Kiss Carlo

  “All but one.”

  “Don’t hold back. I’m listening.”

  “Me.”

  “Keep your money, it’s a losing proposition. Even the loan sharks turn away when they see me coming.”

  “I believe in you.”

  “I could never take a dime from you, knowing what I know about the debt, the repairs that need to be done, and the audience that we’d have to build to put the theater in the black. It’s impossible. But thank you for wanting to try.”

  “I don’t want to give you any money.”

  “That’s wise.” Calla patted his hand and went back to her sandwich.

  “I want to give you all of my money.”

  Calla took another bite of her sandwich.

  “Calla, did you hear me?”

  She nodded. “You’re out of your mind.” She took a swig of birch beer from the bottle. “What does that even mean? All of it. Are you dying? Do you have a bad kidney or something?”

  “Could you please stop eating for one moment?” Nicky took her sandwich and put it down. He moved the bottle of soda. “I want to be your family.” Nicky leaned across the table and, taking Calla’s face in his hands, kissed her.

  When his lips touched hers, the sound around them became louder, more distinct. She could hear the radio inside Sal’s, the roar of a truck engine as it went by, a sprinkle of conversation across the way, staccatoed with laughter from behind Sal’s window. It all made a kind of music that she had never heard before. She forgot all about the sandwich, hungry now for Nicky’s kisses.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Carl. This is my friend, Viv. She watches Love of Life too. She’s your biggest fan.”

  “I’m in the middle of something here,” he said without opening his eyes, before kissing Calla again.

  “I can see that. But we’re kind of in a hurry. Viv has a sodality meeting at her church and is on a tight schedule.”

  “I’m in charge of the cake and coffee,” Viv said firmly.

  Nicky stood and extended his hand. Viv and her friend were petite Italian ladies in their late seventies. Separate, they were demure; together, they were a pair of tire irons. “It’s a pleasure, Viv.”

  An electrical current of desire went through Viv, almost sparking. “My, you’re tall.”

  “I was fully grown by my eighth birthday.”

  The ladies looked at one another. “I’ll bet.” Viv nodded. “Will you sign my collection envelope? It’s all I have.”

  “As long as I don’t have to fill it.”

  “Oh, you don’t.”

  Nicky signed the back of Viv’s tithe envelope from the church of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

  “Thank you! This will never wind up in the collection basket now!” The ladies tottered off like two squirrels sharing a single nut.

  “What happens now?” Calla sat back and folded her arms.

  “That depends upon your knowledge of Shakespeare.”

  “Quiz me.”

  “What happened in Act four, scene three of Twelfth Night?”

  “Sebastian and Olivia marry.”

  “So, we find a priest. That is, if you’ll marry me.”

  Calla Borelli looked into Nicky Castone’s eyes. They were at once as blue as the water off the shore of Santa Margherita, a place she longed to know, and as gray as the floorboards on the porch at the old house on Ellsworth Street. He was, in an instant, all the places she dreamed of and the only home she’d ever known. He was the past, and he was the now—the elusive moment her father tried to explain, which could only exist in the theater when the actor and the audience are one. But Nicky was also the love she had hoped for, and waited for, even when she believed it would never be hers. Calla had no idea her true love would appear in her life first as her friend.

  Calla didn’t want to be a wife and marry like her sisters or her mother; she didn’t know how. She didn’t want to change her name, and give up her father’s, as though he hadn’t lived and didn’t matter. If she had been born her father’s son, she would have carried it proudly. Why did she have to sacrifice Borelli because she was born a girl? Calla wanted her own life, one that could grow with another, like the dual twists of the lilac’s trunks as they wrapped around the drainpipe over the stage door, the ones she could never cut, afraid somehow, that if she did, she would sever beauty itself from the theater she loved.

  “Why would you want to marry me?” she asked him.

  “Honestly? All the other girls I asked said no.”

  “How many did you ask?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Is that all?” Calla asked.

  “Not enough?”

  “You have a national audience.”

  “I don’t read all the fan mail.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “So what do you say?”

  “I never let myself think this might happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t want to be disappointed.”

  “So now you don’t have to be. Ever again. What do you say? I’m hanging here like that flat on the stage wall. The one where the pulley never works right. One nudge in the wrong direction and I come crashing to the floor impaling Hambone to the prop table.”

  “How are you going to explain this to all the other women?”

  “Calla Borelli, you’re the only woman I’ve ever been sure of.”

  “I’m broke.”

  “I’ve been broke.”

  “I have debts.”

  “We’ll chip away at them.”

  “I’m bossy.”

  “I know.”

  “I won’t change.”

  “So henpeck me.”

  “I think I know it all sometimes.”

  Nicky nodded. “More often than not.”

  “I cut my own hair.”

  “That will stop.”

  “I can’t see myself in the beauty parlor.”

  “You’d better.”

  “I’ve loved you all along, Nick.”

  “You have?” He was intrigued. “How long?”

  “Dad was directing As You Like It. Spring season, nineteen forty-eight.”

  “Nineteen forty-six.”

  “I’m not good with numbers.”

  “This explains the problem with the bank.”

  She ignored the comment. “And you came into the theater. You were very thin. Like all the guys back from the war. And Dad asked you what you wanted to do, and you said, ‘Anything but act.’ ”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “And later Dad said that you were the first person that ever walked into the theater that didn’t want to be an actor.”

  “I’ve done all right, Calla.”

  “It wouldn’t matter to me if you hadn’t. You’re my best friend.”

  Calla put her arms around Nicky. She meant it. She believed in Nicky Castone in ways that her mother believed in her father. Calla would love him always, but she didn’t want to give up her own dreams for that great privilege. How could she ever tell him this? She couldn’t. So instead she kissed him; she kissed his cheeks, his nose, his mouth, and as her lips grazed his, she let herself stay in the best moment she had ever known: the one that lasts a lifetime.

  * * *

  Nicky rapped on the priest’s door of the rectory with his left hand and held on to Calla’s hand with his right.

  A young, fresh-scrubbed priest, wearing a new Roman collar and black cassock, answered the door.

  “Father Rodo?”

  “He’s on retreat.”

  “Are you the priest on duty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Father, what’s your name?”

  “Father Berry.”

  “Beautiful name. Sounds like summer. Father, Miss Borelli and I want to be married.”

  “You have to come and meet with Father Rodo, and for six weeks the banns of marriage have to appear in the church bulletin.”

  “We don’t have time for that.”

  “Those are the rul
es.”

  “Father, I implore you, as a Roman Catholic from my first squawk to my last confession, to please marry us immediately. Calla is a Catholic in good standing at Our Lady of—”

  “Good Counsel,” Calla finished the sentence.

  “You see, we’re very devout.”

  “You have to follow the rules.” Father Berry recognized Nicky.

  “Nick Carl. Father, I am Nick Carl on Love of Life. I’m from South Philly.”

  “No kidding.” Father Berry grinned.

  “Do you think you could help out a native son?”

  “And daughter?” Calla added.

  “I’m sorry. The rules are, as you know, set in Rome. There’s no wiggle room.”

  “None?”

  “I could call Father Rodo if it’s an extreme situation.”

  “I assure you, it’s extreme.”

  “Do you have rings?”

  “Yes,” Nicky lied.

  “Come in.”

  Nicky fished his key chain out of his pocket. He turned and ripped the keys off the loops, pulling two loops from the key chain as Father Berry went into his study. Calla shook her head. They waited until Father Berry emerged a few moments later.

  “I can’t marry you. I’m sorry. Father Rodo says it’s impossible.”

  “But nothing is impossible with God!”

  “In this instance, unfortunately it is.”

  “Tell him—and I’m sorry to tell you this, forgive me—Miss Borelli is going to have a baby. We’re already on the road to Bethlehem, Father. If you understand what I mean.”

  Father Berry’s face lost all color. “I understand. That’s a different situation. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’m not having a baby,” she whispered.

  “You will someday.” Nicky and Calla waited for the priest to return.

  “Come with me.” Father Berry showed them the way into the chapel.

  Calla, in her best hat, and Nicky, in his tight belt, were married by Father Berry before the small altar at Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, at the foot of a stained-glass window, which in the light of the full moon threw shades of blue on the happy couple and the nervous priest. The priest blessed the rings without judging the cheap wire. Calla and Nicky took a moment to tighten the wire around their ring fingers before they kissed.

  “I hope you’ll raise the baby Catholic,” Father Berry said solemnly.

  “Dear Friar, you have my word,” Nicky promised.

  * * *

  Nicky and Calla kissed on the sidewalk outside the church.

  “Where do we go?” Nicky asked her. “Montrose Street is a bus station.”

  “You’ve never asked me where I live.”

  “Where do you live?”

  She smiled. “It’s your home now, too, Nick.”

  “Are you a good cook?”

  “A better baker.”

  “I’ll take it. I’ve got two more grommets on this belt.”

  Nicky was surprised when Calla guided him back to the theater. She flipped on the work lights and instructed him to follow her as she climbed the ladder in the wings to the crawl space above the stage.

  She took his hand as she led him across the grid to a small door about five feet high, which she pushed open and ducked inside. He followed her in.

  When Nicky stood inside the room, it was dark. Calla moved through the space, turning on small lamps that threw pink light onto the floor. Her home was an enormous room, beautifully appointed with the best furniture from her parents’ home, including a big four-poster bed, a dresser, and a large easy chair, covered in an afghan her mother had made. The kitchen was a simple sink and hot plate.

  Calla went to the far wall and pulled a rope, not unlike the one that made the stage curtain rise and fall. As she did, a canvas tarp pulled away to reveal a glass ceiling, a skylight, a set of paned windows on the roof of the theater.

  “What do you think?”

  He kissed his wife.

  “We used to play in this room as kids. This is where they stored the flats,” she explained.

  Nicky held Calla close. “I would have liked to give you a big fancy wedding.”

  “This was sweet.”

  “What about the dolls on the cars and the cookie trays?”

  “Not important.”

  “The confetti?”

  “I don’t need all that.”

  “What about a diamond ring?”

  “Someday, maybe.”

  “Ah, there is something Mrs. Castone desires.”

  Calla kissed her husband’s lips, his eyes, his cheeks, his neck, and his hands. As they undressed, she said Don’t peek! for old times’ sake, but they laughed, which was more important than anything that had come before or after their vows. Nicky lifted his wife off the ground and carried her to their bed under the stars.

  Calla pulled Nicky close, thinking he belonged there, that he always had.

  Nicky wanted to make up for all the time they had lost, that he had squandered, living a different life without her. He had found his Beatrice; she had emerged from the pages of Tales from Shakespeare in a cloud of gold satin and now she was his. It had been so obvious that he hadn’t seen it. That night he vowed never to leave her, and she believed him. Calla made some promises to Nicky too, ones she would keep all of her life. Destiny had snuck up on them, claimed their hearts, secured their souls, and flown them as close to the moon that night as the heights of Borelli’s Theater would allow. Calla Borelli was no meltaway, she was a keeper. And Nicky Castone? He was an orphan no longer. He would never be alone again.

  * * *

  Hortense Mooney almost got off at the wrong stop on the cross-town. Out of habit, she was going to cross on Chestnut as she had done all those years for work, but today she had business on the other side of Broad.

  She adjusted the collar on her Nettie Rosenstein coat, which she had bought at a trunk show, knowing she needed a good cloth coat for her business meetings. Using the window outside Joella’s Bakery as a mirror, she pulled the brim of her cloche hat just so over her eyes, exactly as the saleslady had demonstrated.

  She took a deep breath when she walked under the dazzling red, white, and green awning of the Pronto Taxi & Limousine Service at 113 Fitzwater. Mike Palazzini knew how to make an entrance on his shop; he had flair, that was for sure.

  Hortense pushed the entry door open, stepping into a waiting area. To her right was a floor-to-ceiling glass window; to her left, a long red patent-leather bench. Beyond the glass was a fleet of cabs in a garage three times as large as Palazzini’s. Hortense squinted, and noticed a lift, where a team of mechanics was working on a car elevated in mid-air. This was a first-class operation—not that Hortense was surprised.

  “Mrs. Mooney!” Mike Palazzini entered the waiting area from the door that connected it to the garage.

  “Mr. Palazzini, it’s been a long time.”

  “I was young.” Mike clucked. “I miss being young.”

  “We all do.”

  “You haven’t changed.” Mike Palazzini was sharply dressed in a navy blazer, white slacks, a blue-and-white striped shirt, and camel suede loafers. “How have you been?”

  “Busy.”

  “My brother keeps you hopping.”

  “I don’t work there anymore.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Oh, no, it was nothing like that. I had an opportunity to start my own business.”

  “No kidding.”

  “All my years with you paid off. I make spaghetti sauce. I have a deal with the Oldfield company.”

  “You must be rich.”

  Hortense lowered her voice. “I didn’t buy this hat on lay-away.”

  “Congratulations! Why not? This is America. Why can’t a dispatcher become a mogul?”

  “Don’t forget I was also a Western Union telegraph operator.”

  “That was after I left.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why did my brother put that in t
he garage? It never made any sense to me.”

  “When Mrs. Palazzini sent all four boys off to the war, she vowed that she would never answer the door if an officer came with the worst news. She wanted to get the news before they did, so she asked her husband to put in the telegraph office.”

  “And they all came home.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You know I lost my Richard.”

  “Terrible. I’m sorry.”

  “What can you do?”

  “Nothing. Not a thing. Just pray.” Hortense patted his shoulder.

  Mike found his pressed handkerchief in his pocket. He wiped away a few tears. “I cry about that kid every day. Here I go. The old waterworks.”

  “You always will, you know.”

  “I guess.”

  “I came to see you about your brother.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “I think so.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “The man is in a constant state of dyspepsia, but I don’t think that’ll kill him.”

  “So he’s okay.”

  “I think you should take him off the island.” Of all the Italian expressions Hortense had learned from the Palazzini family over the years, the one that remained with her was the concept of the island, the place you put people when you had a falling-out and weren’t speaking to them.

  “He put himself on the island,” Mike said defensively. “He doesn’t talk to me. I’m the one who’s on the island.”

  “Well, whoever put the other on the island, it doesn’t matter now. What does matter is that there’s a wedding reception, and I’ve been asked to deliver this invitation to you and Nancy and your boys and their wives.” Hortense reached into her purse and gave the envelope to Mike, who opened it.

  “These are tickets to a show.”

  “Partly. There’s a party after the play. That’s the wedding part. Now, if you need more, you just use my name at the box office at Borelli’s, and they’ll give you whatever you need.”

  “Nicky got married?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “But he’s on the television in New York City.”

  “Yes, but he’s come back to Philly. Married a local girl. Calla Borelli.”

  “Is there a nuptial mass?”

  “They were married at the church by the priest in the chapel.”

  “Oh, one of those.” Mike whistled. “Shotgun.”

  “No, not one of those. They just didn’t want a big fanfare.”