“Thank you!” Marco said with newfound pride, and they shook hands all around, sealing the deal.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Elisabetta
September 1937
Elisabetta was getting dressed for the first day of school, turning this way and that in front of the mirror, eyeing her reflection in her dark skirt and brand-new brassiere. It was proving a disappointment. It had pretty scalloping at the top, but the cups were shaped like cones in a geometry textbook. She couldn’t fill them all the way to the pointed tops, so they crumpled like little frowns. The saleswoman had assured her that the fit was correct, so Elisabetta could only conclude that her breasts were incorrect. She wished she had someone to ask about such matters, but her mother had never come home.
“Rico, what do you think?” she asked, and Rico eyed her with mute sympathy.
Elisabetta returned to her reflection and considered stuffing the cups with socks, but that would only worsen matters. She put on the white shirt of her Balilla uniform and buttoned it up, noting with relief that the outline of the brassiere showed underneath, as if proof of its purchase. The brassiere’s stiff white cotton was thick enough to mask her nipples, so maybe the other girls would shut their mouths. She finished dressing, fed Rico and her father, and kissed them both goodbye.
She picked up her rucksack, left the apartment, and stepped into the sunshine on the busy, noisy street full of businessmen and excited students in their uniforms, making a shifting pattern of black and white. The breeze carried the mild snap of autumn, which invigorated her, and she looked forward to school, her classes, and seeing Marco and Sandro with more regularity. They had seen each other off and on through the summer, but nothing had happened between the three of them, except in her imagination. It seemed ages ago that Sandro had kissed her, and she wondered if romance always came in fits and starts. She hoped her new brassiere would change things.
She made her way along streets full of pink and white oleander blossoming in clay pots, and verdant canopies of ivy bowed with the weight of new growth. The warm gold, orange, and pink stucco of the houses revealed patches of brick underneath, which made them even more charming to her. The grocery and cheese shop were opening for the day, their metal shutters rolling up with a clatter. A newsboy dropped papers outside the tobacconist’s with a thump. Elisabetta didn’t buy a newspaper and she hadn’t written anything since the debacle with Gualeschi, who had never returned to the restaurant. Nonna had let the matter drop, and Paolo regarded her with pitying eyes, which made her feel worse.
In time, she reached the liceo, a nondescript box of gray stucco surrounded by a low stone wall, set off on a cobblestone largo, a small piazza. Students filled the largo, chattering away before the first bell.
“Elisabetta,” Marco called from behind her, and she turned to see him riding up on his bicycle. He jumped off grinning, as handsome as ever in his black uniform, though he seemed to have grown stronger. His hair glistened darkly with brilliantine, and his tan had deepened, which made his smile even more dazzling.
“Ciao!”
Marco kissed her on both cheeks, smelling of pomade, and Elisabetta felt her senses come alive. Marco grinned over her shoulder. “And look, here’s our Sandro! Ciao, brother!”
“Ciao, amici!” Sandro dismounted from his bicycle and turned to Elisabetta, kissing her on both cheeks.
Unlike Marco, Sandro smelled of hard soap, and she couldn’t decide which scent appealed to her more. Sandro’s face had grown longer and leaner, emphasizing his intelligent blue eyes, and his shoulders had broadened, filling out his uniform.
“Hey,” said Sandro, “let’s get together after school, by the river.”
Marco nodded. “Great idea. Elisabetta, do you have to work?”
“Not until later,” Elisabetta answered happily. “I’ll be there.”
Sandro touched her shoulder. “I’ll bring you supplì, like last time. Do you remember that day?”
“Yes,” Elisabetta answered, surprised.
“What day?” Marco asked, but Sandro didn’t reply, and just then the bell rang for the start of school. The question lingered unanswered as the three friends were swept into the building.
* * *
—
After school, Elisabetta settled into the soft grass of the riverbank, at the spot where her classmates always gathered. Nothing had changed about the place, and the Ponte Rotto stood where it had for centuries, with the Tiber flowing jade green around the surviving arch of the bridge. Her Latin textbook lay open in front of her, but she wasn’t getting her homework done, and the page was too bright to read in the sun. She wished for a paper hat, but she had no newspaper and Sandro wasn’t here yet, anyway. Meanwhile Marco was showing off on his bicycle for Angela, and Elisabetta sensed he was trying to make her jealous. If so, it was working, and she felt lost without her female advice column. The other boys played ball, and the girls gossiped in their group, still not including her. But they didn’t tease her, so that was progress.