“Over here!” Laura Heery waved to Enza from the far end of the break room, a concrete box filled with unpainted picnic tables and attached benches.
Laura was slim and reedy, a blazing candle of a girl, a redhead with vivid green eyes, a small nose covered in freckles, and perfectly shaped pink lips. Of Irish descent, Laura accentuated her height by wearing long, straight skirts and matching vests over starched blouses. Like Enza, she made all of her own clothes herself.
The girls in the factory were usually cordial during work hours, yet rarely did the friendships continue outside the cutting-room doors. Laura and Enza were the exception, having recognized their simpatico natures over an argument about fabric.
Every few months, the mill owners cleared the fabric inventory and put out ends, yardage of fabric that hadn’t been used on an order, or samples dropped off by eager-to-please salesmen. These fabric pieces of various sizes and lengths, rolled on bolts, were useless to the owners but could be salvaged by an expert seamstress to create or adorn clothing.
On Enza’s first day of work, she was invited to peruse the ends with the other operators. A piece of pale yellow cotton printed with small yellow rosebuds with green leaves caught Enza and Laura’s eye at the same time. Laura grabbed the fabric as Enza reached for it, held it up to her face, and yelled, “Yellow and green are my colors!”
Enza was about to yell back, and instead said, “You’re right. It’s perfect with your skin. Take it.”
Enza’s act of generosity moved Laura, and from that day forward, they shared break time. Within a few months, Laura began to teach Enza to read and write English.
Enza’s letters to her mother were filled with stories about Laura Heery, like the time they went to the Steel Pier in Atlantic City one Saturday afternoon. Enza had her first hot dog that day, dressed with yellow mustard and sauerkraut. Enza took pains to describe the pink sand on the beach, the one-man band on the Steel Pier, and the bicycle built for two on the boardwalk. She wrote about the wide-brimmed sun hats decorated with giant bows, whimsical felt bumblebees, and enormous silk flowers, about the bathing costumes, sleek, scoop-necked tanks with belts. Everything was new to her, and so American.
Enza had found a best friend in Laura, but so much more. They both loved well-made, fashionable clothes. They both aspired to elegance. They both took time with whatever they made, whether it was a hat or a simple skirt. They groaned when the Walkers bought cheap cotton from a middleman, and the lot of blouses made from it had to be scrapped. They were hard workers, conscientious and fair. The stories in Enza’s letters proved that the values instilled in her by her mother had remained intact.
“You look awful,” Laura said as she handed Enza a paper cup filled with hot coffee, light with cream, just like Enza liked it.
“I’m tired,” Enza admitted as she sat.
“Signora Buffa soused again?”
“Yes.” Enza sighed. “Whiskey is her only friend.”
“We have to get you out of there,” Laura said.
“You don’t have to solve my problems.”
“I want to help.” Laura Heery was twenty-six, had attended classes in secretarial school, and worked as the night manager in the office. It was Laura who had shown Enza how to fill out the forms for employment, where to be sized for her work apron, where to pick up her tools, and how to earn the promotions that took her from operating the machines to becoming the lead girl in finishing. She taught Enza how to add money to her paycheck by doing additional piecework on the blouses during deadline crunches.
Laura broke a fresh, plain buttermilk doughnut in two, giving the bigger portion to Enza.
Enza said, in perfect English, “Thank you for the doughnut, Miss Heery.”
“Nice.” Laura laughed. “You sound like the queen.”
“Thank you kindly,” Enza said with a perfect inflection.
“You keep that up, and pretty soon you’ll be treated like one.”
Enza laughed.
“Get ready. The next thing I’m going to teach you is how to answer questions on a job interview.”
“But I have a job.”
Laura lowered her voice. “We can do better than this dump. And we will. But keep that under your hat.”
“I will.”
“And Signora Buffa still doesn’t suspect anything, right? That’s how they keep you on a cot in a cold basement, you know. If you don’t learn English, you’re dependent on them. We’re about to spring you from that awful trap.”
Enza confided, “I hear her say terrible things about me to her daughter-in-law. She thinks I don’t understand.”
“See those girls? Millie Chiarello? Great on the buttonholer. Mary Ann Johnson? Best steam presser on the floor. Lorraine DiCamillo? Nobody like her in finishing. They’re competent, hard workers, but you have real talent. You have ideas. You thought of piping a white blouse in baker’s twine, and the stores reordered twice, they were so popular. We don’t need these machines. Real couturiers sew everything by hand. I’ve been doing some asking around,” Laura whispered. “We can get jobs in the city.”
The city.
Whenever Enza heard those words, she was filled with a sense of possibility.
Laura had been born in New Jersey, but she longed for New York. She knew the names of the families who built mansions on Fifth Avenue, where to find the best cannoli in Little Italy, where the best pickles were brined on the Lower East Side, and the times of the marionette shows in the Swedish Cottage in Central Park. But Laura also knew her rights on the job, and how to ask for a raise. Laura Heery thought like a man in a man’s world.
“Do you really think we can get jobs?” Enza asked nervously.
“We’ll take any job until we can get a job sewing. You could be a secretary, and I could be a maid. Can you imagine working in an atelier on Fifth Avenue?”
“I almost can,” Enza says excitedly. Talking to Laura was like opening a treasure chest.
“Well, dream big!” Laura had been waiting for a partner to help her make the crossing to Manhattan. Her family swore they’d disown her if she ventured into the city alone, but now that Enza was game, they could make the leap.
“Where will we live?” Enza’s mind raced.
“We’ll figure that out. There are hotels for women. We could share a room.”
“I’d like that.” Enza had visited Laura’s family in Englewood Cliffs. They were a big family, living in a small, clean house filled with Laura’s nieces and nephews.
Most weekends, Laura hopped on the ferry to window-shop in Manhattan. She was inspired by the windows on Madison Avenue, filled with crystal flasks of perfume, leather satchels, and hand-tooled silver pens. She imagined owning fine things and taking care of them. She stopped and admired the shiny motorcars that seemed as long as a city block, the society ladies in hats and gloves who got in and out of them with the help of a chauffeur. She looked up at their windows and imagined living inside spacious rooms with billowing draperies and paintings framed in gold leaf.
Whenever she heard Laura describe New York City and all it had to offer, it made Enza want to be a part of it too. No matter what happened at work, Laura was upbeat and positive; she lifted Enza’s spirits, bolstered her courage, and looked out for her in every way. Laura was a shot of emerald green in a gray world.
“We just have to pull the money together,” Laura said. “I have some savings. Do you think you could put some money aside?”
“I’ll add a shift and do more piecework. And I’ll write to Mama and tell her not to expect most of my check until I get a new job.”
“Good.” Laura looked at Enza, who had a look of doubt and fear on her face. “Don’t be afraid. We’ll figure it out.”
When the night shift was over and they’d clocked out, Enza and Laura often left the factory through the second-story fire escape so they might watch the sun come up behind the island of Manhattan. The soft silence was broken by the rhythmic chuff of early-morning trains behind th
em, while in the distance, the Hudson River’s placid surface shimmered like a mirror. Beyond the river, in the first rays of sunrise, Manhattan seemed dipped in silver.
The city, their destination and dreamscape, was made of glass and stone. Would those windows be filled with kind faces? Behind those doors, would they find jobs? And somewhere along the wide avenues and side streets, or tucked in the gnarl of winding lanes in Greenwich Village, would they find a place to live?
Laura encouraged Enza to imagine a new life, to create what she hoped for in her mind’s eye. Enza reserved her dreams for her family and hadn't ever thought to a picture a better life for herself. Now, with Laura's encouragement, she would. One day, Enza would know her dream when she held it. Every detail would be recognizable, and the future would fall into place, like the stitches on a hem, one leading to the next.
They dreamed of one room, one window, two beds, a chair, a burner to cook on, and a lamp to read by, the simplest of requirements; just a place of their own, a place to call home.
Chapter 14
A ROPE OF TINSEL
Una Cordia di Orpello
Columbus Day in Little Italy was an extravaganza. The streetlamps were adorned with ropes of red, white, and green tinsel. Italian flags, resplendent silk squares of bright red, emerald green, and pristine white, rustled on poles over storefronts and houses. Small paper versions of the flag were tucked into lapels on the men, and tastefully into the bands on women’s hats. Children held small flags mounted on sticks, stuffing them into their back pockets like bandanas. The autumn air felt as fresh as peppermint, and the sun flickered in the distance like a knot of gold.
“It’s velvet time,” Enza said. “Just cold enough to wear my favorite fabric.”
“Velvet is boiled wool with money,” said Laura.
Laura and Enza spent every weekend afternoon they could spare in New York City, applying for jobs. They were on waiting lists for a room at the Rosemary House, the Convent of Saint Mary, and the Evangeline Residence.
They had also applied for jobs all over the city, as nurse’s aides at the Foundling Hospital, as cooks and waitresses at social clubs on the Upper East Side, and as private maids in the mansions on Park Avenue. They applied at several tailoring shops, and at a milliner’s showroom.
Now that they had made the decision to leave the Meta Walker factory, their new lives could not come fast enough. Laura rushed home every day, hoping the mail would bring them good news. Enza had nothing sent to Adams Street, as she knew the ruckus that would ensue if Anna Buffa thought that her personal maid might leave her.
Today, however, was not a day for filling out forms or checking vacancies in boardinghouses; it was a day of celebration. Every street in the neighborhood between lower Broadway and the Bowery was filled with proud Italian immigrants in their best clothing, proper gloves, and hats, parading in from every borough of the city, along with the crowds who had come to sample the delicacies of southern Italy and celebrate Columbus Day.
Enza and Laura walked across Grand Street, turning heads, in Laura’s case because of her pale beauty and her height, and in Enza’s because of her dark beauty and trim figure. They wore their own creations; for Enza, a skirt of brushed gray velvet with a fawn-colored jacket trimmed in lavender, while Laura wore a green silk skirt and a matching brocade coat, belted with wide gold cording. Enza’s hat was woven of gray and beige satin, while Laura’s was a wide-brimmed gold felt. They looked every bit as stylish as the women who had their clothing made in the ateliers on Fifth Avenue.
The girls joined the throngs in the crowded streets, who came for the food, to celebrate their ties to home, and to revel in the camaraderie of being with their own people. Vendors set up simple stands along the avenue, tall whitewashed poles suspending canvas awnings over slim plank counters notched to the poles.
Customers were served every Neapolitan treat imaginable, prepared before their eyes, fresh, hot, sweet, and perfect. Bubbling vats of oil bobbed with puffy clouds of white dough that turned golden brown and would be drenched in sugar to become zeppole. Sweet squares of tomato pie resembling the red squares on the Italian flag, drizzled with olive oil and decorated with fresh basil, were placed in waxed paper sleeves and sold one by one.
A booth of fresh pastries featured trays of cannoli shells filled with fresh cream and dipped in chocolate shavings; sfogliatelle, pastry seashells filled with ricotta; biscotti rolled with pignoli nuts; millefoglie, thin sheets of pastry interlayered with strawberry cream and dusted in powdered sugar; and every kind of gelato and granita. Hazelnut braids hung down from the canopy, to be sold by the foot. A giant slab of torrone made of honey, almonds, and egg whites was hoisted above a marble-topped table suspended overhead on rope as though it had been lifted out of a mine. The purveyor hacked away, selling generous hunks of the taffy to the hungry crowd.
“Signora Buffa loves torrone.” Enza stopped at the stand.
“You’re going to buy that witch candy?” Laura asked.
“I keep hoping she’ll change,” Enza said.
“Go ahead then. Buy it. I hope she breaks a tooth.”
“You know what? I’m not going to bring her anything,” Enza said.
“Now, that’s more like it. Do not wilt in the face of the oppressor!”
The young women wondered which delicacy to sample first. Enza steered them toward the sausage and pepper stand. They watched as the cooks tossed glistening slices of green peppers and ribbons of onions on a griddle while fragrant hot sausage, splitting its skin over the open flames, was placed in fresh, crusty rolls.
Laura took a bite. “Delizioso!” she exclaimed.
“Delicious,” Enza said in English.
“Nice. But it’s only appropriate that we speak your native language. Everything is Italian today, including me!”
A young man handed them each a flyer and disappeared into the crowd to dispense the rest. Enza saw that there was a political cartoon on the front and a caption about the evils of Germany. The Great War, as it was known, was burning through Europe; it was just beginning to touch the lives of these proud immigrants. Italy had joined the war, and talk was that the United States was next. Enza worried about her brothers, and Laura about her nephews, who longed to be soldiers.
Enza tucked the flyer into her purse to read later. She knew how poor the people of her village were. They couldn’t survive a long war, which would only make matters worse.
But today, talk of war was minimal. The Italians thriving in America didn’t have time for politics. They were hard at work, many on double shifts, making American money. They kept their eyes focused on the bobbins of sewing machines, used their might on construction sites, laid railroad tracks and built bridges, factories, and homes, and took to the sky, balancing on beams high above the city as they built skyscrapers. Here, too, war would be an unwelcome interruption.
“A lot of handsome men in Little Italy,” Laura said.
“A few.”
“That’s why you get the attention. You could care less.” Laura laughed. “I remember last summer in Atlantic City. You had a three-hour conversation with that fella from Metuchen. Whatever happened to him?”
“It was just a conversation.” Enza shrugged.
“They passed envelopes for Mary Carroll, Bernadette Malady, and the Lindas in finishing, Linda Patzelt, and Linda Faria. Everybody’s getting married. Some diamond mine in Africa has just been sucked dry, and I’m gonna go broke celebrating other girls and their happiness. When are we gonna get ours?”
“We will. You’ll be first. And I hope you don’t settle.”
“Are you kidding me? Never. I want a man with a bright future. And you don’t have to wait for that guy back home, you know. You need to live now.” Laura smiled back at a handsome young man who tipped his hat to her.
“I’m not waiting for anyone.”
“You are pining for that grave digger. Ciro, right?”
“I wonder about him. But I don’t pine for him.
”
“Okay.” Laura wasn’t buying it. “Do you write to him?”
“No.”
“Letters to Italy go two ways, Enza.”
“He isn’t in Italy. He’s here.”
“In America?”
Enza nodded. “In Little Italy.”
“You’ve been holding out on me!” Laura shrieked. “Do you know his address?”
“He was a shoemaker’s apprentice on Mulberry Street. But that was so long ago.”
“He could be one block from where you’re standing, and you’re eating a sausage and pepper sandwich! I don’t believe it.”
“Who knows where he is? It’s been six years! He had a girlfriend.”
“So? You were teenagers. I think we should have a stroll on Mulberry Street.”
“He probably went back to Italy. ” Enza shrugged. “I don’t care. He never tried to find me.”
“Maybe you ought to try and find him."
“Maybe I don’t want to find him.”
“The maybe means that you do,” Laura insisted. “You’re never going to look prettier than you do today, so you might as well let the man see what he is missing.”
“I didn’t dress for him!”
“A girl never knows when fate is going to give her a tumble. Look at me. I’m always prepared.” Laura pulled a small sterling silver atomizer from her pocket. “A little mister in case I meet my future mister.” Laura spritzed the perfume on her neck. “Want some?”
“All right. But just a little. I don’t want you to waste it on me. If he’s not there, what’s the point?” Enza closed her eyes, letting a cloud of cedar and jasmine settle over her.
As the girls made the turn onto Mulberry Street, they were stunned by the size of the crowd. The street was filled with revelers, but so were the sidewalks, the stoops, and the roofs. There was barely any room to move. Enza took in a short breath as her heart beat faster.
“Do you remember the address?” Laura asked.
“Not exactly.”
“Come on. You’ve memorized every detail of every person you have ever met. Think.”
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