CHAPTER ONE

From her window Kit Zanetti can see absolutely everything that happens on Commerce Street. The name doesn't really suit the street; it should be called Winding Trail, or Lavender Lane, or Rue de Gem. Greenwich Village doesn't get any more enchanting than this at night, with the puddles of blue light around the roots of old trees that grow a few feet apart on either side of the street; or any lovelier by day, when the sun bakes the connecting row houses, none more than four stories high, some festooned in ivy, a few white clapboard with black-licorice trim, and one storefront so old that the brick façade has faded from maroon to pale orange. The brownstone stoops are hemmed with old terra-cotta pots containing whatever flowers grow in the shade, usually pink and white impatiens. The sidewalks are uneven, the concrete squares like slabs of layer cake. The shutters that swing from the windows are painted mottled shades of cream and Mamie pink, a powdery peach tone not seen since the Eisenhower administration (it appears the shutters have not been painted since then, either).

This is the ideal home for a playwright, clusters of buildings filled with stories and people whose quirks play out with small-town regularity. Every morning Kit sits in the window while her coffee brews, and witnesses the same scene. A petite woman with shocking red hair walks a Great Dane as tall as she is, and as they turn the corner, she yanks the leash, and he leaps into the air, setting off the car alarm in the Chevy Nova. On the opposite corner, a bald accountant in a suit the color of a Tootsie Roll emerges from his basement apartment, looks up at the sky, takes a deep breath, and hails a cab. Finally, the superintendent from the apartment building across the street comes out of the foyer, hops on his stripped-down bike (essentially two wheels connected by a coat hanger), throws a broom over his shoulder, and rides off, looking very World War II Italy.

There is a loud knock at the door. Kit is expecting her landlord and super, Tony Sartori, to stop by and unclog her sink for the tenth time this year. The tenants have never seen a professional anybody (plumber, electrician, painter) with actual tools work in the building. Everything in this building, from the wiring to the gas to the pipes, is fixed by Tony with duct tape. The tape thing became so funny that Kit cut out a magazine article about how Miss America contestants create cleavage under their evening gowns by hoisting their breasts with duct tape, and put it in her rent envelope. Mr. Sartori never mentioned receiving the article, but he began addressing Kit as Miss Pennsylvania.

"I'm coming," Kit calls out sweetly in the high-pitched, grateful tone of a renter who doesn't want to be any trouble. She opens the door. "Oh, Aunt Lu." Lu is not actually Kit's aunt, but everyone in the building calls her "aunt," so Kit does, too. Sometimes Lu leaves gifts for Kit outside the door--a small bag of expensive coffee beans, a bar of lilac soap, a sample box of tiny perfume bottles--with a note that says, "Enjoy!" in big, cursive handwriting. The stationery, small ecru cards with a gold "L" engraved on them, is uptown tasteful.

Lu smiles warmly. "How are you?" She lives upstairs in the back apartment and is the only other single woman in Kit's building. She's in her seventies, but she has the chic look of New York's older ladies who stay in the moment. Her hair is done, her lipstick applied in the latest shade of fiery fuchsia, and she wears a vintage Hermès scarf wrapped around her neck and anchored by a sparkly brooch. Aunt Lu is trim and small. Her perfume is spicy and youthful, not...

 

"Trigiani is a wonderful storyteller."

 

"[Trigiani's] characters [are] the perfect antidote to an angst-filled world."

 

"As comforting as a mug of chamomile tea on a rainy Sunday."

 

"Trigiani has created a world well worth visiting and revisiting in her Big Stone Gap series."

 

"Everything that really matters is here: humor, romance, wisdom, and drama."

 

"Delightfully quirky...chock-full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."

 

Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani
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