“Three boyfriends? Isn’t that enough for one young lady? Why are you bothering me?”
“I’m bored.”
“Get a library card.”
“I hate to read.”
“You need a hobby.”
“I think I found one.” Rosalba pulled him close as a Perry Como sound-alike sang “Some Enchanted Evening.” Nicky tried to take tiny steps backward. Rosalba mistook his steps as leading and pulled Nicky back onto the dance floor.
“I am a married man!”
“Doesn’t count when you’re abroad.”
“Where do you get these rules? Aren’t you a Catholic girl?”
“I do what I want and then I just go to confession.”
“That’s not the purpose of confession. You confess to sin no more.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“I have no idea. I’m not your priest!”
Disgruntled, Nicky dropped Rosalba off by the bandstand. He surmised that, with a full orchestra, including woodwind, brass, and string sections, surely she’d find a horn player to amuse her.
Nicky looked at the long line of local ladies lolling along the wall, waiting to Lindy with him. Quickly, he did the math in his head. He estimated the number of women in the queue, the time it would take to do one rotation on the dance floor with each lady, and concluded he could knock out his obligation and flee the tent in forty minutes. He set his mind on his goal like an Olympic athlete.
Nicky plucked the line in order from the front, taking each lady for her revolution, dumping her back at the start, and picking up the next one for her spin. He perspired so heavily, his uniform began to itch, but he did not stop to scratch. He felt like he was in a dance marathon during the Great Depression, except this one came without a cash prize.
Each dance partner had some nugget of gossip to share, and by the end of the dance-floor rondelet, Nicky knew the history of the town, a few of the prominent citizens’ peccadilloes, and, most importantly, the story of Mamie Confalone.
Nicky delivered the last lady, his final obligation of the night, into the waiting arms of her husband. He bowed from the waist and headed for the exit, where Eddie Davanzo stood guard in his police uniform.
“Those ladies wore you out. How did you do it?”
“Che bella. They were lovely. Fleet-footed. Which one was your mama?”
“The one who smelled like calamine lotion. She worked in her garden all day and got poison ivy.”
“I remember her well.”
“Your back must ache.” Eddie chuckled. “There wasn’t one of them over four foot eleven.”
“One. The lady from West Bangor was-uh six foot two.”
“Statuesque.” Eddie grinned.
“It gave my neck a stretch.”
“You needed it. Ambassador, if you don’t mind me saying it, the only reason you could ever get away with that suit is because you’re a foreigner.”
“This is the official dress regimentals of my province.”
“It looks like the Penn State band uniform.”
Nicky blanched. Borelli’s accepted donations in the costume shop. He maintained his composure. “I brought this from Eet-taly,” he assured Eddie.
“No doubt. It’s just funny. One country’s ambassador is another’s majorette.”
Nicky nodded and slipped out of the tent. He inhaled the night air as though he had spent the night underwater in a shark tank, holding his breath, waiting to be eaten alive. It felt good to finally be alone. He pulled up his pants, which were loose from perspiration and gyration. Nicky figured he’d lost ten pounds of water weight on the dance floor, and every ounce of it resided in the wool. He had never been so exhausted, not even when he was in the army and had to walk seventeen miles in the rain in a German war zone in wet boots with a wool sock with a hole in the toe. Nicky was so spent, even the thought of the old mattress in the airless guest room with its lingering scents of stale gardenia, mud plaster, and mothballs was appealing.
Nicky lit a cigarette as he trudged up the hill to Truman Street.
“Ambassador?” a woman called out to him in the dark.
Nicky kept moving.
“You need a key.” Cha Cha shook her evening bag in midair like a bell. She jogged to meet him, and then trotted beside him to keep up with his long strides. Soon she began to pant. By the time they reached the house, Cha Cha was heaving. She grabbed the porch railing, trying to catch her breath before climbing the stairs.
“Madame, I wish you a good night.” Nicky bowed from the waist, unlocked the door, and once inside, bolted up the staircase, two steps at a time. He was pleased he had figured out a way to ditch Cha Cha—all he had to do was outrun her on an incline.
Nicky went into the guest room and closed the door. He was peeling off the uniform and his drenched undershirt when he heard the bedroom door creak. He slammed his body up against it and waited. After a few moments, he moved away from the door. He cocked his head to listen before he crept back over and peeked out into the hallway. A gray-and-white mixed tabby cat was sniffing at the door. Nicky exhaled, relieved.
He hung the uniform in the closet. A plastic Star of Bethlehem, the Christmas tree topper, fell off the top shelf and almost impaled his skull. He cursed, picked it up, and stuffed it back into its place before lying down on the bed, his lower back and buttocks sinking deeply into the mattress while his legs stuck out straight like cocktail picks where the old mattress was still somewhat firm. He wanted to weep, and he might have, but there was no moisture left in his body; he had left it all on the dance floor at the Cadillac Dinner.
* * *
Hortense lay in the center bed in the alcove of the garage apartment. She had opened the windows on the garden side, and the soothing scents of freesia, gardenia, and night-blooming jasmine filled the room. The temperature was just right, cool enough but not cold. The mattress was firm, the pillows were plump, and the bed was made to her liking with cotton shams and fresh sheets.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s faux attaché felt divine. The wine Hortense had consumed had a lovely effect on her mood, and the macaroni with the Venetian gravy with the secret ingredient settled on her stomach lightly and without repetition. Hortense was content in a fashion she had not known for years. She drifted off to sleep without a single toss or turn, floating to the land of her dreams like a blue balloon the color of the sky, when it soars high enough and becomes one with the heavens.
* * *
Across town, Nicky was overheated, hungry, and restless. He had tried to open the windows in the Tutolola guest room, but they were either painted shut or locked, like a prison’s. At this point in the evening, he was so exhausted, he didn’t care. He collapsed into the bed and tried turning onto his side, but that produced a muscle stitch that forced him to get up to try and release it. He gave up, climbing back into the bed in the original buttocks-sagging-in-a-hammock position. He was almost asleep when he began to choke.
“Don’t say a word,” Rosalba whispered.
The chief burgess’s daughter was straddling him, one clammy hand over his mouth, the other on his neck.
Nicky couldn’t breathe. He pushed Rosalba off his body, but she came back like a cat.
“Get out of my room!” He tried to crawl out from under her and out of the bed, but the pit in the mattress sucked him back into the hole like organza quicksand.
“This won’t take long,” she said.
“I’ll bet.” Nicky rallied. He flipped his legs over the side of the bed and catapulted himself into a standing position using the strength of his arms, as if he were launching himself out of the inside of a pickle barrel. He was wearing his undershorts and nothing else in the presence of a young lady, but he didn’t care. He’d been in a war and knew when the enemy wanted to nail him. The uniform didn’t matter, and neither did the weapon or the ammunition. The only defense was to keep moving.
“I told you this room was hot.” Rosalba winked.
“I can’t ope
n the windows.”
“Because they’re glued shut. Daddy did it when he found out I snuck out of the house at night.”
“He should have let you go,” Nicky said, rubbing his neck.
“That’s what I said.”
“The poor man.” Nicky felt pity for Rocco.
“Some people just need freedom. Let’s get out of this sweatbox. It’s cool in my room. We’ll have some fun.” Rosalba flung her hair around. The effect wasn’t seductive, but more like a mop when it is flayed around to dust cobwebs off the ceiling.
He opened the door wide. “Get out, or I will call your father.”
Rosalba shimmied off the bed and adjusted her nightgown. “You’re the worst ambassador that ever came to this town.”
Nicky closed the door behind her. He barricaded the door, using his body, which had sunk to the floor. A ceramic commedia dell’arte clown fell off a shelf over the door and clocked him on the head. It did not break, but Nicky wanted to smash it. He reached over and grabbed his cigarettes off the nightstand. If he had to, he’d stand guard behind the bedroom door all night to keep Rosalba out. He pulled a slim volume off the bottom shelf of the nightstand: The History of Roseto, Pennsylvania, by Ralph Basso.
Nicky opened the book and began to read. As the story of the town unfolded, he began to understand its people; with history came knowledge. Nicky fell asleep on the floor as the women of Roseto danced through his dreams.
* * *
Frank parked his car in a thicket off Evergreen Way in Haverford, a Main Line enclave whose rolling green hills and horse country had inspired the mural at Borelli’s. Now, the lush green fields were lawns, the bridle paths were circular driveways, and the farmhouses were replaced with mansions as opulent as the finest in Europe.
“You sure you can park here?”
“I want to show you something.”
Frank took Calla by the hand as they crossed the main boulevard, and led her to a fence line clustered with trees. “This isn’t a good spot,” he said critically. He led her around the curve of the street to another place along the fence.
“There it is.”
Calla’s eyes widened as she saw Havercrest, a splendid Elizabethan-style mansion, lit up against the blue night sky. Music sailed over the field and through the trees. They could see the shimmer of the horns of the dance band positioned on the veranda. Elegant cars dropped off guests at the stone entrance, anchored by two fountains that sprayed water like ribbons of diamonds high into the air before they dropped in slate pools.
“Who lives here?” Calla asked.
“The family makes ketchup.” Frank leaned on the fence.
“How did you find this place?”
“I built the waterfall at the swimming pool.”
“What’s that like?”
“Like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Can you imagine walking out of your house in the morning and jumping into your pool and swimming under your own waterfall?”
“I can’t.”
“No Italian American has ever lived in this neighborhood.”
“Not one?”
“But I will someday,” Frank assured her. “I want to be mayor, I want to help people, and I want to live like this.”
“I don’t know how you do all three of those things, but if anyone can, it’s you.” Calla kept her eyes on the party as if she were observing a work of art, or a piece of theater. She drank in the way the light played on the scene, and how the people sashayed through the garden party, moving to the music.
“Someday I’ll build you a house like this.” Frank scooped Calla up off the ground and kissed her.
“I wouldn’t stop you.” Calla smiled. “Can I have a pool?”
“Whatever you want.”
* * *
Nicky and Hortense walked through the grounds of the Jubilee carnival, nodding respectfully to the people of Roseto, making their rounds as the guests of honor. The committee had provided each of them with a handmade sash that read “Honored Guest,” in case it wasn’t obvious.
“I will give this one more revolution through the grounds, and then I’m heading back to Minna’s,” Hortense said through a clenched smile.
“I wish I had a nice place to stay.”
“What’s wrong with the chief burgess?”
“He’s all right. It’s his wife and daughter.”
“I bet they serve fresh doughnuts at breakfast.”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t eat their food. I barely use the water. I take a sponge bath. I brush my teeth like I’m in the Amazon. I don’t want to owe them anything because then I might have to reciprocate. The cost is too high. I won’t miss Truman Street, I’ll tell you that.”
“We could leave tonight.”
“I have to give the speech tomorrow.”
“You know this is all make-believe. You know you’re not really the man in the booklet. We can just scram. We can disappear in the bubble of the lie in the dark, right now, like the vapor we are.”
“That would be like leaving at intermission.”
“People do that.”
“Not the players.”
“Nicky, this isn’t a play, and we’re not on a stage. William Shakespeare has been dead so long they named a rest stop after him on the New Jersey turnpike.”
Nicky wasn’t listening to Hortense. His attention was on the sodality pizza fritta stand, nestled between the sausage and pepper stand and the fresh nuts and torrone stand.
“Hortense, are you hungry?”
“I’m slightly peckish,” she admitted.
Nicky walked over to the stand where the ladies of the church sodality were making pizza fritte, Roseto’s version of a zeppole. The sweet scent of vanilla, the clouds of powdered sugar, and the golden puffs of dough made the pizza fritte the most popular treat at the carnival.
Mamie Confalone flipped the dough in the deep fryer under the canopy’s strings of twinkling white lights. She gently lifted the fluffy clouds of dough out of the oil and placed them on a rack as another volunteer sprinkled the delicacies with sugar, placed them in paper cones, and handed them to the customers.
Nicky slipped around to the side of the stand.
“Mrs. Confalone.”
“Ambassador. Where’s your uniform?”
“I had to air it out.”
“Too much dancing?”
“If you want to call it that.”
“What would you call it?” She tried not to laugh.
“The trot without the fox.”
“You showed real stamina.”
“The ladies told me all about the people of Roseto.”
“I’ll bet they did.”
“Since I arrived, I haven’t seen you out of an apron.”
“You should come around when it’s not Jubilee.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“No.” She smiled.
“I’m like a cat. When you put out milk, he keeps coming back. And last night, you brought me dinner. I don’t forget a kindness.”
“I felt sorry for you.”
“Would you let me walk you home tonight?”
“No.”
“They told me you’re a widow. Maybe you’d like someone to walk you home.”
“I have to get home to my boy.”
“Ma, look!” A young boy ran up to the stand with a stuffed giraffe. “Grandpop won it for me at the ring toss.” Augie Confalone Jr. was around five years old, a sturdily built boy with black hair and brown eyes.
“It’s huge,” Mamie marveled.
“Can I keep him?”
“Absolutely.”
“Mamie, we’re going to take him home now.”
“Okay, Ma.”
“I’m going to sleep in Grandpop and Grandmom’s room on the day bed with my giraffe.”
Mamie leaned over the stand and kissed her son. “Be good, Augie.”
She picked up the tongs and flipped the dough in the fryer. Without looking at Nicky, she said, “Pick me
up here in a half hour.”
Nicky brought the pizza fritte to Hortense. “I’ll walk you back to Minna’s.”
“What’s the rush?” Hortense took a bite of the treat. “I like the food in this town. I may sample the sausage and peppers.”
“They’ll be here tomorrow.”
“I might want them tonight. I like a savory after a sweet.”
“It will upset your stomach to end the night on a savory. You’ll be burping like a backed-up drain. No, eat your pizza fritte. End the day with a sweet. It’s called dessert.”
“You do have a point. Since when have you become a medical expert?”
“Since Mamie Confalone agreed to let me walk her home.”
* * *
Nicky dropped Hortense at Minna’s apartment, turned, and raced back up Garibaldi Avenue to the carnival grounds like a long-distance runner with a hot coal in his pants. He wove through the crowd at a clip to get back to the pizza fritte stand. Locals called out to him, shouting “Ambasciatore!” He waved, but kept moving. When he made it to the stand, he looked for Mamie. He couldn’t find her.
He waited, thinking she might have run out on an errand. A few minutes ticked by, and he began to worry. He followed one of her co-workers into the tent where the ladies kept the dough. He searched the tent for her, but she wasn’t there either. It soon became clear that she had given him the bum’s rush. Feeling like a sap, he did nothing to pretend he wasn’t devastated. He walked out of the supply tent, avoiding the crowds, and slipped behind the stands, away from the lights.
When Nicky reached the end of the field, he looked back at the carnival. The Ferris wheel spun through the air in streaks of pink and purple. He could hear the children as they laughed with glee, whipping around in circles on a ride where the cars were painted as planets. He saw couples lean over the counters as they played the games of chance—a young man intent on winning a prize for his date, and her obvious thrill when he did. The older married couples gathered at the picnic tables, sharing sausage and pepper sandwiches and conversation.
There was a universe of belonging happening before him that he was not a part of, phony ambassador or not. Whether it was Montrose Street or Garibaldi Avenue, there was no seat at the table for Nicky Castone.
Kiss Carlo Page 27