“Hi! Where’s everybody? … My God! It’s hot!” Giovanni sank down on the worn cobblestones, near Giovanna’s chair. “What a tree! It feels wonderful … like being in an icebox!”
“What did you say? What’s a … that funny first word? The other one I think I can figure out because it sounds a little like French.” The Benedictines retained their close bonds with France, taught those given into their academic care the beauty of its language. Giovanna, being a natural linguist, could not only read and write French but speak it with only a trace of her Italian cadence. Although box was close enough to its equivalent word in French for her to figure its meaning, the hissing sound of ice was a complete mystery.
Giovanni laughed, such an honest sound that it made those who heard it long for the feelings that produced it. Not at all embarrassed by her question, Giovanna laughed with him, suddenly feeling happy for no special reason. Carefully he explained what an “icebox” was, what it looked like, what it was for, what it did and how it did it. He seemed to know everything about them.
“Sometimes I’m there when the iceman comes to deliver the block for the one my landlady keeps on her back porch.” Giovanna listened, enthralled. Amazed not only that such a marvel had been invented, but that it could be owned by one of the working class.
“Oh, Giovanna—l’America is full of so many wonderful things!”
Giovanna sprang to her village’s defense. “Well, here too we can keep all sorts of things cool during the heat of summer … We hang fish in the mountain streams, keep roots and cheese in deep cellar. Still, it must be very special to own such a splendid boite.”
“No, no. The correct word is box—sharp and quick! L’America is full of quick words, like the country, like the people … fast, everything to the point. No one has time to waste … Everything must be quick … like my name. You want to hear what my name is in American?”
“Oh, yes!”
“John! Just … John. See—short and quick! Everyone where I work calls me John.” His voice held a tone of pride.
“I don’t think that sounds as nice as Giovanni!”
“Well, I like it! In America, you would be a Jane!”
“Oh, dear—that sounds just as bad.” The young man smiled. “Antonia says that in America, all the ladies wear large hats decorated with stuffed birds. Is that true?”
“I’ve seen some,” he answered with obvious disinterest.
“And long velvet coats trimmed with fine fur?”
He frowned. This girlish interest in fashionable ladies did not suit her character somehow, and it annoyed him. Afraid he considered her questions frivolous, Giovanna hastened to explain.
“Oh, I’m not interested in wearing such fine things … I want to make them! I am skilled with the needle. I wanted to go to the Institute in Torino, to learn to be a seamstress so I could get work in a fine dress shop … but Papa said he didn’t have money to waste on a girl. If he had a son, then it would have been worthwhile for him to learn a trade, but for a girl? That was just ‘senseless extravagance’!”
“In America, many young ladies are employed. I don’t know any who sew, but I know one who works in the office for our Mr. Willis. She even knows how to operate a machine that prints letters onto paper. She is a stenographer.”
Giovanna hung on his every word.
“What is the name of her machine?”
“A typing machine.”
“Does she have to wear a special uniform to work it?”
“Well, if you consider a crisp, high-necked shirtwaist and a long black skirt that just shows her ankles a special uniform, then I suppose she does. But men don’t notice such things.”
“If I were a man, I would go … make my way to Genova, stow away on a great ship bound for China … see the whole world—and maybe never ever come back!”
“Well, you’re not a man! But don’t worry, someday someone will marry you! Until then, your father needs a woman to look after him.”
Oh, why did he have to say that! She had so enjoyed the novelty of speaking without reserve, as though she were his equal. Now he had reminded her that she was not and spoiled it. When she answered him, the bitterness of her disappointment lingered. “Yes, someday, some man will take pity on me and save me from the cardinal sin of spinsterhood. Until then, Papa needs me to polish his boots, scrub his floors, wash his clothes, cook his food … a woman must know her proper place and be grateful for being given it.”
“You know, Giovanna … you are a very strange girl.”
“Yes, I know,” she answered, her voice bereft of all emotion.
He ran his fingers through his hair, uncurled his body with an athlete’s grace, stood brushing off his trouser leg. “Tomorrow—is it the chestnut or the oleanders?”
That made her smile. “The oleanders.”
“Think Camilla will be there?”
Giovanna lowered her head, flipped her bobbins, answered, “Maybe not Camilla … but Antonia will surely be.”
“See you then … Jane!”
The effect of his laugh lingered long after he had gone.
Waiting, Giovanna began pinning the first row of a newly begun collar. For no particular reason, she had decided to come especially early to the meeting place by the oleanders. Already the morning heat lay heavy, dampening sound, the jingle of her bobbins muffled, as though the effort of their twisting dance exhausted them.
“Hello!” He stood against the sun. She sat in his shadow, the sudden cooling a pleasure. “Been waiting for me?” Bracing his arms, he hoisted his body to sit beside her on the ancient stone wall. She shifted away from him. He had always been cocky! Always so sure of himself, with his dreams and his big plans—making all the girls notice him!
Without looking up, she answered, “No!” The sharpness in her voice startled her when she heard it.
“Hey!” He bent his head towards her, trying to see her face. “You angry with me? Why? I was only teasing …”
Giovanna felt silly. She usually never reacted in this way, got upset so easily and for such little things—it was not like her at all! She wondered why she had. Embarrassed by her own confusion, she smiled quickly to cover it up.
“That’s better! After yesterday, I thought we were friends.”