The Queen of the Big Time (2 page)

ZIA IRMA’S ITALIAN SPONGE CAKE
1
cup cake flour
6
eggs, separated
1
cup sugar
¼
teaspoon almond flavoring
¼
cup water
½
teaspoon salt
½
teaspoon cream of tartar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Sift the cake flour. Beat the egg yolks until lemon-colored. Gradually add the sugar. Blend the flour and almond flavoring in the water and add to the egg yolk mixture at low speed. Add the salt and cream of tartar. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they are frothy and stand in peaks. Fold the egg yolk mixture into the whites just until blended. Pour the batter into a 10-inch ungreased tube pan. Bake for one hour or until cake springs back when lightly touched in center. Let sit in inverted position until cool.

“Now. Is this good enough for your teacher?” Mama asks as she lifts the cake onto her best platter.

“It looks better than the cakes in the bakery window.” I’m sure
Mama knows I’m lying again. As nice as Mama’s cake is, I wish that we were serving pastries from Marcella’s, the bakery in town. There’s a pink canopy over the storefront and bells that chime when you push the front door open. Inside they have small white café tables with matching wrought-iron chairs with swirly backs. When Papa goes there and buys cream puffs (always on our birthdays, it’s a Castelluca tradition), the baker puts them on frilly doilies inside a white cardboard box tied with string. Even the box top is elegant. There’s a picture of a woman in a wide-brimmed hat winking and holding a flag that says
MARCELLA
’
S
. No matter how much powdered sugar Mama sprinkles on this cake to fancy it up, it is still plain old sponge cake made in our plain old oven.

“Is the teacher here yet?” Papa hollers as he comes into the house, the screen door banging behind him.

“No, Papa,” I tell him, relieved that she has not arrived to hear him shouting like a farmer. Papa comes into the kitchen, grabs Mama from behind, and kisses her. He is six feet tall; his black hair is streaked with white at the temples. He has a wide black mustache, which is always neatly trimmed. Papa’s olive skin is deep brown from working in the sun most every day of his life. His broad shoulders are twice as wide as Mama’s; she is not a small woman, but looks petite next to him.

“I don’t have time for fooling around,” Mama says to Papa, removing his hands from her waist. I am secretly proud that Mama is barking orders, because this is my important day, and she knows that we need to make a good impression. Roma and Dianna run into the kitchen. Elena grabs them to wash their hands at the sink.

“I helped Papa feed the horse,” Roma says. She is eight years old, sweet and round, much like one of the rolls in the bakery window.

“Good girl,” Mama says to her. “And Dianna? What did you do?”

“I watched.” She shrugs. Dianna is small and quick, but never uses her dexterity for chores. Her mind is always off somewhere else. She is the prettiest, with her long chestnut brown hair streaked with gold,
and her blue eyes. Because Dianna and Roma are only a year apart, and the youngest, they are like twins, and we treat them as such.

“Everything is just perfect.” I give my mother a quick hug.

“All this fuss. It’s just Miss Stoddard coming over.” Assunta, the eldest, is a long, pale noodle of a girl with jet-black hair and brown eyes that tilt down at the corners. She has a permanent crease between her eyes because she is forever thinking up ways to be mean.

“I like Miss Stoddard,” Elena says quietly.

“She’s nobody special,” Assunta replies. Elena looks at me and moves over to the window, out of Assunta’s way. Elena is very much in the shadow of the eldest daughter; then again, we all are. Assunta just turned nineteen, and is engaged to a young man from Mama’s hometown in Italy. The marriage was arranged years ago; Assunta and the boy have written to each other since they were kids. We are all anxious to meet him, having seen his picture. He is very handsome and seems tall, though you really can’t tell how tall someone is from a photograph. Elena and I think the arrangement is a good idea because there is no way anyone around here would want to marry her. Assunta doesn’t get along with most people, and the truth is, most boys are scared of her. “Teachers are the same wherever you go. They teach,” Assunta grunts.

“Miss Stoddard is the best teacher I ever had,” I tell her.

“She’s the
only
teacher you ever had, dummy.”

She’s right, of course. I have only ever gone to Delabole School. For most of the last year, I’ve helped Miss Stoddard teach the little ones how to read, and when school is dismissed, she works with me beyond the seventh-grade curriculum. I have read Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë, and loved them all. But now Miss Stoddard believes I need more of a challenge, and she wants me to go to a school where I will learn with others my age.

Assunta leans on the table and eyes the cake. Mama turns to the sink. Papa has gone into the pantry, so Assunta seizes the moment and extends her long, pointy finger at the cake to poke at it.

“Don’t!” I push the platter away from her.

Assunta’s black eyes narrow. “Do you think she’ll be impressed with sponge cake? You’re ridiculous.” I don’t know if it’s the way she is looking at me, or the thought that she would deliberately ruin a cake for my teacher, or fourteen years of antagonism welling up inside of me, but I slap her. At first, Assunta is surprised, but then delighted to defend herself. She hits me back, then digs her fingernails into my arm.

Mama pulls me away from her. Assunta always ruins everything for me, but this is one day that cannot be derailed by my sister. “What’s the matter with you?” Mama holds on to me.

I want to tell my mother that I’ve never wanted anything so much as the very thing Miss Stoddard is coming to talk to them about, but I’ve made a habit of never saying what I really want, for fear that Assunta will find some way to make sure I don’t get it. Mama never understands, she can’t see what kind of a girl my sister really is, and demands that we treat each other with respect. But how can I respect someone who is cruel? My parents say they love each of us equally, but is that even possible? Aren’t some people more lovable than others? And why do I have to be lumped in with a sister who has no more regard for me than the pigs she kicks out of the way when she goes to feed them in the pen? Assunta is full of resentment. No matter what her portion might be, it is never enough. There is no pleasing her, but I am the only one around here who realizes this.

Elena, who hates fighting, hangs her head and begins to cry. Dianna and Roma look at each other and run outside.

“I should tell your teacher to go straight home when she gets here, that’s what I should do,” Papa says. Assunta stands behind him, smooths her hair, and smirks. She tells Papa I threw the first punch, so it is I who must be punished.

“Please, please, Papa, don’t send Miss Stoddard away,” I beg. I am sorry that I fell for Assunta’s jab, and that the whole of my future could be ruined by my impulsive nature. “I am sorry, Assunta.”

“It’s about time you learned how to behave. You’re an animal.” Assunta looks at Mama and then Papa. “You let her get away with everything. You’ll see how she ends up.” Assunta storms upstairs. I close my eyes and count the days until Alessandro Pagano comes from Italy to marry her and take her out of this house.

“Why do you always lose your temper?” Papa asks quietly.

“She was going to ruin the cake.”

“Assunta is not a girl anymore. She’s about to be married. You musn’t hit her. Or anyone,” Papa says firmly. I wish I could tell him how many times she slaps me with her hairbrush when he isn’t looking.

Mama takes the cake and goes to the front room.

“I’m sorry,” I call after her quietly.

“You’re bleeding,” Elena says, taking the
moppeen
from the sink. “It’s next to your eye.” She dabs the scratch with the cool rag and I feel the sting.

“Papa, you musn’t let her meet Mr. Pagano before the wedding day. He’ll turn right around and go back to Italy.”

Papa tries not to laugh. “Nella. That’s enough.”

“He has to marry her. He has to,” I say under my breath.

“They will marry,” Papa promises. “Your mother saw to it years ago.”

Papa must know that the deal could be broken and we’d be stuck with Assunta forever. Bad luck is wily: it lands on you when you least expect it.

Papa goes out back to wash up. I put the jar of jam back in the pantry. Elena has already washed the spoon and put it away; now she straightens the tablecloth. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine,” she says.

“I’m going to wait on the porch for Miss Stoddard,” I tell Mama as I push through the screen door. Once I’m outside, I sit on the steps and gather my skirts tightly around my knees and smooth the burgundy corduroy down to my ankles. The scratch over my eye begins
to pulse, so I take my thumb and apply pressure, something Papa taught me to do when I accidently cut myself.

I look down to the road that turns onto the farm and imagine Assunta in her wedding gown, climbing into the front seat of Alessandro Pagano’s car (I hope he has one!). He revs the engine, and as the car lurches and we wave, her new husband will honk the horn and we will stand here until they disappear onto Delabole Road, fading away to a pinpoint in the distance until they are gone forever. That, I am certain, will be the happiest moment of my life. If the angels are really on my side that day, Alessandro will decide he hates America and will throw my sister on a boat and take her back to Italy.

“Nella! Miss Stoddard is coming!” Dianna skips out from behind the barn. Roma, as always, follows a few steps behind. I look down the lane, anchored at the end by the old elm, and see my teacher walking from the trolley stop. Miss Stoddard is a great beauty; she has red hair and hazel eyes. She always wears a white blouse and a long wool skirt. Her black shoes have small silver buckles, which are buffed shiny like mirrors. She has the fine bone structure of the porcelain doll Mama saved from her childhood in Italy. We never play with the delicate doll; she sits on the shelf staring at us with her perfect ceramic gaze. But there’s nothing fragile about Miss Stoddard. She can run and jump and whoop and holler like a boy. She taught me how to play jacks, red rover, and checkers during recess. Most important, she taught me how to read. For this, I will always be in her debt. She has known me since I was five, so really, I have known her almost as long as my own parents. Roma and Dianna have run down the lane to walk her to our porch; Miss Stoddard walks between them, holding their hands as they walk to the farmhouse.

“Hi, Nella.” Miss Stoddard’s smile turns to a look of concern. “What did you do to your eye?”

“I hit the gate on the chicken coop.” I shrug. “Clumsy. You know me.”

The screen door creaks open.

“Miss Stoddard, please come in,” Mama says, extending her hand. I’m glad to see Miss Stoddard still has her gloves on; she won’t notice how rough Mama’s hands are. “Please, sit down.” Mama tells Elena to fetch Papa. Miss Stoddard sits on the settee. “This is lovely.” She points to the sponge cake on the wooden tray. Thank God Mama thought to put a linen napkin over the old wood.

“Thank you.” Mama smiles, pouring a cup of coffee for Miss Stoddard in the dainty cup with the roses. We have four bone china cups and saucers, but not all have flowers on them. Mama gives a starched lace napkin to her with the cup of coffee.

“Don’t get up,” Papa says in a booming voice as he enters the room. Papa has changed out of his old work shirt into a navy blue cotton shirt. It’s not a dress shirt, but at least it’s pressed. He did not bother to change his pants with the suspenders, but that’s all right. We aren’t going to a dance, after all, and Miss Stoddard knows he’s a farmer. I motion to Dianna and Roma to go; when they don’t get the hint, Elena herds them out.

Mama sits primly on the settee. Papa pulls the old rocker from next to the fireplace. I pour coffee for my parents.

Miss Stoddard takes a bite of cake and compliments Mama. Then she sips her coffee graciously and places the cup back on the saucer. “As I wrote you in the letter,” she begins, “I believe that Nella is an exceptional student.”

“Exceptional?” Papa pronounces the word slowly.

“She’s far ahead of any student her age whom I’ve taught before. I have her reading books that advanced students would read.”

“I just finished
Moby-Dick,”
I announce proudly, “and I’m reading
Jane Eyre
again.”

Miss Stoddard continues. “She’s now repeated the seventh grade twice, and I can’t keep her any longer. I think it would be a shame to end Nella’s education.” Miss Stoddard looks at me and smiles. “She’s capable of so much more. I wrote to the Columbus School in Roseto,
and they said that they would take her. Columbus School goes to the twelfth grade.”

“She would have to go into town?”

“Yes, Papa, it’s in town.” The thought of it is so exciting to me I can’t stay quiet. How I would love to ride the trolley every morning, and stop every afternoon after school for a macaroon at Marcella’s!

“The school is right off Main Street, a half a block from the trolley station,” Miss Stoddard explains.

“We know where it is.” Papa smiles. “But Nella cannot ride the trolley alone.”

“I could go with her, Papa,” Elena says from the doorway. She looks at me, knowing how much it would mean to me.

“We cannot afford the trolley twice a day, and two of you, well, that is out of the question.”

“I could walk! It’s only three miles!”

Papa looks a little scandalized, but once again, Elena comes to my rescue. “I’ll walk with her, Papa.” How kind of my sister. She was average in school and couldn’t wait to be done with the seventh grade. And now she’s offering to walk an hour each way for me.