Household Saints (3 page)

Joseph decided to make the Falconettis pay in the only way he knew. Pressing his thumb into the sausage, he leaned ever so lightly on the weighing pan.

“A couple ounces over. Dollar fifteen.”

“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” said Catherine. “Weigh it again.”

“See what?”

“I saw you weigh your thumb along with that sausage.”

“You saw that, did you?” Joseph raised his thumb, clenched his fist, and thrust it inches from her nose. “See this thumb?”

“Sure.”

“You know where I can put this thumb if I want to?”

“No.” Catherine popped her gum and stared off into the distance beyond his left shoulder.

Joseph wheeled around. Sometimes his mother came downstairs from the apartment and stood at the back of the store to see how her sausage was selling. But now, thank God, there was no one there.

He grabbed a link of sausage and shoved it toward Catherine. Slowly he rubbed his thumb along the casing, pulling till the skin stretched.

“Now,” he said. “Now do you know what I mean?”

“No.” Catherine’s black eyes were serious and innocent, so wide open that Joseph realized: She didn’t know.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

Ten years behind the counter had given Joseph plenty of chances to study his taste in women. He liked them all, but the ones he loved best were the plump ones, so eager to get home and eat that they bounced in and out of his shop; the pretty ones with fast reputations; and the married ones who had borne ten children without losing the will to sparkle for an appreciative man. What moved him was how sweetly they examined their purchases, checking for gristle as if it were human flesh, probing with a practiced gentleness which Joseph had always associated with women of experience. Only now, after all this time, did Joseph understand the fuss men made over virgins, the longing for that startled grace which vanishes with experience. Only now did he feel the urge to watch a girl cross over; and now, as he thought of his customers, he felt that he would never know them because he hadn’t been the one to watch them cross. Now, staring back at Catherine Falconetti, he began to imagine what he would do with her if he had her. First he’d dress her in a white communion outfit which he’d peel off, petticoat by petticoat, like the outer leaves of an artichoke. And then he would show her exactly where he could put his thumb.

Right then, Joseph decided that Catherine was kind of pretty: No Rita Hayworth, maybe, but delicate. And it was then that he made up his mind to collect on Lino’s bet.

“Dollar even,” he mumbled. “My mistake.”

He stuffed the sausage into a bag, took Catherine’s money, graced her with one final sexy smile and said, “Go ask Lino. Go home and ask your father where Joseph Santangelo can put his thumb.”

He was so delighted with this parting shot that Catherine was long gone before he noticed: She’d only given him eighty-five cents.

By that time, the sausage was browning in the pan. Stepping back to avoid the sputtering fat, Catherine heard coins jingling in her cardigan and thanked God that they were in her pocket and not in Joseph Santangelo’s. Theoretically the change was Lino’s, but Catherine had worked so hard to keep it that she felt as if she’d earned it and had every right to make plans for the money she’d saved.

Tomorrow morning, she’d leave the breakfast dishes in the sink, the laundry in the hamper. She’d walk up Sixth Avenue to the Woolworth’s and treat herself to a slip of begonia or a few strands of ivy in a cardboard pot. Edgy and alert as a mother taking her newborn on its first outing, she would hurry back downtown, stopping only once, at the newsstand, to buy the September
Silver Screen.

All month, its red banner headline had shouted to her from the magazine rack, loud as a voice crying: What is Loretta Young’s Tragic Secret? All month, she’d speculated, like someone trying to outguess the detective in a mystery. But tomorrow, she would put off finding out till she’d repotted and watered her new plant. This she did immediately, with an urgency which was part of the pleasure; it was the only time when Catherine felt she was doing something which couldn’t wait.

Catherine’s plant collection dated from a trip to the five-and-dime years before. On her way to buy darning thread for Lino’s socks, she’d paused in the houseplant section. There, amid the sacks of dried-out potting soil and peat containers, she’d found herself thinking of some photos of Italian war orphans which the nuns had passed around at school. The class had been instructed to say ten additional Hail Marys for their less fortunate brothers and sisters, but Catherine had forgotten till the pitiful plants reminded her of those children—starving, abandoned, calling out to be taken home and loved. This maternal sense stayed with her; as the plants sprouted new leaves and flowered, Catherine felt as proud as any adoptive mother, watching her skinny foundling polish off a meal.

Tomorrow, dozens of healthy plants would be shifted so the newest addition could bask in that brief spot of morning sun by the kitchen window. Only then would Catherine open her
Silver Screen
and learn Loretta Young’s secret.

So far, Catherine’s guesses included a failed marriage, a broken contract, a retarded little sister, a boyfriend killed in the war. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be worse than the story of that distant cousin of Lino’s who’d once been a movie actress. According to family legend, a certain Maria Falconetti had appeared in a silent movie about Joan of Arc, made somewhere in Europe in the twenties. With typical Falconetti luck, the picture was a total flop. But the worst of it was that Saint Joan’s part was nothing but crying and crying; the director made Maria cry so hard that she couldn’t stop when the movie was finished, and wound up crying in a mental hospital for the rest of her life. Catherine had never seen the film, nor was it mentioned in any of her movie magazines. She wondered if the story were true.

It wasn’t that Catherine accepted
Silver Screen
as the gospel truth, but she did believe that the truth could be learned by comparing its gossip with the facts she observed on Mulberry Street. In this way, she had come to two conclusions which made her life easier to bear.

The first was that fate had no respect for celebrity. Gene Tierney and Judy Garland were living proof that famous stars could draw unluckier hands than the most obscure Falconettis. The second was that work was work. To hear Myrna Loy tell it, waiting around soundstages and slaving under hot lights was as bad as ironing Lino and Nicky’s shirts. The only difference was that Myrna Loy got paid a lot better than Catherine Falconetti, because no matter how you fooled yourself, life was not the movies. Hollywood had its Leslie Howards, its Charles Boyers; Mulberry Street had its Joseph Santangelos, shoving their thumbs in your face.

Catherine turned the sausage and put Santangelo out of her mind. She had a talent for suppressing unpleasant thoughts, a knack which allowed her to think she’d been switched in her cradle and left with a family known for dwelling on its own misfortunes. Most days, she tried to forget about her mother dying so young and leaving her responsible for two men who would never say thank you in their lives, about the fact that she was seventeen and had never had a boyfriend or any sign of male attention but a butcher’s grimy thumb. To check herself, she concentrated on immediate realities—the popping sausage and, beyond that, the clamor of her father and brothers homecoming, their wordless racket directed at the kitchen, as if even the scraping chairs and rattling silver were demanding to be fed.

Yet when Catherine set out the food, the room fell so silent that she could hear the sound of chewing and the rain outside. She thought of the other women at Santangelo’s shop and wondered how many of them were hearing these discouraging noises, so unlike the warm appreciative buzz which the rain had tricked them into imagining.

“Sausage,” said Lino, and that was all. No one spoke again till Lino put down his fork, tossed his balled-up napkin onto his plate and said, “Okay, Nicky, finish up. Let’s go play some pinochle. Must be the weather, I feel like this could be my lucky night.”

Somehow Lino sensed from the start that tonight’s game would be different. Maybe it
was
the weather. All summer, they’d smacked their cards on the table as if trying to rouse each other from some hot weather stupor. Yet tonight, thought Lino, the cards would slip and slap, gentle as the tapping rain. Though Lino knew better than to hope for luck, what he felt tonight was so close to hope that he could hardly wait to pick up the cards and deal.

But when he did so, the only slap he heard was the one which Joseph Santangelo gave him on the back of his hand. The deck flew across the table.

“Christ, Santangelo.” Lino leaned over to retrieve the scattered cards. “What’s eating you?”

“Hang on,” said Joseph. “Nobody’s dealing till we settle from last night.”

“Settle?” repeated Lino. What was there to settle? He never bet more than he had in his pocket. And though the others teased him about forgetting himself and staking his dearest possessions, he trusted them, as gentlemen, to sympathize when a gentleman got carried away. Besides, what use would Santangelo or Manzone have for his late wife’s rosary?

“Settle what?” said Lino.

“You mean you don’t know?”

“So help me God.” Lino kissed his fingertips and crossed his heart. “I don’t remember.”

“Maybe I can refresh your memory,” said Joseph.

“Maybe you can.” Lino faked a laugh.

“Your daughter.”

“My daughter?” Lino looked from Joseph to Nicky to Frank Manzone. “What about her?”

“You bet her on the last hand. And you lost.”

“I bet
Catherine
?”

“For a blast of cold air. From the meat locker.”

“That’s crazy.” Lino twirled a finger at his temple. “I must have been out of my mind.” Again he appealed to Frank Manzone for confirmation, but Frank—who believed in safe-guarding his good luck by minding his own business—only nodded, took the deck and said, “Whose deal?”

“Nobody’s!” Jumping up, Joseph grabbed a cleaver and flicked at its blade, a gesture which would have conveyed more menace if he hadn’t been trying so hard not to laugh. “Not till we settle.”

“I knew it,” said Lino, with an edgy smile. “He’s kidding. What a joker. Listen, Santangelo, you don’t want my Catherine.” Yawning, Lino forced up a belch. “That sausage she cooked tonight, it’s still coming back on me.”

“Shut your mouth, Falconetti. She bought that sausage in this shop.” Glaring at Lino, Joseph’s eyes looked steelier than the cleaver, sharp enough to cut meat. Lino realized that he wasn’t joking.

“Now
you
listen.” Joseph rapped the chopping block. “You know what it means to be a man? A man means you pay up.”

“Come on now.” Lino struck his forehead with the heel of his palm. “What kind of man bets his daughter in a pinochle game?”

“I give up,” said Joseph. “You tell me.”

“A man doesn’t …”

“Have it your way,” said Joseph. “You’re not a man. And from now on you can forget about pinochle. You can go play canasta with the women—
if
you can find women dumb enough to deal a well-known deadbeat into their game.”

Lino imagined himself going crazy for a taste of Frank Manzone’s wine while the women sipped hot chocolate and exchanged recipes, household hints, the details of their latest operations.

“Catherine?” he said. “I bet Catherine? You know anything about this, Nick?”

“What?” said Nicky.

“Where have you been?” demanded Lino.

“Right here,” said Nicky, though in fact he’d been lost in the final act of Gluck’s
Iphigenia,
watching Agamemnon sacrifice his beloved daughter for the good of his navy, and longing to stay there, where he would never have to face the fact that
his
father had lost Catherine in a pinochle game.

“It’s not so terrible.” Joseph replaced the cleaver and slid back into his chair. “I’m talking about marriage, a regular church wedding, everything on the up-and-up. No one will ever have to know what happened. The story will stop at that door. Let’s drink to it.”

Lino took a sorrowful pull on his wine bottle.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll discuss it later. Tomorrow night, Santangelo, you and your mother come to the house for dinner. We’ll work it out. Tonight, let’s play pinochle.”

That night, as always, the Falconettis lost every hand. And yet as Lino had sensed from the start, things were different. That night, for the first time anyone could remember, Lino made no attempt to prolong the game. When his pockets were empty, he threw in his hand and walked home through the rain.

Despite her intention to wait till tomorrow, Catherine had run out to the newsstand just before it closed. Now, curled on her bed, she was reading about how Loretta Young’s father was killed in a freak tractor accident on the family dairy farm. Because of this early tragedy, Loretta had problems with men, and a “perfect” marriage had ended in divorce.

Just then, Catherine heard Lino coming upstairs and wondered if Loretta Young had been raised to listen for the menfolk at the end of the day, for the sounds which stopped conversations like an angel passing and cut through daydreams like the tolling of a knell. Could Loretta tell how the cows were milking from the rhythm of her father’s footsteps in the hall? Listening to Lino, and Nicky behind him, Catherine could almost count the radios which had come into the shop and the money gambled away at pinochle. Ordinarily the wine propelled Lino up, two steps at a time, like a much younger man. But tonight he waited on every rung. He was drunker than usual, or had lost more at cards. Something was different.

But she didn’t know how different it was till the footsteps stopped outside her room. At the first hesitant knock, Catherine slipped the
Silver Screen
into her nightstand and opened the door, as if it were perfectly normal for her father to knock on it late at night.

Swaying slightly from side to side, Lino blinked at her, his face expectant, slightly skeptical, as if she were the one who had knocked on
his
door. After a while he remembered his purpose, at least enough to say, “You cooking tomorrow? Company’s coming to eat.”