Holding Ben in one arm, Wayne told Ellen and Beth conspiratorially, "I saw Cecil Lockhart. She looks just like Gloria Swanson now. She has white hair — on pupose." The antique flicker of annoyance Beth still felt at the mention of Cecil Lockhart's name took her by surprise. She realized that she had been hoping that Cecil—the swanlike, gray-eyed girl who grew up next door to Ellen, the chief and constant rival to Beth for Ellen's best friendship—would skip this occasion. Cecil (whose real name was Cecila) was, Beth judged, the only of the Immaculata graduates from her year to have made more of herself as a creative soul than Beth had. And it rankled.
(Ch. 1, p. 23)

Italians were good at this sort of thing. In a jam, Irish would tremble and supplicate theatrically; but Italians knew what matterered in this world: that everyone...