“Gina!”
How Gina wished her papa were here.
Ben was right: the third-floor rooms did allow Gina a glimpse of the waters just beyond Lime Alley. After Mimoo lay down, a perspiring Gina in an itchy cardigan went to sit by the window, waiting for the men to come back. She stuck her head out, to better inhale the scent of the sea, to see more clearly the sight of the water, to catch the breeze that might cool her. She didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to even blink for fear she’d miss something. When she was sure Mimoo was asleep, she threw the cardigan off.
The two rooms were clean and comfortable. They had two beds and one sofa. While hauling trunks up the stairs and showing them the apartment, Ben had said proudly that Harry’s father’s renovated houses were the first residences in the North End to have standardized iron pipes for running water that was pumped in from the streets. The toilet and bathtub were just down the hall, Ben told them. “You don’t have to go downstairs and outside to use the privy.”
Gina realized she was hungry. It was after seven, and the smell of food permeated the stairwell. Lard grease, onions, the smells of fried tomatoes, garlic, basil, all of it was comforting to Gina, yet novel and desirable.
“Did you remember the wine?” was the first thing Mimoo asked from the sofa when the three men returned with dinner.
“I took care of it, Mimoo,” said Salvo, showing her the two bottles of red he carried.
“Did you buy one for Pippa?” Pippa was Angela’s aunt, and Mimoo’s cousin. Pippa liked her wine.
“No, I forgot.”
“He forgot.”
“We’ll buy another one tomorrow.”
“Where are we going to get one tomorrow? Do they sell it at the train station? Now we will arrive empty-handed.”
They brought back pasta, sauce and Italian bread. Harry wouldn’t hear of Mimoo offering him money. He turned away from her purse. “It’s not necessary,” he said.
“Harry is right,” Ben said, “it isn’t, but perhaps next week we can come to Lawrence to visit and have dinner in your new home?”
“Oh yes, please!” Gina beamed.
Harry cleared his throat, Salvo glared and Mimoo pretended she had gone suddenly deaf.
“Take the money, Harry,” Mimoo said. “Take it.” He still refused.
It got stifling in the apartment with four adult bodies and young Gina (in her cardigan, which Mimoo glared her into putting back on) crowding around one old table. They lit just two candles, to make it no hotter, and fitted around as best they could in the parlor room. The men took off their hats and jackets, Gina opened all the windows, but it didn’t matter; she rolled up her sleeves to the elbows, and her bare forearms glistened from perspiration; she fanned herself with a newspaper and Atlantic Monthly magazine as she ate, sitting flanked by her mother and brother.
Mimoo was too tired for conversation, Salvo too cranky for it, and Harry too reticent. Only Gina and Ben chatted agreeably, though he was more reserved than before. She spoke to him mostly in Italian, and he answered her mostly in English. Soon Mimoo left the table to go lie down in the next room, and Gina breathed out, relaxing a little. They spread out at the wooden table. Now that Mimoo had gone, Harry was next to her and Ben across from her. She wasn’t afraid of Salvo. Annoyed by him, yes, but not frightened. She threw off her white cardigan and took a long drink of water, ignoring Salvo’s malevolent glares.
“So what’s wrong with Lawrence?” she asked Harry, turning to him, trying to get him to talk, to glance up. But he didn’t raise his eyes from his plate, not when he was sitting so close to her. Salvo was eyeballing all three of them like a hawk. He was so exhausting, her brother.
Harry shrugged. “I said nothing about Lawrence.”
“There is no work,” Ben interjected.
“We will do something,” Salvo said. “Don’t worry about us.”
“Who is worried? I’m just saying.”
“Leave them be, Benji,” Harry said. “Everybody finds something to do.”
Ben poured everyone more wine. Salvo intervened. He said it was too late for Gina to have even a little bit of wine. Keenly Gina felt her age. Perhaps Ben could offer her a milk bottle and send her to bed, would Salvo prefer that?
“Do you live here in the North End?” Gina asked Harry.
It was Ben who answered. “No, we’re from Barrington. Just a small town in the hills about ten miles northeast of here.” He smiled. “Not too far from the ocean.”
“Ah, Mr. Shaw,” said Harry, turning to his friend, “so now you’re from Barrington?”
Ben punctuated his blink with a swig of wine. “Oh, that’s right. My friend forgot to tell you his full name. Gina, Salvo, he is Harry Barrington.”
Gina and Salvo sat, taking this in.
“Barrington like the town?” Gina said finally.
“Exactly like it. Full relation.”
Gina gaped at Harry, but stopped when she glimpsed from the periphery of her vision Salvo’s sour face. “You have a whole town named after you?”
“Oh, not after him, miss,” Ben said. “After his productive and illustrious family. They built that town, you see. All Harry does is use the town library.”
“That is not true,” Harry said. “I also eat at the restaurants.”
Gina was impressed and slightly surprised. Harry in his dapper suit and fancy hat and slightly indolent air didn’t look to be the kind of young man who worked with his hands. “You’re from a family of builders?” she asked, trying not to sound incredulous.
“My father isn’t there with a hammer and nails, if that’s what you mean,” Harry replied. “He’s a merchant. He makes sure other people do the work.”
Ben laughed. “I can’t wait to hear you tell your father this. That seven generations of Barringtons, who built not only Boston but funded the expansion of the very university you get all your snooty notions from, got their solid reputation from nothing more than making sure other people did the work. I can’t wait.”
Harry waved him off. “Ben, you forgot to tell our new friends who you are.”
“I told them. Ben Shaw.”
“Yes, but who is Ben Shaw?”
“Humble engineering student?”
“Son of Ellen Shaw,” said Harry. “Who just happens to be the youngest sister of Robert Gould Shaw, the man who commanded the only all-black regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War.”
If Gina didn’t know any better, she might have thought they were trying to impress her, or perhaps in a game of one-upmanship emerge victorious in their teasing of each other in front of her. Salvo did know better, and it was certainly what he thought, because all he said by way of comment was a gruff, “Your uncle is black?”
“No, quite white,” said Harry. “And a colonel. He just happened to be the white colonel who took the job no one else wanted, or would take.”
“I keep telling you,” Ben said. “No one’s heard of him.”
“Well, someone must have heard of him, Benjamin,” Harry said pleasantly. “Because an architect named Stanford White spent fourteen years sculpting your uncle’s memorial.” He leaned back with self-satisfaction. “Ben comes from a very illustrious family,” Harry continued. “Aside from