The Queen of the Big Time

  Assunta looks pretty in her drop-waist satin gown of shimmering ivory with a train that can be bloused into a bustle and bow for the reception. She wears a headband of tiny white roses, made by Mama in the early hours of the morning. Assunta carries three calla lilies, though she asked Papa if she could have a dozen. Assunta never gets exactly what she wants, but today she makes do without complaining.

  As Assunta and Alessandro kneel before the priest, I think back to the moment they first met. Assunta was on her best behavior. Alessandro still has no idea of the Mount Vesuvius within her, the red-hot rages, or her violent tantrums. When she blows, it will come as a terrible shock to him. Elena said she wishes he had shown up ten years ago because we would have been spared years of torment. Clearly, when the prize is worth it, when she is getting something she truly wants, Assunta is capable of complete transformation.

  I am wearing a pink satin dress Mama made for me. It’s a straight sheath with a wide band across the hips; the skirt falls straight over the knee. Mama covered small buttons and sewed them up the band to give the dress some interest. Now that I’m fifteen, I would have liked a split tunic like the older girls wear, especially one with full dolman sleeves (cap sleeves are too girlish for me), but Mama would not hear my argument. I wear short white kid gloves, which Chettie thinks gives the whole ensemble some sophistication. I hope so.

  There’s a nice crowd in church, since Papa knows so many people from the days when he would deliver milk and eggs to town. Chettie’s family takes up a whole row. On the way in she told me that she spent the entire morning ironing her brothers’ shirts.

  After the vows, Assunta crosses to an alcove with a smaller marble version of the main altar and a statue of the Blessed Mother on a gold pedestal behind it. Assunta places her bouquet at the foot of the statue. She stands for a moment as the organ plays “Ave Maria.” Upon the first notes, a man’s voice rings out over the congregation from the choir loft. The voice is so clear and beautiful, I turn to see who is singing. It is Renato Lanzara, whom I have not seen since last November. It’s not that I haven’t tried. Chettie and I walk by his father’s barbershop on Garibaldi in hopes of running into him. And since I started coming to church regularly with Elena, I’ve looked for him every Sunday, but I’ve never seen him. Maybe God is punishing me for not having a true spiritual reason for coming to Mass. After all, the priest says God knows everything we’re thinking, not just what we do, and coming to Mass with the sole desire of seeing Renato would probably not sit well with the Creator.

  Renato is as I remembered him, but as he sings, he takes on a grand stature. Maybe it’s the golden midmorning light that pours through the belfry and fills the choir loft, or maybe it’s the timbre of his voice as he sings, but I cannot take my eyes off him. Elena nudges me, reminding me to turn back around. Before I do, Chettie winks at me from her pew.

  It seems like hours later that Assunta and Alessandro recess down the aisle to the back of the church. When they reach the top of the steps, they turn to each other and kiss. The most exciting part of weddings at Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the parade led by the bride and groom to Pinto’s Hall. It’s spectacular to see the Rosetans in their finery, the women in their pastel dresses and plumed hats, and the men in their elegant suits, as they process to the reception.

  Chettie, dressed in a white eyelet shift with a smart straw hat, meets up with me as I follow the wedding party down the street. “That was a beautiful wedding. One of the best I’ve seen.”

  “Think so?” I am hoping everyone in town agrees since we worked so hard on the details.

  “The flowers, Assunta’s dress, everything was perfect,” Chettie says. “Now the fun begins. Have you ever been to Pinto’s Hall for a football reception?”

  I shake my head that I haven’t.

  “When you walk in, you tell them if you want ham or roast beef at the door, and they throw you a wrapped sandwich. It’s tradition. Watch.”

  There are two boys with baskets by the door. Chettie says, “Ham, please.” A boy tosses her the ham sandwich.

  “I’ll have ham too,” I tell the boy. He tosses me a sandwich wrapped in waxy white paper.

  Alessandro leads his new bride onto the dance floor as the band plays “Oh Marie,” and they begin to dance. There is a keg of beer for the grown-ups at the end of a long table on the far side of the room, and a keg of soda for the kids on another. The church sodality ladies have crisscrossed white streamers over the low ceiling and hung silver bells in the center. Round tables with white tablecloths anchor either side of the dance floor. The centerpiece for each table is a pyramid of Mama’s wedding cookies. Delicate crustelli dusted with powdered sugar, coconut balls, and fig squares are piled high on silver trays. Mama snapped the stems off fresh daisies and dotted them among the cookies.

  MAMA’S WEDDING COOKIES

  ¼ pound unsalted butter

  ¼ pound unsalted margarine

  1 cup sugar

  3 large eggs

  1 teaspoon almond extract

  ½ cup milk

  3¼–3½ cups flour

  pinch of salt

  5 teaspoons baking powder

  Cream together the butter, margarine, sugar, and eggs. Add the almond extract and milk. Then add the flour, salt, and baking powder and mix well. Keep hands wet and shape the mixture into 1-inch rounds, high in the center. Bake at 350 degrees for 13 minutes or until lightly browned.

  FROSTING

  ½ box powdered sugar

  2 tablespoons unsalted butter

  milk—just enough to wet the powdered sugar

  1 teaspoon almond flavoring

  shredded coconut for dusting

  Mix well and ice the cookies. Dip the iced cookies in coconut.

  As the crowd filters in, they catch their sandwiches from the boys with the baskets and place them on tables, marking their seats for after the dance. Papa takes Mama’s hand and leads her onto the dance floor, where he embraces her in his arms and twirls her under the bells. They look happy, but maybe they’re just relieved. Assunta has married a good man, and even though it was arranged, you get the feeling they might have chosen each other even if the parents hadn’t done the work for them. Assunta is tender with Alessandro, showing a side we’ve never seen. I hope her sweet nature lasts.

  “Nella, right?” a man says from behind me.

  I spin on my heel to find myself looking into the face of Renato Lanzara, who seems even more handsome than he did at Delabole farm. He wears a black suit with a dove-gray vestment. His tie is black-and-white-striped silk, which shimmers against his snow-white shirt. He is a sheik, or as Chettie calls a very handsome man, a heartbreaker.

  “Hello. I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” I lie, noticing that the golden light in the choir loft seems to follow him around the ordinary world. He doesn’t need to know that not only do I know his name, but that I write it everywhere. I’ve written it with a rock in the mud pit of the pigsty, on the chalkboard in Miss Ciliberti’s empty classroom before I wash it down after school, and even in my school ledger until every inch of paper is covered with Renato Lanzara, the most musical name I have ever heard.

  “I’m Renato.”

  “Nice to meet you again. You sang beautifully.”

  “I’m a little rusty.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it to me. Papa has Amedeo Bassi records, and you sound better than he does.”

  “Thank you.” Renato seems impressed that I know about the great Italian tenor. “I’m out of practice because I haven’t been in church for a few months.”

  “Really.” Of course, I already know this. I’ve suffered through catechism, special classes to receive Holy Communion and confirmation, just in hopes of seeing him. “Why haven’t you been in church?”

  “I went to Italy.”

  For all the Roseto gossip Chettie repeats, you would think she would have known this little tidbit. “Why did you go?” I ask.

  “To study. And to visit my fathe
r’s village and write about it.”

  “You’re writing?”

  “Poetry.”

  Of course he’s a poet! Look at him. He is a romantic, like Keats and Shelley and my favorite, Robert Browning. How many times did I make Miss Stoddard tell the love story of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett? How Robert insisted Elizabeth leave her oppressive father, elope with him, and go to Italy. I wonder if Renato has found his Elizabeth Barrett, and if he hasn’t, would he wait for me? I want to tell him that I turned fifteen in January, but that still sounds too young for a man who goes to college and travels the world.

  “I should probably be dancing,” he says, surveying the girls around the dance floor. Every girl in the place is giving him the eye. “Do you like to dance?” he asks without looking at me.

  “I’d rather talk,” I tell him honestly.

  “Talk?” He laughs and turns to look at me. The way he smiles makes me nervous. I am too young, too unsophisticated, and not nearly pretty enough to be talking to the handsomest man in the room. I breathe deeply for courage.

  “I’d like to hear more about you,” I tell him. “After all, I just learned your name,” I lie again. I’m not sure, but it seems that Renato squirms a little. I’ve made him uncomfortable and I didn’t mean to. I have no experience with boys, so I don’t know what to say, what not to say, or how to act. Chettie tells me things about boys, but I don’t know if they’re true, not really. I certainly don’t know them from experience. I know that I’m not a coquette. I’m not a modern girl either, or a flapper. And if I go by what I’ve seen with my sister Assunta, when it comes to a man, a woman should completely change her behavior to woo him. I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Something tells me it’s not. Won’t the old Assunta eventually come out and frighten the new husband? And then what?

  “What do you want to know?” Renato looks at me with amusement, his composure regained.

  My confidence flags, but then curiosity prevails. There are things I want to know. “You go to college.”

  “I graduate in June.”

  “I can’t wait to go to college. What is it like?”

  “Well, college is very hard. You have to study all the time. Or at least I did.”

  “I don’t mind studying. I’ll do whatever it takes to become a teacher. I think that teaching a child how to read is the most noble profession there is. Better than a nurse or a housewife. Better than any other job.”

  “There aren’t a lot of girls in college, you know.”

  “That’s their problem.” I wave my hand, indicating the girls hovering around the dance floor. He laughs again. “What’s it like to live at school, where everyone has the same ambition? What’s it like to be around people who think like you?”

  Renato smiles. “You may have just said the very thing that I liked best about being away at school. I liked the people I met and how they loved to learn as much as I did. But there’s a problem with it. When you come home, you don’t fit anywhere.”

  “That can’t be true!”

  “Look around. We’re quarry miners and farmers and butchers and bakers and factory workers. There’s not much of a need for a poet around here.”

  “You’re wrong. Just because we work outside with our hands doesn’t mean that we don’t dream. We need words to describe our deepest feelings and music to lift us out of the quiet and into a place of inspiration. The Italian people have always found art in the mundane. My mother can milk a cow, but she also makes lace. It’s as perfect and delicate as a spiderweb. See?” I show Renato the hem of my skirt. “And Papa, he plows the field, but he also listens to the opera, and believe me, he understands music with the passion and knowingness of an educated person.”

  Renato doesn’t say a word, he just stares at me.

  “I shouldn’t ramble on so,” I apologize.

  “No, no, that’s all right,” he says, but he looks peevish.

  He must think I’m stupid. I’m a flippant farm girl who gets crushes on men far too old for her and then blathers on at them about art while standing in a silly pink dress with juvenile sleeves. This sophisticated man can see right through me. The only true knowledge I have comes from books, not experience. I am outclassed by Renato Lanzara, and now I know it for sure.

  Luckily, I see Chettie across the room and walk toward her without saying “excuse me” or “good-bye” to Renato. Why bother? He’s more than done with the know-it-all girl from Delabole. But then I feel a hand on my arm. Suddenly, I am not walking to my friend; I’m in the arms of Renato Lanzara, who spins me around the dance floor like the old mop I practice with in Papa’s barn. I do my best to keep up, but he is very quick, and I’m new at this. As we whirl around, I catch the faces of Chettie, Elena, and Mrs. Ricci in a blur, who smile at me as though I am dancing well. I know I’m not, though; I am moving through the music, but I don’t belong in it. I’m only fifteen and I couldn’t even talk my mother into dolman sleeves. I have no business on this dance floor with the most handsome man in the room! How I wish I were twenty-one.

  “Thank you,” he says as the music stops, depositing me in the same spot he found me. He disappears into the crowd like a vapor.

  “Oh my gosh!” Chettie pulls me aside. “You danced with him! You’re the first girl he talked to out of everybody. And the Calzetti girls are here from Martins Creek. The men always go to them first.” Chettie looks over at them, and there they are, five sophisticated sisters in cloche hats, split tunic dresses, and shiny stockings, one more alluring than the next. “But not Renato. He went for you!” Chettie is more excited than I am after the first dance of my life. “What did he say? You were talking a long time.”

  “He talked about college … and poetry.”

  “Poetry?” Chettie sighs. This is better than anything she’s read in Modern Screen.

  “Yes. He writes poetry:

  “ ‘Never the time and the place

  ‘And the loved one all together!

  ‘This path—how soft to pace!

  ‘This May—what magic weather.’ ”

  “He wrote that?” Chettie claps her hands together.

  “No, Robert Browning. But it’s how I feel.”

  The music swells again and the dance floor fills. I look through the crowd for Renato, but he is gone. I’m not surprised. I don’t think it’s in my destiny for him to stay, only to come into my life to stir me up and go. Never the time and the place and Renato Lanzara altogether. Not for me, anyway.

  “The curtains are fine, but I really want a valance. I’ll arrange to have some brocade sent over from Delgrosso’s.” Assunta steps back from the bay window of her living room, surveying my work. Just as she wished, Alessandro bought half a house on Dewey Street, and even negotiated the side with the shade tree. And just as she ordered, I come by and help with the housework. Assunta has made the transition from our farm to town without a hitch. It helps that Alessandro has set up accounts to import nuts and candy with the biggest stores in Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton. He is making a good living, and Assunta is finding ways to spend the money. She has a mahogany dining table and matching chairs with velvet seats. Room by room, she is turning her home into a showplace.

  I am looking forward to the summer passing quickly. I’m hoping Papa makes enough money with his new contract to send me on the trolley from the farm to school, so I don’t have to stay with Assunta and Alessandro during the school year. I hate housework and chores, and here, that’s all I do, day in and day out. Assunta spends all her time thinking up chores for me to do. She has the cleanest house on Dewey Street.

  As soon as Alessandro arrived, Assunta quit her job at the mill, so she has lots of time to worry about things like which way the teacup handles go in the dish hutch. Little bits of Assunta’s mean, old ways creep through once in a while, and when her temper flares, Alessandro looks confused. Assunta turns to me. “I’m going to start supper. Nella, take down the laundry on the line in the back.”

  I grab the d
eep wicker basket on the back porch and go down the steps to the yard. The clothesline is stretched from tree to tree, almost like a curtain separating the garden from the house. I pull down the stiff white cotton sheets, dried by the hot sun. Alessandro looks up from the garden.

  “You need help?” he asks.

  “No. This is women’s work,” I joke.

  “Are you going to the farm tonight?”

  “I hope so.” Quickly I realize I might have hurt his feelings. Alessandro does his best to make me feel at home here, and not like the maid I am. “Just to check on Mama, see if she needs help with the girls. And I want to see the new machinery Papa had delivered.” I hope this covers my rudeness.

  “My wife is working you too hard.”

  “It’s not so bad,” I tell him, but really, what I want to say is that there is no pleasing her and I’ll bet every day he wishes he had married one of those quiet girls from his Italian village instead of Assunta the Bossy American.

  “In Italy, there is a tradition of a maiden aunt who helps the married sister. Did you know that?”

  “I didn’t.” If Allessandro is trying to cheer me up, it’s not working.

  “Yes, and the married sister becomes dependent upon the help.” He points to the house with the hoe. “I told my wife not to get too comfortable handing chores over to you, because the day will come when you leave us.”

  “Don’t worry about that. College is three years away.”

  “Ah, yes. You want to go to school,” Alessandro remembers.

  “Oh, I am going to college,” I say loudly to him, the old black cat that lies on the stone fence by the garden, and anyone else within earshot on Dewey Street.

  “Bene. Bene. I believe you.” Alessandro laughs. “You are too young to be a maiden aunt, and I think you are meant to be married.” He smiles.

  “We’ll see.” I shrug.

  “No, you’re very agreeable. That goes a long way with a man.”