“Mom. You don’t get it, do you? Oh my God, you just don’t get it.” Angelina sat back on the sofa, brought both hands to her head, and pulled her fingers through her hair.
“Please don’t yell, honey. Were you brought up to yell at people?” Her mother tucked the tissue into her large yellow leather pocketbook. “I never felt like I did get anything. No, there were lots of things I didn’t get, I’ll agree with you on that. Please don’t yell at me though, Angelina. Did I just say that?” Mary’s daughter, the youngest of five girls and Mary’s (secret) favorite, was named Angelina because Mary knew during her pregnancy that she was carrying a little angel. Mary sat up straight and looked at the girl, who had been a middle-aged woman for years. Angelina did not look back. From where she sat in the corner chair, Mary could see the sun hitting the steeple of the church, and she let her eyes rest on that.
“Daddy yelled all the time,” Angelina said, looking down at the upholstery of the couch. “You can’t yell at me for yelling, and say I wasn’t brought up that way, when I was—I was brought up with quite a yeller. Daddy was a yeller.”
“Old yeller.” Mary put a hand to her chest. “Honestly, what a sad movie that was. Why, we took you kids to see it, and I think Tammy didn’t sleep for a month. Do you remember they took that poor dog out to the pasture and killed him?”
“They had to, Mom. He was rabid.”
“A rabbit?”
“Rabid. Oh, Mommy, I don’t want you to be making me sad like this.” Angelina closed her eyes briefly, bouncing her hand gently on the couch.
“Of course you don’t,” her mother agreed. “Did you really spend all your savings to get here? Didn’t your father help you at all? Honey, I wasn’t yelling at you for yelling. Let’s go do something fun.”
Angelina said, “Everything in a foreign country seems so hard. And the Italians seem proud of not speaking English. Did you think that when you first came here? That everything seemed so hard?”
Mary nodded. “I did. But a person gets used to things. You know, for weeks if Paolo wasn’t with me I didn’t even try and get my coffee at that place on the corner. They thought I was his mother at first. And then they found out I was his wife and I think they were sort of laughing at us. But Paolo taught me how to pay with my coins on the plate.”
“Mom.”
“What, honey?”
“Oh, Mommy, it makes me sad. That’s all.”
“Not knowing how to put the right coins on a plate?”
“No, Mom. Thinking you were his mother.”
Mary considered this. “Except why would they think I was his mother? I’m American, he’s Italian. They probably didn’t think that.”
“You’re my mother!” Angelina burst out, and this caused Mary to almost weep again, because she had a searing glimpse then of all the damage she must have done, and she, Mary Mumford, had never in her life planned on doing, or wanted to do, any damage to anyone.
They sat by the window in the café past the church; the café was built on rocks that looked out over the water. The late August sun sparkled crazily on everything. In four years, Mary had never stopped being banged on the head with the beauty of this village. But Mary was very anxious; her eldest daughter, Tammy, had emailed her that Angelina was having trouble in her marriage, and Mary had thought she would ask Angelina about this as soon as they were alone; yet she could not seem to do so. She would have to wait for Angelina to bring it up. Mary pointed to a large cruise ship on its way to Genoa, and Angelina nodded. The window they sat by was open, and the door was open. Mary ate her apricot cornetto, then put her hand on Angelina’s arm; she started singing quietly “You Were Always on My Mind,” but Angelina frowned and said, “Are you still wacky about Elvis?”
“I am.” Mary sat up straight, putting her hands in her lap. “Paolo downloaded all his songs for me onto my phone.”
Angelina opened her mouth, then closed it.
From the corner of her eye, Mary noticed once again that age had touched her baby; Angelina’s face had creases by her mouth and by her eyes that Mary had not remembered. Her hair, still pale brown, and still worn below her shoulders, was thinner than Mary had thought it was. And the jeans she wore were so tight! Mary had noticed this right away. “Look, honey,” Mary said, waving a hand toward the sea, “I just love how things are lived outside more in Italy. This open door, the open window.”
Angelina said, “I’m cold.”
“Take this.” Mary handed her the scarf she always wore. “Unfold it,” she directed, “and it will open enough to wrap right around your skinny little shoulder bones.”
Her youngest child did this.
“Tell me about your life,” Mary said. “The tiniest stuff, if you want.”
Angelina rummaged through her blue straw handbag and brought out her phone, which she placed on the table between them. “Well, the twins and I went to a crafts fair, and you wouldn’t believe what we got. Wait, I think I have a picture on my phone.” Mary pulled her chair closer and peered at the phone, and she was able to see the pretty pink sweater that one of the twins had bought for Tammy’s birthday.
“Tell me more,” Mary said. Her desire seemed suddenly as large as the heavens. Show me, show me, cried her heart. “Show me all the pictures,” she said.
“I have six hundred and thirty-two pics,” Angelina reported, after squinting at her phone.
“Show me each one.” Mary beamed at her sweet youngest girl.
“No crying,” Angelina warned.
“Not a drop.”
“One drop and we stop.”
“My goodness,” Mary said, thinking: Who was it that raised this girl?
The sun went behind a cloud as they walked back to the caseggiato, and this changed the light dramatically. The day seemed suddenly autumnal, yet the palm trees and brightly painted buildings were at odds with this, even for Mary, who—presumably—should have been used to it. But Mary felt bewildered at all she had seen on her daughter’s phone, all the life that was going on in Illinois without her. She said, “I was thinking of the Pretty Nicely Girls the other day. The Club, I guess I was remembering The Club and the dances there.”
“The Pretty Nicely Girls were sluts.” Angelina said this over her shoulder.
“No they were not. Angelina. Don’t be silly.”
“Mom.” Angelina stopped walking and turned to her mother. “They were sluts. At least the oldest two were. They totally slept with everyone.”
Mary stopped walking as well. She took her sunglasses off and looked at her daughter. “Are you serious?”
“Mom, I thought you knew that.”
“How in the world would I know that?”
“Mom, everyone knew it. And I told you at the time. My God.” Angelina added after a moment, “Patty wasn’t, though. I think she wasn’t.”
“Patty?”
“The youngest Nicely girl. She and I are friends now.” Angelina pushed her sunglasses up on her nose.
“Well, that’s nice,” Mary said. “That’s nicely. How long have you been friends?”
“Four years. She works with me.”
Four years, thought Mary. Four years, I have not seen my dearest little angel. Glancing at her daughter, Mary thought again that the girl’s jeans were too tight across her little bottom. She was a middle-aged woman, Angelina. Was Angelina having an affair? Mary shook her head slowly. “Well, I was thinking of them when they were little girls, the Pretty Nicely Girls. Your father and I went to the wedding of one of them. They had the reception at The Club.”
Angelina had started walking again. “Do you ever miss it?” She asked this over her shoulder. “The Club?”
“Oh, honey.” Mary felt winded. “No, I can’t say I miss The Club. It was never my thing, you know.”
“But you guys went there a lot.” A small gust of wind raised Angelina’s hair so that the ends rose above her shoulder, straight up.
“We did.” Mary followed her daughter up the street, and after a moment Angelina turned to wait for her. “That one wall they had, filled with Indian arrowheads under glass, I don’t know,” Mary said.