The Queen of the Big Time (22 page)

“You wouldn’t mind me old and wizened?”

“Not at all.”

“Why? Are you saying you would take me any way you could get me?”

He doesn’t answer. He looks off and thinks about the question, and I see that he thinks deeply. Maybe his process is not profound or cultivated, and he hasn’t been to a fancy school (like most of the Roseto boys, he’s probably only been through the third grade), but he analyzes things in a way that all sharp minds do. I can see that. He looks at me. “I go on chemistry. You know I have to fix machines all day, and I’ve learned that even a machine has a personality. There is a way to handle it to get it to work. And people aren’t much different. It’s a process of figuring out what someone needs and giving it to them.”

“That would make you happy?”

“Oh yeah. That
is
happiness. I wouldn’t take you any way I could get you. I wouldn’t want to be with you unless you loved me. I’m not the kind of guy who wants to be with a girl who doesn’t want me. But I also see that you’re wrong about me. You think I’m simple.”

“I never said that.”

“Why else would you hold on to a guy who is gone? The only thing he has that I don’t have is an education.”

“I don’t have one either.”

“You don’t need one. You could teach professors a thing or two.”

“You think so?” I haven’t thought about school in a long time. As the months and years go by, I think about it less and less, like it’s an old dream, one that when you look back, you don’t remember wanting it as much as you thought you did.

“It’s so funny. You may not think I’m smart enough for you, but what I admire most about you is your mind. What sixteen-year-old girl gets made forelady in a mill? You’re the first, you know.”

“You really pay attention.”

“When I’m interested. And why not? There’s the surface and then there’s what’s underneath. What’s underneath is what is true.” Franco unwraps a delicate sandwich and gives it to me. I take a bite.

The fire spits orange sparks out onto the edge of the ice. The flames can see their own reflections before they sputter out against the cold. I bury my glass in a clump of snow, then take Franco’s glass and do the same. I take his sandwich from him and wrap it in the cloth napkin, setting it aside. I move over onto his lap and put my arms around his neck.

“I’ve made my decision,” I tell him.

“And?”

“And I want you to keep reading to me.”

I bury my face in his neck, remembering when I walked to Roseto Manufacturing Company for my first day of work. I remember knowing that I would never return to school. Just as I let go of that dream, in this cold night, I let go of Renato. I cannot keep my heart locked for the rest of my life, for a man who did not even have the courage to tell me good-bye. It is better to be with someone who cares about me than to pine for someone who does not.

“Can we take things slowly?”

“Whatever you say.” Franco kisses me, and this time I am not taken by surprise. This time I’m ready for him.

CHAPTER NINE

F
ranco’s mother is now the happiest woman in the world, second only to my mother. It isn’t because April 1931 is the most glorious ever, so warm that the gardens of Roseto have already burst into full bloom. Mrs. Zollerano is happy because her son Franco is in love. She tells me that she prayed to Saint Theresa every day that I would see the light. My mother is convinced that her prayers to Saint Ann brought us together.

Once I gave in to the idea of being with Franco, I quickly saw the many pluses: he is a good man from a good family on Garibaldi Avenue. My girlhood dreams have not all been lost; fragments of them have become real. I left Delabole farm for the place I longed to be. When I marry Franco, we will live in town. I will have my own home and still be near my family.

There is one problem. As I climb the steps to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, I know that Father Impeciato will have the answer. Between the hours of three o’clock and five o’clock in the afternoon on Saturdays, he hears confession. There is a long line the weeks before Easter, as parishioners have a deadline: all good Catholics must make
a full confession before the resurrection. But now Easter is over, and the pews are empty again. I see the red light is on on the priest’s side of the confessional, which means Father Impeciato is inside. The curtain is drawn open on the sinner’s side. I look around the church, and except for Mrs. Stampone, who changes the altar linens, it is empty. I slip into the booth and pull the curtain.

I make the sign of the cross and say the opening prayer. The last time I was at confession was two weeks ago. The sin I am about to confess is one I have never mentioned in the booth before.

“Father, I am in love with a nice boy, and I need your advice.”

“Go ahead,” Father Impeciato says.

“There is something in my past that I did that might be a problem. I don’t believe what I did was a sin, because if I thought it was, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“There are many definitions of sin, as you know.”

“The catechism is pretty clear on this one, Father.”

“Which particular sin do you refer to?”

“Intimate relations. I made love to a boy once five years ago. And he left. I intended to marry him, but that was not to be. Now I’m in love with a different man.”

“Any prior indiscretion would not impede you from marriage now—” Father begins.

“I disagree with the word ‘indiscretion.’ As I said, I wanted to do what I did. I had full knowledge of the consequences, and I did it anyway. Right and wrong is not why I’m here, Father.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Must I tell the young man I’m with now that I’m not a virgin?”

There is such a long silence, I wonder if Father Impeciato has gone to sleep or left the booth to stretch his legs. I put my ear up to the screen, and I can hear him breathing, so he must be thinking. As I kneel, I lean back on my calves and relax a little. Apparently this could take awhile. What a strange ritual this is: admitting secrets in a closet to a man who can’t see you.

“I do not believe you should tell the young man what happened.”

“Really?” This marks the first time I’ve ever smiled in a confessional. This was the answer I was hoping for.

“What good would come of it? He would surely have a problem with it, any man would. This young man, is he Italian?”

“Yes, Father, and Catholic.”

Father breathes a sigh on the other side. Part of his job and mission from the diocese is to woo back the Italian immigrants who converted to Presbyterianism when Roseto was founded years ago. I can tell he doesn’t want to come down too hard on me now, for fear I will flee to the pretty little church at the other end of Garibaldi.

“Marriage will be a new beginning for you. Fornication is a sin, make no mistake about it …”

I remember Renato and the sad day his father died, and the tenderness between us, and what it meant to me to be close to him. Father Impeciato’s words have nothing to do with that day, but I’m smart enough to know that you don’t argue with a priest.

“…  but it sounds like you have lived a chaste life since.”

“I would say so, Father.” I feel no need to confess the nights Franco and I spend at the pond pitching woo. I’ve never gone as far with Franco as I did that night with Renato, but I don’t believe these details are any of Father Impeciato’s business.

“Then keep the knowledge to yourself.” He launches into the prayer of forgiveness; the Latin tumbles out of him effortlessly, and I listen, but my mind is elsewhere. Talking about Renato, even in these vague terms, makes the memories so clear. Maybe it’s the darkness of this booth that helps me see my past clearly. I will always love Renato, and maybe that’s a bigger sin toward Franco than the loss of my virginity. But I have flummoxed Father Impeciato enough today.

“Go and sin no more,” he says through the screen.

“I’ll do my best, Father.”

“A man wants to marry a virgin because he wants to know his wife has moral character.” Chettie takes a bite of panini, a thin sandwich of prosciutto and butter between crusts of soft bread.

“A man wants a virgin because he doesn’t want the competition. If she knows another man, she might start comparing.” I pour each of us a cup of coffee from my thermos. “And what about the moral character of men? Do you ever wonder why it is acceptable for a man to spend the night in Hellertown carrying on and carousing with the local girls, but if we did the same thing with their men, we’d be hussies?”

Chettie shakes her head. “What’s the big deal to wait for your wedding night?”

“It seems silly to me.”

“What would your parents say?”

“What do you think?” I dip anisette toast into my coffee. “I can’t talk to them about such things.”

“I won’t do it because I’m afraid I’d burn in hell. When Anthony tries, I remind him of the black pit with the flames in the window of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and what happens to frisky young men. They fry like pork fat for all eternity.”

“Do you think that God knows the day you get married?”

“Of course He does. It’s a sacrament.”

“Oh, so you think He keeps a log up there and knows the exact moment you get your ring.”

“It’s a matter of faith, so yes, I think He knows.”

“I don’t think He knows or cares.”

Chettie’s eyes widen at such talk. “Cripes, Nella. You aren’t a very good Catholic.”

“I’m nowhere near as good as you.”

“Why do you bother going to church?”

“It’s not like I don’t believe in right and wrong. And I like the Mass, I like the routine of it, the music, the church when it’s filled with gold light through the stained-glass windows. I like the incense and Holy
Communion. And it’s important. If I’m going to be a forelady and live in Roseto, I have to be part of the church.”

“That’s true. They like a churchgoer around here.”

“They don’t need to know that when I kneel in prayer I follow my own heart, or that I trust my own conscience as much as I trust a priest or a bishop.”

“When you put it that way it doesn’t sound so bad.”

“I don’t think people should run around blaspheming and fornicating—but there’s a difference between that and caring about someone and showing it.”

“It’s just better if you’re married. You’re safe then. The man can’t leave you,” Chettie says with authority.

It’s the first thing she’s said regarding intimate relations that makes some sense. Only a girl like me who’s actually been left by a man would know how true that sentiment is.

I’ve never told Chettie about what happened with Renato. She was a big help when he left, but I never told her why I was so distraught. I suppose it would have been easier to get over him had we not crossed the line. When we made love, everything changed for me. It wasn’t puppy love; it became a sort of devotion. Maybe that’s why it has taken five years for me not to feel sick when I think of him.

I wish I could tell Chettie what making love was like. It didn’t seem like I had fallen off the earth into an abyss of sin. I even longed to repeat that night, but alas, Renato would not, probably because he already knew he had no intention of marrying me.

“…  you agree, right? It’s better if you’re married,” Chettie persists.

“Whatever you say.”

“You and Franco?”

“Not yet.”

She exhales a sigh of relief. “Good. Because if Anthony ever found out, I would never make it until June first, believe me. All he’d have to hear is that Zollerano and Castelluca were having at it, and that’s all the encouragement he’d need to put the final pressure on me.”

“It’s right for you to wait for your wedding night. So wait.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but if you’re smart, you’ll wait too. Italian men are hypocrites. They beg for it, but they really don’t want us to do it. If we gave in, they would hold it against us for the rest of our lives.”

“Italian men are big babies. They want what they want when they want it.”

“Well, Anthony will just have to wait.”

I think about my lunch with Chettie as I walk home from work. I decide to take the route up Chestnut Street, because when I walk up Garibaldi, Mrs. Zollerano is waiting on the porch for a chat. Sometimes I’m there the better part of an hour hearing all the Roseto gossip. Tonight I want to soak in a hot bath and go to bed early.