The Queen of the Big Time (23 page)

When I climb the steps to Elena’s porch, I hear one of the kids crying. I slip into the house and hear Elena comforting Assunta in the kitchen.

“Now, honey, we always told you the truth.”

“But I don’t have a mommy,” Assunta wails.

“You do have a mommy, she’s in heaven,” Elena promises her.

“Ellie Montagano said that it was wrong for you to marry my papa. She said that it would have killed my mother.”

I put down my purse and gloves and go into the kitchen. Elena has her hands on her hips, trying to reason with Assunta. For a moment, they look just like Mama and my sister Assunta arguing in the kitchen at the farm, and I have to remember where I am. “That is nonsense, Assunta.” I give her my handkerchief. “Now, stop crying.” Little Assunta is so much like her mother, fierce, proud, and never content. I’m sure she fished for the fight with Ellie Montagano.

“Look at me,” I say. “Your mama loved you. She was so excited for you to be born. But God decided He needed her in heaven.” Once I say this out loud, I realize how ridiculous it sounds. What does God need her up there for anyway? He needs another harp player, third angel from the left? But Assunta looks at me with interest, so I continue.
“And back here on earth, you were a tiny thing, and we were afraid you wouldn’t make it. Your aunt Elena took care of you from the first moment you were born. Now, would Ellie Montagano have a problem with that?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Okay, so here we all were, Aunt Elena, Aunt Roma, Aunt Dianna, your nonna, me—we were all looking out for you. And your papa saw what a good mother Aunt Elena was, even though she did not have any of her own children then. He saw that and loved her for it. Then they got married. And you were there, at the wedding.”

“I was just a little girl, right?”

“Right. There is nothing wrong with Aunt Elena taking care of you and your papa and your sister, Aurelia, and your brother. Understood?”

Assunta nods.

I look up at Elena. “And are you going to be okay?” She nods too.

I grab my purse and gloves and go back outside. I remember that the Montaganos live on Cemetery Road, so I head in that direction. As I walk, I begin to fume. Rosetans can be warm and delightful, but at the same time, their rigidity and judgments are sickening. Six-year-old Ellie did not make up this scurrilous gossip, she heard it somewhere. Her mother, Isidora, used to work for me at the mill and is known to carry more stories than
The Saturday Evening Post
. I don’t care who she talks about, as long as it’s not my family. I knock on the door at 17 Cemetery Road.

“Is your mother home?” I ask a girl with jet-black ringlets.

“Yeah.” She chews gum and turns and hollers, “Mama, there’s a lady here.”

Then the girl runs off, leaving me on the porch. Isidora comes to the door. At the mill, she never struck me as bright and she was never on time, two characteristics that still run up my spine.

“How are you, Nella?” she says, smiling. Isidora is small and round, like a bobbin. “Would you like to come in?”

“No, no, I would not.”

This gets her attention. “You seem upset about something.”

“My niece Assunta is home crying because of something your daughter said to her.”

“I can’t imagine it. What?”

“She passed a comment about my sister Elena marrying Alessandro.”

“That’s terrible,” Isidora says.

“I’m glad you think so.”

“You know, sometimes Ellie hears things at school. It’s too bad that your sister Assunta died the way she did, but people will talk. And Elena and Alessandro did marry rather quickly. There really wasn’t a proper period of mourning. I’m sure that’s all that was said.”

“That was five years ago, and you’re still talking about this?” I was aware of the gossip at the time, but disregarded it. There is always a story going around Roseto, and if you’re in the middle of it, you hope that it will soon pass. Usually, it does.

“It’s just that the children all go to school together. It comes up. You know, in light of Alessandro and Elena’s natural children.”

“Look, Isidora. When you worked for me at the mill you had the loosest lips in the lunchroom. I’m sure ‘the children’ have nothing to do with this vicious gossip, and you can consider this a warning. If I hear another crass comment about my sister coming from anyone in your family, you will have me to deal with. Understood?”

“You’re being ridiculous.” Her eyes narrow.

“And you hide behind children to spread your nasty stories. If I have something to say, I say it.” I turn to go down the steps.

“You Castellucas, who do you think you are? A bunch of farmers,” she sneers from behind the screen door. “Big boss lady. Big deal.”

I smile; if this is the worst thing she can say about me and mine, that’s fine with me. “Remember what I told you,” I say without turning around to look at her again. “I mean what I say.”

What I will always remember about Anthony and Chettie’s wedding day is not the beautiful bride, the handsome groom, or the church festooned in white carnations and yellow daisies on a sunny June morning, but rather the knock-down, drag-out fight that Anthony’s aunts had on the steps of Our Lady of Mount Carmel after the service.

Anthony’s family is so large, they filled up every seat plus the side aisles and took over the choir loft as well as their side of the church. One of his aunts felt slighted, as she had to sit in the back pew. When her rival sister-in-law came down the aisle at the recessional, having sat in the second row, she made a comment. They had words, which were thankfully lost on the crowd because of the organ music, but once they got outside, the fight escalated. One pushed the other down the stairs, and fists, purses, and feathered hats flew. Chettie did the right thing, ignored them, and proceeded in Anthony’s borrowed Cadillac convertible to Pinto’s Hall for the reception.

“Didn’t the pictures turn out nicely?” Chettie says as she shows them to me over lunch. The cool breezes of autumn have come to Roseto, but the sun is warm. Chettie and I love the fresh air, so we eat outside instead of in the lunchroom that Mr. Jenkins built for the workers.

“They’re beautiful. And look, you can’t see Aunt Rosa’s black eye.” I point to the group photo of the Marucci clan.

“Somebody said the fight was good luck. But of course, everything is good luck on a wedding day: rain, sun, left hooks.” Chettie grins. “I sure hope so, because I’m gonna need all the luck I can get.”

“Why’s that?”

“Nella, I’m having a baby.”

“Oh my God!” I give Chettie a big hug, knowing this is something she has wanted. It’s fast too, as Anthony and she have only been married three months.

“I hoped you and I would have our children together,” she says.

“Somebody has to be first,” I say. “And I’m glad it’s you.”

“Do you think Franco will pop the question soon?”

“I don’t know. You know I’m not one of those girls who sits around hoping for a diamond. I figure it will happen when it happens.”

“Somebody saw him at Steckel’s.” Chettie raises her eyebrow just as Franco comes down the steps carrying his toolbox.

“What are you girls talking about?” he asks. I still marvel at his height, his strong arms and neck. I could watch him repair equipment for hours.

“You.”

“Nella!” Chettie is horrified.

“Really?” Franco throws his toolbox in the back of the truck.

“Somebody saw you at Steckel’s. Were you jewelry shopping?” I ask him.

“Nella, I can’t believe you!” Chettie is stunned at my candor.

“I was getting my watch fixed.” Franco gets into his truck. “I’m going to Jersey. I’ll pick you up around seven.” He starts the engine, waves to us, and pulls out of the parking lot onto Slate Belt Boulevard.

“What’s the matter with you? You’ll ruin his surprise!”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“But what about romance?”

“Oh, there’s romance. Don’t worry about that.”

The bell rings to call us back in from lunch. I watch Chettie go back to finishing; she’ll have the baby, her mother will watch it during the day, and she’ll continue to work. For all the girls in Roseto, our mothers are built-in help; and if we’re really lucky, the nonnas live with us too, so there’s an extra set of hands and eyes to help raise the children. The mill hours are built around the children. We start in the mornings by seven and finish by four, in time to be with the little ones after they’ve come home from school.

I dream about a home of my own, and as often as not, I imagine a big, rambling Victorian on Garibaldi with lots of furniture and a big kitchen and one tenant: me. I love Franco, but marriage seems like another job on top of the work I do at the mill. I won’t be able to hold
Franco off forever, but I love these days that are filled with dinner dates, long drives, and endless conversation instead of obligations.

On the way to Easton to see the new Norma Shearer picture,
A Free Soul
, I tell Franco Chettie’s news. He is happy for them, but doesn’t say much. I think his reaction is odd. Maybe he’s angry with me for talking about him with Chettie, and maybe my mention of Steckel’s embarrassed him. He probably
was
getting his watch fixed.

Franco settles me in my seat in the theater and goes for popcorn. I look around at the couples there for the show and wonder how many of them will marry, and if they do, whether they will be happy. Working at the mill gives me my own money, and I wonder whether I’d be a little more anxious to get married if I didn’t have a job. Why don’t I crave a wedding day and the title of wife like all the other girls? Some cannot wait, grabbing the first boy that suits them, and others are destroyed when they’re not chosen. I’ve never seen a happy old maid in Roseto. There is always a bitterness, an undercurrent of anger at getting stuck in the house they grew up in, caring for the older parents and looking out for their nieces and nephews. I’m sure when they look at the children they wonder what might have been. Why don’t I? Perhaps my heart never mended from Renato. I compare Franco with him in big ways and in small details. They are very different, but Renato always has the advantage. It’s a fact Franco cannot compete with: Renato was my first love.

Franco slides down in the seat next to me and gives me a sack of fresh popcorn smothered in butter, just as I like it. I feel guilty for thinking about Renato when I’m out with Franco, so I give him a kiss on the cheek. He turns to me and kisses me on the lips tenderly. I guess he’s not angry at me about teasing him at the mill.

The newsreel shows President Roosevelt and a team of workers from the WPA building a bridge outside Washington, D.C. I know people are suffering, but somehow I feel not only blessed but oddly detached. There is nothing about the Depression that I haven’t lived already. During the boom years, we were on the farm struggling,
sometimes barely surviving. We were alone then in our despair, and now we are alone in our prosperity.

The story of
A Free Soul
is dark and complex. Clark Gable plays a gangster. Lionel Barrymore is the lawyer who gets him off a rap. Norma Shearer plays Lionel’s daughter, a flapper who falls for Clark Gable. The father, who’s a lush, is bereft when his daughter goes for a gangster.

“Get ready. This is the best scene,” Franco whispers.

“Have you already seen it?” I whisper back.

He nods that he has. That’s odd. He came all the way to Easton to see the show and now he’s back? Who did he see it with the first time, and why would he see it again?

Clark Gable is telling Norma Shearer in no uncertain terms that she is his woman; she resists him but then tells him that she loves him and that nothing will keep them apart. Franco reaches to hold my hand. He threads his fingers through mine. Then I feel something cold on my ring finger. He has slid an engagement ring onto my hand! I look down at the emerald-cut diamond and squeal with delight.

“Shhh,”
the patrons behind me say. I lean over and kiss Franco. He puts his arm around me and holds me close. We slide down in the seats and kiss.

“Will you have me?” he whispers.

“Yes, I will,” I tell him. I want to build a future, and as I sit here with Franco, I believe he is the man with whom I want to share my life and work.

On the drive home, I sit close to Franco and rub the back of his neck as he drives. I check the ring over his shoulder. It is a beauty, catching the headlights of the cars in the other lanes as they pass. “You know, you didn’t really ask me.”

“Ask you what?” Franco says innocently.

“Don’t get fresh. You didn’t ask me to marry you.”

“Will you marry me?”

“I don’t like your tone.”

“Will thou marry me?”

“Better. It sounds like Yeats.”

“Thank you. So, when do you want to get married?” Franco asks.

“How about the spring?”

“How about tomorrow? We’ll go up to Sailor’s Lake and get a justice of the peace to marry us.”

“Catholics don’t elope,” I remind him. “Good Catholics, anyway.” As soon as I say it, I realize the irony.

“My aunt Serafina DeMarco eloped.”

“She doesn’t count. She had to.”