Just Another New York Story

Italiana

It was a long day of work for Veronica. The moon glows full and bright above the old church with the bell tower. It's a clear Manhattan midnight with a vista full of stars.

She worked as a nurse today in a London Hospital in 1945—one of twenty background players in a film shooting on a sound stage in Queens. Her costume was white and fitted, with a skirt above the knee and matching white pumps. She wore bright red lipstick, lots of mascara, and her hair was curled and bouncy beneath her crisp white cap pinned expertly to her head by the hair department. More pin-up girl than healthcare worker, she could understand why soldiers fell in love with their nurses, if that's how all of them dressed...

With the union wage, it'll be a good check—just enough to tip her over what she needs for the month's rent.

She walks across a pool of blue light pouring out of a dark tavern, where she can't make out the faces of the few solitary figures hunched over the bar. She passes into the harsh, white glow of the twenty-four hour smoke and candy shop. Through its propped-open door, men are scratching lottery tickets on any surface they can find, old-timers in plaid button-downs, younger ones just off their construction shifts, hardhats tucked beneath their arms, the air filled with the melodic cadence of Mexican Spanish. Khaled's hardware store is closed. There's a full-length mirror in the display window. Veronica pauses in front of it, straining to see herself with the aid of the street lamp. She smooths down her hair and pinches her cheeks before approaching the mostly empty diner.

Two women with dyed blonde hair who look like twins, their walkers stationed beside them, eat meat loaf entrees in a booth by the window. Janet sprays cleaner on the counter. Veronica stares at the stool where he sat.

"Italiana?" she hears in her memory.

"Italiana," she whispers to the night.