The Queen of the Big Time (11 page)

“She’s going to have a baby,” Elena says quietly.

“She is?” I am ashamed of my fresh mouth.

“I heard her tell Mama.” Elena motions for me to lower my voice so the little ones won’t hear what we’re talking about.

“Why hasn’t she told us?”

“She’s having a lot of pain and isn’t sure the baby will grow.”

“Why is she working? She’s been on her feet all day in the stand in the hot sun. That can’t be good for her.”

“They need the money,” Elena says as she steers us through the crowd. “She wants to keep the house on Dewey Street, and they have a mortgage, and since Alessandro spent the summer helping us on the farm, they are behind.”

“Why didn’t she tell us so we could help?”

“When has Assunta ever asked anyone for help?”

Elena holds Dianna’s hand and Dianna holds Roma’s as they get in the line to take a ride on the Ferris wheel. I follow them, looking around for Chettie. She hadn’t made it to the candy stand, but maybe I’ll run into her. I know she loves the rides.

The line for the Ferris wheel moves quickly. The carney who runs it pulls the large lever crank and stops the ride, depositing a couple out onto the ramp. He motions to Roma and Dianna, who run up the ramp and sit down in the swinging seat.

“This one’s too short without an adult.” He points at Roma.

“I’ll go with them.” Elena goes up the ramp. She puts Roma in the middle and then sits down with her arms around her. I motion to them to go ahead without me: there’s no room for a fourth person in the seat. Dianna and Roma hold hands as the carney snaps the bar shut.

“What about you?” Dianna shouts as the seat jerks up and over my head. I wave and smile at my sisters.

“Are you gonna go alone?” the carney asks me.

I climb up the ramp and sit alone in the seat. The carney goes to close the bar. I look at the line of ticket holders and see Renato Lanzara, smiling at me. I wave to him. “Wait a second,” I tell the carney. I can feel my cheeks flush a little as Renato comes up the ramp and joins me in the seat.

“I can’t fly over Roseto alone,” I tell him. The carney snaps the bar shut across us and pulls the giant lever, the Ferris wheel jerks, and we move up. I pat my hair, which Elena braided neatly. Then I remember the pinafore over my blouse and skirt. Why am I always wearing something childish when I see Renato? Why can’t I be prepared for once?

“Something wrong?” he asks.

I look at him. He is crisp and neat in a white shirt and beige linen trousers. His suspenders are striped red, white, and green, an homage to the Italian celebration, I’m sure. He is tanned,
bronzato
, Mama calls it. “I always look so silly when I see you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This pinafore. It’s childish.”

“I like it.”

“You’re just being nice.”

“No, really. I like it. What’s the
P
stand for?”

“Pagano. My brother-in-law’s candy company. We’re next to the sausage and peppers.” When I say this, I realize I must smell like them too. This is horrible. Nothing that ever happens to me in real life is like I imagine it. If I’d known I would be meeting Renato for a Ferris wheel ride, I would have worn a simple linen chemise, just like Michelina de Franco, and borrowed some of Mama’s lavender cologne instead of smelling like Roseto’s favorite sandwich.

“Sausage and pepper sandwiches are my favorite.”

“It’s a good thing.” I smooth my pinafore over my skirt. The ride begins to whirl around. I get butterflies in my stomach, so I grip the safety bar.

“Are you afraid?” Renato wants to know.

“Well, I don’t have wings, so if something goes wrong …”

Renato puts his arm around me; my insides begin to shake, and I know it’s not the ride, but the joy of being so close to him. As we whirl around, I can see my sisters’ feet overhead as we spin. I’m so glad they can’t see Renato and me. This isn’t a very good example for the little ones. I’m with a boy and haven’t asked Papa’s permission. But I don’t care: this is for me, and I don’t think in my whole life I have ever been this happy. Suddenly the Ferris wheel lurches to a stop. We’re suspended high in the air, the rooftops on Garibaldi Avenue look like stars below us in the moonlight as the hill descends into darkness. I’m a little afraid of the height, but more sad that the ride is half over.

“Look, you can see my sister’s roof on Dewey Street from here.” I point.

“How’s your father?” Renato asks. “He was so gracious to me when I came out for the hog killing.”

“We’re lucky. He’s walking much better.” Thoughts of Papa remind me to take Renato’s hand from around my shoulder and place it on his lap. I really shouldn’t be so close to a man without permission.

“The farm life is very hard. I don’t know if I could do it.”

The way Renato says this sounds condescending, so I am glad I just took his arm away. There is a part of me that understands how he feels. I would never have chosen to be born into a family of farmers. I wish my papa were a barber or a brick mason or a grocer. But Papa loves the land and his animals and my mother and a life away from the noise of town. He was raised on a farm in Foggia, and the land is what he knows. How can I explain this to an educated man? So instead of trying, I caustically reassure him, “I’m sure you’ll never have to, so don’t worry about it.”

Renato feels the chill of my comment. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“But you did, though I don’t hold it against you. See, I’m not a farmer either. I never liked the quiet and the chores as much as I
should have. I did them, I still do them, but as soon as I could read and saw what life was like for other people in other places, I began to judge what I came from. And you know, that’s not good. Because I can’t help what I am or where I come from.”

“You should never apologize for what you are.”

“I’m not.” I look out beyond the sparkling lights of Roseto and off into the inky black beyond the Blue Mountains. As much as I’m intimidated by Renato and his life experience, I’m equally inspired by it, so I always tell him what’s on my mind. I never feel like I have anything to lose. “I have a question for you.” I turn to face him.

The carney hollers up from the ground, “Folks, we’re stuck. Stay calm and don’t swing in the seats. We’ll get ’er cranked up shortly.”

I take the news from the carney below as an omen. I’m meant to spend a few extra moments with Renato. “Why do you disappear?”

“What do you mean?” he asks innocently.

“It seems like I see you, and then months go by before I see you again. Do I do something to offend you?”

“No. Not at all,” Renato says quickly.

“What is it then?”

“You’re too young for me, Nella.”

“I’m fifteen now.”

“I’m twenty-two. Now, you don’t seem fifteen—”

“Well, you seem every day of twenty-two.”

“—but you are fifteen. And it’s not right for me to court someone your age.”

“Because we haven’t been properly introduced? Because you haven’t spoken with Papa and asked his permission?” I am so sorry that I pointed out these things to him. Not only am I too young, but I know he would never compromise my reputation.

“It’s just the way it is,” he says simply.

“You seem to pick up and go out of town for months on end.”

“I went to Italy.”

“No, I know that. I mean other times. The rest of the time.” I don’t
want Renato to think that I’ve been monitoring his comings and goings, but I have. When I would come into town to help Assunta, I would ask around casually about Renato. He is a mystery man of sorts, no one seems to know what he does or where he goes. “Do you have a sweetheart?”

“Some.”

“More than one?”

“I’m a young man.” He shrugs.

“Not that young. My papa was married at twenty.”

He laughs again. “Does it bother you that I see lots of girls?”

“Why should it bother me?” I bury my hands in the pockets of my pinafore.

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you’re going to have girlfriends. Why wouldn’t you?” I look over the side of our seat, and my stomach flips. I won’t look down again, I decide.

“You’re very bold and you’re very honest,” Renato says without judgment.

“And you’re honest with me, which I appreciate. You’re right. I’m probably too young for you. But I wish I wasn’t.” How I wish I hadn’t said that. I sound like a silly girl for sure.

Renato reaches into my pocket and takes my hand. “That is something that will change.”

The way he looks at me makes me blush. He knows I won’t always be fifteen, and so do I. “That’s what Mama says. You can’t believe where your youth goes. How fast it slips away. It’s sugar in the rain.”

“Your mama is right.”

“So that’s why you put your arm around me,” I say aloud. “Because you put your arm around all the girls.”

“Not all the girls.”

“Some?”

“A few.”

“Good for you.” I look at him and smile. “Why shouldn’t you?”

He looks at me quizzically. “Usually I get slapped if I don’t make a girl believe she is the only one.”

“It’s always better to accept the truth.” I look away.

“You don’t compete with other girls?”

“For a boy?”

“For anything.”

“What good would that do? There is always someone more beautiful, more accomplished, and then someone backward, less intelligent. Why would I compare myself to anyone else?”

“All girls do.”

“Not me. That’s a waste of time. I have a sister who has spent her life complaining because she feels she never gets what she wants. She’s a true malcontent. She always thinks there’s somebody out there who has it better than she does. She can never say to another girl, ‘That’s a pretty dress you’re wearing,’ because she’s worried that her own dress isn’t pretty enough.”

“That’s how girls are. At least the ones I know.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” I tell him.

Renato looks out over Roseto and smiles. “You’re a rare one, Nella.”

“Well, sometimes I’d like to be more like everybody else. But I can’t. I think about things too much, and that’s not good. Being thoughtful is a curse.”

“Not if you value your intellect.”

“I do. I just wish I had … whimsy. That’s it. Whimsy. The ability to dance through life instead of trudging like a farmer.”

“Leave whimsy to the giggly girls. You don’t need it. You have brains and beauty, a rare combination.”

“Why do you think I’m beautiful?” I’m not playing the coquette. I really want to know what Renato Lanzara finds beautiful.

“Let’s see.” Renato takes my face in his hands and looks at me clinically. “You have a good nose. It’s straight. And the freckles from the sun …”

“My mother won’t let me use powder, but the minute she does, I’m covering them,” I promise.

“Don’t ever cover them. They’re you.” He moves my face to a different angle. “Your eyes I like best because they change color in the light. Now they’re dark brown, but in bright sunlight, they have a lot of green in them. Emerald green.”

We sit quietly. This is one part of being alone with a man that Chettie never mentioned. The silence. The in-between-the-words time, when no talking is necessary. I watch the movement of the crowd below. There are no empty spaces in the streets. From this angle, it seems people are shoulder to shoulder, which will make Father Impeciato very happy, as the church will raise lots of money.

Suspended there in the soft summer night, I suddenly wish the Ferris wheel would start again so this ride would end. I don’t want to be near him anymore, it’s too hard. I don’t want to fall for Renato any more deeply than this girlish crush I have on him. He will never be mine. Something inside tells me so. I also know that I’ve met my match with him, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get what I long for. There are many women in his circle, and I’m just a kid to him. That’s the extent of it. I have gotten all the good stuff I can out of our spontaneous rendezvous. He told me I was beautiful, something no one has ever told me before, and it is not going to get any better than that. Now I know a little more about him, and really, that is all I ever hoped for from Renato Lanzara.

“Nella?”

I look at him. He puts one arm around me and, with the other, takes my hand. He leans over and kisses my nose. I try to say something, but I can’t. If I were a proper girl, I would tell him to stop. I always thought I was a proper girl, but I guess you can’t know that until you are faced with a kiss from a man you’re not courting. Now I know for sure I’m not a proper girl. He smiles at me, then he kisses my cheek. He gives me several small kisses on my mouth. I want to say
something, but cannot. I just feel the soft presses of his lips against mine. The kisses are more tender than I ever imagined them, and certainly more welcome. Why don’t I tell him to stop?

“All right, folks. We’re startin’ ’er up,” the carney says from below. My first kiss is over too fast. I sit back in the seat, which swings precariously back and forth as the wheel starts to turn again. I put my hand on my lips and look away. The full moon, round and silver like a vanity mirror, is so close I can practically see my reflection in it. If only I could stay in midair forever, my feet far from the ground and my heart beating so loudly all of Roseto must be able to hear it.

“You cannot tell me the first-kiss story enough,” Chettie whispers as we follow the parishioners down Garibaldi Avenue, saying the rosary. The Sunday solemn procession has commenced. We follow Michelina de Franco, who leads the procession in a white gown and cape. She’s crowned the statue of the Blessed Lady with a tiara made with the gemstones donated by all the ladies of the town. Father Impeciato went door-to-door collecting jewelry, old rings, precious stones, and gold from parishioners in order to commission the crown. A jeweler in New York City took the jewels and gold and turned them into the spectacular tiara.

The statue is being carried on a board by six men in black suits and sashes. The Knights of Columbus, in their regal white-plumed hats and swords, follow her, creating an honor guard. Michelina’s court, which includes her sisters and senior girls from Columbus School, follow behind carrying baskets of deep red roses.