“A man died in my cab today. A heart attack. I took him to the hospital. The doctor, the nurses, they brought him inside. I guess they revived him, and he lasted for a few hours. I stayed until the end.”
“It was kind of you to make sure he wasn’t alone.”
“His wife was with him. She was with him the whole time. I stayed in the waiting room.”
“Did she ask you to stay?”
“No. She was surprised I was there when she came out.”
“Why did you stay?”
Nicky felt he might cry. He never cried, so he willed himself not to. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”
“Maybe you thought you could help.”
“Do what, though?” Nicky looked at her.
“Have you ever been somewhere, like a party, and you thought, if I leave, this whole shebang will fall apart without me?”
Nicky laughed. “Maybe.”
“Maybe you thought if you left, he’d die.”
“But he did.”
“But not right away. Have you ever been with anyone when they died?”
Nicky shook his head that he hadn’t.
“I was with my mother. My sisters had gone out to get a cup of coffee. My dad had gone outside for some air. And something told me not to leave the room. So I didn’t. So right at the end, her eyes opened, and the last person she saw on earth was me. And I made sure not to cry. I smiled really big, as big as I could, because I wanted her to have a happy end.”
“I wanted Mr. Allison to live.”
“But that’s out of your hands.”
“He didn’t think so.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a small thing and I can’t be sure of it. He didn’t say anything, but he looked at me and the way he looked at me told me he didn’t want to die. He wasn’t ready.”
“You can’t worry about that now,” Calla said softly. “It’s not his decision any more than my mother’s passing was hers.”
“I couldn’t save him.”
“That’s right. No one could.”
Calla got up and went to the cupboard. She pulled a bottle of whiskey, hidden in a wooden box marked “bobbins,” off the shelf. She picked up two clean glasses off the prop cart parked in the corner. She poured them each a shot.
“I knew it. You’re a lush.”
“Keep it to yourself.”
She held up her glass. He clinked his glass against hers. “Cent’Anni,” they said in unison before throwing back the shots of whiskey.
“Calla? I’m going to need ten bucks a show. It’s going to cut into my hours as a hack.”
“I can only do five.”
“What if I’m really good?”
“Five.”
* * *
The walls, floor, appliances, and regulation moppeens in the Palazzini kitchen were white, and except for the streaks of gray in the Carrara marble on the countertops, the only color in the room came from the food as it was prepared. Whatever time, day or night, you walked in, the place was neat and clean.
There was a large window over the sink that overlooked Aunt Jo’s garden in the backyard. The sill was lined with a row of small terra-cotta pots where she grew herbs year round. She grew basil, which she used liberally in her traditional gravy, or shredded by hand over fresh mozzarella drizzled in olive oil. There was mint, which she used for medicinal purposes, making a tea whenever anyone in the house was ill; but she also used it to make Nicky’s favorite meal, spaghetti with fresh peas and mint. The garden was just like Aunt Jo’s kitchen. Neatly plowed rows were organized by vegetable, her tools were kept in an orderly fashion in a covered potting shed, and the garden hose was coiled carefully in a circle on a hook. The entire operation was guarded by a weather-beaten scarecrow that resembled Peter Lorre.
Aunt Jo’s kitchen could have been a professional restaurant operation. She believed in using the best appliances, utensils, and ingredients to get the best results. At his wife’s request, Dom purchased the first icebox on Montrose in 1926, and the first dishwasher when it was available at Martinelli’s in 1948. If Dom splurged, it was for Jo’s kitchen.
A white linoleum-topped table and matching leather booth wrapped around the corner by the door to the mudroom. Nicky and the boys ate their lunch on this table on weekends when they were little. Aunt Jo also used the table as her office. She sorted bills, worked her crossword puzzles, and talked on the phone mounted on the wall behind the booth. The black telephone had an extra-long cord, so she might move around the kitchen as she talked with a friend.
The dining room, situated through the swinging portal doors beyond the kitchen, was the center of the home and the largest room on the main floor. Jo had enlisted the help of her sister-in-law, Nancy, to help her decorate it. The dining room was completed shortly before the falling-out, and it was sad to Jo that she’d never had Nancy, Mike, and their sons over to enjoy it.
The room was a copy of a classic dining room in a Main Line mansion that had been modeled after the original decorated by Colefax & Fowler in London. Jo might have wanted something formal, but for Nancy, that meant grand. In 1932 it was decorated with the best furniture the Palazzinis could afford, a polished Georgian-style cherry-wood dining table and matching chairs. The seats were upholstered in gold-and-white-striped velvet, which Nancy and Jo installed themselves. The walls were covered in gold-flocked wallpaper hung by Dom and Mike. The Last Supper, framed in gold leaf and carved out of hammered silver, had been given to Jo and Dom by Nancy and Mike as a gift, the final Christmas they were friendly. It had been blessed by the parish priest.
The table seated sixteen. The chandelier dripped daggers of crystal. Nancy had the same model in her own home, which meant she had gotten a two-for-one deal, which pleased the brothers. The crystals reflected the fine bone china Jo had collected through the years. Later on, Jo made the draperies, pale yellow silk jabots gathered off to one side with a thin braided cord. The single-panel draperies swept off to one side were inspired by Veronica Lake’s peekaboo hairstyle. Nicky remembered when Aunt Jo unveiled them and Uncle Dom said, “I’d rather have Veronica Lake eating off my china than these curtains.”
The gold-leafed sideboard was used to display desserts, and no matter when you passed through, the cookie jar was filled with biscotti and the cut glass candy dish was filled with bridge mix. When a meal was finished, the daughters-in-law cleared and washed the dishes, and Aunt Jo would set the table for the next meal. The tablecloths were pressed and hung in a linen closet in the kitchen on hangers. When Nicky was an altar boy, he noticed that the vestments of the priests got the same treatment.
That evening, Aunt Jo had left Nicky two stuffed peppers and a baked potato in the oven. Nicky pulled the hot meal out of the oven and placed it on the tray Aunt Jo had prepared.
In many ways 810 Montrose was like a boardinghouse, though Nicky had never stayed in one. The closest he had come was the barracks in the army in Alabama, where he moved through training with a group, sleeping and eating on a schedule set by the officers in command of the platoon.
Aunt Jo ran the Palazzini household with her version of military precision. She had to—with all her sons married, she had three daughters-in-law to help her, and three meals a day to serve. There was laundry to do, cleaning, food to cook, the garden to tend, and the first grandchild to raise. And there would be more children.
Nicky balanced his plate, bottle of beer, and utensils on the tray and went down to his room in the basement through the kitchen.
Aunt Jo had painted his basement room a cheery yellow. The windows that ran along the ceiling were ground-level and let in very little light. But Nicky had a double bed, a rocking chair, a chest of drawers, a mirror, an armoire for his hanging garments, and best of all, his own bathroom, with a standing shower stall.
Nicky placed his dinner on the dresser and emptied his pockets before changing out of his work clothes. He placed his change in a tip jar and his cigarettes and lighter next t
o the ashtray. He almost threw the pickup order for the Allisons in Ambler into the wastebasket, but thought better of it and put it in his drawer. He wanted it to remember this day, even though he doubted he could ever forget it.
Nicky turned the dial on the radio and heard Dinah Shore’s satin-smooth voice bounce off the concrete walls. He lowered the volume.
He hung up his suit, placed the shoe trees in his work oxfords, and put on his pajamas. Aunt Jo had placed his clean laundry on top of the dresser. The clean scent of borax and hints of bleach that made his undergarments bright white filled the drawer as he placed them into the dresser.
Nicky opened the bottle of beer and took a swig. He pushed the door to the basement kitchen open and flipped on the light. The daughters-in-law had made pasta that day, and the wooden dowels were draped with long, thin strands of linguini for Sunday dinner. Cavatelli, small hand-rolled pasta tubes resembling beads for stringing, were laid out on the enamel worktable on fresh white cotton sack cloths sprinkled with cornmeal.
Nicky took in the women’s handiwork. He went to the table and studied the macaroni as though it were art. Flour and egg and a bit of water, kneaded and pressed into dough, was the only tactile memory he had of his mother. If he concentrated and used all of his senses, he could see her at the table in this room, wearing an apron with red pockets in the shapes of hearts. He could inhale the scent of the flour, touch the soft dough snakes on the cold table, pinch a taste of it, feel the sting on his hand when Aunt Jo lightly smacked it and the warmth of his mother’s embrace that followed the smack.
Most precious to him was the laughter his mother and Aunt Jo shared as they gossiped while making ravioli in the presses or folding tortellini or standing at the stove and making the crepes for manicotti. If he closed his eyes, he could hear them as they bantered over the worktable. What he missed the most about his mother was surely the sound of her voice. He remembered when she spoke, it had a lovely timbre, light and clear, like the gold church bells rung by hand at the altar at Holy Communion. Nicola Castone’s voice was soft when she read to him, and firm when she scolded him, but never brusque. He remembered she was tender and kind. A lady.
Nicky turned out the light and pulled the door closed. One radio show had ended, and it was Rosemary Clooney’s turn to fill the air over South Philly with her velvet sound. Nicky preferred her to Dinah. Rosemary sang like she knew what it was to be alone, and in hearing her, Nicky felt less so.
He leaned back in the chair without rocking, the legs creaking under his weight. Nicky stared at the ceiling, filled with a nagging sense of guilt. The presence of guilt meant his conscience was reminding him to claim responsibility for wrongdoing, or so he had been taught on the eve of his First Confession by the parish priest. So, as he had done since his seventh birthday, he reviewed the day’s events in search of the source of his sin. Whom had he offended, dismissed, disregarded, or treated poorly? Not for nothing, Nicky was proud of himself for sticking around for Mrs. Allison. He thought about the sound of the wings, thinking that might have been a mystical experience, though he couldn’t be sure. Nicky sat up in the rocker and remembered. Peachy. He had forgotten his fiancée in all the turmoil. He hadn’t called her, even though there was a phone booth in the waiting area of the hospital. Why hadn’t he called her? Wasn’t it Peachy who always said, “One thin dime. Take the time”?
It would have been so easy, but he hadn’t thought to do it. Nor had he had the impulse to stop by the department store on the way back from Ambler to the garage. He could have picked up the phone in the office at the garage, but he hadn’t. There were phone booths on every block when he delivered the telegrams that night; he could have easily slipped into any one of them and called her to see how she was, and, for his own part, for reassurance from her, support from the woman who loved him after a terrible day. But he hadn’t done it. There was no good excuse. Peachy had slipped his mind. He felt worse knowing he had put seven dimes into his tip jar. Nicky even had the change to make the call.
Instead, he’d found himself at Borelli’s, led there by something he didn’t understand. It was just a feeling. He went where he found peace, where he could think. Nicky believed he had that kind of solace in Peachy, he really did. But that day, that belief hadn’t led him to her. It had led him to the theater and his friend Calla Borelli.
Calla could be a smart aleck and she always had a comeback, but she was all right. She was cute. He thought about her body, how flawless it was in the beam of the work light in the wings—was it just the light and the way it fell across her like lace? It wasn’t the light, it was her.
Her body enchanted him like the silver Pierce-Arrow hood ornament that had arrived at the shop in layers of padded brown paper when he was a boy. Knowing the contents, Nicky had carefully unwrapped the ornament and marveled at the sleek lines and smooth polish of the silver. He remembered holding the ornament and not wanting to put it down.
Calla’s clothing, like the paper, was just fabric covering a work of art. He thought about where her body might take him, but before it became real, he shook his head, trying to erase the image of her from his mind. What kind of a guy examines his conscience to pinpoint his sin and then, without apology, throws himself headfirst into lust like he’s bobbing for apples?
Nicky said a fast prayer to Saint Maria Goretti in hopes she might help remove the image of Calla Borelli’s fantastic form from his mind’s eye. But prayer was a weak bleach; it could not remove the stain. Devotion hadn’t helped much—Calla came to him uninvited in a dream; nor did his spiritual habits protect him much when he needed to stay awake on a long shift. When he was exhausted behind the wheel, he’d think of Calla in the wings, stepping into the gown, and his eyes would pop open and the barely dressed image of her gave him a boost of energy to complete the run. It’s not that he didn’t imagine his fiancée in provocative ways too, here and there now and then—of course he did. But the Borelli girl was different.
Nicky didn’t want to compare Calla to Peachy—well, he wouldn’t. He was betrothed to Peachy. He had chosen her. She had said yes. They had made a deal. The banns of marriage had been printed in the church bulletin—in essence, page one of the final contract to be signed in the church book on their wedding day had already been negotiated.
He made the sign of the cross to ward off further impure thoughts of Calla Borelli, and any disloyal ones toward Peachy DePino. But he knew lusty thoughts were like waterskiing. It only took one distraction to loosen his grip on the bar, and once he did, the ride was over, he’d for sure go under and drown.
Occasions of sin of a sexual nature in the venial variety would unspool in his mind like a B movie, and soon Nicky would find himself in the capable hands of a faceless vixen with a willing body, who would make love to him in ways he imagined satisfying, reckless, and athletic, which in turn would lead to her ecstasy, his ruin, the fall of the Holy Roman Church, and the crumbling of all nations. And all of this mayhem and degradation triggered because Calla Borelli innocently placed her hands on his shoulders in the costume shop. He felt sick within himself.
Nicky couldn’t finish the beer, and he didn’t want his dinner. He’d lost his appetite entirely. He crawled into bed and flipped off the light, leaving the radio on, which he never did. But that night, he needed the company.
* * *
Calla sat on the straight-backed chair outside the Calabrese & Sons accounting office on Vine Street. The waiting area had two chairs, a small console table painted black, and a flower arrangement of blue plastic roses in a chinoiserie vase set upon a handmade doily.
She placed the box of ledgers from the theater on the floor beside her feet. She sat up, removed her short white gloves and placed them in her purse, patted the hem of her best skirt, and straightened the buttons on the jacket.
“Calla, come in,” Joe hollered from inside his office.
Calla picked up the box and stood up tall and straight, mustering her courage. She smiled before entering.
>
“Anna sends her best. She wants you to come see her on the Jersey shore this summer.”
“I’d like that.”
“She has a place in Tinton Falls. You know it?”
“Nope. But I can find anything on the South Shore bus line.”
Joe Calabrese was wiry and trim. He wore eyeglasses, and his straight black hair was thinning, but he was attractive for an egghead. “The cousins have to stay close. You know, with your mom gone, it’s going to be a challenge.”
“She brought everybody together.”
“What do you have there?”
“The ledgers for the last two seasons.”
Joe leaned back in his chair. “I took this place over from my dad, and I had to update everything. He had his ways, and I have mine.”
“Dad did a good job with the theater.”
“But he didn’t make any money.”
“He owns the real estate.”
“Calla, the place needs a lot of work. Even to sell it.”
“What are you saying?”
“You’re burning daylight over there. I think you should shut it down. Try to rent the building out. And prepare to sell it.”
“Joe, I didn’t come to you to find a way to close the theater. I came to you to help me to find a way to make capital improvements and keep it open.”
“I don’t see any profit here. Not for years. ”
“Because Dad plowed it back into the theater. We lived off it all my life.”
“It’s not a failure, then. That’s good. But I’m telling you, based upon your numbers, your operating costs, your box office receipts, and your debt, you have no choice. Why are you saddling yourself with this?”
“It’s my life.”
“It’s your father’s life.”
“So you can’t help me.”
“I’m an accountant. I do numbers, not miracles. What do you want me to do?”
“I was hoping you could take me to a bank and help me get a business loan. I understand that the banks are loaning money now that the war is over.”
“How would we convince them that you could make money at the theater?”