“It’s not like that. He loves me.”
“What would you know about that?”
“Plenty.”
“Listen to me. Tony and I, we have built a life. We have a family together. Three children. Here’s an idea. Be an original, create your own life with your own man. Go and find a nice fella and work hard and put in the time, the years, and create your own home and children instead of destroying mine.”
Chi Chi must have raised her voice, because Tammy turned on her heel and walked away, throwing her pink-gloved hands in the air. Tony came through the curtain from the stage. He stopped to talk to Tammy, who was suddenly in tears, before she stormed off to the dressing room.
“What did you do?” Tony walked over to Chi Chi.
“What did I do?”
She paused for a moment, looked closely at her husband, and saw something new. The young man she had fallen in love with was now a middle-aged father of three, only he didn’t know it. Chi Chi had made it possible for him to remain young and pursue his career as though nothing had changed since the days at the Cronecker Hotel. Why should anything have changed when she made sure it wouldn’t? She had thought about her role in his infidelity, but facing her rival that night made her less conciliatory. She no longer felt responsible for his actions or apologetic for his sins. She had kept their home, children, and accounts in fine fashion. It was she who had sacrificed everything for him. Why should she accept his lack of discipline and his weakness for women? This, she believed, was not her problem.
“You know what, Tony? You can go straight to hell.”
Lee joined them, having missed Tammy and the argument. “Chi Chi, let’s go.” She waved the blue tickets. “I got front-row seats.”
“If it’s not a seat on the train home to Sea Isle, I’m not interested.” Chi Chi turned and headed to the stage door. As soon as she made it outside into the cold and blended into the crowd of holiday shoppers on Broadway, she burst into tears.
* * *
Chi Chi sat on the porch of the Sea Isle house and inhaled the fresh air, pulling up the collar on her coat. She had arranged for Lucille to take the children for the day. When Tony pulled up in front of the house and parked, Chi Chi studied him as he came up the walk. He wore a fedora, a wool coat, and around his neck he had looped a silk scarf she had never seen before. A gift from Tammy, Chi Chi assumed.
“We could’ve met in the city at the apartment,” Tony said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Obviously.” He removed his sunglasses, folded them into the breast pocket of the coat. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“I need air.”
He tapped the coat pockets for his pack of cigarettes and matches. When he found them, he lit a cigarette. “You made a scene at the Sullivan Show.”
“I apologize.”
“What’s going on with you, Cheech? You’ve turned into a hysteric. I mean, you patrol the backstage of the Sullivan Show and accuse my singer of an affair?”
“Oh, come on, Sav. You’re involved with Tammy Twiford. She told me about it. Not that she needed to.”
“And you believed her?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t want anything to mess up my home life.”
“What home life? Oh, that’s right. That fantasy you have about spaghetti and meatballs, mass and Sunday dinner, and singing Italian songs by the fire to the kids while you play on your mandolin? The only thing our kids know about a mandolin is that it’s that instrument that sits in the closet, covered in dust. They don’t know the stories of their grandparents in Detroit unless I share them, they don’t visit them unless I take them. And as far as you’re concerned, I have created the idea of you to them. I’ve made you a hero to your children because I know how important a father is in a family. And you can rest easy, because I always will. But I’m finished as your wife, Saverio. I’ll give you a divorce.”
“I don’t want a divorce, Cheech. We’re a family.”
“That word had a lot of power when it meant something to you.”
“It means everything to me. It always has.”
“No, the children and I are a family. You’re a satellite that circles around us. We want you home, but you’ve made a life without us. With another woman. You know, when you asked me to marry you, I told you that you liked too many girls, and you said they meant nothing to you. I thought, this is swell, I’m the special one. I was different. But I wasn’t. I was just another girl in a long line of them.”
“You were different. You are different. Why are you doing this to me?”
“I didn’t do anything but try to hold us together.”
“You didn’t try hard enough. Why do you have to work with Lee? Why did you take a job?”
“Because in the event of a divorce, the money gets cut in half, and I can’t count on you to put these kids through college. All three of them are smart. They all have potential.”
“I’ll uphold my responsibilities.”
“Oh, Sav, but you don’t. You’re the prince you were the day I met you. You kept trading one girl to iron your shirts for another. I stuck it out because I love you and we’re from the same tribe. But you need to be honest with yourself. We’d be sitting in the dark if it weren’t for me.”
“Go ahead, say everything cruel you can think of. Hand me my manhood in a sack.”
“Keep it. You’ll need it for the next Mrs. Arma.”
“There will never be another Mrs. Arma. You’re it for me. I have a hard time with things, you knew that.”
“Really, Saverio? Are you going to drag out that old tale of woe? You’re all bottled up inside? Your feelings overwhelm you? Your father threw you out at sixteen on a cold Christmas Eve, and that’s why you chase women? I’m tired of the excuses. You’re making choices every single time.”
“The wrong ones,” Tony admitted.
“And yet you persist. That makes you either an idiot or evil. You choose.”
“You knew what you were getting into.”
“Did I? Did I really know? I don’t think so. If I’d have known where this was going, I wouldn’t have gotten on the ride at all.”
“You don’t mean it,” he said quietly.
Did she mean it? she wondered. Would she, given all she knew, choose Tony again? From the beginning of their friendship, she recognized the potential. Together they were a creative team, a force. She wrote, he rewrote, he sang, she sang, they entertained, it worked. They could communicate with one another and, in turn, read an audience with the same clarity. When the children arrived in their lives, it was not as simple as she stayed home and he went on the road; it was deeper than the obvious. He returned to the life he led before he met her, and she became a woman that she did not recognize. There was the chasm, and deep within it was her responsibility in this marriage. She gave up who she was, her creative self, her highest dreams, deepest desires, and purpose in order to love him. In exchange, he retreated to the past, before his dreams had come true, before he loved her.
“Cheech, do you mean it? Do you want me to go?”
“I don’t believe in divorce, Savvy.”
“Good Catholic girl.”
“Who married a good Catholic boy. Or so I thought.”
“Labels. Just labels.” He put out his cigarette and lit another quickly.
“Labels don’t matter when you don’t follow the rules.”
“I guess they don’t.”
“Why can’t you be true?”
Tony shrugged. “If I could answer that—”
“You have to.”
“I miss you.”
“Come on.”
“I can’t be alone, Cheech.”
“I know that,” Chi Chi exhaled, “but this one matters to you, doesn’t she?”
“Not like you. But if you cut me loose, I’ll go to her.”
“Are you serious?”
Tony nodded that he was.
“You’d leave
us for her?”
“If you kicked me out for good. Yes, I would.”
“So it’s my decision?” Chi Chi held up her hands like the sculpture of the strong man who held the world.
He nodded that it was.
“You want me to make this decision too? You have some crust. Some genuine crust. You want me to hold us together, but in the event I don’t want to, you expect me to be the one to end it too. You don’t have the strength of purpose to quit this marriage and outright choose that girl over me and your children?”
“I don’t. I can’t.”
“But you want me to do it? Even when every day on the road you choose her over me? When you buy her dinner after the show. When you take her back to your room afterwards. When you make a place for her on the bus next to you. When you buy her a mink coat. When you buy her jewelry. When you introduce her to the new players in the band as your girl when they all know you have a wife at home. When you let Walter Winchell run a byline that says you and the missus are through—that’s choosing her over me and you know it. Every time you make her feel special, or you take her in, or you show her off, it’s another hurt I have to haul around, and after all these years, I have train cars full of them.”
Tony sat on the porch steps. Chi Chi stood and went to him.
“I’m not done. Now let me tell you how I choose you every day and why I stay. I consider your feelings. I am no saint but I honored the vows I made to you even when some nice-looking fellas looked my way. I take care of your children like the priceless jewels they are and I don’t expect a thank-you for my efforts. You never have to worry about our kids because you know no harm will come to them in my care. Do you have any idea what a burden I have taken off of your shoulders? The ability to relieve another human being of worry and anxiety is the single greatest act of love one can do for another and I do it for you. I also make your life easier because I meet you on that bridge of understanding. I don’t expect perfection, I just hope you’ll try. I am grateful to you. You work hard and I know what it is because I was there with you, toe to toe, from the rehearsal hall to the stage, making the music. I know what it is to serve people as an entertainer, so I always gave you room to rest and recharge and recalibrate.”
“You have been a good wife.”
“Thank you.”
“And I have not been a good husband.”
“You’re honest.”
“But I love you.”
“Love is an interesting thing, Sav. It doesn’t fix anything and it can’t make you do the right thing even when you want to. You have to choose love over everything else, and the person you love above all others. The girl you’re with now? That one is just another step on that ladder to wherever it is you think you’re going. You don’t love her. You possess her. And like a Packard or alligator shoes or that Bulova watch with the diamond hand you covet, she’ll become obsolete or she’ll break down, wear out, bore you, or all of them at once. She just doesn’t know it yet. Because right now, she’s standing in Tony’s light. And when you pay attention to a woman, it’s like the moon and the sun conspired to bring day and night into the sky in a single moment and blind the stars. I know it because you made that happen for me. I was dazzled. I admit it. I believed nothing would or could ever end who we were and what we had. Boy,” she whistled, “was I duped.”
“You’re angry at me and I understand why.”
“Good.”
“What’s the verdict?”
Chi Chi tried not to laugh. A verdict implied this was a trial and that she was his judge. But if that were true, where was the jury, and why, in such an important moment, was she alone?
“I want you to go, Sav.”
Tony put out his cigarette. “I don’t want another man raising my children.”
“That’s not your decision, is it?”
He nodded that it wasn’t.
“I will always respect the father of my children.”
“And I will always love their mother.”
Tony walked back to his car. The crunch of the sand underneath his feet reminded her of the day he first visited, but those old memories had become faded and frayed, like the sun-bleached awnings over the windows of their home by the shore. Chi Chi had told her husband one lie so many years ago. She believed she could handle whatever life would throw at them. She thought she was bigger than the hurt, the pain caused by his philandering, but over time, she realized that she was no match for it. She couldn’t turn away from it, nor could she justify it, even when she understood its origins, which were also pain. So much had changed in their marriage, so much had transpired, that she wondered if there was love in her heart for him any longer. She wasn’t sure, and for that reason, she knew it was time to end her marriage to Tony Arma.
* * *
Chi Chi pulled up to the curb in front of St. Joseph’s School. She waved to Sister Elizabeth from the car as the children scooted out of the back seat with their lunchboxes.
“Do we have to go to Daddy’s wedding?” Rosie asked.
“I don’t think there will be a wedding,” Chi Chi said. “They’re eloping.”
“Why is Daddy a cantelope?” Leone asked.
“Eloping, Leone,” Sunny corrected him. “Listen with your giant ears.”
“Tammy Twiford’s a dumb name,” Sunny said. “She sounds like a plastic doll in the bin at the Ben Franklin.”
Because she is, Chi Chi thought. But she would never say a word against her children’s father, and the new woman in his life. “Sunny, you are not to speak poorly of your father or his new wife, ever.”
“I’m sorry,” Sunny grumbled. “But it’s still a stupid name.”
“Don’t test me, Sunny.” Chi Chi got out of the car to kiss her children goodbye. “Daddy loves us. We are going to be just fine. Now go and have a good day at school.”
Chi Chi waved to the nun and thought about running up the steps and explaining what was happening at home but she was pretty sure the Salesians read the Star-Ledger. In his favor, Tony had waited almost a year before he called his ex-wife to tell her he had decided to remarry, choosing the woman who had come between them.
Chi Chi had different plans for 1958. She had hoped to take the children to Detroit to visit their grandmother; instead they would meet their new stepmother on the road.
At least Tony had let the situation breathe with Tammy, like a cheap wine, so Chi Chi had time to prepare the children. She could not complain. Chi Chi pulled out of the school parking lot, promising herself she would visit Sister later with a full explanation. She was barely on the way to accepting this turn of events herself. How would she ever explain it to a nun?
* * *
Chi Chi stood on the sidewalk in front of St. Joseph’s Church, holding her Brownie camera. “Okay, everybody squeeze in tight.” She looked down at the lens and snapped as her niece Chiara’s First Holy Communion veil fluttered in the breeze. The white eyelet dress had bell sleeves, and a wide white satin ribbon tied at the waist.
“Take another one,” Lucille insisted. “Chiara’s veil was all over the place.”
“I’ve got it.” Isotta adjusted her granddaughter’s veil.
Chi Chi snapped another group picture before they dispersed.
Rosie and Sunny ran up to their mother. “Can we ride with Aunt Lucille to the party?”
“As long as you take your brother.”
“Ma, he’s an anchor,” Sunny said grimly.
“No, he’s your brother,” Chi Chi corrected her. “And he looks up to you.”
“He’s obnoxious.”
“You girls have each other. Imagine how he feels.”
“You should’ve had a boy for him,” Sunny said breezily before jumping into Lucille’s car.
Chi Chi watched her son run up and down the church steps with his cousins.
“He’s fine, Ma,” Rosie observed. “I’ll make sure he goes with us.”
“Thanks, honey.”
Chi Chi walked to her car, r
emoving the bobby pin that held her lace mantilla to her head. She carefully folded the mantilla and was about to put it into her purse when she was interrupted.
“Hello, Chiara.”
Chi Chi looked up. Jim LaMarca waited for her next to her car.
“Jim, how are you?” He looked sharp in a navy suit and white silk tie.
“I’m muddling along.”
“I was so sorry to hear about your wife,” Chi Chi said. “Mama told me, and I meant to write, but—”
“You’ve been going through your own sad time.” Jim finished her sentence, but not her thought.
“Your situation is worse, Jim. Your wife was sick, and you took care of her.”
“It was my honor to do so. She was a good one.”
“So I understand. I am so sorry for your loss.”
“How are you holding up?”
“Well, I moved back to the shore.”
“I heard. I saw your sister Barbara at the K of C picnic.”
“So you know all about it. The kids are doing okay. Tony is on the road. He comes to visit when he can. Day to day, my life hasn’t changed much. I’m divorced, and I never thought that would happen. But here we are.”
“I thought when I got through the war, that was it, I’d seen the worst,” Jim said. “I figured the rest of life would be smooth sailing.”
“You know what? I thought so too, Jim.”
“What happened?”
“It’s all out of our control. All of it.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Jim tipped his hat back off his forehead. “Old friendships matter. It’s important to reconnect. I’ve been thinking about you.”
Chi Chi looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun. Barbara and Lucille and every woman she knew thought Jim LaMarca was the best-looking guy to ever come out of Jersey. And after more than twenty years, it was still true. “I hope nice thoughts.”
“Absolutely. I’d like to take you to dinner sometime.”
Chi Chi closed her eyes for a few seconds, hoping when she opened them that it would be 1938 again, before she met Saverio, before the war, before she knew better. “Jim, thanks for the lovely invitation, but I’m not ready. I hope you understand.”
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