fortress with outdoor gardens. The main dining room has a gravel floor and is under a tent. Renato leads me to a table overlooking the wide blue river.

  “How’s this?” he says, pulling my chair out for me.

  “Fine.” I smile.

  I borrowed a white linen skirt and a light pink cashmere sweater from Agnese. She insisted, as the clothes I brought were too formal for the inn.

  “Where’s your collar?” I ask him.

  “I don’t wear it when I’m traveling.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “You’d think the collar would be a deterrent. But actually it’s the opposite.”

  I hold my hand up. “Enough! I don’t want to know any more.” We laugh, and it’s as though it were yesterday and we were on the banks of Minsi Lake. “Renato, you’ve known me since I was sixteen.”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Right. Fourteen. How do I look?”

  Renato sits back in his chair.

  “You’ll have to excuse my vanity, Renato, but I just turned fifty. I never felt old before, but now I do. The number scares me. Franco is gone. I’m a widow. I just feel like everything has ended. It’s over for me.” My true feelings pour out of me. I’m in the company of someone who knew me when I was a girl, and I feel safe. It’s almost like the tears from the first night I was here. I can’t help myself from sharing my feelings; I need to talk. The waiter comes over. Renato chooses a wine. The waiter speaks to him about the food.

  “Just bring whatever is good,” Renato says to the waiter. The waiter is happy to take that request to the chef.

  “You’re not old. You’re still beautiful. More beautiful.”

  “You’re just being nice.” I run my hands through my hair, which feels thick and soft. Never again will hair spray come near my head. I’m a convert to the natural look, thanks to Agnese.

  “I’m being nice, yes. But I’m being honest. You’re lucky. You have a face that will always be young.”

  “Maybe it’s just how you remember me.”

  “No, it’s how you are.” Renato pours me a glass of wine. “What happened to you?”

  “What do you mean?” I sip the wine and feel my face get hot immediately.

  “You never asked me anything like this before. You were always a girl without vanity.”

  “Well, I never felt old before.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. You’re self-aware somehow. You need to understand something, maybe?”

  “I’m trying to understand why I’ve failed at everything. How can anybody be this old and feel so stupid?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve learned nothing. Franco died before we ever had a real vacation. Celeste thinks I was a terrible mother. Frankie jokes about it—like he had a mother who was a stevedore instead of a cuddler. They think all I did was work, that all I cared about was making money.”

  “Is any of it true?”

  “I was always ambitious, Renato. Always.”

  “So, they had a good life, right?”

  “They wanted for nothing. Grandparents all around. They had a wonderful childhood.”

  “So what are they complaining about?”

  “Me.”

  “They wanted more of you; is that bad?”

  “I guess not.”

  “There are days when I would give my life to have my father back,” he begins. “My mother was gone when I was five; I looked for her in every woman I ever knew, and in a sense I still do. We all wish things could be different, but we choose a way to live, a way to be, and you can only choose one way.”

  I think about this for a moment. “You’ve heard a lot of confessions, haven’t you?”

  Renato laughs. “Too many.”

  “You’re never surprised in there? In the black closet?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Good for you.” I smooth Agnese’s sweater into the belt of the skirt. “You mastered something.”

  “I didn’t say anything about mastering it. I’m just telling you that it seems that we all have the same demons.”

  “A man of God talking about demons.”


  “Let’s not talk about me in the context of the priesthood.”

  “Why not? You’re a priest.”

  “I don’t know anything more than the next man, really. I’m flattered that you think I have an inside track, but I don’t. I’m as doubtful and full of questions as you are. What do you think about that?”

  “I wish I could say I was surprised.” I lean back in my chair and put my hands on the arms of it.

  Renato laughs. “This is why I always loved you.…”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Renato!” The word “love” embarrasses me.

  “No, I’m serious. I always loved you because you saw through it all.”

  “Through the charm?”

  “Through the charm, the bluster, the intellect, the poetry, the ideas, through all the layers of all the stuff I pride myself on possessing. You, however, cut right to the heart of the matter and force me to be honest.”

  “Then why did you leave me?” As soon as I say it, I feel a terrible pang of disloyalty to my husband. I wish I could take the words back. I wish I didn’t wonder about why Renato left, and I wish I could take back all those times in my marriage when I would get angry with Franco and think to myself, You may not love me in this moment, but I know a man who once did. What a terrible thing to do in a marriage, to turn away from the moment and reach back into the past, where everything seems perfect. “Never mind. I don’t need to know.”

  “But maybe I need to tell you.”

  “No, it’s not right. I loved Franco. I chose him. I don’t want to know why you left; it will only make me feel that I chose Franco second, and I never want to feel I did that.”

  “But isn’t that what happened?”

  “Dear God, Renato. Please.”