The Shoemaker's Wife(69)
“I understand,” Ciro said, but there was no mistaking the quick flash of disappointment across his face.
“But we do need to expand our business, especially if I have to pay another salary.” Remo looked at Luigi.
Ciro beamed. “I’m listening,” he said.
“We need to take the Zanetti Shoe Shop to the job sites. Imagine if we had a cart near the Hell’s Gate bridge operation. You could make repairs on-site as well as take orders for new boots. With another pair of hands, we could get a real assembly line going here, delivering shipments of new goods right back to the job site.”
“We’d get the Greeks from Astoria, the Russians from Gravesend, the Irish from Brooklyn,” Ciro began. “They would all wear Zanetti boots. And then we’d move the cart around the city to the construction sites for more new customers. It’s a great idea.”
“Luigi can be in the shop with me while he trains, and you can be out in the field expanding the business. Eventually, you two can take over,” Remo continued. “The master steps aside, and the journeymen run the shop.”
“This is a great opportunity,” Luigi said. “What do you think, Ciro?”
“I like it,” Ciro said.
“What are you boys cooking up out here?” Carla asked.
“We’re about to put the Zanetti Shoe Shop on the move,” Ciro explained.
“Was anyone going to check with me?”
“Say hello to the new apprentice,” Ciro said. “You might want to ask the bank for an extra green bag, because this man is going to help you fill it.”
Carla beamed at the thought.
Enza finished the last of the dinner dishes, drying them carefully and placing them on the shelf. She went from room to room, collecting the soup bowls and breadbaskets set outside their doors by Anna’s daughters-in-law. When Enza returned from the night shift at dawn, the sink would be full of empty baby bottles, dirty plates, and glasses. After a long shift in the factory, Enza would have to boil the baby bottles, wash the dishes, and clean the kitchen all over again.
Enza packed a hard roll, a hunk of cheese, and an apple in her purse. She tiptoed through the house to the front door, past Signora Buffa, who snored in the bedroom, and let herself out, locking the door behind her.
She walked quickly through the dark streets of Hoboken, careful not to draw any attention to herself, not from the groups of men gathered on street corners, or from the women who sat on their stoops and fanned themselves in the night air.
Occasionally a young man would lean over a second-story balcony and whistle as she passed, and she would hear the laughter of his friends, which sent a fearful chill through her. Enza had never told her father that she worked the night shift. He would be concerned if he knew she walked the streets of Hoboken alone at night.
Enza had developed some tricks to keep safe. She would cross the street to walk near a cop on his beat, and when none could be seen, she would duck off to a side street when she sensed eyes upon her, waiting for the threat of danger to pass so she could continue the half mile undisturbed.
Meta Walker was the largest blouse factory in Hoboken. The rambling warehouse was three stories high, the first floor built of local sandstone blocks, the upper floors tacked on in shingled wood painted gray, as though a cheap paper party hat had been placed atop the stonework. Metal fire escapes snaked up the exterior, with square landings outside doors marked Exit. The runners often used the fire escapes to carry messages to the foreladies running the operators on their machines.
About three hundred girls worked in the plant, split in two shifts, keeping the factory in operation twenty-four hours a day, six days a week. The need for machine operators was constant, as was the turnover, making this plant a first stop for immigrant girls looking for a paycheck.
The factory produced various styles of ladies’ cotton blouses: button-down with round-necked collars, flat-placketed with ruffles on the bodice, lace-trimmed with square collars, shirtwaist-style with half-inch stand-up collars, and the popular tuxedo style, collarless, with a flat bib and a small series of buttons.
Enza gathered a dozen white cotton blouses, tied them together with a ribbon of cotton remnant from the cutting room floor, threw them into a canvas bin filled with twenty similar bundles, and wheeled the bin to finishing. She practiced her English aloud as she pushed the bin, because no one could hear her over the roar of the machines.
“Dago girl,” Joe Neal from the finishing department called out as Enza passed him. Joe Neal was the nephew of the owner. Sturdily built, around five foot ten, with pomade slicked through his thin brown hair, which was parted fashionably down the center, he grinned with the bright white teeth of the milk-fed American rich. He taunted the girls, and most were afraid of him. He strutted around the factory as if he owned it already.
“When you gonna go out with me?” Joe Neal hissed. He followed Enza as she pushed the bin.
Enza ignored him.
“Answer me, dago girl.”
“Shut up,” Enza said, strong and plain, as her friend Laura had taught her.
Joe Neal had worked in various departments throughout the factory, though he never lasted long. Enza was told by the other machine operators that Joe had been thrown out of military school, where he’d been sent to be straightened out. The girls warned Enza about him on the first day, and told her to avoid him. But this was impossible, since it was her job to deliver bundles to the finishing department.