Chapter 17
A SEWING NEEDLE
Un Ago da Cucire
Trumpet vines cascaded down the drainpipe in shots of bold orange and soft green like fine silk tassels against the freshly pointed coral bricks. Purple hyacinths spilled out of antique white marble Roman urns on either side of the black-lacquered double entrance doors of the Milbank House at 11 West Tenth Street in Greenwich Village.
The floor-to-ceiling formal windows off the entrance stairs were appropriately festooned in layers of white silk sheers, the pale gold jacquard draperies drawn back to let in the soft light of the tree-lined street. There was not a card, a sign, a communal mail slot, or any other indication that the Milbank House was anything but an elegant brownstone owned by a single family of incredible wealth.
Tucked in the middle of a wide, tree-lined block of opulent homes, anchored by a lavish Episcopal church on the corner of Fifth Avenue and the charming Patchin Place houses across Sixth Avenue on the other, this block had character and whimsy, a rare combination in New York City at the turn of the progressive century.
The Milbank House was a double brownstone with twenty-six bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms, a formal library, a dining room, a deep garden, an enormous basement kitchen with dumbwaiter, and a beau parlor. It was owned and operated by the Ladies’ Christian Union, who provided young women without family or connections in New York City with room and board for a reasonable fee.
Emma Fogarty had stopped by and bragged to the house mother about her talented, hardworking friends, one an Italian immigrant, the other a feisty Irish girl, both of whom needed a proper address to pursue their dreams as seamstresses to the upper class, along the park on Fifth Avenue, and in the theatrical houses of Broadway.
Breakfast and dinner were included in the weekly rent, and there was a wringer washing machine as well as drying racks in the basement. But more important than all these lovely features of gracious living was the camaraderie of the young residents, who aspired to better lives on the wings of their talent and creativity. Finally, Laura and Enza were with like-minded peers, who understood their feelings and drive.
Miss Caroline DeCoursey, the house mother, was an elegant white-haired lady, petite and well bred, who took an instant liking to Laura Heery; Miss DeCoursey’s mother was Irish, and from the same county as the Heery family.
Enza and Laura were led to the fourth floor, where the wide hallway was lit by a skylight. A series of closets lined the wall, each with a simple brass handle. Miss DeCoursey opened one of the closets. Inside was a long, deep storage shelf at the top for hats, a hanging rod with empty wooden hangers, and enough floor space for shoes and storage of suitcases and duffels.
“You take this one, Miss Ravanelli,” Miss DeCoursey said. “And this one is yours, Miss Heery,” she said, opening another set of doors.
The girls looked at one another, unable to believe their good fortune. Closets! Enza had lived out of her duffel since leaving Italy, while Laura shared a cupboard and hooks with her sisters and cousins in her family home.
“Follow me,” Miss DeCoursey said, unlocking a door in an alcove nearest the closets. She pushed the door open, and there was the most beautiful room Enza had ever seen. The ceiling sloped under the dormer, and a fireplace and mirror occupied the center of the room. Light poured in the window, reflecting off the buffed walnut floors.
Two plump beds were made up with soft cotton coverlets, a nightstand set between them with a reading lamp. A desk under the window and another by the door would give each girl plenty of room. The calm simplicity of the decoration, the scent of lemon wax, and the fresh breeze coming in off the garden through the open window made the room seem like home.
“I thought two seamstresses might like a room with good light, even though it’s on the fourth floor. Most of the girls prefer being on the second floor—”
“No, no, it’s the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen,” Enza insisted.
“We’ll never be able to thank you enough!” Laura added.
“Keep your rooms neat, and don’t dry your stockings in the common bath.” Miss DeCoursey handed them each a key. “We’ll see you at dinner, then,” she said, closing the door behind her.
Laura threw herself onto one bed, and Enza did the same on the other. “Did you hear that?” Laura asked.
“What?”
“That was the sound of the dinner bell . . . and our luck changing.” Laura laughed.
Ciro figured Luigi could handle the shoe repair cart alone for a few hours. Business was brisk but in no way overwhelming by the docks of lower Manhattan, where the construction workers took lunch by the pier.
Ciro decided to walk back to Little Italy through Greenwich Village. He liked to walk through the winding streets in the warmth of spring, taking in the Georgian-style homes on Jane Street, with their double set of stairs, and the Renaissance town houses on Charles Street, with their wrought-iron balconies and small private parks behind airy gates filled with urns of yellow daffodils and purple iris.
Beautiful homes soothed him. Maybe it was the connection to his days as a handyman, when he’d painted and planted at San Nicola, but whatever the reason, manicured gardens and well-tended homes reassured him, giving him a sense of order in a world where there was little.
As Ciro passed Our Lady of Pompeii Church, a wedding party spilled out onto the sidewalk. A dazzling brand-new Nash Roadster was parked in front, with a bouquet of white roses nestled in tulle and streaming with satin ribbons anchored to the hood ornament.
Ciro stopped to take in the convertible, midnight blue with a red leather interior. The sleek lines of the polished wood and gold brass buttons were enough to make any young man swoon. The car was almost as gorgeous as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
As the organist played the recessional, the guests poured out of the church onto the sidewalk. A lovely collection of bridesmaids, carrying long stalks of calla lilies, wearing wide silk headbands peppered with crystals and floor-length gowns in soft pink chiffon, lined up on the stairs.
Ciro took in their faces, recognizing them from the neighborhood—southern Italian girls with dark eyes, their hair worn in elaborate upsweeps of serpentine braids. Their figures, delicate and curved, were as smooth as porcelain teacups. They reminded him of Enza Ravanelli and how she looked on the roof at Mulberry Street. He put her out of his mind as quickly as he’d conjured her; he was not a man who longed for what he could not have, or specifically, what he had lost.
The bride and groom emerged from the top of the stairs, showered by rice and confetti. Ciro was astonished to see Felicitá Cassio, her veil of tulle trailing behind her, in a gown of palest white. As ethereal as smoke, she looked out over the crowd and smiled at the guests. He had not seen her since last Christmas, before he’d traveled to Hoboken, when he told her they had to end their easygoing relationship once and for all.
Felicitá had just married an attractive, compact, dark Sicilian, who left his bride with a quick kiss on the cheek to have his picture taken with his parents.
Ciro turned to go, but it was too late. Felicitá had locked eyes with him, an expression of shock crossing her face, which she quickly masked with a warm bridal smile. She waved to Ciro. His fine manners and good convent training, ingrained so deeply, wouldn’t allow him to walk away without paying his respects.
Felicitá handed off her bouquet to her maid of honor like a necessary nuisance. Ciro looked down at his coveralls, smudged with smears of oil and chalk from his work. He was hardly properly dressed to greet his old girlfriend in her wedding gown. Felicitá’s satin gown, cut on the bias, skimmed the sleek lines of her body. As she moved, the sheen of the satin hugged her curves. Ciro was hit with a powerful wave of desire.
“You just got off work,” she murmured, knowing the effect her sultry voice had always had on him.
“I was down on the pier. Congratulations,” Ciro said. “I didn’t know.”
“They announced the banns several weeks ago. Since you never go to church . . .” She allowed her voice to trail off flirtatiously. “I meant to write and tell you,” she added.
“You like to write about as much as I do. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy for you. You’re a beautiful bride. Is he the match?”
She looked down at her satin shoes, trimmed in marabou. “Yeah. He owns half of Palermo.”
“Ah, a Sicilian prince. It may take you a year or two, but I think you can turn him into a king.”
“My mother did it for my father, so I guess I can too,” she said, not looking forward to the task that lay ahead.
Ciro had turned to go when Felicitá stopped him. “You gonna give that girl from the Alps that ring I always wanted?”
“Pray for me, will you?” Ciro smiled.
The library at the Milbank House was a beautifully appointed room in the English style, decorated in shades of sage green and coral with glass-fronted barrister bookshelves and a grand piano, angled between the front windows.
Eileen Parrelli, an eighteen-year-old prodigy from Connecticut, ran scales on the piano and sang. Her red curls and freckles indicated her mother’s Irish lineage, but her voice was pure operatic Italian, from her father’s side.
Enza sat down on a chair with a notebook and pen, listening while Eileen practiced. She could not believe how much her life had changed in a few short weeks.
No one, except Laura and maybe the other girls who occupied these rooms, would ever understand what admittance to the boardinghouse meant to her. The last thing that Enza wanted was to lose her room at the Milbank House. Laura and she needed jobs, and not just any temporary position. They needed jobs that would assure them a steady salary.
As Eileen finished her exercises, Enza went to the secretary. She placed paper and envelopes on the desk; then she pulled two square swatches out of a muslin pouch, one of black velvet embroidered in gold, the other, double-backed pink silk in a fleur-de-lis design of seed pearls and small crystals. Enza checked out the spelling in the library dictionary as she went.
To Whom It May Concern:
Enclosed please find two sewing samples for your perusal. Enza Ravanelli and Laura Heery are experienced machine operators, but also pattern makers, seamstresses, and most excellent trim and beading specialists.
We have extensive knowledge of the stories of the opera, plots, and characters, due to repeated exposure to the phonograph records of Signor Enrico Caruso.
If you would like to meet with us regarding potential positions with your organization, please write to us at the Milbank House, 11 West Tenth Street, New York City.
Thank you.
Very sincerely yours,
Enza Ravanelli and Laura Heery
Ciro made a decision in the spring of 1917, no different from other Italians on long-term work visas. He decided to go to war. Without a sweetheart to keep him stateside, he decided to see the world and do his bit.
The U.S. Army recruitment office on West Twentieth Street was a temporary storefront with an American flag in the dusty window. Inside, a makeshift office operation with temporary desks and rolling stools made up one of the hundreds of official recruitment offices, compliments of the passage of the Selective Service Act.
Ciro met Luigi outside before they entered. A long line of young men snaked around the block, most of them dark-haired like Luigi.
“I didn’t tell Pappina,” Luigi said.
“Why not?”
“She doesn’t want me to go. She thinks I’m slow on my feet and will get my head blown off.”
“She’s probably right.”
“But I want to fight for this country. I want to get my citizenship, and then Pappina will have hers.”
“Are you going to marry before we go?”
“Yeah. Will you be my best man?”
“I’ve never been asked a question with more enthusiasm.”
“Sorry. I have a lot on my mind. I don’t like doctors.” He whispered, “They squeeze the noci.”
“I know all about it.”
“It’s barbaric, that’s what it is.”
Ciro chuckled. If Luigi thought the physical was barbaric, what would he think of war itself? Once inside, the men’s applications were taken, and they lined up to go inside to see the doctor. Luigi and Ciro undressed down to their undershorts and waited in line. More than a few young men were asked to leave, when an infirmity was diagnosed that prevented them from serving. Some of the boys were belligerent when asked to leave, while others were clearly relieved.
“You ever held a gun?” Luigi asked.
“No. How about you?”
“I used to shoot birds in Foggia,” Luigi admitted.
Luigi went behind a screen with the doctor. Ciro stood and waited his turn for what seemed like a long time.
Luigi pushed the curtain aside and shook his head. “I have a bad ear. They won’t take me.”
“Oh, pal, I’m sorry.”
Fifteen minutes later, Ciro joined Luigi on the sidewalk outside. Ciro carried the paperwork to report to New Haven, Connecticut, on July 1. He folded the paper and stuffed it in his pocket.
“You got in?” Luigi asked.
“Yeah.”
Ciro was gratified that the army had accepted him, knowing that it was the fastest route to earning his citizenship. But there was also a sadness, a gnawing anxiety that he was running from something he couldn’t name. It was in moments like this that he thought of Enza and wondered about the different path his life might have taken had she been waiting for him on Adams Street.
“I wanted to go fight.” Luigi kicked a pebble off the sidewalk into the gutter. “Maybe I ought to take Pappina and go home to Italy.”
“And what will you do there?” Ciro asked.
“I don’t know. I got no place to go. When the U.S. Army doesn’t want you, you don’t have a lot of choices.”
“You keep working on Mulberry Street. By the time I get back, you’ll be a master.”
“Signora takes all our profits. You’d think she’d cut us in. You invented the cart, after all.”
“Remo taught me a trade. I owe him,” Ciro said firmly. “But I think we have generously paid off the marker. We need our own company, Luigi. And I’m going to count on you to pull all the pieces together while I’m overseas.”
Ciro’s wise offer seemed to assuage Luigi’s feelings of failure at the recruitment office. For young fellows like them, the war was a chance to become men, to see the world and save it and return home as American citizens. It didn’t occur to either of them that lives would be lost, that the world they were to defend would shift under their feet and never be the same again. They only dreamed of the adventure.
A flower cart parked on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street overflowed with bouquets of white lilies and pots of pink hyacinths tied with gold bows. Glassy, bright green boxwood hemmed in the front gardens of brownstones. Windowboxes sprouted with purple and pink bachelor buttons, red impatiens, and bright yellow marigolds. Enza breathed deeply as she walked to Tenth Street. As she climbed the steps to the entrance of the Milbank House, Miss DeCoursey was sorting the mail in the vestibule. She handed Enza an envelope. The return address read: The Metropolitan Opera House. Enza sprinted up four flights of stairs to open it with Laura.
“It came,” Enza said. Laura pulled a hairpin from her chignon and handed it to Enza, who carefully opened the envelope.
Dear Miss Ravanelli,
Miss Serafina Ramunni would like to meet with you and Miss Laura Heery on April 29, 1917, at ten o’clock in the morning. Please bring your sewing kits and further samples of your workmanship, in particular with foil paillettes, silk trims, and crystal beading.
Very truly yours,
Miss Kimberly Meier
Company Manager
The girls immediately ran to the church of Saint Francis Xavier and lit every candle at the foot of Saint Lucy, the patron saint of seamstresses. The girls needed this job. The temporary kitchen work was not enough, and they were one week away from losing their room at the Milbank.
The morning of their interview, they ate a hearty Milbank breakfast of scrambled eggs, coffee, and toast before loading their sewing kits and samples into their purses for the walk from Tenth Street, thirty blocks uptown, to meet Serafina Ramunni, the head seamstress of the costume shop. Enza and Laura wore their best skirts and blouses. Enza wore a Venetian gondolier’s straw hat with a bright red band, while Laura wore a straw picture hat with a cluster of silk cherries for adornment.
The girls spent the night developing a strategy for the interview. If Miss Ramunni liked one of them and not the other, the one offered the job should take it. If there were no immediate openings for seamstresses, they agreed to take whatever starting positions were available. They both dreamed of working in the costume shop eventually, but they knew it could take years to earn a spot there, if they were lucky enough to be hired in the first place.
The Metropolitan Opera House, built of native yellow stone hauled from the valleys of upstate New York, took up a full city block on West Thirty-ninth Street. Its architectural grandeur was evident in its details—ornate doors, embellished cornices, and Palladian arches. The opera house had the massive dimensions of a train station.
On the ground level, a series of doors capped by brass scrollwork emptied the theater in minutes. The wide carriage circle accommodated every mode of transportation on wheels: motorcars, cabs, and horse carriages had plenty of space for dropoffs before curtain and pickups after the final ovation.
The main entrance doors, attended by footmen, were hemmed by velvet ropes. Enza and Laura entered through the lobby, where a handyman buffed the white marble floor with a motorized brush machine.
A swirling staircase rose before them, carpeted in ruby red, with a high polished brass railing. A crystal chandelier, dripping in shimmering glass daggers in the shape of a wedding cake, had been lowered on delicate wires to eye level for cleaning, and a maid dusted the crystal drops gently with flannel mitts.
The box office door was propped open. Inside, the ticket sellers were smoking and taking a coffee break. Laura walked up to the window. “We’re looking for Serafina Ramunni. We have an appointment.”
A young man in shirtsleeves and brown tie ashed his cigarette and nodded. “She’s onstage.”
Laura and Enza passed a series of Renaissance paintings framed in gold leaf in the inner lobby. They pushed the doors open, entering the dark theater, an enormous jewelry box trimmed in gold. The scents of fresh paint, linseed oil, and the lingering gardenia of expensive perfumes created a heady mix. Rows of seats swathed in red velvet tilted toward the downstage lip of the cavernous stage like rose blooms. Enza thought that church was the only other place where such hushed reverence was required.
The stage floor was lacquered black, with white lines indicating where scenery should be placed. A series of small X’s were painted strategically across the downstage lip, where solos were performed. From the highest tier of the theater, the follow spotlights were angled at these marks like cannons.
The ring of private viewing boxes, dubbed the “diamond horseshoe” by Cholly Knickerbocker and other society writers, was reserved for the wealthiest subscribers. These theatrical boxes were suspended over the orchestra seats, like delicate gold carriages, decorated with ornate medallions. Red damask draperies hung behind the seats, softening any sound from the stairways and grand aisles. Faceted glass sconces shaped like tiaras softly illuminated each level.
The girls walked down the vom and turned to look up into the upper mezzanine, empty seats that extended as high and far as the eye could see. The theater could hold 4,000 people, with 224 standing-room tickets sold for a lesser price, but never a lesser performance.
The grandeur of the opera house thrilled Laura too. It took thousands of employees to keep such a vast place running. There were hundreds of artists involved behind the scenes—stagehands, electricians, set builders, property masters, costumers, dressers, wigmakers, and milliners.
There is a beehive under every pot of honey on the island of Manhattan, thought Enza.
Where Laura was galvanized by the possibilities of working at the Met, Enza was nervous. Enza worried about her English, fretted about the skirt and blouse she’d chosen to wear. The Met was a long way from the traveling troupes that pitched tents in the fields of Schilpario or the vaudeville theaters that Laura remembered from her own childhood on the Jersey shore.
Serafina Ramunni stood with a fabric peddler on the bare stage. The head of the costume department was in her thirties, a handsome woman with strong features and a slim shape, accentuated by a belted-waist suit jacket and a long skirt with a kick pleat. She wore brown calfskin boots, and a black velvet hairband in her shiny brown hair. She chose fabrics from the bolts on display, marking the ones she would purchase with a stickpin. Angelic chiffons, sturdy velvets, and liquid satins were unfurled like flags for her perusal. She looked over at the girls, feeling their stares. “You are?”
“Laura Heery, and this is Enza Ravanelli.”
“You’re here for the seamstress jobs?”
They nodded in unison.
“I’m Miss Ramunni. Follow me to the workroom,” she said, walking upstage.
The girls looked up at her, unsure where to go.
“You can come onstage. The steps are over there.”
Enza followed Laura up the steps to the stage, feeling unworthy to step out onto it. It was like approaching a tabernacle in a cathedral. She peered down into the orchestra pit, lit by dim worklights. Black lacquer music stands were cluttered with white sheet music, like the open pages of a book.
Laura followed Miss Ramunni backstage and down the stairs to the basement, but Enza took a moment to turn centerstage and look out into the opera house before following. The upper levels of the theater looked like a massive field of poppies.
“Who wrote the letter?” Serafina asked.
“I did,” Enza said shyly.
“I passed it around the office.”
Laura looked at Enza and smiled. Good sign.
“We got a kick out of it. No one ever applied for a job here using listening to Caruso records as a skill.”
“I hope I didn’t do anything wrong,” Enza said.
“Your sewing samples saved you.” Serafina smiled, ushering the girls into a lift to the basement. “I don’t usually appreciate humor, intended or not, in query letters.”
The costume shop in the basement of the Met was a cavernous space that extended the full length of the building. From cutting tables, to a series of fitting rooms, through a hall of mirrors where the actor could see himself from every angle, past the machines, and through to finishing, where the costumes were steamed, pressed, and hung, it was a wonderland unlike anything either of the girls had ever seen. All weaves and textures of fabric—bolts of cream-colored duchesse satin, wheels of jewel-toned cotton, soft sheets of silver faille and shards of powder blue organza—lay neatly on worktables, stood upright in bolts, or were bundled in bins or jigsawed on the pattern table, waiting to be sewn.
Dress mannequins were staggered around the room, bearing garments in various states of construction. On the walls, a peek into the gallant characters of pending productions—watercolor sketches of Tristan, Leonora, Mandrake, and Romeo—hung like saints in the portrait gallery of the Vatican.
Twenty sleek, top-of-the-line black-lacquered Singer sewing machines outfitted with bright work lamps and attended by short-backed padded stools were lined up like tanks on the cusp of battle on the far side of the room. A three-way mirror and a circular platform for fittings were set off to the side with a rod and privacy curtain. Three long worktables, enough to accommodate fifty seamstresses, split the center of the room, with walking aisles in between.
A worker pressed muslin on the ironing board; another, at a sewing machine, did not lift her head from her task; still others, in the next room, operated the wringer washing machines, hanging voluminous petticoats on drying racks.
Laura and Enza took in all of it and fell instantly, immediately, and irrevocably in love. They wanted to work here more than they wished to live.
“You, over here.” Serafina pointed to Enza. “And you”—she pointed to Laura—“there.”
Serafina handed them each a square of fabric and a bin of crystals. She placed thread, scissors, and needles before them. She opened a sketchbook to a page featuring a copy of a harlequin beading design made famous by Vionnet.
“Reproduce the fan design,” Serafina directed. “Show me what you can do.”
The girls measured the triangles across the fabric, marking them with chalk. Laura picked up a needle and threaded it. Enza fished through the bin to find the right beads. She collected them and brought them to Laura, who handed her the needle, then threaded a second one for herself. Without a word between them, they made fast work of attaching the crystals, quickly and with dexterity.
“I assume you can fine-embroider from your samples,” Serafina said.
“We can do anything. By hand, by machine,” Laura assured her.
“Can you make patterns from a beading design on a sketch?”
“I can do that, Miss Ramunni,” Enza assured her. “I can take any sketch from a designer and break it down for production.”
“I know my way around beads,” Laura volunteered.
“And I’m an excellent fitter,” Enza said.
“You know the opera is more than Signor Caruso. But he is the king around here. We put on the operas he wants to sing, and we cast the sopranos of his choosing. He’s in London until next month, at Covent Garden with Antonio Scotti.”
“The baritone,” Enza remembered. “He appeared with Caruso in Tosca in 1903 here at the Met.”
“You do know your opera.”
“She listened to Puccini through a dumbwaiter,” Laura volunteered. “We were working scullery at a fancy party, and he was there.”
“I wasn’t aware Signor Puccini was renting himself out for parties.”
“Oh, he wasn’t. It was in his honor,” Enza said. “He played several arias from Tosca.”
“Your passion and curiosity will hold you in good stead around here,” Serafina said to Enza. She turned to Laura. “And how about you?”
“I’m a Gerry flapper,” Laura said. “You know, the Irish and all.”
“Geraldine Farrar is our best soprano. But know your place here. You are on the costume crew. You are not fans. No ogling, no joking, no familiarity, even when the performers are familiar with you. Treat every singer like your boss. If there’s a problem, you go to your crew captain.”
“Who is she?” Laura asked.
“Me. But first, we have a problem. I only have the money in the budget to hire one of you. Who wants the job more?”
Enza and Laura looked at one another sadly. The fantasy of being hired together had been dashed. “She may have the job,” they said in unison.
“No, no, no,” Laura said, shaking her head. “It’s Enza’s dream to work here. Please hire her.”
“But it’s your dream too.” Enza looked up at Serafina. “Laura and I met in a factory in Hoboken. She taught me English, and I’m trying to teach her Italian. She looked out for me there, and we moved into the city and took any jobs we could get. But our dream was to work together here at the Metropolitan Opera House.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the best,” Enza said. “And we believe our skills are excellent, and we belong in a place where our talents are used.”
“Not that we don’t have a lot to learn. We do,” Laura added.
“Well—” Serafina ran her hands over the beadwork swatches. “My parents came from Calabria. And I was trained by Joanne Luiso, she was a great seamstress. She was patient with me, taught me about fabrics, drape, and line. I wouldn’t be here without her. I was given a break.”
“It’s only right to give the position to Enza,” Laura said.
“But I was hired by an Irish woman named Elizabeth Parent.” She glanced at Laura and smiled. “I’m going to take you both, though they’ll have my head upstairs. I’ll have to blame the budget overrun on Caruso, but God knows it’s happened often enough before.”
Laura and Enza were elated. They hugged one another, then looked to Miss Ramunni.
“You’ll start at one dollar a week. I don’t like clock watchers or break takers. I like a girl who sits down at the machine and sews straight through. If you’re actually as good as you say you are, you may eventually graduate to fittings and costuming the chorus. But first, you do the assembly work. Sometimes we work all night. No overtime.”
“We’re really hired?” Laura asked. “Both of us?”
With a curt nod, Serafina Ramunni said the sweetest words in the English language: “You have the job.” And then she turned to Enza. “And you have the job. Welcome to the Met.”
After they had completed their training, Enza chose the sewing machine at the end of the line in the costume shop, just as she had at the factory. Laura sat down next to her, tossing a brown-bag lunch into the drawer. Behind them, a dozen military jackets for the chorus had to be deconstructed, epaulets replaced, buttons redone, new collars and lapels inserted, for a special show the opera company was putting on for a bond drive for the American troops off to fight in the Great War.
The show was planned for the last day of June, so there were only a few weeks to design, mount, and produce the show, a pastiche of great arias and chorus anthems put together for the sole purpose of rallying the crowd to buy bonds to support the U.S. government.
With a sketch of a military uniform pinned to the wall before them, the girls began to rip out the old elements of the costumes, used in a production of Don Giovanni, careful to save the frog enclosures, brass buttons, and metal studs. Every clasp, trim, and embellishment in the shop was reimagined and used repeatedly. A button was never wasted.
“I think I’ve found my future husband,” Laura said.
“Where?”
“In the lobby this morning.”
“Not the door attendant.”
“No, he’s entirely too short for me. I found a tall one. His name is Colin Chapin. He works in accounting.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked him.”
“You just walked up to him and started talking?”
“I had to. I felt the tug of destiny. I’m not like you. I don’t have to be dragged into love by my braids. He’s going to take me to the show. He likes westerns, especially Tom Mix.”
“I didn’t know you liked westerns.”
“I don’t,” Laura said, “but I like him. He seems wise. Colin is ten years older than me.”
“You just came out and asked him how old he was?”
“No.” Laura laughed. “I have some couth! I asked Janet Megdadi in the office.”
“You are thorough.”
“Gotta be. Plus, I found out he’s a widower.”
Enza shook her head, amused. Laura Heery was, above all things, thorough.
“Enza, you know what my dream is for you? I want you to stop living like you did in Hoboken. You’re free now. Nobody’s gonna take away your happiness ever again.”
Freedom came naturally to Laura. Enza wished it came more naturally to her. Laura had a way of bringing out the best in Enza, and Enza was masterful at keeping Laura focused.
Enza laid a particularly ornate chorus jacket out on the worktable. She scribbled chalk marks across the lapels and down the sleeves.
“This one was a general,” she said. She took her small work scissors and began to disassemble the hardware on the face of the jacket. She attacked the small stitches, pulling out the threads quickly.
“Did you know him personally?”
Enza ceased her ripping and looked up.
“He’d rather have taken a bullet, the way you’re ripping out that lining,” a man said, in a deep voice with honey edges. Enza looked up into the stranger’s blue eyes. He ran his hand through his straight black hair and smiled. This is a handsome man, Enza thought. He must be a baritone, from the timbre of his speaking voice.
The angles of this man were all sharp. Square shoulders, a firm jaw, and a straight nose, but a beautiful mouth, with full lips over straight white teeth. His suit, perfectly cut for his lean body, was navy blue with a light blue pinstripe. His starched collar was snapped with a gold cross bar. His fitted vest was fastened with ivory buttons. Enza also noticed that the sleeves of his jacket broke perfectly at the wrist, revealing the crisp shirt cuffs underneath. His cuff links were deep blue lapis lazuli squares set in gold. He had beautiful hands.
“I’m Vito Blazek,” he said.
“Are you one of the singers?” Enza asked.
“Publicity. Best job in the building. All I have to do is let the papers know that Signor Caruso is singing, and four thousand tickets are sold that minute. Sometimes I like to come and watch the real work of the opera taking place.”
“I have an extra pair of scissors for you,” Enza joked.
Unfolding his arms, he leaned across the table. His skin had the clean scent of cedar and lime. “I’m tempted,” he said with a grin.
“I bet you are,” Laura said. “I’m her best friend, Laura Heery, and if you want to flirt with her, you need my approval.”
“What do I have to do to impress you?”
“I’m thinking.” Laura squinted at him.
“You ladies have discernment.” He smiled. “I’m afraid I haven’t gotten your names yet.”
“Enza Ravanelli.”
“Sounds like an opera. Ravanelli? Northern Italy?” he said. “I’m Hungarian and Czech, born in New York City. Makes for an interesting stew.”
“I’ll bet,” Laura said, still giving him the once-over. “Nobody knows about stews like the Irish.”
“Hey, Veets, we gotta blow,” a young man said from the doorway.
“On my way,” Vito called over his shoulder, then added, “I hope I see you later.”
“We’ll be here, sewing our little hearts out,” Laura said as they watched him go.
“This job has perks.” Laura whistled. “If you decide to go out on a date with Mr. Blazek, I’m going to make you a new hat.”
Enza chalked the inseam of the coat. “I like blue,” Enza said. “Something bright—peacock blue.”
Laura smiled, pulling stitches out of another jacket.
Serafina pushed the door open to the workshop and placed a stack of files on the worktable. She surveyed the work of the seamstresses down the line. She lifted the finished chorus jacket, nodding her head in approval. “I have a job for you, Enza. Signor Caruso is back in the morning. His costumes are ready, but they need some adjustments. I’d like you to assist me.”
“I’d be honored to attend to Signore,” Enza said, trying to mask her surprise. After Serafina disappeared, taking the finished jacket with her, the girls on the machines congratulated Enza. Laura was so thrilled for her friend, she let out a whoop.
Enza took a deep breath. She knew this was the most important moment in her professional life thus far—the moment she was chosen and singled out for her talent. She had worked since she was fourteen years old for this opportunity. Her skills, nurtured in Mrs. Sabatino’s dress shop on the mountain and perfected by rote in the factory, had finally been revealed in full. Her talent was no longer a private matter; it was on display for all to see and appreciate on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. And now, she would hem the garments of The Great Voice. She could scarcely believe it. If only Anna Buffa could see her now.