Carissima

by Rosanna Chiofalo

  PRAISE FOR ROSANNA CHIOFALO AND BELLA FORTUNA

  “Like a gondolier navigating the canals of Venice, Rosanna Chiofalo takes you on a magical ride filled with family and friends, love and loss, heartbreak and happiness. Bella Fortuna is a warm glimpse into Italian-American life.”

  —Holly Chamberlin, author of Last Summer

  “Chiofalo, a first-generation Italian-American whose parents emigrated from Sicily in the 1960s, brings the Italian immigrant community and neighborhoods richly to life.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Skillfully crafted . . . sure to pull the reader into the love of family and the sights and senses of romance in Venice.”

  —Metrowest Daily News

  “From the streets of New York to the canals of Venice, Rosanna Chiofalo creates a warm and lively story the reader won’t want to see end. Valentine DeLuca is a heroine with intelligence, heart, and courage, the kind of person every woman wants for a dear friend. Time spent with her is a sheer joy.”

  —Mary Carter, author of Three Months in Florence

  “A warm tribute to her heritage, the book brings to life colorful scenes from her past as a first-generation Italian American.”

  —Astoria Times/Jackson Heights Times

  Books by Rosanna Chiofalo

  BELLA FORTUNA

  CARISSIMA

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Carissima

  ROSANNA CHIOFALO

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  PRAISE FOR ROSANNA CHIOFALO AND BELLA FORTUNA

  Books by Rosanna Chiofalo

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE - Francesca

  1 - Pia

  2 - Francesca

  3 - Pia

  4 - Francesca

  5 - Pia

  6 - Francesca

  7 - Pia

  8 - Francesca

  9 - Pia

  10 - Francesca

  11 - Pia

  12 - Francesca

  13 - Pia

  14 - Francesca

  15 - Pia

  16 - Francesca

  17 - Pia

  18 - Francesca

  19 - Pia

  20 - Francesca

  21 - Pia

  22 - Francesca

  23 - Pia

  24 - Francesca

  25 - Pia

  26 - Francesca

  27 - Pia

  28 - Francesca

  29 - Pia

  30 - Francesca

  31 - Pia

  EPILOGUE - Pia

  RECIPES FOR CARISSIMA

  Teaser chapter

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Copyright Page

  For my sister Angela.

  And always for Ed.

  PROLOGUE

  Francesca

  You have no doubt heard of me. If not by my Christian name, then most certainly by the names that the media has labeled me with: La Sposa Pazza, Carissima, Donna Fortunata, and Dolci Labbra. Of them all, my favorite is Carissima, Dearest One.

  You would have to be a fool not to realize why Carissima is my favorite. Who would not want to be known as Dearest One, especially if you are a famous movie star as I am? My fans’ respect and adoration mean everything to me. And whenever one of them calls out, “Carissima,” I feel his or her love.

  As for the other names, I do not care for them. Although everyone believes I have it all—fame, fortune, beauty—I am far from la donna fortunata, or lucky lady.

  Si, si. I can hear your outrage right now. “What? You do not consider yourself lucky? You are a legend! A gorgeous Italian silver-screen star and one of the richest women in the world. Many would kill to have your life!”

  È vero. I do have all this and more. But as for what really matters—family, friends, love—I have nothing.

  The last name I especially detest. Dolci Labbra, or Sweet Lips, reminds me of a pornographic film. With their full, pouty shape, my lips have been voted perfect time and time again. Of course I am flattered to have received this praise, but I do not want to be known as Sweet Lips. And I am not the only one who has interpreted this name in such a way. I have had crude men make remarks that refer to the female reproductive organ. It infuriates me that I am associated with this name. And even though Playboy magazine begged me many times to pose in the nude, I never did. I am a real actress, not one of these bimbos who have no talent nowadays and become famous because of their looks, most of which are plastic, or because of a disgusting sex tape they have intentionally created.

  As for La Sposa Pazza, who would want to be known as The Crazy Bride, especially when I have never walked down the aisle? La Sposa Pazza was the name of my first film—and the film that made me a star. In fact, all of my nicknames—Dolci Labbra, Donna Fortunata, Carissima—were names of my films.

  In La Sposa Pazza, I play a woman in her early twenties who has no trouble finding men who want to marry her. But each time my character is moments away from exchanging her wedding vows, she runs away. In the movie, my character, Rosa Bianca, who has been cursed with a name that means “white rose” in Italian, becomes engaged three times. But she loves romance and dating and knows once she gets married, she will no longer have the glamorous life of a bachelorette.

  Again, the irony that my own life would mirror the movie I am most known for has not escaped me or the paparazzi. For like Rosa Bianca, I have become engaged several times—five, to be exact—but have never gotten married. But unlike Rosa Bianca, I never even made it to my wedding, I am relieved to say. At least I had enough good sense to realize that my doubts about each of my fiancés were enough to break off the engagements well before I made it to the altar.

  The subsequent movies all have a wedding theme. In Carissima, I play a poor Italian woman who is turned into a movie star after she meets a famous American movie director. But on the morning of her wedding, after she has put on her gown and is ready to leave for the church, my character receives word that her fiancé has been killed in a car accident. After this movie’s release, my fans and the paparazzi would chant, “Carissima, Carissima!” whenever I appeared in public.

  Audiences arrived at movie theaters in the hundreds on the opening night of Donna Fortunata to see if my character would finally find luck in love and get married. My character is a schoolteacher from Capri who meets a Greek shipping tycoon. The tycoon spoils my character and buys her lavish jewelry and furs and takes her to the most expensive restaurants. He proposes in a tiny boat in Capri’s famed Blue Grotto. Audiences watched nervously during the wedding ceremony scene on the beautiful Greek island of Santorini. Once my character said “I do,” the audience broke out in raucous applause and whistles. The movie ends with a closeup of me kissing my on-screen groom.

  After Donna Fortunata, all the media wanted to know was when I would be getting married. At this point, I had already broken off my two previous engagements, and the media wasted no time in christening me with the nickname La Sposa Pazza. The ugly rumors began surfacing as to why my previous two engagements had not worked out, and of course, the blame always lay completely with me.

  By the time Dolci Labbra was released, I was engaged to my third fiancé. The movie is a departure from my previous wedding-themed films, and as a result, it did not do as well at the box office. But I am convinced it was that abominable title! Instead of featuring an innocent single woman who is getting married, Dolci Labbra is about a widow who seduces rich men with her expert kisses and lovemaking but then kills them. Apart from the title, I had been happy to play a different character from those of my last movies. Thoug
h the film did not make the box office sales of my earlier pictures, it sealed my reputation as “the Bombshell of the Mediterranean.” Ah, I forgot to add this nickname to the others!

  There are many shots in this movie of my back. I had not understood during the filming why the director kept asking me to turn around. I had sworn they were giving me dresses smaller than my size eight, and sure enough when I checked, the garment labels were missing. It was not until I had watched the premiere that I finally understood. The director had been shooting my derrière, which looked even curvier in the tight dresses they were giving me. Though critics had panned the movie’s plot, everyone commented on my derrière. And from that moment on, the paparazzi took photos of my derrière, once even while I sunbathed nude on what I thought was a highly secured estate in Lake Como.

  It has been fifteen years since I was in a movie. And as I said earlier, I was engaged to be married five times, but never did make it to the altar. At least Rosa Bianca had the thrill of walking down the aisle each of the times she was engaged. I have spent the past ten years as a recluse, which has also added to the belief that I truly am “The Crazy Bride.” (Although after my fifth engagement was broken, the media began labeling me with the title “celibe per sempre,” or “single forever.”) Now, after a decade, my hibernation is over. I am coming out of hiding to travel to America. Chissà? Who knows? Maybe people do not care about me anymore. But they say Francesca Donata is a legend—and legends never die.

  As for my name preference, I ask to be called “Signorina Donata.” Of course, I do not expect the media to be so formal with me. I simply desire that they call me “Francesca Donata.” But it is too late for that. The nicknames the media has dubbed me with are part of my legend and what has contributed to my fame. Only family and close friends call me “Francesca.”

  “Signorina” is the Italian title given to a young woman who is not married. It is the equivalent of “Miss,” while “signora” is the title given to a married woman or a widow and is the equivalent to “Mrs.” Since I have never married, I am technically a “signorina.” But most people think of a young woman as a “signorina” and an old woman as “signora.”

  I know it is ridiculous that I insist everyone call me “signorina” rather than “signora” even though I am in my fifties. However absurd my request is, I do not care. After all, why should I be called something I am not? Again, I am an unmarried woman, and as such, that makes me a “signorina.”

  1

  Pia

  Since I was a baby, the sound of the ocean’s waves crashing against the shoreline has lulled me to sleep. We live in the idyllic seaside town of Carlsbad, California. I love the beach and never thought I could see myself moving away. But that was before, when my younger sister Erica was still alive.

  Erica and I had spent most of our childhood playing on the beach. But since her death, I’ve avoided it as much as possible. My father insists on still having the occasional picnic here, which I don’t understand because we’re not that happy family unit anymore. We’re fractured now.

  Whenever we have one of these picnics, my father refuses to let me stay home. So we go through the motions. I can tell my mother and brother aren’t into it either. We play along for my father’s sake. Maybe continuing this one family tradition is his only hope of holding on to some sense of normalcy. But we all know our family will never be normal again.

  So here I am, alone on the beach. I need to walk the shoreline one last time. For I have no idea if I’ll ever come back. Hell, I can’t even stand to be in my home state. Everything reminds me of my sister. And when the memories return, my panic attacks take over, leaving me gasping for air and desperate to escape.

  Erica died when I was twenty-one, the summer before my senior year of college. I’d been too distraught to go back to school until three years after her death. Though I’d started to pick up the pieces of my life when I finally felt ready to return to college, I’m far from healed. It’s a tough pill for me to swallow since I’m now twenty-five years old and had always envisioned myself having my act together by this age. And just in case I’ve deluded myself into thinking that I am fine, the panic attacks are a reminder that I still haven’t come to terms with losing my sister. As I stare out at the waves, her voice calls out to me. I want to push the memory out of my mind as I’ve become accustomed to doing, but for some reason today, I don’t.

  “Pia! Pia! Wait up for me!” Erica struggled to keep up with me as I ran along the shore, trying not to lose sight of the seal we’d spotted swimming in the ocean. I ignored Erica, too intent on chasing the seal.

  “Look! Look!” I was startled to hear Erica’s voice just a few feet behind me. Her little legs had managed to catch up to me. I looked to where she was pointing. Another seal was swimming from the west, coming to meet the first one we’d seen. The first seal screeched an ear-piercing greeting to its mate, which soon returned the call. Then they began diving in and out of the water several times before they swam farther out into the ocean. We watched them until their glistening bodies melted into the waves.

  “I wish I were a seal,” Erica said in a tiny voice. I turned to look at her.

  “Why would you want to be a seal? You hate getting wet!” I laughed and patted Erica’s arm playfully.

  “Well, if I were a seal and that’s all I was used to, then I wouldn’t mind getting wet.” Though she was eight years old, she often managed to surprise my family with her perceptive comments.

  “Has anyone ever told you how smart you are?”

  “Yeah.” Erica said this in a very matter-of-fact way and shrugged her shoulders like it was no big deal. Only children can get away with such conceit.

  “So, you still haven’t told me why you want to be a seal.”

  “I wish I could swim as far out as they do and see the bottom of the ocean. It’s a whole other world. I want to know what they see.”

  “You can take scuba lessons when you’re older.”

  “What’s scuba?”

  “You wear a special costume and a mask with a breathing tank attached that allows you to breathe under water. Kyle has a book on scuba diving. I’ll show you the pictures in it later.”

  “Let’s go home now. I want to see what a scuba looks like.” Erica placed her hand in mine and began leading me back toward our house. I looked out toward the horizon, hoping to see the seals again, but there was no sign of them.

  We saw the seals three more times over the next five years, but afterward, we never saw them again. Other residents had told us they’d seen a seal here and there, but Erica and I kept missing them. I remember how magical it felt that first day we saw that seal flipping in the ocean, the sunlight reflecting off its slick, gleaming skin.

  Tears are rolling down my cheeks as I stare out into the ocean that my sister had loved so much and that in the end had taken her life. Erica had been swimming when she drowned. It had been a tremendous shock. Of all the ways she could’ve died, drowning would not have even made the list. I’m still baffled. She’d been a strong swimmer and had even been on the diving team in high school. A few people on the beach had seen Erica waving her arms in distress. A surf instructor who had been giving lessons swam out and brought her lifeless body back to shore. A doctor jogging on the beach had tried to resuscitate her with CPR, but it was too late. The sole explanation my family and I could think of was that she had swum out too far and had lost her energy.

  It was so unfair. Erica had been two years younger than me. We were really tight, even though we couldn’t have been more opposite. Unlike me, she had been outgoing and popular. Her extracurricular activities had included the photography and art club, diving team, student council, and yearbook committee. Painting was her passion. She loved to paint landscapes, especially the ocean.

  We were so close that I’d chosen to stay in California and commute to college rather than go away and be apart from Erica. We’d even attended the same school, University of California, San Diego. We ha
d made a pact that she would transfer and go to art school in New York after I graduated from UCSD. We were going to get our own apartment and take the Big Apple by storm. We couldn’t wait. Now I was headed to New York—alone.

  I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid and had fantasized of going to New York City to work on a magazine. But I’d never intended on making it permanent. Erica and I had loved California too much to permanently relocate. We’d just wanted to get some solid experience before we returned home and started our own magazine. Erica was going to handle the more artistic elements—planning the layout, taking the photographs—while I worked primarily on the editorial side.

  Part of me feels good that I’ve decided to carry through on the plans that Erica and I had. But it’s taken me three years to realize that if an afterlife does exist and Erica can see me, she’d be upset that I didn’t follow through on our dream. But then there’s a part of me that just can’t help but be incredibly sad that she’s not here to share this experience with me. I’m scared. When Erica was alive, by my side, I’d felt invincible. We’d often completed each other’s thoughts, and whenever we collaborated on a project, the synergy couldn’t be beat.

  In the fall, when I had applied to several magazines for internships, I had begged God to let me land one of them. I could only think about finally escaping California and all of the memories. But now that I’m really headed to New York, the anxiety of failing has set in. I know I’ve placed this enormous amount of pressure on myself. But how can I not? I have to succeed in New York—for if I fail at this internship and never go through with starting my own magazine, I’ll have let Erica down.

  In April, I had two Skype interviews with magazines in New York. I found out a month later that I’d gotten the internship at Profile magazine.