Sisters
By Elizabeth Primamore
For most of their youth, Angela, age thirteen, and Flo, age fifteen, lived on Daria Street in Newark, New Jersey. On this street, most of the houses, two and three stories high, were usually paneled with vinyl. Theirs was red brick on the bottom half with white vinyl on the top half. Luckily, they were owners, not renters. In 1923, their parents, immigrants from southern Italy, scrimped and saved enough money from papa’s wine business to buy a two-family house. Francesco was a practical man and proud, too. It pleased him to know that his daughters always would have a home.
For Angela and her mother, the favorite place in the house was the wobbly wooden chair by the large window in the front sunroom which gave them a view of the whole block. Sitting there was something Angela saw Thomasina enjoy doing. Taking a break from housework, she’d sit, roll down her stockings and with her eyes shut, her chin would jut naturally toward the sunlight. These were the rare times, along with dunking hard bread in coffee, she saw her mother look serene.
On this day in August, Angela noticed something different about her mother; gone was her relaxed gaze; her eyes staring hard, her face tightening into a grimace. “Mama?” Thomasina didn’t budge except to wipe her brow with a hankie and shove it back under her sleeve. Angela inched closer. “Mama, what are you looking at?”
Thomasina remained motionless, her blue-gray eyes absorbed by the view. Angela craned her neck but couldn’t discern anything terrible—there was no accident, no commotion, only newlyweds passing by kissing instead of shouting at each other. Way down the block she did see something unusual. An unknown girl was getting out of a horse and wagon. She was disheveled and wobbly. Angela couldn’t understand why the girl was in the wagon in the first place. She knew that if a strange man should ask her or her sister Flo to get into his wagon, they shouldn’t. Mama had instilled enough fear into them to make sure of it. Thomasina tapped Angela’s shoulder. “The kitch’ floor dirty, no?”
Angela dragged a broom in unsteady sweeps over the white and yellow linoleum, but no specks of dirt fell from the big brush. She was thinking about the girl in the wagon’s flaming red lips. Angela hoped to wear lipstick someday, as though her mother would allow it. She knew she wouldn’t. Mama took the broom from her small hands, patted her head. Swaying and shuffling to the closet, one hand holding the broom handle, the other crossing herself, her mother’s lips moved without sound. Often Angela wondered what mama was praying about but wouldn’t dare ask.
Flo preferred the basement to the window. Her life was nourished with the act of helping her father make the wine. She followed his every step to learn the business. She would open the big cans of “Vino Sano” delivered to her father by men she didn’t know. Asking no questions, she would help Francesco, whom the men called “Frank,” open the boxes and dissolve the crushed grapes in tubs of water. She held the bottles still while he poured the purple liquid into them.
Papa liked to leave the door ajar. That way he and Flo could keep working while customers came and went. She would get the jugs of wine and never complain about the weight of them and hand them to the customers while her father collected the money. He would hide the cash in a little brown bag that was behind a red brick he would pull out from the wall. Flo would stand with her hands at her sides and bend her head way back and look up at the tall man with magnified eyes through glasses crooked on her nose. Papa was six foot four. Mama, short, about five feet. Flo took after her mother, Angela, her father. Before closing the wall with the brick, her father would drop a quarter into her hand. All this was a relief to Francesco since he thought his daughter an ugly duckling and worried that she would never get married. Flo felt this though no words were said.
If Angela snuck into the basement to watch them work, hoping, too, to get a quarter, Flo would look at her as though she were a stranger. Francesco would never make Angela wait for a quarter. He would smile and drop it into her hand, which she would grasp and then run back up the stairs. Once when Flo complained about it, he told her the money was for Thomasina, not Angela, but Flo knew differently. Francesco never let her forget how pretty her sister was. “Angelina, bellissima.” The first time she heard her father say that a bottle of wine slipped from her hands and hit the cement floor, shattering in little pieces. Papa didn’t react except to hand her a broom and pan. She had swept up what pieces she could and mopped up the rest. He father, grumbling, told her to take a break.
Luckily, papa didn’t have the same fears that mama had, that danger lurked around every corner. He would let the girl go out as long as she came back in no more than an hour. Flo loved the freedom. It was one thing her sister did not have. All Flo had to do was tell Francesco she wanted to take a walk in Branch Brook Park. Papa understood. Flo was a chip off him. After dinner he would take a walk in the park himself, enjoying the solitude.
While the basement remained dark and cool; by noon, the front room became hot and stifling. That ungodly heat did not bother Angela. She sat there whenever she could, usually on Saturday, and noon was a good time because that’s when Thomasina washed and hung clothes and gossiped with the neighbors.
At the window, Angela would get lost in reverie. She fancied herself a married woman in her own home: choosing the ripest melon, ordering meat at the butcher, opening a Christmas Club at the bank. Other times she was a woman about town: going to the office, working as a sales clerk at Bamberger’s, a telephone operator at AT&T, and when her daydreams really got away from her, she imagined herself a flapper, like Clara Bow, on the stage dancing, singing, flirting but would halt in fear, that would be showing off, a sin, and disgrace would fall upon the family.
The sound of whips cracking and grinding wheels snapped Angela out of her daydream. Full of hope, she spotted a familiar horse and wagon rocking up the block. Yes, it was who she thought it was. She grew with excitement and ran into the kitchen.
“Mama, Nick the Ice Man is here!”
At the enamel table, Thomasina chewed a piece of stale bread she just dunked into a cup of hot coffee. “You be nice to your sister and later you take the clothes for me.”
Angela was too preoccupied to respond. Her mother gave into the interruption of this rare moment of peace, slid her chair back, careful as she rose not to hit her head on the naked 25-watt bulb dangling overhead. She swept the leftover crumbs into her cupped hand, went to the counter, and dumped them into an empty can of Chock-Full o’ Nuts. Angela already had shot into the hallway. Thomasina knew what would come next. Flo thundered up the stairs and dashed through the kitchen as excited as her sister, saying nothing to her mother. Thomasina sat down to finish what was left of her coffee.
Nick was twenty-one and tall and slim with shoulders as broad as a bull’s and as strong, too; he had a slight limp from a leg injury he sustained fighting overseas on the American side. Papa always admired that Nick kept working despite his injury, something Angela heard her mother say Francisco wouldn’t have done when her father wasn’t around. A grey cap covered a mass of black ringlets; the wet tips of Nick’s full moustache curled under his upper lip; his brown leather vest, odorous of cigar smoke, which Angela found manly. He carried the block of ice in a sackcloth over his right shoulder; when he got to the landing of the third floor, he would look up and smile. If she were hanging over the banister, which usually she was, he’d say to her, “Hello, pretty angel”; she would giggle, “Hello, Mr. DiVizio.”
Every time Nick caught Flo’s eye he’d nod to her, twinkle, but say nothing. Angela would smile at her sister as Nick climbed the long, rickety flight of stairs to share the joy of his visit, but Flo would turn away, her lips crinkling up into a pout. This annoyed Angela, once so much she fantasized kicking her sister down the cellar stairs—tumbling down each step till Flo reached the bottom—but drove that thought out of her mind as fast as it came.
It was Nick’s habit to halt mid-way to change shoulders. One time Angela noticed her sister withdrawing and pulled her aside by the sleeve to smooth things out. “The only reason he calls me Angel is because my name is Angela, that’s all.” But Flo, head down, squeezed together the elbows of her folded arms, shoulders hunching up, as though she were trying to hide her body. She managed a whisper. “I know I’m ugly.” Angela said, “Don’t say that. Nick smiled at you, real big, didn’t you see?” When she saw that Flo was about to pout again, she realized that only a kindness was going to help her, not a justification. She leaned forward, touched her sister’s arm. “You’re very pretty, Flo.”
Secretly Angela was relieved she wouldn’t have to continue to convince her sister of something she herself wanted to believe but wasn’t sure if she did. But observing Flo a little more, shaking, eyes wet without tears, Angela without realizing it started to feel her sister’s hurt, shame, deflation as an awkward girl—short, top heavy, chunky with frizzy red hair, always compared with her taller, well-proportioned, svelte, doe-eyed sister. And so, for Angela, that moment of silly disappointment turned into a wider range of understanding. And the more she thought about it, the worse she felt, ashamed. By instinct she took Flo by the hand and pulled her into the hallway—sure Nick was reaching the top. Flo jerked away.
Again, a flash of anger ran through Angela. That she expressed nothing belied the fact that her mind was now on fire, but this time not with an image of violence. Instead a sudden surge of joy overcame her at the idea men favored her over her sister. Her breathing again became quick, shallow; her knees shook. How could she think this way? With more fury than before, she rallied to squash those thoughts, as if a tiny hand in her mind was slapping frantically away at them with a fly swatter. About to offer to do Flo’s chores for her that day, her older sister already had followed Nick into the kitchen.
The ice box stood in the corner of the kitchen. It had chips of white paint and a matchbook under one leg. Nick struggled to clasp the door shut, then turned around, and smiled at the three women. He knew they had been staring at him. “Sit. Sit,” mama said. Francesco appeared and Nick stood as soon as he sat. He handed Nick a bottle of wine. That was his payment for the ice. “We just make,” he said, pointing to his daughter. “Flo and me. Very good. Very good wine, you see. You the first to have.” Flo beamed but Nick didn’t look at her. He looked at Angela, whose eyes turned downward. She couldn’t flirt with Nick with her parents watching.
Mama put a pound cake on the table. She cut slices and gave everyone a piece, poured coffee. There was no asking. Not to accept it would be an insult. Nick knew that and ate the cake even though he just had cake at the house of his last delivery. His appeal to Angela was strong. She loved the way his full head of black curls gleamed in the sunlight that came through the kitchen window. She loved the way he ate with large bites he chewed slowly, followed by a sip of coffee. She loved Nick himself.
“Cigarette?” said Nick, because Francesco was staring at him.
The two men smoked. No cigarettes were offered to the women. Papa who rarely spoke had a lot to say to Nick and Nick had a lot to say to him. Their Italian the vulgar guttural of southern Italy, booming with passion and vigor. They talked about politics, the old country, Newark, sports, as if the women weren’t there, and to the men, they weren’t. They became what they were destined to become—the men’s audience, quiet and admirative, hanging onto their every word. Mama’s attention stayed on her husband. She liked seeing him so animated with hand gestures, facial expressions, and bursts of laughter. Angela imagined herself married to Nick. Flo imagined the same thing.
“Florenz’, come here,” Francesco said. Her father put his arm around her. “You see, my Florenz’,” he said to Nick. “She no pretty but she make-a good wife, hard worker, make-a money, you know, and you no have to worry ’bout other men. Angelin’, different story.” How terrible and wonderful, ran Angela’s thoughts. Flo broke away and left the room. “She shy,” Thomasina said to Nick.
As if on cue, Nick stood up and said, “Back to work.” He took the bottle of wine and thanked Francesco. He nodded to Thomasina and Angela. They wondered if Nick felt uncomfortable. He did not feel that way. He had too much confidence. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to manage all the neighborhood girls who flirted with him. So Francesco told him to stay well, and Thomasina got up to clear the table. Angela helped her. Nick threw his shoulders back and went. Papa told his wife to tell Flo he needed her in the basement. Thomasina nodded without looking at him, keeping her focus on her chore.
It was quiet in the kitchen when Flo came in. At first glance, Angela, washing the last of the dishes, didn’t realize how different her sister looked.
Flo laughed. She had never seen such a look of fear on her mother’s face. “Get papa up here,” mama said. Angela grabbed a dishrag to wipe her hands and ran to get her father.
Francesco said nothing. His hands did the talking for him. He slapped Flo across the face. Angela screamed. Mama ran to her daughter to protect her from her husband. It was a mother’s instinct and knowing. She saw her husband get violent before. Early in their marriage he hit her, once. And once was enough. Flo pushed her mother away.
“I pay you. I pay you to buy paint like a whore?”
Flo’s eyes gleamed as his hands flew. This was her proving ground. No longer were eyes on her sister. They were on her. On a hard slap, Flo fell to the floor. Mama cursed at her husband and Angela went to help her sister. Flo pushed her with a glaring look and got herself up. Angela backed away. The older girl’s red mouth twisted, defiant, she stared them down, one-by-one, and under her chin tied the white headkerchief she had wrapped around her head. Francesco froze. He had been standing that way for a while. Thomasina let out a howl. Angela put her arms around her mother. The three of them had the same reaction, shock and fear.
No one heard the footsteps coming up the stairs. It was Nick. He had forgotten his cap. “Hello, signora,” he said, unaware of what was going on. “Hello?” As he approached the kitchen, Flo waved his cap. “Looking for this?” She had picked up his cap that had fallen off the knob of the chair and onto the floor and hid it in her apron. She went toward Nick, who had no choice but to step back. Using the power she never felt before, she flung her head back and then forward and looked at Nick with wild eyes, “You remember me now? You look at me now?”
With Angela’s eyes closed she cried. She was sorry, so sorry for her sister. Mama’s lips moved in silence. It was all that was left for her to do. “He was in the wagon with me!” Flo said. She wanted the truth to work for her and it did. Francesco went toward Nick, grabbing him by the collar. “You marry! You marry my daughter or you see this?” Francesco held up a sharp kitchen knife and held it to Nick’s throat. “You see it or no?” Nick said nothing. “Well?” Still nothing. Francesco pressed the knife harder into his throat. Nick fell to the floor sobbing and gave Francesco his word.
The next morning Flo noticed the empty space next to her in bed and figured her sister had gotten up early as she always did. She didn’t know that Angela had snuck out of the house at midnight when all were asleep. Nor did she know that Nick had scooped her up in his arms and carried her to his wagon that was parked down the block and went away forever.
Francesco continued to make wine in the basement. Thomasina wept. The empty space in the bed did not make much difference to Flo because she only thought about when she would climb into the next wagon.
Elizabeth Primamore is an author and playwright. Her latest book is titled Shady Women: Three Short Plays (Upper Hand Press, 2018). She is a recipient of the Bernard and Shirley Handel Playwriting Award and was a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Her personal essays have been published in the anthologies From A to LGBTQ (650 Press, 2016) and Pain and Memory (2009). Primamore is a fellow at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild. She holds a PhD from the City University of New York.
