Big Cherry Holler (22 page)

Then she tells my father in Italian that I am pretty and not too old. I tell my little cousin that she should have seen me before the va-va-voom haircut. Chiara looks at me like I’m crazy.

Chiara is full of mischief. In pictures, she comes off as serene and serious, but in life, her dark eyes constantly dart about, looking for excitement. She is very quick, instantly picking up English phrases from Etta. Etta is doing fine with her Italian too. Chiara is teaching her
Italian curse words, which make my daughter laugh. She is the perfect foil for Etta, who tries to do the right thing even at the expense of fun. But I instantly love my cousin; I want her to help Etta test her limits. Etta needs to loosen up. She needs to run and get dirty and play. I just want them to be careful, but I don’t have to worry. Giacomina takes them under her wing like her own little summer charges, and they obey her without question.

As we drive through the mountains, Papa tells Giacomina about town business, something about tourist season come winter. Then, in a split second, he swerves off the main road and through a mass of vines and brush. We bump onto a gravel road that pitches us around like loose fruit. The girls laugh and hang on. Soon we see a clearing with tall lanterns on spikes stuck in the ground around a dance floor of portable linoleum.

I was expecting an indoor disco. When we say “disco” in America, we mean a dance club, a place where you would find John Travolta in an ice-cream suit. But here a disco can be any place there’s music. The music, which sounds like Italian covers of American hits, plays out through the black night. Folks are gathered around the bar (a table set up in the field), and the kids are drinking a dark red fizzy drink, which they throw back like shots. “Bitters,” Giacomina tells me. There’s a crowd. A big crowd. It seems that most of the mountain villages emptied out and came here tonight. Cars are parked haphazardly along the sides of the field.

Chiara acts sophisticated and points out all the particulars to Etta. I can hardly hold on to them as they bolt from the car and head for the dance floor. Papa and Giacomina see friends from town and stop to chat. I whisper in Giacomina’s ear that I am going to go exploring.

I love the way Italians look. Maybe it’s because I’m relieved that there’s a place in this world where I look like somebody. But I find their faces so interesting. I don’t know what makes the women so beautiful—you would never see any of them on a magazine cover in
America—but they are striking. Here a strong nose is a source of pride. Most of these noses wouldn’t last in America, with their length and their regal breaks in the bridge—they wouldn’t be appreciated. Maybe these women are so attractive because they like themselves. They accept what they are born with; even their flaws are a source of pride, the very thing that makes them distinctive and alluring.

The men are beyond handsome. Even when they’re short (I guess height is an American thing), they have a strength that makes you believe they could take one of these Alpine boulders and roll it down the hill like a basketball. They live in their skin like kings; their mothers encourage that. A son is a prized possession, more treasured than land or gold. A son means continuity. A son can become a father, and a father is the center of wisdom and policy in the home. I see it in action, in the small pockets surrounding the dance floor. Of course, the men seem to be in charge only because the women let them. Entire families are here together, enjoying the night air and the delicate paper lights and the music. (It reminds me of the Singing Convention held at Bullit Park back in Big Stone Gap. Families come with a picnic basket and stay all day listening to the music.)

“Ave Maria!
Andiamo!
” Chiara says, grabbing one of my hands while my daughter takes the other. They yank me onto the dance floor. Some Italian singer has covered an old American disco standard, and the girls want me to dance with them. At first I don’t want to dance. I’m old, I want to tell them. I’m a wife and a mother and a pharmacist. There’s no place for me on the dance floor; I have no business moving to the rhythm that makes the floor buckle under the impact of all these feet. But I look at my daughter’s face, and she wants me to dance. She seems to be saying, “If you dance, then I can. I want a mother who is happy and free and moves without worrying about what other people think.”

And for some reason, on this mountaintop, hidden inside all of these bodies as they sway and bounce, it’s okay for me to let go. I feel safe in this place where I am not known. My daughter is with me, and
her cousin, but really, I am alone. I’m not married in this moment, and I am not a mother. I took my wedding rings off to collect stones in the stream above Papa’s house, and I forgot to put them back on. No, tonight I am Ave Maria Mulligan, the girl I left behind before I decided to give everything away to be simply a part of the MacChesney family. I let the music take me to that place where I was before I knew life could be so complicated.

Chiara and Etta and I have locked arms and are spinning in a circle, laughing. People on the dance floor make room for us. I throw my head back and look at the open sky above. I am connected and at the same time completely free. I am here, in my body, in this moment, but I’m also flying overhead in the inky sky streaked white with stars.

When the song ends (and I’m so sorry it did!), Chiara and Etta giggle and run off to find my father. I breathe deeply; my heart is beating fast. I lean over and rest my palms on my knees. I am hot and winded and sweaty and I like it.

“Ciao,” a man’s voice says to me. I look up and into an amazing pair of blue eyes.

“Ciao,” I say. He extends his hand to me. To be polite, I take it.

He looks as though he is searching for words. And he is. Italian words.

“Uh,
dove e
…” I do my best to follow along. In a few broken sentences, he has asked me to dance and to point him to the garage (we’re in a field, there is no garage), and inquired as to what village I’m from. I’m getting a kick out of him. He has beautiful hands, which make grand gestures to help me decipher what he’s trying to say in Italian.

He is also really handsome. He’s tall. And what a face. He reminds me of Rock Hudson in
Pillow Talk
. Maybe it’s the dark hair. Or maybe it’s the look in his eyes. That’s where the movie-star dazzle ends, though; he’s pretty trim, but I can see he has to fight a gut. (Who doesn’t? Maybe he’s a little older than me, but not much.) The chest
is broad; I’ll bet he’s a runner. He isn’t wearing glasses, but I can tell he wears contact lenses, because he blinks a lot. He has beautiful white teeth, with the front teeth a little longer than the rest, which is sexy. He has thin but well-shaped lips (no cruelty there, just practicality in buckets, according to face-reading). The nose is amazing: straight, a little bulbous on the end (this is the nose of humor and wisdom—the tip is the giveaway).

“
Non capisce
,” I say to him.

“Okay, okay,” he says, more to himself than to me. Frustrated, he looks off, giving up the Italian. “You’re looking at me like I’m nuts. Okay, maybe I am nuts.” I get it: he thinks I’m a native. I feel as though I won the Nobel Prize, I am so proud of myself! I have passed for a Bergamosque! The pants, the cardigan, and the haircut have worked. I appear to be a real Italian through and through! I could kiss this guy.

“
Sí. Sí
.” I motion that he should continue in English and, with gestures, relay that I am trying to understand him. This is so much fun!

“I saw you dancing with those kids. And well, anyway, I think you’re cute. And I’d like to dance with you. I’m American. I guess you could tell that from the English I’m speaking. You’ve got a great face. In fact, everything is pretty fine on you, to tell you the truth.”

“Yes?” I say.

Galvanized that I am making the attempt to communicate, he continues. “So you’ll dance with me?”

“
Sí
,” I say slowly, sounding like Gina Lollobrigida in
La Bellezza di Ippolita
.

The American takes me in his arms and pulls me close, placing his hand on my waist, a little too low for a stranger. I reach back and put his hand above my waist. (I’m having fun, I just don’t want to have too much fun.)

As the song ends, he seems to screw up his courage to say, “You have beautiful eyes.”

I try to smile in a way that is enigmatic yet noncommittal.

“Could I take you to dinner sometime? I’m here for another few weeks …”

Okay, Ave, game over. Let the nice man off the hook. “I’m murried,” I tell him in a pure country accent straight out of the Appalachian Mountains.

“Say that again.”

“I’m murried. Married. And I’m American. I can’t do this to you for another second. I’m sorry.”

“You’re Southern!”

“Uh-huh. Virginia.”

“You’re just loaded with accents. Can you do Garbo from
Camille
?” I can’t tell if he thinks my little game was funny or offensive. “Where in Virginia are you from?”

“Southwest. In the Blue Ridge Mountains. Where they meet the Appalachians. Near the Cumberland Gap.” When you’re from Big Stone Gap, you always have to overexplain the location. No one ever knows where we are.

“You aren’t on the Appalachian Trail, are you?”

“We’re right on it. In fact, it runs through our home-ec room at the high school. At least that’s what I was told in ninth grade by my home-ec teacher, Mrs. Porier.”

“I’m hiking that trail this fall!”

“You are? Well, you’ll have to stop in.”

I extend my hand to the tall American with the pretty eyes. “My name is Ave Maria Mulligan. I mean, MacChesney.”

“You don’t know your own last name?”

“I do. I just forgot it for a second. My married name, I mean.” I’m so embarrassed. Why am I embarrassed? Why is he laughing in that conspiratorial way? Am I flirting with this man?

“I’m Pete Rutledge.”

“Well, it was nice dancing with you.” Nice, Ave. Could you sound more awkward?

“Thank you for the dance,” he says. We stand and look at each other. I don’t want him to go, but I don’t want him to stay, either.

“Thank you for saying I was cute,” I blurt.

“I meant it.”

“I could tell. So thank you.” I smile at him as one does when a stranger compliments your car.

He tilts his head and looks at me directly. “How married are you?” he says with a half smile. (And I thought the only wolves in Italy were Italian.)

I don’t answer his question, I throw my head back and laugh. I turn to walk away and he grabs my hand.

“How long are you here?” Pete asks, then follows me off the dance floor.

“I’m leaving soon.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yes, I am. But you make me nervous, and I lie compulsively when I’m nervous.”

“That’s good to know.” He smiles.

“I’m here all month. Not here in this village. I’m with my father, over in Schilpario.”

“What’s his name?”

“Mario Barbari.”

Pete leans down and pushes an unruly curl off my cheek. “Will I see you again?”

“No.”

Pete laughs. “You’re a Play-by-the-Rules girl?”

“You have no idea.”

I hustle the girls to bed so I can be alone and think about what happened tonight. Why am I so jazzed, so giddy? I’m a grown woman. I’m acting more like Chiara and Company than the sensible woman I am! I feel guilty for replaying the excitement of Pete Rutledge in my
mind, so I go into my father’s study and call Jack. The phone rings three times.

“Hello?” he says, groggy with sleep.

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Ave?” Then he seems to wake up and listen. “Is everything okay? How’s Etta?”

“She’s great. We went to a disco. And she’s made friends with my second cousin Chiara, who’s ten. She’s here with Etta now.” Why am I talking so loud and so fast?

“That all sounds great.”

“I missed you tonight. There was dancing.”

“There usually is at a disco.”

“Right. Right.”

“I miss you both too,” he says.

“Thanks.” I don’t mean to be selfish, but can’t he just miss me? “Well, I guess that’s all the news.”

“Yep.”

There is a long silence; I guess I’m waiting for him to tell me about his life, but he doesn’t volunteer anything, so I don’t press. “Sleep well.” I hang up the phone. My body is shaking, but it’s not chills. I’m happy! A fine-looking stranger thought I was pretty! And I danced with him. And he felt good, and he smelled like mint and clean woods. And he wasn’t a local on the make, either, he was an American who thought I was an Italian goddess. I dial Theodore’s number.

“Hello?” Theodore answers his phone sleepily. I’ve woken him up too.

“It’s me—Ave.”

“Where are you?”

“Schilpario.”

“Jesus. What time is it?”

“Early. For you. Late. For me.”

“This better be good.”

“I danced at a disco tonight.”

“Wow,” he says with no enthusiasm.

“Don’t be rude.”

“I can be whatever I want when you wake me up at this hour.”

“Sorry. Theodore, there was a man there. Pete Rutledge. He thought I was cute.”

“You are cute. You’re also married.”

“I know. Can you print that on a postcard and send it over to me?”

“I think I’d better.” I hear Theodore sit up straight in his bed. Now he’s paying attention.

“He thought I was Italian.”

“You are Italian.”

“No, really Italian. Like from here. Born and raised. I got a haircut.”

“I really have to hang up this phone.”

“Bear with me, please,” I beg him.

“I’m trying.”

“When Violetta of the Moderna Salon cut my hair, I don’t know, my face changed. And then I felt like I was walking differently. Then all of a sudden, when I was climbing in the Alps, I looked down and there were muscles in my legs, like the ones that were there when I was young and didn’t have to work at it. And I got this lipstick that, I swear to you, is like magic—I put it on and I don’t know, I’m sexy or something. Me. Sexy.”

“Where was Jack when you were flirting with this Pete person?”

“He didn’t come. He’s back home.”

“How convenient.”