The Saint of Lost Things Read online

  Maddalena listened. It sounded like a good system—fair, without risk. She relaxed her grip on the seat. Now that she was here, in a new dress she wouldn’t have chosen but which flattered her chest and waistline, the appointment made and confirmed, she had no excuse not to try. She imagined them sitting her in front of a mirror, admiring her cheekbones, parading her into a studio in Philadelphia with the declaration: “Meet the next Anna Magnani!” If she never learned English well enough to earn a part in a play, that would be fine; she could live with that; modeling the newest fashions in Philadelphia came close enough.

  It was the walk from the car to the office that she dreaded. The ladies in their minks, the policeman in the window of the coffee shop, the snobby clerks at the Minuet—what would they think of her? Would they laugh when she walked not into the hair salon, but the agency? Would they shake their heads and say, “She thinks she has what it takes to become a professional model?”

  So she kept her head down—a habit of hers Bianca would surely attempt to break. Antonio took her hand and led her up the stairs, making nervous small talk about the new asphalt on the street. It was a windy day, bleak and cold, the sun a sliver of lemony yellow hanging low in the sky. On the top step Maddalena stopped, took out her bottle of Nina Ricci perfume, and sprayed a quick mist on her neck.

  The waiting room was small and empty. They were the last interview of the day, or so the pretty young receptionist informed them, and a woman named Lorraine would be with them in a moment. They sat on a leather sofa between a tasteful imitation fern and the door Lorraine would eventually open. On the end table lay a stack of LOOK magazines, from which Ava Gardner watched them in her strapless black dress, beside the headline “Divorce: A Woman’s Tragedy.” The walls featured wood paneling and, just above eye height, a row of framed glossy photographs. Some were black and white shots of beautiful women and a few handsome men, all with perfect teeth; they smiled or stared seductively at the camera. Other shots were taken directly from plays or films: an adorable child in a bunny suit; an older woman peeking menacingly from under the hood of a cloak; a man holding a football above his head, his arm flexed to display his muscles.

  “You’ll be up there someday,” said Antonio. He nudged her in the side with his elbow. “And we’ll have a house on Easy Street.”

  Maddalena crossed and uncrossed her legs. The appointment was for four o’clock, and it was now nearly quarter past. It felt like waiting at the doctor’s office: the same powerlessness, the threat of awful news, of being told the specifics of your body’s many failings. Every time the door opened, Maddalena’s chest tightened. But for the next twenty minutes, no Lorraine; only a succession of skinny girls in heavy makeup and heels clacking toward the exit, not bothering to acknowledge the receptionist or glance in Maddalena’s direction. The best she could tell, none was dramatically prettier than she.

  Close to half past, a woman in her fifties, wearing a pink double-breasted business suit and nail polish to match, appeared in the doorway. “Mr. and Mrs. Grasso,” she said, and held her arms out as if she’d known them all her life and merely lost touch. She kissed them on both cheeks, said “Follow me,” and led them down a narrow hallway lined with more framed photos. Lorraine was a few inches shorter than Maddalena but carried herself well; there wasn’t a single crease on the seat of her skirt. She wore her thick auburn curls in a chignon, and a pair of tinted tortoise-shell glasses.

  Her office had a view of Delaware Avenue, now softly lit by streetlamps. The radiator knocked awake and began to hiss. Lorraine sat behind a metal desk covered with a scatter of papers held down by coffee mugs, and Maddalena and Antonio faced her from the two chairs that had been set out for them. Lorraine folded her hands in front of her, unleashed a big smile, and looked back and forth between the two of them. “Wonderful, just wonderful,” she said. “Tell me you brought the pictures.”

  Maddalena shook her head, then watched in surprise as Antonio pulled two snapshots from his blazer pocket. She recognized one from their wedding—a profile of her bending to sign the register—and the other from a rainy trip to Atlantic City two years before. She’d worn a one-piece striped bathing suit and stood awkwardly under the boardwalk, one hand on a post, the other on her hip. In both pictures she looked bony and plain, though in the beach shot her legs did appear smooth and supple as a pantyhose model’s.

  “Not those!” she said, as Antonio handed them to Lorraine. “We must have better ones.”

  Lorraine set them side by side on the desk before her and removed her glasses. “But these are stunning!” she said. Then she placed a small cylindrical object on the wedding shot and peered through it. “Yes,” she said. Then the other. “Yes. Yes!” she repeated. She gazed across at Maddalena and shook her head as if in disbelief. “She has better ones, she says. And here I am asking myself, ‘Lorraine Stetson, is it possible you can be this lucky?’”

  “Really?” said Maddalena.

  Antonio was beaming. “I tried to tell her, but you know a woman never believes her husband.”

  “Most shouldn’t,” Lorraine said. “But in this case! You photograph very well, Mrs. Grasso. Very well.” She looked again, with that same amazement, at the pictures. “And these aren’t even quality shots. Not taken by a professional, I’m assuming.”

  Simultaneously Maddalena and Antonio shook their heads.

  “I have this Russian,” Lorraine said. “Came from Siberia. Siberia! Lived in an igloo or something. Didn’t see a green vegetable her entire life. Anyway, during the war an Italian soldier falls for her and steals her away from that God-forsaken country. The soldier gets killed, but she makes it to a boat and winds up here in the Promised Land. We found her on the street like a hundred-dollar bill in a sewer grate. Spiffed her up, took some pictures, and now you want to know what she earns? Fifty dollars an hour, almost as much as Dorian Leigh. Lives in Society Hill, Philadelphia, in a penthouse, with a balcony!” Here Lorraine leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “And I tell you: she’s not half as pretty as you.”

  Maddalena blushed.

  “She didn’t know Bianca before she got here?” Antonio asked. “On the phone, you said she came especially for her.”

  “That’s a different Russian girl,” Lorraine said. “You’ll find we work with many internationals. It’s what distinguishes us. The exotic look is always in fashion. Ava Gardner, Gina Lollobrigida, always la moda. And they’re not even blonde! Italian women are world-renowned for their beauty—especially the sort of rustic beauty that comes through here.” She pointed again to the pictures. “Your husband told me you once lived in one of those charming villages?”

  “Yes,” said Maddalena, confidently, and smiled. That was an easy question. But Lorraine raised her eyebrows as if expecting her to elaborate. She stammered a bit, then came up with: “It was very small. We had three streets, that’s it, and no cars or trains. Only an olive grove and a church and a small café. I didn’t know any different, so to me it was beautiful. It was the center of the world.” She paused. The sparkle in Lorraine’s blue eyes encouraged her. “Every morning it was my job to carry the milk in two big buckets back and forth from the farm to my house. Our family owned the one grocery store, so we weren’t poor, but still we had to have milk like everybody else. I was always the last one to pick it up, though, because I slept too late, and sometimes the cow ran out before I got there. My mother used to get so angry at me!”

  Lorraine looked at Antonio. “It’s not Siberia,” she said. “But that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Rustic beauty. You can’t buy it for a million and a dime.”

  Antonio was proud of her. Maddalena could see it in his puffed-up chest, his confident slouch, his right foot dangling over his left knee. He, too, might have had model looks: a strong jaw, hair velvet black. He was tall and usually had good posture. “So, where do we go from here?” he asked.

  Lorraine stood. “We see her walk.”

  She led them both into the h
all and asked Maddalena not to think about the fact that they were watching her. “Pretend you’re at the market,” she said. “You’re going up and down the aisle like a normal person. No one’s bothering you.”

  Maddalena strolled slowly between the rows of photographs, stopping every few steps to reach out and touch one as if it were a box of detergent.

  “No!” Lorraine said, not unkindly. “You’re not really in the market, sweetheart. It was just an example. Just walk like you’re walking down the street.”

  Stiffly, embarrassed, Maddalena made her way to the end of the hall. She turned just before the door to the waiting room and came toward Lorraine and Antonio at the other end.

  “One more time,” said Lorraine. “More natural, OK? I’m not here.” She covered her eyes.

  Obviously she was flunking. It had always been a point of pride that she carried herself well and that, like a mannequin, her body had been built to show off clothes. According to the reaction of Lorraine Stetson, though, she walked with the grace and sophistication of a donkey. She was shaking, and felt tears coming on. Antonio handed her his handkerchief, and she quickly dabbed her eyes.

  She was then led into a room of mirrors. There, Lorraine pointed out the tiny mole on her left ear, ran her finger down the length of her nose, and examined all angles of her profile. She made notes in a little pad of lined paper. Antonio watched from the doorway as she sat Maddalena in front of a powerful makeup mirror and commanded her first to smile, then frown, then get angry, now look sad. With every new face, she pressed a button on the mirror to change the light: day to dusk to evening to office. “Let’s see your teeth,” Lorraine said, and nodded as Maddalena held her mouth open wide. “Good,” she said. “Not too European.”

  Back in the office, they sat in silence as Lorraine shuffled papers. Her large hoop earrings, gold choker, and assortment of brilliant rings seemed gaudy at first; now Maddalena realized she herself must be out of touch with the times, a simple village girl after all, with no sense of style. Her own jewelry was understated: two small posts in her ears, a thin gold cross attached to her necklace, her wedding band, no bracelets.

  After two long minutes, Lorraine folded her hands, looked directly at Maddalena and said, “It would be our honor to work with you, Mrs. Grasso.”

  She covered her mouth. “Are you sure?” she asked, through her hand, then dropped it. “I didn’t think I did very good. The walking—”

  “I trust these,” Lorraine said, and again held the photographs. “These don’t lie. My job is to train my eye—to see through imperfections, beyond inexperience. To see the future, if you like. But the camera’s eye is pure; it sees only the truth of the here and now. In these pictures the camera tells me, ‘I’m in love with Madeline Grasso,’ and now so am I!”

  Antonio clapped his hands. “So you think she can make it big?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lorraine said. “With our help, absolutely. Just look at her!” She gazed at Maddalena with the ardor of a mother at her newborn baby, astonished by the miracle of her existence. “I’d be a fool to let you out of here without signing some papers.”

  “I’ve got my own pen!” Antonio said, and pulled one from the pocket of his blazer.

  Things were moving very fast. Three days before, Maddalena had sat in an office much different from this one, hands folded, listening to Dr. Barone tell her there was nothing physically wrong with her or Antonio, that it must be her obviously frazzled nerves that prevented her from getting pregnant; three hours before, she’d dressed for a dinner party at the home of Giovanni Vitale and his sweet but scatterbrained wife; now a kind stranger in a pink suit was grabbing hold of her life and steering it in a new direction.

  “Two ds?” she asked Antonio, her pen on the lip of the folder. “Spell it for me again, please. Slowly.”

  What a thrill it was for Maddalena to see Lorraine print her full name, date of birth, and address on the complicated form and hand it to Antonio. It was an official document: the words small in places, bold and oversized in others. As Antonio looked it over, Lorraine reached into a drawer with her free hand and pulled out a stapler and a stack of colored folders.

  “I don’t know anyone else in America with my same name,” said Maddalena, but Lorraine was not paying attention.

  “Now, just to make sure,” Antonio said, the tip of his pen on the bottom line of the form. “There’s no risk to any of this. If she decides she can’t do it, or you think she’s not good enough, she can just stop?”

  “Of course,” Lorraine said. “We’re not running a prison here. You owe us only the cost of materials, which is only fair.”

  “Materials?”

  “Photographs, postage, cosmetics, various out-of-pockets. The usual.”

  Antonio looked up. “She pays this only if she quits, though, right?”

  “Well, no,” Lorraine said. “It’s all in there.” She pointed to the form. “Our fees are extremely reasonable, when you consider the guaranteed success we offer.”

  Antonio narrowed his eyes and kept reading. Maddalena looked over his shoulder, but she couldn’t decipher enough of the words.

  He turned the page over. It was blank. “I don’t understand,” he said. “On the phone you told me the agency pays for everything. That you get a cut only when the girl makes money.”

  “Oh, no,” said Lorraine, gently. “If that was true, we couldn’t afford the rent on this place.” A look of concern fell like a shadow over her face. “I’m afraid you misunderstood? Maybe I spoke too quickly, or something got lost in translation?”

  Antonio rubbed his forehead. “How much would they cost, then, these materials?”

  “It’s extremely reasonable, as I said. But every girl is different, so the expenses will vary. Your wife will need to take a walking class, and experiment with a few skin products, and take a color test. After that it’s hard to say. Her teeth are good, so you’re saving a lot of money there—”

  “The Russian paid for all these classes and tests?” Antonio interrupted.

  “Irina was a special case,” said Lorraine. “And even so, it’s our policy not to discuss the terms of our clients’ contracts. Rest assured: no one will know how much it takes to get Madeline some work.”

  “Maddalena,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Lorraine. “It’s a beautiful name. Unique enough to stand on its own, don’t you agree? Like ‘Valentino’ or ‘Sinatra.’ I’m already thinking.” She tapped her right temple with her finger. Then she got serious, pulled her chair closer to the desk. “Let me reassure you, Mr. Grasso. Once the work comes through, which it undoubtedly will, the fees won’t hurt one bit. We have a very extensive network of opportunities. And a payment plan.”

  “Well, we’re not paying a dime up front,” he said.

  “Antonio,” said Maddalena.

  At that moment, a woman passed in front of the open door. “Bianca!” Lorraine called. “Come in here!”

  Not surprisingly, Bianca was a blonde. She had a thin frame, narrow hips, and an incongruously large rear end. Her entire body was on display in the black leotard she wore—the kind you might see on a dancer or a cat burglar. “Yes, darling,” she said, in an accent Maddalena could identify only as British, but which may have been something more exotic. She grabbed the doorjamb and stood half-in, half-out of the office.

  “You must see these photographs,” Lorraine said.

  Bianca held them at arm’s length, in both hands, then brought them closer. She set them on the desk and examined them through the little looking glass. “Extraordinary,” she said. “Absolutely extraordinary. The presence.”

  “That’s exactly what I saw,” said Lorraine.

  “She’s going to go very far in this business,” Bianca said to Lorraine, as if Maddalena weren’t sitting across from them. “When can we get her to see Ellie?”

  “Actually,” Lorraine said. “Mr. and Mrs. Grasso are having some second thoughts about us.”

  “Oh?” Now she
turned to Maddalena. “With photos like that?”

  “We’re hoping you have some other plan,” Maddalena said. “For poor people who can’t afford to pay right away?”

  “Hmm,” Bianca said. “I’m sure something can be worked out. Lorraine?”

  Lorraine ticked her head toward the door, and the two of them left the room to talk in private.

  “Andiamo,” Antonio said, and stood. “Let’s go. This was too good to be true.”

  “We can’t leave now,” said Maddalena.

  He rubbed his face. “They’re lying to us, tesoro. You don’t see that yet? They just want our money.”

  “How do you know for sure?”

  “I don’t have to. It’s obvious.”

  She shook her head. “We have to wait for them to come back,” she said. “It would be rude to just run away.” And what was more, she thought: if Antonio refused, she’d grip the edges of her chair the way she had in the car. She would show him he couldn’t hand her this new life, precious and dazzling as a ruby, just to snatch it back.

  Lorraine returned alone. “Good news,” she said, sat down, and gleefully blotted out a few of the lines on the form with a magic marker. Above the marker she wrote a figure that reflected a 15-percent discount on their training fees, valid only if they signed the papers today. She reminded them that it was their policy never to offer discounts, and that the office closed in twenty minutes.

  Even with the discount, the fees were unmanageable, and though they could be paid in increments, the increments incurred interest. When all was said and done, Maddalena’s instruction at the Bianca Talent Agency would cost more than three times Antonio’s monthly salary.