Of course, when you are sixteen your body betrays things that will be true about you later, but which you cannot feel quite yet: Antonia only feels heavy and unkempt inside her graceful limbs and Sofia, more often than not, is bored to tears, desperate to move, waiting impatiently for something new.

—

Frankie is eight now, precocious, and as eagle-eyed as Rosa. Why don’t you come over as much, she asked Antonia last Sunday, and Antonia felt her stomach flip, like she had been caught doing something forbidden, and then she returned to helping Rosa set up. The two card tables folded and stashed behind the sofa are dusted and arranged end to end so that everyone can fit; there is a long brown leaf that, installed in the dining room table, allows it to seat ten squashed, rather than six spread out.

Each week Sofia and Antonia have small conversations about comfortable things while they set the table, chop the onions, wipe the dust out of the wineglasses. They feel close enough to breathe each other in; it is enough time that they do not have to feel guilty about letting their friendship erode away outside. And, each of them notices, she seems happy. She seems happy without me.

Sofia and Antonia stumble out of their junior year of high school as June of 1940 begins to swelter in earnest. The next week, the radio announces that Italy has joined Germany, and Antonia and Sofia find themselves crushed into Sofia’s apartment with countless familiar bodies, all of them restless in the early summer heat. Wine is poured, and the room fills with a thick cloud of cigarette smoke. A pile of hats and sweaters and pocketbooks buries Sofia’s desk.

“It will be just like the Great War,” says Rosa’s father. Pop rarely makes an appearance at dinner, but when he does he commands the room: sitting spread-legged in Joey’s chair across from the couch, hands crossed over his belly. This gesture of deference on Joey’s part serves to ameliorate the natural tension between sons- and fathers-in-law, but it is also how he maintains his status: look how confident he is, people think. Joey can give away power without losing any. Look how honorable. “We will be pared down to our essential functions. To the necessities.”

“But what does that mean for us?” asks Paulie DiCicco.

The room hushes. Five men turn their heads toward Paulie: Joey’s newest hire, who should not have spoken out of turn. The women, Sofia and Antonia among them, sense the thin tense air and quiet for a moment.