“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Leone,” she promised as she pulled on her gloves.
“Whatever you say, Ma.” Leone leaned forward and looked straight ahead. “I’m sure that rumbling means we haven’t lost an engine.” His dark curls and eyes were like his father’s, but he had the Donatelli profile, which pleased Chi Chi. “Ma, why did Pop get married again?”
“Well, after things didn’t work out with Tammy, he came to Rome to make a movie, and he was lonely. He made friends with an actress in the movie. After a time, he fell in love with her. If it helps, I like Dora Alfedena a lot.”
“Do I have to like her?”
“I think you will. But you can take your time.”
“Why does Pop get married so much?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“Are you going to remarry?”
Chi Chi smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Good.” Leone sat back in his seat. “One less new person for me to meet.”
“Now, let’s go over the rules. You’re going to be kind to your new stepmother. You’re going to help Nonna Rosaria and listen to your sisters.”
“You have me answering to everybody but the Pope,” Leone joked.
“You have to answer to him too.”
“Wherever I am, I’m always the only boy. Why is that?”
“It’s not true. You’ll be with your father.”
“Sort of. He’s always busy getting married.”
“I know you might find this a little funny, but your dad thinks it’s important for you to see him in a stable relationship. He’s actually being responsible.”
As the jet touched down, the wheels hit the runway, and bounced on the ground, until the airplane steadied itself. The roar of the engines and the screech of the rubber wheels on the pavement was deafening. Leone gripped the arm of the seat more.
“It’s almost over, Leone. Just the landing.”
Leone had a fear of fast cars and airplanes, which his parents had tried to assuage by making the boy travel. He was relieved as he followed his mother off the plane, disembarking down a set of exterior metal stairs to the tarmac. Rosie, Sunny, and their grandmother were waiting inside the terminal. The twins ran to their mother when they saw her hat in the crowd.
“Ma, you made it!” Sunny said, as she hugged her.
“Ciao, Mama! We’re so happy you’re here!” Rosie threw her arms around Chi Chi. “Wait until you see the apartment. It’s so nice. We love it.”
“We do,” Sunny agreed. “It’s so cosmopolitan.”
Chi Chi stopped and looked at her girls. “They used to call your dad the Cosmopolitan Neapolitan. Funny. But, look at you. So sophisticated. My college girls.” Rosie wore a sundress and sandals, while Sunny wore a flowing skirt and a peasant blouse. Both had discovered Roman gold and wore sparkling hoop earrings. “Tell me about school.”
“I love Sapienza. The art classes are amazing. We go to the places da Vinci and Michelangelo and Tiepolo painted,” Sunny said.
“I got straight A’s in my business classes, Ma,” Rosie said proudly.
“Great, I can turn the books over to you someday.”
“We go to a lot of parties,” Sunny told her.
“Ma, the Italian boys are only after one thing,” Rosie said.
“You don’t have to tell Ma,” Sunny said, nudging her sister. “She married one.”
“How’s your nonna?”
“She loves it here, too. I don’t think she’ll ever leave. And Dora likes her. Leone, look, there’s your nonna.”
Leone ran and embraced his grandmother Rosaria, who stood by the entrance. She was dressed simply in a black linen skirt and white blouse. She looked as though she hadn’t aged a day since Chi Chi had last seen her before Rosaria moved to Rome.
“We live in Trastevere,” Sunny said. “It’s where all the actresses and movie stars and writers live. You know, the courant people.”
“We fit right in,” Rosie said.
“You girls are getting quite an education in Rome.” Chi Chi hugged Rosaria, her former mother-in-law. “You look beautiful, Mama.”
Rosaria tried not to cry.
“Now, none of that, Mama.”
“I feel badly, that’s all.” Rosaria dug into her pocket for her handkerchief. “That your life with Saverio . . .”
“Girls, take Leone and get the luggage,” Chi Chi said. “He knows which bags belong to us. I’m going to walk with Nonna.”
Chi Chi put her arm around Rosaria and sat down with her. “The girls say you love it here.”
“I’m home again, Chi Chi. I’m back where I started. I go up to the Veneto in the summer, but I’m here the rest of the year with Saverio. It’s wonderful.”
“Do you like Dora?”
“She’s very nice,” Rosaria said. “But marriage number three?”
“Show business!” Chi Chi threw up her hands.
Rosaria looked at Chi Chi. “I don’t understand.”
“I can’t judge, Mama. I want Saverio to be happy, with or without me. When he’s happy, and I’m happy, the children have a chance at happiness. They have no chance if we’re miserable.”
“What happened with the second one?” Rosaria asked.
“Tammy wanted a baby and Sav said he was done.”
“That’s not what he told me.”
“That’s what he told me,” Chi Chi said.
“He said that he had made a mistake. They had nothing in common.”
“Mama, you can have everything in common with a man and he still leaves you.”
“Capisce. I wish it hadn’t been my son that left you.”
* * *
Tony stood outside the terminal beside a four-door canary-yellow Mercedes with a midnight-blue leather interior. He embraced his son and couldn’t let go. “You’re a giant, Leone! What are you feeding this kid?” he asked Chi Chi.
“Macaroni. What do you think?” Chi Chi said, giving Tony a peck on the cheek. In the years of their relationship, she’d always been able to take the temperature of where they were with one another from Tony’s reaction to her kiss. Today she could tell he had moved on, and they were once again good friends.
The twins, Leone, and Rosaria settled into the back seat as Tony helped Chi Chi around to the front passenger seat and opened the door. She squinted at his head.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“New piece?”
“Yeah. Had it done in a little place in Rome. They get the hair in Sicily.”
“You know what, Sav? It’s better than the American toupee ever was.”
“I think so too!” he said enthusiastically. “It’s good to have you here, Cheech.”
* * *
Chi Chi sat across the table from Dora Alfedena in the kitchen of the Armas’ apartment, Tony’s ex-wife in awe of the good taste of his current one. The apartment was spacious, with high ceilings, stucco walls, and thick monastery doors. Dora’s decorating style was simple and elegant: neutral colors, textured fabrics, and soft rugs.
Tony’s third wife had furnished it with low-slung leather chairs, tile worktables, and long wooden benches instead of chairs at the dining table. The floors were highly polished terracotta tile. The walls were painted grapefruit pink, as if to bring in the tones of the sun rising and setting over the Eternal City’s sandstone walls.
Dora was a petite brunette with classic Roman features. Her aquiline nose, wide-set brown eyes, and golden skin were made for the camera. Her successful screen career had more to do with her acting talent than her appearance, but her beauty was undeniable. She had a warm way with the children and Rosaria, which Chi Chi appreciated. She imagined they would have been friends had they met somewhere else at a different time. Chi Chi believed that Tony could not have made a better choice for a mate.
“What is this, Chiara?” Dora asked, looking over her reading glasses as she pointed ou
t a line on the contract.
Dora was around Chi Chi’s age, in her late-forties, and unlike Tammy, she was wise to the Italian ways, having been raised in the world of it. She understood Tony Arma and was more philosophical about his nature than Chi Chi had been.
“It explains what you get if Tony precedes you in death.”
“This is too much.” Dora removed her reading glasses and placed them on the table.
“It’s only fair. It’s important to know that you are taken care of in the long term. I want you to have a full understanding of his portfolio, because he never took much of an interest.”
“I know. When he sees something, he buys it. Like a child.”
“Not to worry. Tony has investments. I manage them. He has an allowance. It’s his money, but I’m the gatekeeper. That’s his choice. But I want you to understand that it is also your money now that you’re married to him. If you ever need anything or have any questions, just call or write to me, and I will explain.”
“In case of divorce, I get this?” Dora pointed.
“Yes.”
“But if there are no children, why so much?”
“Dora, it’s based on the United States laws.”
“No wonder you people get divorced there.”
Chi Chi laughed. “I know. Not a lot of incentive to stay in a marriage.”
“How about you?” Dora leaned in. “You have a nice man in your life?”
“I don’t.”
“Too busy?”
Chi Chi smiled. “Work and children. I’m on the run.”
“Slow down before you run out of time.”
Chi Chi pulled a small envelope out of her purse and handed it to Dora. “Here is all my information. If Leone, Sunny, or Rosie needs anything, call me. You’re Leone’s stepmother, and you have permission to be the adult in his life in addition to his father and me. I don’t believe in children running the home.”
Dora smiled. “I agree.”
“If Tony needs something, or you do, I can wire money to you in a matter of hours. I want you to let me know if Rosaria needs anything. Medical care, a new dress, tickets to the Veneto—it doesn’t matter. Whatever she needs, whatever she wants, you let me know. She is to be deprived of nothing.”
Dora nodded. “Mama. I understand.”
* * *
Chi Chi stood in the Piazza San Pietro in Rome, covered her head with a lace mantilla, and pulled on her black gloves before entering the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican. As she entered, she heard the echo of her footsteps on the terrazzo floor, and was overwhelmed by the height of the ceilings. She stopped as tourists flowed past her and looked up. She took in the splendid altars, the majestic archways, vaulted ceilings, and inlaid duomos.
As she walked up the main aisle, shards of golden light cut across the pews, reminding her of the churches of her youth on the sacred days that had mattered to her. As a divorced woman, she no longer belonged inside a Catholic church; her failure had expelled her from the beauty of the faith, and because Chi Chi was honest, she felt shame. The frescoes told the stories of the saints in painted tiles. As she stood back from them, she mourned the moments in her own life when she fell short and failed to do her best for those she loved. The smooth marble of the sculptures was a reminder of the role of patience over time leading to truth and ultimately beauty. The bronze details on the doors were layered filigree, tangled skeins of the artist’s intention, depicting man’s rejection of God. Everywhere she looked, Chi Chi was reminded that she had not measured up and didn’t belong.
Chiara Donatelli had not made a success of her marriage; for a Catholic girl, this wasn’t simply a personal failure, but a spiritual one. While she had a thousand reasons to explain the demise of it, there had not been a single good one she could find to stay in it. Yet she still attended mass, though she did not take communion, hoping to find some answers, or perhaps even peace.
Alone in the mother church, without her children or ex-husband or ex-mother-in-law, she wandered through the home of her lifelong faith like a stranger. How she loved Pope John XXIII. As an Italian American, she appreciated the pope’s origins and life story. He had lived in a family as one of the many children of an impoverished farmer at the foot of the Italian Alps. With the installation of this pope in 1958, she could relate personally to her religion, because its leader was a simple priest from a humble background, not a prince from an exalted one. But as she walked through the basilica, none of that mattered because she was in exile from her faith, cut loose from the ties of the sacraments she had cherished. Just as her marriage had ended, so had her relationship with the church of her birthright. Tony Arma, it turned out, had taken that away from her, too, but what Chi Chi still had to figure out was why she had let him.
* * *
Tony stood in a follow spot on the stage of the Treasure Cove nightclub in Naples, Florida, in a beige leisure suit. He wore a floral dress shirt, an ascot, and eggshell loafers with tassels.
By the spring of 1968, Tony was fifty-two years old. The movie offers had dried up for him in Italy, the major tours with the orchestra named for him had dissolved from lack of ticket sales, so Lee booked him in hotels where audiences had nostalgia for the music of the big-band era.
Dora sat backstage reading the Corriere della Serra as she sipped a cup of hot espresso. Dutiful and supportive, she had gone on the road with her husband and had found ways to amuse herself as he played two shows a night in the side rooms of fine hotels along the coastline of Florida. Whenever she heard Tony say the word “wife” from the stage, Dora would stop whatever she was doing and listen.
It turned out that she, too, found Tony Arma a mystery to be solved.
Tony walked to the piano, the beam of soft blue light following him to the curve of the glistening black Steinway grand. The pianist underscored his patter before the song with the opening riff of the new ballad he was introducing into the show that night.
“Every song is a story, you know. After I divorced my second wife—a nice girl, by the way, we just couldn’t make it work—my agent sent me to Italy to work in a genre of films called spaghetti westerns. It was there that I met a real doll, my wife Dora Alfedena. She is a respected actress in Italy, and she won my heart. Now, you all know that I had three children with a great lady, Chi Chi Donatelli.”
A smattering of applause was heard in the club.
“Tony and Chi Chi had a good run. Chi Chi wrote a lot of the songs I recorded, and when my beautiful mother passed away last month, honest to God, I thought it was the end of the world. She was kind and decent and beautiful. She lived in Rome with Dora and me. I got on the phone with Chi Chi, and over the course of a few hours, I expressed my thoughts, and we wrote this song together. It’s a little ballad called Rosaria il mio cuore.”
The light in the world changed today
The reds were dull, the blues were gray
The sun itself seemed to fade away
Rosaria my heart, Rosaria my heart
La luce nel mondo e cambiata oggi
I rossi erano opachi, i blu erano grigio
Il sole stesso sembrava svanire
Rosaria, il mio cuore, Rosaria, il mio cuore
12
Inquieto
(Restless)
1978–1987
Leone Arma, at twenty-six years old, entered his mother’s dressing room at The Tonight Show with a bouquet of sunflowers and red roses. “For you, Ma. Burbank’s finest florist. You look beautiful.”
“You lie. But I’ll take it. And I’ll take them,” Chi Chi said as she sat at the mirror in a long robe.
“Where’s Pop?”
“He’s talking with the producer. Peter Lasally? Is that right?”
“That’s right.” Leone lived up to his name. He had a full head of dark leonine curls, his mother’s eyes, and his father’s old nose. He also had their musical talent combined. “See, you fit right back in the scene.”
“Not really. It’s a good thin
g I’m out of the business—this end of it, anyway. I can’t remember anything anymore. I’ll be lucky if I remember the right key to sing in. I hope I don’t kill Mr. Carson’s ratings. Half of America will tune in and take one look at this old broad and flip the channel and watch Dick Cavett.” Chi Chi powdered her face. “As they should. Nothing to see here but the decline of civilization.”
Leone laughed. “Ma, just be yourself. You’re more hilarious than any comedian.”
“Just what a woman wants to hear, Leo.”
“I like funny women.”
Tony rapped on the dressing room door before opening it. “You decent?” he asked through the door.
“Come in already.”
“Hey, Pop.” Leone gave his father a hug.
“Okay, Cheech, you’ll be stage right most of this thing. They’re putting down pink tape for you, black for me. When we dance, stay within the blue tape.” Tony yanked the cummerbund of his black tux and adjusted his pinkie ring. The scent of Brut cologne filled the small room. Tony was perspiring and throwing scent.
Chi Chi looked at him in the mirror. “You’re leading. You stay within the tape.”
“You get grand when you dance. You flail. If you flail, your arm, your leg, something, will be cut off on camera.”
“Hallelujah. Cut me off, cut me out.” Chi Chi raised her arms in the air like an Olympian.
Tony looked panicked. “Don’t blow this for me.”
“Leone, take the lint roller to your father. He looks like he did somersaults in a cat box.” Chi Chi handed her son the lint roller.
“I don’t go near cat houses. I’m married.”
“I said cat box. As in litter box. And I caught you. Again. But what else is new?”
“Ma, save this for the act. When Johnny invites you over to the couch. It’s gold.”
“There’s no guarantee we’ll be invited over.” Tony adjusted his collar. “If your mother dances outside the sightlines, we’ll never be invited back, period. So let’s not get our hopes up.”
“That’s the last thing you need to worry about. No hopes left here, Tony.” Chi Chi sighed as she sprayed Aqua Net onto her hair.
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