balancing long, terra-cotta jugs upon their heads filled from the flowing faucets. Yolanda insisted on keeping the shutters closed against the heat, especially at this time of the morning, but today there was intricate work to be finished and the girls worked better in natural light. Besides, any money she might save on electricity would result in increased profits.
Carmela unpicked her stitching for the third time. Yolanda walked over to her. “You feeling all right, Carme’?” she asked, leaning on the worn wood of the worktop.
“Yes, of course.”
“Look at me, tesoro.” Yolanda lifted Carmela’s chin with a gentle hand. “You’re distracted today, my darling. Your skin is almost white.” As Carmela’s godmother, Yolanda reserved this tone for her alone; all the other girls worked in fear of her biting tongue and fierce intolerance for careless mistakes. This was the place every woman with taste traveled to from along the entire coast. Sometimes customers even came up from as far as the capital city Cagliari, half a day away on the south of the island. Carmela’s deft hand and incisive eye for cut and current trends owed much to the business’s success.
“Your London lady from the villa has made an appointment for today,” Yolanda said, trying to appear relaxed. “I need you to be at your best.”
Carmela, of course, was aware that her godmother had a feral sixth sense for when her thoughts were drifting. In truth, she hadn’t been able to concentrate since Piera told her that posters announcing her official engagement to Franco were plastered on the walls of the houses by the cathedral. She’d spent most of the morning trying, and failing, to contain her excitement over the fact that her name was in large black letters for all to see, only steps from here. At the same time, Carmela knew how important Mrs. Curwin’s appointment could be. The wealthy family from London would pay double that of the locals. Mrs. Curwin bought most of her attire from the dressmakers of New Bond Street, central London, a place she described with broad brushstrokes but that remained a misty picture of a faraway land in Carmela’s mind.
Yolanda rallied. “Do your magic and she may order an entire wardrobe. Good news for this young woman who’ll be standing in my shoes one day, no?” Yolanda reached into the leather pouch hanging from her belt, beside her coiled tape measure, and pulled out three coins. “Take these lire and buy yourself a spremuta at Bar Svizzero. Tell Antonio to give you magnesia too, yes? Then come back looking like the Carmela with the bright eyes and fast hands.”
She was more than ready to heed her advice. Her legs ached to race her down the street and take a swift glance at her temporal fame. The dry heat, toasting the cobbles outside, beckoned. She looked up at the sharp face of her godmother. It was crease free despite her fifty years, with feline eyes that rose ever so slightly up toward her temples, imbuing her with a permanent air of sage curiosity. Carmela struggled to picture herself even half as shrewd. The studio’s success lay in the perfect balance between Carmela’s artistry and her godmother’s quick head for figures and unfaltering leadership. Over the past few months Yolanda mentioned Carmela’s inheritance of the business more than usual. It filled Carmela with a rush of excitement and ideas, but if she was destined to take over one day, how would she summon the steel to captain all these seamstress girls, so happy to smile to your face, then sending daggers at you from behind closed doors? She reached up for Yolanda’s coins, thanked her, and left the room, knowing the kindness did not go unnoticed by the other young seamstresses.
Carmela wound down the darkened staircase. Suffused light shafted through, in ornate patterns, from the decorative metal grate above the main double doors. Behind the wooden banister, the paint looked as if it had been dragged downward by a powerful force, streaking the wall where it had clawed to try to remain attached. Her footsteps echoed off the marble steps. They were wide enough to show off the dazzling ball gowns of the original owners, not the worn shoes of a seamstress.
The white sun beyond the heavy door blinded her.
“Congratulations, Carme’!” a woman called down to her from the fountain. “Just read about the soon-to-be-newlyweds in the piazza. Not every day you get your name posted on the wall, you know!”
“Thank you! I’m going to see it now!” Her voice bubbled like an overexcited adolescent.
“It’s next to Ignazia Cau’s death notice,” another chimed, hoisting a jug up onto her head. “God rest her soul. . . .”
The women muttered a blessing and set off in opposite directions. Carmela stood and listened to the water as if the sound itself might cool her down, but she knew that even the unforgiving ice of February would not have that effect on a special day like today.
The pitter-patter feet of her youngest sister, Vittoria, drew Carmela round.
“Aren’t we in a hurry?” Carmela called out to her.
“Nonna made me say the rosary twice!” Vittoria said without slowing her trot. “She’s angry because Zia Rosa is late home. And now I’m late for the sisters!” Her candlestick legs propelled her downhill. With a quick turn she disappeared into a narrow viccolo that led to the back entrance of the cathedral, where the summer session of the children’s church group was held. Vittoria had been in the Cherubs for several years. Last night, as Carmela had tucked her into the bed Vittoria shared with Gianetta, she had, with much exhilaration, relayed that the nuns had finally graduated her to the Angel’s class. Then, Vittoria had carried on, without pausing for breath or punctuation, that if her dream to become as good a seamstress as Carmela failed, she would follow her second calling to the convent.
Carmela watched Vittoria’s dress flap as she ran and made a mental note to add a trim from some of the off cuts back at Yolanda’s. A flamboyant woman from the next town had ordered an elaborate floral pattern for a light overcoat. Carmela could patch together the scraps and make her sister the happiest ten-year-old on the street.
Carmela continued on down to Piazza Cantareddu, passing a slew of tzilleri. The pungent smell of damp barrels and wine-stained stone floors wafted out from those darkened cantinas, while outside men stood around sniffing their ridotto glasses, arguing over everything and nothing. A voice called out to her.
“There’s my bride!” Franco swung in beside her.
“What are you doing here?”
“I can think of a nicer way to greet your fiancé—only we don’t want to shock these old men.”
“Sorry, I’ve only got a little while—”
“We made the wall, Carmela. You should walk around town like you own it. Which you will, in a few months.”
He took both her hands in his and turned her to face him, “Not so bad for a farm girl, no?”
Her mind flitted to the stack of embroidery to complete at the studio. His phrase grated. He used it often, and always as an expression of endearment; after all, their first tentative trysts were under the cover of her father’s vineyard. There was no shame in being a farm girl. That very earth had borne their love, in every sense. Carmela and Franco were grafted together there, twisting around each other like new vines. She looked into him. The sun shone into the darkness of his eyes, picking out the hidden chestnut flecks, invisible in all light but that of the blinding midmorning beams. He took her elbow and drew her over toward one of the upturned barrels, where several men she didn’t recognize stood, sipping wine.
“This is my fiancée, Carmela.”
She nodded. From the look of their shirts, Carmela hazarded a guess they were men of some influence.
“These signori are here from the council in Tula. I’m showing them our sights.”
Carmela flashed Franco a quizzical look. Why would men from a town thirty kilometers away be in Simius for sightseeing?
“You are welcome to use Carmela’s English however you see fit, gentlemen.” Franco’s face unfolded into one of his winning smiles, which few people could resist.
“Yes, Signorina,” the oldest of the three men said, his cheeks red