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"Who's that girl?"
"Lotta girls on the street right now," said Genco, pulling the crust off his hunk of bread.
"That one," Vito said, his reedy voice more hoarse than usual. Sounded desperate, did Vito. Genco, who know damn well the source of that desperation, smirked. "The one in the yellow dress."
"That's Signura Greco."
"Not her. Genco, what have I done to deserve this? She's a signurina if she's anyone."
"Oh, her! The one with the white hat. Silly me. I don't know her, Vito."
Vito leaned his head to the side. He gazed at nothing, sighed his heartbreak, gestured to God to alleviate his suffering at the hands of his best friend.
"Which girl is that?" Genco's father said from his habitual spot at his shop's desk.
"The one at--where'd she go?"
Genco only liked making Vito twist so far. "She's at the orange-cart, Papa."
"Her? I think… I think I've seen her? No, I'm not sure. I could be remembering wrong." His father scratched his head with the eraser end of his pencil. He was sincere in his forgetfulness, or else better at this game than Genco. "You think you can get her name outta her, Vito?"
"No." He shrugged down at his own meager lunch. "I've tried twice. Once she walked away without speaking a word to me. The next was yesterday. She came in when you two were dickering outside with Bianchi."
"Did you get her to say anything other than her order?" Genco said. Having finished the crusts, he sopped up the leftover grease from his sausages and enjoyed the softer middle of the bread.
"Sure she did. I thanked her for her business and I asked her for her name, so I'd know who to thank. And get this. She says she won't come back."
Genco cracked up.
"She's too proper," said his Papa. "I don't know the girl, but I know the signs. You'll never get her to speak to you without a chaperone."
"I'll never get a chaperone without her parent's permission," Vito said, hands on his chest, "and I'll never get that without her name. What am I to do?"
"Try harder. If you can get her last name, then I swear to you, Vito, I'll intercede with her parents on your behalf. I'll tell them what a fine boy you are, and your great prospects. I won't even have to lie!"
"You're lying already, Papa."
"This kid, here--" And over strode his Papa to give his head a hard scruff, knuckles digging into his scalp, making Genco giggle; he was a happy young man, after all--though not so happy as Vito.
No one could be as happy as a man in love.
***
The first two meetings were in the name of the Father and of the Son, respectively--and therefore could advance no farther in Vito's favor. The third, he told himself, would be in the name of the Holy Ghost, insubstantial but able to act of Its own accord. No intercession necessary. This, he felt, was lucky.
The day after he spoke to Genco and Signore Pietro, he saw The Girl once more: this time in a dress as green as the springtime through which she walked. No hat. Gloves--fashionable, white cotton affairs with green flowers embroidered on the wrists--sitting on top of her full-ish bag of groceries, hanging off the leek stalks. Same shoes as always, a clean yellow color. He thought that spoke well of her prospects. A woman who could recycle the same pair of shoes with (he counted) three different dresses, but wore them in ways that made them look like different shoes? That was a woman he could marry.
But there was a rhythm to these things: the introduction, the giving of gifts, the winning over of the parents, the wedding. It would go quickly by American standards. But not quickly enough for Vito Corleone.
He saw The Girl stop by one of the apple-carts outside and he didn't ask permission. He stood up and ran out of the shop, ignoring how Genco laughed and wished good luck to his retreating back. He let the door slam shut behind him. By the time he got near The Girl, she had picked out four apples. Shopping for the family.
"I'll get the apples, signuri," Vito said. He couldn't afford them.
"If you say so, Vito," said Costa. He knew Vito couldn't afford them. He'd let Vito pay him for two and forgive the rest; he was better than a priest.
"You don't have to do that," said The Girl in flawless Sicilian--so flawless that Vito assumed she might not speak much by way of English. "I'll pay, signuri."
"I can't argue with Vito. He'll be after me to pay for your apples for weeks, and it'll give me a headache. It's not a gift for you, signurina, but for me. You don't have to accept it."
She nodded, once, stiff-necked. Vito liked how deftly she'd dodged receiving a gift from him.
"If that's all," she said, trying to weave through the crowd away from him, "then I'll take my leave."
Oh, no she wasn't. Vito navigated the crowded street-market as easily as she did. He kept at her heels for half a block.
Finally she snapped: "Do I need to scream for a policeman?"
"Of course not," he said, his voice so soft that she (encouraging!) turned and leaned in slightly to hear him. "I mean you no harm, signurina. This is why I am speaking to you in the street, where we have countless chaperones."
"That's not--"
One of her gloves slipped off her makeshift hanger and dropped to the ground.
Before she could figure out how to bend down and fetch it without dropping her groceries, Vito reached down and saved it from the mud.
The Girl outstretched her hand, expecting him to place it in her palm. And for what? So she could leave? Him having left his job with no name to bring back to his boss?
No. Not this time.
Vito held her glove as though it were her hand: gently but with no intention of surrender. "You were saying something that started with 'that's not'."
She blushed. The effect was marvelous. "This is not what is meant by a chaperone, signuri."
"Vito. Vito Corleone."
"I'd rather not call you by your name, signuri."
"That's fair."
She reached for her glove again. She could, theoretically, snatch it from his grip when he wasn't looking… so Vito took the glove by its embroidered wrist and slipped it on his own hand.
The shock that crossed her round, handsome face would have made him laugh, were he a jollier man like Genco. As it was, Vito's eyes twinkled, and his lips barely curved. He tested the glove out, found that it had hardly stretched to accommodate his hand. She had big hands. Good.
"You're blackmailing me," The Girl said.
"Never, signurina. I'm not some gangster. I'm just a grocer who would like, very much, to know your name."
"What would you do with it? You're pulling my glove out of shape!"
"It'll be fine," he soothed, "just as your name will be. If you give it to me, I'll present it to my employer. He's like a father to me. He will speak to your parents. And from a beginning that, sure, is improper, we'll have a proper meeting. No one needs to be compromised."
"You're compromising me now."
"In no way." He flexed his hand again. "Look, your glove fits me perfectly. It's not damaged." He held it up for The Girl's dark-eyed, sharp inspection.
"If you don't want to compromise me, give me my glove back."
"First, your name."
He started to wonder if he was pressuring her to do something she honestly did not want to… but then, he recognized how she pursed her lips and scanned the pretending-not-to-be-listening crowd that parted and moved around them.
She was curious to see where he'd take her.
"... My father's name is Siciliano. It is now, anyhow. Will that be enough for you?"
"It will. Thank you so much, signurina. Here's--"
But before he could remove her glove, she shocked him. Her hand flew forward. He felt the warmth of her strong fingers through the cotton as she seized his hand, then whipped her glove free.
So it was that Vito returned to Abbandando's blushing as hard as The Girl… the Signurina Siciliano had.
***
Their first formal meeting was under the auspicious guidance of their respective parents.
The second, also.
The third, they were supposed to have a chaperone… but the party responsible was Carmela's maiden aunt, an old woman who was both prone to falling asleep in her easy chair and mostly deaf.
As in their third unofficial meeting, the Holy Ghost moved them to action, and, well. It was fortunate that their wedding was already planned for, and that their families were too traditional to question the timeline.
Their children, however…
***
"All those brains, and you waste 'em listenin' to jazz," said Sonny, popping Michael on the shoulder.
"Jazz is classy," Michael said, voice soft as a silk underdress.
"The hell you say! The Andrew Sisters are classy. I seen them broads live, did I tell you that?"
"They're the Andrews Sisters, Sonny. Andrews."
Sonny rolled his eyes and drank half his beer in a go. "Sure, whatever. They could have six S's on the back of their names if they wanted. They make Yiddish sound good."
"Sure, they're good," Fredo said, his words blunt. "But, y'know, I gotta tell you, Sonny, Benny Goodman's hot stuff, too. I heard him on the radio a couple months back. It's not--"
He stammered, spoke faster as Sonny fixed him with a dead-eyed stare.
"--it ain't exactly like your orchestral masterpieces, I give you that, but he's, uh, he's pretty good."
"You know who's great, though." Tom finished off his Ballantine. "Fred Astaire."
Vito's boys all nodded or, in Sonny's case, grunted their agreement.
Michael didn't care that the subject had changed. It was too damn hot out to argue with Sonny, or anybody. September hung heavy and low over Long Beach, a heat so wet he tasted it more clearly than his beer. Sonny had felt like sitting out in the garden and drinking, so he'd slipped a bottle to Michael and made him swear he wouldn't tell Pop about it. Michael, who wouldn't be eighteen for another three months, had agreed. But he was less interested in finishing the one beer (while Sonny had blasted through four bottles, and Tom and Freddy had finished three apiece) than he was in thieving their cigarettes.
That, Michael had decided, would be his vice. Everybody should have one and so smoking would be his. It would differentiate him from Pop, whose primary vice was his wife. Also, you couldn't drink as easily as smoke at college.
"I just don't get jazz," Sonny said, gesturing at Tom instead of Michael.
"You don't get it," Michael said. "You feel it."
"Yeah, that sounds real smart, but wouldya let your daughter feel a jazz musician?" That last word came out muddy, myoo-suh-shhhin.
"C'mon, now, Santino, he's too young to think about a daughter!" Freddy said, laughing. "Give him a year!"
"Dating is one thing," Michael, who knew how many children he'd father, said. "Listening's another. There's no harm in listening."
"Ssshure, you say that, but you listen while your kid's around, and--" Sonny gestured widely, a little spurt of beer foaming up around the lip of his bottle. "--badda-boop, badda-bip, your daughter's got a shotgun baby four months after the wedding."
Tom finished his bottle. "Weren't you born six months after your mom and pop got hitched?"
Michael expected his big brother to glass Tom for that one. He had the bottle and everything.
But instead, for reasons he wouldn't learn until later, Sonny cackled. He dropped the bottle at his feet, seized Tom by the back of his neck, and dragged him close for a sloppy kiss to the forehead. "The fuck you tryna say about our mother, Tommaduc'?"
And then, the worst of all possible things came to pass: someone behind Michael cleared their throat.
All four boys turned and saw Mama Corleone standing in the doorway leading back into the house. Michael felt all the blood drain out of his face. He had no idea what Mama had heard. Judging from her face, it was enough for them all to be in shit. She stood with her lips pursed hard, her round hands knotted into the pockets of her apron, regarding each of her masculine disappointments.
Finally, she spoke in the English she'd mastered over the past ten years. "Thomas."
"Yes, Mama."
"You should know better. Do they not teach about babies in college?"
"No, Mama."
"I guess not. I will teach you, then." Her hands untangled from her apron, smoothed out its wrinkles. "All children take nine months to come. All but the first. The first child after a marriage can come at any time. That is why Sonny blessed us by coming six months after our marriage. And it is why Sandra gave us Francesca and Kathryn five months after her wedding to Sonny."
She cleared her throat, cocked her head, stared at each of them in turn.
"Right?"
"Sure thing, Mama," Freddy agreed, and everybody followed his sniveling lead.
"If you're done being children, your father would like you to act like grown men in his office."
They waited until she'd cleared out before they started to crack--and no one was more surprised than Michael that he was the one to start laughing first.