Down the corridor come Brandy, Christy, and Georgina and they’re holding hands and skipping and smiling like they won the lottery. They stop in front of the sign.
“Yes!” Brandy says. “We did it. We won.”
“We fixed her,” Georgina whispers as they walk away.
I stand there and stare, not sure what I just heard.
Someone comes up behind me and looks at the notice.
“Jesus, Brandy?”
Other kids look and a few of them make a point of applauding, even though I’m standing right there. Then Jordan walks up to the board.
“Brandy?”
That’s all. “Brandy?” as though if he lost it would at least be to me and if Brandy won then he really hit rock bottom. Without another word, Clive and Ro and Candy and I leave school in total silence.
“Go home without me,” I tell Frankie who’s waiting outside because it’s his shift. “And don’t send Vinnie later because I’m going to Clive’s.”
“Be careful,” he says.
We all storm across the park without a word. When we get into Clive’s apartment we hit his fridge and take out all the beer that he bribes the maids to buy for him and we get drunk and then crush the cans one by one by one while we’re thinking about Brandy and Christy and Georgina, because how else do you handle losing to such cockroaches?
“They screwed you over,” Ro says, coming out with what we didn’t want to say because it sounds like sour grapes. “Maybe they threw out some of your votes or just ignored them,” she says. “I mean who was in charge of counting anyway?”
“I thought the teachers,” Clive says.
“Me too,” Candy says.
I don’t say anything, but at that point I’m thinking, you know, maybe it’s a blessing in disguise because really, why do I need to be president of that place? I mean volunteering my time to come up with ways to make it a better school when the best way would be to just expel some of the people who go there.
My mom looks up expectantly when I walk in.
“Did you win?”
“No.”
“Someone else did?”
“I’m not sure.”
She looks at me like, what? because she doesn’t understand that and neither do I, but I’m getting the gut feeling I get when things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be. But I try to put that out of my head because it’s time to go to work.
I sometimes wonder why people have pastries at dinnertime, but I guess they have different schedules or different needs and if your life is sweetness-starved, pastries might be the ticket.
I’m standing behind the counter dressed in white like a nun minus the cross but feeling like one anyway since I have no real social life beyond Ro and Clive and Candy. And I’m counting out the cookies, which in a strange way is therapeutic because when you’ve loaded up a whole box and tied it tight, you feel you’ve accomplished something, and I feel good about that. Until I hear voices. Familiar ones. So out of context though. It couldn’t be. But my heart is pounding like tribal drums because it knows, yes it can.
Georgina and Brandy are waiting in line. They’re whispering together and glancing at me and finally when it’s their turn they look me in the eye and burst out laughing.
“Oh, hi, Gia,” Georgina says. “We didn’t know that you work behind the counter here as a server.”
I look at her dead on. “What would you like?”
They pretend they’re deciding and stand there forever, holding up everybody else in line.
“Those,” Georgina says finally, pointing to the lace cookies. “Because we’re celebrating,” she says, staring at me pointedly.
I start to wrap some up.
“No, no, we’re staying,” she says.
I unwrap them. “There’s table service.” Isn’t that obvious? If it’s not bad enough that they came in, they sit at a table near the front and order tea and coffee and cookies. Only when their cookies arrive they taste them and Brandy shakes her head in disgust. “They’re so sticky,” she says. “Can we get some other kind?”
“Like what?” the waitress says.
Georgina runs to the case again and makes a show of deciding, finally pointing to the raspberry cookies and the chocolate chip, so the waitress brings those and they sit there untouched because maybe they’re dieting but more likely just dissing everything and getting off on being guests while I’m the help.
Georgina and Brandy start whispering about something and laughing out loud and Georgina takes out her phone and snaps pictures of Brandy like she’s a celebrity and something about what’s going on is starting to make me crazed because I know what will be happening next.
“Gia, hold it,” Georgina says, as she holds up her phone to snap my picture.
Without missing a beat, a strong arm appears behind her and reaches past her neck and pushes the phone away.
“My dear, Gia is working, so please, eh?” Ro’s dad says, steely eyed.
Georgina freezes. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” The laughter at her table dies, the cookies are devoured, and a minute later they pay and leave without a word.
Ro’s dad looks at me and nods slightly.
Just desserts.
TWENTY-FOUR
Some sense of justice points my feet to walk in the direction of Mr. Wright’s office after lunch the next day. I ask his secretary if I can see him and he comes out and ushers me in.
“Gia,” he says, “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about the election.”
Mr. Wright immediately looks concerned. “What about it?”
“I don’t think that Brandy really won.”
He closes his eyes momentarily. “Gia, this isn’t the first time we’ve had an election at Morgan.”
“I know but—”
“And it’s not the first time that a candidate lost and wasn’t happy about it.”
I shift in my seat. “I—”
“You what?”
“It’s not that.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Not what?”
“I’d just like a recount.”
“On what basis?”
“Something I heard.”
“What did you hear?”
“Something Georgina said, ‘We fixed her.’”
“Implying?”
I sit up taller. “Mr. Wright…I think the election was fixed.”
He stares at me for a long, uncomfortable minute then shifts his gaze and stares out the window as if he’s looking for outside guidance. Abruptly he turns back to me.
“The Morgan School would not tolerate any discrepancies between the way the students voted and the way the election turned out, so I will consider what you’ve told me. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself until I get back to you.”
So natch I spill to Ro and Clive, who are sworn to secrecy, and we try to put it out of our minds and hang out in Central Park after school, playing on the swings and working out at Clive’s gym and walking a gazillion miles on the treadmills before going downstairs to Whole Foods and looking at weird stuff like mung beans and sea beans and tikka masala sauce and having foodgasms after pigging out on bittersweet chocolate and pumpkin tofu cheesecake, which sounds healthier than real cheesy cheesecake and then just waiting, waiting, waiting until we get some final word.
TWENTY-FIVE
I come home from school and drop my backpack in the hall. I turn, about to go upstairs.
“Gia!”
“Daddy!” I start to say, but the word catches in my throat. He stands there in his cashmere bathrobe, the same color as his tanned face, his eyes lighting up. I run up to him, pressing my face against the lapel, trying to hide the tears in my eyes.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” I say, my voice cracking.
He steps back and looks into my eyes, shaking his head. He keeps hugging me like when I was little and couldn’t stop crying after I scraped my knee in the playground.
Anthony comes home next and then it’s his turn to hug my dad, but the hug he gives him is shorter and harder and stiff and uncomfortable because Anthony doesn’t want to be held like a baby, at least not like I do. They look into each other’s eyes for five intense seconds and then Anthony studies the floor hard and shakes his head and that’s enough for them to say whatever has to be said in their silent, wordless male language of swallowed-up emotions and pretend toughness.
After that everyone tries to be on their best behavior because we don’t know what’s going to happen next and my mom who uses cooking as psychotherapy brings out twice as much food as we need for dinner.
Instead of just, say, pasta fagioli and salad and focaccia bread, we feast on veal marsala and roast chicken and manicotti and ravioli and escarole and salad and olives and peppers, which is over the top, even for us. But it’s like in that one giant meal, my mom is trying to feed my dad for the rest of his life with all he will ever need and want because food is her secret weapon against whatever might threaten safety and happiness. But before we get to desserts and after-dinner drinks, I turn to my dad.
“Can I talk to you…alone…in private?”
He looks at me curiously and uncrosses his legs, reaching out a hand to me.
“Come, let’s go into my office.”
He takes his wine glass in his free hand and we walk to his office. He puts the glass down on the small marble side table and then closes the door.
“Come,” he says again, patting the place next to him on the couch. “Sit here next to me.”
I sit and turn to him, trying to remember the last time I was in his office, just the two of us. It couldn’t be, I think, and then I realize yes, it was when I was little and I asked him about his work.
“What? Tell me what’s wrong. What is it, Gia?”
I don’t know what I’m going to say, I only know it’s something I have to try to say to change things, even though it probably doesn’t make sense and will sound really stupid.
“Daddy, do you think you could change your life now, now that you’re finally home again?”
He narrows his eyes and looks at me questioningly. “What do you mean change it—change it how?”
“Just stop being a boss now and do something else so we could be together like other families and the police wouldn’t come around and you wouldn’t have to go to jail and get in trouble anymore. Can’t you just stop now and let someone else be in charge? Just step down and walk away from everything?”
He studies the floor and shakes his head slightly. “I can’t change who I am,” he says finally, looking up at me. “It’s too late. It’s too late for that.”
He stares off in the distance for forever, like he’s going over his entire life, but then catches himself and looks back to me. His face turns sad as though it dawns on him that there’s more life behind him now than ahead. He tells me about growing up poor and trying to survive on the streets.
“I had to quit high school to work to help my family get enough money to eat,” he says. “There were gangs in the neighborhood and they beat me up. And if I didn’t learn how to live in that world and make the right friends, my whole family would have starved and I would have been killed by the bullies. I learned to do what I had to, to survive, Gia, not because I loved the work. It’s not the way I would have lived if I had a chance to choose…believe me.”
I don’t know what to say after that. And neither does he. We sit there together in awful silence with all the regret in the air and there’s no way to make that go away or pretend anymore. And we’re both thinking about the hard truths and what’s ahead for him, and I feel like holding my stomach to make the pain inside go away.
“But your life…” he says, “your life will be better, so much better.”
At least different.
“You’ll have a wonderful education, you’ll be happy and do important work, and I’ll be proud of you.”
“I hope so, Daddy.”
“Not hope so, Gia, you will, you will. You’ll go to the best schools and have all the opportunities I never had, because you know what?”
“What?”
“Education gives you power,” he says, holding up his fist. “I want you to remember that. And something else.”
“What?”
“You are going to succeed. You are smart and tough and you are going to succeed, no matter what.”
I nod.
“Say it,” he says.
“I will. I promise you,” I say, my voice catching.
We go back and sit down for dessert and Anthony and my mom look at us like, what was that about? But neither of us tells, and I keep thinking about what he said and how he said it, as if he wanted me to make up for everything that fell short in his own life, as if he needed that to go on.
We all work hard pretending to enjoy the food and all the cookies that I always bring home for dessert, and we try not to think about the other talk, and after we sit around being too full to move, my mom says, “did everyone have enough?” which is insane. And eventually after we clean up, I say good night.
I keep looking at my dad and he keeps looking back at me as if we’re the only ones in the room. And all I’m thinking is how much I wish everything going on now could just go away so the air could be clear and tomorrow we could start life over. And he’d be home for dinner like other dads and then the same thing for the night after that and the night after that, so that everything would end happy, like in a storybook.
Only none of that is going to happen.
You can’t live your life pretending you’ll always get second chances.
I go upstairs to do homework. I’m reading Romantic poetry for English, and even though most of it is hard to figure out at first, it hits me that these poets from the 1700s, who were sitting in their little rooms in their damp English cottages or out in their gardens writing by candlelight or moonlight, were suffering as much as we are over their painful feelings and all the things that weren’t the way they wanted them to be. They had depressing love lives too, obsessed with people who were either not loving them back or were married or dead. And no matter when you were born, some things never change and we all suffer the same inside even though everyone feels it’s just them and no one could possibly understand what they’re going through and how it feels.
Which naturally brings me back to Michael.
For no reason I pick up my phone and stare at the one text he sent me and try to will him to reach out again so that the relationship, or whatever it is that we have going or don’t, isn’t dead and over. And I start living in my memories like a pathetic loser.
Eventually I put the phone down and take a shower and then put on an oatmeal mask that’s drippy and disgusting. I don’t know why I bother about shrinking my pores because it’s not like it lasts. I wait and wait for it to harden and then wash it off and oatmeal chunks clog up the sink, which will piss off my mom. I put on Whitestrips next and go back to the stupid phone to check it again, but there’s still no message from Michael, and, shit, I wish I could ask someone what to do, which would be pointless because all they’d say is, “Gia, just forget him, he’s not for you.”
But that’s not true. Michael and I have some primal, chemical connection and when we’re close the magnetic pull is so strong we cannot stay apart. And no matter what, I’m not letting that go.
I fall asleep before eleven, which is early for me but everything that has been going on in school and with my dad and with Michael and with Clive and the fashion magazine story is swirling in
my head.
When some asshole goes riding down the street at a hundred miles an hour on his Harley at two in the morning because he can, I jerk awake and sit up in bed. My heart starts beating fast like I might die on the spot. Where the hell does my mom hide the Xanax? I need the entire bottle. I don’t think she trusts Anthony, who would probably fence them, so she hides them and that leaves me with nothing but Percocet, which I won’t take because they comatose me and I can’t walk around school like a zombie. That would make everyone think I’m bummed out about the election, so I force myself to try this relaxing breathing thing.
Which. Does. Zero.
I press the phone against my chest like a security blanket and study Michael’s text again as if it’s in code and will reveal some vital, hidden message, which is asinine, and then say out loud, “I’m calling him.” If his phone is off, then it’s off. And if it’s not, let’s see what he does in the middle of the night.
As it rings my heart pounds faster and faster and it rings again and again and then…
He’s there. But he doesn’t talk. And crap, are we just going to go through the silent breathing thing again? And I decide no. We are not.
“Michael?” I whisper so softly I’m not sure the words come out.
Five-second pause.
“Yeah.”
If I had a brain I would have planned what to say next, even scribbled it on my palm like a cheat sheet. But it’s the middle of the night and I’m too tired to think of something smart and out-there like I’m cool about calling cops in the middle of the night, so my mouth takes over.
“Hi.”
“Gia,” he says in a way that sounds resigned and defeated but also maybe a little like “you finally called.” Or maybe that’s just what I’m hoping it means.
“Did I wake you?”
“I’m always half up.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know.”
I wonder about that for a minute because after an entire day of being a cop you’d think it would knock you out since the job has to be draining. And half the time you’re on your feet or chasing crazies who are pissed off about something or everything and at any moment someone might point a gun to your head. So why can’t he sleep at night? But I don’t say any of that.
Mafia Girl Page 11
