Luciana sat.
And he sat down beside her, elbows on his knees, spinning the racquet that was in his hand.
“I’m Billy, by the way. Quinn. Billy Quinn.”
Luciana smiled.
“And you are . . . ?”
Luciana smiled once more.
“ . . . going to make a game of this? Make me guess?” She was a coy one, wasn’t she? “All right, then. I’m up for the sport.” He stilled the racquet between his hands, turned to face her, head cocked to one side. “You’re not a Florence, are you?” He narrowed his eyes. Florence? He hoped not. He hadn’t much admiration for the Florences he’d met, though he had no doubt she could change that impression.
She said nothing.
“A Louise perhaps?”
Her brow rose.
“No? No.” Definitely not a Louise. “Are you a Marie?”
She shrugged.
“Helen? Hélène?” He said it more to himself than to her. He studied her eyes, those beautiful, shining eyes.
She said nothing.
“Lucy?”
Ah – he was so very close! If only he had known it. But Luciana had an Italian-sounding c and she did not recognize her name in his. But she caught the question in his tone and shook her head ever so slightly.
“No?” He lowered his head, raised his brow.
She shook her head once more.
“No. Fine, good. Then are you . . . Carolina?”
Nothing.
“Suzanne?”
A door near the entry swept open and Mrs. Quinn stepped out into the hall. “Smith?” She called for her butler. He materialized quite suddenly from . . . it was difficult to tell exactly where. “Will you have that girl come – ” She paused as she turned toward the back of the hall and saw her son. “Billy?”
He saluted her with his racquet.
“Is that Madame’s girl there?”
“It is.”
“What’s she doing? I told her to go through and wait in the kitchen.” She was used to servants rushing to do her bidding, and to her way of thinking, the shop girl was one of them. So it was irritating that the girl should stay seated when she was being spoken to. “You – girl. Come here. I’m done with you. I’ll have to keep these books for another day. I don’t have time to go through them now.”
Billy stood, and when he did, Luciana did the same. She looked at him inquiringly. He shrugged. Gestured her forward. She walked to where Mrs. Quinn stood and held out her hands for the books.
But Mrs. Quinn would not relinquish them. “Come tomorrow. I’ll be done with them then.” She disappeared back into her sitting room and shut the door.
There was nothing to do about it. The strega had the books, and she wasn’t letting them go. Luciana thought of trying to make an appeal to the butler, but that venerable personage had already vanished, and even if he had been there, she wouldn’t have known the words to say.
Billy opened the door and gestured her through. They both went out into the summer’s bright sun, supremely unsatisfied. Luciana was going back to Madame’s without the books. And Billy still hadn’t learned her name.
Julietta, however, was supremely satisfied with herself as she started home that evening. The embroidery she was working on at the shop was almost done. Though she’d enjoyed the novelty of working with the gold- and silver-wrapped threads, she was looking forward to the next project even more. She had the pleasures of a new pink and white messaline gown to revel in, and there were so very many good things in the coming weeks to look forward to. There was Saint Marciano’s festa, there were Saturday evening dances at the Sons of Avellino Hall. And there was also Angelo Moretti.
“Buon giorno.”
For a moment, as she turned a corner from the glare of Temple Place into the shade of Washington Street, she thought she’d managed to summon the spirit of her beloved. She looked over in the direction of the greeting, expecting – oh. Her hopes died. “I was thinking I could walk home with you.”
It was only Mauro. She smiled. But it was purely reflexive.
She looked him over from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He was carrying his bag. But that didn’t mean much. He always carried his bag. He was a doctor, after all. One of the few during the war who had been allowed to stay and work in the North End. Though that didn’t explain what he was doing downtown. “You want to walk me home?”
He shrugged. Shifted his bag to his other hand. “If you want me to.”
If she wanted him to. She didn’t. Not really. And she refused to think of him as Dr. Vitali. To her he was, and always would be, Mauro. Mauro, her big brother Salvatore’s friend. Old Mauro, she might have added. He had to have been at least thirty.
But she smiled. And inclined her head. It wasn’t in her nature to turn down male companionship. “All the way to the North End?”
“Of course. It’s just I was hoping . . . there’s a war concert at Boston Common. If you want to go.” He smiled at her as if he hoped, very much, that was exactly what she would want to do.
“You want to take me to a concert?” This was both better and worse than she had imagined. A concert! A real one. But with him?
Julietta had never been able to attend enough war rallies and parades for her liking. When she did, she would clap and cheer and wave her flag with all the zeal of a newly converted soul. At rallies and parades she felt American in a way she never did in the North End. In the middle of a crowd singing “Over There,” she sang as loudly as the rest of them. Standing in line to buy liberty bonds, she knew that her money was as good as anyone else’s.
“I don’t know, Mauro. I’m sure Mama is expecting me.”
“She is. I mean, rather . . . she’s expecting you to be with me.”
Julietta’s eyes narrowed. “She is, is she?”
“I asked her just this morning where it was that you worked.
And when you would be done.”
“So she told you. And she said that you could ask me. To a concert.”
Mauro nodded.
She was perfectly amenable to enjoying a concert when there was one to be enjoyed. Even if that meant she had to do it with Mauro. But when she got home? Was Mama going to hear about it! She linked her arm through Mauro’s, and they started off down the street.
At Boston Common they dodged roving groups of children and women pushing baby carriages. An almost festive atmosphere prevailed. It was as if by hoping fervently enough, by singing loudly enough, by praying hard enough, Boston knew she could finish what those Huns in Germany had started.
Oh, if only it were true! If only the slaughter could be stopped!
Caught up in that swell of zealous, nearly reckless patriotism, Julietta almost wished she were wearing the new messaline. On further thought, however, she decided that pleasure would have been wasted on Mauro. But he always looked so distinguished that it might have been nice, in the midst of what seemed like the entire city of Boston, to have felt as if she matched him.
He steered her toward a vendor’s cart and bought her an ice cream. Though it was already past six o’clock, the sun was still so blaringly hot that she ended up eating it rather more quickly than was ladylike. And at the end, after he threw away the cup for her, there was still a splotch of it left on her chin for him to blot up with his handkerchief.
“Grazie, Mauro.”
He winked at her.
“Aren’t you going to do that magic trick? The one where you pretend you’ve captured my nose? Like you always did when I was little?”
He slid a sidewise glance toward her. “You aren’t so little anymore, Julietta.”
Nice to know that he’d noticed! Even if he was just Mauro. Such a nice, funny sort of man. In his proper hat and his proper suit, carrying a proper doctor’s case. Mauro was just too proper. He did have very nice teeth, though. Thick and straight and white. That couldn’t be said about everyone’s teeth. And he had a nice deep laugh. She’d always liked hearing it.
&nb
sp; Their progress toward the bandstand gradually slowed as they joined the crowd surrounding it. Mauro wanted to stop at the outer edges, but Julietta grabbed his hand and pulled him right into the middle. By slipping around women and dispensing smiles at the men, she tugged him through the throngs, emerging, finally, right in front of the bandstand itself.
“But – ”
“Don’t you want to be able to see?”
He bent close so that he could speak into her ear. “It’s a concert. I only have to be able to hear.”
Nonsense. He didn’t know what was good for him!
The orchestra began tuning their instruments, and soon the first soloist climbed the steps to begin the concert. Fluffy red, white, and blue bows nearly obscured her face, but when she opened her mouth, her voice soared far beyond those ribbons. That soloist was followed by another and another. Ten soloists performed that night. And after, a treat: an exhibition of ballroom dancing.
Julietta watched, enraptured. Oh, how she would have loved to have been whisked about on a dance floor by someone strong and lithe like Angelo! To be twirled and promenaded. Dipped and spun. All too soon the spectacle ended and the last notes of the orchestra drifted away into the evening’s golden light.
She sighed.
Mauro offered her his arm. “Did you enjoy it?”
“So much!” She stood up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. A cheek that smelled of soap and antiseptic and had more stubble than she remembered. She twirled, inspired by the music and intricate dance steps. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to go to a ball?”
He considered her question with scientific detachment. “I’ve never been to a ball.”
She stopped mid-twirl. “An important doctor like you?
Never?”
He shook his head. “What do you think people do there?”
Had he gone mad? “They dance.”
“I’ve been to dances.”
She’d never seen him at any. Not at the Sons of Avellino Hall.
Of course, she usually snuck out the back door with an escort.
Early on.
“Do you like dances, Julietta?”
She shrugged. She liked dancing. And she certainly liked what went on in the alley out back.
“Would you go to a dance with me?”
“With you?”
He smiled.
“To a dance?”
“This Saturday at the Hall?” There it was again, that little boy smile. As if he hoped very much that what he wished for was finally about to come true.
She did a swift calculation, factoring in all the dances that she would miss because she’d have to save them all for him. Which wasn’t really that many, considering she didn’t usually stay at the dances for very long. But then she had to figure in all the extra time she would have to stay in the Sons of Avellino Hall because it wasn’t as if Mauro was going to take her out back to the alley. And it wasn’t as if she wanted him to.
She snuck a glance at his face . . . at his lips, if you want to put a fine point to it.
No. She didn’t want him to, although it might be interesting if he did. Nothing very bad was bound to happen if she accepted Mauro’s invitation, and intuition told her that something very good might come from it in the end. In the form of some of the boys not taking her as much for granted anymore.
It wouldn’t be like going with Angelo Moretti, but she didn’t even know where Angelo lived. And besides, he had never asked her to go anywhere, or do anything with him, at all.
“I’ll go with you.”
A smile lit his face, making it appear, for a moment, at least ten years younger. Poor Mauro. He had lost his heart to a girl too young and wild to appreciate that sacred trust.
13
Eventually, Mauro walked Julietta up to her apartment. And came in when it was made clear that Mama wouldn’t let him leave. But that didn’t bother Julietta any. The men and boys talked among themselves while the women tended to their own affairs, Mauro being one of them.
“Mama.”
She turned from the stove where she was cooking a soup for the next day’s supper.
“Mauro said you told him that he could walk out with me.”
She smiled, nodding her head as if Julietta were thanking her for the favor. “He’s a good man.”
“He’s an old man.”
“Old!” Her older sister Josephine’s eyes had snapped wide open. “You don’t know old from a boot!”
Mama joined with her eldest daughter. “He’s not too old to know how to be nice to a girl.”
“Ma!”
“He comes from a very fine family.”
“In Avellino. But we’re in America.”
Mama pointed her spoon at Julietta. “I want you to be nice to him.”
“Why?”
“Be nice.” After two shakes of the spoon, Mama put it back in the pot and used it to stir the soup.
“I’ll be nice to him.” She had to, didn’t she? “But I’m not going to marry him.”
“And why not?”
“You want me to marry him?!”
“I want you to marry a nice man from a good family. He’s a doctor. He owns his house.”
“I am sick to death of everybody telling me what I should do!” The men were looking over at them from their side of the room, so Julietta took a step nearer her mother so she could speak in relative privacy. “When I want to marry a man, it will be a man that I choose. That I want!”
“Oh, it will, will it?”
“Sì!”
“Why can’t you be a good Avellino girl like your sister, Josephine?’
“Because we’re not in Avellino anymore, Ma. We’re in America!” She didn’t care at that moment who heard her. Why was it so difficult for everyone to understand? They were in America.
And what was the use of being in America if you couldn’t act like an American?
“You’ll marry whom I tell you to marry. And you’ll be glad for it!”
Julietta’s reply was the slamming of the tenement door.
Annamaria only wished she could talk to her own mama the way Julietta spoke to hers. Today was the day. Mama was going to make her cross the street.
“You got the basket?” Mama asked the question for the third time.
“I have the basket.” Annamaria’s fingers were clenched tight around its handle.
“You got the money?”
“I have the money.”
“Remember. You don’t have to speak. You just have to get the tomatoes.”
Just get the tomatoes. Annamaria took a deep breath, nodded, and then walked out of the apartment. Down the stairs. Out into the evening. She paused as she stepped down onto the sidewalk. She felt as if everyone were watching her. And she was right. Everyone was. All along the sidewalk. The nonne in their chairs, the children playing hopscotch. Above the street, the housewives pulling in their wash, and more nonne watching out their windows. All along North Street, everyone stopped what they were doing and watched Annamaria Rossi cross the street.
Some of them even hurriedly made the sign of the cross.
She ducked under the green awning that had been spread above the door. Slipped inside. She felt as if she were entering a foreign and hostile country, but quite soon, as her eyes took in the tidy bins of onions and stacks of eggplants, she loosed her grip on the basket and felt her shoulders relax. It was just like Maglione’s. Cleaner perhaps. And brighter.
Zanfini’s son was standing behind a display of tomatoes, wiping his hands on his apron. He was a slim lad with a square jaw and eyebrows that lifted from the bridge of his nose in a shallow diagonal. Had you been there with Annamaria, you might have been tempted to reach out and grab a few of those rosy tomatoes sitting in the pyramid before him. And you might have been surprised that Annamaria didn’t. They were so impossibly red, so impossibly shiny. But those fat tomatoes, the pungent onions, and the plump eggplants might have been little bright-eyed, fat-cheeked children. Annamaria
knew that the more those cheeks were pinched and pulled and poked, the more their spirits faded. And so she kept her hands to herself, though she admired the produce just the same.
Crossing her arms around the handle of the basket, she walked up to that pyramid of tomatoes and raised her eyes to meet those of Zanfini’s son.
His words caught in his throat. He swallowed. He’d never seen her before or he would have remembered. She wasn’t Sicilian . . . which meant that she’d probably want nothing to do with him, let alone speak to him. But he’d never seen such a beautiful face or such delicate features. That other girl, the one who slunk by on her way to work of a morning, she was striking, but this girl?
This girl was an angel.
For her part, Annamaria was simply and completely . . . amazed. There was an expansiveness in her breast. A new resonance to the beat of her heart. A sudden clarity in her mind. As if, finally, she understood what her purpose was. As if, in crossing the threshold of that Sicilian frutta e verdura, she had stepped into her life.
But how could that be?
They both asked themselves that very question. How could it be that such beauty existed? How could it be that the entire world had fallen away in an instant? And resolved itself into something new and fresh and vibrant? They searched for the answers, for one long moment, in each other’s eyes.
And then Zanfini’s son spoke. His words came out soft. And hoarse. “What do I get for you?” He would have given her anything, everything she wanted.
Annamaria opened her mouth to speak and then remembered that she couldn’t. Shouldn’t. She pointed to the tomatoes instead.
“Tomatoes?”
She nodded.
“How many?”
She inclined her head. She didn’t know. She hadn’t thought to ask.
Such loveliness, such grace in her gesture. And in it he read both the beginning and the end of every lover’s poem, every romantic’s dream, every fairy tale that had ever been written.
“You want two? Four?”
A Heart Most Worthy Page 9