the man looked less sure about us; he thought we were too young to be selling insurance, but Owen's question-not to mention Owen's voice-hud disarmed him.
'It would have been a fire in the forties,' I said.
'OR THE EARLY FIFTIES,' said Owen Meany.
'Perhaps you haven't been here-at this location-for that long?' I asked the man.
'ARE YOU JERROLD?' Owen asked the man; like a miniature policeman, Owen Meany pushed the wrinkled label from my mother's dress across the glass-topped counter.
'That's our label,' the man said, fingering the evidence cautiously. 'We've been here since before the war-but don't think we've ever had a fire. What sorta fire do you mean?' he asked Owen-because, naturally, Owen appeared to be in charge.
'ARE YOU JERROLD?' Owen repeated.
'That's my father-Giordano,' the man said. 'He was Giovanni Giordano, but they fucked around with his name when he got off the boat.'
This was an immigration story, and not the story Owen and I were interested in, so I asked the man, politely: 'Is your father alive?'
'Hey, Poppa!' the man shouted. 'You alive?'
A white door, fitted so flush to the white wall that Owen and I had not noticed it was there, opened. An old man with a tailor's measuring tape around his neck, and a tailor's many pins adorning the lapels of his vest, came into the storeroom.
'Of course I'm alive!' he said. 'You waitin' for some miracle? You in a hurry for your inheritance?' He had a mostly-Boston, somewhat-Italian accent.
'Poppa, these young men want to talk to 'Jerrold' about some fire,' the son said; he spoke laconically and with a more virulent Boston accent than his father's.
'What fire?' Mr. Giordano asked us.
'We were told that your store burned down-sometime in the forties, or the fifties,' I said.
'This is big news to me!' said Mr. Giordano.
'My mother must have made a mistake,' I explained. I showed the old label to Mr. Giordano. 'She bought a dress in your store-sometime in the forties, or the fifties.' I didn't know what else to say. 'It was a red dress,' I added.
'No kiddin',' said the son. I said: 'I wish I had a picture of her-perhaps I could come back, with a photograph. You might remember something about her if I showed you a picture,' I said.
'Does she want the dress altered!' the old man asked me.
'I don't mind makin' alterations-but she's got to come into the store herself. I don't do alterations from pictures!'
'SHE'S DEAD,' said Owen Meany. His tiny hand went into his pocket again. He brought out a neatly folded envelope; in the envelope was the picture my mother had given him-it was a wedding picture, very pretty of her and not bad of Dan. My mother had included the photo with a thank-you note to Owen and his father for their unusual wedding present. 'I JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE BROUGHT A PICTURE,' Owen said, handing the sacred object to Mr. Giordano.
'Frank Sinatra!' the old man cried; his son took the picture from him.
'That don't look like Frank Sinatra to me,' the son said.
'No! No!' the old man cried; he grabbed the photo back. 'She loved those Sinatra songs-she sang 'em real good, too. We used to talk about 'Frankie Boy'-your mother said he shoulda been a woman, he had such a pretty voice,' Mr. Giordano said.
'DO YOU KNOW WHY SHE BOUGHT THE DRESS?' Owen asked.
'Sure, I know!' the old man told us. 'It was the dress she always sung in! 'I need somethin' to sing in!'-that's what she said when she walked in here. 'I need somethin' not like me'-that's what she said. I'll never forget her. But I didn't know who she was-not when she come in here, not thenl' Mr. Giordano said.
'Who the fuck was she?' the son asked. I shuddered to hear him ask; it had just occurred to me that I didn't know who my mother was, either.
'She was 'The Lady in Red'-don't you remember her?' Mr. Giordano asked his son. 'She was still singin' in that place when you got home from the war. What was that place?'
