Big Stone Gap Part 22

"I hate that woman," she decides.

"Who?"

"The bony schoolteacher."

"Why?"

"She's workin' Jack Mac over. I don't like it one bit when a woman takes advantage of a vulnerable man. Unless it's me, of course."

"He likes her," I say matter-of-factly.

"It's more than that. She's going after him big-time. She was over at the beauty parlor today chatting me up about all the things they do together. They've even gone camping. It makes me sick."

"Why?" I have to admit the camping part makes me a little sick too. You can take one look at Sarah and know she is not the outdoors type. Old Jack Mac better get a lot of camping trips in before he marries her because that'll be the last time he sees her frying steaks in the great wild. She's a bait-and-trap type. Once the trap shuts, no more bait.

"You know why."

"No, I really don't. She's not in your business. You've got Lyle. So why do you care?"

"Don't do this," Iva says, annoyed.

"Do what?"

"I think it's terrible how you've treated Jack Mac. He sold his truck to bring your family over here, and you haven't even thanked him properly. What is wrong with you?"

"Iva, I've got a house full of company. I was planning on going over to his house tomorrow night. Okay?"

"You should have chased him up the street when he left your house that day!"

"He stormed off."

"You didn't even holler after him to stop him. He'd have come back."

"You don't know what he said to me."

"It couldn't have been bad. The man is crazy about you."

Poor Iva Lou. She believes in love. I want to shake her and say, Wake up! It's me you're talking about. No man is crazy about me. How much proof do you need? I'm alone. Instead, I turn defensive. "You don't know the whole story, so don't a.s.sume this is all on me because it's not."

"Fill me in, girl."

I whisper, "A few months back, he felt sorry for me and came over and proposed. He was supposedly broken up with Sweet Sue, but after I said no, hardly the weekend pa.s.sed and he was out with her again. So it wasn't love or apple b.u.t.ter that drove him over to my house, it was pity. Okay?"

"Pity? Who in their right mind would ever pity you?"

"You don't know what he's like. He's very confused."

"He doesn't strike me that way, but all right, if you say so."

"I tried to thank him. I went to hug him. I couldn't believe what he had done. But he pulled away, he actually stepped back and didn't want me to touch him."

"It didn't look like that from the porch."

"I'm not lying to you, Iva."

Jack Mac follows Sarah outside to the food stand. He guides her with his hand on her lower back. She reaches back with her right hand and pats his leg. Iva Lou sees this, too, and she makes a disgusted clucking noise. "Somebody needs to tell her that flats are a no-no for girls with thick ankles."

"Let's just say he did love me once. He sure as h.e.l.l doesn't anymore. Let it go."

Iva Lou can't let it go. "How do you feel about him?"

I shake my head. I don't want to get into all of this. How do I feel about him? All I know is that when I kind of liked him, he didn't like me. And then when he liked me, I didn't want him. I do think of the kiss sometimes-well, let's be honest, it's the last thing I think about when I'm in that weakened state right before sleep. I go right back to the trailer park, to the book, to the pools of light coming out of the windows, to the way he smelled, to the way my face fit into his chest like a puzzle piece, to his eyes that looked at me with such tenderness and with just a little humor, too. I re-create the whole picture, and then he kisses me. It's my good-night kiss, I guess, and the last thing I remember before breakfast. But this is my little ritual, and I'm certainly not going to share it with Iva Lou.

"Are you afraid of him?"

"G.o.d, no."

"I don't mean of him per se." Iva Lou struggles to find the words for the right way to invade my privacy.

"Are you afraid of having s.e.x with him?"

"Iva Lou." My tone says, Stop this, please.

"Look, I'm just your friend. And you know all about me. But I'll be d.a.m.ned, I don't know how you feel about certain things. You never talk about how you feel about men. As a woman. The most fun in life for a woman is to talk about men. Look at me. It's my favorite topic in and out of the bedroom."

"I don't like to talk about it."

"Well, try. I'm a girl. You're a girl. We got our own little club; and men have no idea what we talk about. Your secrets are safe with me." From the doorway Lyle holds up a chili dog toward Iva Lou. She shakes her head and waves him off. He goes back to talking with his buddies.

"Come on. Tell me what makes you tick. Before you leave town and I never see you again." Iva Lou looks so pitiful, I almost want to explain myself to her.

"I think he's attractive. I do." I hope this will be enough to get her off the subject of Jack Mac forever.

"That's a start. Now, don't leave me hanging. Go on." I don't think I've ever seen Iva Lou this excited.

"When I saw him at the end of my walk the day my family arrived, I thought he was the most beautiful person I had ever seen."

"And you didn't throw yourself into his arms, right there and then?"

"Because he . . ."

"Follow your impulses for once! Girl, you're how old? Thirty-six? When do you think you're gonna have s.e.x? When you're sixty? Ninety? Honey-o, get in there and have you some while you're still limber. What are you waiting for? How could you let somebody like Jack Mac slip through your fingers? I bet the s.e.x with him is primo. I can just tell."

I wish Iva Lou would stop talking, but she can't. She is trying very hard to make me understand. I have never seen her on such a tear.

She continues, "Do you deprive yourself of a ripe strawberry or a spritz of nice perfume or a good book because you don't think you deserve them? h.e.l.l, no. s.e.x is no different. It is a delightful gift from G.o.d that makes life pleasant. Now, what could be wrong with that? You'll find out a h.e.l.luva lot more about yourself in bed with a good man than you will traipsing off to some foreign country with a camera and a guidebook. You need to get honest with yourself. You're afraid. But you want s.e.x. You ought to have you some s.e.x."

On the dance floor Otto and Worley are teaching my grandmother how to clog. A supportive crowd has gathered to cheer her on. Iva Lou and I join in. Nonna's body is a small barrel, her legs thin but well shaped. Her eyes gleam as she dances. She segues from an Appalachian two-step into a folk dance we don't do in these parts-must be Alpine Italian. Otto and Worley follow her lead, and soon everyone is spinning and smiling.

Iva Lou and I run out of breath first and sit down to watch. I look off in the gra.s.s, a bit beyond the door, and see my father talking to Jack MacChesney. My father's hands are expressive as usual. Jack Mac leans into my father's ear and says something. They laugh and shake hands. Sarah joins them-does she ever leave him alone for five minutes? Jack Mac introduces her to my father. Jack Mac and Sarah leave. My father looks around for us and cuts across the dance floor to join me.

"What were you talking about?" I ask Mario, indicating the conversation he just had with Jack Mac.

"His Italian is pretty good," my father says.

"He doesn't speak Italian."

"He just did." Mario shrugs. How do you like that? Maybe Sarah Dunleavy taught Jack a few key phrases she picked up from the G.o.dfather movies. How continental of her.

"Jack Mac is a very kind man. Don't you think?" Mario looks off. Sure, Jack is a very kind man, and I'm very grateful. But he won't accept my grat.i.tude, which makes a jacka.s.s out of me. I would love to tell my father all about Jack MacChesney and Sweet Sue and the proposal and Sarah Dunleavy and everything, but I think better of it. He would just smile and say something breezy in colloquial Italian about the salt in the cupboard or the eyes of a fish or some other image that doesn't make any sense or apply. Doesn't anybody see how hard all of this is for me?

Gala corrals us all into a group-she is first and foremost a travel director-and we head off for the van. On the drive home, everyone laughs as Nonna recounts how Otto and Worley tried to teach her how to clog. I don't feel much like laughing. I am filling up with sadness and regret. My family just got here, and already they're leaving. I don't want them to go! I wish this black road would never end and we could stay inside this van forever talking and laughing with Theodore behind the wheel and my father at my side.

When we get back to the house, Nonna gives Gala the dry soup beans and seasonings she bought at the Piggly Wiggly to take back to Italy.

"I'm gonna break it off for good with Frank tomorrow night. After I get Nonna's soup beans through Customs. Hey, he used me, now I use him."

Nonna kisses me good night and goes off to bed.

I watch Gala stuff soup beans in socks. She looks at me.

"Are you okay?" I nod. "You look sad. You're going to miss them."

"It's gone by so fast. But I don't want to complain, I sound so ungrateful."

"Believe me. It was a project getting these folks over here. What a logistical nightmare. Could they live any farther up in the Alps? They're a pack of goats, your family."

"Gala, who contacted you about getting my family over here?"

"Iva Lou."

"Iva Lou?"

"She called first. But it was just an inquiry. You know, to find out how this sort of tour would work. So I gave her a breakdown and took notes. Of course, I wasn't sure how it would work, but then I thought of it as a reverse tour and I was fine. Iva Lou didn't talk money or anything, though. That was entirely Jack MacChesney's department. He's a cute one, don't you think?"

"When did he call you to make the arrangements?"

She shrugs. "A couple of months ago. I could look it up."

"Was my trip planned before or after theirs?" I wave my hand to indicate my houseguests.

"After." Gala looks guilty for a moment and then continues. "I was expecting your call. Iva Lou tipped me off. I'm sorry. I lied to you, I trumped up a fake trip to make you think it was happening. But we had already planned the relatives coming over, so I saw no harm in it. Frank arranged the fake airline tickets I sent you. I'm sorry."

How could I be angry with Gala? My family is in my house, and we have had the best time.

"Don't apologize," I say to Gala. "I owe you so much more than you will ever owe me." I really mean this.

That sneaky Iva Lou. That day on the Bookmobile, long ago, when Jack Mac was there with a newspaper, that's when they found Gala. So, when I needed an international travel agent, Iva Lou steered me right to Gala. Jack Mac said he started planning this back when he proposed. And those Mormons; Iva Lou set that up to buy more time for Jack Mac's plan. Is the whole town in on my business?

Everyone has gone to bed. We set three alarms so we would not oversleep. The Piedmont plane out of Tri-Cities for John F. Kennedy Airport in New York leaves at 7:00 A.M., and there isn't another connection, so they must make it. (I remember that Piedmont means "foot of the mountains." What a poor name for an airline!) I can't sleep, so I'm wandering around the house trying not to make noise. I tiptoe outside and sit on the porch. I'm antic.i.p.ating how sad I will be tomorrow after everyone leaves. Yes, I am going to Italy to visit them in a few weeks; Gala took care of everything without penalty, and she invited me to stay with her in New Jersey for a week and see New York before I go overseas! But after that, what? Where will I go? Maybe I'll like Schilpario and stay there. I ponder that for a moment. How I wish Mama were here. Imagine how happy she would have been to see me with her family, knowing that I would never be alone in the world again. Even that I could not give her. Why did my mother's life have to be so hard? I breathe deeply. I will never answer that question.

Zia Meoli stands at the screen door.

"I can't sleep," she says. This makes me laugh. She sounds just like my mother. And even though you would never say my mother was a comical person, sometimes she could say one sentence in such a way that it made you laugh. Zia Meoli comes outside.

"I wanted to talk to you alone." She pulls up a chair next to me.

"Please."

"How do you like him?" She indicates the window behind which my father sleeps.

"I like him." She shrugs. "Don't you?"

Zia Meoli thinks for a moment. "He's a politician," she decides.

I figure in Italy that's not a compliment. "Zia . . ." I begin, but from the look on her face, I can see that she knows what I am going to ask her. "Do you remember when Mama left Bergamo?"

She nods as though it were yesterday. "Your mother left us in the middle of the night. She did not tell us where she was going. She left a letter for me, telling me that I should not worry about her, that she would write to me."

I can tell from Zia's expression that she has replayed these events over in her mind many times. She is still bothered by them.

"Did you want to go after her to find her?" I ask.

"Yes! Of course, yes! I thought of every place she might go. Cousins. Other towns. But no one had seen her. And she left no clue as to where she went or why. I was suspicious, because she spoke of Mario Barbari often, but I said nothing because I wasn't sure. My mother, your grandmother, was destroyed. After Fiametta left, she could never be consoled."

"What about your father?"

"I think he knew what happened. See, he knew Mario Barbari. He knew his family, not well, but in business. When Papa figured out that Fiametta liked Mario, he felt she was too young to court. So he forbade her to see him. She was devastated. But our father was very strict. If anything improper had occurred, he would have made Fiametta leave our home. My sister knew this. Though it broke my heart that she did what she did, I understood. She had no choice. I would have done the same thing."

"But she was only seventeen. Just a girl."

"At that time, many Italians were leaving the country. Some to Canada, some to South America, some to Australia. All over. Many, of course, went to New York. America. I knew that if she could, she would leave Italy altogether, so as not to bring shame upon us. I also knew that when she made a decision, she would never turn back."

"Did you know she was pregnant with me?"

Zia Meoli shakes her head; she did not know of her sister's condition.

"If you knew about Mario Barbari, why didn't you go to him?"

She nods vehemently. "I went to him. I did."

"Did you know he was married?"

"I knew a family up the mountain, in a town about fifteen kilometers from Schilpario. They knew of him, where I could find him. They told me he was married. I was sure he had married my sister. But it wasn't Fiametta, it was another girl. I was told it was a match, and it did not work. The girl went back with her parents after a short time."

"How do they make a match?"

"The families come together and decide who their children will marry. Pietro and I were a match. He was one of five children, four of them sons. His father came to my father, and they discussed which daughter would be suitable for his sons. Antonietta loved a boy in Sestri Levante, near Genoa, and Fiametta was gone, so that left me. I met Pietro, I liked him very well. We courted for one year, and then we got married." She folds her arms, indicating that making matches is the most natural way to make a marriage in the whole world.