The two brothers showed her to a fancy black car that apparently belonged to them but whose door was opened by a hulking man wearing a cap and gloves. They called him Sal, and he was evidently their driver—and something more, because when he reached out to take her suitcase, Filomena saw a gun in a holster under his coat.
For a brief moment she wondered if either of these young men was the one she was supposed to marry; they looked older than she’d expected. But then the taller one, Johnny, said to her reassuringly in Italian, “You’ll meet our younger brother, Mario, tonight.”
“You’ll like Mario. Tutte le ragazze lo chiamò a ‘dreamboat,’” Frankie could not resist saying teasingly. She had no idea why “all the girls” called Mario that, but she understood the playfulness of Frankie’s tone. Then, in Italian he said more soberly, “You’ll keep him out of the army, so Ma doesn’t get a heart attack, okay? We must get you married before his birthday.”
Johnny nudged him. “Ease up,” he advised.
Mentally Filomena reviewed everything that Rosamaria had said about her arrangement with the matriarch of this family, via the matchmaker in Naples. The son, Mario, was seventeen, about to be eighteen at the end of this month, so he’d been born in the same month as Filomena. Was that a good omen? Filomena had already become seventeen a week ago, but then she remembered that, since she was supposed to be Rosamaria, she must pretend that she had actually turned eighteen, in the month of May. She must not make an error out of fatigue or confusion.
Based on what Frankie had just said, there was a connection between Mario’s age and the army. America had entered the war, and Filomena comprehended the anguish of families who didn’t want to lose their sons to this madness. Perhaps being married would protect Mario? Now she thought she understood more about why she was here.
They drove through Manhattan amid cars honking their horns incessantly while swooping expertly and daringly around one another. Filomena had never seen such towering buildings, so tall that she could not see the tops unless she ducked down in her seat and craned her neck for a glimpse. In this slanting light, it was like driving through gilded, man-made canyons.
Then, unexpectedly, they entered a leafy area of town houses that were only three or four stories high. Frankie told her they were in a place called Greenwich Village, which was a relatively quieter and cozier part of this roaring city. They passed a lovely green park ringed with mature trees, called Washington Square, and soon, they turned down an attractive street where, at last, they came to a stop in front of a row of three attached, red brick homes set off by wrought-iron fencing.
“Number One is where Frankie and I live with our families,” Johnny told her, pointing to the town house on the left. “Number Two is where our parents live.” This was clearly the biggest of the three houses. “And Number Three is for our guests, like you,” he concluded, gesturing toward the smallest of the houses, which was on the corner.
The men now left her in the care of Donna, a young maid with a long braid down her back, who said, “Buongiorno, come with me,” and led Filomena up a staircase to a small guest room. Donna explained that the driver, the cook, and Donna herself had rooms in this “guest” house, so they could help her if she needed assistance. Filomena could not help wondering if she was really a guest, as the brothers said, or if this family simply thought of her as just another servant. Well, she’d soon find out.
The maid showed her a tiled bathroom at the end of the hallway, a miraculous place with astonishing indoor plumbing, a bathtub, and a basin with a spout for water that ran hot and cold with a mere turn of the faucets. Donna said, “Dinner is at eight, in the main house. All three houses are connected by corridors. I’ll be around to show you.” She smiled and shut the door behind her as she went away.
Alone at last, Filomena breathed a sigh of relief. Even now she could feel, in all the cells of her body, the relentless vibration of the ship that had carried her here. She opened a window to breathe in the fresh air and to feel the setting sun, which made the brightly-colored trees dazzling. September in New York was cooler, crisper than in southern Italy. Her room had two windows, one of which overlooked a well-tended garden. She noticed a stone fountain in its center, and she was unexpectedly touched by this; for the first time, she felt a kinship with this family, sensing that they’d poignantly re-created what they loved and missed of Italy.
Overwhelmingly fatigued now, she undressed, washed, and collapsed gratefully on the bed—which was small but so comfortable, with a four-poster frame and heavenly soft bedding that even the signora back home would have coveted. As soon as Filomena closed her eyes, sleep settled on her like a warm blanket.
Meanwhile, Filomena’s arrival in America was heralded as a major event in the family.
“Mario’s girl is here!” Lucy’s daughter, Gemma, announced excitedly as everyone congregated before dinner in the big parlor of the main house. “That lady wore a funny-looking scarf on her head, tied under her chin!”
“Gemma, be quiet, she’ll hear you!” Lucy admonished. Her daughter had been born a year after Lucy and Frankie got married, so now the little girl was a precocious five-year-old. Gemma had Frankie’s dark eyes and pale peachy complexion without a single dot of Lucy’s freckles, but her hair was strawberry blond, a paler version of Lucy’s red color.
Nine-year-old Christopher enjoyed having a little sister to protect and boss around, but they were so rambunctious today, chasing Amie’s twin boys around the room and coming perilously close to tipping over fragile vases and lamps. They were behaving like dogs who sensed something festive and foreign in the air, aware that the adults were more distracted than usual, so the young ones were ready to take advantage of the situation.
“Ahoy, mateys!” Chris intoned to the twins, swaggering like a pirate, coercing them into sliding along the floor behind the sofa, as if rowing a boat in unison.
“Chris, Gemma, you be nice to your cousins,” Lucy scolded.
Amie looked up alertly at her twin boys. “Vinnie! Paulie! Get off the floor, you’ll get all full of dust,” she admonished. She could not believe that these little wild creatures were hers. Vinnie and Paulie didn’t have a shred of Amie’s innate shyness; they looked a lot like Johnny, but they had not yet acquired their father’s calm gracefulness. Well, they were only four years old. Amie wished that she had a daughter, too, as Lucy did. Surely there was still time for that. Amie felt like Cinderella, whisked off by a noble prince and brought into this mysterious kingdom of his family.
Johnny had waited only a month before courting her. Until I met you, I didn’t care if I got married or not, he’d confided. I see now, I was just looking for you to come into my life.
Amie had tried to resist him at first, but it was impossible to refuse a man like Johnny. From the beginning he’d always acted as if she were a fair maiden who needed to be freed from her prison with Brunon. After “the accident,” as she preferred to think of it, Johnny had taken charge of the bar and hired people he trusted to help her manage it. Amie had only a supervisory role there now, watching the income, no longer having to do the backbreaking work of waiting tables double-shift and cleaning up.
There were times when Amie thought she saw Brunon out of the corner of her eye—coming up from the basement with a box, or sweeping up in a corner—but when she turned her head, startled, she realized it was just one of the men that Johnny had hired. Even in church, sitting in the pew, she closed her eyes resolutely, and silently told Brunon she felt sorry for him, as if indeed he’d been hit by a truck and it had nothing to do with her. But she simply could not deny that she felt relieved to be freed from all the fear and mind-numbing dread.
It helped that Johnny had made their courtship seem so natural—bringing her to meet his parents, and then, after their wedding day, to come and live in his beautiful town house, next door to his parents. He and Amie now occupied the spacious first-floor apartment. Frankie and Lucy had a separate entrance that led them directly ups
tairs to their equally spacious second-floor apartment in the same house. The walls were thick and soundproof, so everyone had their privacy. The furniture, inherited from Johnny’s parents, was all handmade, solid, high quality, especially the beautiful rosewood armoire with beveled-mirror doors.
For the first time in her life, Amie felt like a cherished wife. And Johnny’s lovemaking was a revelation. He was tender and patient, leading her into a crescendo of easy pleasure that struck her as a warm, inevitable wave from a playful sea. Once, after Johnny left to make his rounds of work, Amie was folding their clothes, and upon remembering their night of lovemaking, she burst into tears, thinking of all the time she’d lost being miserable; she had nearly missed out on love entirely, and might have spent a whole lifetime never knowing this natural joy.
But she still found his family rather daunting. The parents ruled supremely and seemed to tolerate their non-Italian daughters-in-law, Lucy and Amie, with a wary air of resignation. Yet, when Tessa spoke to Johnny in Italian, Amie could never know for sure if Tessa was talking about her. Also, the strong bond among these three brothers was so vital that it was as if they believed they could not exist without one another. Lucy understood this, too, so she and Amie had become natural allies, helping each other adjust to living so closely with their in-laws. They’d even taken classes in Italian together, to better understand their husbands’ family.
“I’m hungry,” Frankie said now. “What’s for dinner?”
“Your mother and Cook kicked me out of the kitchen this morning,” Lucy confessed. Turning to Amie, she murmured ruefully, “They both say I can’t cook to save my life, so they think my opinions are useless. But I do know what Frankie likes to eat!”
“At least you can sew straight,” Amie whispered. “I’m too nearsighted. I keep sticking myself.” She sighed, then whispered, “Why do we have to know these chores, when the servants do such a good job? Tessa is so old-fashioned.” Lucy nodded conspiratorially.
“Are we waiting for Mario?” Frankie asked impatiently. “He isn’t going to try to skip this dinner, is he? Bet he’s halfway to Frisco by now,” he joked.
“He’ll show up,” Johnny said calmly. “In his good time. You know how he is.”
“It’s because all the girls chase him,” Lucy volunteered. She’d noticed that Mario, who was contemplative and solitary by nature, did not like to be the center of attention, and the more people pushed him, the more he retreated like a turtle into his shell.
“What’s this girl from Italy like?” Lucy couldn’t resist asking her husband.
Frankie shrugged. “She’s nice. Kinda mysterious. Big eyes, like almonds,” he said. “Like a cat, watching and thinking.” They were all drinking small glasses of an aperitivo, a ruby-colored vermouth homemade by Tessa, with a touch of good bourbon in it and a dash of bitter orange. “Where’s Mom and Pop?” he asked.
“Tessa and Gianni have been in their study all morning,” Lucy answered.
Amie whispered to Lucy, “Wonder what they’ll say about this new girl?”
“We’re about to find out,” Lucy replied as Tessa and Gianni finally emerged from their study, beckoning the others to join them in the large formal dining room.
When Filomena awoke, at first she couldn’t remember where she was, what day it was, even who she was. Then it all came flooding back, along with a certain measure of panic. But, just as she’d done throughout her voyage, she thought of the real Rosamaria, lying in a grave in Naples marked with Filomena’s name on it, and asked herself, What would Rosa do? What would Rosa say? and then she knew how to behave.
Rosamaria would have put on a good but sober dress, and combed her hair and pinched her cheeks, so this was what Filomena did. She’d bought a dress in Naples, just before she set sail. It was a soft navy with white piping that flattered her pale skin. Reaching under the pile of clothes in her suitcase, she paused to momentarily clasp the stone Madonna’s hand that she’d kept from the church in Naples. Somehow it felt like her last link to Rosamaria.
“Protect me, guide me,” Filomena chanted, as if holding a talisman. She realized that this was the first time in a long while that she’d uttered anything resembling a prayer. So perhaps some faith and hope were returning at last. She went to the mirror to give her hair one final smoothing. Then she descended the staircase.
The maid, Donna, was waiting at the foot of the stairs, to show her an indoor passageway that led straight into the bigger, main town house. Here they passed the swinging door of a kitchen, where a busy, pie-faced cook named Stella was visible. To their left was a small cloakroom and hallway that led to the front door.
They walked on, past a large parlor with cut-crystal doorknobs that glittered with refracted light. Filomena could not help thinking that Rosamaria would have considered this home a triumph. The parlor had built-in bookcases, a fine fireplace, and mahogany furniture covered with delicate lace runners. The chairs were upholstered in a lush claret color, with embroidered and fringed gold antimacassars on their backs. There were round, glass-topped marble tables holding lamps with gold-fringed, rose-colored shades, some of which had glass teardrops dangling from them. There was nobody here, but she heard voices in the next room.
Sure enough, the entire family was assembling in a large dining room that had gilded light sconces on the walls, a polished sideboard, and a formal table ringed by ornately carved, high-backed chairs. “Please take a seat,” the maid murmured.
The men politely rose to their feet upon her entrance, and Filomena shyly sat down in the chair that the patriarch gallantly pulled out for her at his left. At the opposite end of the table, the dark-eyed matriarch was staring at her intently, without smiling. From the matchmaker’s notes Filomena knew that this woman’s name was Tessa. Her expression declared that this was her brood and she meant to protect it.
So this is the one who will tell me if I can stay or go, Filomena thought. Her pulse quickened as she made a rapid assessment. Tessa appeared to be in her early fifties, with abundant black hair threaded with silver, drawn into an elegantly arranged bun. She wore a dove-grey silk dress and a large gold and pearl brooch.
The handsome older man who’d invited Filomena to sit beside him had to be Tessa’s husband, who, according to the matchmaker, was named Gianni. His hair was more silver than black, indicating that he could be as much as a decade older than his wife.
Gianni and Tessa’s sons were arranged around the table with their wives and children. But Filomena noticed that there was one empty chair directly across from her, and also, two more empty chairs at the far side of the table, near the mother, Tessa.
Now the patriarch turned to Filomena and, like his sons, spoke in a mixture of English and Italian; when others spoke, he politely provided an Italian translation where he thought it might be helpful to her. “So,” Gianni said in a courtly way, as if announcing the arrival of a great lady to the group, as he passed her a glass of prosecco, “this is Rosamaria. We now have three Maries at our table: Amie Marie, Lucy Marie, and now Rosamaria.” He nodded toward each daughter-in-law as he introduced her, and they nodded deferentially back at him, allowing themselves only a flicker of a curious glance at Filomena.
But a little girl with reddish-blond hair was staring at her with undisguised fascination. When Filomena smiled, the girl looked suddenly self-conscious, as if she thought she ought to say something. “I’m Gemma. My mama is a nurse!” she offered.
“Un’infermiera,” the patriarch murmured for her benefit.
“Ah, bene. How old are you?” Filomena asked politely in English, feeling the eyes of the girl’s parents, Lucy and Frankie, upon her as they watched their daughter respond.
“I’m five years old,” Gemma declared stoutly, “and my brother, Chris, is nine,” she added, indicating a quiet blue-eyed boy with deeper red hair like his mother, Lucy. Filomena nodded, and calculated that Lucy and Frankie looked as if they were in their late twenties.
Across the table was the elde
st brother, Johnny, who, Filomena saw, was married to the shy blond woman named Amie. They had two identical little boys beside them.
Seeing her gaze, Johnny introduced his sons. “Ecco i miei figli, Vincenzo and Paolo.”
“They’re only four years old,” Gemma added, as if that made them babies compared to her. “Vinnie and Paulie are twins!” she declared, happy to announce the obvious.
“Sono gemelli,” Gianni translated helpfully.
Someone new had just entered the room: a handsome young man who had an easy way about him as he moved toward the chair directly across the table from Filomena.
“And now,” Gianni said with a twinkle in his eye and a low voice, as if confiding something important in his introduction, “Rosamaria, ecco mio figlio Mario.”
Everyone around the table fell silent, and stared straight at Mario as if they could hardly bear the tension of seeing him finally meet the girl his parents had brought over from Italy for him to marry. Mario, with admirable self-possession, seemed aware of this and yet calm.
“Buonasera, Rosamaria,” he said in a formal tone to Filomena as he sat down. The roomful of relatives breathlessly awaited her reaction.
“Buonasera, Mario,” Filomena answered shyly.
“I hope that you had un piacevole viaggio,” he continued.
“Si, grazie,” she murmured, although one could hardly call the journey here peaceful.
By now she understood the meaning of the American word dreamboat, which his brothers had used to describe him on the car ride over here. All these sons were tall, fair skinned, dark eyed, with beautiful dark hair, but Mario had a certain delicacy of feature, something perfect in the balance of his finely-chiseled nose, chin, high forehead, and those soulful brown eyes. He was not as skinny as Johnny nor muscular like Frankie; he was just tall and lean and lovely to look at, the kind of man that made a woman want to run her fingers through his soft hair, or feel the touch of his elegant hands upon her face.
The Godmothers Page 10