Kiss Carlo

by Adriana Trigiani

  “We have been honored to have Ambassador Carlo Guardinfante as our guest for the Jubilee in honor of the incorporation of our town. The ambassador is a resident of Roseto Valfortore, the village in the province of Apulia where our forebears are from, which makes us family. He is married to Elisabetta, and he promises to bring her here the next time he visits our newly incorporated borough, the only incorporated Italian American town in the United States of America. Ladies and gentlemen, our ambassador.”

  Nicky reached into the pocket of his uniform to retrieve his notes, standing before the microphone. As he was about to read, he tore the speech in half and stuffed it back into his pockets. The crowd was aghast.

  Mamie slipped into the crowd to listen.

  “I am a very lucky man. Fortunato! I came to Roseto, Pennsylvania, how do you say, a nervous wreck-uh. But I have my secret weapon-i, Mrs. Mooney, attaché to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, populare First Lady.”

  The crowd applauded politely. Hortense nodded.

  “Mrs. Mooney reminded me that I was bringing you something that you needed. I brought you Roseto Valfortore, the place your ancestors called home. I couldn’t pack the village in my suitcase, but what I could do was bring you the story. Sometimes when we prosper, we forget the struggle, the sacrifice, and even where we came from. You see, for those too young to remember, and those who have never been, Roseto Valfortore is a village, just like yours, of great beauty. It is situated on a hilltop in Apulia between Roma and Napoli. Our place on the map has put us in a perilous position throughout history. Every army since the Greeks has trudged through our hills. We have been conquered, attacked, ransacked, and pillaged. But we persist. That is the stuff you are made of. That is what you brought to America, and that is why you have found safety, prosperity, and a good life here. You are Rosetani!”

  The crowd cheered, blew horns, and whistled.

  “Let’s move this along,” Hortense whispered. “I got a black feeling.”

  “Sit down, Mrs. Mooney.” Emboldened, Nicky waved to the cheering crowd.

  A forest-green Studebaker, followed by Car No. 2 from the Palazzini Cab Company, pulled up to the police barricade.

  Peachy DePino jumped out of the Studebaker, followed by her nervous mother and her angry father.

  “Nicky Castone!” Peachy shouted. “We’re going to talk!”

  The men in the crowd moaned. The crowd buzzed with the name Castone.

  Peachy climbed up the steps to the stage. “What is wrong with you? Why are you wearing a Penn State band uniform?”

  “I knew it.” Eddie Davanzo shook his head.

  “Who is he?” Cha Cha was baffled.

  “He’s Nicky Castone. From Philadelphia,” Peachy confirmed.

  “What is going on here?” Rocco was perturbed.

  “She—she’s not what she says either.” Peachy pointed at Hortense. “She’s the colored dispatcher.”

  “They can see I’m colored,” Hortense grumbled.

  “How could you do this to me, Nick? You left my picture behind in your drawer with your mending. Do you think so little of what we meant to each other to leave me stuck in a drawer with your stained and holey underpants?”

  “I’m going to kill you with my bare hands.” Al DePino, five foot six, lunged for Nicky.

  Concetta dabbed her tears. “Nicky, just come home and marry Peachy, and we’ll forget this horrible nightmare, this grim incident, this sick situation.” She pulled a stray thread off Nicky’s lapel. “Remember the love. I beseech you, remember the love.”

  “I’m gonna kill the son of a—” Al swung for Nicky. Eddie Davanzo grabbed Al by the arms.

  “Now the law is involved! Al, you dope!” Concetta yelled.

  Dom and Jo rushed the stage. “Don’t touch him!” Jo shouted.

  “Who are you people?” Rocco asked.

  “Family,” Dom barked.

  “Let’s take this discussion off this stage. Out of town,” Hortense said softly. “Let’s go.”

  Peachy pointed at Nicky. “I want the whole world to know what he did to me.”

  “What did he do?” Cha Cha probed.

  “He ended our engagement after seven years.”

  “There was physical contact,” Mr. DePino bellowed as he was being handcuffed.

  “My daughter is unspoiled,” Mrs. DePino insisted to the crowd.

  “But there was physical contact?” Cha Cha queried.

  “He’s a wolf!” Rosalba shouted.

  “He did pull me very close when we danced last night,” Cha Cha piled on. “There was grinding. But I figured, an Italian from the other side, they get a little fresh. It’s in them.”

  “Please, Cha Cha.” Rocco glared at his wife.

  “You see what’s going on here? This impostor came to town to woo our women and take advantage of them,” a man shouted from the crowd.

  “Just like he did with my daughter,” Al DePino said, egging on the crowd.

  “He gave the Cadillac to an Ameri-gan from Alabama!” a man hollered. The crowd went wild.

  “I don’t know anything about the Cadillac car. But, he did not take advantage of me, Pop. Stop it. I don’t want you to kill him for that.” Peachy dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief.

  “How do we know this impostor wasn’t here to steal our money? Did you check the take from the sausage and pepper stand?” a woman shouted.

  “Where’s the money?” A man pointed at Nicky.

  The crowd grumbled, and the rancor grew. Individuals stormed the grandstand and demanded action from Rocco.

  “Check the kitty! He probably stole the money!”

  “He’s a brute!” another woman shouted.

  “Hold it!” Nicky was furious. “I have never chiseled anyone in my life. I was only trying to help.”

  “I told you. Put your hand out to help somebody, and when you take it back, all that’s left is a stump.” Hortense fanned herself. “He who is without sin cast the first stone. Castone. Nicky Castone! That’s a sign. We need to leave right now.”

  Nicky frowned at Hortense and turned to Peachy. “And what did you think you would accomplish by coming here? Did you think I’d change my mind?”

  “Did you think I’d just let you go? I put in seven years being nice to you! Are you crazy? I’m an Italian girl. Italy isn’t shaped like a mattress. I wasn’t going to lie down. It’s shaped like a boot. I came here to kick you in the . . .”

  The women in the crowd cheered.

  Rocco turned to Eddie. “Take them in before I have a coup on my hands.”

  “Arrest them?”

  “The two of them.”

  “For what?”

  “Impersonating important people.”

  “You can’t arrest us,” Nicky said firmly. “All I did was dance with your women. Frankly, you should give me orthotics and a lifetime supply of Epsom salts.”

  “When we find out why you did this, and what you stole, you’ll be lucky if we don’t do worse,” said Rocco. “For now, Eddie, his car is parked in an emergency zone. Book them on traffic violation. Take them in. And move it. Before we have an insurrection. The women have mobilized. Be afraid.”

  Nicky and Hortense left the stage with Eddie Davanzo. The crowd cheered to see the impostors hauled off by the law.

  Eddie guided Hortense and Nicky into the squad car.

  “We’ll call a lawyer,” Uncle Dom assured them through the window.

  “And we’ll get a good one,” Jo added. “Not his cousin Flavio, who does everything for cost.”

  “How did they find us?” Nicky asked his aunt through the squad car window.

  Jo gripped her handkerchief. “I’m sorry, Nicky. Peachy blew into the house like a wildcat and went down to the basement and tore through your room. She flipped drawers and even the mattress and she found the flyer for the Jubilee in the wastebasket. She’s desperate. And then Al and Connie showed up, and Al said he was going to kill you, and they drove here half-cocked, and we followed the
m.”

  Eddie eased the squad car into reverse, to a chorus of boos from the crowd. He turned the car around and drove down Garibaldi to the Roseto Police Station.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Mooney.”

  “Too late for that. I’m cuffed.” Hortense held up her wrists.

  “I thought we could pull this off,” Nicky said wearily.

  “I figured you could too. I figured you could do anything. But now we know even you have limits.”

  * * *

  Eddie Davanzo brought Hortense a Dixie cup filled with water in the holding room of the police station. Hortense sipped it as she stood looking out the window as the Jubilee parade went down Garibaldi Avenue. Nicky sat in the corner, his head in his hands.

  “Is there any news?” Hortense asked Eddie. “I need to get home.”

  “The borough council is meeting. They can go on for a while.”

  “Can you hear anything?”

  “They’re squabbling. But that’s typical.”

  “Thank you for not locking us up.”

  “They haven’t determined a crime.” Eddie smiled, reassuring Hortense.

  “Because there isn’t one,” Nicky said quietly.

  “You’re going to have to let the council decide that.” Eddie closed the door, leaving Hortense and Nicky alone in the room.

  “We were seconds away from blowing out of here.”

  “I’ll make it up to you, Mrs. Mooney.”

  “I want a Lilly Daché hat. The red one with the giant bow.” Hortense squinted out the window. “Nicky, come over here.”

  Nicky joined her at the window to see Ambassador Carlo Guardinfante emerging from a black sedan.

  “That must be the real cat.” Hortense pointed.

  “It must be. He’s pretty trim.”

  “That’s all you notice?”

  “The medals?”

  “No.”

  “What good does it do us?”

  “He’s here. They’ll want you gone.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re Italian. He’s one of your own. You’re going to ask him to cut us loose.”

  “He might want to kill me too.”

  “Let him. But first get me sprung.”

  “I can’t. I’m tired.” Nicky plopped down in a chair.

  “You’re tired? You? Nicholas Castone? Sit up. You don’t have a right to be weary when all you’ve done for three days is dance and chase women. Weary is going down in a coal mine. Weary is laying pipe in a city sewer. Weary is cleaning a house top to bottom and washing clothes in a wringer washing machine with bleach and hanging them out in the bitter cold until the skin on your fingers flakes off and then you have to go inside and press all that mess with a slug iron. Weary is pushing out a ten-pound baby after twelve hours of straining. Weary is building railroads.”

  “I get it. I get it. I’m not sturdy.”

  “No, you are not. But you’d better buck up. It’s one thing to put yourself in dutch, it’s another to drag me into a quagmire and leave me to sort it when the scheme goes south. And it went south. So figure this thing out because I need to get home. I have things to do. A life to live.” Hortense patted the Venetian beads around her neck. “And I want to see my girls again.”

  Eddie poked his head in the door. “There are a couple of people here to see you.” Eddie opened the door, taking his official position as guard.

  Mamie Confalone entered followed by Ambassador Carlo Guardinfante. Augie ran into the room. He looked at Carlo and then at Nicky. “Twins!”

  “They look alike, don’t they?” Mamie said gently to her son.

  “I’m going to take Augie,” Eddie told Mamie.

  “Can I see the fire truck?” Augie asked him.

  “Sure, honey, come on.” Eddie held his hand, and led him out, closing the door behind him.

  Nicky stood. “Ambassador. Forgive me.”

  “You don’t have to go into the story, I explained the situation. In Italian. The real Italian language that’s been spoken since Caesar,” Mamie said. “I told him everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “The part about you posing as him.”

  “I want to make reparations to him.” Nicky looked at Carlo.

  Mamie translated. Carlo nodded. Mamie invited Carlo, Hortense, and Nicky to sit at the conference table.

  “I am deeply ashamed,” Nicky said to the ambassador as he leaned across the table.

  Carlo folded his hands. “Sono venuto qui per celebrare il Giubileo, si, ma anche per incontrare il mio cugino. Ho un cugino, Alberto Funziani.”

  “Funzi,” Mamie confirmed. “He has a cousin here. We know him.”

  “É il presidente della banca,” Carlo said proudly.

  “No,” Mamie said. “He thinks our Funzi is president of the bank.”

  “No?” Carlo was confused.

  “É il bidello presso la banca.” Mamie turned to Hortense and Nicky. “Funzi is the janitor, not the president.”

  Carlo put his head in his hands.

  “Is everybody in the two Rosetos leading a double life?” Hortense wondered aloud. “Is anybody who they say they are?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Mrs. Mooney.” Nicky turned to Carlo. “What do you need? Maybe I can help,” Nicky offered.

  The ambassador explained why he had come to Pennsylvania. “Una strada. Una strada che va dalla cima della collina verso il fondo, una strada di tre miglia per collegare la mia città al resto del paese. In questo momento, siamo abbandonati.”

  Mamie translated. Hortense shook her head, leaned back, and closed her eyes.

  “This is no time to nap,” Nicky chided her.

  “I’m just resting my eyes,” Hortense retorted. “So my head doesn’t blow off my body and end up in Albany.”

  “Mamie, will you please ask Rocco to come in here?”

  “They’re in session, deciding what to do about you.”

  “If I can speak to Rocco, I think we can settle the matter,” Nicky assured her.

  Mamie left them in the holding room for a moment before returning with Eddie and Rocco.

  “Rocco, I have a proposition,” Nicky began.

  “So do I. I’ll see you in the county jail. You impostor. You poser. You thief. What kind of a man steals a Penn State band uniform—”

  “It’s borrowed.”

  “And thinks he can come to a little factory town and make a fool out of the working people? While you’re scheming to make yourself rich and important and use our women for your own perverse pleasure, we’re paying for it. You know what that does to the working man? It makes him want to revolt. You’ve made a fool out of me, out of my position. You made a spectacle of yourself in that ridiculous uniform. I opened my home to you. And you thank me by doing a little shimmy shake on the dance floor with my wife. Cha Cha has her faults, but she’s a good woman, and she’s stuck by me for more years than you’ve been shaving. There is no negotiation. There is nothing to talk about.”

  “I know it may seem like I did this for a selfish reason, and that is partly true. I work at the Borelli Theater in Philadelphia, and I was eager to step into the shoes of someone else. I’m an actor.” A bell went off in Nicky’s head, a slight ding, not a gong. He admitted a truth he had not fully accepted, not even to himself.

  “What’s your excuse?” Rocco asked Hortense.

  “I’m colored.” Hortense closed her eyes again and pulled the brim of her hat over her eyes.

  “I want to make it up to you and to Roseto. The ambassador has a specific need, and he came here in the hopes of getting help, and the person that he was planning on asking for that help, a man named Funzi, is not who he thought he was.”

  “Another one!” Rocco threw up his hands.

  “Roseto Valfortore needs a road from the top of the hill, three miles down, to the bottom of the hill. It’s the road that your parents traveled when they left to come to America. It’s the road that the Rosetani take when they go to Rome to trade or to
Naples to work. It’s the most important road in the province.”

  “So?”

  “With your help, I think we can build the road. You heard I was to marry Peachy DePino—”

  “The skinny one?”

  “Skinny as six o’clock,” Hortense mumbled.

  “I ended our engagement for reasons I had hoped would remain private. I’ve been saving to buy a home for seven years, and I had put money down on a place which I will no longer be needing, so I’d like to give the funds to the ambassador for his road. He’ll need manpower and a builder, and maybe more funds, but I believe he came to the right place. You take care of each other here, and they’ve had a hard time over there. Will you allow me to make amends? I want to make this right. I will make this right.”

  A gentle breeze floated through the bars of the window. The room fell silent as Rocco mulled the proposal, until Hortense snored, having fallen asleep in her chair. Before Mamie could reach over to shake her, Hortense let out a loud snort, waking herself up. Startled, she looked around at the faces. “Forgive me. I got a malaise.”

  * * *

  Nicky, Rocco, and the ambassador were tucked in a booth at the Marconi Social Club on Garibaldi enjoying a second round of scotch neat like three buddies in a rowboat on a fishing trip that had gotten no bites. It was all about the conversation and the booze.

  “Go on, do the accent,” Rocco prodded Nicky.

  “I-uh bring to you on this vee-zeet.”

  “Terribile!” Carlo laughed.

  “We had no idea how lousy he was with the Italian until you showed up.” Rocco signed the bill.

  “Rocco, do we have a deal?” Nicky asked.

  “What deal?”

  “You’re going to send a crew over to Italy to build the road.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Come on.”

  “What are you going to do?” Rocco’s eyes narrowed. “I should send you over there to bust rock.”

  “I’m making the deal. And I’m impoverishing myself.”

  “All right. All right,” Rocco agreed. “We will come and build your road, Ambassador. And this zsa-drool will pay for it.”

  Rocco shook the ambassador’s hand. Nicky placed his hand on theirs. They had a deal.

  * * *

  Hortense was waiting outside the Marconi Social Club on Garibaldi when the men emerged from the club.