The First Nine Lives of Isabella LaFelini

by Harvey, Rhonda

  “What? What’s good?”

  “You and I,” Luci was dragging it out because she knew how crazy it was making Isabella. “You and I are going on a little trip, missy.”

  “A trip? A trip to where?” Isabella was hoping for one answer.

  Luci grinned widely. “Oh, I thought we might go to an island…”

  “An island?” Isabella responded with disgust. “Mom! I was hoping we were going to New York.”

  “I don’t even want to think about what they’re not teaching you in school…Isabella, New York is an island!”

  “So you mean…?”

  Seeing Isabella’s surprise, Luci laughed and continued, “Yes, Isabella, we are going home!”

  “Really? Mom, really? We’re going home?” Isabella could barely contain her excitement.

  “Yes, really. For about a week, I think. We’re leaving Tuesday morning. I work tomorrow and Monday, but I’ve taken the rest of the week off—and don’t have to be back at work until the 27th, so…”

  “Yes!” Isabella was jumping up and down. “Home! We’re going home! I can’t wait! I’m gonna go start packing! Oh, Mom, that is so cool!” Isabella suddenly was quiet. What am I going to do? What if I transform while we’re in New York?

  “Isabella, wait a minute. I didn’t tell you the best part!”

  Isabella stopped worrying for a moment. “What?”

  “Nonna Rose will be there. She’s coming home a few days early. You’ll be able to ask all your questions about Giovanni, your too-many-times-great grandfather!”

  “Aw, that’s great, Mom! Am gonna call Ty, okay?” She grabbed the cordless phone and an apple out of the basket on the counter. “You aren’t expecting a call, are you?”

  “No, hon. Go call your friend. And be sure to pack something nice. You know we’ll be going to dinner with your grandparents!”

  Isabella quickly dialed Tyson. “Ty, I have news—some of it great, some of it not so great…I’m going to New York! On Tuesday! Can you believe it? Going home! But, um, Ty…that’s also the not-so-great part.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What happens if…it happens while I’m in New York, Ty? I’d freak. I mean, that day when I thought about telling my mom…I was outta my mind. She’d really freak if I told her. You’re the only one who knows, Ty. What am I s’posed to do without you?”

  “Well, you could take me with you,” Ty joked. “You know, put me in your suitcase.”

  “Ty!” Isabella scolded. “Don’t even kid. Seriously. What if it happens?”

  “Isabella, calm down. You know what causes it now. Just don’t play with your ring.”

  “Yeah, I already thought of that, Ty. Think about it. I mean, I don’t even know when I’m playing with it. What happens if I get nervous? Or carried away? Or…”

  “You could leave it home,” Ty suggested.

  “Leave it home?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “Well, I could do that, I guess,” Isabella replied, deep in thought. “Or maybe…”

  “Maybe what?” Ty was suspicious.

  “Maybe you could keep it for me?”

  “What? Why? It would be safe at your house, wouldn’t it?”

  “Actually, I don’t know. Mom said something earlier about painters coming. I don’t know if they’re coming while we’re gone. I wouldn’t want to leave it around the house and have someone take it…”

  “Yeah,” Ty said sardonically, “because that little ring looks so valuable! C’mon, Isabella. Why would anyone even think about taking it? And anyway, it’s little. Hide it someplace in your room.”

  “Ty, I don’t want to take any chances. Please? Tell me you’ll keep it safe while I’m in New York. I’ll bring you back something,” she added as a bribe.

  “What? What will you bring me?”

  Isabella laughed. “Does that mean you’re willing to take care of it while I’m gone?”

  Ty groaned. “I’m probably gonna regret it, but yeah. I’ll take care of it while you’re gone. Now…what are you gonna bring me?”

  She laughed again. “I guess you’re just gonna have to wait and see! I’ve gotta go pack. Thanks, Ty. Talk to you tomorrow!”

  She hung up the phone and took her red suitcase out of the closet. “Hey, Mom,” she called, “I’m packing my plaid skirt—do I need to take anything else?”

  “Oh, Isabella, not that plaid skirt. It’s about two inches too short—didn’t we discuss that already? Okay, well, you’re going to need something nice for when we go to dinner in the City. I was thinking maybe you’d pack that dress that Grandma and Grandpa LaFelini sent for your birthday?”

  “Yeah, I could do that. What else?”

  “Just jeans, some shorts, a few tops—we’re staying with Gram and Grampa Corbett, so we can do laundry—you don’t need much, Isabella. I just know we’ll have one nice evening out—and I know you’ll want to hang out with your friends. Did you call Sierra yet?”

  “No! I completely forgot! Holy crap, she’s gonna be so surprised. Thank you for this, Mom. I can’t wait!”

  And Isabella resumed her packing while dialing Sierra. “See? Isabella. Guess what? Girl, I am coming home! And I have so much to tell you!” Giggling, she closed her door and finished packing for her trip to New York.

  Ten: Confusion

  “SO, I’M GOING to hold on to this for you—but I’m not gonna wear it. What if I turned into a cat, too?” Ty asked the next day.

  “Ty! You’re not a LaFelini, so you don’t have anything to worry about. Besides, it wouldn’t fit you—it only fits my pinky! You don’t need to wear it, but put it in your pocket or on a chain around your neck or something. I don’t want to risk losing it, Ty. I mean it—you need to promise me you won’t lose it.”

  “Isabella,” Ty sounded exasperated, “I’m not gonna lose your ring. First of all, you aren’t going for two more days. You should hold on to it. But if you want to leave it with me, I won’t lose it. You know I’m responsible. Here. Look.” He left the room and came back with a black braided cord. “Gimme the ring.” He threaded the ring onto the cord and then tied the cord around his neck. “Okay? Safe enough for you?”

  Isabella grinned. “Perfect. Thank you, Ty. I’m so excited about going home—I really didn’t want to have to worry about the ring. Or transforming for that matter. Can you imagine? I would die, Tyson. Totally and completely die.”

  “I think you’re being a bit dramatic, Isabella. I doubt you’d die. And even if you did, cats have nine lives, right?” He grinned and ducked the pillow that he knew would be sailing his way.

  Isabella didn’t disappoint, nor did she miss. Anticipating his move, she adjusted the way she threw the sofa pillow and hit him squarely in the face. “You are such a brat sometimes!” she told him.

  He threw the pillow back at her. “Oh? And you’re not?”

  “No, I am not!” Isabella retorted indignantly, throwing the pillow harder.

  Ty grabbed the pillow in midair and menacingly approached her on the sofa. “I’m gonna get you now, woman…Just you wait and see!” With that, he pounced on the sofa, straddling Isabella while he tickled her, evoking screams of delight from his victim.

  “Owww! St-st-stop it, Ty,” she giggled. “Just stop!” She continued giggling as she looked up into his dark brown eyes, so dark now that they appeared nearly black.

  Ty stopped tickling her, suddenly aware of her proximity—taking in her silky long hair, her soft skin and her sweet perfume. He swallowed hard and rolled off onto the floor. “You are such a baby!” he remarked hoarsely, trying to regain his composure.

  Isabella held her eyes closed tightly. What was that? She vaguely recalled wanting Ty to kiss her as he was tickling her. And unless she was mistaken, it seemed Ty wanted to kiss her as well.

  The silence between them was almost deafening. Neither knew what to say, embarrassed by the desire that seemed to have risen up from nowhere. Suddenly, the kitchen phone rang.

/>   Ty jumped up to answer it. “Hello? Oh, hi, Mom. Nothing. Just hanging out with Isabella. What’s up?”

  Isabella sat up, her heart pounding. Oh-em-gee! What is wrong with you, Isabella? That’s Ty. Your friend. He does not want to kiss you. What is wrong with you that you’re even thinking about kissing him? It’s not bad enough you’re dealing with a family curse. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  “Yeah, okay, Mom. I’ve taken the roast out of the freezer and put it on the bottom shelf of the fridge. Yes, Mom. Mom! You asked me to do it, and I did it. Geez!” Ty looked at Isabella and rolled his eyes. He mouthed, My mother is nuts! and Isabella laughed.

  “Mom! Yes, I put paper towels under it so it doesn’t make a mess. Okay? Gotta go. Isabella and I are going fishing. Yeah, down at the bridge. Since when? We’re bored, Mom. Gotta do something for fun around here. No, I’ll bait the hooks for her. Yeah, okay. Gotta go. Bye.” He hung up the phone and shook his head.

  “She is insane. She tells me to do something. I do it. But can she accept it? No! She has to tell me again and again how important it is that I do it right. Sheesh!” Isabella looked at him, searching his face for something…for what she didn’t even know.

  “Fishing? We’re going fishing?”

  “Might as well,” he told her, “nothing else to do around here. I’ll bait the hooks like I told my mom I would. Oh, and Isabella?”

  “Yes?”

  “No eating the fish until we’ve cleaned them. Please?”

  Isabella sighed. “Very funny, Ty. Very funny.”

  Ty laughed. “I thought so! C’mon. You can use my father’s rod—he apparently didn’t need it in his new life, because he left it behind.”

  Hmm, Isabella thought, going fishing instead of talking about what just happened. That figures. She sighed and rearranged the pillows on the sofa. Ty looked at her briefly, then looked away.

  So they retrieved the fishing gear from Ty’s garage and made their way to the bridge without speaking, two friends who were both confused about what the other might be feeling.

  Eleven: On the Road

  TUESDAY CAME QUICKLY, for which Isabella was grateful. Things were weird with Ty lately. Instead of talking about things, Ty had suggested they go fishing. Fishing! As if it wasn’t the grossest thing in the world.

  “Isabella! Turn the music down so you can hear me!” her mother scolded. “I asked you if you wanted to stop for something for lunch!”

  Isabella removed her earbuds. “Sorry, Mom. No, don’t stop anywhere. I’m not hungry, and I really, really want to get to New York.”

  “It’s an eleven or twelve-hour trip regardless, hon; we have to eat sometime.” She wrinkled into a frown. “ Isabella,” she asked with concern, “is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Huh?” Isabella suddenly felt nauseated. “Um…what would I want to tell you, Mom?” She hadn’t counted on the fact that all these hours in the car provided her mother with the perfect opportunity to interrogate her.

  “You and Ty? What’s going on between you two?”

  Isabella swallowed hard, more unable than unwilling to answer the question and relieved that it was her mother’s only concern. “Um, what do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, Isabella. You and Tyson have been so close, but recently you seem to have…I don’t know…issues. Are you guys okay?”

  Isabella felt her heart rate return to normal. “Sure, Mom, we’re great. We’re fine. He’s a guy—and sometimes he gets moody, you know? But we’re cool…”

  “Yeah, okay,” Luci told her, sounding doubtful, “if you say so. Well, you may not be hungry, missy, but I’m starving. So if you have no preferences, I’m gonna pick…”

  Isabella grinned, glad the subject had changed. “No burgers. Anything but burgers!”

  A quick lunch stop and the LaFelini women were on the road again. Route 13 wasn’t too crowded, so Luci relaxed a little behind the wheel and put the car in cruise. Isabella pushed her earbuds into place and kicked back to a Taylor Swift song. She hated to admit it, but country music had grown on her. Imagine! A city girl loving country music! Well, stranger things had happened—like her turning into a cat, for example!

  Somewhere into Delaware, Isabella stopped fighting sleep. What are you worried about? It’s not like you’re gonna turn into a cat or anything. Ty has the ring. On a cable around his neck. It’s safe. You’re safe. Just relax…and she drifted off to sleep.

  Isabella awoke with a start. At first, she was afraid that the worst had happened. She cautiously opened her eyes to see her hands in front of her. No paws. Phew. She realized that the bump that had startled her awake was the car getting on the Cape May ferry. The ferry! Mmmm, Isabella thought as she willed herself to awaken fully, almost home! Yes! She was looking forward to seeing Sierra and all her friends, but truth be told, the person she most wanted to see was Nonna Rose. Even though she and Ty had figured out that the ring was the catalyst for her transformations, she still wanted to talk to her about the curse. Nonna Rose will have the answers, she told herself. And maybe she can help me use this to my advantage. That TV detective Mom watches is always talking about his condition being a blessing and a curse. Maybe I can figure out how to make this curse a blessing!

  ISABELLA WINCED AS Nonna Rose pinched her cheek. “Bella, bella bambina,” the old woman murmured. Beautiful, beautiful child. Nonna Rose finally released her cheek, only to pat it. Twice. Hard. Isabella fought the urge to say something—after all, she needed Nonna Rose. She wasn’t going to do anything to alienate her, so she threw her arms around her great-grandmother’s neck.

  “So good to see you, Nonna!”

  “Dice in italiano, per favore,” the old woman prompted. Say it in Italian, please.

  Isabella grimaced. Her Italian was bad, at best. As it was, she hadn’t spoken any Italian in the seven months she had lived in North Carolina. “Um,” she hesitated, “è bella ved…”

  “Bello,” Nonna Rose interrupted.

  “Bello,” Isabella corrected herself, “ved…um,...vedere voi, Nonna.” She knew enough, at least, to use the formal version of vedere, the verb to see. Italian had rules—you had to remember to whom you were speaking. You didn’t use the same form with a friend as you would with an older person or someone you didn’t know well.

  The old woman beamed with pleasure, even though Isabella knew that her pronunciation had been off. “Bella, bella Isabella!” Isabella braced herself for the inevitable pinch, but Nonno Arturo saved the day.

  “Bella! Che bella bambina!” What a beautiful child!

  “No-no!” Isabella squealed, hugging the old man tightly. ‘No-no’ was Isabella’s pet name for her great-grandfather—from back in the day when she was little and couldn’t quite pronounce ‘nonno’. She took a step back and looked at him closely. Had she grown or had he shrunk?

  Nonno Arturo reached up and took her face in his hands, and unlike his wife, he gently caressed her cheeks. “Come sei stato, bella?” How have you been, beautiful?

  “Great, No-no,” she lied. “How have you been?”

  Nonno was generous and didn’t ask her to repeat her question in Italian. “Good, beautiful Isabella. Good for an old man.”

  “Oh, No-no, you’re not old. You’ll never be old,” she lied again. She had forgotten how much she loved her great grandparents. Nonno hugged her tightly, and Isabella nuzzled his neck, inhaling an odd mixture of Old Spice and garlic. “Ti amo tanto, No-no,” Isabella told him. “I love you so much!”

  “So come,” Nonno told her in his Italian-English mix, gesturing for her to sit down, “sedersi and tell the old man about Nord Carolina!”

  So omitting only the story of her odd transformations, Isabella told Nonno Arturo all about Ty, her school, the water, the weather, and how much she had missed him but also how much she had come to love living in the south. And every word she spoke was true, and every word made her feel warm inside—as she realized for the first time in a very long time that she was a very l
ucky girl.

  Twelve: Isabella Takes New York

  “GOOD MORNING, SLEEPYHEAD,” Luci greeted Isabella the next morning. “It’s nearly ten! I know we’re on vacation, but…”

  Isabella yawned and poured herself a glass of orange juice. “I know, Mom. I really didn’t mean to sleep in, but that bed was so comfortable…why is it that I sleep better here than in North Carolina?”

  Luci laughed a little. “I don’t know, hon. Maybe you’re just comfortable here at Gram and Grandpa’s. Maybe it’s being back in the city. Maybe you were just tired from being on the road all day yesterday?”

  Isabella smiled. “Maybe all of the above!” Maybe the fact that I know I’m not gonna turn into a cat while I’m here, she told herself. “What are we doing today, Mom?”

  “Well, I thought maybe we’d go into the city. What do you think? Sound like fun? Or did you want to go see Sierra and the girls?”

  “See isn’t home today; she’s visiting her father out on Montauk. I think shopping could be fun…are we going to Bloomies? And to Macy’s? And to Sak’s?”

  Luci laughed. “Oh, boy…I have the distinct impression that this afternoon is going to cost me some money!”

  “Let’s take the grandmas along—they’ll help!”

  Luci laughed again. “You are such a sneaky creature, Isabella Rose LaFelini! Your poor grandmothers! Perhaps someone should warn them?”

  Now it was Isabella’s turn to laugh. “Don’t warn ‘em. Maybe they’ll buy you something, too, Mom!”

  Luci just shook her head and finished her coffee. “Never a dull moment with you, my darling girl!” She laughed. She had no idea how exciting the day was going to be.

  AS THE FOUR LaFelini women exited the subway near Macy’s, Isabella looked up with delight. “Aren’t you afraid of looking like a tourist?” her mother whispered teasingly.

  Isabella continued looking skyward. “Can’t help it, Mom. I have missed this place so much! Look, the Empire State Building! Can we go up there? Please?”