The Shoemaker's Wife(165)

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 House.

Angela handed her sheet music to Frances Shapiro, the rehearsal pianist, and her closest friend. Frances was a lean, stylish young woman of twenty-two with light brown hair and a wide grin who played for the voice classes at the Institute. She attended Brooklyn College at night to study secretarial science. Frances laid the sheet music across the piano. As she began to play the introduction to Batti, batti bel Masetto from Don Giovanni, Angela took the stage and stood before her, closed her eyes, opened her hands, stood up straight, and lifted her chin, singing out to the back of the theater. Frances smiled and nodded as Angela hit every note. Angela’s high soprano was like a cool breeze through an open window.

“How was it?” Angela asked.

“Professor Kirshenbaum is going to be amazed.”

“I hope so. I need his recommendation.”

“Sing like that, and you’ll get it,” Frances assured her.

Angela Latini left the Institute and went for coffee as she often did at the end of the day. She used the time to study and write letters. Her father and brothers received a long letter every week. She sat in the window of the Automat and opened a notebook. Her long dark hair was tied back with a silk scarf. She tucked her full skirt around her, and buttoned her sweater.

“You were splendid in there today,” Frances said, dropping her purse on the table as she stood eyeing the pie selection. “I mean, never better.”

“Thanks. I have to be. I need a letter from Professor Kirshenbaum to get into La Scala.”

“Have you told your aunt yet?”

“It would crush her if she thought I wasn’t coming back to Minnesota.”

“The sooner you tell her, the better.”

“I want to be near my dad and my brothers. They’re all I have left.” Angela still could not think of Pappina without becoming emotional. She wondered if she would ever be able to move forward, and there were times when she doubted it. Angela’s talent was inborn and natural, and therefore she valued it only as a gift, and not with a sense of purpose. She loved to sing, but she would have gladly traded this ability to have her mother back. Zenza had done her best, but she too had a hard time figuring out how to make this lonely little girl happy, and now that Angela was grown, she felt it was her own responsibility to seek happiness in any way that she could.

“When are you going to tell her?”

“Once her son comes home.”

“She has a son? Is he single?” Frances sat up in her seat like a curious hen.

“He’s had a girlfriend all of his life. He’s so handsome. And older.”

“I like older.”

“Not for anything, Frances, but I think you like all ages.”

“As long as he’s Jewish.”

“You’re out of luck—this one’s a Catholic.”

“I will entertain the idea of bending the rules, even if my parents won’t.” Frances threw her head back and laughed. “Where is he?”

“He’s fighting in the Pacific theater.”

Frances’s face clouded over. She knew many boys from her neighborhood in Brooklyn who had been drafted and were in the South Pacific. “Oh, Angela . . . ” Frances said softly.

“Don’t even say it. I know. He’ll be lucky if he makes it home.” Angela sighed.

“You can’t live your life to make anyone happy, including your honorary aunt who took you in. You need to be with your family.”

“I know.” Angela sipped her coffee. “But first I have to decide what a family is.”

“Or maybe you’ll do what every Shapiro, Nachmanoff, and Pomerance has done since the beginning of time: you’ll invent it.”

Laura lit the candles in the Tiffany holders on the mantel in the soft green and beige living room of her Park Avenue penthouse. The city lights twinkled below, beyond the black pool of Central Park, like a collection of small stars in the distance. In the years that the Chapins had lived in the apartment, the lights around the park had multiplied. The neighborhood borders of Manhattan had swelled—more people, better business, and more seats sold at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Angela, wearing a chiffon chemise, her long hair grazing her waist, sat at her vanity table in the guest room where she had lived since she became a student at The Institute of Musical Art.

She brushed her long hair, leaned forward, and applied a pale pink lipstick to her mouth. Angela was a southern Italian beauty, brown-eyed with waves of dark hair and a trim figure with curves like carved marble.

Laura swept into Angela’s room and gave her a bracelet to wear. Angela thanked her as she put it on her arm. “It works on you. Keep it.”