The Shoemaker's Wife(91)

Serafina handed them each a square of fabric and a bin of crystals. She placed thread, scissors, and needles before them. She opened a sketchbook to a page featuring a copy of a harlequin beading design made famous by Vionnet.

“Reproduce the fan design,” Serafina directed. “Show me what you can do.”

The girls measured the triangles across the fabric, marking them with chalk. Laura picked up a needle and threaded it. Enza fished through the bin to find the right beads. She collected them and brought them to Laura, who handed her the needle, then threaded a second one for herself. Without a word between them, they made fast work of attaching the crystals, quickly and with dexterity.

“I assume you can fine-embroider from your samples,” Serafina said.

“We can do anything. By hand, by machine,” Laura assured her.

“Can you make patterns from a beading design on a sketch?”

“I can do that, Miss Ramunni,” Enza assured her. “I can take any sketch from a designer and break it down for production.”

“I know my way around beads,” Laura volunteered.

“And I’m an excellent fitter,” Enza said.

“You know the opera is more than Signor Caruso. But he is the king around here. We put on the operas he wants to sing, and we cast the sopranos of his choosing. He’s in London until next month, at Covent Garden with Antonio Scotti.”

“The baritone,” Enza remembered. “He appeared with Caruso in Tosca in 1903 here at the Met.”

“You do know your opera.”

“She listened to Puccini through a dumbwaiter,” Laura volunteered. “We were working scullery at a fancy party, and he was there.”

“I wasn’t aware Signor Puccini was renting himself out for parties.”

“Oh, he wasn’t. It was in his honor,” Enza said. “He played several arias from Tosca.”

“Your passion and curiosity will hold you in good stead around here,” Serafina said to Enza. She turned to Laura. “And how about you?”

“I’m a Gerry flapper,” Laura said. “You know, the Irish and all.”

“Geraldine Farrar is our best soprano. But know your place here. You are on the costume crew. You are not fans. No ogling, no joking, no familiarity, even when the performers are familiar with you. Treat every singer like your boss. If there’s a problem, you go to your crew captain.”

“Who is she?” Laura asked.

“Me. But first, we have a problem. I only have the money in the budget to hire one of you. Who wants the job more?”

Enza and Laura looked at one another sadly. The fantasy of being hired together had been dashed. “She may have the job,” they said in unison.

“No, no, no,” Laura said, shaking her head. “It’s Enza’s dream to work here. Please hire her.”

“But it’s your dream too.” Enza looked up at Serafina. “Laura and I met in a factory in Hoboken. She taught me English, and I’m trying to teach her Italian. She looked out for me there, and we moved into the city and took any jobs we could get. But our dream was to work together here at the Metropolitan Opera House.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the best,” Enza said. “And we believe our skills are excellent, and we belong in a place where our talents are used.”

“Not that we don’t have a lot to learn. We do,” Laura added.

“Well—” Serafina ran her hands over the beadwork swatches. “My parents came from Calabria. And I was trained by Joanne Luiso, she was a great seamstress. She was patient with me, taught me about fabrics, drape, and line. I wouldn’t be here without her. I was given a break.”

“It’s only right to give the position to Enza,” Laura said.

“But I was hired by an Irish woman named Elizabeth Parent.” She glanced at Laura and smiled. “I’m going to take you both, though they’ll have my head upstairs. I’ll have to blame the budget overrun on Caruso, but God knows it’s happened often enough before.”

Laura and Enza were elated. They hugged one another, then looked to Miss Ramunni.

“You’ll start at one dollar a week. I don’t like clock watchers or break takers. I like a girl who sits down at the machine and sews straight through. If you’re actually as good as you say you are, you may eventually graduate to fittings and costuming the chorus. But first, you do the assembly work. Sometimes we work all night. No overtime.”

“We’re really hired?” Laura asked. “Both of us?”

With a curt nod, Serafina Ramunni said the sweetest words in the English language: “You have the job.” And then she turned to Enza. “And you have the job. Welcome to the Met.”

After they had completed their training, Enza chose the sewing machine at the end of the line in the costume shop, just as she had at the factory. Laura sat down next to her, tossing a brown-bag lunch into the drawer. Behind them, a dozen military jackets for the chorus had to be deconstructed, epaulets replaced, buttons redone, new collars and lapels inserted, for a special show the opera company was putting on for a bond drive for the American troops off to fight in the Great War.

The show was planned for the last day of June, so there were only a few weeks to design, mount, and produce the show, a pastiche of great arias and chorus anthems put together for the sole purpose of rallying the crowd to buy bonds to support the U.S. government.