*
Lena Palazzini modeled the latest Dachette hat for Mabel, a pink silk number with a large turquoise button on the crown.
Da Ponte’s had just received a new shipment from New York, which meant the women of South Philly swarmed the swanky shop for the latest hats. The shop was painted ballerina pink and the glass cabinets that lined the wall were filled with hats positioned on mesh wire displays. A wall of mirrors, reflecting all angles of the customer, made trying on the latest Lilly Daché, Mr. John, Nettie Rosenstein, or Luray hat out of Paris, a pleasure.
“You look good in the cloche, Lena,” Mabel remarked. “You have a small head. I need a brim.”
“They have a knockout Venetian gondolier hat.” Lena handed her the big hat.
“If I buy that hat, my husband will have me working on a canoe on the Delaware,” Mabel complained. “I don’t want to give him any ideas.”
The entrance door pushed open to the jingle of bells. Freda, the shop girl, poked her head out from the back room. Lena looked up and saw June and Diane, the wives of her husband’s cousins, Micky and Tricky, the Palazzinis of Fitzwater Street. The ladies were a matched set, sleek and polished. June was a slim brunette shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola, while Diane was a curvy blonde, strictly 7-Up.
“Hi girls,” Mabel said from her seat on the bench. “I mean, cousins.”
“Hi,” June and Diane chimed together. The cousins stayed in the front of the store, avoiding Mabel and Lena until Mabel placed the gondolier hat on her head.
“You know, we can be friends,” Mabel said loudly.
Diane and June looked at one another. After a moment, Diane summoned the courage. “You think so?”
“Why not? We didn’t start this malarkey. I find plenty wrong with the Palazzinis, if you want to know the truth. Now, not enough to get in a vendetta over it. But they’re not so perfect, are they?”
“Mabel,” Lena chided her.
“I just think we should be friends with these girls because we probably have a lot in common. Right?”
“I think we do.” Diane looked at Lena. “I was coming in here to buy that hat.”
“See? Progress.” Mabel modeled the gondolier hat. “What do you think of this?”
“I don’t like it on you,” June said.
“We will be very close,” Mabel assured her. “You’re honest.” Mabel took the hat off and gave it to June.
“A snap brim would suit you better. It would show off your eyes.” June handed Mabel a lovely periwinkle straw number with an orchid bow.
Mabel put the hat on. It lit her face romantically like blue moonlight.
Lena was amazed. “She’s right.”
“I won’t say a word to our father-in-law,” Mabel said.
“And I won’t say a word to ours,” June promised.
*
Weeks had passed since Hortense Mooney had made Edna Oldfield a dish of macaroni. The old lady had enjoyed it, and said as much. Hortense made sure Edna had brought extra to the office for her son to sample. She had even left the kitchen as spotless as she had found it. She didn’t know what else she could do to convince Edna to take the sauce into her company fold.
Since she hadn’t heard from Mrs. Oldfield, Hortense decided to spend some time at the Free Library and conduct some marketing research. She had spun a convincing fable about competition in the food business; now the facts were needed to back it up. There must be more companies in the country that would be interested in canning and selling Italian tomato sauce. Hortense simply had to find them.
Hortense was putting on her hat just so when the telegraph machine began to tick. She sighed and sat down at her desk. She lowered her head and placed her thumb on the lever as the message came through.
TO: HORTENSE MOONEY
FROM: EDNA OLDFIELD
WILL BUY YOUR SAUCE. COME TO OFFICE 9 AM TOMORROW. E.O.
Hortense’s hand began to shake. She checked her work. Twice. Three times. She typed out the message, glued it to her favorite telegram letterhead, filigree angels on hearts, and typed the envelope with her home address. She placed the telegram in her purse.
Hortense went to the file cabinet and unlocked the bottom drawer, where she kept her private stash: a bag of chocolate-covered raisins, a jar of Sanka, and the sheaf of her private correspondence. She shuffled through the folders until she found one marked, in her own handwriting:
FREEDOM
She lifted out the unsealed envelope, which had a typewritten letter folded inside. She took out the undated letter she had typed nearly thirty years earlier and read it.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Palazzini,
I am grateful for the steady employment provided by your company. The time has come for me to move on, and this letter is to respectfully tender my resignation. I wish you nothing but the best. Thank you.
Very truly yours,
Hortense Mooney
Hortense slid the letter into the carriage of the typewriter and typed in the date.
She picked up the fountain pen, shook it, and signed her name with a flourish. The ink dried while she put on her hat.
She left the letter on her desk and placed the bag of chocolate-covered raisins and the jar of Sanka in her purse before snapping it shut.
Hortense didn’t take the bus home that night. She walked.
She walked through two Italian neighborhoods, one Irish, one Jewish section, and one other colored neighborhood before reaching her own—four miles in all, but she didn’t feel it, not a single step, not in her knees or her hip, because the concrete beneath her feet had become air. She floated home over the streets in a bubble, under a cloudless sky that looked like a bolt of silver moiré.
Hortense had found, when she wasn’t looking for it, when she had not made a plan, her divine purpose. She had waited for this moment all of her long life. She had been so eager for it to arrive, sometimes she’d mistaken lesser opportunities for it. When she learned how to type, or when she graduated first in her class from Bland High School, or when her great-aunt left her an acre of land in Metuchen, New Jersey, or when she graduated from Cheyney, or learned Morse code, she’d figured those were skills, breaks, or accomplishments that would reveal her path and lead her to the revelation of her destiny. But they had not. Yes, they were all points of growth, arrows in the right direction, but none were her purpose.
Villa Hortensia was her purpose.