As soon as the door opened and fresh air hit her face, she began to cry. She had convinced herself long ago that the love that had brought them together in the first place could be salvaged if they prayed together and committed to saving their marriage. She had intended to pay attention to Louis again, to give him what he needed, but time, work, and other obligations had created too much distance. It made it harder for her to reach Louis across the divide, when it should have been easier.
Her mother, long passed, had taught her that a man only treats a woman poorly when he’s behaving poorly behind her back. Hortense knew that Louis had struggled, and it was all right if he needed to take out his disappointment on her. After all, she was his wife. She could keep the ugliness hidden, and she had, for many years. It didn’t hurt any less to understand it, or to see it. And now, Hortense didn’t care if anyone saw her misery either.
A stranger, a young woman of twenty, placed her hand on Hortense’s arm before reaching into her purse. Her white-gloved hand shuffled through its contents until she found a starched white cotton handkerchief, which she gave to Hortense. The girl’s skin, the color of rich coffee, was unlined and clear. “You all right, ma’am?”
Hortense took the handkerchief and dried her tears.
“You keep it.” The young woman patted Hortense on the arm before joining the crowd on the sidewalk.
Hortense stood under the awning, holding the handkerchief. She wasn’t weeping for her marriage, or for the loss of her husband, or even for having her high hopes dashed. She wept for the time she had lost. There was no getting it back. She stepped out from under the shadows of the awning and into the sunlight. If there was one thing Hortense Mooney knew how to do, it was walk in the light.
* * *
The CBS Television studios occupied a full city block near the Hudson River in New York City. Inside the open main floor, the sets for the network of television shows, including news, serials, and musical variety were pushed, rolled, wheeled, and shoved into position on islands mounted on wheels. From the fly space overhead, electric cables that provided power were looped and draped from an overhead grid to accommodate the camera’s movement. Lighting equipment dropped, and flats flew in, to segregate space as a living room turned into a kitchen, only to become a hospital room flipping to a department store, to a news desk anchored by world maps, all within moments.
In the center of the circus was Gloria Monty, the methodical, calm director of theater who took the scripts the writers created and staged the scenes for the cameras. Television wasn’t cinema or Broadway, so Gloria was free to invent her own approach to a new dramatic form that showed no signs of lasting beyond the initial novelty. She did her job by doing what she did best: casting an interesting group of actors, providing them with dramatic scripts, and creating a family atmosphere of support whereby the actor could be daring and experiment. The daytime serial moved so fast that if one scene failed, the next might work. The mission was to keep the story moving and the tension high, which meant the well-drawn character carried the weight of the serial. The woman watching at home began to watch her stories on television just as she had listened to serialized radio plays and read serial stories in her favorite magazines.
For Gloria Monty and other serious theater artists, television was not yet an art form; it was too new to categorize, but it quickly became something the stage was not: a lucrative way to make a living.
* * *
“There he is! There’s Nicky!” Mabel pointed through the viewing window of the audience room.
“Can we hear what he’s saying?” Uncle Dom asked. “Why can’t we hear anything?”
“Pop, they said we won’t be able to hear anything, we only watch.”
“This isn’t modern. It’s like a silent movie. Why did we come? We could stay home and hear it.”
“He looks so handsome. He’s the most handsome of all,” Aunt Jo raved.
“I didn’t know he had it in him.” Uncle Dom watched as Nicky argued with another character. “I never saw Nicky blow. He lived with us how many years, Jo?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Look at him. He looks like his head is going to pop like a cork.”
“It’s just acting, Pop,” Lena said, and sat down on one of the benches. She was swollen in the last weeks of pregnancy. “It’s all pretend.”
“I bet I could do it,” Gio said.
“You can’t act,” Mabel retorted. “You’re the worst liar there is.”
Gio sniffed. “It doesn’t look that hard to me.”
“It’s very difficult,” Elsa told them. “Nicky has been studying with Miss Monty. He doesn’t come by this naturally.”
“But it sure looks it,” Dominic said, impressed.
“Who’s that tomato he’s with, in the pink suit?” Dom wondered.
“That’s the star of the show,” Lena told him.
“I can see why. She’s got what it takes.”
“How much longer?” Lena whispered to Nino.
“A couple minutes. Don’t you feel well?”
“I’m okay. Just puffy.”
“I keep waving to Nicky. Can he see us?” Aunt Jo wondered.
“No, Ma. They have that special film on the window so we can see out but he can’t see in.”
“What’s happening?”
The set was disassembled in pieces, the lights flew up on the grid, the cameras rolled away, and the island sets rolled off to the side.
“That’s it,” Dominic said.
“That’s the show?” Mabel stood up.
“See the red light? They’re clearing the sets.” Gio pointed.
Nicky navigated through crew on the stage until he made it to the audience viewing room.
The family greeted Nicky with an enthusiastic ovation. “We couldn’t hear a word in this can. But you looked good,” Uncle Dom said proudly.
“You are the best actor on the show,” Aunt Jo raved.
“She says that but if she’s honest, she has a thing for that Joe O’Brien,” Dom groused.
“I do too! He’s from Scranton, you know!” Lena swooned.
“He’s a nice guy,” Nicky said. “How are the babies?” Nicky embraced his cousins.
“Giovanna is sleeping through the night,” Mabel bragged.
“Dominic the third is learning the alphabet,” his father bragged. “Joseph is good with numbers already.”
“Uh oh,” Nicky warned.
“Don’t worry. Uncle Gio hasn’t taught him blackjack.”
“Yet.” Gio laughed.
“Lena, you have a lot to live up to.”
Lena burst into tears. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not you, Nicky. I’m crazy, I laugh, I cry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re having a baby—nothing wrong with you. You need to put your feet up. Can you all come over to my place?”
“We would love it,” Aunt Jo said.
“The pictures were gorgeous. You have a rooftop garden.”
“Thanks to the Lucky Strike commercial.”
“They should pay you double—you’ve been smoking them since you were thirteen,” Gio teased.
Gloria entered wearing a chic dress of emerald-green and black brocade. The only indication that she was a director was the headset draped over the pearls around her neck. “So this is your family! I feel like I know you all.”
“Everybody, this is Gloria Monty, the director of the show,” Nicky introduced her.
“Such a wisp,” Uncle Dom commented. “You’re pretty too.”
“She just needs her brain to do her job, Dom,” Aunt Jo chided him.
The Palazzinis surrounded Gloria. They had an instant rapport; she was a New Jersey Italian who understood the South Philly ways. And, of course, she had hired one of their own, which made her one of them too. Nicky fished in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. He stood back and watched his current life and his old one blend, like whi
skey and ice.
“Your family is so Italian, Nick.”
“Is that a compliment?” Dom challenged her.
“It better be. I’m Italian too.”
“We’re running the world,” Dom said proudly.
“Don’t forget the Irish!” Mabel hollered.
“I couldn’t! I married one.” Gloria laughed.
It was only after Nicky moved out of 810 Montrose that he knew for certain how much he was loved. All those years, he believed he was a burden, a bother, an extra mouth to feed, a charity case who went from the trundle bed in Nino’s room to the cot in Gio’s to the room in the basement, where he stayed until the day he left for New York City. All that time, Nicky figured he was the poor relation with a different surname, whose parents had died and left him to rely on the only relatives that would take him in. But Nicky had it all wrong.
Nicky Castone had been a balm to his aunt, a loyal friend to his cousins, a helper to their wives, and a hardworking nephew in his uncle’s business. But out of his own insecurity, and his own need to fit in, to wear the Palazzini uniform and hope that it looked like it fit, he had not claimed his life as his own. All that time, he had never really unpacked but lived out of a suitcase, which in his mind must always be at the ready in case he was asked to leave. Now he knew they had wanted him to stay.
Why had it taken leaving them to see who they were? Why hadn’t Nicky seen them clearly when he sat at their table every night? He wanted them to love him, and they had, they did, and they always would. Why had it taken Nicky so long to believe it? Nicky Castone had been raised by the Palazzinis, and he’d become one.
Grief and its tangled vines of regret, hopelessness, and fear had grown wild around his heart since the day his mother died. The only way to crush the vines was to kill them at their root, to cut off the source of their growth, the guilt that fed them. Nicky could, at long last, let go of the wish that his life had been different. He let go of the self-recrimination that had haunted him as he blamed himself for his mother’s death.
For years, he’d believed that he wasn’t worthy of a home and a family to call his own. He had been abandoned; the circumstances were unimportant compared to the displacement he lived with because of it. Nicky had learned that the security that comes from knowing where your parents are when you lie down to sleep at night isn’t a given, but a gift. He realized now, as a man, that he had missed out on very little as a boy, because he was loved, and yet even with all the attention and reassurance nothing could replace his mother. Yet in her youthful wisdom his mother had made sure he had what he needed. His mother had chosen her replacement wisely. There was nothing in his heart but gratitude for Aunt Jo, the woman who raised him, and for her husband, who stepped in to father him, and for his cousins, who had been brothers all along.
“You’re famous, Nicky. My sister would be so proud.”
“Are you?” Nicky asked Jo, knowing that her high opinion mattered to him as much.
“More than I can say,” Jo assured him.
Nicky embraced his aunt before turning to the group. “Who’s hungry?”
The Palazzinis began to talk over one another, weighing in where to go, what to eat, and how hungry they were. Nicky ignored the cacophony, the music that had underscored his life growing up in South Philly. He led them out of the studio to the restaurant next door and the reservation he had made for his family. No longer the guest, Nicky was, at long last, the host.
* * *
The purple leaves on the red maple tree flew off their branches, cascading slowly to the ground outside Mamie’s kitchen window that afternoon. Autumn had come early in Roseto. Mamie snapped the kitchen window shut and opened the valve on the radiator beneath it, releasing a whoosh of warm steam. She placed her hands on the cold metal as her husband, Eddie Davanzo, pushed the door open, handed his wife a loaf of fresh bread from LeDonne’s Bakery, and kissed her on the cheek before hanging up his policeman’s cap.
“I’m warming up the soup.”
“Augie’s staying at school.”
“Is he in trouble?”
“The nuns asked a few of the boys to move some boxes for them. Sister Ercolina said she’d feed them.” Eddie removed his gun and holster and placed it on top of the refrigerator.
Mamie smiled and ladled the soup into a bowl.
“When Augie’s happy, you’re happy,” Eddie remarked.
“You’ll be the same when the baby’s born.” Mamie placed the bowl of tomato and rice soup in front of Eddie. She handed him a cloth napkin before slicing the fresh bread. Eddie slathered the slice with butter and dipped it into his soup. Mamie poured her husband a small glass of red wine. She examined the apples in a wooden bowl in the kitchen window, and chose a ripe red one. She sat down next to her husband and sliced it into sections for him.
“I can’t wait to go back to work,” Mamie admitted.
“When the baby’s born, you won’t miss your job.”
“I think I will.”
“You’re the only woman I ever knew that didn’t complain about working at the mill.”
“I feel like I accomplish something there. How many times can I wax the floor? It’s like an ice rink in here.”
Mamie got up and went into the living room. She turned on the television set. The Philco hummed warming up before the picture appeared. Mamie returned to the kitchen and picked up the cruet of olive oil from the set on the table.
“Is your skin dry?” Eddie asked her.
“A little.” Mamie went back into the living room with the olive oil. The picture on the television was now clear, in shades of gray, black, and white. Jinx Falkenburg was selling a Buick Skylark. Mamie liked her hat. It had a leopard band and a snap brim of black velvet. She leaned in closely, figuring the hat was an original by Helen Rosenberg. When she went back to work, Mamie would buy herself one.
Mamie placed a few drops of olive oil in her palm and rubbed her hands together to warm it. She reached under her maternity blouse and was massaging her stomach gently when a male voice announced, “And now our story.”
The screen filled with the main title Love of Life.
“Eddie, get in here! The show is on!”
“I have to get back to work.”
“You can watch for a minute.”
Eddie stood in the doorway. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Mamie, so he joined her on the couch.
“This is not for me,” he said.
“You like The Lone Ranger.”
“That’s got adventure. This is like going over to my mother’s and we sit at the kitchen table and listen to her and her sisters gossip.”
“It’s a little like that.” Mamie squinted at the set. “There he is!”
“Yep, that’s him,” Eddie confirmed.
“He got thin.”
“Starving artist.”
“Professional actor.”
“You think so?”
“He’s on every day. He’s doing fine.”
“How many people watch this show? Can’t be that many.”
Mamie watched Nicky intently as he played his scene. He had a specific talent, a way of being, that transcended the muddle of the charcoal images. Nicky emerged sharper, more clear somehow; the light hit him, and his face lit up like the moon in full on a black night.
“You miss him?” Eddie asked offhandedly.
“Oh God, no.” Mamie turned to look at her husband and patted his thigh. It had been a few years since the Jubilee, but the memory of the two Carlos remained.
“Why do you watch, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because he’s the only famous person I ever met.”
“But he was an impostor.”
“That sounds criminal.”
“He pretended to be somebody he wasn’t.”
“But he had good reason.” A smile curled Mamie’s lips, as she remembered the moment she first heard Nicky’s funny accent, and the moment he dropped it in private just for her.
“I don’t know what spell he cast over the women around here,” Eddie complained.
“Eddie.”
“I’m curious. I’d really like to know. It’s like he raised women from the dead. A pack of Lazarus ladies in half slips.”
Mamie motioned to Eddie to be quiet as she watched the show. Eddie took the olive oil, warmed a few drops in his hands, and rubbed it onto Mamie’s stomach. She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of his touch, and the smooth heat of the oil as it penetrated her skin.
“I can feel him kicking,” Eddie said proudly. “Muscle tone.”
“He never stops, this baby.”
“I wonder what he’s thinking in there.”
“He’s thinking he’s safe,” Mamie said, lifting her husband’s hands to kiss them.
“Well, he is. His father is a cop.”
“And he lives in Roseto, where no harm will come to him.”
“Because we take care of our own.”
“That’s what Nicky said.”
“The impostor.”
“The actor. Who played the ambassador. Anyway, he admired that about us. About Roseto. He liked that we were just like his family in South Philly. That we looked out for one another—that we watched out for each other’s kids and shared the harvest of our gardens and took care of our old people, and when we did the little things, like bake a cake, we’d bake two, one for home and one for the neighbor. He was one of us.”
“That’s how he conned us.” Eddie nodded. “We believed him because he was like us.”
“A stranger can show up and be part of the family.”
Nicky came back on the screen, and Mamie motioned for Eddie to hush. Onscreen, Nicky lit a cigarette and leaned against the bar in the background while a couple had an argument in the foreground. Nicky, however, didn’t take his eyes off the fight, which forced the audience at home to focus on it too.
“You never answered my question, hon.”
“What’s that?” Mamie kept her eyes on the screen.
“Why did every woman in town go for him?”
“Eddie, it’s not important now. It’s yesterday’s news. Irrelevant.”