Funzi had laid the stone at the entrance of the road and selected stones with hand-carved letters, set among the native fieldstone. R O S E T O P A was spelled out across the expanse of the entrance.
Rocco whistled up the hill for the remaining crew of eight Americans, who hiked down the new road to join them. The men looked up and saw Nicky and the ambassador approaching in the middle distance. Rocco grinned, happy at the completion of the mission, and pleased with the quality of work they had done. It was the Roseto way in Italy and America, one shared philosophy: Everybody gives a little, what they can—a little cash from Nicky Castone, some more from the proceeds of the Cadillac Dinner, the Italians pitch in their lire—and everyone lifts the stone, whatever weight they can carry, and soon the road is built.
“Good work, boys,” Rocco marveled.
“Sometimes you got to roll up your sleeves.” Funzi stood back and surveyed the road, which hugged the hillsides and laced through the curves and corners of the terrain like corset strings.
“You homesick?”
“I guess I am,” Funzi admitted.
“But this is home, you know. This is where it all started,” Rocco reminded him.
“It did, for my mother and father. And I imagine wherever they were when I was a boy was home to me, too. But give me Roseto, Pennsylvania, and my front porch on Chestnut Street. I miss my card game at the Marconi Social Club on Saturday nights. I like knowing my kids are in school getting smacked by the nuns and can walk home for lunch. I like Harry Truman and the Dodgers. We got the Jersey shore in the summers and the Poconos in the winter. What more can a man ask for?”
Italy, the motherland, was now a dreamscape for the men. Home was America now, but it was unlikely that the Rosetanis would forget the dream.
Nicky and Carlo joined them at the base of the mountain. They turned and looked up in awe, surveying the magnificence of the new road, a purple carpet of native stone that curved from the base of the mountain to the top like the royal sash of a king.
Instinctively Nicky removed his hat, and the ambassador removed his too, as though they were in church, as reverence was required.
The Americans had done everything they promised, making the road wider at the curves, leveling the base with alternating layers of gravel and sand so water might flow through when it rained, and capping the edges with modern gutters so the new road would not wash away should the Fortore River ever rage again.
But for Carlo, it was the artful diagonal pattern of the purple stones that thrilled him. What an entrance to the piazza! The beauty was Italian, the craftsmanship was American, and the combination would last until the end of time.
“What’s the date today?” Nicky asked.
“October twenty-ninth.”
“My wedding day.”
“Congratulations,” the men mumbled.
“Dove è la tua bella sposa?” Carlo asked.
“In Philly,” Nicky told him.
“Why don’t you go home and make nice. Beg her forgiveness,” Rocco suggested.
“Or stay in Italy, remain a bachelor, and add twenty years to your life,” Funzi cracked.
“It’s going to be neither, boys,” Nicky promised them.
Carlo’s houseman drove a rustic flatbed truck down the new road.
“Climb aboard. We’re going to eat and drink and celebrate,” Nicky told the crew as they hoisted themselves onto the flatbed. “And then we’re going home.”
Carlo took a seat in the front cab with the driver. The Americans sat behind them, their legs dangling over the lip of the back of the flatbed, as the houseman made the turn to drive the truck up the mountain.
“Smooth ride,” Funzi commented.
Nicky leaned back on his hands as the road under them became a long ribbon as they drove higher up the mountain. Every stone in the road, placed with the labor of their hands, had brought Nicky closer to his truth. He didn’t belong in Italy, though he had an affinity for the people and the countryside. He didn’t belong in Roseto, Pennsylvania, where he would be reminded of his folly, contrition, and penance, though without them, he would not be present in this moment. He couldn’t return to the streets of South Philly, driving Car No. 4 and living on Montrose Street in the basement, as though all of this hadn’t happened. He’d outgrown his boots. His old life belonged to the guy who wore Florsheims.
Nicky had decided that he was going to New York City to fulfill his dream of being an actor. He would live there and act on the stage, the only thing he had ever done that filled him up, thrilled him, challenged him, and scared him, which made him feel alive. Nicky had left all his regrets in the road to Roseto Valfortore; he had paid for his sins, as he hauled the sand, raked the gravel, and set the stone. Now he was ready to build a new road, the one that would lead to his new life.
*
Nicky stood in the basement kitchen of 810 Montrose Street, inhaling the scent of the fresh strands of vermicelli that hung like ropes as they dried on the wooden dowels. He would miss listening to the women of the house as they made the macaroni, and gossiped and laughed as they worked.
He would miss Aunt Jo as she sang along to the music on the Philly in the Air radio show. He hoped he would never forget the worktable where the fresh macaroni was made, and how Aunt Jo knew exactly how many handfuls of flour it took to make a small volcano, which Nicky would topple with a spoon. Once there was a well in the center of the flour, Aunt Jo would crack eggs into it and allow Nicky to mix the yolks and flour together until it created the paste that would become the dough that she would knead with her hands.
Under the window his mother remained in the past, in the light. There would be an aspect of her that glittered, a gold hoop earring, a pin on her dress, the shiny side of a barrette or a dime she gave him to put in his piggy bank. Nicky would be sad to leave this room behind because it was a sanctuary of memories. He closed the wooden door between the kitchen and his bedroom.
Nicky placed the last of his clothes in the suitcase. He hung his Western Union uniform and cap in the closet, in case his replacement needed it.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Elsa asked.
“I got a place,” Nicky lied.
“You’re really going to leave us?” She sighed and sat on the edge of his bed.
Nicky would miss Elsa’s soft voice and graceful movements. He had a favorite cousin-in-law. He knew it, and so did she.
“Elsa, I think it’s time. The family needs the space, and I need to move on.”
Mabel and Lena entered the room together.
“What’s this about you moving out?” Lena asked.
“I was just teasing you about the room,” Mabel said. “We have plenty of space upstairs.”
“It’s time for me to grow up and find my way on my own. I want to be an actor and audition for all kinds of plays, so I have to go to New York.”
“You never have to leave this house.” Aunt Jo brought Nicky a stack of pressed handkerchiefs and put them in his suitcase.
“I know, Aunt Jo, and I appreciate that. If I could pack you all up and take you with me, I would.”