The fifty-something Mrs. White, however, was sharp as a tack.
“Whatsamatter with you?” she demanded to know as Gina was helping her into the salon’s gown in the dressing room. She was short, buxom and feisty. “You get up on the wrong side of bed?”
Gina’s boss had told her the Whites were very rich. To Gina’s experienced eye, Mrs. White had at first looked like any number of aging divas who frequented the expensive salon, with one exception. Mrs. White was an Italian-American who spoke a horrible Brooklyn version of Italian; also, she wore a crucifix.
Apparently Mr. White was some sort of American tycoon who had spent time in jail. Gina wasn’t sure for what, though it was hard to imagine the redoubtable Mrs. White involved with anything criminal.
Throughout the wash and blow-dry, Gina tried her best to fend off Mrs. White’s persistent questions. After all, a professional shop was no place to be discussing one’s personal problems, especially with her boss keeping an eagle eye on this valuable client. In the end, however, she relented, and surreptitiously accepted Mrs. White’s card.
“Call me,” were Mrs. White’s last words before her Italian chauffeur swept her out of the shop. Gina nodded and smiled mechanically, pocketing the card as she watched the back of Mrs. White’s coiffured head slip into the Mercedes Benz.
Gina had heard that pregnancy hormones made women more emotional. Perhaps that is why the rest of the day seemed interminable; all day, she dreaded her commute home. As she stepped out into the gathering evening, she eyed a couple embracing passionately outside the salon. The slender young girl slipped onto the back of her lover’s Vespa, which then nosed out into the chaotic Roman traffic.
Hot tears sprung immediately to her eyes and as she turned determinedly away, Gina almost ran into a woman a few years older than she. The woman was walking a dog – one of the legions of such women throughout Rome and indeed Italy. In Gina’s lifetime, the land of la famiglia had morphed into the land of pet owners, everyone walking at top speed to preserve their bella figura, everyone keeping their options open.
Dejected, Gina hunched her shoulders and strode purposefully on, but despite all her efforts, the tears welled up again and began coursing down her cheeks. Where could she go? To her mother? Valeria was certain to be broken-hearted; she and her father had sacrificed so much to raise Gina and her brother. Now her brother had given up his dream of a university education and was working a crummy job. And Gina was pregnant by a cad.
Her telefonini buzzed, and she slipped the earpiece on without breaking her stride. The number was unfamiliar, but feeling desperate, she
answered anyway.
REGINA | 77