“That’s why we spend time in church. Just trying to earn our salvation.”
“A peaceful end is important, but you have to plan for it. The days and nights leading up to the end have to be filled with thoughts of grace. You can’t sit around thinking about what you didn’t get in this life, chasing what was owed you, jealous of someone who has what you wished you had gotten, angry at your spouse because he didn’t give you what you needed. Believe it or not, there are those people who die that are still angry at their parents for not giving them what they believed they deserved.”
“Poor souls.” Hortense sipped her wine.
“You can’t find grace if you’re full of misery.”
“If you walked around out there, you’d find plenty of misery,” Hortense assured her.
“That’s not why I stay inside.”
“Have you figured it out?”
“It began after my husband died, and the condition just got worse and worse. I tried to shake it. I tried to get better but the fear has gripped me and won’t let me go. A good friend of mine sent a witch over. I burned herbs, soaked in white vinegar, painted a wall peacock blue and stared at it fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen at night—nothing cured it. They’ve had masses said, rosaries, novenas. Nothing breaks the hold this has over me. Then I thought it through. And I told myself, just like I fell into this, there will be a day when I walk out the front door and keep walking. It will pass.”
“The bad times always do.”
“They do. In the meantime, I prepare. I eat from the garden. I grow flowers. And when I’m lucky, I make a new friend.”
*
Nicky was trying to figure out how to leave the dais to steal a cookie tray from a table near the dance floor when he heard a voice from behind him.
“Hey.”
He turned to see Mamie Confalone in a cocktail-length dress with a kitchen apron tied over it, handing him a plate full of food. He didn’t know what looked more delicious, the food or her. “You’re an angel.”
“No, I’m in charge of the food service on the dais, and I didn’t want your food to get cold.”
“I have never been this hungry.”
“You almost passed out in the Marconi Club picture. Eat,” Mamie ordered, before weaving her way through the crowd and outside to the kitchen station.
As Nicky watched her go, the sway of her hips in the cocktail dress drove him to distraction, but not enough to stop eating the food she had brought to him and go after her. He was so hungry, he forgot she was married. He speared a hunk of potato and meat and crust from the beef Wellington and had put it in his mouth when the band started up.
As they played a revelry, Rocco Tutolola walked out onto the dance floor while two men rolled a large red steel bingo drum out to the center.
A spotlight hit Nicky as he shoveled in another bite of the Beef Wellington. He heard the ambassador introduced. He was asked to come to the dance floor to choose the winning ticket of the Cadillac. The spotlight followed Nicky until he put his hand into the drum to pull the ticket.
The crowd shouted:
“SIFT!”
“DIG!”
“DEEPER!”
“They mean don’t pick a card off the top,” Rocco said quietly.
Nicky put his arm deep inside the drum, as if it were the mouth of a lion and he were a lion tamer. His arm went so deep it could have been snapped off if the metal door had accidentally shut. He pulled a card from the bottom of the drum and handed it to Rocco.
Rocco walked to the bandstand and lifted the microphone off the soloists’ stand. “The winner of the Cadillac is Wayne Rutledge.”
“Who? What?” the crowd chattered.
“Wayne Rutledge of Florence, Alabama.”
“An Ameri-gan?” a guest shouted from a table.
“Where’s Alabama?”
“Who cares? It’s not Pennsylvania!”
“This is a travesty!”
“Must be a mistake!”
“Yes, it appears an Ameri-gan won the Cadillac,” Rocco confirmed. “An Ameri-gan from Alabama.”
“Who sold him a ticket?”
Mike Muzzollo stood up from a table near the dais. “I did. I bought tires for my shop. I asked my regional rep to sell some tickets for me. The guy does tires east of the Mississippi. He has a client in Alabama, and the client sold one to Wayne Rutledge, who does the guy’s taxes. And he won.”
“An accountant won?” a woman shrieked.
“A tax man? Ugh!” another shouted from a far table.
A local woman stood and shook her fist. “Someone from town should win.”
“This stinks!”
“Pick another card!”
“What a bust!” The crowd began to revolt.
“Folks, settle down,” said Rocco. “This is a raffle. That means it’s a game of chance, which means there’s only a chance you’ll win. Now you saw the ambassador—he dug in that drum like he was pulling shrapnel from a lung.”
“We should’ve had a Tricky Tray,” a woman sniffed.
“The Ameri-gan probably would’ve won that too,” a man added as he puffed on his cigar.
Rocco persisted. “We sell tickets wherever we can to whomever we can because it all goes to the betterment of our town. Your generosity raised seventy-five thousand dollars for Roseto. It looks like we’ll be able to install a fountain in Borough Park and have plenty left over for beautification. We’ll be happy to let Mr. Rutledge know he won the Cadillac. Rosetani are happy for the winner.” He placed the microphone back in the stand and urged the band to play.
“A raffle is a raffle,” Rocco said to Nicky. “Nobody stole the car out from under anybody else.”
“The people are-uh very upset,” Nicky said nervously. He felt the black eyes of the men glaring at him.
“They don’t like a con.”
“How was it a con? It was a raffle, fair and square.” Nicky was so exhausted, his accent had left him.
“Pretty good with your English. Fair and square.”
“I heard it-uh today-uh at the factoria.”
“Right. Did you eat?”
“Just a bite.”
Rocco checked his watch. He pulled a cookie from a pedestal off a table by the dance floor. “Sorry, Ambassador. The dance is about to begin. You’ll need your strength.” He handed Nicky a cookie, which Nicky swallowed whole before retrieving another through the cellophane.
Cha Cha approached Nicky. “Ready to rumba?” She swiveled her hips.
“Si, si, La Bamba. I dance with the chief burgess’s wife first. My hostess.” Nicky thumped his chest to force the dry cookie down.
“Enjoy.” Rocco patted Nicky on the back and walked off.
Nicky took the very petite Cha Cha in his arms. Moving on the dance floor with her was a lot like stooping and pushing a wheelbarrow full of sand over a gravel tar pit.
“My husband tells me you enjoyed the tour of the mill today.”
“Very much. Mrs. Tutolola, I must-uh ask you, because the resemblance is overwhelming. Is-uh Mamie Confalone your figlia?”
Cha Cha stuck her chest out and into Nicky’s waist with pride. “You think she could be my sister?”
“Oh, you look-uh so much the same.”
“I see what you mean. The tilt of the nose. No, we’re not related.”