“Sit! Sit!” She grabbed a cloth and whisked it across a wooden chair by a table burdened down with what looked like a full day’s worth of baking.
Inez sat, surveying the edibles. “So, this is what you did today?”
Carmella flitted about, making tea. “Yesterday and today. I could not go out and about. I just could not.”
She collapsed into the chair next to Inez. “All I can think of is Jamie. Baking has been my solace. And I am so glad you came! Now, tell me everything. What did he say? How did he say it?” She sat back, bright with anticipation.
“How who said what?” Inez wondered if she meant Nico’s invitation to attend the previous night’s performance. It was the only connection she could make.
Carmella’s face began to dim. “He didn’t…Nico said he would…He didn’t propose?”
It was Inez’s turn to stare. “Propose? Gracious, no! He escorted me to a concert last night, a performance in the Palace Hotel.” The scene in the music store flashed through her mind, but Inez added, “That was all.”
Now Carmella began to blush. Her flour-covered fingers rose to her cheeks. “Oh. He promised.”
“What is this about?” Now Inez was getting irritated, firstly, because it sounded as if there had been a certain amount of plotting going on behind her back, and, secondly, because the conversation was veering in directions that had nothing to do with her current visit.
Carmella looked away, as if unwilling to meet Inez’s eyes. “Nico has been saying forever that I should be more willing to consider the young men he shoves under my nose and not encourage the ones who, as he says, are ‘destitute dreamers, nobodies without a future.’ And I tell him he should turn away from those women who fall all over him, the married women who throw their husbands aside to chase after him, the loose women who keep him out all night, the debutantes he flirts with and who he risks ruining. I tell him he should be considering eligible, appropriate women who are under his nose. One in particular.” Now, those fingers moved to cover her mouth.
Inez sat for a moment, examining her own slightly bruised pride. Had the invitation and the jungle of flowers been nothing more than Nico’s attempts to assuage his sister’s sadness, or perhaps add Inez as an appropriate “cover” for any affairs he had going on? But she had approached him the same way, with a certain amount of cynical manipulation. And of course, any chance of a legal union between them had disappeared once her former marital status was exposed.
She shook her head. The tangled webs of emotional motive behind last night’s embrace were inconsequential. There were other matters to discuss far more important than her wounded vanity. Inez lifted the teapot lid, and the scent of bergamot assailed her. “I believe the tea is ready.” She poured for them both, saying. “Carmella, I am flattered you think me a worthy partner for your brother.”
Although I would argue that I am not to be shoved around like a chip in a game of cards.
She kept that thought to herself, continuing, “But nothing of the sort has transpired. I came here for two reasons. One, to see how you were doing after this week’s sad events.” Inez glanced at the table of baked goods. “And two, I wanted to ask you some questions about the time of the previous musicians union.”
Without mentioning Nico, Inez explained how Jamie had been interested in what brought down the union and transpired after that. “I wonder if his inquiries in that direction had anything to do with his death. I am grasping at straws, I know.”
Carmella drew a finger through a scattering of flour on the table, frowning. “I was about Antonia’s age when the union dissolved. Nico would be the one to ask.”
And he is exactly the one I do not want to ask. “But I am curious as to what you recall. What was life like for you and Nico back then?”
“Oh. I remember that.” She crossed her arms, hugging herself. “Our parents had died about four years before. I was so little. It was just Nico and me, and he had to take care of me. He was about the age I am now. Our father had wanted him to become a fruit peddler, like himself. Nico always wanted to be a musician, play his violin. They fought about it. After our parents passed, Nico threw himself into music. But it did not go well, for a long time. We moved again and again, each place worse than the one before, as he tried to make a living.” She lowered her eyes. “It was bad. But even then he insisted I continue my schooling.”
“What was it like when the union collapsed?” Inez held her breath.
Carmella unfolded her arms and picked up her teacup. She looked at Inez. “Do you want sugar?”
Inez shook her head.
Carmella sipped some of the fragrant black tea. “It was a crazy time. Nico was gone frequently. Sometimes he brought me with him, if it was a meeting with others. I remember them saying the money had disappeared. Everyone was afraid and angry. ‘How could the treasurer do this?’ they asked over and over. No one had any answers, except that the money was gone and the treasurer with it.”
Inez nodded. So far, she had heard nothing new. “But luck finally turned your way, did it not? I am sure it was a relief to you. When did things begin to improve?”
“It was a while after the union was gone. I remember, because Nico came home one day, very excited. He had an opportunity, he said, to play for someone important. I asked who, and he teased me, saying it was a private party, one that little
