(Uncertain
when this was written)
Carmela
wasn't as old as she appeared to us at the time.
She
reminded me of some of the nuns who taught me at St. Brendan's, a woman who may
have been born a spinster and whose life seem to revolve around spinster sister
I never met or don't remember meeting if I had.
Carmela
was the most dependable person in Donald’s operation, someone on whom Donald
was able to count on for the letters we needed sent, the billing, the typing of
labels, arranging of interviews and so much more.
Carmela
was fiercely loyal and perhaps this is why she felt so put out later on after
we moved to the new location and Donald brought on other people to help her
with office chores.
The
expanded business meant a lot more paperwork and such and he clearly did not
think she could keep up.
This
was particularly true later when Donald installed the computer in his office
around 1977 or early 1978 and did not see her as having the ability to handle
such a new innovation.
Although
Carmella for the most part was soft-spoken her voice tended to grate when she
got excited although to some degree, she was amazingly shy. She still managed
to do all the jobs he was assigned to while we operated out of the warehouse in
the Pia Costa warehouse Park on Bloomfield Avenue.
Hers
was the first desk you came to after coming in through the tiny lobby from the
front.
There
were two doors: one that led straight ahead from the front door down a narrow
passage to a door leading to the warehouse in the rear. This passage also had
access to the restrooms which were doors on the right. Across from the
bathrooms was the door to Donald office. He used this door to access the
warehouse unseen by guests waiting to see him in the front or as a shortcut.
Most
guests, when they came into the front lobby, turned immediately to the left
into a tiny space Carmella occupied, her desk located to the left coming in
with her back to a couple of small windows looking out onto the parking lot.
The
whole front office section reminded me of a maze with another door to the left
of Carmella's desk and across from the door from the lobby. This lid to a tiny
meeting room with chairs and an overlarge table where Donald met with clients
or salespeople. A door to the right off this room led back to his office.
Carmela
served as gatekeeper and kept anyone from seeing Donald without seeing her
first. She was better than a bulldog gentle but firm -- attributes guest came
to respect.
Her
desk represented most of the business issues with a typewriter, phone, and
trays for in and out mail laid out before her while around her -- against the
wall filing cabinets contained files on various businesses that Donald did
routine business with.
On
her desk was also a very large Rolodex from which she could draw the name
address and phone number of all but the most secretive Donald contacts.
I
remember her office as well as the outer lobby as being relatively dark,
paneled with dark wood typical of that time, later redecorated to seem less
oppressive yet the earlier version best represented Carmella's strange
character.
Although
a calming force in the office early on, Carmela struck me as a person with
significant inner turmoil, filled with private issues we could only get clues
of, family tragedies that helped cement her somber moods.
I
got the sense that she was more outgoing of the two spinster sisters in that
she could come and go and hold a regular job though she disliked driving after
dark -- an issue that loomed over her during winter months and required her to
leave early so she could get home.
She
apparently did not live far from either of the two warehouses somewhere in West
Caldwell or at least I believe that at the time.
She
seemed to enjoy the fact that she could work in the real world without risk,
protected by both environments. She seemed not to feel comfortable with the
world and most likely would have felt more comfortable in her father's or
grandfather's time a Victorian like existence denied people in the 1970s.
What
struck us most was the car she drove, a 1960s Barracuda we all envied, something
a family member had apparently purchased for her. This was ironic since this
was considered a hot car on the street. But she drove it the way old ladies
drive with ultimate caution.
How
Donald stumbled on her I still do not know perhaps a friend of a friend or
family. She was not Jewish and so in some ways seemed out of place with him.
She
was small, dark and I guess an Italian woman, sturdy and slightly plump. She
had dark eyes that seemed friendly yet seemed to vail personal secrets. Her
dark hair framed and oval face with wide-set eyes thick eyebrows and a squat
nose. She had a wide mouth and thin lips and sometimes the good cheer her mouth
expressed was contradicted by her I thought I saw in her eyes.
She
tended to walk the way an old woman might slowly with great care as if
expecting a sudden fall. She dressed decades out of date with pin on earrings,
the kind with the twist in back, and sometimes wore a necklace of pearls over
which on cold days she wore scarf -- sometimes even inside the office.
In winter,
she wore a cloth coat, scarf, a knit or old ladies’ hat. In summer she shed the
hat gloves and coat, but generally wore dark ankle-length pattern dresses, practical
low-heeled shoes and stockings all of which seemed appropriate to a World War
II era or earlier.
If
she ever talked about her parents or her upbringing, I don't recall hearing it.
She spoke about her sister with whom she lived but only in passing and how she
had to get back to her.
Neither
she nor her sister ever married, and it is unclear if there was ever a love in
either of their lives. Both were apparently well educated since Carmela had all
the skills needed to run the office. This suggested her parents had provided
for her and probably educated her sister. I vaguely recall her sister may have
worked in a library.
Since
Carmella did not talk politics the way most of us did, I don't know what she
believed in. But since Donald was a liberal Democrat who voted for Jimmy Carter
1976, Carmella’s views must have fallen somewhat in line with those -- even if
she seemed and looked like a Nixon conservative with the old-fashioned
Republican cloth coat etc.
Carmella
seemed not want anything more than the job she had and seemed to generate
importance from it and so got put out later when Donald hired other people to
help her when he expanded the business. He was right in believing the workload
was too much for her, yet he was not sensitive enough to realize these hirings
undermined her -- partly because the new women did not see her as important,
but a relic and they did not treat her as a boss going to directly to Donald or
Stanley if they needed something.
Carmella
began to think of herself as useless piece of furniture in the expanding
operation this included people hired to work in the outlet with whom she had
running conflicts those were still unresolved when I left Donald's employment
in the spring of 1978.
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