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admire the outfit. The next day Lucille presented it to her. DeDe remonstrated when she learned about the gift. Her daughter’s explanation—the donee came from a poor family and had never owned a decent dress before—left her unmoved. Weeks went by before DeDe forgave Lucille.
    The teenage Lucille was aware that women dressed to please the opposite sex, but she knew next to nothing about that sex. Because of her daughter’s innocence, DeDe allowed her only a few tentative experiments with lipstick and makeup. The colors widened Lucille’s mouth and accentuated her bright blue eyes so effectively that some laws had to be laid down. Lucille was strictly forbidden, for example, ever to go canoeing with any young male except her brother. Predictably, she could hardly wait to paddle around the shallows with a local boy. When he tried some amateurish overtures, however, she managed to tip the canoe, tossing them both overboard. “I got wet,” she recorded proudly, “but I was still virtuous!”
    That state was not to last much longer. In time she bobbed her brown hair and shortened her skirts, thereby advertising an interest not only in fashion but in young men. Lucille was tall, willowy, physically mature, and emotionally undeveloped. “Maybe I was still searching for a father,” she was to speculate. There was no maybe about it. When the DeVita sisters introduced Lucille to their big brother Johnny at Celoron Park, she was instantly beguiled. A bit shorter than her five foot seven, much heavier than her weight of just under one hundred pounds, Johnny wore an unflattering moustache, and his hairline was already beginning to recede. But he had acquired a reputation as a local hood, someone who gambled, trafficked booze, and carried a gun. As if these enticements were not enough, he owned his own car and had a closetful of expensively tailored suits. Best of all, he was an adult. Johnny DeVita’s driver’s license offered proof: he had recently passed his twenty-first birthday. Lucille was fourteen.

CHAPTER TWO

    “This girl’s fulla hell”
    JOHNNY’S SWAGGER did not derive from movies or pulp fiction. He was the son of Louis DeVita, a nouveau riche who sold insurance and produce to Italian immigrants. On the side, it was rumored, he was involved with prohibited booze and illegal gambling. As Louis’s chauffeur and heir apparent Johnny had the use of several automobiles, not to mention a steady income and a status enjoyed by few men his age. He and his new romance became the object of lurid high school gossip, a situation that Lucille found immensely pleasing: once again she was on center stage. The adult response was not so pleasurable, particularly when it issued from DeDe. Lucille protested that her boyfriend was from an honest and caring family; she reminded her mother of all the times Louis had given her dishes of pasta and bags of vegetables to bring home. As for Johnny himself, she went on, her young man was not an irresponsible playboy; he was going to medical school in a year or two. DeDe bought none of this but did nothing, on the assumption that the affair would burn itself out in a few weeks. When the weeks turned into months she took Johnny aside and asked him to stay away from her daughter. He refused to do it. They were in love. What right had she to interfere?
    After a year of soul-searching, and some painful ransacking of her bank account, DeDe saw a way out. Lucille liked to talk about the vaudeville acts Johnny took her to see at the local houses, Shea’s and the Palace. When she spoke of those evenings her voice thrummed and her eyes took on a glitter that Johnny himself could not evoke. Clearly she yearned to be in a real spotlight. And who could tell? With Lucille’s background in amateur theatrics, perhaps she had a chance to be a chorine or a soubrette. Everyone said she had talent—even Mr. Drake had proclaimed as much, on the night of
Charley’s Aunt.
Still, the fifteen-year-old needed