She pushed open the door of the recording booth, flipped on the light, and sat down on the piano bench, facing away from the keys. She found herself turning toward the keyboard and rested her fingers on the cool white ivory, but she could not play. She rested her hands in her lap. It was odd. Usually, the booth was warm in summer; on this day, it was cool, like a tomb.
Barbara pushed the door of the recording shed open. “Cheech?” She presented a cup of coffee to her sister.
“No, thank you.”
“Drink it,” Barbara ordered, holding the cup out until Chi Chi took it.
Chi Chi sipped the coffee. “What are we going to do without Dad?”
Barbara sat down next to Chi Chi on the piano bench. “We’ll figure it out.”
This was what Chi Chi loved about her older sister, and also what she hated about her. She had an answer for everything. “I didn’t see this coming, did you?”
Barbara shook her head.
“How is Mama holding up?”
“Cheech, it’s not good.”
“They’ve been married since they were eighteen.”
“I’m talking about her circumstances. This house.”
“What’s wrong with the house?”
“There’s debt.”
“They owned it outright, free and clear. Don’t you remember? He told us that three years ago.”
“That was before he took out a mortgage to build this studio.”
“What are you talking about?” Chi Chi got a sick feeling in her stomach.
“He did all the labor,” Barbara said impatiently, “but there were costs, the wood, glass, the supplies. All this equipment—it’s expensive, and he couldn’t afford it. So he borrowed against the house to buy it.”
Barbara’s tone forced Chi Chi onto the defensive. “He had plans to record all kinds of acts in here.”
“But he didn’t.”
“He didn’t live long enough. Besides, he was putting all his efforts into our act.” Chi Chi thought about how many times her father had driven them to a talent contest, or dropped everything to take them to a radio station for an open-mic audition, or how many hours a day he had spent with her when she was writing a song, and more in the studio as he recorded it over and over again, playing it back until they were satisfied. “He worked hard.”
“The act wasn’t going anywhere.”
“It could have, in time. We talked about it. We were building a business that would last. A business in music.”
Barbara looked at her sister wearily. “I know how badly you wanted it. But it was not to be.”
“It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. You have to give it time.”
“Most of the time it never happens.”
Chi Chi wasn’t going to argue with her pragmatic sister. Barbara’s droll sense of humor was funny onstage, but in life, it was exhausting. There was little room for failure in her world, and none for whimsy. She looked at life practically, with a set of rules that outlined how things should work.
Chi Chi sipped the hot, black coffee. “What’s the freight on the mortgage?”
“Dad exchanged the value of our home for the cost of this studio. Charlie is already trying to unload the contents of the studio.”
“Whoa. Without asking me?”
“You’re too attached. And we don’t have time. It’s not going well. Charlie can only get pennies on the dollar for the stuff. Dad overpaid for the console, the microphones, the amplifier. Even the radio stations don’t want the turntable.”
“I was with him when he bought this equipment. Dad went into the city to the best places.”
“And got took.”
“Dad wasn’t a sucker.”
“He was trying to make you happy. He spent his last dollar trying to make your dream come true.”
“Our dream.”
“Yes, we all enjoyed singing, but you and Dad had bigger ideas.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, if you can afford it.”
“We’re all working.”
“Dad lost his job because he was taking off too much time to wheel and deal in music on your behalf. I’m not telling you this to hurt you. It’s the truth. He got caught up in it. He thought Mama’s Rolling Pin was a hit. He really did. He took Ma’s grocery money last week and went around paying disc jockeys to play the song on the radio.”
“No, he didn’t. We dropped off the records. No money changed hands.”
“Not that you saw. But he paid them. Charlie found out when he called to sell the equipment. The first guy let it slip, and from there, Charlie acted like he was going to pay to play your record, and they spilled.”
Chi Chi put her head in her hands.
“And if we want to save the house for Ma, and it’s unlikely we can, we have to pool all our savings. Charlie will go down to the bank and renegotiate the mortgage.”
“He will not! I’m his daughter.”
“The bank responds to men. Let him handle it.”
Tears stung Chi Chi’s eyes, but she quickly wiped them away. She had to show strength, not emotion.
Barbara was moved by her sister’s pain. “I am so sorry to tell you all this. You tried. Dad tried. But we weren’t good enough.”
“The audience decides who is good enough.”
“Cheech, we don’t have an audience.”
“You have to build one.”
Barbara refused to argue. “You should know what we’re putting on the table to save the house. I have saved one hundred and eighty-two dollars. Lucille has one hundred and fifteen. Ma has two hundred and four dollars squirreled away. I don’t know what you have—”
“Of course I will help,” Chi Chi cut in. She knew not to offer hard numbers to Barbara, who would hold her to them. “What do we owe?”
“We owe around six thousand dollars.”
“But the house is only worth two thousand dollars, and that’s if you could find a buyer. What’s the rate on the mortgage?”
“Eight percent.”
“That’s a terrible deal!” Chi Chi couldn’t believe it. “My bank offers a mortgage at three.”
“They saw Dad coming. That’s why I want Charlie to go in and try to reason with them and get the number down. They will try and foreclose, they always do. And they have some cause. Dad has been late with his payment a few times. Including last month.”
Chi Chi remembered her father trying to talk to her about the finances, but she was too busy writing songs. How she wished she had paid attention.
“He didn’t even tell Mama,” Barbara went on. “She never had an inkling. His own wife! He was his sweet, happy-go-lucky self until the end. And we loved him, and we’d do anything for him. And he’d do anything for us. But, make no mistake, our paychecks from the mill kept this all afloat.”
Chi Chi found it hard to speak. Her sister was outlining the future, and it was grim. There would be no music career; it would be the hard slog at the mill for all of them, just to keep a roof over their heads. As surely as it was in her grasp, Chi Chi had to let go of the dream Mariano and she had imagined together.
“Listen to me, Chi Chi. We need to keep our heads down and work hard. We’ll work at the mill as we have been, do our piecework and make as much extra money as we can, and concentrate on keeping our home. We will all have to make sacrifices. I’ll marry Charlie in the sacristy after Labor Day—no big wedding, no fancy gown.”
“But you dreamed of your wedding day.”
“They were just dreams. Charlie will move in after we’re married, and we’ll live here and we’ll pay rent.” She sighed. “We would have paid it somewhere else anyway.”
“That’s between you and Mom. But Charlie is not to go to the bank. He’s not in the family. I know Mr. Polly, the bank manager, personally.”
“How do you know him?”
“Through Dad.”
“But you didn’t know about the mortgage?”
“No. But I do now, a
nd I’ll talk to him about it. Give me a chance to take care of this.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
“Barbara, I will fight you on this.”
“I need to talk to Mom.”
“I will fight her, too,” Chi Chi said calmly.
Barbara stepped back.
“I will take care of this.” Chi Chi walked to the door and held it open for her sister. “If this is the end of the studio, I want to be the one to close it.”
* * *
Chi Chi punched her time card in the vestibule of Jersey Miss, slid her wide-brimmed straw hat onto her head, and ran up the street to the New Jersey National Savings & Loan to beat its three-o’clock closing. She took the steps two at a time to the entrance of the stately red-brick building, flung the door open, and stepped inside with nineteen minutes to spare.
Her work shoes squeaked on the polished marble floor, so she walked on her toes instead. No matter how many customers came into the branch for service, the volume never went above a whisper. Besides the bank, this kind of silence and reverence could only be found in church or at the public library.
She made her way to the manager’s desk, an ornate mahogany rectangle covered in a sheet of thick glass set behind an arch of wrought-iron scrollwork. She used to find the opulent setting reassuring; now it intimidated her.
“Miss Donatelli?”
Mr. Polly had a friendly smile and white hair. He waited until Chi Chi had taken a seat across from him before he sat behind the big desk. “I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
“We’re all devastated, as you can imagine.” Chi Chi pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. “My mother is now a widow, and we’re all alone in the world.”
“What can I do to help?”
Chi Chi leaned forward. “The first order of business? I want to renegotiate the bum mortgage you saddled my father with. Mr. Polly, were you serious, sir? Eight percent?”
“He had debts he wanted to clean up. We bundled them.”
“You bundled and buried him. It’s wrong. I’m not implying what you did is illegal in any way. It’s your bank, and you can charge twenty percent, and if a customer wants the loan, and is willing to pay it, and you make the deal—that’s good business for you. But my father was in a desperate state of mind.”
Mr. Polly opened the file. “Your father requested a balloon mortgage. He was convinced that a business he was working on would take off sooner rather than later. He bet the family home, his best asset, on it.”
“But he died, and we can’t continue in this fashion. The house is worth two thousand. He owes six thousand.”
“Six thousand fifty dollars and seventy-two cents.”
“Understood, sir. My father had been paying on this loan for a year, which means you’ve already made close to five hundred dollars in interest on it. I’d like to cancel the current mortgage and renegotiate it. I’m willing to put down half of the value of the home as collateral—in cash. And I want to renegotiate the debt at two percent, a figure my mother, my sisters, and I can manage.”
“The house isn’t enough collateral,” Mr. Polly said calmly.
“I’m offering my government bonds. Today, at the current rate, they are worth one thousand one hundred seventy-seven dollars and forty-three cents. I hold them here at your bank. I have cash on hand totaling two hundred dollars, which I would like to add to the pot. That’s more than half the value of the house, and it’s a full cash backup. I think, under the circumstances, it’s an excellent deal.”
“I’m sorry, we have to hold you to the original mortgage rate.”
Chi Chi leaned forward. “Mr. Polly, I’m going to ask you to reconsider one more time. See, I work down the street at Jersey Miss, and I think you know most of those young ladies don’t trust the bank with their money. How would you like it spread all over the mill—and all over town—that you gouged a woman the entire town of Sea Isle respects, on a loan you have already made a generous return on? I don’t think it looks good for the bank. I don’t think it looks good for you. Perhaps you need to talk to your regional manager and see what he can do for me. In fact, I’d like that, sir.”
Mr. Polly looked startled. “One moment, Miss Donatelli.” He stood up, went into the interior office, and closed the door.
Chi Chi was sweating so profusely, she felt it run down her back underneath her work blouse. If Mr. Polly didn’t take the offer, she had no backup plan. Her mother would lose the house. Even with the girls working, the loan would suffocate them.
Mr. Polly returned and sat down at the desk. “Miss Donatelli, the bank is willing to adjust the mortgage rate to two-point-five percent, but we’ll need an additional one hundred dollars in cash. So, the government bonds worth one thousand one hundred seventy-seven dollars and forty-three cents, plus three hundred dollars cash, and the loan at two-point-five percent, for a monthly payment of sixty-two dollars and fifty cents until the loan is paid in full.”
Chi Chi did a quick calculation in her head. “Excuse me, Mr. Polly, but my math tells me the payment should be forty-one dollars and fifty cents per month. I’m paying off fifteen hundred dollars of it today.”
“Late fees and a renegotiating fee brought the monthly payment up.”
Chi Chi bowed her head and buried her face in her handkerchief. She wept. “We can’t afford it. Please, sir, please, can you waive the late fees and the renegotiation fee? Please? I guess I could try and pass a hat at the mill, but I don’t think it would set well.”
Mr. Polly excused himself again. Chi Chi kept her face in the hanky until she heard the door snap behind him. The handkerchief was dry. There were no tears; Chi Chi was furious. When she heard the door creak open, she put her face back into the handkerchief.
“Miss Donatelli?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You have a deal. Forty-one dollars and fifty cents is your monthly payment, with late fees and renegotiation waived.”
Once Chi Chi was outside the bank, she scanned the pages of the mortgage before carefully folding it and returning it to the envelope and into her purse. She turned up the street to walk home, but found herself breaking into a run to share the good news with her mother and sisters.
* * *
The coral sun slipped below the horizon. Dusk followed in shades of teal that streaked the sky in the last of the light as Chi Chi walked briskly along the water’s edge alone.
Her mother had taken the news of the mortgage renegotiation appreciatively, but she did not comprehend the scope of what Chi Chi had accomplished. Barbara was pleased, but remained anxious about how their family would survive. Lucille was glad that her sister had managed to save a portion of the money she’d set aside for secretarial school; she’d been convinced that all was lost. But the truth was, none of the Donatelli women were satisfied. This victory did not make up for the loss of Mariano, or for their disappointment in him. It was true that he had been a good husband and father. It was also true that he had disappointed them with his secret business schemes. Only Chi Chi understood his motives, and only she could forgive him in full for being a dreamer and wanting more.
As she made her way back to the family home, she thought about her father, his hopes for the family, the record studio, and the sister act. He had worked diligently on Chi Chi’s behalf. After the funeral and burial, she remembered her father as her friend, as the only person in her life who truly understood her and rooted for her. She could not imagine the world without him, but here it was, and it was every bit as awful as she had imagined it might be. Sitting alone on the front porch, she began to cry. She was left to stay behind and live without his laugh, wisdom, and dreams. Her mourning had begun.
Through the screen door, Chi Chi could hear her mother and sisters in the kitchen. Instead of going inside the house, she went to the studio. She pulled the key out from under the mat and let herself in.
Chi Chi marveled at her father’s handiwork. Mariano had done a splendid job turning a cinder-block garage
into a professional operation. It was his idea to build the studio within the garage, thus ensuring as close to perfect sound as was possible. Every detail had been researched. He was particular when choosing the materials for construction and meticulous in the execution of the building of the structure by the labor of his own hands, as was his way, the old-world way, in the Italian style. Eventually—and soon—his small shrine to music, an art form he revered, would be disassembled and sold for scrap.
How quickly everything they had worked for was gone.
Plenty of widows along the shore found ways to raise additional income. Some rented space to fishermen who stored their crabbing baskets, rowboats, oars, and gear in their empty garages; others rented to men who needed a place to park their work vehicles. And now Isotta, with the help of her daughters, would have to find a new purpose for their garage. Rental fees were determined by a garage’s size and location. So close to the water, the Donatelli women might do all right.
It was the end of the D Studio; there was no fighting to save it. Chi Chi was outnumbered. However, when it came to her father’s dream of having a hit record, she didn’t need her sisters’ support or approval to proceed on her own. A hit record made in his memory would be Chi Chi’s mission. She would write the song and find the best artist to record it to take it to the top of the Hit Parade.
No scrap collector, mortgage lender, or skeptical relative would stand in her way.
5
Volante
(Flight)
1939–1940
Chi Chi Donatelli took the twenty-block walk from the Thirty-Third Street train station in midtown Manhattan to the Musicale nightclub and dance hall on West Fifty-Second Street at a clip. Overhead, the pink morning sky was dense with low white clouds. The tops of the skyscrapers poked through them, looking like sticks holding tufts of cotton candy. New Yorkers gripped their hats and buttoned their coats as the first cold winds of autumn whipped around corners and blew through the streets below.
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