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Chapter One

Totowa, New Jersey:

June 1901:

It was the first time in Donna's seventeen years that she dared to rebel against her father. To defy him about anything--especially this--was a mortal sin. Taller than most girls, she felt Lilliputian behind him as he peered into the mirror above the mantel in the front room. She trembled, took a deep breath and said, "I-I don't want to be a concert violinist; I-I want to be an artist!" Donna braced herself for the attack.

Michael LaRosa stroked his impeccable mustache and imperial beard with his well-groomed pinky nail until he aligned every hair. Then he readjusted the knot and cameo stickpin in his cravat so that they sat neatly beneath the stiff winged collar.

His uncharacteristic silence frightened her. To the outside world, Michael was a serene church statue, but at home, even a meal without soup as a first course set him off.

Unwilling to look at his reflection in the mirror, she stared at the rose-colored Oriental rug in the dimly lit room. Her mother, Annunziata, left the shades drawn to keep the sun from fading the heavy burgundy velvet drapes and overstuffed mohair chair. Unfortunately, it also prevented the escape of the camphor odor that her mother used to excess in combating the moths. Donna preferred the moths.

She was about to repeat it, but without turning to face her, he said, "Pursue your hobby as an artist in your spare time. Beggars can't be choosers."

"Beggar! I work hard for the money I bring home! I work ten hours a day, five days a week designing those silly silk patterns at the mill! I practice the violin seven days a week and help Mama with the housework every day! There isn't enough time to sketch, let alone paint!"

He turned. The pince-nez fell from his thin nose and dangled at the end of the black ribbon circling his rigid neck.

Although she knew what to expect, she remained anchored. This time he whacked her harder across the face than usual.

"How dare you speak to me in that manner?" His basso profundo voice, one notch above a bellow, shook the ceramic bric-a-brac on the red oak mantel. "Didn't you learn anything about honoring thy mother and father at Mass this morning?"

Trying not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry, she held back her tears.

"You are not the only one working in this house! I work ten hours a day, five days a week, and five hours on Saturdays. Sometimes I even have to work on Sundays. Your mother works on the picking frame, cutting knots from the silk broadcloth. Your sister, Gloria, and even your brother, Alphonso, spend time on the frame after school. Some people put in twelve hours a day, six days a week and six hours on Sundays, while you, thanks to me, have the privilege of not working Saturdays or Sundays. And--thanks to me--to protect your hands, you don't help your mother in the kitchen. Instead, you take violin lessons like a princess!"

He drew his arm back to strike her again, but her mother ran in from the kitchen, and pulled her away. It surprised Donna, for it was the first time her mother had come to her aid.

"Stop, Michele!" For her efforts, the squat Annunziata received the blow that he had intended for Donna. The wallop almost sent her reeling.

"Mind your own business, woman!" Purple with rage, he exhaled as if he were expelling an inner demon. "And, you, you stupid woman, it's Michael, Michael, Michael LaRosa, not Michele! This is America, not Italy! When are you going to learn?" He turned on his heels and strode to the entrance hall. He grumbled something unintelligible as he placed his homburg on his head, scooped up his black pigskin gloves and walking stick. Again, he mumbled and slammed the door behind him, nearly fracturing the etched glass.

* * *

Her cheek still smarting from her father's blow, Donna walked with her sister, Gloria, and her twelve-year-old brother, Alphonso, toward Pennington Park.

"Why on earth do you let Papa get away with it?" Gloria asked.

She didn't reply. Instead, she adjusted a portable easel with its attached paint case tucked beneath one arm and hiked up a stretched canvas under the other arm.

"Well?" Gloria persisted.

"Well, what? You're always talking in riddles."

"Don't be a ninny. You know I mean all those violin lessons with that professor of yours." Gloria mimicked her playing the violin, except that she crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. In her parody, she almost lost the broad-brimmed straw hat sitting on her head.

"Gloria! Stop that. You're sixteen. Grow up!"

"Me, grow up? Good God, you're seventeen and still tied to Papa's coattails. Not only that, you're still worried about what people will say."

"Maybe you should, too."

"Stop evading the issue. Why do you let Papa force you to play the viol--?"

"Easy for you to say. He lets you and Alphonso get away with everything."

"Alphonso Smonso. Who cares about that mama's boy?"

"Gloria! He'll hear you."

"So what? He leaves me cold. I don't care who knows it, especially Alphonso."

Alphonso, a few feet ahead, stopped and turned. "What do you want, pest?" The black elastic chin strap on his white sailor's hat, large enough when his mother purchased it just weeks ago, already cut painfully into his expanding chin.

"Nothing from you, brat." Gloria wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue at him.

"Gloria LaRosa! Honestly! You're a caution." She looked around to see if anyone had observed Gloria's antics, but the young couple behind them, too involved with each other, hadn't noticed. "Stop making all those dreadful faces in public."

"Public, smuglic." Gloria tossed her head. "Waddle a little faster, Alphonso. We're catching up to you." Too short for his age and round as a wine barrel, he resembled rising dough to her. It wasn't his corpulence or his diminutive stature that repulsed her, or that their mother dressed him like little Lord Fauntleroy, complete with the large ruffled collar and short velvet black pants. What did disgust her was his running to their mother on any pretext. Gloria was sure he wouldn't amount to much unless it involved spying or eating.

It was as if he read Gloria's thoughts, for he turned again, placed a pudgy fist on his hip, and stuck his tongue out at her. "Stop making fun of me! I'm going to tell Mama on you!"

"Don't you mean, again?" She wanted to pull on his straw hat, until the elastic band made his eyes cross. "Go ahead and tell her. I look forward to her pulling my hair. It's good for the roots of my stunning brunette locks." She shook her head making the braid at the back of her head swing as she struggled for a taunt. Words failing her, she stuck out her tongue.

"Gloria!" Donna admonished. "Are you trying to be unladylike?"

Gloria shrugged her shoulders and kept quiet for a minute. Then she returned to the subject at hand. "You stood up to Papa this morning. Good. Keep it up and he'll stop. Don't let him twirl you around his little finger for his love. If you want love, look elsewhere."

"Love? I never thought of that word in connection with Papa. Maybe domination or fear, but not love."

"Everyone, at least everyone outside the family, says he idolizes you."

"I prefer a will of my own."

"Love doesn't apply to Mama either. Her only hobby is Alphonso. She protects him above everyone." She knew Donna felt the same way she did, for they lived in a loveless cocoon. She shrugged it off. "Donna." She thrust her chin out in Alphonso's direction. "The brat's far enough ahead so he can't tattle. Here." She held out two books. "Mama was poking around in our room when I left. One is Boccaccio's Decameron Nights and the other Swinburne's Poems. You know how Papa hates poets, especially Elizabeth Barrett Browning. To him, all poets lead disgusting, immoral lives and want to influence us through their poetry. God forbid Mama should find these. She'd tell him for sure."

"God forbid!" Donna's arms were too full to make the sign of the cross.

"Those immigrants from southern Italy are the only things that Papa hates more than poets. Anyone would think that we were royalty just because Mama and Papa came from Tuscany, and Papa has a skilled trade." Gloria thrust the books at her.

"Can't you see my arms are full? Slip them into my shoulder bag." She tilted her head toward the bag containing an afghan and a book of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. "Why don't you help me carry something?"

"You're the one who wants all that stupid stuff." She tucked the books into the bag.

"Where do you get the money for the books and clothing frills you hide from Mama and Papa?"

Gloria smiled and changed the subject. "Why do you love reading poetry?"

"It carries me into another world, a world with a man as handsome as Lord Byron, or as strong as Robert Browning who rescued Elizabeth from her tyrannical father."

"A man who'll rescue you from Papa? Forget it! No man is part of his plan for you. You kno--"

"Gloria! Don't bother me about what Papa does or doesn't want! This afternoon is my time without his or Mama's interference! So--"

"Whoa! The filly has spirit after all. But you're right. Thank God, Mama is in a family way and can't be seen in public, and Papa is at his Leonardo De Vinci Cultural Society. Cultural? What a joke. All they do is play cards, and drink."

"How do you know?"

"I have my ways." She shrugged.

"You know Gloria, now that I think about it, who wants another man who will control me, handsome or not?"

"Now you're thinking like I do. Don't let love for a man take control, but forget that. Walk faster or we'll never get to the park."

Donna stopped in her tracks. "Can't you see I'm carrying too much?"

"Give me that stupid easel." She grabbed it and held it in front of her like an offering.

Donna shook her head. "If you two hadn't insisted on going to the other side of the Passaic River to Pennington instead of Westside Park on this side, we'd be there already. Why did you want to? You're afraid of the falls."

Gloria trembled at the thought of the waterfall with its 75-foot drop that powered the factories in Paterson. It was second in mass only to Niagara's. Second or not, she found the Passaic Falls daunting enough. Heavy spring rains and melting snows swelled the river, creating a violent overflow. While she was above it and couldn't see it, she heard its roar, and saw its hundred-foot plume.

Alphonso stopped and waited for them to catch up to him. When they had, he smiled a one-sided smile. "Let's go to Overlook Park. I want to look at the falls."

"What?" Donna and Gloria responded with equal surprise.

Gloria saw something lurking in her brother's eyes. "All right, Alphonso. I'll tell you what. You and that brown paper bag with its gargantuan sausage sandwich in your fat little fingers, go to Overlook. We'll pick you up later." Even though they had just finished eating a huge meal of white bean soup, pasta, grilled T-bone steak, sausages, lemon sponge cake, cheese, fruit, and nuts, it didn't surprise Gloria that Alphonso had the bag, for he never went anywhere without food. "Start now, brat. Bye."

He gripped the bag closer to his chest as if it were an amulet. "Ah...no, not this time."

Gloria smiled. "Thought so, brat." She readjusted the white Gibson girl blouse that had twisted in her white lace skirt. Then she checked her new white high-button shoes to see if she had hooked all the loops. She had.

Although she and Donna were dressed alike, from their shoes to the huge white bows at the backs of their heads and white straw hats, she knew they were dissimilar in appearance and nature. Donna, with her classic northern Italian features, was tall and slender like their father. Her porcelain complexion accented her almond-shaped eyes and flaxen hair. While Gloria, with her dark facial features and zaftig physique, was the very image of her mother. Gloria didn't like it and tried to shake it off as she reached Pennington Park's entrance.

"What a lovely weeping willow across the river," Donna said.

"Mmmm." Gloria said, not caring.

"That's a good spot."

"Where?" Gloria yawned.

Donna almost pointed, but stopped in time, for it was ill-mannered. "The bench under that maple tree. It will protect us from the sun and give us a good view of the weeping willow and the footbridge crossing the river."

"Whatever you say." She shrugged and toyed with the braid at the back of her head.

When they reached the bench, Donna removed the afghan from her shoulder bag and spread it on the bench to protect their clothing. She was about to set up her easel, when she saw Alphonso retreating through the park's entrance. "Alphonso!"

At the sound of his name, he picked up his pace and was soon out of sight.

"Where do you think he's off too, Gloria?"

"Who cares? Good riddance I say."

"I hope he doesn't get into any troub--"

"Bye, Donna," Gloria interrupted. "I'll be back later."

"What? Where do you think you are going? You can't leave me alone!"

"I'm going to meet some of my girlfriends from high school."

"What if Papa and Mama find out that you wandered the streets alone?"

"For goodness sakes, you're a big girl now. Act like it. Stop worrying about other people." Gloria retraced her steps through the entrance and turned left on McBride Avenue.

Donna wanted to go home rather than endure the stares of strangers; however, apart from being unescorted, she'd have to explain why Gloria and Alphonso were not with her. Oh, why did I pick this bench? Everybody will see me. Realizing that staring into space would look stranger, she set up her easel and placed the white canvas on it. She tried to concentrate on sketching the footbridge spanning the swift, whitecapped river, but failed. Then she remembered the books in her shoulder bag. She pulled them out, placed two on the bench, and began reading Swinburne. Thy mouth is made of fire and wine. Thy barren bosom takes my kiss.

Her face reddened. She put the book on the bench and looked up in time to see a young man, wearing a white boater hat, red striped jacket and white trousers, begin crossing the bridge. He was striking, but what caught her attention was the black wolf-like animal that he had on a leash. Even though the animal was frightening, the pair made such a captivating picture that she was sorry she didn't have her Brownie camera with her.

As he strode toward her, he said something to the animal. It annoyed her that the hat now concealed his face. Nevertheless, Donna saw that he was tall and that his muscles strained against his jacket. What am I doing? Don't stare at him. She turned her head just as the animal pulled away from his master, ran up to her, and set his long black muzzle on her lap. "Oh, dear!"

"Rex!" the young man called, and made a dash for the leash. When he had the animal under control, he doffed his hat. "Mi perdoni? Non è un lupo. È uno Schutzhund."

Despite his reassurance that it was a dog and not a wolf, she was afraid to look up. Acknowledging a man in public was inexcusable, yet his allure was so strong she didn't resist. Her mouth fell open. His tanned olive complexion accented his brown eyes, dark brown wavy hair, and regular features, which rivaled those of Lord Byron's.

"Mi perdoni?" he repeated and smiled broadly.

Her reaction was not lost on him. Women found him irresistible, and he knew it.

"You and your...ah...dog are excused, but please, don't speak to me." Although he spoke Italian, she said it in English, for she wanted anyone who might witness the occurrence to grasp her meaning. "Don't take any adverse implications that I'm alone. My sister and brother will be back shortly." She knew he understood her, for he apologized, this time in broken English.

"Please," she interrupted. "I don't mean to be rude, but go away." She removed a white lilac-scented lace handkerchief that she had tucked up her long sleeve and dabbed her face.

He placed his hat on his head at a jaunty angle and bowed.

Oh dear he must have noticed my books. How mortifying.

He turned, and began whistling as he strode across the footbridge with Rex trailing.

Donna followed his movements. Trying to repress her embarrassing fantasies, she shook her head, but they persisted. Her anger at him grew for having given them to her.

What if he is handsome? He had no right to speak to me. Yet, his spicy aftershave lotion lingered to taunt her. She turned her frustration toward Gloria and Alphonso, and vowed to take revenge on them, but how, when, or where, eluded her. She fanned her flushed face.

Chapter Two

Sunday morning sunlight streamed through the bedroom window's crisp white lace curtains and stirred Donna. All week long, she feared the rain would keep her away from the park.

She smiled as she rested her head on her hands to watch the curtains billow and retreat as if they, too, were inhaling the delicate fragrance of the lilac bush beneath the window. Despite her mother's objections, Donna always kept the window open to dispel the noxious camphor odors. Her pleasure was twofold this morning, for it also permitted her to hear the birds and their young that were perched in the branches of the lilac bush. They chirped as if God had placed them there for her benefit.

A shaft of sunlight kissed her pink cheek. She stretched her arms above her head, and felt as if she were floating on air, although she didn't know why. She nudged Gloria in the ribs with her elbow.

"What?" Gloria mumbled in her pillow without opening her eyes.

"Hurry, lazy bones. Get up and get dressed." Not waiting for a response, Donna jumped out of the feather bed that nearly filled the room and slipped her feet into a pair of white satin slippers with their pink bow at the instep. She quickly pulled off her pink nightgown and tossed it on the white linen bedspread.

As she padded across the wooden floor, she wondered why she felt such joy. She opened the armoire's doors, with the flamboyance that a matador would have envied, and selected her new white cotton dress. She placed it on the bedspread and began humming the "Spring" section of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

"Quiet!" Gloria mumbled into her pillow. "People around here are trying to sleep. It's enough that I have to hear you play that stupid thing. I don't need it hummed in the morning."

Donna smiled. She hadn't been aware she was humming. Yet, everything was worth humming or singing about. She almost danced as she circled the bed to the other side of the room where a chiffonier held Annunziata's prized white porcelain pitcher and a matching bowl she brought from Italy. Since Donna was the eldest, Annunziata had awarded it to her.

After her mother had cautioned her for the tenth time to be careful with it, Donna quoted Browning's "Open my heart, and you will see...graved inside it, 'Italy,'" but Annunziata had failed to grasp the meaning. At the other end of the chiffonier sat a plain, thick, white stoneware bowl and pitcher that Annunziata purchased in America and gave to Gloria.

In a dish alongside Donna's bowl was a lilac-scented bar of soap. She unwrapped it, brought it to her nose to inhale its delicate fragrance, and then washed her face until her cheeks glistened. Ringlets formed around her face. Although she tried to straighten them, they refused to respond. She accepted their will and brushed her hair until the strands danced in the air. Then she formed a single braid at the back of her head and began humming again.

"Good God! Stop that infernal humming! What made you so disgustingly cheerful?" Gloria buried her head in the pillow to drown out her sister.

"Isn't it enough to be happy?Get up, Gloria! There is a world waiting for us with open arms out there."

"Tell it to return at a decent hour."

Donna dressed, checked the top drawer for a fresh white silk ribbon, selected the widest, brightest one, tied a huge bow at the base of her head, and then pinched her cheeks for color.

Refreshed, she turned and pulled on Gloria's feet. "'Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed...and see the dew bespangling herb and tree.'"

"Oh, Lord! What's the rush?" she moaned, turned over, and placed the pillow over her head to keep out the light and Donna's incessant prodding and humming.

"The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we are going to Pennington Park, remember? 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.'"

"Stop quoting Herrick and all the other poets in Bartlett's and leave me alone. The park isn't going anywhere."

"And neither are we, if you don't get going. Up! Up! Up, Gloria! I want to go to early Mass."

* * *

Sitting in the front pew at St. Mary's church with her mother, sister and brother, Donna thought the morning would never end. She had been happy they had gone to early Mass, but that happiness was short lived in the seemingly never-ending ceremony.

Still, she was happy that her father never accompanied them to church. She could do without his scowl at church, too.

It was no surprise to her that her father never attended church. Donna had often heard him say, "Those black bird priests use the Church as a sanctuary to separate the husband's rightful place from his wife and children." She had heard the same complaint from other Italian men and guessed that wives turned to their priests for solace because of their arranged loveless marriages.

How awful to be trapped that way. Nobody is going to trap me!

She sighed. For the first time, she found Father Joseph Palmiotti's sermon too long, too boring, and for that matter, too silly for words. It surprised her, for she loved the jolly red-cheeked man with his windswept white hair. The topic of this sermon was about self-control. As for her, she had too much of it. In fact, the entire family had too much. She thought of what Gloria once said, "We have enough self-control to choke a horse."

Still, in retrospect, Donna felt that her mother could have taken a lesson from the sermon with her disproportionately huge Sunday lunches, Alphonso with his excessive eating habits, and her father with his rigidity.

Once the Mass had ended and they walked home, it became a question of waiting for her father to return from wherever he was before they sat down for lunch.

Donna peered through the living room's bay window and tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for her father's buggy and Morgan horse, Bessie, to round the corner. When they did, she felt like running across the street to tell him to hurry currying the horse. That, however, would have produced another painful lesson in paternal respect.

* * *

After the meal, Donna's father left the house for parts unknown, while she waited for the violin professor to make an appearance. To Donna's delight, he was early. He had her warm up with Paganini's Sonata a Movement Perpetual. She breezed through it, not noticing the astonishment on her professor's face.

Then she played the "Spring" section of Vivaldi's Four Seasons that she had been practicing for her first concert. To her surprise, while she hated the idea of performing at a concert, she even enjoyed playing it,

Although she was anxious to finish the lesson and rushed through it, she played better than she ever had. After Donna finished her lesson, she placed her violin in its case, and tried to will her Ichabod Crane of a teacher into leaving the house, but to her annoyance, he was in no hurry. Please, dear Lord, release me from this eel pot, she pleaded, feeling as trapped as the students in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

As she waited for him to run off his usual list of do's and don'ts, she stared at another of her mother's prized possessions: a stuffed, blue-green peacock perched on a pedestal in the corner. She hated the concept of anyone killing and stuffing a poor defenseless animal. Is that how women caught in a loveless marriage feels, like a lifeless stuffed animal?

Professor Picchio stroked his imperial beard. "Until now, Miss LaRosa, your tempo and phrasing have been excellent, in fact, faultless. You astounded me in the way you played Paganini's Sonata a movement perpetual. You rivaled Paganini's amazing twelve notes per second. Most violinists, including myself, would find it inconceivable, but you did it flawlessly."

"Thank you." It was the first compliment he had given her. She was waiting for a qualifying statement.

"Yes, flawless. However, forgive me. Previously there has been no passion in your performances. I had almost given up hope that there would be, but, today, at last you have it!"

Passion? "Thank you, Professor Picchio," she replied again, but she didn't want to detain him by asking him what he meant, for she wanted to get to the park.

Donna disliked Professor Picchio from the beginning, and he grew more unbearable during the three years that followed. She saw him like the English translation of his last name, 'woodpecker,' not only in appearance, but also in nature. He always pecked at her performances until she felt like screaming at him.

Yet, this morning, she looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. It almost came as a shock to notice how much he looked like her father right down to the pince-nez on his long thin nose. The only difference was that his clothes were threadbare, in need of pressing, and smelled of camphor, while her father's were always impeccable and smelled of bay rum.

It was all she could do to keep from screaming at him, "Hurry up," as she watched him wipe his violin with a soft chamois skin and replace it in the case. Then, all too slowly, he rubbed his "birch of justice" horsehair bow with rosin and placed it in the fasteners on the inside cover of the blue velvet case.

After she paid him, she smiled at him, and waved a tolerable goodbye at the front door. Not waiting until the professor reached the bottom step, she closed the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

As if it were a signal, Gloria pushed open the pocket doors that separated the front room and dining room, and plunked a white straw hat on Donna's head. "Come on! Come on, Donna," she said, pulling on her sister's arm. "Grab your easel and other rubbish. Let's get a move on."

Donna didn't need any prompting from Gloria, for she, too, wanted to rush to the park, but she resented the manner in which her sister tugged her. "Stop pulling on my arm, Gloria." She readjusted the hat that had slipped over her eyes. "I'm not Bessie."

"No, but sometimes you move as if you were pulling a buggy. Alphonso!" she called abruptly, almost pulling her sentences together.

Donna covered her ears. "Gloria, please don't yell! You are making my ears ring like Saint Mary's bells."

"Oh, you are such a delicate princess," Gloria scoffed. She was about to yell again for Alphonso when he appeared in the dining room doorway. "Well, it's about time. Are you ready to go, pest?"

"With you? NO! NEVER!" Alphonso snapped.

"Don't come," Gloria answered. "See if I care, you mammaluc brat with your stupid hat!"

Evidently, Alphonso knew what mammaluc meant, for he stuck his tongue at her and wagged his finger as her.

"What's mammaluc mean?" Donna asked.

Gloria shrugged her shoulders. "It's a Neapolitan expression. It means someone who is slow-witted, shy, and homely. It fits. Don't you think?"

"Goodness! Don't let Papa hear you use that vulgar southern dialect. He'll skin you alive."

"Oh, you. Butter couldn't melt in your mouth." Gloria shrugged her indifference again. "North against the South. You'd think we were talking about the Civil War." She turned to face Alphonso. "Where is your feedbag, brat? You should hang it around your neck like Bessie."

Alphonso hid the bag behind his back. "I'm telling Mama you're teasing me."

"Go ahead, mammaluc!"

Instead, Alphonso opened the front door, ran down the gray stone steps as fast as his excessive weight and chubby legs would allow, pulled the squeaking black wrought iron gate open, and clanged it shut behind him as if it were a steel trap.

"Brat, brat, brat," she screamed after him. "Mammaluc! Mammaluc! Mammaluc!"

"Gloria!" Annunziata screamed at her. "If I catch you, I will tear your hair out by the roots!"

"Oh, leave, him alone, Gloria," Donna said.

"Why? It's the only fun I have in this dull prison."

Donna followed Gloria down the steps, taking care not to drop everything.

"Good Lord, Donna, you look like an overloaded wagon with all that nonsense you're carrying."

"How about giving me a hand?"

"How about not carrying so much?"

"At least you can close the gate. Don't bang it shut. You know how Mama hates it when you--"

Gloria carefully closed the gate. Then she opened it and pulled it so hard she almost took it off its hinges.

"Gloria! What's gotten into you? You have as many thorns as that rosebush." She glanced over her shoulder at the red seven sisters bush that covered a white fan-shaped trellis resting against the house's white stucco façade.

"But twice as beautiful," she laughed.

As they proceeded down the maple tree-lined Redwood Avenue, toward Union Avenue, it suddenly struck Donna that she probably should feel grateful to her father for managing to get her out of working on Saturday and Sunday at the mill. Still, she didn't like the trade-off of having to play the violin. Someone forcing you to do something takes the joy out of it, she reasoned.

She looked at Gloria. "The professor said that in the past my music lacked passion. What do you think he meant?"

Gloria only smiled an ambiguous Mona Lisa smile.

It annoyed Donna no end. Then she shrugged her shoulders mentally, conceding that Gloria didn't know any more about it than she did.

Chapter Three

The walk to the park felt longer for Donna, even though they had taken the same route and were walking at the same pace. Everything appeared unchanged except that someone had placed another bench directly behind the one she thought of as hers. Yet, everything seemed lovelier. It was as if every tree and blade of grass emitted a glow.

On reflection, it seemed odd to Donna that the new bench was facing the way it did. The view from that angle was the wrought iron fence separating the park from the sidewalk. Beyond the sidewalk was the traffic on Mc Bride Avenue and the drab gray houses across the way--not what she thought of as beautiful. However, the bench didn't occupy her thoughts long. It was Gloria and Alphonso who did. "Remember," she admonished, "you promised me that you aren't leaving me alone."

Their only response was a smile, or rather, Gloria smiled while Alphonso smirked.

Donna stamped her foot, unmindful of how it might appear to a passerby. "I'm serious! This time, I am going to tell Mama if you run off to God knows where and leave me alone."

However, they rushed off almost before she finished her sentence.

She knew that all her threats meant nothing to them, not even saying that she would no longer accompany them. They are too sure of me because I never follow through, she reflected. Although she told herself that she was furious with them, she found that being alone was not as embarrassing as it had been during the first episode. In fact, she felt a wonderful sense of freedom.

Donna set up her easel and began painting the outline of the composition with gray paint. She found herself listening to the rushing water beneath the footbridge. That sound, coupled with the scent of newly mowed grass, increased her puzzling sense of anticipation. Then it came to her. She was waiting for him. No, it can't be! I am so foolish. He won't come here again. And why should it matter to me--or to him? It was then that she saw him. He was wearing a blue-striped jacket above his sparkling white trousers. As he swaggered beyond the swaying weeping willow tree, and stepped across the footbridge, he spoke to his dog that wagged its tail in response.

She tried to suppress her anticipation; however, her heartbeat paid no attention to her as she struggled to keep her head down. When he strode past her without acknowledging her presence, it crushed her.

"Buon pomeriggio," he said behind her.

Good afternoon, indeed! "Please, you know I can't speak to you," she said without turning. "It's not permitted of a young lady." Although she told herself that she took offense at his impudence, a thrill ran through her as his subtle, spicy scent drifted toward her.

"Forgive me, young lady, but I am not speaking to you," he said in flawless Italian realizing her knowledge of the language. "I was speaking to my dog. If you look around, you will see that I am sitting with him on the park bench that a friend of mine who works here was kind enough to install for me. You must agree that I am within my right to sit here. After all, it is a public park."

"But--"

"There are no buts about it. I am going to read an Italian translation of some English poetry. You may do as you wish. You are not troubling me in the least."

"But--"

"Again with these buts? Sometimes I read to Rex or just speak my thoughts. He is a good listener. You will notice that he never interrupts me as some people do." He cleared his throat. "Now, Rex, I believe I am taken with a very beautiful young woman named,--" He paused and shook his head. "I don't know her name. I only know that I met her last week in this very park, in this very spot."

Donna felt an odd mixture of embarrassment and delight.

"I know, what I will do, Rex, I will call her La Bella Addormentata."

Again, she flushed, this time at his calling her his Sleeping Beauty.

"It suits her, don't you think? Yes, that's what I will call her; La Bella Addormentata."

Her face on fire, Donna pleaded, "Please don't say such things to me."

"Young lady, I wasn't addressing you. So, don't interrupt my conversation with my dog. He doesn't like it. Do you, Rex?" The dog thumped his tail on the green wooden bench and moved his mouth as if he were trying to speak. "I wish I could tell her that my name is Raimondo DeLuise, or as you prefer, Rex, since you are of German lineage, Raimund Ludvig, or what the Ellis Island officials had called me, Raymond Louis. What name do you think she would pick, Rex? I--"

"Rex," Donna, interrupted, "tell your ill-mannered master that if he does not stop speaking, I will have to find another spot to sit so that I may paint in silence."

"Rex, tell the young lady I didn't mean to be ill-mannered. I will stop speaking aloud if she will stop being so beautiful. It is she who is ill-mannered at being so lovely and enticing a sweet, innocent man such as myself."

Blushing the length of her body, Donna got up and began packing.

"Rex, I guess I'll have to keep my big mouth shut. I never know when to keep quiet."

Her quivering knees forced her to sit. She would have been frightened if she could have seen his wolfish grin.

"Do you mind if I read some of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, aloud, Rex? Quietly, of course." He began whispering the Italian translation.

Despite her efforts not to listen, she was captivated. His soft, gentle voice throbbed within her and set a small flame glowing. She loved the English version so much that she had learned it by heart. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Now it became all the more beautiful in the euphonious Italian. Why did he pick this poem? How did he know it was my favorite? she wondered, forgetting that he saw her with it on the previous Sunday.

* * *

Happy that Gloria and Alphonso, as usual, were off somewhere, Donna fidgeted on the park bench as she waited for Raymond. At last he appeared! For eight successive Sundays, she waited and worried that he wouldn't come. Each time he arrived, her heart leapt when she saw him bounding across the bridge with his dog. She looked around and felt grateful when no one was in sight. Pennington now seemed like her secret park and the bench her secret bench.

Rex broke free. In a flash he ran up to her, jumped on the bench beside her, sat, and placed his head on her lap.

Raymond bowed and handed her a red rose.

"Thank you." She smiled and brushed the rose against her lips.

"I wish I was that rose," he said as he sat on the bench behind her.

So do I, she thought.

"Today, I will read Dante's La Vita Nuova in praise of Beatrice in the original Italian." He cleared his throat. "In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria...."

In that part of the book of my memory, she translated it in her mind as he read. His voice thrilled her beyond words. She stroked Rex's huge head and pretended that it was Raymond's head in her lap. When Raymond leaned back and brushed his lips against her hair, a thrill ran through her. The moment was fleeting, but her heart burned all the more for it. She kissed the rose that now was a symbol of her love.

Raymond exchanged La Vita Nouva, for Swinburne's passionate poetry. At first, it embarrassed and troubled her. Then she thought, It's sweet, gentle Raymond reading it to me. What harm can it do?

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