“Can we leave town now? Please?” she begged Rocco.
“You may go.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Rocco and the ambassador walked up Garibaldi toward Truman Street as Aunt Jo and Uncle Dom rolled up in the cab.
“Let’s blow this burg,” Dom said.
“Are you all right?” Aunt Jo asked.
“I’m broke,” Nicky told her. “But I’m fine.”
“You got your life, your limbs, and your mind. Count your blessings.” Hortense adjusted her hat.
Nicky heard the familiar clop of Peachy’s heels, followed by the click of Connie’s dress shoes and Al’s wingtips behind him on the sidewalk. The DePino rhythm section.
“They’re coming,” Hortense said and sighed. “I told you that bar crawl was a bad idea.”
Peachy stood before her ex-fiancé with her hands on her hips. “Nicky, I’m going to give you one more chance.”
“Peach, I don’t need another chance. And when you’ve prayed about this, you’ll be grateful I didn’t give you one. You’re a good girl. You don’t love me. You just want to be married.”
“That is love to me, Nicky.”
“It isn’t to me. It’s paperwork.”
“It’s a holy sacrament.”
“With paperwork. I don’t want to get married.” Nicky turned to the DePinos. “And I don’t owe her anything.”
“He doesn’t, Al,” Dom agreed.
Nicky continued, “And I don’t owe you anything, Mr. DePino. Or you, Mrs. DePino. I’ve washed your car every Saturday morning since I returned from the war. I cleaned your gutters every fall. I installed your storm windows, cut the linoleum and laid it in your kitchen, and poured the concrete for your carport. I tried to be a nice fellow to your lovely daughter. She was more than I deserved but she never made me feel that way. I’ve been respectful and polite. Forgive me for taking so long to realize the truth. And I regret that it took me all this time to make a decision. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make it. And it doesn’t mean I made the wrong one.”
Al DePino grunted. “We put down half on the hall.”
“I’ll reimburse you.”
“I don’t want your dirty money.”
“Then why did you bring it up, Mr. DePino?” Hortense was losing patience. “You either want the down payment back, or you don’t. Now which is it?”
“I want him to understand what this cost us.”
“Tell you what,” Hortense riffed. “You take that hall and throw yourself . . . Mrs. DePino, how long you been married?”
“Thirty-eight years.”
“Throw yourself a happily-ever-after party. Show the world how it’s done. That’s right. And you watch how fast your Peachy finds her own Al DePino. If you lead with gratitude, the world changes its attitude! I won a cross stitch at my church drawing with that saying on it, and it’s true. When you’re grateful, life opens up and offers you the very thing you dreamed of. Now, my feet hurt. We’ll see you all back in South Philly.”
Nicky and Hortense walked up Garibaldi Avenue to find the sedan parked by the grandstand where they’d left it. The party was over, the stands abandoned, the streets empty, the carnival lights dark. The air was still, the decorative flags that rippled earlier that day lay flat and uninspired. Even the stage did not look as impressive as it had that morning, filled with important people. The parade floats had taken a beating. The truth was, they all had.
Nicky and Hortense could hear the DePinos and Palazzinis arguing in the distance, but it did not faze them. Nicky held the door for Hortense, and she climbed in. He slipped into the driver’s seat, and soon they were headed down Garibaldi. The DePinos and the Palazzinis, still in the heat of their argument, didn’t notice when they passed.
“Do you care if I make a stop?” Nicky asked Hortense, looking at her in the rearview mirror.
“Why do you even ask me? You’re driving.”
“I won’t be long. Or, I will be.”
Nicky pulled up in front of Mamie Confalone’s house. He made it to the screen door and saw Augie in his pajamas at the kitchen table reading a book, while Mamie did the dishes at the sink. He rapped softly on the screen.
Mamie turned, saw Nicky, put aside the dish in the drainer, and came to the door. She looked back at her son and then slipped out onto the porch.
“I wanted to say good-bye. And I wanted to thank you. You saved us back there.”
“You would’ve done it for me.” Mamie buried her hands in her apron pockets.
“I’m glad you know that.” Nicky smiled.
“Last night . . . ,” she began.
He blushed. “What can we say about last night?”
“I don’t know that we should ever say a word about it,” Mamie said tenderly.
It took Nicky a second to understand what Mamie meant. “You don’t want to see me again?”
Mamie smiled. “I live here. And I always will.”
“We could,” he began to muse, “make a plan. Philly is close. We could meet?”
Mamie shook her head. “We shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I was fragile, and so were you. When you fall in love, Nicky, it has to be from a place of strength. It has to be because you want to build something, not because you need to cling to someone to shore you up or save you.”
“I can be strong for you,” Nicky argued.
“You will be strong, and so will she, when you find her someday. But I thank you. You were lovely last night. I thought romance was over for me in every way. I was closed off to any possibilities. And I didn’t think I’d ever find my way back to anything close to what we shared.”
“It meant everything to me too, Mamie.”
“I know that it did. So let’s take that into whatever we become and treasure it.”
Nicky wanted to argue with her, to convince her that they belonged together. He wanted to make a case for them as a couple, but he was beginning to understand what she was saying, what it meant, and why it mattered. It didn’t mean he had to accept it. Maybe she needed time. Maybe she just wasn’t ready.
Mamie kissed him on the cheek.
“Mama!” Augie called out for his mother.
“I have to go.” Mamie touched the cheek she had just kissed and went inside.
Hortense had been observing the scene, but she snapped her neck in the opposite direction as Nicky approached the car.
“Are we finally going back to Philadelphia?” she complained.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Just the two of us?” Hortense asked.
Nicky did not answer. As he pulled out onto the street, he looked in the rearview mirror and caught Eddie Davanzo’s police car as it pulled up in front of Mamie’s house. For a moment he thought to go back, in case there was a problem, but he thought better of it and kept driving.
“Just keep moving until you see the Hot Shoppe in Germantown. No more pit stops.”
“That was important.”
“How so?
“You’ll see.”
“What am I gonna see?”
“Mamie Confalone.”
“And who?”
“And me.”
Hortense chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“You gonna move to Roseto?”
“No.”
“She’s going to move to Philly?”
“She might. You never know.”
“You asked her?”
“No.”
“You met her kid?”
“No.”
“And he was right inside the house, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was.”
“But she didn’t introduce you to her kid. Nicky. Face it. You were a meltaway.”
“A what?”
“A meltaway. A delicious candy unwrapped in the moment that lasts exactly as long as it is meant to, which is to say, until it’s gone.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You d
on’t have to. Eventually the truth will make it obvious. Like those plays you love so very much in the theater—when you’re in the seat hearing the story, they matter, and in a couple hours it’s over. Another meltaway. The truth is, this whole weekend was a meltaway. We are going back to real life—the costume goes back to the shop, this pin goes back in the drawer, your accent dries up, and we go back to work. You can’t make pretend real.”
“I had something with Mamie. It was real.”
“Whatever happened between you and Mamie Confalone was made of spun sugar and air. It was sweet, and you tasted it. When you had it, you had it, but now you don’t, and it will never be yours again.”
Nicky was relieved when Hortense went off to sleep. It took a few seconds, really. A couple of snorts and she was snoring. What did she know about Mamie? About the two of them? Mrs. Mooney was old and wizened and didn’t understand young love. He wished he had never broached the subject with her. What was he thinking?
As Nicky drove along the silver river with a pink sky overhead, he was driving toward home, and yet the route felt unfamiliar. He was lost, and now he was broken, a penance for the sin of impersonating the Ambassador, or perhaps for taking a chance with a beautiful girl as lovely as Mamie without knowing where it would lead. The thought of Montrose Street and Car No. 4 was history to him now. His life as he knew it before the Jubilee was over. Now who was the impostor?
* * *
Calla pushed the front door of her house open with her hip. She carried a bag of fresh peaches in a brown paper bag, her father’s favorite fruit.
“Dad?” she called out. “I’m back. Got your peaches. I already ate two.” She looked back to the kitchen, where she saw his coffee cup on the table. She went into the kitchen and called out for him again. She touched the coffee cup. It was warm. She looked out the window to the garden.
Calla saw her father lying on the ground. She dropped the peaches, which rolled out of the bag and across the wooden floor. She ran outside, stumbling over a stepstool and the rigging for the awning that went over the walkway off the back porch.
“Dad, what did you do?” She made it to her father’s side. He had a cut over his left eye. She checked his pulse. He was barely breathing. She tried to revive him. His face was slowly turning gray. She ran into the house and called an ambulance.
Calla ran back out into the yard to stay with her father until the ambulance arrived. She knelt down in the grass, took off her sweater, and gently placed it under his head. Calla laid her head on his chest to listen for his heartbeat. She had no idea how much time had passed when the paramedics came, but it hadn’t been long. It seemed like forever, because she was losing him, and she knew it. Time was seeping away, and she could not control it.
She wanted to hold on to him, to do whatever she could to make him stay, but she knew, even as they placed him on the gurney and lifted him into the ambulance, that he had made his choice. The moment she had dreaded had arrived, and there was nothing she could do. She laced her fingers through her father’s and held on as they hoisted him into the ambulance. Then she climbed in beside him, hoping that if she held on, she could pull him back to her.
As the ambulance careened through the streets of South Philly, they sped past the Borelli Theatrical Company.
“Dad, we just passed the theater.” When Sam did not stir, Calla’s eyes filled with tears. “I remember every play you directed. We can do them all again. We’ll do the ones you didn’t get to—okay? You never directed Cymbeline. I know it’s not one of the better plays . . .” She began to cry. “But if anybody could redeem it and put on a first-class production, it’s you. Don’t leave me, Dad.”
The ambulance pulled up to the emergency entrance. Within seconds, the doors flew open, and Sam was lifted out, wheeled into the hospital, past the nurses and the check-in desk, and into a small room that filled with nurses and doctors. Calla watched as they conferred, until she was pulled away by a kind nurse who put her arm around her waist and, taking her hand, led her out into the hallway. The last time Calla saw her father, his hands were open, accepting what was to come.
* * *
Nicky stood outside the sedan parked in the alley behind Borelli’s and carefully placed the uniform he’d worn as Ambassador Guardinfante on a hanger. He whistled as he climbed the steps to the stage door, and was irritated to find it locked.
Nicky walked around the building and entered through the lobby, carrying the costume. Rosa DeNero was sitting on her perch in the box office, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper, when Nicky passed by.
“Rosa, how’s it going?” He breezed by without waiting for her answer.
She came out of the ticket booth and called after him. “Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Sam Borelli died this morning.”
Nicky’s voice wavered. “What happened?”
“Calla found him in the yard. He had been trying to put up the summer awning. He must’ve fell. They think he had a stroke. She went with him to the hospital.” Rosa looked around. “This is it for the theater. It’s over now. As long as Mr. B was alive, we had a chance. But now, there’s no way it will make it.”
“Shut up, Rosa.”
Nicky pushed through the glass doors of the lobby and went outside. Familiar, old sadness began to move through his body. Grief had its own veins and capillaries, as regret filled his heart. He had meant to visit Sam, spend time with him and seek his counsel. Instead he had been caught up in events that didn’t matter. Sam Borelli mattered and now, like all the sages in Nicky’s life, he, too, was gone.
* * *
When Nicky knocked on Sam Borelli’s front door on Ellsworth Street he heard laughter pouring out the open windows through the living room. He peered inside. The house was full to overflowing with members of the theater company as well as mourners he didn’t recognize. The folks could not be described as mourners; they were celebrating Sam as they ate, drank, and danced. Nicky had never witnessed such a wake.
Nicky went inside. Tony Coppolella immediately wrapped him in an embrace. “Sam gave me my first job. Cast me in my first show. I was Guildenstern in Hamlet.”
He patted Tony on the back and gave him a smile of reassurance. Actors mark everything that happens to them, no matter what it might be—falling in love, getting married, death of a loved one, or birth of a child—with whatever role they happened to be playing at the time. They view their lives through the wings, either entering a scene or exiting one. Sam’s exit forced Tony to remember his first entrance.
Nicky wove through the crowd. Members of the crew patted him on the back in solidarity, and others expressed their grief with an embrace, but all Nicky wanted to do was get to Calla.
He made it through the kitchen and out to the back porch to the backyard where he found her talking with her sisters and a small cluster of friends. Frank Arrigo was serving drinks and working the crowd.
Nicky tapped Calla on the shoulder. When she turned and saw him, she began to cry. He took her into his arms. “It’s going to be all right,” he assured her.
“How?”
“It just will. Trust me.”
“Okay.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Just stay.”
“You got it.”
Nicky made himself useful. He went into the kitchen and warmed up food, placing it on the table for the guests. Theater folk are always hungry, so as the trays and casseroles poured in, Nicky set them out and the plates filled up. Nicky took a tray and went through the rooms, picking up plates and glasses. He returned to the kitchen, threw a moppeen on his shoulder, and washed dishes to keep up with the volume of guests who came to pay their respects to the family of Sam Borelli.
Frank hauled a bag of ice through the kitchen. “Thanks for helping out.”
“Of course.”
“You’re a good friend to Calla.”
“She’s very special.”
Frank smiled. �
��I know.”
“You better be good to her, Frank.”
“I hear that a lot. I’ve heard it about forty times this afternoon.”
“Theater people might wear tights, but they can take you down in a dark alley.”
“I’ll bet.”
Frank lifted the cooler of ice and went out into the backyard. Nicky watched him from the kitchen window. Calla’s sisters seemed impressed with him as he freshened their drinks. Nicky wondered if Sam had liked the guy.
“Nicky.”
He turned away from the window. Josie Ciletti, wearing a plunging V-neck cashmere sweater, pulled him close to her chest. “I’m a mess.”
“Sam thought you had talent, Josie.”
“He plucked me from the bowels of Cremon Street by the airport and turned me into an actress. I owe him everything,” she sobbed.
Nicky gave her his handkerchief.
“The theater won’t last without him.”
“Sure it will.”
“You know something?” Josie’s left eyebrow shot up. “You heard something?”
“No, I just know Calla. She’ll keep it going.”
“I hope so. I need the stage like macaroni needs gravy.”
“What does that say about the cheese, Josie?”
“Nothing. The cheese stands alone.”
Around midnight, Frank drove Hambone Mason home because he was so juiced, he couldn’t remember where he parked his car. Nicky swept the kitchen floor as the last of the dishes drained on the rack.
“This kitchen has never been so clean.” Helen, Sam’s eldest daughter, a striking redhead with brown eyes, looked around appreciatively. “We haven’t met.”
“Nicky Castone.”
“He worked at the theater for Dad.” Portia, a petite brunette, brought a tray in from the patio. “Right?”
“Yes. I wandered into the theater a few years ago, and he gave me a job.”
“That’s how Dad did his hiring. He thought if you showed up, you had been led there. He believed a life in the theater was a mystical calling.” Helen shook her head.
“It might be if you’re good at it,” Calla said as she brought a tray of glasses in from the living room. “Sorry, Nick. You don’t have to wash these.”
“I’d be happy to.”
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