The Queen of the Big Time (15 page)

The night after Assunta died is the biggest snowstorm that anyone in Roseto can remember. Mama wants to hold her wake at the farm, but Father Impeciato advises that we cancel the viewing and just have a funeral Mass in church. Everyone within walking distance braves the blizzard, so Assunta has a full church.

Mama hasn’t shed a tear. It is Papa who is destroyed, though Elena thinks that Mama is in shock. We open Alessandro’s most recent letter to Assunta, which gave his itinerary for his trip home to Roseto. We consider sending Alessandro a telegram on the ship, but decide against it. The news of Assunta’s passing would be too devastating coming in a letter, so it is decided that Papa will meet him in Philadelphia and tell him in person, hopefully allowing Alessandro time to adjust to the shock of it before he meets his daughter for the first time.

We call the little one Bambina. I tell Mama that Assunta wanted to name her Celestina, but Mama won’t hear of it. She thinks Alessandro should name his daughter, so we wait for him to make a final decision.

I have gone back to work in the factory, and Elena stays home with the baby. Elena is a good substitute mother. Somehow we’ve all been less worried about Papa and the farm with a new baby in the house. We hope once Alessandro comes home, everything will get better, so Elena’s salary is a sacrifice we can make for now.

The baby is very cranky and sleeps in spurts. Elena feeds her with a cup and dropper when the wet nurse is not available. Carmella has a sister, Beatrice, who was weaning her son, and she has come to feed the baby twice a day. Beatrice is not good-tempered like Carmella, and considers her charity to us a real sacrifice. Elena doesn’t think that Beatrice gives Bambina much milk anyway. The baby seems more satisfied with the cow’s milk that Elena gives her.

“What is that?” I ask Elena as she warms milk for the baby.

“It’s some rice powder.” Elena stirs the mixture. “You know, cereal.”

“Can the baby take that?”

“She loves it. Just a little bit, though.”

I take off my work shoes and socks and put them by the fireplace to dry. I stretch out on the floor near the warmth. “How did this happen, Elena?”

“Are you talking about Assunta?”

“All of it.” I roll over on my side and look into the flames as they crackle on the dry wood.

“I don’t know. We have to thank God the baby survived.”

“I know.”

“I can’t imagine the world without her in it.” Elena sits down in the rocker as she holds the baby. “What do you think will happen when Alessandro comes back? Do you think he’ll let me take care of the baby?”

“Somebody has to.”

“I really want to.” She kisses the baby tenderly.

“You must tell him that.” I sit up and watch Elena rock the baby. “He’s going to be so devastated.” I imagine Papa telling Alessandro the news and close my eyes, as it is too painful to think about.

“Doesn’t it all seem like a dream?” Elena says softly. “She was gone in a moment.”

“And you know, all my life I wanted her to go.” At long last, I say my innermost thought aloud.

“Don’t say that,” Elena says quietly.

“No, I did. No sense lying about it now. But then, when I came here to help her with the chores, I started to see her in a different way. I saw how she loved her husband and her home, and how she just wanted everything to be nice. It was hard for her all those years on the farm, working outside, doing chores that men should do. She hated it, and yet she did what she was told. Maybe she didn’t have a sweet disposition, but she always did her duty.”

“Yes, she did.” Elena holds the baby close.

“When she died, I felt like I saw her for the first time. Assunta’s face in repose was so gentle. She was beautiful, and I never saw her that
way. Why is it that I learn everything too late?” I roll onto my back and look at the ceiling.

“You’re only fifteen.”

“Almost sixteen. Mama had Assunta when she was sixteen.”

“So maybe you’re not wise yet. You’re other things.” Elena looks at the baby. “She’s just like her.”

“What do you mean?”

“The baby. She’s just like Assunta. She struggles with everything.”

“You can tell already?”

“Mama says that people come to be as they are the day they’re born.”

“Is that true?”

“We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.”

The creak of the rocker and the crackle of the fire are all we hear. This house has become home to us, despite all the sadness. Maybe the place where you feel that you’re building something is home. There is a knock at the front door. I get up to answer it.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” says the small man who stands in the doorway. He has short gray hair and a white mustache. And I recognize his deep blue eyes. Renato has them too. I’ve seen Mr. Lanzara from a distance at Mass, and when I pass his barbershop on Garibaldi, but we’ve never formally been introduced. “You’re Nella?” he asks.

“Yes, sir. Please come in.”

“No, no, I don’t want to bother you at suppertime. I am simply acting as a mailman for my son, Renato. I have a letter from him for you.”

“Thank you.” Mr. Lanzara hands me a pale blue envelope, just like the ones Mama gets from her family.

“Renato is with my sister in Connecticut,” he explains. “I send him the newsletter from church each week, and he saw the announcement about your sister.”

“Thank you.” I force the words out, though I am nearly speechless with surprise.

Mr. Lanzara graciously says good-bye and goes. I look down at my
bare feet and sigh. I’m never at my best when meeting Lanzaras, it seems. I take the letter back into the living room and sit down by the fire. Elena has taken the baby upstairs, so I have a moment alone. I open the back flap of the pale envelope carefully.

Carissima Nella
,

I am sorry to hear the terrible news about your sister Assunta. Papa wrote that you have a new niece, which must give you great joy amidst your grief. Please tell your father and mother that I am praying for them, as I am for you and your sisters, and the new baby. I can tell you that it is very hard to grow up without a mother. My heart breaks for your niece, because she will be searching her whole life for the love that has been denied her. I still have many moments in the day when I long for my mother, for her affection and advice. This need does not lessen with age. But aunts and uncles and grandparents can help fill the void. The baby will need a close circle around her, and I know you will be an invaluable part of that circle. I wish I could be there to be of some help to you. I trust you are working hard in school. Don’t forget what I told you on the Ferris wheel, for I meant it with all my heart
.

Your Renato

I reread the last line of the letter over and over again. So little has changed for him since last summer. But for me, nothing will be the same.

Mr. Albanese was right: I’m pressing double the bundles I did when I began. I don’t like the work any more than I did on the first day, but I do take pride in mastering my job. I have stayed after work to learn how to operate a new machine. Elmira has been pleased with my progress, and soon I’ll be a collar setter, considered to be one of the hardest jobs in the factory. And I often pick up a little extra money doing piecework.

Each worker is paid by the bundle. We get a penny per bundle, if
we complete our task perfectly. If a girl is fast and diligent, she can earn a nice paycheck. The best machine operators have a second language with their machines; the foot pedals and the knee pedals are extensions of their bodies. The best workers never talk, stop, or stretch. They keep their eye on the needle and stitch and pull, stitch and pull, until their bin is empty.

Our factory operates on an assembly line. The fabric is draped, measured, and cut according to a pattern on the cutting table in a workroom attached to the main floor. In the cutting process, large bolts of fabric are unwound off a giant wheel and layered back and forth, making a multilayered base. The pattern, made of sheer parchment, is laid on the fabric and pinned to the top layer. Every inch of the fabric is used. On the cutting table, it almost looks like a map has been laid on top of the fabric. Then an overhead blade cuts each layer of fabric according to the pattern. These shapes become the parts of a blouse: the front, the back, the sleeves, the collar, the facing. These pieces are bundled by the dozen and tagged, then delivered to the bins, where the machine operator sews the pieces together. The more she sews, the more she makes.

These bundles are passed along through the factory, with each worker performing a particular task until all the pieces are sewn together and become a blouse.

“Nella, Mr. Jenkins wants to see you in his office.” Elmira checks her clipboard.

“What for, if I may ask?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know everything that goes on around here.”

Liar, I think as I make my way to the front office. A bookkeeper with a short blond bob types as I tell her why I’m stopping in. All the girls who work in the factory have cut their hair into the latest style, not because we’re out boozing it up with the flappers over in Easton come Saturday night, but because it’s easier to operate a machine without a pompadour or braids to get in the way. “You can go in.” The bookkeeper motions.

Mr. Jenkins is a tall, slim man with a trace of a Welsh accent. He seems to like the Italians, though. The workers think Mr. Jenkins is a good boss, but I’ve never met an employee who’s had any real affection for the person he or she works for—it’s a job, and it’s always obvious who stands to gain the most in the exchange.

“Miss Castelluca?” He looks up from his work. He has a thin face with a weary expression and clear brown eyes. “I’m losing a forelady.”

“Who?” I am surprised.

“Miss Clements. She’s getting married.”

“But why is she quitting?” I ask.

Mr. Jenkins gives me a puzzled look. “Her husband won’t let her work. So, I need a smart girl in her place. I understand you just turned sixteen.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s awfully young for a forelady.” He taps his pencil on the desk and looks out the window. “But I don’t have anybody else. We’ve all been watching you and you’re the obvious heir apparent.”

I don’t mean to, but I laugh. “Heir apparent” is such a strange term to use for an uneducated farm girl and not a blood relative to the factory owners.

“Something funny?” Mr. Jenkins looks over his glasses.

“Just a little, sir. If I were your heir, I don’t think I would be running the steam hose in the pressing department.” Everyone knows Jenkins’s children live in a nice house over the New Jersey state line and attend fancy boarding schools.

He smiles. “No, you wouldn’t. Not that it would hurt any of my children to work. But that’s not how it is anymore. Not like when I was a boy.”

I imagine Mr. Jenkins working in a factory. I don’t quite believe it. He is too refined to come from common laborers, and his soft hands give him away. “How much are you going to pay me as forelady?”

He seems surprised that I asked. “Twenty cents an hour. And a
bonus of one penny per bundle that you produce in your department.”

“Why only twenty cents an hour? Miss Clements makes thirty-five.”

“How do you know that?”

“She saved exactly enough for her wedding reception at Pinto’s Hall by working for two months. She told me, and I did the math.”

“You’re an odd duck, Miss Castelluca.” He stands up, but I know that is only a ploy to make me back down from the salary figure I named. He said it himself, he needs me, and if he needs me, I know he’ll pay. “Very direct.”

“I know, sir. I am also smart and fast, and I’ve figured out how to get better production off the floor or you wouldn’t be talking to me.”

“How? By giving all your coworkers a raise?” He laughs nervously.

“Eventually. But first, I believe you need to reconfigure the machines. See, you have a mix of single, double, overlock, and blind-stitch machines on the floor. But you don’t have them in the order they are used in.”

“That’s because operators handle more than one machine.”

“But they shouldn’t. Use your fastest girls on collar settings and cuffs. The way you have it now, the best girls are sewing fronts and backs. Too easy. It only makes sense to give the fastest girls the hardest work. They’ll figure out how to do it better.”

Jenkins’s eyes narrow. “Okay, thirty-five cents an hour. And a penny a bundle.”

“A penny a bundle unless I hit one thousand bundles a week, then anything over a thousand, a nickel a bundle,” I reply.

He laughs again. “You’re crazy!”

“Do we have a deal?” I ask him. I used to watch Papa negotiate with the stores when he sold his milk and butter, and he would rather drive home with a carriage full of product then undersell himself. He used to say, “Better we drink the milk and eat the butter ourselves than give it away.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Castelluca.”

“I have to. I have a family to support and a new niece. I can’t monkey around. Every other week there’s another blouse mill going up in Roseto. I know what I’m worth. Do we have a deal?”