Don't Sing at the Table by Adriana Trigiani Read Free Book Online

more quickly. In the summer, the sun would pour in and dry the clothes in double time.
    On days when she wasn’t doing laundry, and the pristine room was available for other uses, Lucy made pasta. She rolled her pasta by hand in the kitchen, then hung it on the clean dowels to dry.
    Between her bedroom and the workroom was a door that led to a second-floor landing. That landing led to a set of wooden stairs that went two stories down to the yard. You could touch the branches of the shade tree from that landing, though I was too scared of falling to try. Lucy left that door open too, and the fresh Minnesota air would blow through her house. In fact, I remember the windows being open, day and night, to let the sweet air through. I had the same feeling years later when I opened the bedroom windows in her childhood home in Schilpario. The fresh Italian air was just like the breezes that blew off the pristine lakes of Minnesota. I love to leave doors and windows open, too, and I know this came from her example.
    That Dress
    One summer day, when Lucy was working downstairs in her shop, I went through her closet. I opened the wide door, and the clean scent of lavender and pressed linen greeted me. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I liked to snoop. Lucy with the lovely Italian accent had lived a long time, and I was sure she had some artifacts from the past that would be of interest.
    Her closet was unlike any others I knew. First of all, it was spacious. And secondly, it wasn’t crammed with clothes. Three hatboxes rested neatly on the shelf over the rod. There were two pairs of shoes on the polished floor—one pair of simple black leather pumps, and a pair of embroidered bedroom shoes, piped in black velvet on a cloisonné print in aqua, black, and deep rose. Her third pair of shoes—her work shoes, black leather lace-ups with a two-inch Cuban heel—she was wearing at the moment, down in the shop. I thought it strange that a woman who sold shoes didn’t have more of them. When the work shoes wore out, she would order a new pair, but not before she needed them.
    As her closet went, spare and practical, so did the rest of the house. In fact, there wasn’t any junk in her house at all—no tchotchkes, no clutter whatsoever. She didn’t save ribbon and wrapping paper like Viola, and there wasn’t a long pole in her closet with a choice of several winter coats to wear. Lucy had one. Granted, if you were going to own one proper coat, it should be like hers: navy blue silk wool with wooden buttons, an empire cut, straight sleeves, and a stand-up collar. It was very Givenchy, but it wasn’t French; it had been handmade by her in the shop below. She lined it in midnight blue satin, opulent, but no one ever saw the lining. Only Lucy.

    Lucy in the polka dot dress.

    The author in the polka dot dress at the Benton-Doughan wedding with Denise Waldheutter, center, and Cheri Bielke, right.
    The other aspect of her personal closet that amazed me was that she had three identical dresses. They were navy blue silk with white polka dots. Shirtwaist in style, the dress had a notched collar, short sleeves, tiny white pearl buttons, and matching buttonholes on the opposite placket; a nipped waist with a thin belt made from the polka-dot material gave way to a full skirt that was neither busy nor fussy, but draped beautifully and was exactly right. Appropriate.
    I was eleven years old, and this trio of identical dresses fascinated me. Lucy had created a uniform for church and social events, in the form of this dress. She would accessorize it differently for various occasions. Sometimes she wore a locket on a long chain, other times a pin at the collar. Often, according to the season, she would wear the dress with a navy blue cashmere cardigan from Italy, which was kept folded in her drawer, without a pull or a stain or a hole. Her only sweater looked new, and I knew she wore it a lot. She took care