Tony's Wife

by Adriana Trigiani

  Chi Chi walked on Ninth Avenue past tenements dusted with soot set among shady storefronts whose vendors rolled out half-empty bins with meager offerings of dry goods. One old man sold secondhand scarves and belts, while two shifty brothers hawked sewing supplies: fabric remnants and spools of thread in odd colors, castoffs pinched from the sample salesmen in the garment district. The merchandise was on final sale, a fitting swan song to the last gasp of the Depression. Everything was about to change, or at least it felt that way to Chi Chi.

  The confident Jersey girl crossed the wide avenue and walked past a passel of city workers working around an open manhole. Their wolf whistles were lost in the cacophony of car horns, the clang of the train cars, and the howl of distant sirens. Chi Chi heard none of it. Her mind was elsewhere; she had come to the city for business.

  As Chi Chi turned the corner onto Fifty-Second Street, her heart sank. It appeared as if any girl who thought she could carry a tune in the tristate area had come to try to win a spot to sing with the Paul Godfrey Orchestra. As a rule, Chi Chi didn’t enter these types of contests, but this one was irresistible: the winner got a guaranteed six-month contract to tour with the name band. Chi Chi needed the break. An opportunity like this was not likely to knock on her door in Sea Isle City.

  Aspiring professional girl singers who longed to front the big bands stood patiently in their best hats, gloves, and coats in a line that unspooled around the block in one long ribbon. They carried folders filled with sheet music, like the one Chi Chi had tucked under her arm. She took her place at the back of the line and surveyed the street. Jazz Alley was lined with cabarets and clubs that featured singers and musicians from her favorite bands. She was thrilled at the thought of the talent she admired walking these streets and playing these venues, passing under the red canopies and marquees lit by purple neon.

  Up the block, Chi Chi observed a petite blond dynamo around her age talking to the contestants. The young woman wove in and out of the line, accepting their paperwork. Once in a while she stopped, pulled a young woman from the line, and sent her directly inside the club.

  “What’s going on?” Chi Chi asked the young lady in front of her. “Do you know?”

  “You go to the front if you have your paperwork. You got yours?”

  Chi Chi fished her application out of the folder. “I do.”

  “That was using your bean. I don’t. I thought I could get the paperwork here.”

  A girl in a velvet cloche overheard them talking and turned around. “Don’t worry. You can fill out an application inside.”

  “We won’t get inside that club until lunch,” said the girl who hadn’t planned ahead.

  As Chi Chi waited, she went over her audition song in her mind. From time to time, she checked her wristwatch. It was almost 9:30 a.m. when the energetic blonde finally approached her.

  “Paperwork?”

  Chi Chi smiled warmly and gave her the application she had obtained from an insert in the previous Sunday’s Newark Star-Ledger.

  The woman looked it over. “Nice penmanship. Palmer method. Convent training?”

  “Absolutely. The nuns of Saint Joseph.”

  “Come with me. I’m Miss Bowman. You can call me Lee.”

  Lee Bowman was young, but she was in charge, which made her seem more experienced and sophisticated than the hopefuls on the line. Lee had a cherubic face, blue eyes, and golden hair that was cropped under her chin and set in marcel waves, but her outfit was all business. She wore a navy blue suit, matching pumps, and a sleek wool fedora with a navy grosgrain bow.

  “Are you convent trained too?” Chi Chi asked her. She practically had to run to keep up with Lee, who moved in double time.

  “Yes, but I am the only girl who would admit that in a ten-block radius. This is Times Square. There’s not a lot of piety in the area. If I were you, I wouldn’t pause, linger, or look, because if you do, they will. Avoid the theys. Keep moving, and you’ll stay out of trouble.”

  “I want to win the contest.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lee surveyed the line as they walked.

  “I sing.”

  “So do the two hundred other bathing beauties on this line. What else do you do?”

  “I write songs.”

  “Better.”

  “I also play the piano.”

  “How well?”

  “Very. Since I was five years old.”

  “Better still. Could you play with the band? Accompany rehearsals, if needed? Mr. Godfrey doesn’t like women in the orchestra, only at the microphone, but he’s not averse to using us behind the scenes to put the show together. Do you think you could sit in with the boys?”

  “I think so.”

  Lee leaned in, her blue eyes steely. “Say yes, sister.”

  “Yes,” Chi Chi said definitively.

  Lee pushed open the stage door, passing the security guard and another line of young ladies waiting to audition in the hallway inside. Chi Chi followed her backstage. The work lights formed gold circles on the black floor. The pair skipped over thick cables until they found a spot where they could hide and observe the audition process in the club.

  “This is how we’re going to do this,” Lee whispered. “I’m gonna get you in at the top. You’ll do your song, whatever you planned on singing—and I hope it’s not Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? because I’ll pay the next girl a quarter myself not to sing it. I will have already flagged your application on the stack. It will be in the hands of the conductor—he’s the shrimpy dyspeptic guy in the brown tie—before you’ve sung for Paul Godfrey. Mr. Godfrey’s the looker in the hat.”

  “Got it.”

  “I happen to know they’re in desperate need of a rehearsal pianist. Mr. Godfrey also wants new material, and if your songs are any good . . . well, you see how I’m thinking.” Lee squinted and looked out into the theater.

  “You’d do this for me?”

  “The nuns of Saint Joseph got me out of an iron lung when I was six years old. Dire asthma. They cured me.” Lee shrugged. “I owe them. Consider this an indulgence paid for a blessing given.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Besides, it’s my last day on this job, and I want to get paid. I want to deliver exactly what they’re looking for.”

  “How do you know if I’m any good?”

  Lee looked at Chi Chi. “That’s the easy part. I just follow my gut.”

  * * *

  “Miss Donatelli?”

  “Here,” Chi Chi called out from the back of the theater as she joined the conductor, Mr. Godfrey, and his secretary at the edge of the orchestra pit.

  “Have you got charts?” the secretary asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Chi Chi handed her charts to the secretary, who took them to the pianist onstage.

  “What have you got for us today?” the conductor asked, looking Chi Chi up and down as though he were measuring her for a girdle. Mr. Godfrey gave Chi Chi a quick once-over, too.

  “It’s a song I wrote.”

  The conductor and Mr. Godfrey looked as if they’d just heard they had consumed tainted clams at Howard Johnson’s on West Forty-Sixth Street.

  “I can do a standard if you wish,” Chi Chi said diplomatically, “but I write a lot of songs, and I figured you might like to hear one.”

  “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  “Or I could sing Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Chi Chi joked.

  “No.” The conductor chuckled and looked at Godfrey, who smiled.

  Chi Chi climbed the steps to the stage and pulled a mason jar three-quarters full of jelly beans out of her purse. She placed her purse on the piano.

  “It’s uptempo. Lively,” she said softly to the rehearsal pianist, who looked to be around seventy-five years old or so, and as if he hadn’t felt lively since the invention of the cotton gin. “I’ll count us down . . . and one, two, three, and four . . .” Chi Chi tapped her foot.

  He began to play her song. The tempo was off. Chi Chi walked
around to the back of the piano and whispered in the pianist’s ear while she shook the jar of jelly beans expertly, making a sound like maracas producing a soft-shoe beat. She cued the pianist once more. The smooth rhythm seemed to grab the attention of every person in the theater, including the contestants and the men who would judge them.

  “This is a little tune called Jelly Bean Beach,” Chi Chi said as she shook the candy in the jar and strutted back and forth, working the downstage lip of the stage like an experienced performer. The pianist nodded, catching on fast. He tickled the overture on the keys and followed Chi Chi as she ramped up her intro. She winked at him. Now they understood one another, which made them a team, which made her job easier.

  Chi Chi faced the audience and vamped, “If you’ve been to the Jersey shore, or any shore, really, Maine to Florida, or cruised that spicy strip along the Gulf of Mexico, or even sashayed along at the pier on the Hudson River overlooking the garbage barge . . . you’ll know what I’m singing about. This is about a summer day when the beach is so crowded, the hot dog man runs out of mustard, the girls run out of coconut oil, and the strong man runs out of cornball lines to pick up your pretty sister. In other words, it might as well rain.”

  Chi Chi sang:

  Jelly Bean Beach, down the shore

  The kids take a dip and the boys are bores

  Girls, roll up your clamdiggers and take a clue

  You won’t find love here, you’ll just wind up blue

  You can’t see the sand, it’s packed with folks

  Jelly Bean Beach, they’ve run out of Coke

  The ocean is wide and the water’s warm

  But nobody wants to go in, they’d rather swarm—

  On Jelly Bean Beach, down the shore

  The girls take a dip and the boys are bores

  Will they ever grow up and take a clue?

  I want to find love here, don’t wanna be blue

  Chi Chi finished her audition with an attenuated shake of the jar. The pianist sat back on the bench and nodded his approval. Chi Chi thanked him and took the steps down to the club. The conductor stood up as she passed.

  “That was cute. It’s going to be a long day—maybe stick around.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Give Miss Bowman the details.”

  Chi Chi glanced at Paul Godfrey, who looked over some charts. “Thank you, Mr. Godfrey.”

  Godfrey nodded without looking up. Chi Chi left through the back of the club theater.

  “Could I handle that kind of pep?” Godfrey said softly.

  “There’s something charming about it,” the conductor admitted.

  “If you’re wrangling cheetah cubs.”

  * * *

  Chi Chi went outside the club, where the line had been replenished with a new crop of singing ingénues waiting to audition for Paul Godfrey. One girl was prettier than the one before, and if they sang as beautifully as they looked, her audition would soon be forgotten. As Chi Chi stood and watched the young ladies file by, she got an up-close look at her long-term prospects in the music business.

  Lee Bowman was halfway down the block, collecting more applications. Chi Chi reached into her purse and shook a few jelly beans into her hand. At first she thought she shouldn’t eat her percussion section, in case she got a callback. But she was feeling more famished than hopeful about her prospects, so she proceeded to eat them daintily, one by one.

  There was not a park in Times Square or a bench outside the club, at least none that Chi Chi could find by looking. She wondered as she checked her watch: When the conductor asked her to stick around, where exactly had he meant for her to stick? She walked to the corner and looked up and down Eighth Avenue, hoping to find a place she could loiter until Mr. Godfrey made his decision, when she heard screams coming from the stage door outside the Musicale.

  The girls had abandoned their spots on line and had clustered around someone at the stage door. Chi Chi followed the sound, scanning the line as though it were a long fuse and she was searching for the point of ignition. She had moved in behind the crowd to see what the hoopla was about when she spotted the object of their affection. She recognized the shape of his head, the line of the nose, and the cut of the jaw, and when she got close enough, she would know the hands.

  Saverio Armandonada was surrounded by fans who pawed and petted him as though he were a new kitten. He raised his arms and hands to shield his face as he moved through them. She found herself joining in, pushing through the throng to get to him, not only because she knew him but because she was relieved to see a familiar face.

  “Tony! Tony!” the girls chanted.

  “Back on the line, ladies,” Lee said firmly from behind her.

  “I know that fellow. He’s an old friend.”

  “Come with me.” Lee pulled Chi Chi around the gaggle of fans and back into the club through the work door.

  * * *

  Saverio lunged into the dark theater through the stage door. The security guard snapped the door behind him, keeping the girls outside.

  The guard grinned. “You’re popular.”

  Saverio smoothed his hair. “I’d like to be a little less popular.”

  “You say that until you ain’t,” the guard retorted.

  Chi Chi moved into the light. “Saverio?”

  Saverio squinted. “Cheech, is that you? Long time!” He embraced her.

  “When did you become a Tony?”

  “When I left Roccaraso. What do you think? Does it suit me?”

  “Not bad.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Tony works,” Chi Chi said supportively. “It’s Italian.”

  “Right. And Arma? They shortened my last name.”

  “Lopped it right off, huh. So your name has to fit on a marquee?”

  “Or a pack of matches,” Tony joked. “What are you doing here?”

  “I auditioned for the band this morning. I was going to sing Stormy Weather, but I walked into the hurricane instead and sang Jelly Bean Beach.”

  “So you finished the song. No Mama’s Rolling Pin?”

  “It will never be performed in public without you. What are you doing here?”

  “I sing with the band now.”

  Chi Chi smiled. “What are the odds?”

  “How’s your family? Your mom and dad?”

  Chi Chi’s smile fell away. “My mother is okay, but my father passed away. It was sudden.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Wonderful man.”

  The secretary emerged from the club. When she saw Tony, her face softened. She was around thirty, and had a look of desire in her eye. “Mr. Arma? Mr. Godfrey is waiting for you.”

  “I’m on my way, Mary Rose.”

  “I have to go. Stick around, will you?” Tony gave Chi Chi a quick kiss on the cheek and left.

  “You really know Tony Arma,” Lee said, joining Chi Chi.

  “I wouldn’t say I knew someone if I didn’t.”

  “You’re still so pure, so honest.” Lee sighed. “But not for long.”

  Chi Chi grinned. “I think I can stay honest.”

  “It’s going to go late with these auditions.” Lee handed Chi Chi a card. “I arranged for a room at the Longacre Hotel for you.”

  “Thanks, Lee, but I can’t afford it.”

  “You’re not paying. Mr. Godfrey holds the rooms. He told you to stick, so you get a room.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s on the up-and-up. No hanky-panky. You’re on the short list. Give this card to the front desk at the hotel. If Mr. Godfrey wants to see you again, I’ll call the hotel, and you can come right back. But go over, get your room settled, and put your feet up.”

  “I can do that. Thank you. But what about you?”

  Lee swatted her fanny. “This won’t see a chair until after supper.”

  Chi Chi tucked the card into her purse and thought of her father. He had spoken often of angels, blessings, and mystical connections. Perha
ps, knowing his daughter was in need of one, he had sent Lee Bowman to her. And what about Tony Arma? She’d figured it would be years before she ever saw him again. Maybe a life and a career of consequence was all about luck and timing, being in the right place for a contest, all that jazz. Chi Chi was beginning to feel the flutters of potential regarding the opportunities that lay ahead for her in music. Besides, she had that little something extra Mariano Donatelli had encouraged his daughter to cultivate: connections.

  * * *

  Chi Chi peered out the lone window in room 317 of the Longacre Hotel for Women. The brick wall of the next building, about a foot away from her window, held a wide metal vent. It was so close she could open the window and touch it. She looked up through the tunnel between the buildings until she could see a small pocket of gray sky.

  Chi Chi had removed her shoes and hung her suit jacket on a hanger on the hook on the back of the door. Her hat rested on the small end table by the bed. The cubicle room held a twin bed, chair, and table. She sat down on the straight-backed chair and propped her feet up on the bed.

  There was no art on the walls and no mirror, but to Chi Chi, this spartan room was just right; it served as the holding cell to her dazzling future. She checked her wristwatch when she heard a knock at the door. She got up and went to the door, peered out the peephole.

  “Cavatelli?” an older woman in a housecoat whose head was covered in pink curlers said gruffly through the door. “You got a call.”

  Chi Chi grabbed her key and went outside. The woman motioned to the public phone on the wall at the end of the hallway. The receiver dangled from its cord, swaying back and forth.

  “Don’t yak long. I have a callback,” the woman said before the door to her room snapped shut behind her.

  Chi Chi broke into a run with the certainty of a woman who knew for sure she’d gotten the job. She was breathless when she answered the phone.

  “Chi Chi, it’s Tony.”