“Not even slightly. You were never too old, only too loved. You must know that.”
“You loved me too much to desire me?”
“I loved you too much to cause you more pain.” Alfonse grasped her hand and tugged until she sat in the chair just behind her. “We both know you didn’t fall down any stairs, Olivia.”
“That is also in the past. No need to—”
“It was because of me he did that to you.”
“You were the dalliance, not the cause. And it wasn’t the first time he laid hands on me. What cause would I have had to seek solace in another—in many others, I’ll have you know—if my life had been happy or even adequate?”
Alfonse let go her hand. “And I’ll have you know, those weeks we were together, you were the only one.”
“You’ve had many ‘only ones.’” She rose to her feet. “I know the intensity of your attention. When we were together, I was your sun and stars. Few will ever feel that important, that cherished. It’s why everyone loves you, and none of us ever despised you after your attention focused elsewhere.” Olivia patted his shoulder, kissed his cheek. “You can make it the rest of the way to Judith. Have a lovely afternoon, my friend. I’ll see you at dinner.”
The motorized hum grated on Alfonse’s sense of himself. That he would end up so reduced had never dared venture into his reality. An active life and fortunate genes had always kept him fit, but his vices were many. Alfonse Carducci had never expected to see fifty, let alone eighty. Moderation hadn’t seemed worth the sacrifice.
“Alfonse!” Judith stood, waved him over. She bent to say something that made her companions laugh. Still lovely, so elfin. Hair white as a dove’s breast, her face unlined and her eyes bright, she was a softer version of the woman he’d known before his body’s comeuppance. He’d been close to sixty when she was assigned to him, an editor far more brutal than any he’d ever worked with before. Alfonse loved her for that, for putting his story above his monumental ego. Olivia believed it was Judith’s comparative youth, her beauty that attracted him; it was every blue-penciled stroke that made her desirable. Every cut to his prose aroused. It was there on the desk in her New York City office they first made love, amid arguing over whether or not the serial comma was passé. Their affair waned when the novel went to galleys, cooled before it hit the stands. Now she was coming toward him, an affectionate smile on her lips, and Alfonse could not help wishing for wings that worked.
“You’re looking well.” Judith kissed both cheeks. “You’ve a rosy glow about you.”
“Seeing you brings out the best in me.”
“Always the charmer.”
They settled in the sunlight by an open window. A walk outside would be so nice; going back to retrieve his oxygen apparatus wasn’t worth the effort. June’s pollen would not be the death of him. September’s, maybe, but not June’s. He had a novel to write.
“What brings you to the gathering room this time of day?” Judith asked. “I haven’t seen you outside of dinner in a week.”
“I’ve been . . . otherwise occupied this past week. Today, I am at odds. Have you had your tea?”
“Several cups, but I could do with another. You?”
Alfonse grimaced. “Chamomile, please.”
She returned moments later, balancing two cups. Handing him one, she settled into a chair. A breeze lifted her hair. “Lovely, isn’t it?”
“Entirely.” He sipped. Grass and flowers. Disgusting. “Thank you.”
“So what had you occupied last week that deserted you this one? Olivia?”
“In a sideways sort of way, yes. But no, not the woman herself. Though she has deserted me today.”
“I saw her come in. She didn’t say hello.”
“Don’t take it personally. She’s distracted.”
“I know Olivia Peppernell well enough by now not to take insult, even if she means to give it. Is what’s distracting you the same thing that’s distracting her?”
Alfonse sipped his tea again. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. At least it was warm and sweet. He looked at her over the rim of his teacup. “Why would you ask that?”
Judith laughed softly. “Were it a decade earlier, I’d accuse you two of picking up your lusty affair. Things being as they are, I’d say that’s not it. Knowing you and knowing her, being the keen observer that I am, I’d say you two have a secret, and that secret involves the only thing you two have left in common. You’re writing.”
Alfonse’s cup clattered on his saucer. “How in the hell could you possibly deduce that?”
She leaned forward. “I spotted her in here a couple of weeks ago, madly scribbling in a notebook. And she just left clutching a notebook like the devil himself was after it. Tell me, Alfonse. Are you two geniuses collaborating on something?”
Lying required energy Alfonse didn’t have to give. He handed her his teacup. Judi set it down, her face no longer teasing but concerned. “I shouldn’t have pried. I’m sorry, Alfonse. Forget I—”
“It is nothing genius,” he said. “Just a story sprung to life one day as I woke from dreaming.”
“Alfonse, that’s wonderful!”
But it was less wonderful now. A secret told sent the magic already leaching into the ether. “It has given us both reason to open our eyes in the morning.”
“And you’re writing long hand?”
“For the first time since the eighties,” he said. “It seemed . . . required.”
Judith slumped back in her chair, the look of wonder he once saw in her younger self surfacing. “Of course it is. You’ve gone back to the beginning.”
He smiled. “Yes. You’re exactly right.”
“This is truly wonderful, Alfonse. What will you do with it when you’re done?”
“We haven’t thought that far,” he said. “I may not make it to the end, after all.”
“Of course you will. Don’t say such a thing.”
“Why not?” He shrugged. “Denying the truth doesn’t make it any less so. I’m dying, Judith. But here, in my last days, I’ve found the kind of joy I haven’t known in a very long time.”
She lunged forward, grasping both his hands. “Let me transcribe it for you.”
“Pardon?”
“Let me key it into the computer. I can clean it up as I do. I swear I won’t change a thing of plot, pace, or character. And I won’t push for publication even after you’re gone. I’ll even put that in writing. Please.”
Alfonse licked suddenly dry lips. “The work of a copy editor? A . . . an intern? You’re one of the most respected editors in the country.”
“I was,” she said. “Just like you were one of the literary giants. Like Olivia was. Now we are here in the Pen, living out our last days in the shadows of our former glory.”
“You are hardly in your last days, my dear.”
“You don’t know that.” She slumped back again, a fist under her chin.
Alfonse’s poor heart stuttered. “Are you ill?”
“Ill?” She shook her head. “No. I’m tired. My nerves are fried. I burned brightly, and burned out. Isn’t that what we all did? We spent our lives chasing words and stories and rising stars and then one day woke up and realized our best years were done. We’re tired and getting older and there’s no one in our lives outside of colleagues we’ve spent more time with than family who gave up on us years ago.” She gestured, encompassing the whole of the Pen. “Where else would I go but here? Where else do I belong?”
“You miss the world outside.”
“Don’t you?”
“I miss the past. I miss my youth. I don’t miss the world at all.”
“But you no longer miss writing, because it has found you again.” Judi picked up his teacup, handed it back to him. “Let me be part of it. This small, small part. For all I once was to you, professionally and personally. Please.”
Something of the leaching magic stoppered. Sparkled. Olivia would fume—what delight! She kept her secret with Cecibe
l. He might keep a secret of his own. It would mean giving Judith some of his allotted writing time, but he’d crushed deadlines before. Electric joy prickled his skin. He raised his disgusting, grassy tea, which really wasn’t so bad with enough sugar. “How could I possibly refuse such a plea?” he said. “We’ll work out a schedule. Just don’t tell Olivia. No matter how old or sick I may be, she’ll have my most tender bits in a vise if she finds out.”
Chapter 12
Paterson, New Jersey
Summer 1954
Cecilia
The short walk from Falls View took forever. A whole month, and still no letter from Aldo. No phone call. A month and still no period.
Where could he be? What could have happened? Whatever it was, it had to be huge. A secret assignment (because her Aldo was just that brilliant and brave). Maybe a drill sergeant who had it out for him (wasn’t there always one in war movies?) never gave him her letters. He wasn’t dead, that much she’d been able to find out through phone calls to the base. But her letters went unanswered. Her phone calls were never returned. If she could leave her mother, Cecilia would take a bus all the way to Illinois and wait in whatever holding room they put her in until Aldo showed up. But she couldn’t leave Mama. Not with Daddy missing.
Opening the kitchen door, Cecilia let the cool air inside hit her like a little bit of heaven. Air-conditioning. What a glorious thing, and one of the many well-to-do perks of being a Giancami she was grateful for. Were it not for those perks, life with Daddy would have been unbearable. Sadly, happily, life had been sort of good with him gone. Easier. Mom wasn’t always cowering, or angry. The boys were another matter. Without their father’s adoring guidance, they stuck closer to their mother, who babied them mercilessly. They’d been bratty enough before. At least they were no longer torturing mice and crickets. How much better it would have been had Dominic Giancami vanished before Aldo left for the navy. Maybe she’d have broken free. Maybe she’d have gone with him.
Maybe Aldo doesn’t want you anymore.
No. No! Cecilia wouldn’t betray their love with such thoughts. She never imagined she was bluffing when she said she couldn’t marry him, even if this happened. She’d marry him in a heartbeat, live in some tiny apartment in Chicago while he trained, follow him all over the world if necessary. How foolish to make him think otherwise. How sad she ever thought she should.
And now, no letters, no contact, after all the promises he made. Had she been so convincing? Cold sweat beaded her upper lip, her brow. What was she going to do if another month passed and still no period? There was no way she was going to some coat-hanger surgeon. She already loved the baby she feared. It came first now. Not her. Not Aldo.
“Cecilia? Is that you?”
Maria Antonette Giancami, born Maria Gallo to immigrants who’d never learned to speak English before dying too young to meet their grandchildren, breezed into the kitchen. Dressed, coiffed, perfectly powdered, wearing heels, Maria hadn’t touched a mop or dustrag in more years than Cecilia could remember. They’d already been on their way to respectable by the time she was old enough to notice. Angelina did the housework and the cooking. Her husband, Giuseppe, took care of the grounds and upkeep on the house. Cecilia and her brothers didn’t even have to tidy their rooms to earn the ridiculous allowance that she wished, more than anything, she’d thought to save instead of squander.
“Why didn’t you answer me?” Maria scolded.
“Because you walked in and saw it was me.”
“You still owe me the courtesy of an answer, ah?”
Such pretty speech, so touched by the past, by an accent she’d never cultured away.
“Were you looking for me?” Cecilia asked. “Mama?”
Maria’s shoulders rose and fell. She lifted her head. Cecilia’s skin beaded up all over again.
“Sit, Cecilia.”
“Can I get a glass of water first? I just got home from school.”
Maria waved her to the sink, pulled out a kitchen chair. She sat with her back to Cecilia, who took her time filling a glass, gulping it down, and filling it again.
“What’s up?” she asked, sitting across from her mother. “Is it something about Daddy?”
Maria’s face scrunched. Holding back tears? Or disdain? Cecilia couldn’t be sure.
“Your father won’t turn up until he wants to be found,” she said. “I imagine he made a bad investment”—code for a gambling debt—“or ran off with an old friend”—Trudy, his mistress, whom he didn’t even attempt to keep secret—“and is having himself a grand time in Cuba, ah? No, it’s not about him. He’s disappeared before. It’s about you.”
She imagined the sudden guilty pallor pulling all the blood from her face. “Me? What’d I do?”
“It’s not what you’ve done,” Maria said. “But what you must do. With your father . . . gone, certain covenants are being called into action. I am honor bound to see them through.”
Cecilia sipped her water. “Covenants?”
“You know you’ve been promised in marriage to the Parisi boy, ah?”
Cold again. Enzo and Virginia Parisi’s drippy son, Enzo Jr. She’d known him since they were babies. He was nice enough. He might even be handsome one day. Now he was a math nerd on the chess team and she was one of the most popular girls in school. They moved in different circles. Always had. Always would, if she had anything to say about it, which she did not. Cecilia knew what was coming, saw that train barreling down on her, and had no idea how to get out of the way.
“I wanted you to have more time,” Maria went on. “I got your father to agree to college first, but things have changed.”
“I still have a year left of high school,” Cecilia blurted. “I can’t get married now.”
“Not married. Engaged. Enzo Jr. is off to college in the fall. The courting is being moved up, as a show of faith that with or without Cami’s influence, you’ll uphold the promises made.” Maria leaned across the table, took her daughter’s hand. “Without your father, this family won’t survive. Not you, me, or your brothers. We need protection. Do you understand? They’ll take everything from us.”
“You’ll sell me off to save this?” Cecilia waved her hand over her head. “Is that all I’m worth?”
Maria looked at her long and hard. “You were promised when you were just a little girl, Ceci. Don’t pretend you didn’t know. We’re in America, but among our kind, the old ways still hold.” She squeezed Cecilia’s hand and let it go. “Enzo’s a good boy. You’ll have time to grow into one another, maybe even fall in love. Though love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I married for love, and look what came of that.”
“But what if I fall in love with someone else?” Cecilia asked. “While I’m at college, I mean.”
“You won’t. You can’t.” Maria pushed away from the table. “Ginny and I have set up a date for you two. Tonight. Go upstairs and rest. Make yourself pretty. Enzo will be here at six to pick you up.”
Cecilia sat where she was after her mother left, sipping water she didn’t feel go down her throat. She would refuse to do it. No one could make her.
Yes, they could. They would.
She would run away.
To where? With what money? And if she managed to find Aldo and marry him, he’d be dead before the ink dried on their marriage license. She’d been so cavalier, lying naked in Aldo’s arms, telling him she could never marry him. Telling him she’d be married off. It hadn’t felt real, even then. And now?
The truth settled in the pit of her stomach. She was a girl in a world that favored boys. That catered to them. Obeyed them. Hadn’t she known that all her life? But knowing and knowing were such different things. And she wasn’t a girl anymore. She was a woman. Aldo had proven that to her, as the baby growing inside her proved now. Knowledge was power and, girl or not, Cecilia was Dominic Giancami’s daughter.
Dumping the rest of her water into the sink, she watched it trickle down the drain. Daddy was missing. Aldo w
as missing. She was on her own to make her future, and her baby’s. Enzo Parisi Jr. would arrive in a couple of hours. She’d be ready for him, but there was nothing on the planet capable of making him ready for her.
Night came through Cecilia’s open window. Mama insisted on switching off the air-conditioning on cool summer nights, just like she used to insist the heat get lowered on all but the coldest winter nights. It was one of the few arguments she made and won. The fact that Daddy spent many nights elsewhere probably had something to do with that.
Naked, supine on top of her pink, dotted swiss bedspread, Cecilia smoothed her hand over and over her soft, flat belly, telling herself over and over that she’d done what she did to protect her baby. She’d had no choice.
The kissing was the worst part. It felt so wrong. Enzo’s mouth tasted like garlic and cigarettes. She focused on that to get through the pain worming out of her heart. After that, it wasn’t so bad. Nothing like the frenzy Aldo made of her insides, but Enzo was sweet and awkward and grateful. She pretended to be a virgin, like he was, even crying out in pain when he first pushed inside her. It did hurt, truly, deeply, far worse than the first time with Aldo. Then she’d barely felt a thing.
They talked afterward, her head on his soft shoulder—so unlike Aldo’s muscular one—his fingers caressing circles on the small of her back. He’d be leaving for college in a few months. Princeton. Some mathematics degree she didn’t understand the use of. But Enzo was passionate, and that was a good thing. If she couldn’t love him, at least she could like him for that.
“I’m glad you like me,” Enzo said, after they were dressed. “I didn’t think you did.”
“We’ve known one another since we were babies. Of course I like you.”
Enzo blushed then. “I mean.” He gestured to the bed. His bed in his room in his house where his mother slept just down the hall. “I never expected anything like this to happen to me.”
“Like this?”
“A beautiful girl doing . . . you know . . . with me. I’m not exactly Rock Hudson.”
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