“I grew up with it. My parents. That was a real love story.” Calla closed the ledger.
“You’re lucky. That was the saddest part of losing my parents. And the worst part of being an orphan. I never saw a love story that I could say was mine.”
“Forgive me. What a clod. Bragging about my parents.”
“You should! Revel in it! What is better than hearing about two people who loved each other and made a life and a family. It’s like something out of a play. Almost doesn’t seem possible offstage. What I wouldn’t give to have known my father with my mother in love—together, you know, just the two of them, in the kitchen, laughing, making a sandwich, or holding hands on the street, or seeing my father open a car door for my mother. The absence of those things are what makes you an orphan—it’s the ordinary everyday expressions of love you miss.”
Calla looked away.
“Hey, I’m boring you.” Nicky nudged her.
“Not at all.”
“You sure?”
“It’s what everyone wants.”
“Is it what you want?”
“Of course.” Calla felt her cheeks flush.
“I remember your mother. She was a beauty.”
“She was.” Calla looked down at her hands because they reminded her of her mother’s.
“You look just like her.”
“I look like my dad.”
“No. You look like her. You really do.”
“Thank you. You couldn’t pay me a higher compliment.”
“That was it? I’ve been trying to figure out how to impress you and I stumble upon it blind. Go figure.”
“That’s it.” Calla laughed.
“I’m sorry you lost her.”
“It’s been hard. And really difficult for Dad. I haven’t been able to get him back since she died. The grief took him over, and he got sick. But I’m determined to get him well, and have him direct the next production. He doesn’t want to do it, but I’m going to make him.”
“You took all this on for him?”
“It’s the family business.” Calla smiled.
“I understand. I work in one, you know.”
“But I love the theater. Maybe not as much as my dad, who sacrificed everything for it, but almost as much. He spent all of his time here when we were kids. Mom would pack his lunch and bring him his dinner here. I probably spent more time in this mezzanine than I did in my backyard at home.”
“Did your mother mind?”
“Whatever made him happy made her happy.”
Nicky’s thoughts went to Peachy, who thought happiness was a joint venture, not a personal search. “They don’t make them like your mother anymore.”
“No, they don’t. But she’s gone—and maybe that has something to do with it. She worked so hard to make our lives comfortable and happy that she sacrificed her health and her peace of mind. Her whole life was my father and her daughters. We were her world. And I don’t know if that’s good.”
“It was good for you,” said Nicky.
“Yeah. But what about her?”
“Mothers don’t think about themselves. When my mother was dying, she said, ‘When you’re happy, I’m happy, and I’ll know it, even in the next world. So promise me you will always be happy.’”
“She guilted you into being happy.”
“I didn’t see it that way.”
“My mother guilted my sisters and me into being good and working hard in school, really, everything. Guilt was her tool. But it was effective.”
“It builds loyalty. You had her all those years. I’d have taken my mother, guilt and all, any terms set, I would have agreed to them just to have her around.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Five. Almost six.”
“And you remember her?”
“I do. I like to think I remember every word she said, but that’s just wishful thinking. I fill in whatever I can’t remember like it’s a scene in a play and then I watch it in my mind.”
“I find myself doing the same thing with my mom.”
“You have to. Who will remember her if you don’t? Who knew your mother in the way you did? In my dreams my mother is young and full of pep and quite the beauty. I remember how she brushed her hair. And what she wore. And how she laughed. And her perfume. You know, whatever you wear reminds me of my mom.”
Calla held out her wrist and put it under Nicky’s nose. “It’s called Bella Arancia. I get a big bottle at the feast every year.”
“It’s nice.”
“Thanks. There’s a Calabrian couple that have come over here every summer for years, and they make cologne themselves. Mine is made with Sicilian blood oranges. You should get Peachy a bottle next feast.”
“I never buy her perfume. She gets a discount at the department store. So she wears Arpège.”
“Fancy.”
“Very. I like it. But she doesn’t smell like an Italian garden in the summertime. You know, like my ma.”
“Someday you’ll have a daughter, and your mother will be back. That’s how it goes, you know.”
“You think so? I hope it’s true. I’m beginning to forget the small details and I’m afraid the memories of her will eventually fade altogether when I move out of Montrose Street. I’ve lived in that house all my life, and it’s the only house I lived in with my mother. I’m reminded of her every day when I come and go. When I walk out the door, I feel like I’m leaving her there somehow.”
“What does that say about us?” Calla wondered.
“What do you mean?”
“We never left home.”
“There must have been an important reason for us to stay.” Nicky shrugged.
“I had to take care of Dad.”
“And I wasn’t ready to get married until now.”
“How did you know you were?”
“You just know. How about that handsome devil with the delicate, upturned schnoz you’re seeing?”
“Frank is very nice.”
“The future mayor of Philly. Important man. That’s some stature right there. The very definition. He’s climbing the ladder. You better invest in some nice hats.”
“I don’t exactly fit the role, do I?”
“You can do anything.”
Calla blushed. The only person who had ever said those words to her and meant them was her father. And those particular words had given her the confidence to direct her first play. “Not according to the Philadelphia Inquirer,” she said as she gathered the pages from her prompt book. “We’re done for today. You need to rest. You have Shakespeare to master—and I have accounting to do. ”
“I heard this new actor Nicky Castone is going to turn things around. Take the old barn out of the red and put it in the black.” Nicky stood, extended his hands, and pulled Calla to standing.
“That would be nice, because I heard from Mario Lanza’s agent and he’s gone to Hollywood. He won’t be back to South Philly anytime soon to save us,” Calla admitted.
Nicky held Calla’s hands. “You don’t need Lanza when you’ve got Castone.”
“I have to lock up.”
Nicky let go of her hands. “Work. Work. And more work,” Nicky teased as he followed Calla to the stage door, past the prop table, where there were stacks of flyers and posters to advertise the production.
“That’s how you get good.” Calla picked up a stack of flyers. “Could you do us a favor and take some of these and hand them to your customers?”
“That’s only about sixty people a day.”
“It would help.”