“Maybe this summer,” Tina said. “The husband on the second floor”—she meant Mr. Czarnecki, but couldn’t pronounce the family’s last name—“is looking for a new job now but they promised to move when they found it.”
Twenty dollars a month. Stella made sixteen dollars a week at the factory. She chewed on this, and also on the fact that Tina had knownabout this plan and had not shared it with her. Stella had never known Tina to have a private thought in her whole life. Things changed after you got married, apparently.
“Come on, Stella. We’re going to be late.” Tina’s face wore a sheen of anxiety, or maybe it was just overheated from wearing the heavy coat inside for so long.
As they walked toward the Silex factory, Tina asked, “What’s the money in the sock for, Stella?”
Stella thought Tina should have been able to put two and two together. Spelling it out made Stella feel like the crime was closer to being committed.
“I want to move out,” she said finally. And because Tina was grimacing at her, uncomprehending, Stella added, “I mean I want to go live somewhere else. Not with Mamma and Papa.”
“With Carmelo?” Tina said. Her eyes were so round Stella could see white all around the coffee-colored irises. “Stella!” she squealed.
“No.” Stella fought back her anger. “Not with Carmelo. By myself.”
“What? Why?”
They walked in silence for a moment while Stella weighed how to answer. “I can’t live with Papa anymore,” she said finally. She couldn’t mention how Rocco’s wandering eye made her nervous; she couldn’t mention that she had realized, even if Tina hadn’t, that the sisters weren’t a team anymore, that Stella had no allies in her house. “I hate Papa. You know that. I can’t stand to live with him anymore.”
Tina didn’t say anything, and Stella glanced at her, followed her gaze. On the right they were passing the playground. Even though it was only seven forty-five, one young mother, a girl of perhaps twenty, was already standing listlessly by the sandbox where her toddler, bundled up in a blue scarf and red knitted cap, was digging with a toy trowel. Tina stared at them so hard that Stella, thinking of themal’oicch’,gripped her elbow and sped them up.
“Anyway. I’m thinking that if I can just save up a little more, then I could go live by myself. Like Miss Miller upstairs.” Stella was gratifiedthat Tina was listening to her again, the dreary spell of the mother-and-child tableau broken. “Make coffeepots, save my money, live by myself—like Za Ros used to save her silkworm money, remember?”
Tina was frowning. “Who would cook for you, Stella? What would you eat?”
“Oh, Tina. That doesn’t matter. I just have to get out of that house.” She felt the heavy heat of her father’s hand against her breast as if it were touching her again right now. “I have to get out or I might die.”
“So dramatic, Stella,” Tina said. “Why don’t you just marry Carmelo? Then you can leave, no problem. Papa can’t stop you.”
Stella’s heart cramped, as though a hand even larger than her father’s had reached into her chest and squeezed it. “I don’t want to marry Carmelo, Tina.” How could Tina say such things? How—after their lives spent together? Had she never once listened to anything Stella said? “Him or anyone. I really, truly—I promise you, I will never marry any man.” Her pitch was rising. She felt on the edge of hysteria. “I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I swear to God our Father and the Blessed Virgin, I am telling the truth, Tina. I don’t know why you don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you,” Tina said, chastised. Stella knew, though, that Tina’s faith in her would only last as long as this walk they were taking together, that the moment Tina spoke to Assunta, or Tony or Carmelo or Rocco or any of their girlfriends, Tina would forget that she had believed Stella and would shrug and tell whoever it was that she didn’t understand her sister’s stubbornness, either.
They walked in silence for a few minutes as Stella tried to calm the rage and hurt and frustration in her chest. As the factory came into view on the next block, Tina said, “But where could you go on your own, Stella?”
“I don’t know. All I know right now is I need to save up as much money as I can.”
“I’ll help you,” Tina said, and gripped Stella’s fingers to cement her vow.
There were so many other questions Stella had no answers for, no information whatsoever. Where could she go? Did they have rentable bachelor rooms like the one Carmelo lived in, but for single ladies? Her English was so bad; would she be able to explain herself to a landlord? How would she know whom to trust? Was there anyone she could ask for advice without getting herself in trouble, without it all getting back to her father?
She thought she should be able to put aside two dollars a week without alerting Tony—she would have to be sneaky, think of excuses for where the money went. But she could do it. If she could save fifty dollars, that should be enough to leave, shouldn’t it?
Would she make it on her own? Could she?
And if she couldn’t, what was her next plan?
***
THE LAST TIMESTELLA REJECTEDCarmelo Maglieri was on Palm Sunday, 1947. It wasn’t an encounter she had been prepared for, and it was not her finest work. But they should have realized what would happen if they trapped her in a corner like an animal.
The Fortunas had gone to mass down at Sacred Heart. They chanted along with the Latin liturgy, received their palm fronds, tithed, and took Communion. Afterward, they had lunch at the Perris’. Za Caterina served leathery friedbaccalàand a nice spread of meat-free Lenten antipasto, provolone and pickles andlupinibeans. They walked home in the twinkling March sun, everyone half drunk on homemade wine and happy to remember that Assunta had baked an orange cake for the afternoon.
They had only just arrived home when there was a knock on the door. Stella was put on alert when Tony, who did not generally answer the door, leapt to his feet and bellowed, “Assù! Make some coffee!”
Stella followed her mother to the kitchen. “Who’s here, Ma?”
Assunta didn’t say anything, but her hands were shaking as she tried to spoon coffee grounds into the percolator. Assunta was not good at secrets.
