Chapter 14: Pins

The bridal salon on Bloomfield Avenue had a chandelier, a velvet bench and six women who stopped talking when I walked in.

Bianca stood on a round platform in the middle of the room in a dress the color of cream.

Her mother's sisters sat in a row along the wall.

A seamstress knelt at her hem with a mouthful of pins.

"Margo!"

Bianca hopped down and hugged me hard.

She smelled like jasmine and her eyes were wet.

"I'm so sorry about Agnese," she said. "I cried all night. Who would do such a thing to a sweet old woman?"

"I wondered the same thing," I said.

She squeezed my hands, and I smiled back.

I sat on the velvet bench with my purse on my knees and my heart going like a drum.

Bianca climbed up on the platform again, and the seamstress went back to her hem.

"Everyone, this is Margo," she said in English. "She's the bravest girl I know. She doesn't speak a word of Italian, so I'll translate."

The aunts nodded at me.

Then Bianca turned her face toward them and said something quick and bright.

The women laughed.

"She says you look lovely," Bianca told me.

I had learned one word in that sentence.

*Cane.*

Dog.

I kept smiling.

An aunt in a purple blouse said something low, with her eyes on my shoes.

Bianca answered her in Italian, gently, still smiling at me.

I let it wash over me and listened for the pattern under the noise.

*Mercoledì.* Wednesday.

*La nonna.* The grandmother.

*Troppo.* Too much.

Then the aunt asked something with a lift at the end, and Bianca laughed and tipped her head toward me.

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