STELLA AND TINA WERE ONLY trapped in their dingy tenement room for a few weeks before they found another job. One of their new friends from the Italian Society, a sweet, thin Pugliese girl named Fiorella Mulino, had found jobs for them in a laundry on Front Street. It was no good for Joey, because they only hired women, or for Assunta, who couldn’t be on her feet for ten hours, but Stella and Tina arrived with Fiorella the first Monday of October and the manager let them stay. They were put in Fiorella’s group, ironing and starching, up on the second floor.
Instead of paying a day wage like the tobacco farms, the laundry paid by the piece, which put a kind of performance pressure on their employment. Stella liked it. Each shirt starched and ironed was worth two cents. After a frustrating first day, she got the knack—dipping the shirt, stretching it across the board, pressing and alternating irons. She experimented with stroke rotations to permeate the heat more quickly and evenly through the cloth. She could fit four or even five shirts in an hour, and sometimes came home with eighty or ninety cents a day.
Tina, on the other hand, did not respond well to the time pressure. She was a person who liked to do things thoroughly—whatever any-one else did, Tina did it more, and harder. For example, she had once washed Assunta’s good ceramic pitcher so energetically that the handle had broken off in her hand. This aggressive task approach did not combine well with the anxiety of counting accomplishments against the clock; under pressure, Tina could not harness the required finesse. The first time she got in trouble was for a shirt so stiffly starched it had to be rolled to crack it, then sent down to the first floor and rewashed. Tina starched for four days, her face an arterial pink and streaming sweat, which descended her jaw like tears and spattered the bosom of her dress. On the fourth day, she overcompensated for her slowness by pressing too hard on the shirt she was ironing, leaving a devastating iron-shaped burn mark. The manager was enraged, but yelling at Tina was never any good, because she sobbed so thoroughly—as thoroughly as she scrubbed pitchers—that after a while you felt stupid yelling and ended up doing whatever you could to get her to stop. So Tina was sent home at three o’clock with no pay; she wasn’t fired, although it took Stella all evening to convince Tina she hadn’t been. Stella didn’t tell her sister that she’d given the manager the seventy-four cents she’d earned that day to pay for the ruined shirt so he wouldn’t count it against her little sister. Tina could come back to work the next day, but she had to be on the washing team on the first floor, with the Polish ladies. That was less desirable work to the Italian girls, but at least Tina couldn’t accidentally ruin anything in the washing room. Maybe with her vigor she’d be able to get some of the tougher stains out.
Seeing his daughters had a taste for work, Tony harassed them to study English harder. He tried to impress them with the fiscal ad-vantage of having papers—if they naturalized, they could apply for factory jobs. “I make five times as much money as you in one week,” he said.
But the citizenship test was an insurmountable obstacle. Stella and Tina took turns carrying the study book around, but after months of turning the pages it was no more legible than it had been in the beginning. With much concentration, Stella could sound out the English words and guess their meanings, but Tina had had so little schooling in Ievoli that she could barely remember how any of the letters were supposed to sound even in Italian, never mind in this strange foreign language where nothing sounded the way it looked. Ten months in the United States had given them only a little English. They were surrounded by Italian speakers. Stella was shy of her accent; even when there was a chance to speak to an American—say, at the store—she found herself doubting words she’d been sure of a moment before, and resorted to pointing or blurting out Italian instead.
Nevertheless, she quizzed her sister like she used to for catechism.
“You know this one,” she’d say, then read in English, ‘Where is the Statue of Liberty?”‘
“I don’t know,” Tina said hopelessly.
“Yes, you do! You saw it yourself.” Stella raised her arm and made a fist in the air, like the green lady with the torch. She repeated in slow English, “Statue of Liberty.”
“New York!” Tina smiled. She got one!
“‘What is the name of the president?”‘ Stella read out carefully.
A pause for thought. “Rosa Vela,” Tina answered. This meant “pink sail” in Italian, which Stella had thought up so Tina could remember Roosevelt’s name. “Picture a fancy boat with pink sails,” Stella had suggested. “It’s so fancy the president sails on it.”
But then things became very opaque, and the book’s answers didn’t help the girls understand the questions.
“Why does the American flag have thirteen stripes?” Stella spread the book between them so Tina could see the picture of the flag.
“What is ‘stripes’?”
“Strisce.” Stella pointed to the alternating white and gray in the sketch. Tina was silent. “It says here there are thirteen stripes because there are thirteen ‘colonies.’ ”
“What is ‘colonies’?”
“You know, like colonia,” Stella said. “Cologne, perfume.” This didn’t seem right, but it was the best she had for Tina. “Maybe America has thirteen famous perfumes?”
The questions only got harder, full of words Stella had never even heard the Italian equivalent of. Who wrote the Declaration of In-dependence. How can an American participate in their democracy. What is the role of Congress. Under our Constitution, what powers are given to the federal government. How many times has the Con-stituation been amended. It was very hard to help Tina memorize the answers when Stella couldn’t explain what the questions were asking. Fiorella Mulino reminded them she had passed the citizenship test by attending night school at Hartford High. Classes were free; they started at seven, so you could come after work.
Stella disliked the idea of night school and would have preferred to keep trying to memorize the book on her own. She loathed putting herself in any situation where her weaknesses were on display; she also didn’t relish the nightly walk out of their ghetto of paesan, past the shantytowns and dark alleys of lurking strangers.
“I’ll escort you,” Fiorella offered. “Stella, you’re clever, you might be able to pass on your own, but Tina won’t, no matter what you do, you know that. And if you go with her to the classes maybe you can help her catch up.” She smiled slyly. “Plus, you might meet some nice boys.”
“Oh, Madonn’.” Stella clasped her hands and rolled her eyes heavenward in supplication. “Please don’t put that idea in Tina’s head.”
The first class they went to was on a Tuesday in mid-November. It hadn’t occurred to Stella and Tina to change out of the sweat-stiffened dresses they’d worn all day at the laundry, but after they saw how smartly some of the immigrants dressed up for class, they followed suit. The classes were boring and confusing, just like school had always been, only worse because now it was in English. Stella was often tired after a ten-hour day standing over the ironing board. But she went, feeling nagged and guilty about the money she could be earning if only she could get a better job.
Joey, who was working part-time as a janitor at the Italian Society, didn’t seem to worry about his U.S. citizenship. But in general Joey didn’t worry about anything. That was his gift. Sparkly brown eyes; bright, straight teeth when he smiled; and not a care m the world.
AFTER THEIR FIRST AMERICAN THANKSGIVING, which they celebrated with the Nicoteras, Carolina talked Stella and Tina into cutting their hair. “You want to get it like this.” She’ reached up and patted her own curls, which radiated from her head like saints’ halos in church paintings. “And you want to get a permanent wave, if you can, so that you don’t have to mess around with curling rags every night.”
“Our father likes us to wear it long,” Stella told Carolina. Tony had the notion that women with short hair were loose. They could move faster, dance more energetically without worrying about pins flying around.
“But he always says how he wants you to be real Americans,” Carolina said pointedly. ” Make him look around. All the American girls have short hair. The only girls with long hair are the country girls.”
Stella knew what she meant by “country girls.” There were some Italian families on Front Street who lived strictly, raising their daughters the way things had been back home—ankle-length skirts, veils, arranged marriages. Tony Fortuna had his rules and became explosive if they were disobeyed, but he didn’t make the girls cover their faces to go to mass. Stella thought he was smart not to impose that kind of embarrassing stricture on his family; after all, they had lived most of their lives without him, and he didn’t want to put himself in a position where they might stand up to him. He was a disgusting person, in Stella’s opinion, but a wily despot.
Stella and Tina talked it over that night as they were combing out before bed. It was weird to think about parting with all that hair—the marker of their femininity. But Stella didn’t want to be lumped in with the “country girls” anymore. Of course, Tina would do whatever Stella did.
The conversation with Tony began much as expected. “Papa, Tina and I want to cut our hair,” Stella said during dinner that Sunday.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “Women in this house dress respectfully.”
“But Papa, you say you want us to be American. No American woman wears her hair long. Everyone will think we’re … we’re poor and new here.”
Stella had been prepared for a protracted argument, but after several moments of hard thought, Antonio seemed ready to reverse his opinion.
“Yes,” he said. “You’re right. Short hair is better for life in America.”
That seemed too easy. Stella watched his face to try to guess what kinds of private thoughts were passing behind it. “So you’ll give us money for the hairdresser’s?”
“All right,” he said. “All right. You girls will cut your hair and then we should get a family portrait taken. That’s what we will send home at Christmas.” He slapped his thighs. “One year as Americans. Yes, we should take a portrait.”
Her father had a vision in his head. Stella decided to press her luck. “Tina and I need five dollars each.”
Antonio turned to look at her. His face was turning red, and she braced herself, but then he started to laugh. “If that’s how much the hairdresser costs, you can figure out how to cut your own hair.”
“No, Papa, it’s for the permanent wave. We need to go and get it professionally done. They have to put chemicals in your hair to make it—”
“Absolutely no permanent wave. Mannaggia, give them a finger and they take your whole hand.” Antonio had returned his attention to his food. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you each two dollars. You, too,” he said to the boys. “You spend it on what you want, haircut, clothes, whatever. Just make sure you look good for the picture.”
Two WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS all six Fortunas dressed in their best and went down to G. Fox to get studio photos taken. The girls had each spent fifty cents on their new short haircuts, which they had practiced rag-curling and combing to frame their faces. The remainder of their budgets had gone toward blue cotton Stella sewed into matching, long-sleeved dresses on Fiorella’s mechanical sewing machine. Stella and Tina had begged Antonio for extra money for new shoes, but he had drawn the line.
The Fortunas posed with Antonio and Assunta seated in front, their sons on either side, and Stella and Tina standing behind them to disguise the old shoes they’d bought in Nicastro. Tina is one inch taller and a bit less bosomy, and of course there is that standout mole above her lip. Otherwise their smiles are identical, as are their dresses, their posture, the angles at which they hold their elbows—similar in the subtle and comprehensive ways only sisters are similar. Assunta’s ankles are crossed and her feet tucked under her chair. She is smiling this time. Antonio may be smiling as well, but as with the Mona Lisa, no one can ever be sure what he is thinking; most of his expression is concealed by his mustache. Together, they are an impressive accomplishment of a family.
For fifty years, this portrait hung on various walls next to the grainier black-and-white of the first Mariastella. Somehow there is no other photo of the entire family, not even at any of the children’s weddings. This was the first and last time they were photographed together.
Excerpt from The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grames. Copyright© 2019 by Juliet Grames. Courtesy of Ecco and HarperCollins Publishers.