Read Online The Queen of the Big Time by Adriana Trigiani - Free Book Online Page B

chosen each other even if the parents hadn’t done the work for them. Assunta is tender with Alessandro, showing a side we’ve never seen. I hope her sweet nature lasts.
    “Nella, right?” a man says from behind me.
    I spin on my heel to find myself looking into the face of Renato Lanzara, who seems even more handsome than he did at Delabole farm. He wears a black suit with a dove-gray vestment. His tie is black-and-white-striped silk, which shimmers against his snow-white shirt. He is a sheik, or as Chettie calls a very handsome man, a heartbreaker.
    “Hello. I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” I lie, noticing that the golden light in the choir loft seems to follow him around the ordinary world. He doesn’t need to know that not only do I know his name, but that I write it everywhere. I’ve written it with a rock in the mud pit of the pigsty, on the chalkboard in Miss Ciliberti’s empty classroom before I wash it down after school, and even in my school ledger until every inch of paper is covered with Renato Lanzara , the most musical name I have ever heard.
    “I’m Renato.”
    “Nice to meet you again. You sang beautifully.”
    “I’m a little rusty.”
    “It doesn’t sound like it to me. Papa has Amedeo Bassi records, and you sound better than he does.”
    “Thank you.” Renato seems impressed that I know about the great Italian tenor. “I’m out of practice because I haven’t been in church for a few months.”
    “Really.” Of course, I already know this. I’ve suffered through catechism, special classes to receive Holy Communion and confirmation, just in hopes of seeing him. “Why haven’t you been in church?”
    “I went to Italy.”
    For all the Roseto gossip Chettie repeats, you would think she would have known this little tidbit. “Why did you go?” I ask.
    “To study. And to visit my father’s village and write about it.”
    “You’re writing?”
    “Poetry.”
    Of course he’s a poet! Look at him. He is a romantic, like Keats and Shelley and my favorite, Robert Browning. How many times did I make Miss Stoddard tell the love story of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett? How Robert insisted Elizabeth leave her oppressive father, elope with him, and go to Italy. I wonder if Renato has found his Elizabeth Barrett, and if he hasn’t, would he wait for me? I want to tell him that I turned fifteen in January, but that still sounds too young for a man who goes to college and travels the world.
    “I should probably be dancing,” he says, surveying the girls around the dance floor. Every girl in the place is giving him the eye. “Do you like to dance?” he asks without looking at me.
    “I’d rather talk,” I tell him honestly.
    “Talk?” He laughs and turns to look at me. The way he smiles makes me nervous. I am too young, too unsophisticated, and not nearly pretty enough to be talking to the handsomest man in the room. I breathe deeply for courage.
    “I’d like to hear more about you,” I tell him. “After all, I just learnedyour name,” I lie again. I’m not sure, but it seems that Renato squirms a little. I’ve made him uncomfortable and I didn’t mean to. I have no experience with boys, so I don’t know what to say, what not to say, or how to act. Chettie tells me things about boys, but I don’t know if they’re true, not really. I certainly don’t know them from experience. I know that I’m not a coquette. I’m not a modern girl either, or a flapper. And if I go by what I’ve seen with my sister Assunta, when it comes to a man, a woman should completely change her behavior to woo him. I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Something tells me it’s not. Won’t the old Assunta eventually come out and frighten the new husband? And then what?
    “What do you want to know?” Renato looks at me with amusement, his composure regained.
    My confidence flags, but then curiosity prevails. There are things I want to know. “You go to college.”
    “I graduate in