so many ways he was life itself. He was breath and power, emotion and sound, with a laugh that was so loud, God Himself could hear it in heaven.
Pappina held her new baby in her arms. It was her fourth child, but for the first time, the bonnet was pink. Angela Latini was just two weeks old when Pappina brought her to the shop to introduce her to the Lazzaris.
Ciro and Enza were fussing over the baby when Antonio bounded into the shop.
“Look, you have a new honorary cousin,” Enza said. “This is baby Angela.”
“A girl?” Antonio sniffed. “What are we going to do with a girl?” Antonio was a lanky seven-year-old with long legs and jet black hair. Ciro thought he looked a great deal like his brother Eduardo. No one on Enza’s side of the family was tall, but from the looks of her boy, he was going to be.
“Someday you’ll find out, son,” Ciro said.
Jenny Madich entered the shop with her young daughter Betsy in tow. Betsy went to school with Antonio, and from the first day, they had been sweethearts. Betsy was also tall for her age. Her white leather roller skates were knotted together and thrown over her shoulder. Her black hair, blue eyes, and small upturned nose gave way to a big smile that enchanted everyone she met.
“Wanna skate, Antonio?” Betsy asked.
“Can I, Mama?” Antonio looked up at Enza.
“Yes, but stay on the sidewalk, not in the street.”
Betsy followed Antonio up the stairs.
Jenny Madich was around forty, a tall, slim, blue-eyed, raven-haired Serbian beauty with three daughters, one more beautiful than the next. She was known as the povitica queen on the Mesabi Range. Whenever she made a batch, she dropped one of the pastries off at the shop. Today, she’d brought two. “Did the shoes arrive?” she asked.
“I have them,” Enza said. “They’re beauties.” She went behind the counter and gave the boxes to Jenny, who opened up the patent leather Mary Janes. The pair for her eldest daughter, who was sixteen, had a sleek, small heel. The others were classic with a stack heel. “Just like you ordered. They look like the ad in Everybody’s Magazine. They were right next to the Edna Ferber short story.”
“Are you selling shoes now, Enza?” Pappina asked.
“Special orders only.”
“Enza saved my life with these shoes,” Jenny admitted. “We take the train down to the cities before Easter and get our shoes there. I can never find black patent leather shoes for the girls. And they need them for the competition during Serbian Days.”
“You go all the way to Minneapolis for shoes?” Pappina asked.
“What else can we do? It takes us months to make their costumes, and you don’t want to finish off the look with a cheap shoe.”
“See all you have to look forward to with a little girl?” Enza smiled at Pappina. Enza had been trying for a second child since Antonio turned two, but she hadn’t had any luck. It seemed Pappina had babies one after the other with no problem. And now Enza’s highest dream, a baby girl, had gone on to be realized by her dear friend. Enza reached out, and Pappina handed her the baby. Enza looked down at her and thought she had been given the perfect name; she was truly an angel.
Antonio and Betsy clomped down the stairs, ran through the shop, and went out the door. The bells clanged behind them. “Be careful!” Jenny shouted after them. Then she looked back at Enza. “You know, I’ve been thinking. You could do pretty well selling the dance shoes. If I put an announcement in the Eastern Orthodox newsletter at our church, you’d have Yugos and Romanians and Serbs lined up out the door.”
Enza looked at Ciro. “Honey, what do you think?”
“Whatever you want to do.”
“Jenny, go ahead and put the ad in the bulletin. I can do special orders. And how about this: if I sell twenty-five pairs of shoes, your girls get theirs for free.”
“You have a deal,” Jenny said as she picked up her delivery box and headed out the door. “I’ll grab Betsy on my way home.”
Ciro carried a box from the back of the shop and placed it on the table.
“How’s your back?”
“Soaking in the Epsom gave me some relief,” Ciro said.
“You work too hard.” Enza put her arms around Ciro.
“Do the camphor pack too, Ciro. I put one on Luigi, and it helps,” Pappina offered.
“Let’s face it. There are too many miners, and every