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I shake my head.

“Not bad. Not good like spaghetti. But not bad.” He touches his lip in memory.

“Hello, Beppe,” comes a voice in English.

We turn to see a well-dressed man. He gives a quick smile.

“Ah, Mr. Ward. A pleasure,” says Beppe in passable English.

“My wife ain’t feeling well. She asked me to pick up a few things.”

“Not feeling well? Sorry. Sorry, sorry. You come. We choose sweet things. You take home chamomile. Boil it. Make tea. Then she feel better. You see.” Beppe goes back in the store with Mr. Ward.

I stay out on the sidewalk with Salvatore.

Patricia comes out of the tobacco store. What was she doing in there all this time? She sees me and walks on past with “Good day, Calogero.”

“Good day, Patricia.”

“Good day, Patricia,” echoes Salvatore in my ear. And his English sounds just like anyone’s. No accent.

I watch Patricia from the back as she turns into the next store. She doesn’t give me a second glance, but I know she feels my eyes on her. My arms and chest get warm.

“You in love with her?” asks Salvatore in English.

Well, I deserve that, gaping after Patricia like a fool. I turn to face Salvatore. “You’re too little to ask that.”

“I may be ten, but I ain’t stupid. And you ain’t stupid, neither; she’s pretty.”

“She’s beautiful.”

When Mr. Ward leaves the store, Salvatore and I go inside again.

“I came to invite you to the festa of Santa Rosalia,” I say in Sicilian to Beppe.

“Saturday,” he says. “Like every year. I’m counting on it.”

“Only we have to do it late this year. A week from Saturday, on the twenty-second. You’ll still come, right?”

“Of course.” Beppe claps his hands together and shakes them happily. “I’ll bring my accordion. We’ll stay the night, singing and dancing till the stars go to bed.”

“Sounds good,” I say. “All right, then.” I turn to go.

“You’re not leaving! You walked all this way. Stay for midday dinner at least.”

“I’ve got things I have to do.”

“He’s in love,” says Salvatore.

“In love?” Beppe pushes his lips forward.

“Salvatore’s just being dumb.”

“In love.” Beppe pulls a stool out from behind the weighing counter. He sits and looks thoughtful. “I’ve got to bring my Concetta here. I miss her so much.”

“I hardly remember Mamma,” says Salvatore.

“Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that.”

I shake my head. “If business is going good, how come you can’t send for her?”

“It’s not the money. I send her money every month. She doesn’t come because she’s afraid of the South. Back home they hear stories about America—she knows more about what happens to Sicilians here than I do. She says I should move to New York City. They’re going to build an underground railway system and they want men who know how to make tunnels. No one in the world makes better tunnels than Italians.”

“Maybe you should go.”

“I grow vegetables, Calogero. I trade them, I sell them. I wouldn’t know what to do digging underground. I wouldn’t know who I was.”

I look at Salvatore.

He’s looking straight at me.

Is it worse to have a dead mother or a mother who’s alive, but on the other side of the ocean?

“I’ve got to go.” I give Salvatore a special hug, and go back into the bright sun. No sign of Patricia. But it can’t be long till eleven. I might as well find Miss Clarrie’s.

I walk to the church and up the road behind. There’s the house with the birdbath out front. It’s a tenant farmer’s shack. It doesn’t look good enough for a real teacher.

If she sees me hanging around out front, she might get scared I’m someone bad. So I walk up and down the dirt path. Past the shack that has a mule tied by the side. Past the shack that has a big old pig. Up and down, up and down.

The church bell rings and Patricia comes skipping up the path, like a little kid.

“Did you buy anything?” I ask.

“Well, naturally. I bought everything I saw. I got money galore.” She laughs.

“Even if you did have money, you wouldn’t want everything you saw,” I say. “You wouldn’t want cigars.”

“Sure I would. My mamma got a silver brandy flask, but she ain