Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [126]
Leo continued down Fifth Avenue, picking up his pace, and Giovanna struggled to keep up. As they neared Forty-second Street, the crowd became so dense it was nearly impossible to get through. Large columns lined the streets, and a massive grandstand faced the festivities. Leo bullied his way through the throng toward the grandstand, and Giovanna followed in his wake. When he reached it, he hovered there. Giovanna stopped at a safe distance and immediately heard complaints. She played dumb and smiled, excusing herself in Italian.
“Look! That’s probably why she pushed her way to the front. There’s an eye-talian float.”
Hearing the unmistakable “eye-talian,” Giovanna took a second look at the approaching float, which was preceded by an Italian band. A man dressed as Garibaldi stood in front of a small house and a sign that read STATEN ISLAND.
The entire section of the grandstand near where Leo stood erupted into cheers. If the standing ovation they gave the float was not proof enough that these dignitaries were Italian, their red, white, and green sashes confirmed it. Following the float, men from the Italian societies marched with crossed American and Italian flags, and the grandstand cheers grew even more thunderous. An older man with a sash across his chest, graying hair, and a pockmarked face strode past Leo. A split second later she saw the man with the sash holding the envelope that had been left at the bench in Trinity’s cemetery. Leo was already moving out of the crowd.
She hustled to catch up but was caught in a surge of Italians leaving the grandstand. Bounced from body to body, Giovanna could feel him escaping. She tried to cut under the grandstand but was stopped by a policeman who held her there until a group of dignitaries passed. She nearly tripped free when the policeman lifted his arm, but there were no straight lines of pedestrian traffic anymore; people were crisscrossing the side streets and sidewalks, and after nearly six hours of following him, she could no longer see any part of Leo.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1909
After wrapping her bleeding and swollen feet in chamomile-soaked rags, Giovanna put on an old pair of Rocco’s boots, the only shoes that would fit. Once again, she tucked the gun into her ballooning waistband.
Giovanna bought a paper in front of 111 Broadway, the building that yesterday Leo had entered and then exited out the back. The newsstand didn’t have Italian papers, so she bought the one with the most pictures of the parade, thinking she would save it for Angelina. Near the same time as yesterday’s exchange, she sat on a bench diagonally across from the one under the oak tree where the man had sat with Leo. A leaf fluttered onto Giovanna’s shoulder, and she almost jumped out of her skin. Looking up, she realized that the trees were changing color and that she hadn’t noticed—she was spending all her time looking, but not seeing.
Like clockwork, the businessman entered the cemetery with a paper under his arm, and Giovanna snapped back to attention. He strode directly toward the same bench, but it was taken. Without skipping a step, he continued on to the next bench, which was directly opposite Giovanna.
Giovanna jerked the newspaper in front of her face in surprise and embarrassment. It hardly mattered, because within a few moments she could see that, unlike yesterday, he was not on the lookout for anything and that droopy-eyed Leo was not in sight.
Although she didn’t exactly blend in, at least there were other women in the park. Giovanna knew that it was unacceptable for unescorted ladies to eat in restaurants, which explained why so many office workers were eating lunch in the cemetery. Clusters of women sat on the grass, leaning against gravestones and chatting.
The man with the sideburns concentrated on his reading, turning the pages slowly. A steady stream of people walked through the cemetery heading to a grave that was covered in flowers. Leaning to one side, she tried to get a look at the name on the grave, squinting to make out the letters. Someone