The Daughters of Erietown

by Connie Schultz

  They rode in silence as the neighborhood turned into a series of factories and plants before they crossed a bridge and pulled into a parking lot. “Well, here we are,” Mrs. Colbert said, pointing to the neon sign. “You go in and ask for Vinny Sardelli. He’ll be in the kitchen. You tell him or anyone else working at Sardelli’s—they’re all related—that your name is Russo, and somebody will help you.”

  Rosie turned around to reach in the backseat for her suitcase. She noticed Mrs. Colbert anxiously checking her rearview mirror, no longer smiling or making small talk.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Colbert, for helping me. I hope we see each other again.”

  “You’re a nice girl, Rosemary. Don’t let anyone tell you anything else.” She opened the pocketbook sitting next to her on the seat and pulled out a piece of paper and three one-dollar bills. “Now, this is in case of an emergency,” she said, handing Rosie the money. “And this”—she waved the piece of paper—“is my phone number at work and at home, and my home address. My house is right off West Avenue, the street where you saw those women waving at me. We’re all church ladies, and Jesus doesn’t see color.”

  Rosie slipped the paper into her shirt pocket. “It doesn’t feel right taking any money from you, Mrs. Colbert. You don’t even know me.”

  Mrs. Colbert chuckled. “I know you now. I hope you’ll remember that the first person you met in Erietown was a black lady who wanted to make sure you were safe.”

  “I’ll never forget that. I promise.” Mrs. Colbert looked again in her rearview mirror. Rosie turned around to look. Five men were huddled at the entrance of the restaurant, smoking and staring at Mrs. Colbert’s car. Rosie stepped out with her suitcase and closed the door. She leaned into the open window and whispered, “You go home now, Mrs. Colbert. I’ll be fine.”

  Mrs. Colbert stared straight ahead and nodded. She lifted her chin just a tiny bit higher, Rosie noted, and took her good old time turning the car around before she pulled onto the road and headed home.

  “Rosemary! Rosemary, goddammit, your aunt is here.”

  Rosemary Russo scowled at Vinny Sardelli as she pulled off the hair net and untied her apron. “Jesus, Vinny, is that any way to talk about my aunt? She’s not deaf, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, your highness. I keep forgetting we now have royalty working here at Sardelli’s.”

  She fluffed her long blond hair with her fingers as she walked over to Vinny’s brother Mike, who was cooking at the grill. “You okay without me for a few minutes?” He nodded. “Sure, honey. Go see her.”

  She pushed through the swinging doors that separated the sweltering kitchen from the air-conditioned dining room. “Out of my way,” she said, pressing her palms against Vinny’s chest. He stepped aside with a bow and ushered her through with a sweep of his arm. “By all means, your majesty. Don’t let work get in the way of your family reunion.”

  Rosemary glanced at her wristwatch. Not even noon, and Aunt Lizzie sitting in the corner, already sipping a gin and tonic. She leaned over the side of the bar. “How long has she been here?” Tony DeGrazia tapped the bottle of gin and looked up at the ceiling as he started counting his fingers. “One, two, three.” Rosemary’s eyes widened. “Three whole minutes,” he said, laughing.

  “Asshole.”

  “Don’t worry, Sister Rosemary. She just got here. She’s fine. Now go over and be a good niece.”

  Rosemary smiled at her aunt as she walked toward her. “Aunt Lizzie! When did you get outta jail?” Several heads turned to look at the tanned, middle-aged woman burying her face in her hands.

  “Honestly, Rosemary, why do you do that?” Lizzie said, grinning. “Embarrassing your aunt like that. Your aunt who took you in—”

  “When I was a desperate, tearstained teenager roaming your neighborhood, calling out, ‘Aunt Lizzieeeeee. Aunt Lizzieeeeee.’ ”

  They both laughed. “Seriously, Aunt Lizzie. You make me sound like such a loser with that story.”

  “You were lost, honey, but you have never been a loser.”

  Rosemary leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Why are you here at lunchtime? And where’s Uncle Danny?”

  “So many questions,” Lizzie said, taking another sip of gin. “He got called to Youngstown early this morning. Another Saturday, can you believe it? Problem with a furnace in one of the mills.” She poked her fingertip at the ice cubes in her drink. “I know he’s been fixing these things for thirty years, but I still worry about him. Maggie Petrelli’s boy Alfie was burned so bad no one would even recognize him now. Won’t leave the house. Poor Mags.”

  “Uncle Danny knows what he’s doing,” Rosemary said. “It’s why they send him. He’s a pro. You know that.”

  “My head knows, but in my heart…” Lizzie started fidgeting with the crucifix hanging from her neck. “I get this feeling, this lump, in my heart.” She shook her head. “Don’t wait as long as I did to marry, honey. You spend your entire marriage wondering why couldn’t you have met each other sooner. You’re always thinking about how time is running out.”

  Rosemary watched her aunt as she lifted her glass and took a big swallow. That would explain the drink this early in the day. When she was younger and still lived in Foxglove, Rosemary had had no idea Aunt Lizzie was such a worrier. She seemed so carefree, so confrontational, especially on Lizzie’s final visit to Foxglove, when she had peeled out of their driveway after screaming at Rosemary’s mother.

  Almost five years had passed since the day Rosemary had shown up at the Greyhound bus station and that black lady dropped her off at Sardelli’s. Mrs. Colbert, she silently remembered, who had been right about Vinny Sardelli. As soon as Rosemary described Lizzie Russo to him—“tall and probably tanned already, maybe a little loud”—he knew who she was, and where she lived.

  “She’s Lizzie Martinelli now. Danny’s wife. Married three years ago. We catered the reception.”

  When he found out she’d just arrived from Foxglove on a Greyhound bus, he told her to wait right there and called for his mother in the kitchen. Mrs. Sardelli grabbed Rosemary’s hand and led her to a small table in the back. She gave her a Coke and a lecture about showing up in a bar by herself, then brought a heaping plate of ziti and a heel of crusty Italian bread. In the time it took Rosemary to scarf it down Vinny had called Aunt Lizzie and arranged for his brother Carlo, who also worked at the restaurant, to take Rosemary over to the house. On the drive there, Carlo asked her if she needed a job. Three days later, she was busing tables at Sardelli’s.

  Rosemary reached across the table for her aunt’s hand. “Aunt Lizzie, how late is Uncle Danny going to be?”

  “Late late. Every minute of it overtime. At least there’s that.”

  “Okay. Then why don’t you go do a little shopping, and come back and get me at six? We could go to a movie maybe. We could go see A Raisin in the Sun. Everybody’s talking about that one.”

  Her aunt shook her head. “Nah. I’m not watching a movie about a bunch of black people.”

  Rosemary sighed. “But Sidney Poitier is in it. He’s dreamy. And it’s based on a poem by Langston Hughes, who lived for a while in Cleveland.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “I read the play. Got it at the library.”

  “Well, fancy you.” Lizzie shook her head again. “Yeah, okay. Still not going. Everybody wants us to feel responsible now. Like it’s my problem what’s happening to blacks.”

  Rosemary took a deep breath. She owed everything to her aunt. She wasn’t going to sit here arguing with her about a damn movie.

  “The Apartment is finally playing at a theater downtown.”

  “Oh, I love Shirley MacLaine,” her aunt said, waving to the waitress and mouthing “check.” “She reminds me of you a little, with those long legs of hers and that sassy smile.”

  Rosemary smiled. “Only you th
ink that, Aunt Lizzie. The Apartment it is. Come by at six and we’ll eat some chicken parm, then head over to the Shea.”

  Lizzie pulled out her wallet. Rosemary grabbed it and shoved it back into her purse. “I’ve got this, Aunt Lizzie. You know your money’s no good as long as I’m working here.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Lizzie said, snapping her purse shut. “How you like working in the kitchen?”

  “Fewer assholes, more calories.” They both laughed. “I liked the tips when I was waiting tables,” Rosemary said, “but I make better wages working in the back. And Mrs. Sardelli and Mikey are teaching me how to cook. I like that. I like making people happy with my food.”

  “Still, with your good looks and personality, it’s a shame they don’t have you on the floor anymore.”

  “I wanted this, Aunt Lizzie. Soon I’ll learn how to tend bar. Vinny’s already agreed. That’s where the biggest money is.”

  “Biggest assholes, too,” Lizzie said. “Wait’ll you see what happens when they’re drinking with no food in their stomachs and no wife giving them the stink eye across the table.”

  Rosemary laughed. “That’s why I wanted to learn the kitchen really well first. I told Vinny I’d make up a few dishes for the late-night crowd and talk them into eating at the bar. Vinny gets the bigger bar tab, I get the bigger tip.”

  Lizzie slid back her chair and stood up. “You got it all figured out, kid. But working nights? You really want to give up your whole social life?”

  Rosemary stood up and hugged her. “Oh, right. Because I’m dating so much these days.”

  “Two different boys want to marry you. Nice boys. Both of ’em with good jobs, one at the mill, one at the docks. But they aren’t good enough for you. You waiting for a doctor? A lawyer, maybe.”

  Rosemary grabbed her aunt’s hand and led her toward the exit. “I’m waiting for love, Aunt Lizzie.” She stopped at the door and turned around to face her aunt. “I’m waiting to feel it here,” she said, pointing to her chest, “when you know you just can’t live without him.”

  Lizzie hugged her again. “Oh, honey. If you’re looking for that kind of love, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten off the bus in Erietown.”

  Rosemary walked into the bathroom and started pulling out the large pink rollers from her hair. She was still exhausted from last night. Two of the girls had called in with the flu, and on the same night Paul Anka was singing in Cleveland. “Sure, the flu,” she said, yanking out the last roller. “I’m that stupid.” She was stuck waiting tables and tending bar.

  She dragged herself to the kitchen, made a tuna sandwich, and ate half of it. She looked at her watch and decided to take a quick bath before going downstairs.

  The phone rang three separate times while she was soaking. She had no idea who it was, and she didn’t care. She’d had it with pretty much every guy she knew. She hadn’t worked her way up to being Sardelli’s best paid bartender to end up with a loser who thought popcorn and sex at a drive-in movie were the height of adventure.

  Aunt Lizzie had warned her. If she was looking for excitement, she had picked the wrong town. “Same clowns, just more of them, Rosie,” she said. Her aunt was the only person in Erietown who called her Rosie. Everyone else knew her as tall, blond, take-no-prisoners Rosemary Russo. She enjoyed trading insults with the regulars, and felt a sense of victory every time she made a row of men at the bar howl with laughter. So many of them had trusted her over time with their secrets, their worries and disappointments. Made her feel important.

  “You can’t tend bar for the rest of your life, honey,” Aunt Lizzie had said last week. “At some point, don’t you want to settle down? Get married? Have a few babies?”

  Rosemary understood the origins of her aunt’s lobbying. Lizzie had married too late to have children, and she longed for a baby in her life. A part of Rosemary—a big part of her, really—wanted to give her one.

  “Aunt Lizzie, I have to meet the right guy first.”

  “I see men fawn over you all the time. Look how many of them come to the bar just to see you.”

  “And two-thirds of them are married.”

  Her aunt nodded. “You’re a good girl for telling them to hit the road. You don’t want that mess. If they’ll cheat on their wives, they’ll cheat on you. That’s in the Bible.”

  Rosemary smiled. “Sure it is.”

  She stepped out of the tub and toweled off. She wiped the steam off the mirror and frowned. Her roots were starting to show again. She tied on her chenille robe and walked into the kitchen to add Miss Clairol to the grocery list stuck to the refrigerator door.

  The phone on the kitchen table started to wail again. She sighed and answered on the third ring. “Rosie, oh my God. I’ve been trying to call you for hours. Isn’t this just awful?” Her aunt started to cry.

  “What’s the matter, Aunt Lizzie? Did something happen to Uncle Danny?”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You don’t know?”

  As Aunt Lizzie started to talk, Rosie slowly lowered herself into the chair. Who shoots a president? She looked out the window as her aunt continued to talk. She liked her bird’s-eye view from upstairs. You could tell what kind of night it was going to be by the mood in the parking lot. If a bunch of guys showed up at once, after a shift at the plant or one of their games, they’d tip better than average because most men don’t want to look cheap in front of their buddies. If a couple was arguing when they got out of the car, you could pretty much ignore them except to refill their drinks because they were in no mood to be nice to anybody. Her tips depended on her knowing who wanted to play and who wanted to be left alone.

  Ellie wiped down the kitchen counter and tossed the rag into the dishwater. “I’m sorry I haven’t been any fun lately,” she told her best friend, Mardee. “It’s just so hard. Listening to everyone talk about their happy marriages right now.”

  Mardee handed her the stack of dessert plates. “Oh, please. That story of Irene’s?”

  Ellie laughed softly. “That was too much. Bragging about how her Carl, a two-hundred-and-eight-pound pipe fitter, picked up Kotex for her at the Revco.” She cocked her head and spoke in a high-pitched voice: “ ‘He stood right there in line and paid for it.’ Good Lord.”

  “Imagine putting your husband through that,” Mardee said. “And then bragging about it.”

  Ellie was relieved to laugh, but the respite was short-lived. After Mardee had finished helping her clean up and left, Ellie was back to thinking about how much everything had changed since Brick’s affair last year. She used to feel so sorry for women like her. Only a few months ago she’d been telling Brick how shocked she was that Dee Bradley had taken her husband back.

  One night in February, Dee had answered the phone after midnight and had to listen to a woman describe the star-shaped mole on her husband’s ass. Duane wasn’t home at the time, and as Dee told Ellie the next day, she didn’t need to be an engineer to do that math. Dee slammed down the phone and woke up all four kids, herding them into the station wagon and driving them to her mother-in-law’s house.

  “Didn’t even call ahead,” Ellie told Brick. “Handed the baby to her mother-in-law and told her, ‘I’m going to the Wigwam motel to retrieve that lyin’, cheatin’ son of yours.’ ”

  As the Erietown Times later reported, Dee banged on the motel door until Duane finally answered it wearing nothing but a pillow over his business. The night manager called the police after Dee screamed that she had a gun in her purse. She didn’t, of course, but the story didn’t mention that until the seventh paragraph.

  “And now,” Ellie had told Brick, “after all that, Dee is taking Duane back.” Brick had been so quiet as Ellie went on about how she couldn’t imagine doing such a thing.

  No one in the coffee club talked about Brick in front of her these days, except for Mardee, who was the only friend she tru
sted now. All the girls knew what had happened, of course, because all of Erietown knew. For the first time in her life, she could see the appeal of living somewhere like New York City, surrounded by strangers.

  She had forgiven Brick, but she couldn’t forget. That’s what she prayed for now. To wipe away all those awful memories, including her own bad behavior.

  When she had told Brick that both Kitty and her sister Lavelle, the nurse’s aide, had agreed to testify against him, she was lying. She didn’t want to know what Kitty even looked like, let alone talk to her. The look of shock on Brick’s face told her all she needed to know about his guilt.

  “Pack up your clothes and get out of here,” she had told him.

  He had stopped crying and got angry. “This is what you want to do, is it?” he said, stepping toward her. She walked backward until she was standing by the window, her hands pressed against the cold glass.

  “You haven’t thought this through, Ellie. You don’t even know how to pay a bill. And suddenly you’re going to be divorced? No man is going to want you.”

  Ellie narrowed her eyes and felt a sudden sense of calm. “Oh, I know you,” she said, raising her left hand. “I wear the ring of your mother, who wanted to die because it was the only way to be free of a man like you.”

  He took another step, and she could feel his breath on her face. “Go ahead,” she said, covering her face with her hands. She closed her eyes, bracing for the blow.

  “Jesus, Ellie.”

  She heard the bedsprings squeak and opened her eyes. Brick sat slumped on the bed, his hands at his side.

  “I’ll never be like him,” he said. “I promised you. I promised you that.”

  She dropped her hands. “You promised a lot of things, Brick.” She walked down the hall to Sam’s room and sat on the edge of her bed until Brick left. At the sound of his car engine, Ellie started to cry.

  * * *

  —

  For a few days, Ellie thought she could go through with the divorce. How could she not? Even if she could find a way to forgive him, how would she ever stop imagining him with that other woman? His big hands touching the private places of someone else. His red hair threaded with another woman’s fingers, as they lay there, sweaty and skin to skin.