The plastic Pieta on top of the TV. The condiment dish shaped like a Venetian gondola. The crucifix studded with seashells . . . Years later Angel and Lina Lupo would debate: what really was the most hideous thing in their parents' cramped and quintessentially Catholic house? And why couldn't they just forget about being Italian and have a normal American childhood?
As the sisters argue, memories of their shared past come flooding back: a flirtation with the butcher's cousin, a mysterious photograph of a beautiful woman they once found in their father's drawer, a church-sponsored trip to the Statue of Liberty that detoured into the dark side of human sexuality.
Angel and Lina long to flee their parents' heavy accents and dowdy clothes for the glamour of New York and Hollywood. But once they have grown from ragazze to donne - girls to women - they will look back on the time that they billed themselves a stage sensation called 'Two Italian Hits' with wistfulness and sorrow . . .
