“There it is.”
Calla’s eyes widened as she saw Havercrest, a splendid Elizabethan-style mansion, lit up against the blue night sky. Music sailed over the field and through the trees. They could see the shimmer of the horns of the dance band positioned on the veranda. Elegant cars dropped off guests at the stone entrance, anchored by two fountains that sprayed water like ribbons of diamonds high into the air before they dropped in slate pools.
“Who lives here?” Calla asked.
“The family makes ketchup.” Frank leaned on the fence.
“How did you find this place?”
“I built the waterfall at the swimming pool.”
“What’s that like?”
“Like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Can you imagine walking out of your house in the morning and jumping into your pool and swimming under your own waterfall?”
“I can’t.”
“No Italian American has ever lived in this neighborhood.”
“Not one?”
“But I will someday,” Frank assured her. “I want to be mayor, I want to help people, and I want to live like this.”
“I don’t know how you do all three of those things, but if anyone can, it’s you.” Calla kept her eyes on the party as if she were observing a work of art, or a piece of theater. She drank in the way the light played on the scene, and how the people sashayed through the garden party, moving to the music.
“Someday I’ll build you a house like this.” Frank scooped Calla up off the ground and kissed her.
“I wouldn’t stop you.” Calla smiled. “Can I have a pool?”
“Whatever you want.”
*
Nicky and Hortense walked through the grounds of the Jubilee carnival, nodding respectfully to the people of Roseto, making their rounds as the guests of honor. The committee had provided each of them with a handmade sash that read “Honored Guest,” in case it wasn’t obvious.
“I will give this one more revolution through the grounds, and then I’m heading back to Minna’s,” Hortense said through a clenched smile.
“I wish I had a nice place to stay.”
“What’s wrong with the chief burgess?”
“He’s all right. It’s his wife and daughter.”
“I bet they serve fresh doughnuts at breakfast.”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t eat their food. I barely use the water. I take a sponge bath. I brush my teeth like I’m in the Amazon. I don’t want to owe them anything because then I might have to reciprocate. The cost is too high. I won’t miss Truman Street, I’ll tell you that.”
“We could leave tonight.”
“I have to give the speech tomorrow.”
“You know this is all make-believe. You know you’re not really the man in the booklet. We can just scram. We can disappear in the bubble of the lie in the dark, right now, like the vapor we are.”
“That would be like leaving at intermission.”
“People do that.”
“Not the players.”
“Nicky, this isn’t a play, and we’re not on a stage. William Shakespeare has been dead so long they named a rest stop after him on the New Jersey turnpike.”
Nicky wasn’t listening to Hortense. His attention was on the sodality pizza fritta stand, nestled between the sausage and pepper stand and the fresh nuts and torrone stand.
“Hortense, are you hungry?”
“I’m slightly peckish,” she admitted.
Nicky walked over to the stand where the ladies of the church sodality were making pizza fritte, Roseto’s version of a zeppole. The sweet scent of vanilla, the clouds of powdered sugar, and the golden puffs of dough made the pizza fritte the most popular treat at the carnival.
Mamie Confalone flipped the dough in the deep fryer under the canopy’s strings of twinkling white lights. She gently lifted the fluffy clouds of dough out of the oil and placed them on a rack as another volunteer sprinkled the delicacies with sugar, placed them in paper cones, and handed them to the customers.
Nicky slipped around to the side of the stand.
“Mrs. Confalone.”
“Ambassador. Where’s your uniform?”
“I had to air it out.”
“Too much dancing?”
“If you want to call it that.”
“What would you call it?” She tried not to laugh.
“The trot without the fox.”
“You showed real stamina.”
“The ladies told me all about the people of Roseto.”
“I’ll bet they did.”
“Since I arrived, I haven’t seen you out of an apron.”
“You should come around when it’s not Jubilee.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“No.” She smiled.
“I’m like a cat. When you put out milk, he keeps coming back. And last night, you brought me dinner. I don’t forget a kindness.”
“I felt sorry for you.”
“Would you let me walk you home tonight?”
“No.”
“They told me you’re a widow. Maybe you’d like someone to walk you home.”
“I have to get home to my boy.”
“Ma, look!” A young boy ran up to the stand with a stuffed giraffe. “Grandpop won it for me at the ring toss.” Augie Confalone Jr. was around five years old, a sturdily built boy with black hair and brown eyes.
“It’s huge,” Mamie marveled.
“Can I keep him?”
“Absolutely.”
“Mamie, we’re going to take him home now.”
“Okay, Ma.”
“I’m going to sleep in Grandpop and Grandmom’s room on the day bed with my giraffe.”
Mamie leaned over the stand and kissed her son. “Be good, Augie.”
She picked up the tongs and flipped the dough in the fryer. Without looking at Nicky, she said, “Pick me up here in a half hour.”
Nicky brought the pizza fritte to Hortense. “I’ll walk you back to Minna’s.”
“What’s the rush?” Hortense took a bite of the treat. “I like the food in this town. I may sample the sausage and peppers.”
“They’ll be here tomorrow.”
“I might want them tonight. I like a savory after a sweet.”
“It will upset your stomach to end the night on a savory. You’ll be burping like a backed-up drain. No, eat your pizza fritte. End the day with a sweet. It’s called dessert.”
“You do have a point. Since when have you become a medical expert?”
“Since Mamie Confalone agreed to let me walk her home.”
*
Nicky dropped Hortense at Minna’s apartment, turned, and raced back up Garibaldi Avenue to the carnival grounds like a long-distance runner with a hot coal in his pants. He wove through the crowd at a clip to get back to the pizza fritte stand. Locals called out to him, shouting “Ambasciatore!” He waved, but kept moving. When he made it to the stand, he looked for Mamie. He couldn’t find her.