Children of Liberty. Paullina Simons
course, nearly killed Aunt Pippa, but wait till you see her now, she’s doing well. I’m so excited to see you! You will stay with us until you get work, there is plenty of room, and we’ll find something for you. It would’ve been better if you’d come two months ago, because Everett just hired forty people, but Washington might be hiring. You must be starved! Salvo, do you need help loading? We made bread, fresh mozzarella, I made it myself last night, I’m so sorry about Papa Sandro, I can’t believe he is not here, all he talked about since I was a baby was coming to America. Oh, I’m not Angela Tartaro anymore, I’m Angie LoPizo.” She chuckled. “Annie LoPizo, actually. It’s a long story, but a good one. I’ll tell you the whole thing in detail. But the short version is, I couldn’t get overtime work unless I lied about being fourteen, so I lied about being fourteen, we got a work card for me with another girl’s name, and now I’m Annie LoPizo, and eighteen! I’m on sixty hours a week as a weaver, not a spinner in those horrible humid rooms, you know, Gia?”
“I know.”
“All the kids are there. You might have to start there too, but it’ll only be for a little while, Gia, my peach.”
“I don’t want to change my name,” said Gina. “I—”
“She is going to go to school,” Mimoo said. “It’s what her father wanted.”
“She needs to work, Mimoo,” said Salvo. “I’m not going to school. I’m going to work.”
“You are, yes.”
“She is, too.”
“Maybe I can get something part-time, Mimoo?” said Gina.
“You’re going to school full-time,” said Mimoo. “It’s what your father—”
“Hold on, Mimoo,” Salvo said. “Let’s see if we can pay our bills first.”
“You stay with us,” Angela said. “Not so expensive. My English is so good now,” she continued, “I can pass for a native, almost. I say I’m second generation, and it’s my Aunt Pippa who came from Italy. Everyone believes me.”
“I want to work,” Gina said, “but I don’t want to start my life with a—”
“And go to school,” Mimoo said.
“—lie,” Gina finished.
“Hey, Salvo,” Angela called to him as he loaded their heavy trunks onto the wagon. “Want me to introduce you to Pamela, my friend at work? She’s a real nice blonde.” She giggled. “You like blonde girls?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I never met one.”
“Wait till you see this one. I’m sorry you and Viola split …”
“We didn’t split. She refused to come.”
“… But it’s better to begin your life anew. Right, Mimoo? How are you feeling? Good? Gina, my friend Verity is dying to meet you.”
“This Verity is a girl?” Salvo asked.
Angela giggled. “You silly boy. A girl, of course. You don’t need to worry about me, Salvo, I’ll be Gina’s permanent chaperone, I promise. And Verity is studying to become a nun.”
It was all Gina could do to not scream.
“Are we loaded up?”
“Angie,” said Mimoo, “it’s nice to see you haven’t changed a bit.”
“But I have, Mimoo, I have.”
“You might not look the same, but everything else …”
“No, I’m grown up now. I help with the rent, I go to the bank. I buy my own clothes. I’m a young lady.”
“Yes …”
“You can work with Aunt Pippa, Mimoo, cleaning houses up in Prospect Hill. That’s where the mill managers live. Pippa said she’ll split some of her pay with you until you get your own customers.”
“That’s not going to help me meet expenses, splitting Pippa’s pay. I can also sew,” Mimoo said, “and cook.”
The horse had taken off; Gina held on to the wooden armrest. On top of everything, the dust from the road was blowing up into her face, making her choke.
The houses were simple Victorian, doors closed, no one sitting on stoops. They rode down cobblestoned Essex Street. Angie said it was the main shopping street in Lawrence. Gina rolled her eyes. One little Salem Street in North End was four times as busy.
“What do you think of Lawrence, Gia? Nice, isn’t it? Mimoo, Aunt Pippa sews too. Many Americans can’t sew. They rely on us to do it. But she takes in the work, because it’s getting too hard for her to clean. You’re going to help her a lot. She has her own sewing machine. Her legs have swollen up.”
“Because of the sewing machine?” said Gina.
“Mine too,” said Mimoo. “But why hers?”
“You’ll see. But what will Salvo do?”
“Don’t you worry about me, Ange. I’ll take care of myself.”
“Aunt Pippa is seeing a gentleman, who doesn’t care about her swollen ankles. Maybe he can help you, Salvo. He is a glazier.” Angela squeezed Gina. “There are lots of young men, managers, at the mill, and they looove Italian girls.”
“Yes,” said Salvo. “Girls other than my sister.”
“Come on, Salvo. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Basta, Ange.”
“I’m saying to help her get a job.”
“We are not asking any men to help my sister get a job.”
“Basta, Salvo.” That was from Gina.
At Canal Street, the horse made a right and stopped in front of a narrow row house amid four or five blocks of narrow row houses. Pippa was waiting for them in a chair right outside the door. Canal Street had no trees and the view across from the row houses was only of the long wall of the textile factory stretching half a mile in each direction. The mill workers got up at dawn, rolled out of bed, stepped outside their little homes, walked fifty feet and were inside the factory doors.
“You live here?” said Gina.
“For five years now.”
Gina pointed. “Is that where you work?”
“Yes,” Angela said happily. “The Washington Mill. So convenient and close, right?”
Gina saw the reason Pippa had swollen ankles—she had gained a hundred pounds. It wasn’t swelling that was on her ankles. Mimoo and Salvo failed to hide their shock.
“America has been good to you,” Mimoo said, hugging her cousin.
“She has a gentleman caller?” Salvo whispered to Gina. “Aunt Pippa! So nice to see you! You haven’t changed a bit!”
“Salvo, you’ve always had a silver tongue. But don’t waste it on me, I already have a man.” She swallowed him in her skirts.
“Aunt Pippa, how you kid. Please let go. I’m suffocating.”
Pippa herself had no children, but had raised Angie as her own after Angie’s mother died ten years earlier.
“Will there be room for us?” Mimoo asked. “We don’t want to impose.”
“Don’t be silly. There’s plenty.”
But it was Pippa who was silly. There wasn’t plenty. There was barely any. She and Angie lived in two small rooms on the second floor.
“It’s really two and a half rooms,” said Pippa, pointing to half a closet in which an oven