Kiss Carlo

  “You forgot the people that made you. This theater gave you your break.” Calla looked up into the fly space overhead, where the lines of the cables looked like delicate silver spider webs. What a grand place, if you let your imagination build it so, but Nicky Castone didn’t get it.

  Calla continued, “Sam Borelli’s theater. How kind of you to come back to honor my father by insulting him, calling him a bad businessman.”

  “He would agree with me.”

  “He’s not here to defend himself.”

  “Why can’t you admit you need help?”

  “If I did, and I don’t, you’d be the last person I’d ask.”

  Rosa DeNero peeked through the stage curtain. “Excuse me. It’s time to open the house.”

  “Open the house, Rosa.” Calla called off, “Places everyone.” She turned to Nicky. “We have a show to do.”

  Calla kept her hand on the handle of the stage door. Nicky walked through the beam of light and out the door, into the afternoon sun and out onto the loading platform, as Calla closed the door behind him.

  “She told him,” Hambone whispered to Tony.

  The cast took their places behind Hambone and Tony in the wings, looking like a box of crayons in their velvet costumes.

  “What do we do now?” Norma said, clipping on rhinestone ear bobs.

  “Those lips that love’s own hand did make, Breathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate,’” Tony whispered.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Hambone squelched a bourbon burp.

  “It means we won’t be seeing Nicky around here anymore,” Norma said.

  * * *

  Nicky lay in his old bed in his basement room at the Palazzinis’. He wasn’t nostalgic for his basement room any longer. He found out he no longer missed the scent of the spaghetti as it dried, or the sweet tomatoes as they were canned. This was no sanctuary. He no more belonged in this room than he did behind the wheel of Car No. 4. His old life was hanging in somebody else’s closet now; he had outgrown the shoes, the pants, and the cap. Nick Carl no longer fit in Nicky Castone’s clothes or his bed or his old life. It felt odd.

  Nicky lay on top of the coverlet, shirtless, his belt loosened, and the top button of his trousers undone. His stomach was distended from Aunt Jo’s twelve-course meal, which ended with a round of prosecco followed by a hit of homemade limoncello and a cin cin of Uncle Dom’s bitters that had done nothing to settle his stomach, and in fact, had only made his bloat worse.

  Nicky was his own definition of fat and lonely and unlovable. As he drifted off to sleep, he imagined climbing the road to Roseto Valfortore, which unlocked the door to his dreams. He would count the stones until he could no longer, until he had reached the top of the mountain. He hoped to wake in the morning with some direction.

  * * *

  Calla adjusted her hat in the reflection of the window outside Frank Arrigo’s construction trailer on Wharton as the sun set behind the city. She had spent the day consulting every bank, builder, and real estate agent in town regarding the theater, and every one of them told her that Frank Arrigo was the man to see. Their romance had ended poorly and abruptly, but Calla put that aside as she had nowhere else to turn as the secretary ushered her into Frank’s office inside the trailer.

  Frank looked up at Calla, warmly, at first, surprised to see her. When he remembered his feelings, his eyes narrowed.

  “Congratulations on your wedding.” Calla smiled brightly.

  “Thanks. We’re very happy.”

  “And that makes me happy.”

  “I always wondered what did.”

  “Frank, you’re the best businessman I know, and I’m in a rough spot with the theater. I’m looking for someone to buy it and lease it to me until I can buy it back.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You’d make a profit when I bought it back.”

  “Or I’d lose my investment entirely.”

  “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  “Calla, there’s a reason the banks won’t loan you money. You’re a very bad risk. You persist in keeping a business open that doesn’t make money. At best, here and there it breaks even. A private business is not going to partner with you if a bank, with all the resources in the country, wouldn’t do it.”

  “But you know me. You know I’m not a risk.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can do.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll buy it from you now. Outright. We’ll set a fair price. But no theater. I want the lot.”

  “I don’t want to do that. I didn’t want to do that when I was going with you and I don’t want to do that now.”

  “Then I’ll wait for the property to go to auction—which, at the rate you’re going, it will—and I’ll buy it for pennies on the dollar. I want you to remember we had this conversation.”

  “I’m not likely to forget it.”

  Calla stood. She was sorry she had put on her best hat and gloves for this.

  “Good luck, Frank,” she said as she left his office. He said something to her as she went out the trailer door, but she didn’t hear him; the metal steps were noisy as she climbed down to the ground.

  Frank Arrigo said You’ll be back. He was a man who always had to have the last word. What he didn’t know was that Calla hadn’t heard him—but it didn’t matter, she wouldn’t be back. She would find another way to save Borelli’s.

  * * *

  Calla took a long walk after meeting with Frank. She stopped to pick up a sack of fresh cookies from Isgro’s and, eating them as she walked, she gave a lot of thought to her situation at the theater. She actually laughed when she saw Freddie Cocozza was here written in chalk on the sidewalk. Only the old-timers knew Freddie became Mario Lanza. She stopped and looked in the window of Ye Old Apothecary, where they had a display of White Shoulders and Golden Shadows in their glistening bottles before heading back to the theater.

  Calla exhaled as she pushed through the stage door and made her way down to the costume shop. She flipped on the light and gasped.

  Nicky was sprawled out on the worktable.

  She recoiled. “What are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Why the good hat?” Nicky rolled over on one side and rubbed his lower back.

  “I had a business meeting.”

  “How did it go?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “Poorly, then, I take it. I realize now, years later, that the mattress at 810 was bad from the first moment I slept on it. I didn’t know because I didn’t have anything to compare it to. I’d love a cookie. Thanks.” He took the bag from her and fished out a chocolate and vanilla checkerboard and ate it.

  “Why are you telling me this?” She grabbed her cookies back.

  “I wanted you to know I didn’t sleep well last night. Did you?”

  “If this is your roundabout way of apologizing—”

  “I’m not apologizing. Why would I apologize? Why would anyone be sorry about telling the truth?”

  “Then let’s shake hands and part friends. I’ve got work to do. There’s plenty of places in South Philly where you can pass the time. Go to the Casella Social Club and get in on one of your cousin Gio’s card games.”

  “You’re a cold cookie. You’re impossible. Unfeeling, actually. You turn on and off like a garden hose. And not one of those nice ones with the sprinkler feature that goes back and forth like a windshield wiper. You’re an ice cold gusher. You have to be right. You don’t listen to reason. You know everything about everything. What am I doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know. I have a good life in the city. I like my routine. I live in the sky. I get to see clouds float by where I used to see feet shuffle by. Shoes. I use to see pigeon toes, now I see pigeons fly by. At night, I see stars. The moon.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Yes, sister. And I’m free. I can stay out all night on Fridays and drink with my frien
ds after the show tapes. We blow off steam. We laugh. Carry on. I answer to no one.”

  “Well, I do. I answer to this company of actors. I listen to the audience, dwindled as it is, as you’ve pointed out. I listen to my gut, and that has failed me. I try and listen to any voices from the other side that might offer some direction, but my mother and father, ostensibly in heaven, are not speaking up, and all I hear is the banging of the pipes that need fixing on the mezzanine floor. We live different lives, Nick, but what I don’t understand is why you came over here to remind me what a failure I am. Again. You must take some glee in that, which makes you sadistic, which means that your success has made you not humble but proud, and turned you into one of those men that likes to tell the rest of us why we’re failures, as if we don’t have the talent you possess, when in fact it’s not about talent at all, it’s about luck. Sheer luck put you where you are. Talent, yes, that’s a factor—when luck appears, you need it. But without the luck, all the talent in the world doesn’t matter.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “I’m living it! I went to Frank Arrigo. I asked him to buy the place. I made him an offer. And he turned me down. He said he’d wait for the auction. He’d get a better deal that way. What are the chances that the only business in town that wants this building happens to be a man I used to see?”

  “An old flame you put out with a fire hose. You shouldn’t have gone over there. That’s my fault.”

  “No, it’s mine. I thought he was my friend. But you see, he didn’t get what he wanted from me, so that makes me the enemy. Men have a crazy way of moving through the world. You don’t do things their way, it doesn’t get done. I will never understand it. Ego before progress.”

  “He married Peachy. Who knew that bookkeeper was Joan of Arc, and her cause was slaying me to get to Frank Arrigo?”

  “Shut up, Nicky. She’s over you, and so am I. I’m down to the last of my money. I asked my sisters to bail me out, and Portia said no—she was done supporting this theater. Helen—you know, she’s pretty smart—she said, ‘Calla, when are you going to stop trying to redeem Dad’s life? When are you going to realize that he never made it because he was chasing a silly dream?’ And I said, ‘Is that what you thought when you watched him from the mezzanine? I thought he was astonishing. I was fascinated when he worked with the actors. When he blocked the play. When weeks later the sets rolled in and the lights came on, and the costumes appeared, and a world was unveiled right before our eyes. There was nothing but a dark space, and suddenly it was filled with life. Who does that? Who can do it? Not an ordinary person but an extraordinary artist! My father! Our father! Perhaps in heaven!’ My sisters thought he was a crackpot. They didn’t appreciate how he searched for meaning and tried to create work that mattered. All they knew is that there was never enough money. Mom never had what she needed. The house was never repaired. We wore hand-me-downs so the actors could have new costumes. We had to work the box office and scrub the restrooms and seat the patrons. We had to get up early in the morning before the sun came up and hang posters throughout South Philly, hoping that they would help sell some tickets.

  “All my sisters remember is the worst of it—like when Dad burned the bad reviews. And they looked down on him for getting bad ones in the first place as though it was his fault. And when he got good ones, they weren’t enough. He couldn’t win. He was being judged all the time. How can an artist survive that? Well, we can’t always. We quit.”

  “This isn’t really about art, Calla.”

  “That was my dad’s life.”

  “Yes, it was. But this theater is just another family business. Some people cut lumber, some people make pants, and others drive cabs. Your family made shows.”

  “Not anymore. I’m done.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Maybe I’ll work for the Philly opera company. I can do crew work. Sew costumes.”

  “Crew? You’re a director.”

  “It didn’t work out.”

  “So you’ll just quit?”

  “It quit me.”

  “I see. The scribes and pharisees of the American theater got together and took a vote and ousted you.”

  “None of this is your problem. Thank you for listening to me. I told you some things I haven’t told anyone. I guess I thought no one wanted to hear them. But it seemed like you did.”

  Calla looked down at her clipboard. She removed the pencil and began to tap it against the board until the sound drove Nicky to gently take the pencil from her.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Do you think that’s why I can’t think straight?”

  “Yes I do. You can’t eat cookies and think big thoughts.”

  “Too much sugar”—Calla sighed—“brings crazy ideas and a fat fanny.”

  “I’m trying to get as thin as I was when I came out of the army. The television camera adds some pounds. But right now I don’t care. Before I go back to the city, why don’t we have a cheesesteak? In honor of our long friendship. What could it hurt? I promise not to be critical of you. Let’s eat. Why not?”

  “Why not?” Calla smiled.

  “I haven’t seen your teeth in a while. You have a smile.”

  “I’m keeping it under wraps until something good happens.”

  “Might happen sooner than you think.”

  Calla locked up and soon followed Nicky out of the theater. Nicky helped her into the passenger seat of the cab and closed the door behind her, then went around the front of the car. Calla shielded her eyes from the street light as he moved through it. It was just a momentary thing, but he seemed to disappear in the light, and while she heard the click of the driver’s-side door and felt the body of the car rock gently when he sat in the seat, she had a moment of believing Nicky gone, and that made her think.

  * * *

  Nicky picked up two cheesesteaks at Sal’s window as Calla cleared a spot on the outdoor table, where he soon joined her with their dinner.

  A woman of sixty sitting across from them, her blue-gray hair set in tight curls, was chewing her sandwich when she recognized Nick Carl from the television set. A grin spread across her face like a pat of butter melting over a hot pancake. The soap opera fan reached up and adjusted the small saucer hat on her head, so the button adornment might face out properly. She got up and went to their table.

  “I was wondering,” she said, flirting with Nicky.

  Calla took a bite of the sandwich and nodded. “Yes, this is Nick Carl from Love of Life.”

  “I knew it!” the lady said. “I love you on the show. Will you sign something?”

  “He’d love to. He’s not hungry at all,” Calla said through a bite of the sandwich.

  Nicky shot Calla a look, then smiled politely at the fan. “Of course.”

  The woman fished in her handbag until she found her checkbook. She snapped the fountain pen off the jacket. “Here,” she said excitedly. “Make it out to Ethel. That’s me.”

  “A check?”

  “No, no, just your autograph.”

  Nicky followed her instructions.

  “Thank you. The girls at the Aster and Posy Garden Club won’t believe it.”

  “Well, you won’t have to worry about that. Now you have proof we met.” Nicky handed the lady the autograph and pen. Ethel backed away, elated. “Thanks for that.” Nicky took a bite out of his sandwich.

  “You must have the ladies throwing themselves at you constantly, now that you’re famous,” Calla said.

  “Here and there.”

  “Is it like Roseto?”

  “It’s got its similarities. When I was a big, phony ambassador with a cheesy accent, heavy on the parm, the women liked me because they thought I was important. Nick Carl is just another invention. Neither of those fellows is real.”

  “I know the real Nicky Castone.”

  “Keep the details to yourself. It will kill my love life.”

  “No kidding. But, it’ll cost you. The
next time the AP wants the story, you tell them to call me.”

  “What would you say?”

  “A lot. Do you ever hear from Mamie?”

  “No.” Nicky’s face flushed. Calla really did know everything about him, and he wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.

  “Would you like to?” she asked innocently.

  “Mamie came into my life and showed me what was missing. Whatever I lost, she found. She married the beat cop and had a baby. She’s happy. All my exes are happy. ”

  “Good for them.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’m always going to be alone.”

  “Don’t tell the AP that. They won’t think you’re a credible interview.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not going to be alone.”

  “I wish I had your confidence.”

  “So what were your plans when I go back to the city tonight?”

  Calla shrugged. “I was going to check the want ads.”

  Nicky made a face. “Sounds like fun.”

  “See what’s out there,” Calla said positively.

  “What is out there?”

  “Right now? I don’t know. I saw an ad. There’s a new coat factory going up in Germantown.”

  “Do you mind if I offer some advice?”

  “Please do.”

  “The want ads are never a good way to go when you’re looking for a job. I know that from my hack days. I used to clean the cab at the end of the shift, and people always left their old newspapers in the back seat. Two observations: very few people ever finished the crossword puzzle.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “I thought so. And the want ads—will make you feel unwanted. You’re not somebody who can be described in three lines.”

  “I’m not?”

  “So you shouldn’t spend time looking through them.”

  “I don’t know how else to look for a job.”

  “You already have one.”

  “Nicky, the theater has to close. I’ve run out of options.”