A Heart Most Worthy (32 page)

“She’s never worn green before.” Julietta was sure she hadn’t.

Didn’t she always wear dark blue or brown?

Annamaria wasn’t quite sure what she thought of it, but she felt she might be rather inclined to like it. It made Madame seem less dour. And more Italian.

When it was time for lunch one day in February, along with the customary bottle of wine, Madame offered them a stick of salame. And not just any salame.

“It’s a Felino. From Genoa.”

Julietta shook her head. And Annamaria, seeing her do that, did the same.

“You don’t like salame? Neither of you?”

She did. They both did. They looked at each other. Julietta shrugged. “Won’t it stink?”

“What if it does? We can open the window, can’t we?”

Annamaria had to slide her hand beneath her thigh to keep from crossing herself.

“You won’t be upset?”

“Why should I be? I’m Italian, aren’t I?”

Was she? Truly? For so long she had tried not to be. But her encounter with Mr. Quinn had changed her. It had redeemed her. He had given her life back. He had given her self back. She had believed that love had died? It hadn’t. It had endured. And while she’d banished herself from it, even while she’d sat in a cage of her own making, it had reached out to her. It had rescued her. Patrick Quinn had believed in her. Patrick Quinn believed in her still.

She poured three glasses of wine and sat down in Luciana’s old chair to eat with them.

“You both know that I plan to go to Paris this year. Once the fashion shows resume.”

They nodded.

“I will need both of you in order to ensure that the business of the shop continues smoothly in my absence.”

Both? Julietta looked up at that declaration. Both of them?

“Annamaria, I will need you up here, overseeing the third-floor workshop. I have several girls from the second floor that I want to bring up.”

Oversee? Annamaria didn’t know if she could do that. She was only a smocker after all. But if Madame thought she could . . . then . . . perhaps.

“Julietta, I will need you downstairs.”

On the second floor? Her hopes fell, tripping over themselves on the way to the bottom of her stomach. She
was
being punished for the jewels, then. But she took hold of her tarnished ambitions, promising herself that she would indeed fulfill them. If she had to spend time back on the second floor, then she’d make sure she surpassed Madame’s expectations as she did so.

“I will need you to help me with my clients.”

Her . . . clients?

“There is nobody else I can trust with them while I am gone.

You have the style and charm. When you want to.”

“I will want to. I promise you, I will want to.”

“And you must learn to speak better English.”

“I will. I’ll start today. This evening. I’ll go by the Settlement House on my way home.”

“Bene.” She surveyed the two girls, saw the change that her announcement had wrought. Already Annamaria sat straighter, held her chin higher. Already Julietta had cast off that air of indifference and insouciance. Madame could tell that it would not be long before assurance and sophistication would take their place. Sì. She had chosen wisely. It would work out well. “There’s no way to know when Paris will resume the making of her collections, but we’ll need to be ready when she does. Understood?”

Both Annamaria and Julietta nodded, dedicated in their resolve to do – to be – what Madame needed.

46

On an unseasonably springlike day in late February, Luciana had the chauffeur drive her to Madame’s shop. She decided she couldn’t wait any longer. Though she’d had Julietta up several times since the wedding, she had yet to see Annamaria. And she had news to share! So once Mrs. Quinn disappeared into her sitting room that morning, Luciana crept down the back stairs to find the chauffeur.

She no longer looked like a peasant. She was wearing clothes now that befitted her new station in life. Gowns from her favorite houses, Pacquin and Chanel, purchased at the most venerable of establishments. Other than Madame’s. Mrs. Quinn had insisted upon it. But once she and Billy’s new home in Brookline was completed, once she’d moved out of his mother’s house, she intended on patronizing Madame Fortier herself. On her own.

She was feeling out her new life slowly. Carefully. Trying not to lose herself in the great euphoria and enthusiasm that was America. Trying not to let Mrs. Quinn push her into doing anything she didn’t want to do. Next year, perhaps, she would undertake a trip to Italy. With Billy and her nonna. They would meet her cousin, and she would show Billy the family estate. She would introduce him to Roma and then they would decide – together – what they wanted their life to be.

It was this woman, this bride of Billy Quinn, this daughter of the Count of Roma, who descended from the motorcar with the aid of a chauffeur. As she entered the shop, Madame appeared from the back in much the same way that she had the first day Luciana had walked into the store.

“Bella Luciana.” Madame opened her arms to the girl and Luciana walked into them.

Madame kissed her on both cheeks.

“I have come with a special request.”

“Then I shall try to fulfill it.” Madame led her to the chair behind the screen.

“I expect that I’ll require a whole new wardrobe by summer.

I have reason to believe that I’ll be needing some gowns that don’t fit quite so tightly.”

Madame smiled then. One of the first smiles Luciana had ever seen cross her lips. And it was lovely. “I am so happy for you.”

“Grazie.”

Madame brought out her sample books, and they spent some time examining the pages, talking about colors and new styles and about the number of gowns that would be needed. Then Luciana stood, collected her things, and walked toward the back stairs. Then she stopped and turned for a moment. “Thank you. For everything.”

Madame Fortier sat in the back pew of a West End church that Sunday morning. And as she sat there, as the words of the mass were intoned, she looked at the structure that surrounded her. It was so stylish and elegant, so coldly formal. She hadn’t been in years – but it had been exactly what she’d wanted when she’d left the North End. A church with dignity and pride. A church absent any mawkish emotions and ingratiating displays of devotion. A church where people came on Sunday and then left to go about their business for the rest of the week.

It had none of the earthiness, none of the shabbiness, none of the ridiculous displays of fervor that were rife at St. Leonard’s.

But there was no joy at church that morning, or any other Sunday morning, she suspected. No spirit. No patron saints; no festas.

There were plenty of jewels on display and a multitude of stylish hats. There were men looking down at their pocket watches, and children swinging their legs back and forth, wriggling in their seats, ready to make a break for the aisle just as soon as the priest had said the concluding rite.

She slid to the edge of the pew, slipped around the edge into the aisle, and pushed through the door. If she hurried, she thought she just might be able to make the eleven o’clock mass at Saint Leonard’s.

Three months later, Julietta had just grabbed hold of the shade on the door of Madame’s shop when Mauro Vitali’s face appeared in the window. Her heart leapt at the sight, although she frowned at him. As she drew the shade down, he kept pace with the descent, giving her full view of his smiling face in the process.

She smiled too as she snapped it closed. They’d exchanged letters since he’d gone, and she’d heard he had returned to the city, but she hadn’t yet been able to manage arriving home in time for dinner. Not with Madame gone to Paris and all the work that had to be accomplished at the shop. But if truth be told, she hadn’t really tried.

She was afraid.

She was afraid that when she finally got the chance to look into Mauro’s eyes, she would find not love, but friendship waiting for her. And she wasn’t quite sure if she could bear it. So she waited a moment longer and then she pulled on the shade sharply, letting it snap open suddenly.

But Mauro was – gone.

She pressed her forehead to the glass for a moment, looking up and then down the street. He was. He was truly gone. Perhaps . . . well, he was a doctor, wasn’t he? Maybe there’d been a sort of emergency. But disappointment weighted her steps. She walked to the counter, pulled the key from the drawer, set her hat upon her head, and then secured the shop for the night. Turning away from the door, she started out onto the sidewalk and ran right into Mauro’s sturdy chest.

She put a hand up to steady herself, then moved to pull it away. But she thought the better of it. “There you are!” Her tone, infused with all the questions and all the longings she had lived with for many months, was not quite as light as she had meant to make it.

“Here I am.”

“I – ” She disengaged herself from him and looked up into his eyes. Those very dark, very solemn, very
dear
eyes. And she discovered in them something that thrilled her to the very core of her being. He seemed . . . had he missed her just as much as she had missed him?

“I came by to check on your arm.”

“My . . . arm?”

“But I see I’m too late.”

“Too late?” Just the idea, the mere suggestion of it, prompted her to thread that arm through his in such a way that he would have to try very hard indeed to free himself of it.

“You’ve already closed up.” He nodded toward the shop door.

“And who says you have to examine me in the shop?” It was one of those magnificent late-spring evenings when the air was still warm, the birds were still singing, and colorful patches of flowers brightened the long shadows that the sun had begun to cast. She started off down the sidewalk and pulled him right along with her.

He glanced down at her. “Do you have somewhere else in mind?”

“I do.”

They walked on a few steps in silence.

“Are you going to tell me where it is?”

“Maybe. It’s a small, intimate kind of place. Very famous in the district.”

“Is it new? Since I’ve been away?”

She looked over at him. Lifted her chin. “You might remember.

It’s called Mama Giordano’s.”

“Mama Giordano’s.”

“Quite exclusive. You have to know someone in order to get a table there.”

“Do you, now?”

“Sì.”

“I’d like to think I know some people.”

“Well, you can’t just walk in there like you’re family.”

“I can’t?”

“No. That will do you no good at all. Mama’s likely to just treat you like one of her boys.”

“And that would be bad?”

“Extremely so.”

“Then what do you suggest? To get the best sort of service?”

“Why don’t you tell her you’re my beau?”

He looked down at her to see if she meant the words she had said, and he read nothing there but apprehension. And hope.

Hope! Exactly where he had looked for it, longed for it, waited to see it for so many years. As he put his hand over the one she had curled around his arm, he looked down into her eyes. “Why don’t I do that.”

They walked on for several more blocks, trading glances with each other, trying to stop the smiles that had begun to curve their lips. And then Julietta had a thought that made her pause mid-step. “You’re not the kind of man that would make a girl stop working once she’s married, are you?”

Mauro, tugged backward by her sudden stop, turned around and laid a finger on her lips, though what he dearly wanted to do was kiss them. “What does that – why would I make you – ? Stop thinking so far ahead,
tesorino mio
. Let me get used to courting you first. Then we’ll see what happens next.”

See
what happens next? That was just another way to say
wait
.

And Julietta was tired of waiting. She’d waited nearly her whole life to discover what had been right in front of her the whole time. And now that she’d seen it – seen him – she didn’t want to waste any more time. What was wrong with him that he didn’t feel the same way? She could picture life with Mauro so plainly.

And she couldn’t wait –
wouldn’t wait
– to get there.

She ignored his finger and reached up to fling her arms around his neck. “I love you, Mauro Vitali. Don’t ever leave me again!”

He had no choice but to drop his doctor’s bag and embrace her. And once she began to kiss him, there was no other option left but to kiss her right back.

After a few moments, he tried to speak. “I – ”

“
Zitto!
Don’t talk.”

People were beginning to stare. But what did he care? He closed his eyes, determined to ignore them. To ignore everyone. Everyone but the girl who was finally caught within his embrace.

They moved on several moments later, walking up the street and then taking the electric car to the North End. It was so crowded that Julietta was able to refuse a seat without too much trouble. She didn’t want to be parted from Mauro for even an instant.

She’d wanted excitement? She’d found it in the arms of a man. A man who wasn’t just a boy in disguise, but a real man with true convictions and honest passions. Her heart had thrilled at the longing in his kiss, and she blushed at the depths of the desire she now read in his eyes.

Five short blocks and they were home. Four flights of stairs and they were at the apartment.

Mama turned from the stove at the sound of the door.

“You brought Julietta, Mauro!”

“No, Mama,
I
brought
him
.”

She blinked. Stopped stirring. Turned. “You brought – ? You mean – ?!”

Julietta was smiling so broadly that all she could do was nod.

Mama wanted so badly to weep with happiness, but that wouldn’t have done. So she gave Little Matteo a pinch on the cheek instead.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Get up. Congratulate your sister. She’s getting married!”

And then, because she couldn’t contain her emotions any longer, Mama gathered them both into the wide expanse of her embrace. Looking up at Mauro, she frowned. Just a little bit. “It took you long enough! What were you waiting for?”

Julietta stood on her tiptoes and kissed him right on the lips. “He was waiting for me.”