“My mother may appear demure—”
Nicky sipped his birch beer. The last word he would use to describe his future mother-in-law was demure; in fact, she wasn’t de anything, not light, or airy, or even French. She was a pile driver.
Peachy continued, “But when you challenge my mother, she will fight you like a wild alligator. She will lie in the depths and then when you least expect it, she opens wide and chomps.”
“What do you mean?” Nicky’s voice squeaked.
“She found out where the woman my father was seeing lived, and she went for a little visit. When the woman opened the door, my mother took off her shoe and began to beat the woman about the head.”
“My God.”
“She didn’t die.”
“Thank goodness.”
Peachy shrugged. “She almost lost an eye, though.”
“What?”
“One of Ma’s heels came close to the eye socket. Whacked her nose instead. It didn’t break completely, but she got it good enough that the lady had to have it reset. That’s when the cops showed up.”
Nicky stood up. “Your mother has a police record?”
“She still votes.” Peachy pulled the sandwiches out of the bag. “So the moral of that story is—”
“Don’t open the door when your mother is holding a shoe?”
“You’re funny. No. The moral is: Don’t cross us.”
“I have no intention.” Nicky sat down.
“You know I’m looking into the Art Institute for our reception? Who needs the old catering halls? Let’s be original! I love this fountain so much.”
“I saw the original fountain in Rome, you know.”
“You did?”
“During the war. At the end of it. Same artist made both of them—Bernini. But this one was given to the city by Mussolini.”
“And we kept it?”
“It was gifted to Philly before the war. Nineteen twenty-eight. It’s not the fountain’s fault it was commissioned by a fascist. Besides, it wasn’t from him, it was from the people of Italy. He happened to be in charge.”
“I guess we had to accept the gift. That’s where we come from, those are our people,” Peachy said wistfully. “I wish we could go to Italy on our honeymoon.”
“We’re getting the house.”
“And that’s fine. I can’t be greedy. Atlantic City will do for our honeymoon.”
“How about Niagara Falls?”
“We’ll freeze to death, but if that’s your desire, we’ll freeze together. I’m starving,” Peachy said as she opened the bag of sandwiches. “You must be. You worked in the car all day.”
“And then I pull double duty.”
“So, did you get my ticket for free in exchange for helping out tonight?”
“Not exactly.”
“They want you to come back another time?” Peachy tucked the cheese that had oozed out of her sandwich into the bread.
“Peachy, I’ve been working there for about three years.”
“What do you mean, working?”
“I’ve had a second job at Borelli’s since I came back from the war.”
“All this time?”
“A couple nights a week. Sometimes more. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. I was a prompter, mostly. I didn’t know how to explain what I did. I feed the actors their lines from offstage when they forget them. It didn’t seem like something I could explain.”
“Three years is a long time not to explain where you go and what you’re doing and that you’ve taken on a second job. That’s not a hobby. That’s a commitment. It’s almost like a career. How did you get the job?”
“I wasn’t looking for it. Aunt Jo gave me a ticket to see a play one night when I got back. The sodality had a group going, and she wasn’t up to it, so I went in her place. They performed As You Like It. I had never seen a Shakespeare play, but I liked it right away.”
“A show can do that to a person. When I saw my first ice show in Atlantic City, it was as if the world changed. Gretchen Merrill in person on skates! The figure eights! The jumps! The rink. The music. The costumes. All that handwork and beading and ermine fur.” Peachy’s eyes sparkled like sequins just thinking about it.
Nicky was encouraged that Peachy understood how he felt. “Yeah, those are important. That’s called spectacle. And then there’s the words.”
“There aren’t words in an ice show.”
“Right. But in Shakespeare, it’s all about the words. And they spoke to me. The words seemed familiar. The story held my attention. I felt I knew it. ”
“Maybe you studied the play in school.”
“No, we read Romeo and Juliet, and that was it. Anyhow, I stuck around afterward and one thing led to another, and I could see they needed help, so old man Borelli gave me a job. I started out in the box office, and then I worked my way up to the crew—”
“Worked your way up?”
“Yeah. There’s a pecking order in the theater.”
“There’s a pecking order in everything, Nicky. It’s the way the world in general works. But you have to be in line in the first place to be promoted.”
“I understand that. Then I became a prompter.”
“Okay. Whoa. Hold on. You’re going to Borelli’s a couple nights a week, and you’re working your way up in the company, and you forgot to tell your fiancée?”
“I’m telling you now. But, I think it’s important to have things that are just for myself. I hope you have that.”
“I don’t. You know everything.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I mean, nothing I can think of.”
“You never asked me where I went.”
“I figured you were working an extra shift in the cab.”
“But you called the garage, and I wasn’t there. It happened a lot.”
“I didn’t leave a message on purpose.”
“Where did you think I was?”
“I thought maybe you were gambling with your cousin Gio.”
“Why wouldn’t you ask me if I gambled?”
“I don’t like bad news,” Peachy said, then bit into her sandwich.
“So what did you think of the play?”
“It was cute. I still don’t understand how you wound up in it.”
“Peter Menecola, one of our actors, had to leave the theater, and we don’t have a budget for understudies. Well, what usually happens is we have a guy named Enzo who understudies all the parts, but he was already in the scene, filling in for Paulie.”
“Why did you have to do the love scene?”
“There was no one else to do it.”
“And nobody but Calla to do the lover part?”
“Nobody.”
“She was pretty good,” Peachy admitted. “She cried. I would think crying is the hardest of all.”
“I agree!” Nicky didn’t know much about acting technique, except what he had observed onstage and picked up in rehearsals directed by Sam and now Calla, but he knew you had to be pretty good to weep.