The Queen of the Big Time (10 page)

The front field that goes from our house over the hill and down to Delabole Road is covered in white daisies. To make Mama feel better, we gather bunches each day and fill every old crock in the house with them. Flowers always seem to cheer her up. Alessandro and Assunta have moved out to the farm for the month that Papa will be in Easton Hospital. I don’t know what we would have done if Alessandro did not have a car. He takes Mama to and from the hospital three times a week, and often on Friday nights she sleeps in the chair in Papa’s hospital room to keep him company.

The doctor explained that the explosion shattered Papa’s right leg. He will have to wear a brace until the bones heal, and that could be many months. Papa will not be able to work the farm until next spring.
Alessandro has kept the farm going with all of our help. Sometimes I think he does a better job with the Hellertown contract than Papa, because he thinks of modern ways to economize. For example, Alessandro figured out a way to put a cooling tank in the springhouse. He arranged for the truck to come from the market in late afternoon, to take advantage of a second milking. He still needs Papa’s knowledge, though. When the equipment fails, Alessandro drives to Easton Hospital to ask Papa how to fix it.

“Can we wade in the creek?” Roma asks as she pours water into Moxie’s trough in the barn.

“It’s so hot out.” Dianna fans herself.

“Go ahead, but don’t stay out all afternoon,” I remind them.

“Just holler for us,” Roma yells over her shoulder as she races Dianna to the creek.

I follow them outside and watch them run. I pick up my book bag and go out to the old elm to do some reading. Miss Ciliberti gave me a reading list for the summer. I will begin the tenth grade in a few weeks, but with all that has been going on, I haven’t had a chance to read everything on the list. I did finish
Oliver Twist
, but I am having a hard time with
Julius Caesar
. I much prefer the sonnets of Shakespeare; the plays are more difficult for me. As soon as I settle in to read the play, I hear the honking of Alessandro’s horn.

Alessandro pulls up in front of the gate and jumps out of his car. “I have good news, Nella. Papa is coming home.”

“Come in the house. You must tell Mama.” I open the gate and we walk up to the porch. “Thank you for all you’ve done for us. We couldn’t have made it this summer without you.”

“You are my family now.” Alessandro smiles.

“Let me look at you,” Mama says as we line up for inspection before we climb into Alessandro’s car to go to Easton Hospital. “I want Papa to see us at our very best.” Mama has put her hair up and wears her navy blue dress. Before I get into the rumble seat, I hug her. She
smells of lavender cologne that her sisters sent from Italy; she only wears it on special occasions.

Assunta gets in last and sits next to her husband. This summer has been very hard on her. She thought for sure her farm days were over when she moved into Roseto. And although she has been crabby from time to time, for the most part, she has been patient.

“Mama, will we be able to go to the Big Time?” Dianna wants to know. Beginning this weekend Our Lady of Mount Carmel will be holding a weeklong celebration in honor of the Blessed Mother. It has earned the nickname “the Big Time” because there’s no greater celebration in Roseto. There is a carnival, tents filled with Italian delicacies lining Garibaldi Avenue on both sides, a clambake at the American Legion, a cakewalk in front of Tony’s Café, and games of chance. Of course, the booths pay rent to the church; any profits they make selling their wares, they can keep.

On Sunday there will be a solemn procession that begins with a rosary and the service of the Blessed Sacrament. This year, for the first time, there will be a queen, a lucky girl chosen from all the girls in Roseto, who will crown the statue of the Blessed Mother before the statue is carried down the street, followed by the priest and the people as they say the rosary.

“We’ll see, honey. It depends how Papa is feeling,” Mama tells her.

“Mama, I think for certain the girls will be attending the Big Time,” Alessandro says with a grin.

“Really?” Roma’s eyes widen.

“Someone has to help me in my stand.”

“You have a stand?” Dianna is thrilled.

“Well, I’m not just a farmer.” Alessandro laughs. “Remember, I sell nuts and candy, and everyone loves torrone, yes?”

The girls giggle. “Yes!” Torrone is a great delicacy, a white nougat candy made with sugar and nuts. At the carnival, it is sold by weight; the customer asks for a hunk and it is cut off a slab the size of a boulder.

“His family shipped the candy over from Italy. My living room is filled with it. We’ve got torrone, and chickpeas on strings, and red, white, and green ribbon candy,” Assunta says.

“Like the Italian flag!” Elena laughs.

“Wait until you see the stuff! If we sell it all we’ll make a good profit. Alessandro wants us all to work in the stand.” Assunta adds, “I hope you all will help.”

“Absolutely,” I promise her. After a summer working on the farm, I would love to go to town. There hasn’t been any time. I’ve wanted to catch up with Chettie, though I’ve heard her family is doing all right. It turns out that Chettie’s relatives in Philadelphia sent help, so at least they can stay in the house on Dewey Street. I am looking forward to September and getting back to school. I’ve missed Chettie terribly this summer.

“What are you thinking about?” Elena asks as we make the turn onto Easton Road to pick Papa up at the hospital.

“How the summer is almost gone.”

“It’s almost time for you to go back to school.”

“I can’t wait.”

“I’ll miss you. When you go to school, it seems like you don’t have much time for me. You have all your friends there,” Elena says.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel left out.” I wish I could explain to Elena what it is like to be with people who aren’t family. Life on the farm is so claustrophobic sometimes. It takes so long for news to reach us; and when I’m in town, there is an energy that crackles under the surface of everything, fueling my ambition. From the hum of the sewing machines when I visited Assunta at the factory, to the bells on the delivery trucks, to the shops busy with patrons, right down to the hometown newspaper,
Stella di Roseto
, there’s motion, and excitement, and a sense of possibility. “Maybe you can stay with Assunta once in a while,” I say. “We both will! And we can do things in town.”

Elena shakes her head sadly. “Mama needs me. And now, with Papa, she needs me even more.”

Alessandro parks the car close to the hospital entrance. One by one he helps us out of the old jalopy, extending his hand until all of the Castelluca girls, including his wife, are standing on the sidewalk. For one awkward moment, we all look to Mama. We haven’t seen Papa in a month; only Alessandro and Mama have come by regularly, and although Mama has given us detailed reports on Papa’s progress, we are afraid he won’t be the same. We follow Mama into the hospital. She goes right up to the nurse’s station. Miss Anderson, the same nurse who looked down on us a few weeks ago, is behind the desk. What luck that she will see us all again in our finest clothes.

“Miss Anderson?” Mama says to her.

The nurse turns and surveys us. This time she looks at us with approval. “Good afternoon.”

“We’ve come to collect Mr. Castelluca.”

“He’s all ready to go,” she tells us with a smile. We follow her through the doors to Papa’s room. The little ones enter first, followed by Elena and me, then Assunta, Alessandro, and finally Mama. Roma and Dianna run to Papa, who, dressed in a good shirt and trousers, stands up to greet them. He is shaky, but he finds his footing. He is much thinner, and his hair is now mostly white. The accident must have been a worse trauma than we knew. Papa has a crutch in his right arm. His leg is in a brace from ankle to thigh. Ribbons of leather buckled to a steel rod hold Papa’s leg in place. We gather around him, hugging and kissing him.

Papa looks at Alessandro. “This is why it’s best to have daughters.”

CHAPTER FOUR

S
ome Rosetans are superstitious, so if the Big Time celebration has good weather, this portends a prosperous year to all those who pray to the Blessed Lady. The opening night of the festivities is balmy, with a full moon so close, you’d swear you could touch it from the top of the Ferris wheel. The night sky is a clear, deep blue, a velvety backdrop for the twinkling lights that line the booths down either side of Garibaldi Avenue. There is much to do: games, rides, trinkets for sale, and Italian delicacies to sample like pizza fritta, puffs of hot dough doused in sugar.

The Bersaglieri Band of New York City, in their red plumed hats, march up the steps of the church and into formation. As they begin to play, the crowd at their feet grows. People seem to pour out onto the church plaza from everywhere—from the side streets, the parking lots, and off the trolley.

“We should do well tonight,” I tell Alessandro. I hope he makes lots and lots of money and that there’s not a crumb of torrone left.

“I hope so.” He smiles.

There is no way to thank Alessandro for his help to our family. I
doubt Papa will ever be able to do the work he once did. Alessandro has taken over all of Papa’s chores, including the most difficult job, plowing the field to collect the hay for the winter. Papa has always done the work with the horses and an old-fashioned plow, and used to be able to break an acre a day during harvesttime. Alessandro figured he could triple that with modern equipment, and went to the bank to borrow money to buy a tractor. Alessandro got the loan and bought a used Allis Chalmers tractor from 1918 from a farmer in nearby Flicksville.

We’re happy to be able to reciprocate in a small way for all Alessandro has done by helping him out in his booth. Assunta made us white cotton pinafores with an embroidered
P
on them, so everyone would know that we were working for Pagano’s Importing: Dried Fruit, Nuts & Candy Inc.

“Do you think there’s too much on the sign?” Alessandro asks as he hacks off a slice of torrone for a customer.

I look up at the red, white, and green sign that says PAGANO’S in swirly gold letters. “Nope. I think it looks very professional.” Our booth has the best spot on Garibaldi. We’re right across from the church steps at the top of the hill. No one will miss us.

The fire company sells delectable sausage and pepper sandwiches next door to us. We watch as the men work tirelessly over the open grills, basting the peppers and onions in olive oil, turning the sausage until it grills to a crispy brown, then taking a sheet of waxed paper, slicing a crusty roll open, filling it with the delicious mixture, and handing off the finished product to the customer. People come from miles around for the sausage and pepper sandwiches, and if the line outside their booth is any indication, they will run out of sausage before they run out of customers.

“There’s the queen.” Elena points to a pretty girl who walks through the crowd in a simple white linen chemise.

“That’s Michelina de Franco,” I tell her. “She graduated from
Columbus School in June.” Surely she was the prettiest girl in school, with her blond bob and soft blue eyes. The boys called her Venus de Milo because she’s a classic beauty. I think she looks a lot like the screen star Mae Murray, with her porcelain skin and Cupid’s-bow mouth. Michelina is also graceful and moves through the crowd with ease. She deserves to be the first queen of the Roseto Big Time.

“You know how she won, don’t you?” Assunta says quietly.

“She’s the most beautiful girl in Roseto?”

“No. She sold the most tickets. That’s how you win. You go door-to-door and raise money for the church and whoever sells the most tickets is the queen.”

“Hmm,” I think aloud. “Industriousness is more important than sheer beauty. That’s my kind of contest.”

“I don’t know what’s interesting about it. It’s a racket. A greedy parish priest looking to stuff the coffers shouldn’t determine who’s queen,” Assunta huffs.

Assunta is jealous of everybody. Michelina because she’s lovely, Father Impeciato because he’s powerful, and probably the Columbia Fire Company of the sausage and pepper stand because they have the longest line of customers. She’ll never be happy. Alessandro looks at me and winks. He knows. “Why don’t you girls take a break and go take a ride on the Ferris wheel?”

“We don’t have tickets,” Roma says sadly.

Alessandro fishes four yellow tickets out of his shirt pocket. “Now you do. You’ve been working hard all afternoon. Go.”

“Thank you!” Elena says, gathering up Roma and Dianna. She lifts the plank across the side of the stand and we file out. Assunta shoots her husband a dirty look, but before she can call us back to work, we are a part of the crowd, moving toward the line at the Ferris wheel.

“Assunta is in a nasty mood,” I say.

“She has good reason,” Elena replies.

“Don’t make excuses for her. Since the day she got married, she’s
been hiding her true personality. It’s as though she put a lid on a boiling pot of water and sat on it; now, after a few months of hiding it, the steam is about to blow.”