In addition to the scarf, Clive lives in a vintage Burberry raincoat, which weirded me out the first time I saw him in school. But then I heard him answer a question in class and I realized that he’s completely brilliant and doesn’t have a mean bone in his emaciated body. He was so deserving of extreme niceness by someone who isn’t put off by his strangeness that he became my closest friend, not counting Ro.
It’s not like Clive is some poor soul who sleeps on a park bench and dump dives for food. His family is beyond rich and he lives in a ginormous ninety-million dollar duplex high up in the Time Warner Center, and when you’re looking out the window it feels like you’re in a plane hovering over a twinkling skyscraper fairyland.
Clive’s parents are media moguls so they’re always flying around in their own private Gulfstream. So Clive is mostly alone with maids, a butler, and a driver with only an aunt and uncle on speed dial. His only other company is the delivery guys from the Whole Foods downstairs because he’s always calling up and ordering crap. And all he does is read, read, read all day from his Kindle.
So every day Ro and I pack manicotti or lasagna for him so he’ll have a hot, homemade dinner because that’s the least I can do for a friend—because I don’t have too many of those.
Clive takes my paper and tucks it into his backpack. When he gets home he’ll scrawl little notes to me proving that he’s even smarter than Mrs. Carter. Then he’ll invite me to hang out with him and I’ll say yes because he’s sweet and kind and fun and has a wall of vinyls, never mind the pictures of the city that I love to take from his floor to ceiling windows to see New York in changing lights.
Especially from the bathroom.
Clive is the only person in the universe who has a white marble Jacuzzi in front of an enormous wall of glass with no curtains, so it’s fun to take bubble baths there and drink Dom and then stand up naked in front of the window and hope that someone in some other part of Manhattan in a crappy little apartment will see me through a telescope so I can give them a cheap thrill.
Anyway, the A on the paper is deserved. I worked for it because inside my head, my conscience is always telling me prove yourself, prove yourself so that one day I will have an actual life and become more than the self-sucking don’s daughter—the nickname I’ve been branded with since birth.
There’s a second voice too. That one keeps reminding me that if I don’t get As I won’t get into the right college and be able to follow my secret plan for the future.
Almost no one knows about my plan. Not Ro, my separated-at-birth best friend and next-door neighbor. Not Clive—at least not yet. Not my mom. And especially not Anthony. He wouldn’t believe me anyway because in his head the only career for a woman is domestic servant.
The only one who knows about my secret plan for the future is the person who keeps secrets better than anyone in the world: my dad.
When I told him, his eyes got all misty, something that doesn’t happen much, except when he watches sad movies where good people or animals die. Then he doesn’t just cry, he sobs.
Shut up. I know what you’re thinking.
I didn’t plan to tell him. But after my grandma’s funeral last year, he was sitting all alone in the living room in his favorite gold velvet armchair. My dad is almighty powerful all the time, only right then he wasn’t. He looked defeated, like he had shrunk inside himself. He was staring out the window as the rain poured down because on a day like that it made sense that the sun wouldn’t have the nerve to shine. The TV was off and he just sat there like the most alone person on earth, because I guess when you lose your mom you feel orphaned, even if you have a family of your own.
Grandma Giulia was his conscience. She was the only one who could smack his head and tell him what to do and he would never contradict her.
“Mama,” he might say, holding out a hand. But he’d never go further than that, which is something because my dad has a temper and, believe me, if he gets pushed, you do not want to be there.
So when I sat next to him and told him my secret plan he looked up and smiled, then kissed the palm of my hand like a blessing. I held hands with him for I don’t know how long, hoping that from then on he’d think more about the future than the past and not look so small and sad anymore. When his cell rang, I got up, sure he’d want to take the call, but he didn’t even look to see who it was.
Now that I’ve told him, I try to ace every paper and exam because no matter what anyone says about us and how stupid our lives can be, I’ll tell you something you should never forget: our family has brains.
“Keep Saturday night open,” Ro says when we talk on the phone after school. “We’re having a birthday party for Dante.”
Ever since Ro’s older brother Dante and I made out in the upstairs bathroom when I was ten, he’s had a major crush on me. It happened at one of their family’s annual July Fourth barbecues where my dad and Ro’s dad—who owns the best pastry shop in Little Italy—wear stupid aprons with sayings like “I’m the Grillfather” and take turns cooking. My parents love Dante, which doesn’t help. He worships my dad and is a masterful suck-up who leaves gifts for me and for them for every occasion, from birthdays to Groundhog Day. Designer scarves, Tiffany rings, Vuitton bags, Prada wallets, cashmere hoodies, sports tickets, and anything else major-league expensive that “fell off a truck,” but whatever. It’s the thought that counts, right?
So when Saturday night rolls around after about eighteen courses of manicotti, lasagna, grilled salmon, filet mignon, roast chicken, calamari, clams oreganata, sautéed spinach, escarole, zabaglione, fifty kinds of cookies, and Ro’s mom saying for the twentieth time, “why don’t you kids ever eat anything?”—Ro and I and Dante and his friend Marco and some guy I never met before who they call Little Paulie, who’s about six-five, and some skanky girl named Viv with pink hair who is getting on my nerves because of her gluten-free diet thing, go down to Ro’s basement. After fighting for about an hour over which movie to watch and Dante finally grabbing his baseball bat and holding it over his head and threatening to smash the fifty-five-inch Sony TV he just got if “you all don’t just shut up and stop arguing,” we do finally and watch The Fighter, which is amazing. Dante sits close to me and I can tell he’s wasted because he’s whispering to me over and over again, “you’re so beautiful, Gia,” and “it gives me a hard-on just to look at you in that sweater.”
“Please shut up,” I tell him so I can watch the movie. But instead he starts to massage my neck, which is all it takes for me to fall into a sex trance, fantasizing that it’s Officer Hottie instead of Dante. Then again, Officer Hottie isn’t here and Dante is and what the hell because he does have good hands. And then like a slut I turn to him and we start making out even though I know that’s the last thing I should be doing because tomorrow he’ll probably steal a diamond ring and ask my dad if he can marry me.
But I can’t worry about that right now so I don’t. I pretend I’m into him and living for the moment, which is one way to justify being a slut. But it is his birthday and maybe he does deserve more than just a Loro Piana cashmere turtleneck because of all the crap he gives me. So when he grabs my hand, I follow him into the laundry room.
Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
The door to my room flings open and my dad x-rays me so hard I can practically feel the burn. I stare back. And crumble.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again in broken record mode.
He doesn’t dignify that with an answer. “You don’t go out for a month,” he says. “No movies, no out for coffee, no nothing.”
I wait. There’s more.
“And you babysit every Friday and Saturday for the Andreottis. And every cent, it comes to me to pay for the bill from Mario. You understand?”
I nod.
“No more cutting school,” he says. “No more drinking. No more trouble.”
“Okay, okay,” I whisper.
“Not okay,” he says. “You get serious. Seriou
s.”
FIVE
Serious.
My dad has guilt-tripped me like no one else can with his honor code and expectations. So after barely sleeping, I walk down the corridor at school and see the signs about the upcoming student council election and a light bulb goes off in my foggy brain. Even though the idea of running for president of this place is definitely something I should run from, I’m immediately jazzed by the thought of jumping in where I don’t belong and stirring things up.
At the very least, I could have fun buying art supplies and making posters and calling it schoolwork. But more importantly, I could get over on skanky people at Morgan who hate me, because most of them are. Spoiled. Stuck-up. Bitches.
Who dress in paisley or what have you and wear things like Belgian Shoes and have moms with names like Muffy who carry those stupid Nantucket straw baskets with scrimshaw medallions and talk interminably about going riding in Connecticut on the weekends or watching horse jumping or entering their purebreds at Westminster or playing golf, while the non-Wasp world, not in Litchfield or Greenwich, Connecticut, who are stuck in places like the fucking Bronx and Queens and lower Manhattan, except for Soho, are mostly out of work and panhandling, fencing crap on eBay, lining up for chump change from unemployment, and jumping turnstiles because they can’t even afford stupid MetroCards. I would love to drop-kick most of them so that they would open their recessive-gene eyes and get over that rarefied bullshit way of existing.
You probably think I’m being paranoid, that no one really has it in for me.
Wrong.
I’ve just locked the bathroom stall door behind me when Christy Collins and Georgina Richards, the two-faced Brit twit, walk into the bathroom. They obviously know I’m there because I’m sure they toe peeped, and who else wears purple or green Louboutins with four-inch heels and nail heads, even when it snows? At first whiff I know it’s Christy because she wears massive amounts of musk oil or something else that she must think smells hot but actually smells like pond scum.
“This school has really gone downhill since they let that Mafia bitch in,” she says.
“Really,” says Georgina.
“I mean look at who her dad is,” Christy says. “How can they do that? She and that other one are total mafioso trash.”
I sit coiled up like a rattlesnake poised to strike. The plural is mafiosi, I’m tempted to call out, but never mind that. How could they let Christy into the school when her dad works on Wall Street and who ever thought we should bail out those people?
Pins and needles make my legs tingle.
The door slams finally and it’s quiet again. I go out and wash my hands, scrubbing too hard. I strut down the corridor almost passing the school election table, but I stop when the kid behind the desk smiles at me.
“Thinking of running, Gia?”
He’s actually serious. I smile and shrug, stifling a laugh. Me? Run for president?
On the desk are applications and white pencils with The Morgan School in magenta. I reach for one and slip it between my teeth. Then I move on.
President. How would that go over? A total goof? Or not? Maybe I could actually wake this place up and bring it into this century.
I put the thought aside.
But when I’m in the library after school with Ro and Clive, I poll them. “What do you guys think about me running for class president— truthfully?”
“Gia, you would be the absolute best,” Clive says. “Yes, yes, definitely, and I’ll be your campaign manager and your front man or whatever.”
“I’ll be your assistant campaign manager,” Ro says. “And we can put posters all over the school and you can make speeches about how the students need more power and—Gia, you have to do it, you have to.”
I think about it for a total of about eleven seconds, then slap my hand on the desk. “I’m running.”
Clive and Ro applaud and the librarian shoots us a dirty look. “SSSSSHHHHH,” she says, putting her finger to her lips.
We give her a dirty look back because how stupid is that ssssshushing crap when you’re in the library?
“Pizza anyone?” Clive says, looking back pointedly at the librarian.
We go out for thin crust whole wheat pizza and spinach calzones and talk more about what we’ll do to get me elected. We only have one month to make me the best candidate.
When you’re seriously running for office, you do it not only because if you win you can lord your power over everyone, but also because you supposedly believe you can help the school. So you have to come up with campaign pledges and convince people that you’re the one to end some of the bullshit school rules like no flip-flops or ripped jeans or texting in the stairwell and maybe promise that if you’re elected, the food in the dining hall will improve because Daniel Boulud will be hired as a catering consultant, and so on.
So Clive and Ro and I and a new girl named Candy who just moved to New York from LA decide to brainstorm to come up with my platform.
Unlike everyone else at Morgan, Candy didn’t know my name when she first heard it. Or said she didn’t. What she immediately glommed onto was my shoe and bag collection, which instantly put me on her A list. Not to mention that Morgan kids don’t exactly open their arms to outsiders, so until she met me, she used to sit alone.
“OMIGOD!” she yelled one day and blocked my path as I walked down the corridor. “I’d kill for those shoes.”
I looked back at her straight-faced, then cracked up.
So now we all sit around talking about my campaign platform and as usual Candy starts out by using her hometown as her default point.
“In LA my school had a screening night and we would show these incredible new movies before they opened, so maybe you could set up screenings here like that to bring people together.”
“That would be totally cool,” Clive says.
I look at Ro and she looks back at me, raising an eyebrow. Dante gets bootleg versions of new movies that we watch before he eBays them.
“Done,” I say. “Next.”
“You’re running against Jordan Hassel, that jock a-hole,” Ro says. “So you have to beat him at his own game. What if we set up a monthly fund-raiser for kids with cancer and give the highest bidder front row Knicks tickets that I’m sure we could get for free?”
“How do you get those?” Candy asks.
“Done. Next.”
“I’m for raising money for more scholarships,” I say. “That way this place can reflect the real world.”
“Amen,” Clive says.
By the end of the hour we have my platform. We are going to blow Jordan Hassel and Christy’s best friend, Brandy Tewl—I swear that is her last name—out of the water. The only thing Brandy has going for her is that her dad runs a chain of restaurants so she has her pick of places for parties. Brandy’s campaign slogan is “stop the bullying,” which is fairly amusing since she and Christy and Georgina are the biggest bullies going.
“You need a one-sentence campaign slogan,” Clive says. “It has to be catchy, like nine-nine-nine or whatever.”
I look at Ro and Ro looks at me. Clive looks at me and I look at Clive. Clive looks at Candy and Candy looks at Clive. I look at Candy and Candy looks at me.
“I have no idea,” I say. “But it will come to me.”
“Well, think it up fast,” Ro says, “because we have to get started on the posters.”
I go home and check online. Most of the slogans are vacuous garbage: A New Beginning, A New Voice, Hope for Tomorrow.
I don’t know how, but I know that by the time I come back to school in the morning, it will come to me.
SIX
Interspersed with thoughts about becoming president of Morgan are my obsessive musings about Officer Hottie, whose face now appears in my head 24/7.
Only how do you track down a cop? He’s not on Facebook. No mentions on Google. He’s not in the phone book because on a cop’s salary he probably can’t afford a landline. I don’t have th
e nerve to call the precinct because they’d ask who I am and what it’s about, and what am I supposed to say, I’m chasing the guy who hauled us in for DUI, resisting arrest, and whatever the hell else the charges were?
“Maybe we could go speeding up the Henry Hudson again,” I say to Ro, only half kidding.
“Gia. Someone like you does not fall for a cop. He wants to fry your tail. He wants your whole family to fry. He’s probably up nights fantasizing about locking up your dad, so wake the fuck up.”
“You’re right, Ro.”
“And you are full of it, Gia.”
I am sitting in the white canopied bed that I got for my ninth birthday when I was convinced that sleeping in a princess bed was all it took to turn me into one.
And now like a third grader I am on top of the world because I have a brand-new jumbo pack of sixty-four magic markers—orange, red, blue, green, purple, yellow, brown, black, maroon, and what have you—along with calligraphy pens and rulers and fifty sheets of oak tag for my campaign posters fanned out around me.
The marketing possibilities are empowering and I’m getting that amped-up first-day-of-school high before reality hits. I’m trying to dream up smart pledges and promises and ways to get people to vote for me because I would definitely enjoy winning, but more importantly, I would rejoice at seeing Christy and Georgina and their tool friend crash-land and burn in loserdom even though on some level I could care less whether or not people agree with me, especially the kind that go to Morgan.
That said, I still do not yet have a campaign slogan. And if I don’t stop writing Michael Cross in thirteen different fonts in every color and size, I am going to blow my chances of competing in this so-called election, which would not help me on the road to my secret plan for the future.
The phone rings. Clive.
“How are you doing?” he asks in his sweet, innocent, almost musical voice. “Have you come up with anything?”
Mafia Girl Page 2
