As the president of L&N Publishers, Amy does not do a lot of editing herself, not anymore. She has a dozen editors working for her. But this manuscript is really special. She would not entrust anyone with the job. It has to be her, because she’s been so close to the author. They grew up together, they played together, they went to school together, and they spent the summer months together at Villa Flora. Amy and Stella, two inseparable friends. They even looked alike, although they had different personalities. Later, they went to the same parties, fought over the same boys, made peace, graduated in the same class, and moved to the States at the same time. Amy does not remember exactly when they first met. Stella has been there from the beginning.
Amy’s family was not a regular family. She had an American father, and no kid with an American father was considered a ‘regular’ kid in Italy. Everybody looked at this circumstance as something exotic and very chic. When he came to visit, Amy would parade him in front of her schoolmates as a creature from another planet.
It was the end of the fifties, and Amy was ten years old. The planet ‘America’ was basking in all its glory. Images of smiling GIs entering Italian cities devastated by a brutal war were still on the minds of many, those indelible images from news reels that some fifteen years earlier had filled the movie screens and the pages of illustrated magazines. In those days, they had stirred deep emotions and feelings of gratitude among the people. And not only that, people shared a sense of awe for those guys who looked so strong and healthy and smart and outgoing compared to the gaunt faces and desolate looks of the local folks, an army of demigods with good white teeth, bestowing a cornucopia of chocolates, nylons, and ballpoint pens upon a destitute population.
But for the kids of the industrial boom, who saw those war pictures as historical documents of a remote past, the planet ‘America’ consisted of the mythical Far West, cowboys and Indians movies, Mickey Mouse and the Disney menagerie, chewing gum, baseball caps, Coca-Cola, and the latest musical craze—rock and roll. It was cool to look American, a popular song told them. It went like this:
Tu vuò fà l’americano, mericano, mericano,
ma sei nato in Italy...
Sient’a me, nun ce sta nient’a fà.
Okay, napulità.
(You want to look American, merican, merican,
But you were born in Italy...
Listen to me, nothing to be done.
Okay, Neapolitàn.)
As a result of the Marshall Plan, Italy was catapulted out of a dormant economy still anchored in the nineteenth century, into the world of mass consumption. Where centuries of wars and occupations had failed, American culture won. It encroached upon tradition and marked the beginning of a huge transformation. The transformation was not just economic, but also social and psychological, as is often the case.
Because of her American father, Amy was considered privileged among the kids. But in a nice way. It was sort of an admiration devoid of envy. In fact, you can only envy someone who is like you, just luckier. Not someone who belongs in another sphere. They felt she was different, that’s all. And, although they looked up to her and sought her company, they never felt totally at ease. And so, she had no friends. Only Stella.
One summer at Villa Flora, Amy and Stella were lying in the meadow outside the gardens, in the thick grass that would soon be cut to make hay. The hilly landscape of the Piedmont countryside south of Turin, renowned for its fine wines, was displayed before their eyes, like in the frescoes adorning the walls of the villa. The meadow was on a slope, rolling down gently to the bottom of the hill. Wild flowers provided splashes of color on the green field, hundreds of nuances of purple, blue, yellow and white. Beyond the meadow were the vineyards, on smaller hills, one after another in an undulating succession, like the waves of the ocean. The sun was at its zenith. The heat energized the earth and made every color more vivid, every smell more intense, every buzz more vibrant.
“Are you really leaving next week?” Stella asked.
“Of course.”
“But do you really want to go?”
“I can’t wait. Dad said he’ll take me all over the States and show me those places he sent me postcards of. I’m so excited. Why don’t you come along?”
“I can’t go.”
“Why?”
Stella rolled over and lay flat on her back, then opened her arms to cover as much ground as possible. She took in a deep breath of air, dense with the fragrance of grass and the rich smell of earth.
“I feel like little shoots are growing out of my body and making their way down into the earth. Right here. It’s the sun that makes them sprout. And I’m tied down and becoming grass and flowers myself.”
“Come on! Cut it out. I know you’re good in composition at school, but... the fact is you’re just scared. Scared of going so far away from home. I bet the minute you get there you’d start crying because you miss mommy.”
“Amy...!”
That was Rosa calling from the alley that led up to the villa. “Amy...! Lunch is ready. Hurry up, don’t make signora Amelia wait.”
Signora Amelia was Amy’s grandmother. Amy was supposed to be named after her, but at the last minute mother decided that Amelia was not good enough, and named her America. Yes, America. Was it a way to influence her destiny? She didn’t know. But she liked it. She really did.
“Coming!” Amy shouted back, as she and Stella sprinted to race each other uphill.
“I can’t go,” Stella repeated. Meaning to America, not to lunch.
Well, Amy did go and had a great time. She had graduated from fifth grade that year and there had been some discussion in the family on whether she should enroll in an American school for a year abroad. But mother thought that she was too young and that a summer vacation would be more than enough for her first American experience. As it turned out, Amy never had her year abroad. She had other vacations, though, and eventually moved over there to enroll in graduate school. But that first summer in New York was memorable, and nothing in all the ensuing years could ever compare to it. Upon her return, Amy recorded that experience in her diary, a cute little notebook daddy gave her to develop her love for writing.
To be around dad was a lot of fun. He called me names I had never heard before and that made me laugh—sweetie, sweetie pie, sweetheart. I thought he made them up. But most of the time he just called me, girl. I loved that. Simple, direct, without sugar. It implied a rapport of camaraderie. Especially when he said it with a wink, as in: Alright, girl? Wink.
I thought he was very handsome, with longish blond hair and a mischievous smirk. And he had a way with women they found irresistible. In fact, it was almost impossible to have a private moment with him. There was always one girlfriend or other around, at home and at the office.
Home for him was a large penthouse on two levels on the Upper East Side with a view on the park. He lived on the top level which had huge rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, and even a swimming pool on the deck. On the lower level were the offices of L&N Publishers. Dad was the boss. Actually, he was the founder and sole owner. Why L&N then, I asked, what does it stand for? He said that L stood for Lawrence/ Larry, which was his name, and N, for None in Particular. It just sounded good. Dad was like that, he liked to tease. But I thought that, perhaps, he needed someone to stand by him.
A private elevator opened straight into the reception room arriving from the lobby fifty floors below, in fifty seconds. To me, that elevator was sort of a fair ride. And I would go up and down up and down, just for the fun of it. The office suite was very busy, with its team of tweed-jacketed, pipe-smoking editors—the intellectual