A Heart Most Worthy (12 page)

17

That Saturday, Julietta was completely regretting accepting an offer of her own. It was the night of Mauro’s dance and she wished – how she wished! – she had not been so overcome by the pageantry of the war concert. If she’d had her right mind about her, she would have said no.

“No.” She said it to her reflection in the mirror. And then she stuck out her tongue for good measure. But in truth,
no
did not come easily to Julietta. Not when it came to men. For there was always some task they could perform, some use they could fulfill. Even if it did not produce the result for which they were hoping.

She sighed.

There was nothing else to do. If the dance at the Sons of Avellino Hall was as close as she could get to a ball, then she might as well get on with the getting ready for it. She carefully parted her hair on one side and then spent the next hour coaxing her thick tresses into waves around her face. And then, once they had been pinned into position, she gathered up the rest of her hair and pulled it into a knot at her nape.

“How do I look?”

Josephine, passing behind Julietta, a pile of laundry in hand, paused. How did she look? Like a goddess. Like an angel. She bent to place the clothes on a stool, licked a finger, and put it to one of Julietta’s curls, pressing a stray lock back into place. “
Perfetto
.”

Perfetto
.

She wished it were Angelo she was looking so perfetto for, but Mauro would have to do.

“So, are you planning on eating or are you just going to stand there, admiring yourself in that mirror?”

“What’s for dinner?”

“
Timpano di peperoni
. And a bit of soup.”

Julietta wrinkled her nose. Peppers and garlic and anchovies?

Right before a dance? “I still need to press my gown. No need to wait for me.”

“No need to wait? Well, thank you very much, Your Majesty!”

Julietta rolled her eyes and then forgot completely about Josephine and her comments, about anchovies and soup, as she considered what to wear.

The dress she usually wore to the dances or the new messaline?

She reached out a hand to stroke the pink and white silk. Oh, how she’d love to wear it. She longed to wear it! But . . . no. The messaline was worthy of so much more than Mauro and a dance at the Sons of Avellino Hall.

She’d save it for something truly special.

She took a percale from its peg instead. She had convinced herself that the weave was so thin, it looked like a voile. But between you and me, her aspirations fell somewhat short of reality. In fact, it was a cheap percale that looked exactly like what it was. Although Julietta had altered the silhouette and embellished the trimmings to such an extent that if one didn’t look too closely, the gown appeared quite acceptable. And rather fashionable as well.

As she stepped into it, she remembered once more the smile that had lit Mauro’s face when she had accepted his invitation. And again, she almost wished she could wear the messaline for him. But that would defeat the whole purpose of saving it for something special, wouldn’t it? She turned away from the pegs so that she couldn’t see it. But still the memory of Mauro’s delight flickered in her mind. She’d go a bit early to the dance and take a flower off one of the tables. Push it into her hair behind an ear. Sì. That would have to do.

An hour later, Julietta was standing – still! – against the wall of the Hall. The gardenia she’d pushed behind her ear enveloped her in a sweet perfume, which completely belied the look of irritation on her face. She’d been standing there for nearly an hour. By herself.

Mauro was late.

At last she saw him enter the room, his form framed in the doorway. He pulled his hat from his head, pressing it to his chest, and stood there for a long moment, eyes searching the dance floor. Then he turned toward the people standing around the refreshment table.

Resisting an urge to wave, she tucked her hands behind her and pushed her back to the wall. Let him look. Let him wonder. Let him worry that she had gone.

It only took a moment more. Relief relaxed his features and a smile lit his face. He stepped around signora Sardo and signora Riccio. Walked around a cluster of giggling young girls and a knot of young men. Then nearly got trapped between two couples as they did the Castle Walk across the dance floor.

He halted in front of her. Made a quaint, rather gallant bow. “I’m sorry. I meant to be here before now, but signora Matullo had one of her fits.”

Signora Matullo? The fish-seller’s wife? Julietta came away from the wall, alarm sharpening her features. “Is she all right?”

Mauro sighed. “Who can say? At least she’s sleeping now.” He set his bag down with his hat atop it and flexed his shoulder blades, hoping to drive out some of the tension. He hadn’t been able to stop signora Matullo’s fit. He’d never been able to stop them. In spite of all the new cures and all the advances of modern science, he had nothing with which to combat a simple seizure. Oh, he could try to keep her from hurting herself and send her into sleep afterward, but he couldn’t prevent them from coming and he couldn’t stop them once they had grabbed hold of her limbs. It vexed a man, especially a man who was a physician as gifted, as competent, as Mauro Vitali. There he was at a Saturday night dance with Julietta Giordano and all he wanted to do was go home and pore through his books, try to find the one bit of information, the one clue that he had missed. That everyone – every doctor in America – had missed.

He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to clear his mind of the memory of signora Matullo convulsing on the floor. He opened them to find Julietta looking up at him, a gardenia glowing from her hair. Mauro put a trembling hand to the back of his neck mostly because he wanted so badly to press it to hers.

He had meant to be there early. He had meant to return home first. To wash. And change his clothes. He hadn’t wanted to show up at the dance with the smell of his patient still on his hands and the reek of tenements still on his shirt. At least he’d had the foresight to eat a peppermint on the way. “I’m sorry.”

Julietta reached out a hand and touched his arm. “It wasn’t a problem.” And indeed, it hadn’t been. At least not much of one. Being able to tell the other men that she already had an escort seemed to increase her value in their eyes. And now that Mauro had taken up her hand and led her onto the dance floor, she could see the rest of the bachelors sizing him up.

For a moment, as they waited for a
mattchiche
to begin, she sized him up as well. There, among the greater community of Sheafe Street, he had ceased to be just her brother’s friend. Had taken on an identity of his own: Dr. Mauro Vitali. And Dr. Vitali was more than a little bit handsome. He wore his age well. It made him seem almost . . . dapper. And really, thirty wasn’t so very old, was it?

Mauro and Julietta swooped together around the dance floor in a quick and graceful two-step. Hands joined together, first pointed toward the ceiling, then toward the floor. As they swung around each other, Julietta quickly became enveloped by Mauro’s scent. A hint of something . . . unpleasant. But on top of it, the smell of peppermint. Beneath it, bay rum.

And, Madonna mia, he had some rhythm, didn’t he?

She’d never seen him dance before, at least not that she had noticed. But he was quick and precise in his steps. And very energetic. He twirled her about the room for three dances and by then she’d had enough. She needed a break.

“Do you think there’s any
limonata
?”

“What?” He was having trouble understanding what she was saying. A flush rode her cheeks, and the effort of dancing had left her chest heaving. All he wanted to do was take her by the hand and lead her out into the alley. But, God help him, he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a grown man. And the girl standing before him was his best friend’s sister. Beside which there were things that a person – a doctor, a man – just shouldn’t do.

She stood on her toes, put a hand to his head, and pulled it down to speak into his ear. “Do you think there’s any limonata?”

He leaned his forehead against hers for a moment, just a moment, and inhaled the cool, exotic scent of the gardenia. The tickle of her breath against his cheek sent a snaking warmth through his chest. Limonata? There had to be some. And if there wasn’t, he would make it himself.

The back of Mauro’s neck was damp, and the curls flopping over his collar tickled the back of Julietta’s hand. She reached up and – what was she thinking? He was Mauro. Mauro Vitali.
Old
Mauro Vitali. She released him, resisting the urge to run her hand along his cheek. Took a careful step backward.

He smiled a lopsided smile. “Limonata. Right. I’ll go look.”

Just before dinner, Mama asked Annamaria to go to Zanfini’s for some cherries. “Might be the last time we can find some this year.”

She left the apartment so quickly that she forgot to put on her scarf. And by the time she noticed she was already down the stairs and across the street. But when she reached Zanfini’s, the awnings had been taken down and the store was dark.

She knocked on the door. Waited a moment. Knocked harder still. She didn’t care whether Mama got her cherries, but she wanted to see the man again. The one who had sold her the tomatoes.

As she started to rap on the door a third time, it swung open and she nearly knocked her knuckles right into that man’s chest.

He almost caught that hand up in his and kissed those very knuckles. But he didn’t. He swung the door wide instead. “Come in.”

She nodded. Slipped past him.

“What do I get you?”

She bit her lip. It was so dim without the lights. She knew they must have cherries somewhere, but she couldn’t see them.

“Tomatoes?”

She smiled as she shook her head. They still had three left over from her last visit. She made a gesture with her hand, forming her thumb and forefinger into a small circle.

She wanted something small, then. He tried to think of something small. And round. “Radishes?”

She shook her head once more.

She didn’t want tomatoes and she didn’t want radishes. What else could she want? And why wouldn’t she just tell him? “Why don’t you tell me and then I’ll find it for you?”

She started to shake her head, but then stopped. And she spoke. Why shouldn’t she? What was more important: observing Mama’s proprieties or getting the cherries that were needed? “Cherries.”

He squinted. Leaned toward her. Had she spoken? It looked as if she had, but it was so dark and he hadn’t actually heard anything. “I can’t . . . I didn’t hear you.”

She threw a nervous glance to the door behind her. Stepped closer to him. “Cherries.”

He heard her that time. And he smelled her and felt her too. Her hair brushed as lightly as the softest of feathers against his cheek. And it smelled like . . . rosemary. “Cherries! Well, they’re just . . . here.”

As he stretched an arm out behind her and over her head, leaning close, she held her breath. But she kept her eyes open. And she saw a tangle of hair on his chest beneath his open collar and a rash of stubble on his chin.

“Red or white?”

“What?”

He pulled two baskets from the shelf and held them out in the narrow space between them. “Red or white?”

She didn’t know. Mama hadn’t said. Confused, her eyes sought his.

“Rafaello?” A woman’s voice floated into the store.

He grimaced as his gaze fled from Annamaria toward the curtained doorway behind them. “Just a second, Mama!”

He returned his attention to Annamaria. Held up first one basket and then the other with an accompanying lift of his brow.

She put a finger up to touch one.

He reached back behind her again, his arm brushing her as he put the other basket on the shelf. Then he scooped a good portion from the basket she’d requested out onto a piece of paper and tied it up with a string. Bowed as he offered it to her.

“Grazie.” She said it in a whisper because her throat had gone dry.

“
Prego
.” He said it in a whisper that matched her own.

Their eyes held for what seemed like an eternity, and then she left. He watched her cross the street, then locked the door and went to see what it was his mama wanted.

“Rafaello. Rafaello.” She repeated it like a chant as she climbed the stairs. His name was Rafaello. As she walked into the apartment, she realized she hadn’t paid him. Shame colored her face.

What must he think of her!

“Annamaria!” Mama had raised her voice so she could be heard above the shrieks of the baby in the neighboring apartment. She inclined her head toward the door. “Go over to Josie’s and see if you can help her with the baby.”

Annamaria put the cherries on the table and then gladly obeyed. Mama couldn’t know that comforting a wailing baby was no work at all to Annamaria. That she would gladly set aside a hundred shirts and a thousand English lessons to take Josie’s baby up in her arms.

She pushed the door open as she stuck her head into the apartment. “Josie?” She saw the baby, but she didn’t see its mother. “Josie?” She pushed the door further open. Now she saw her neighbor. The girl was trying to dress her two-year-old at the same time she was trying to chase down her three-year-old. The baby lay in the middle of the floor, wailing.