The next Friday morning, with all of the children at school or at work in the mill, Josephine was surprised when she heard a racket in the backyard.
She stepped outside, still in her thin housedress, and found a man who was not Alfredo Petrocelli standing there with a block of ice. Aware of the sweat marks staining under her arms, and of her breasts against the flimsy dress, Josephine folded her arms across her chest.
“You there!” she called to the man. “You startled me.”
He turned and Josephine’s knees wobbled. Tall, with blond hair and green eyes staring back at her from a tanned face, the man in the black pants and white sleeveless T-shirt was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“Sorry,” he said in English. “I don’t know the drill.”
Josephine frowned. “Drill?” she repeated.
“I’m filling in for my cousin Al,” the man said, in rapid-fire English with no hint of an Italian accent. An American. “He’s pretty sick.” He studied her for a minute, then laughed. “You don’t know a word I’m saying, do you?”
She shrugged and took a tentative step toward him. That’s when she realized she was barefoot, and her legs were bare as well. Bare arms, bare legs, no shoes, a flimsy dress hardly concealing what was beneath it. What was this man going to think of her? He was looking at her, and a blush rose on his cheeks.
“Sorry to stare,” he said in terrible Italian. “But you’re really beautiful.”
Now color rose in her cheeks. “No,” she said, waving his compliment away with her hands.
His hand grabbed one of hers, and before she could pull it away, he was shaking it and saying, “Tommy Petrocelli. Your new temporary ice man.”
“Your Italian is awful,” she told him, the heat from his hand spreading up her arm, making her sweat even more.
“Sorry,” he said again. “I was born in the good old U S of A. My father is Al’s father’s brother. Tio?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“Tio,” she said, then. “Uncle.”
He laughed. “Your English is terrible,” he kidded her. “My mother is French, but she’s been here forever.”
Josephine nodded, even though she had no idea what French was.
“Ah,” she said. “Do you want to come inside for a drink?”
“Sure,” he said. “Great.”
He still held on to her hand, and when they both realized this, he dropped it quickly.
Sitting in her hot kitchen at the table, beads of sweat on his forehead, he quickly drank the lemonade she gave him. They sat quietly.
“Even the glass is sweating,” Josephine said finally, pointing.
He laughed. Then they were silent again.
“Mrs. . . .” he began.
“Josephine,” she said.
“Josephine. Have you ever heard the saying that every person has a soul mate?”
She frowned at the word.
He reached across the table and placed his hand on her collarbone. “Soul mate,” he repeated. “Some people, like me, believe that everyone has a soul mate, wandering the Earth somewhere. Not everyone finds theirs. But if you do, you recognize her immediately.”
“Like fate?” she said, the pressure of his hand on her collarbone making her heart do strange things.
“Stronger, even. Two souls wander the planet, and if you are very, very lucky, you find each other.”
He dropped his hand quickly and stood. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She wanted to tell him to stop apologizing. Was it them he was talking about? Soul mates? When he turned and looked at her out there, something had happened to her. Was he saying it had happened to him as well? Was this what people meant by love? Josephine wondered. But by the time she raced outside, he was gone.
THE WHOLE NEXT WEEK, as first the rag man, then the coal man, came, Josephine thought about soul mates. Two people wandering the Earth, searching for each other. Hadn’t he said soul mates recognize each other immediately? She fed her children and slaughtered a chicken and sewed new dresses for the older girls and watched her fat husband eating, slurping and chomping. Maybe she had married Vincenzo simply to get her to America on that Friday when Tommy Petrocelli would find her. Soul mates, reaching across time and continents. She wondered what Father Leone thought of this idea. Did souls have mates?
Tino the Turnip left her a half-rotten pineapple. Jacques LaSalle clanked by, his penis swinging. Josephine asked about Alfredo Petrocelli. Had anyone heard anything about him? Was he better? And although she didn’t wish Alfredo any harm, she was happy when Rose Palmieri said she’d heard he was still sick with the Spanish Influenza.