“Don’t have time to go to the beauty parlor.”
“Make the time.” Sam worried about Calla. She wasn’t like Helen or Portia, his other daughters, who made their appearances a priority, as well as marriage and motherhood. Calla seemed to skip over steps when it came to being a woman. It came naturally to his youngest daughter to be selfless and put herself last. But while he couldn’t believe it, Calla was twenty-six years old, and he knew that the years burned away quickly like morning fog, and she’d soon be beyond the age of marriage. Sam thought it was time that Calla found someone to love, someone with whom she could build a future. But it was the father within him who worried about her, not the fellow artist. The fellow artist believed she was right on track.
“Where do you get the nerve to cut your own hair?”
“I style the wigs at the theater, so I figured, how hard could it be to do my own hair?”
“Wigs are not real hair.”
“An even better reason to do the job myself. If I make a mistake, it’ll grow back.”
“Wish I could say the same.” Sam rubbed his balding head.
“This is the rage in Paris. It’s called the French Cap.”
“But we’re in South Philly.”
“Maybe we need a little of the Left Bank on the banks of the Delaware.” Calla picked up the newspaper. “How was the review?”
Sam didn’t answer her. When he directed a play, he couldn’t sleep the night it opened, nervous about the reviews that would come the following morning. On her opening night, the previous evening, Calla had toasted the cast with champagne in paper cups after the show, swept the lobby, cleaned the restrooms, returned home, and gone to bed.
Calla flipped through the Philadelphia Inquirer until she found a short review of her first directorial effort at the Borelli Theatrical Company. “Talk about burying my lede. This is harder to find than an Italian American at the Philly Free Library.” She read aloud, “Mr. Carl Borelli . . .” She looked at her father. “Carl Borelli?”
“Strike one.” Her father sighed. “I should have named you Susie.”
“You should have had a son who became a director, not a daughter.”
“I only make girls, you know that.”
Calla continued to read aloud, “Mr. Borelli . . . ugh . . . attempts a grand feat with Twelfth Night, one that hits with the comedy occasionally, less so with the farce—” She looked up at her father again. “Isn’t farce comedy?”
“Of a stripe.” Sam flipped the eggs in the pan.
“He didn’t understand what I was doing with Feste at all. I used him as a narrator.” Calla plopped down into the chair and continued to read. “Who is this dolt?”
“That fellow likes his Shakespeare as it was at the old Globe.” Sam ladled the over-easy eggs onto two pieces of Italian bread toasted to a golden brown, then smothered them with the tomato gravy he had cooked them in, finishing the dish with a pat of butter, which melted over the fragrant mixture. He placed the dish before his daughter, who placed a napkin on her lap. “Don’t worry about the critics. Remember what Verdi said. He let a bad review ruin his breakfast, but never his lunch.”
“Thanks, Pop,” Calla said, not looking up from the paper this time. “If this wasn’t so ridiculous, I’d be furious. And I’d be even angrier if this were a good review. Some guy named Carl would be getting all the credit.”
“But you’re fine with him getting the blame?”
Calla threw down the paper. “I’m not going to read another word.” She picked up her fork and began to eat her breakfast, savoring every bite.
“Good idea.” Sam poured her a cup of coffee. “Are you all right?”
“I wasn’t expecting a good review.”
“Yes, you were.”
“How did you know?”
“You’re an optimist.”
“Not anymore.”
Sam laughed. “It’s your first show. And you did a fine job.”
“You think so?”
“You created some inspired stage pictures.”
“I learned that from you.”
“You cast the show well. You directed the actors with sympathy. You got a performance out of Josie I never could have gotten.”
“Less ham and more mustard, I told her. It worked.”
“It all worked. The actors related to one another with an ease. That’s all you up there.”
“I think they were open to me because of their relationship with you over the years. You built the company, and they’re loyal to you.”
“No, you know what you’re doing. And I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah, well, we needed to pack them in, and a great review in a big newspaper would’ve done it. So much for high hopes.”
“How’s the house for tonight?” Sam sat down at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“About half full and we’re really short for the matinee tomorrow.”
“You have to cut staff.”
“I know.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I figured I can do the accounting myself. I can lose the costume assistant.”
“You can do the wigs.”
“I can cut the prompter, too.”
“That’s too bad. I like that Nicky Castone. He’s a good employee.”
“I know. But I don’t have enough money to pay him.” Calla looked out the kitchen window as though the answer to the theater’s financial problems lay in the gnarl of branches that covered her mother’s grape arbor. “I have to find creative ways to make budget. Maybe I can get Mario Lanza to be in a play.”
“Every time somebody needs something in South Philly they ask Mario Lanza. How much can one man do?”
“He’s loyal to the old neighborhood. I’ll write him a letter,” Calla said, placing her dish in the sink. “I can turn this around.”
“Maybe you don’t have to. Maybe the place has run its course.”
“Don’t talk like that, Pop. What would this city be without Borelli’s? It’s your legacy. Have a little faith.” Calla kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be home for supper. Now don’t do anything crazy.”
If Calla noticed that her father’s color was off and that he was not himself, she didn’t let on. She was worried about his theater, the troupe he founded, and not so concerned about the man himself that morning.
“No ladders. No step stools. No heavy lifting. Wait until I get home.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“I mean it, Pop.”
Calla grabbed her purse and keys before leaving the house. “I’ll call you at lunchtime.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Want to,” she called out, before closing the front door behind her.
Once Calla was outside, she went down the porch steps at a clip, even though she wasn’t late for work. When she reached the gate at the end of the walk, it wouldn’t open. She yanked on it, becoming more frustrated when it wouldn’t budge. She jostled the handle again, then kicked it, loosening the rusty latch.
Her neighbor, Pat Patronski, a petite Polish beauty around her age, was on her way to work when she saw Calla struggling with the fence. “I guess you read the reviews,” Pat said apologetically.
“Only one. And that was enough.”