Authors: Rosemary Fifield
The
phone rang, and the noise threatened to awaken Aunt Lucretia. Connie folded the
paper shut and tucked it back into the Bible, then set the book on the table
beside the sofa and hurried into the kitchen where the wall-mounted phone hung.
The
caller wanted to speak to her grandmother. Connie scribbled the woman’s phone
number on a piece of paper she found on the kitchen counter and hung up the
phone. Aunt Lucretia called for a glass of water, her nap apparently over. Connie
went to the sink, took a glass from the cupboard overhead, and filled it from
the tap. She returned to her aunt’s side and was handing the water to her when she
heard a sound in the kitchen. Someone was attempting to open the locked kitchen
door.
Let
it be Nonna
. Connie hurried into
the kitchen once more, ready to welcome her grandmother home. The noisy bolt
made a jarring sound as she slid it open before pulling the solid door inward.
A
grim-faced Gianna stood in the small upstairs hallway.
Connie
stepped back to let her in, unsure what her stricken expression meant. Gianna
brushed past and stopped in the center of the spotless linoleum-covered kitchen
floor, then rotated to face Connie.
Connie
closed the kitchen door and turned to her, her spirits plummeting. “What
happened, Gi?”
Gianna’s
words were barely audible. “I liked him, Connie. And I think he liked me.”
“Whew!”
Connie let out a sigh of relief. Why did everything with her have to be so
difficult? Connie widened her eyes in an effort to inspire some excitement in her
older sister. “Cool,” she said with an enthusiastic smile. “Did he ask you
out?”
Gianna’s
troubled expression didn’t change. “Sort of. He wants to. Except… there’s a
problem.”
“What?”
Gianna
shoved her hands into the pockets of her sundress and stared at the floor.
“He’s… not white.”
Connie
hoped she had misheard. “Did you say he’s not white?”
Gianna
nodded.
Connie
frowned at her. “What is he? Black? Asian? What?”
“Black.”
Confusion
overtook Connie; nothing about that made sense. “Father Ianelli set you up with
a black guy?”
Gianna
nodded once more, her eyes clearly showing her misery as they met Connie’s.
Connie
did her best to remain composed. “He knows that people around here are not all
that tolerant, right?”
Gianna
shrugged. “I don’t know what he knows. He just likes the guy, and so do I.”
Gianna
was obviously distressed, and Connie knew her sister would simply withdraw if
she sensed the situation was hopeless. Connie drew a deep breath, then rallied
and smiled at Gianna. “What’s his name?”
Gianna’s
face immediately lit up. “David Thomas.”
“And
he’s thirty-two?”
“Yes,
but he doesn’t seem that old. I mean, he’s mature and everything, but he’s not
like old and stodgy or anything. He’s very funny. He’s got a great sense of
humor. And he’s very nice. And he looks young. Tall and slim. You know, kind
of… ageless.”
“So,
how come he’s not already married?”
“I’m
not sure. He’s been traveling a lot, after he left the seminary. He said he thought
being a priest was what he wanted, but then when he started having doubts, he
didn’t think it was right to stay, so he left to try to get his head together.
He went down south and did some charity work and stuff, but then when the race
riots started after Martin Luther King died, he got out of there. He’s from
around Boston, but he doesn’t really want to go back there to live either. So
he went to St. Johnsbury.”
Gianna’s
lengthy soliloquy delivered with unabashed enthusiasm made Connie smile. “What
does he do in St. Johnsbury?”
“He
works at the museum. He’s a history and nature buff, and he also knows a lot
about engineering, so they hired him to set up exhibits and do maintenance and
stuff.”
“At
Fairbanks?” Connie smiled to herself, remembering her conversation with Angie.
“Yeah,
at Fairbanks. He wants to take me there next weekend and show me what he does.”
“That’s
great, Gigi. I hope you go.”
“But
what about Mamma and Papa? And Nonna?” Gianna glanced toward the living room
where Aunt Lucretia could be heard calling Connie’s name. “What about her? You
know how prejudiced she is.”
“She’s
prejudiced against anybody who’s not Italian.” Connie dismissed her aunt’s
opinion with a wave of her hand. “She has nothing to say about us. Nonna, I’m
not sure about. And maybe Mamma and Papa will surprise us. Who knows? But you
need to do what
you
want to do. It’s your life.”
“Yeah,
that’s easy to say to someone else.” Gianna tilted her head toward the living
room. “She’s calling you.”
Connie
went into the living room. Her aunt needed her cane and some assistance getting
out of her chair so she could go to the bathroom. Connie helped her, then
started back toward the kitchen. As she passed the sofa, her eyes rested for a
moment on the Bible beside it.
Gianna
was seated at the kitchen table, staring at her own fingertips as they
nervously tapped the tabletop.
“Gi,
do you remember when the twins were born?”
“November,
1952.”
“No,
I mean, do you remember anything about it?”
Gianna’s
voice was listless. “Not much. I remember the doctor made Ma stay in bed before
they were born, and Nonna came from Pittsburgh to take care of us.”
“That
must have been hard on Ma and Pa, having another baby die.”
Gianna’s
disinterest in the subject was palpable. “I suppose. I don’t know. That whole
thing’s kind of a blur.”
“So,
you don’t remember anything?”
“I
remember burying Lucia. And I remember how crazy you were about Angie. I
thought you’d be jealous, but you weren’t.”
“I
wish I could remember more.” Connie tilted her head and frowned, trying to
sharpen the foggy picture in her mind. “I remember being sent away for a while…
weren’t we sent away? To stay with Aunt Mariana or somebody while Ma was in
labor?”
“Yeah,
Nonna sent us away. She delivered the babies. We spent the night with Aunt Mariana
and Uncle Phil. Teresa was like twelve or something, and she was mean. I
remember her telling you to stop crying for your mamma, that you weren’t going
to be the baby anymore, and you’d better grow up.” Gianna turned her face toward
Connie. “Why?”
“Well,
I was looking at this Bible in the living room, and it’s got a family tree with
everybody on it, and Angie’s name doesn’t fit.”
Gianna
gave Connie a look of exasperation, as if she were being purposely obtuse. “That’s
because her name isn’t really Angie. You’re the one who insisted on calling her
Angela.”
“No,
I’m talking about her real name. Nobody in the family is named Hope. Hope isn’t
even a saint’s name. Did you ever hear of a St. Hope? Catholics have to have
saints’ names.”
Gianna
shook her head as she rose to her feet. “Maybe Faith, Hope, and Charity don’t
count.” She turned toward the back door, obviously distracted by her own
concerns. “Connie, how am I going to tell Ma and Pa about David?”
“You’ll
have to just tell them. They’re going to want to meet him before they let you
go out. You can’t let them be surprised when he shows up. That could be awful.”
“What
if they say no?” Gianna chewed on her lower lip; she looked like she was about
to cry.
“Then
you have to make a decision about how you want to live your life.”
“You
mean, like you? Like the guy you want to ride with to UVM, but he has to meet
Papa first? Why don’t you just tell them you’re going to ride with him, and
that’s that?”
“I
just might.”
“Yeah,
when hell freezes over.”
Aunt
Lucretia was calling from the bathroom. Connie went to help her, and when she
returned to the kitchen, Gianna had left the duplex.
***
Nonna
came home forty-five minutes later, ready for a nap of her own, and Connie
hurried back to her house. She found Gianna in the store’s fenced-in backyard,
dressed in shorts and a sleeveless top, stretched out on a chaise lounge in the
late afternoon sun. Her eyes were closed, her face impassive. Her dark hair was
curled around her head once more.
Connie
settled into a webbed chair beside her. “Have you talked to Ma and Pa yet?”
Gianna
spoke without opening her eyes. “Mrs. Conti was inside, having coffee with
Mamma when I got home. I haven’t seen Papa.”
Connie
slid lower in the chair, turned her face toward the sky, and closed her eyes.
She had no idea how her parents would react to Gianna seeing a black guy. On
the one hand, they never said anything derogatory about people of other races.
On the other hand, Mamma’s reaction to Connie riding with Greg Fairchild, an
unknown from across town, had been immediate and negative.
Greg
Fairchild. The probability of commuting with him to UVM was pretty remote. He
lived too far away for her to casually bump into him on the street and talk
about it. Calling his house seemed too forward; she didn’t know him that well. She
would have to drive herself at first, and if they bumped into each other on
campus, they could explore the possibility then—or not.
A
shadow cut off the sunlight warming Connie’s face, and Mamma’s voice broke into
her thoughts. “I’m making manicotti for supper. I need help.”
Connie
and Gianna left their places in the sun and followed her up the stairs to the
kitchen. The smell of freshly made marinara sauce hung in the air. Papa sat in
the living room, watching his favorite TV program,
Victory at Sea
; Angie
had yet to come home.
Connie
mixed the ricotta, grated cheese, and eggs to make the filling, while Gianna
helped Mamma roll out the pasta dough that waited in a bowl on the table. When Papa’s
program ended, he came into the kitchen to sit at the table while the women
assembled the stuffed pasta tubes.
“Tell
us about the young man you met,” Mamma said to Gianna. “How was he?”
Gianna
kept her eyes on the filling she was spreading over the dough with the back of
a spoon. “He was nice.”
“What’s
his name?”
“David
Thomas.”
Mamma
nodded. “That doesn’t sound Italian.”
“It’s
not. Is that important?”
“Not
so much.” Mamma looked at Papa to gauge his expression. “We are in America,
right? These things can happen.”
Papa
nodded silently; he was on the verge of falling asleep in his chair. Gianna
kept her attention on the manicotti.
“You
don’t say much,” Mamma persisted. “You don’t like him?”
Gianna
set down her spoon and proceeded to roll the dough into a tube. “Actually, I do.
He’s very nice. He seems like … he’d be a good person to know.”
“Then,
why the long face? He doesn’t ask to see you again?”
Connie
watched Gianna press her lips together and draw in a long breath. “Not
exactly,” Gianna said. “But he might. He talked about showing me where he
works, at the natural history museum in St. Johnsbury.”
Mamma
smiled and reached out to rest her floury hand on Gianna’s arm. “Then, this is
good, right? You would go?”
Gianna
met Connie’s eyes across the table before turning her gaze on her mother. “I‘d
like to.”
Mamma
made a quizzical face and pulled her shoulders up to her ears. “So?”
“There’s
something about him you need to know,” Gianna said.
Mamma’s
shoulders dropped, and her expressive eyes widened dramatically. “He’s not
Catholic.”
“Mamma,
he was going to be a
priest
,” Gianna said with a frown.
Mamma’s
jaw dropped. “He’s married before.”
Gianna
let out a sigh of frustration. “No, Ma, he’s black.”