Excerpt: From Ch. 1, Picnic
It was, oddly enough, exactly what
had been preoccupying Anita. How to make a front, if to make a front, where to
make a front, without the whole world noticing. Because no matter where you
went in North Beach, there was always someone hanging out a window: a nonna getting
some air, children yelling down to friends in the street, mammas
screeching for them to get home subito it was supper time. And with so
many eyes hanging out of so many windows, there was no place for two people to
hide.
“You’re such a goose,” Cynthia had
laughed, showing her gums, still blackened a little with the licorice she’d
been chewing. “Do you know how big San Francisco is? Just get out of stupid old
North Beach. Paolo does.”
Anita was shocked at first, not only
at the idea, but that getting out of North Beach had never occurred to her,
though it apparently had to Paolo. And worse: that she had to learn about it
from Cynthia who couldn’t tell her where exactly, but was certain because Jimmy
had told her just last week, that Paolo and his crew often rode the streetcars
downtown. It was a game they’d been playing since they were ten or so and got
tired of baseball: wait until rush hour, and then head down Montgomery to
Market Street, where, when the streetcars got jammed full, they could jump on
the rear bumper and get a free ride until the conductor spotted them and they
had to scatter. A little dangerous, maybe, but that was the fun of it according
to Jimmy.
Anita shuddered. Wanted to know if
girls ever did it. Cynthia said she only knew of one: Anna Boiardi. She had
gone once with her brothers and made it onto the bumper for a couple of blocks
until she got so scared she jumped off while it was still moving fast. Almost
killed her fool self, Cynthia laughed.
That settled it. Anita was not going
to let Anna get away with that—she knew Anna had had her eye on Paolo since
grade school—and not try it herself. She was, after all, named after the
comrade of the great Garibaldi who fought beside her man in battle after
battle. Compared to bravery like that, what were a few streetcars? And so, one
Tuesday after school, she followed Paolo and four of his crew downtown. Making
sure she wasn’t seen, she observed how they trotted as the car started slowly,
grabbed onto the bumpers, and then laughed mockingly at the conductor when he
shooed them off; after which they simply waited for another one to do it again.
She waited till they were out of
sight, but even so it took her four streetcars before she got up the courage to
try it. Luckily for her, there was a young man in a suit not reading his paper
but watching her jump on, and he grabbed her arm and steadied her until she
could hang on herself. Told her to be careful; it was easy to fall. But smiling
as he said it. She guessed he had done it when young; and now, so had she.
A week later, she didn’t hang back,
but caught up with the others and announced boldly that she was going to join
them. Everyone laughed; hooted at her, a mere girl; while Paolo, at first, just
turned away. Then he smirked backwards at her, thinking it was just a ploy to
make contact, sure she’d back out at the last minute. But she didn’t. And she
managed to get on the bumper last, and right next to him, and allow him, as if
to keep her from falling off, to take the perfect excuse to hang onto her upper
arm. Which made the thrill of the illegal ride even more thrilling. For both of
them.
It became a convenient, if
not-quite-perfect rendezvous. She could follow Paolo and his crew out of North
Beach, where none of those prying eyes could spot them together. Then, once
near Market Street, they could actually walk together, not arm in arm, for that
would’ve raised the suspicion of the others, but brushing against each other
often enough to keep her strangely excited. And then, on the bumper, they could
be almost arm in arm. Exult in the same breeze blowing their hair.
Perhaps it was too good to last.
Once, a few weeks after that attack-headlined day in June, the streetcar they
were riding lurched as it had never done before. There was a screech, a
powerful pull towards the front as it slowed, and then a rebound towards the
rear. Paolo lost his balance first, shook her from hers, and in an instant,
they had tumbled off the back to their knees. Terrified because another car,
following close by as they often did at rush hour, barely managed to stop
before hitting them. Paolo grabbed her wrist and skidded her out of the way,
and onto the sidewalk, as several drivers shook their fists at these “damn fool
kids,” who disappeared laughing into the crowd.
But it was the end for her, and for
him too. They agreed it was simply too dangerous, especially now that Italy had
joined the Germans in a world at war, and more, that they had felt the
deepening warmth and concern for each other. You could’ve been killed, he said
breathing hard. You could’ve too, she shot back, rubbing her wrist. And they
both shivered. Not just about having had a close call; not just about the
unsettling way their fall had echoed in the air, in the war news edging closer to
them and theirs by the day; but also about how they were now bereft of a place
and an occasion they had no idea how, or if, they would find again.
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