The Girls of Piazza D'Amore by Connie Guzzo-Mcparland Page A

would keep the couple together and derail Alfonso’s plans to become an American millionaire.
    Things were moving fast by the end of that summer. Totu walked straight past Piazza Don Carlo on his way to the bar, but he still slipped candies into my hands in exchange for delivering letters to her. Then he sped up and down Via Roma on his Topolino like a crazed mouse. Alfonso’s Vespa scooter provided the only motorized competition to the Fiat, but the scooter had an advantage over the car – its ability to race through the narrow alleys and uphill cobblestone streets that led to Piazza Don Carlo and to Lucia’s window, now out of bounds to the revved-up Fiat and to Totu.
    Peppino’s bar had also brought in the first ice-cream maker. Until then, for a summer treat, we kids had had to settle for sucking on an ice cube, unless we walked to Amato for a gelato. In the evenings, instead of going to the Funtanella for water, the young people had taken to going for a passeggiata and a gelato in the piazza. We girls changed into our best clothes and walked up and down Via Roma arm-in-arm, acknowledging the other girls with a “ Ciao ,” but ignoring the boys.
    Since Tina had left for Canada, Lucia had no one to go out with, so she expected me to accompany her on her evening walks. She held me by the hand as if she were taking me for a walk until my friends Rosetta and Bettina joined us. Then the four of us would buy our ice cream and accompany Lucia back to Piazza Don Carlo.
    The women who sat on their doorsteps frowned at Lucia, an engaged woman now, for parading herself up and down like that, and criticized her family for permitting it. “If Lucia’s in-laws lived in the village,” they said, “Rosaria wouldn’t be so lax.” The woman was too easy-going and too busy caring for her sick husband to notice that Lucia was taking liberties. The only family member who still had control over Lucia’s movements was Alfonso, but, in the evenings, he was usually away in the nearby villages, riding his scooter.
    Some of the older women even objected to unmarried girls parading up and down the piazza, but nonno Luigi, rather than disapproving of us, had actually entertained us one evening. He bought each of us lemon-flavoured granite and a glass of wine for himself and spoke of his own days in America.
    â€œYou’re lucky to be going to Montreal,” he repeated more than once. “New York is a hell of a place.”
    My evening passeggiate with Lucia ended after the feast of Santo Francesco, which was celebrated in Amato in the middle of August. On the Sunday evening of the feast, our piazza was quiet, since most of the younger people had gone to the celebrations. Surprisingly, Lucia didn’t seem interested in going. After our usual ritual of walking to the piazza, Lucia decided to pick up our water jugs and go to the Funtanella for water. We filled the ceramic water jugs and then, instead of walking back to the village, she insisted we walk toward the Timpa. There, we sat on a stone for a long time. It was as though she were waiting for someone. It irritated me that Lucia didn’t talk to me. Since her engagement, she had become closed in with her own thoughts, and acted as if I weren’t even there.
    The sky turned to dusk, and the cypresses of the cemetery at Amato were discernible only as tall shadows against the twilight. I felt uneasy there. I was never comfortable walking by the Timpa, even in
daylight. The sheer size of the scooped-out mount, with its exposed rocks jutting out all around, made me feel small and helpless. I asked Lucia to take me back home before it got too dark, saying that Mother would be alarmed by our absence.
    Before she responded, we heard a car’s engine, and Lucia straightened up. The car sped past us, then doubled back and parked on the side of the road, the engine still running. Two of Totu’s friends stayed in the car, while