He waited, thinking she might have run out on an errand. A few minutes ticked by, and he began to worry. He followed one of her co-workers into the tent where the ladies kept the dough. He searched the tent for her, but she wasn’t there either. It soon became clear that she had given him the bum’s rush. Feeling like a sap, he did nothing to pretend he wasn’t devastated. He walked out of the supply tent, avoiding the crowds, and slipped behind the stands, away from the lights.
When Nicky reached the end of the field, he looked back at the carnival. The Ferris wheel spun through the air in streaks of pink and purple. He could hear the children as they laughed with glee, whipping around in circles on a ride where the cars were painted as planets. He saw couples lean over the counters as they played the games of chance—a young man intent on winning a prize for his date, and her obvious thrill when he did. The older married couples gathered at the picnic tables, sharing sausage and pepper sandwiches and conversation.
There was a universe of belonging happening before him that he was not a part of, phony ambassador or not. Whether it was Montrose Street or Garibaldi Avenue, there was no seat at the table for Nicky Castone.
Nicky had always been the extra boy, the pinch hitter, the fill-in when a kid didn’t show up, called in sick, or quit. He was the replacement, dutiful, cheery, and reliable. If he was good, he was allowed to stick around. Maybe that’s why he was so eager to try on someone else’s life for a while, to be Carlo Guardinfante. It hadn’t worked out so well to be Nicky Castone.
“Hey, you,” a woman’s voice whispered. Good Lord, does Cha Cha Tutolola lie in wait in the bushes every night? thought Nicky. He didn’t want to know, and he didn’t want to find out, so he kept moving. He remembered Rosalba was on the prowl. That’s when he began to move at a clip.
“Hey, don’t make me chase you.”
Nicky turned around. Mamie motioned to him before jumping back into the shadows. He ran to her.
“Do you have a car?” she asked.
“Yes. Si. Si.”
“Pick me up one block over, behind the rectory.”
“Dove è the rectory?”
Mamie pointed.
“Behind the church?” Nicky asked. “Chiesa?”
Mamie nodded.
“Promise me you will be there?” He was unable to bear the thought of one more goose chase at the end of which he would be nothing but plucked and cooked.
“I promise.” Mamie smiled, which intoxicated Nicky with a kind of desire he hadn’t felt since he first liked girls.
He broke into a sprint to retrieve the sedan he had parked in the free space in front of the Mugaveros’ house on Truman Street. After all he had been through, and all he had run from, at long last he had something to run to: Mamie Confalone, waiting for him behind the rectory. She might as well have given Nicky Castone that silver scrap of a moon.
*
Mamie settled into the front seat of the sedan. Nicky was so excited, he could barely drive. His fantasy had come true, and he didn’t know if he was made of the stuff to handle it.
“Why did you make me pick you up behind the rectory?”
“Because the only person who isn’t a gossip in this town is Father Leone.”
“Who cares what people think?”
“Obviously you didn’t grow up in a small town. Take a left up here.”
“Where are we going?” Nicky drove through the black night on a back road.
“Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Me too. You can drop the accent.”
“This is the way I speak.”
“No, it isn’t. L’uomo che si dà fuoco viene bruciato. What did I just say?”
“Your Italian is terrible. No real Italiano could capisce.”
Mamie laughed. “You don’t speak Italian.”
“I speak-uh English when in America.”
“Let me translate for you, Ambasciatore. The man who sets himself on fire gets burned. Your accent is so bad, you couldn’t pass as a waiter in an Italian restaurant and take an order.”
“I bet I could!” Nicky dropped the accent.
“There it is.”
“All right. Here it is.”
“I like this much better.”
“You do?”
“The other accent sounds like a continental parlor snake.”
“Maybe that’s why Cha Cha and Rosalba are barnacled to me.”
“Could be. Or maybe they’re just barnacles. I knew you weren’t the real ambassador when you visited the factory.”
“Where did I trip up?”
“No Italian wears Florsheims.”
“My shoes!”
“Florsheim shoes are made in Wisconsin.”
“Right. I’m in dutch with the costumes. Do you think my regimentals look like the Penn State band uniform?”
Mamie laughed. “A little. Where did you get them?”
“A costume shop. At a theater. But there’s a tag in the slacks that says Woodwind.”
“It’s more than the clothes. You are nothing like the real ambassador.”
“How do you know?”
“I translated the letters from him for the town council.”
“What’s the real ambassador like?”
“He writes in a very somber fashion. The real guy is a real stiff.”
“You can tell from his letters?”
“You can tell everything from a letter. The words people choose are the colors they see.”
“That’s poetic. If you can teach me how to say that in Italian, I’ll put it in my speech tomorrow.”
“I don’t have time to teach you Italian.”
“They don’t seem to mind that I speak English.”
“That’s because we love anyone we think is important. And we admire anyone we think is famous. And right now you’re the closest we have to either.”
“I danced with fifty-two women last night. I have done my penance for the dupe.”
“You’re going to keep this up?”
“It’s over by noon tomorrow.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“At first, it was out of pity.”
“Why would you feel sorry for this town? The people are close, we have work. There’s no crime.”
“It’s something I felt.”
“It’s a wonderful place to live.”
“That’s why you don’t like outsiders. You don’t want to share.”
“It’s not that we don’t like them, we don’t trust them.”
“How about you?”
“I’m wary.”
“Are you going to tell on me?”
“I’m not a rat.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“What’s your name?”
“Nicky Castone.”
“Italian boy.”
“You’re surprised.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Mother’s side from Abruzzo and father’s side from Ercolano.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a cab driver, and I deliver for Western Union. I drove up here from Philadelphia to deliver a telegram. It’s in the glove compartment.”
Mamie opened the glove compartment and read the telegram by the dashboard light. She folded it carefully and put it back in its envelope. “Why didn’t you deliver it?”
“I’m on the lam. The ambassador is in a hospital in New York City and I look like him, and my ex-fiancée’s father was on his way over to kill me with his bare hands and probably a weapon or two, so I jumped into the car and came here to hide out. You needed an ambassador, and I needed to be somebody else for the weekend, so here we are.”
“What about the colored lady?”
“Mrs. Mooney is a good person.”
“How did you get her to take part in your play?”
“I’m glad you see it as a theatrical endeavor. That’s how I’m looking at it, to avoid any kind of self-loathing.”
“Is Mrs. Mooney an actress?”
“She’s the dispatcher at the cab company where I work. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for me.”