“I have a feeling you would have been just fine.” Laura embraced her old friend for a long time. “I, on the other hand, would have been in a suite at Bellevue, eating crushed bananas, singing ‘Tico Tico’ on a loop.”
Enza and Laura sat on the shore of Longyear Lake, sipping wine in paper cups while they ate figs and cheese Enza had wrapped in a starched moppeen.
“This is when I miss Ciro. You know, we’re at the stage of life where things get quiet, and when you’re a widow, that silence is painful.”
“I think of you when I want to push Colin out the window.”
“Enjoy him.”
“Come and stay with us!”
“I do miss New York. I’m sorry so much time has passed without a visit. But now I’m waiting for Antonio to come home, and when he does, I can make some big decisions, and one of them will be to come and see you for a nice long visit. ”
“I have a bedroom for you. We could go to the opera every night of the week. Colin has a box.”
“The diamond horseshoe.”
“Can you imagine? Remember the first time we walked in there? And now I sit up there and I complain if I can’t see the stage-left wings from my seat. And back then, we would have scrubbed floors to be anywhere in the building. And we did! But ultimately we didn’t have to, because you were an artist and could sew better than any machine. And it didn’t hurt that you were Italian. That went so far in the opera house—as it should.”
“I still play Caruso’s records.”
“You cooked for Caruso. I washed his dishes! The man would not eat raw tomatoes.” Laura clapped her hands together. “We’ve lived in the days of Caruso at the Met.”
“I wonder what he’d say if he saw my white hair.”
“He would have said, ‘Vincenza, you may have white hair, but I will always be older than you.’ ”
“You know, whenever I pick up a pen, I think of you. You taught me how to read and write English. You never got impatient and snapped at me.”
“You were so smart, I worried you’d teach me a thing or two about grammar.”
“No, it was the most generous thing anyone’s ever done for me. You have a way of finding out what people need and giving it to them.”
“All you needed is what every girl needs, a good friend. Someone to talk to, to share with, to run things by . . . You were always that person for me.”
“I hope I always will be.”
“As long as there are telephones.” Laura laughed.
Angela walked to her classes at the Institute of Musical Art carrying her sheet music in a newspaper boy’s burlap tote which she wore across her body. The sun in late March was hot, but the air was cool. She hummed as she walked, imagining the musical notes of her audition piece in succession, visiualizing them in her mind’s eye, and rehearsing as she went. Whenever she reached a crosswalk and the trolley would speed by, clanking on the tracks, drowning out all sound, Angela would practice her high register and test her vocal power by singing her scales as loudly as she could.
Heads turned as Angela walked; young men would whistle, but she didn’t hear them. Her long black hair ruffled in the breeze as did her long pleated skirt which she wore with bobby socks and Capezio flats. She didn’t need lipstick, as her lips were deep pink without it. Like her unstudied, effortless beauty, singing came naturally. Angela was a delicate soprano, known in her class for her perfect pitch and crystal tone.
Angela was a small-town girl. She lacked the sophistication, and therefore the cunning, of her fellow students. She didn’t fight for the best parts, but was happy to be in the chorus. She sang because it was a gift, not because she wanted to gain something more from it. Singing made her feel close to her mother, who had sung to her. Music was a way of holding on to Pappina.
The Institute was housed in the Vanderbilt family guest house on East 52nd Street. Angela loved the marble entry; shades of deep cherry and pink offset by slashes of black reminded her of the inside of a candy box. The auditorium, where Angela took lessons in Vocal Technique, Dramatic Expression, and Italian for Singers, was stately, but small. It could have fit on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera