Carmella Commands/Chapter 25
ut,” said Tommaso, “we must not promise more than we can do.”
“Absolutely not!” agreed Dixon. “But this we can do.”
Tommaso smiled as Carmella translated. He was discovering that he liked Dixon. Their ideas seemed in tune at every important point.
This was one of their frequent evening conferences about jobs and contracts. Both were cheerful, because business was developing more rapidly than either had hoped.
Tommaso was gradually winning a reputation for reliability. Honest work was his instinct. He had learned it in Italy. In this new country he had seen men flourish for a time, and then disappear for lack of it. He decided that there were some American ideas of haste and slipshod work which were not good.
Dixon met his standards. And Dixon had developed a strange versatility. He drove trucks, kept in touch with the market, wrote contracts, and had an instinctive sense for new business.
His energy and acquaintance brought contracts to which Tommaso alone never would have aspired. One day he met Mr. Barrington on the street, and the latter stopped him.
“Who’s this Coletta you’re in with?” he asked. “Name sounds familiar.”
“Remember the wop kid out at the Greendale plat?”
“You bet I do! Little she-hellion that Mrs. B. had at the house.”
“That’s the one.”
“I remember her all right. Only kid that ever sassed me and got away with it. Bright kid! Her old man takes after her, as I remember.”
“Well, he gets there when he starts.”
Mr. Barrington laughed.
“Had any big jobs yet?” he asked.
“Big by being groups of small ones, yes! But no downtown work yet. We’re headed for it, though. Got any for us?”
“Well, I’m going to have a big job before long. I’m moving downtown. Suburban work’s too chancy. Want to bid on it?”
“We’ll tackle anything, including foundations now, just so long as it doesn’t involve foundations of neighboring buildings. I haven’t quite mastered that trick yet.”
Mr. Barrington thought a moment.
“By George, you’re on!” he said. “Keep in touch with me. Send your address to my secretary and tell her I said to file it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Barrington. That’s fine!”
“All o. k. You may get the job; may not. But I’ll take a chance. You were a good chauffeur. Mrs. Barrington⸺”
“That’s all right,” said Dixon. “Forget it! It was a good turn for me.”
That same night he was in Tommaso’s home, telling of the interview, when Tommaso said “we must not promise more than we can do.”
“We can do it, all right,” said Dixon.
These business interviews were a curious medley of speech. Tommaso knew some American, including profanity. Dixon knew a few Italian phrases. Car- mella sat between them, understanding both.
Sometimes they went on without her. But anything complicated called for her services as interpreter.
“If we can do it, we shall do it,” said Tommaso.
“Won’t it be grand!” exclaimed Carmella. “We’ll be millionaires pretty soon, Mr. Dixon.”
She danced across the floor, and blew him a kiss.
“Not too soon, kid,” warned Dixon.
She danced across the floor till Tommaso thundered:
“Sit down! When I wish dancing, I will ask you. Now you ask Mr. Dixon how long notice we must give to hire steam shovels.”
“Mr. Dixon,” said Carmella, “Mr. Coletta would like to know how much notice to get those steam shovels, and if you ever get me called down like that again I’ll hate you for life.”
“You did it yourself, kid, and you know you did. Tell him that three days’ notice is what I’ve bargained for. And if you get gay with me, I’ll call another interpreter and tell your dad and you’ll get spanked.”
Carmella interpreted the business part of this statement to her father, and stuck out her tongue at Dixon.
It was in this fashion that many of their interviews were carried on, until one night Dixon asked:
“Why don’t you teach me Italian, kid?”
Carmella hesitated. These verbal games were fun. But she knew they could not go on. And after all her great desire was to see the firm prosper.
“I’ll teach you,” she said, and turning to her father:
“Mr. Dixon wishes to learn Italian. I will teach him. And, caro padre, I will teach you American.”
Tommaso thought as he smoked for some minutes.
“That would be good,” he finally said.
So the lessons began. To be teaching Dixon was a positive thrill.
There was a thrill, too, in being on her father’s various jobs the vacation after her graduation from grammar school. Dixon was downtown more than he was on the jobs. He was the financial man. And often he visited foundation jobs on which other contractors were at work. He was learning. Once he let Carmella go with him.
They stood watching the excavations for a new trust company building.
“How long before we’ll be able to do that?” she asked.
“Not so long. I got a few things to learn yet.”
“I’ll help you,” said Carmella.
“But you won’t always be in the contracting business, kid,” he said.
“What’ll I be doing?”
“You’ll be going to school first, and then you’ll be cooking sausage and making beds and spanking babies and all that sort of thing.”
“But I’ll do outside work too. Mrs. Barrington keeps house and does. I’ll always be interested in contracting.”
“Mrs. Barrington didn’t spank her kids enough and she did too much outside work,” said Dixon. “But you’ll be different.”
“I hope to God I’ll be different from Mrs. Barrington. But I’ll always be interested in contracting, whether it’s dad, or—or anyone.”
“You’re going to high school next fall, aren’t you, kid?” he suddenly asked.
“Sure!”
“And you’ll study hard?”
“Why? You want me to? All right, I will!”
Dixon spent that night wondering and dreaming of who would be foreman of his future household. The next day he spoke to Tommaso:
“Ask me over to the Sons of Italy club tonight, will you?”
“We talk senza Carmella?” asked the father.
“We talk what I talk without her.”
“All right,” said Tommaso. “Eight o’clock.”
Dixon entered the Sons of Italy clubroom promptly at eight, to find Tommaso already there. He looked around the main lounge and pointed to an empty corner. They sat down, and smoked in silence, until Dixon said:
“We got good business, Mr. Coletta.”
Tommaso nodded.
“It will grow bigger.”
“What?”
“Business. More and more big.” Dixon stretched his arms like a man telling a fish story.
“Si!” Tommaso nodded. “Bees-ness, she grow, yes!”
“You got nice girl, too,” said Dixon.
“Carmella? She nice keed!”
“She grow big. She go to school. She finish—feenish—she out—in four year.”
“Si, si!”
“She nineteen years, then.”
Tommaso smoked in silence. Dixon doubted how much he had understood. It was one of his tricks, like that of a deaf person, to understand more English when he wanted to, and less when he chose.
“Listen, Mr. Coletta,” began Dixon again. “Carmella—she nineteen years when she feenish school. Old enough to marry. Marry. See?”
“Si!”
Dixon threw away his cigarette and lit another nervously.
“Carmella fine girl now—fine girl then. I like her now. I love her then. You say yes to Carmella marry me then?”
“She keed,” said Tommaso.
“Now, yes! But when she feenish school.”
“Then I tell you then.”
And Tommaso filled and lighted his pipe with all the air of a clubman. Few more words were said. But as they parted at the door, Tommaso offered his hand, saying:
“I lika you, Carmella lika you. Maybe you marry—sometime.”
Dixon shook hands with his senior partner, and said one word:
“Thanks!”