The Possibilities of Sainthood

by Donna Freitas

  She wore the widow’s black like a suit of protective armor.

  I flipped the light on in the storeroom, and propped the door open with a big bag of rice. The boxes from the new shipment of vegetables and fruits were piled high in the back corner—eggplant, tomatoes, broccoli, apples from the local orchard. It would take at least two hours to put everything out into the baskets and the open-air refrigerator that lined the produce aisle, which led me to wonder if, when I was named the first living saint in Catholic history, I was still going to have to arrange tomatoes and ring up spinach pies. Though I couldn’t imagine not working at the market, since I also couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t been a part of my life.

  I heaved the boxes marked “McIntosh” and “Tomatoes on the vine” onto a dolly and maneuvered it out the door and over to the produce aisle. The tomatoes smelled good. As soon as I opened the first box I grabbed one off the top and bit into it, careful not to let the juice drip onto the floor, or, worse, down my sweater. I began emptying the clusters onto the “Tomatoes, 2.99 per lb.” display with my free hand. There were a few perks working at the family market, eating all the yummy food being number one.

  “Your friend Michael was here about a half hour ago, Antonia,” Gram said, shuffling her way into view. “You just missed him. I meant to mention it before, but I don’t know what happened. I should have written it down. He asked for manicotti, but I think he was really looking for you,” she said, starting to giggle. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything to your mother.”

  “Um, thanks, Gram,” I said, watching as she shuffled back out of sight. I noticed she was wearing bedroom slippers and wondered if she couldn’t find her shoes.

  The bell by the front door jingled, signaling a customer’s arrival, and several voices began speaking at once. Taking another bite out of my tomato, I stopped stocking and listened.

  “How nice to see you, Nicoletta,” my mother said in her singsongy, welcome-to-Labella’s voice, and I gasped, almost choking on the little tomato seeds that flew down the back of my throat. I tried not to cough.

  “Nice to see you, too, Amalia,” said the mystery woman . . .

  . . . who totally sounded like . . .

  “You remember my son, of course.”

  Son? Did she say “son”? Was it possible he was here?

  “How are you, Andrew?”

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Labella,” said a deep male voice. I crouched down to see through the space between the vegetable baskets and the rows of imported pasta on the other side of the aisle, which gave me a perfect view of the counter . . . and . . .

  OHMIGOSH. It was definitely HIM. THE LOVE OF MY LIFE WAS IN THE MARKET. Andy Rotellini was in the store shopping with his mother! St. Leonard was on a roll today. I already couldn’t wait to tell Maria that Andy was virtually in my room on my bed! Well, technically, he was underneath my room and my bed, but still. From my discreet viewing window I could also confirm that, yes, Andy was still as tall, dark, and gorgeous as I remembered. If he hadn’t been talking, right at that very moment, to both his mother and mine, it would’ve been hard to stop myself from going right up to him and running my hand through his soft, curly hair and finding out if that perfect olive skin felt as good as it looked. And those eyes! How could I keep myself from staring into those big brown pools of perfection, hoping that he might grace me with that brilliant smile I’d loved from the moment I’d first seen it?

  Though he didn’t smile often. Andy was a bit of a brooder, but I didn’t care.

  He could brood with me any day.

  The first time I saw Andy he was playing baseball in the park down the street. It was just before I started ninth grade at HA, one of the last days of summer. I stood outside the fence watching him pitch. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. It was love at first sight. Well, at least on my end. I found out later that his family had moved in a few blocks away on Atwells Avenue, just a quick walk from the market. His mother came into the store all the time for groceries, spinach pies, and occasionally some pasta. Not that I kept track. But usually without her son.

  Can you believe that Andy Rotellini was practically sitting on my bed making out with me? At least in my imagination?

  Breathe, Antonia.

  “Why don’t you come into the back and we’ll sit and talk,” my mother was saying to Mrs. Rotellini and Andy. “Antonia? Where are you? I need you to come watch the register, please.”

  “Oww,” I exclaimed, so startled when she outed me that I banged my head on the wooden shelf above the vegetable basket.

  “Antonia?”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I said, throwing my half-eaten tomato into the empty box. I quickly rolled up my skirt, took a deep breath, and walked down the aisle mustering as much poise and sexiness as a nervous girl about to see her beloved could.

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Rotellini,” I said in my best nonchalant voice, smiling my biggest smile, acting like I was surprised to see her.

  “Hello, Antonia,” she said without much interest, clearly unaware that she was talking to her future daughter-in-law.

  “Hi, Andy,” I added, worrying that with just two words he’d be able to detect my eagerness and the fact that I was practically drooling on behalf of his perfect beauty.

  “Hey,” he answered, nodding.

  Okay. Andy wasn’t a man of many words. But so what? He was also with his mother, so it wasn’t like we were in the best situation for a major conversation, much less any flirting. I waited for him to say something else but he didn’t and my mother was already shepherding everyone into the back room, which I thought was odd, but I wasn’t about to complain.

  Because ANDY ROTELLINI WAS IN THE MARKET!

  Maybe I’ll catch him on the way out, I thought and reached under the counter to retrieve my backpack to review for biology, resisting the urge to scribble away more petitions in my Saint Diary. And while Mom conversed with my future husband about who knows what, I found out why studying genetics could be useful. By reading the assigned chapter, I learned that when Andy and I procreated someday we would have children with curly hair because curly hair is a dominant-gene trait, with a capital C. I played with one of my long twists out of habit, which then made me wonder if when the Vatican made me a saint they would make me cut my hair short. This would be unfortunate. I’d tried short hair in the past and it made me look like a poodle, and I doubted Andy would go for a girl who looked like a poodle.

  It was difficult to concentrate with Andy, his mother, and my mother having a private discussion so close by. The clock said five p.m. and I still had to put out the rest of the produce, organize the storeroom, and handle Mrs. Bevalaqua’s delivery, and Mr. Romanelli’s, too. It would be a long night, since grocery delivery was never a matter of leaving orders and taking off. With Mrs. B I always unpacked everything and did all the dishes, and then with Mr. Romanelli, we sat and looked at pictures of his kids and grandkids every time I visited. He never remembered that I’d looked through his photo albums, like, a gazillion times now.

  The bell attached to the door jingled again. I glanced up and all thoughts of Andy Rotellini in the back room disappeared in an instant. (Well, almost all of them.) I watched, open-mouthed, as our new customer ambled slowly, carefully, toward the counter, her gray hair pinned up neatly in a bun, elegant dress gloves covering her delicate hands.

  “Hello, Antonia,” she said, her eyes sparkling, and that familiar, warm smile spreading wide across her face.

  “Mrs. Bevalaqua! You’re . . . you’re . . .” I said, trying to find the words. It wasn’t that I was surprised to see Mrs. Bevalaqua—she’d occasionally rolled her way down to the store on her own in the past. But, it was just, her entrance, I mean, it was almost, I don’t know . . .

  A miracle?

  She was . . . walking.

  No. It wasn’t possible. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear whatever was making me see this illusion. But the illusion didn’t go away.

  It was real.

/>   Mrs. Bevalaqua was walking!

  “St. Sebastian,” I whispered, conjuring with wonder that familiar golden image of the boy with all the arrows in my mind. “Did you do this, Sebastian? Did you?” I asked, my eyes glancing toward heaven.

  “What was that, honey?” Mrs. Bevalaqua asked when she arrived at the register.

  “Nothing,” I said, blinking away tears. I walked out from behind the counter to take in the vision that was Mrs. Bevalaqua, standing before me. “Mom,” I called out, no longer concerned about who my mother was talking to or what they might be discussing. “Mom? Gram? I think you’d better come out here! There’s someone here to see us!”

  “It’s been so strange, Antonia.” Mrs. Bevalaqua’s voice was matter-of-fact, as if old women confined for decades to wheelchairs got up and walked every day. “Ever since you gave me that kiss on the cheek this morning—it made my toes start tingling and then my legs, and, well, I won’t bore you with all the details, but here I am. Don’t just stand there now. I won’t break, I don’t think.”

  “I’m sure you won’t,” I said, throwing my arms around her, and thinking, as we stood there together, that the world was indeed a miraculous place.

  7

  ANDY IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND, AND SEVEN ANGELS GUARD US FROM PREDATORY BOYS IN THE HA–BISHOP FRANCIS PARKING LOT

  The week passed quickly and soon it was Friday morning, the day before the great fig-tree burying. I was on my way to meet Maria by her car in the parking lot, near the big marble angel statue of St. Gabriel. There were seven statues in all, each representing the seven archangels—Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Raguel, Sariel, and even the fallen Lucifer—forming a kind of protective wall between HA and Bishop Francis, as if the nuns who founded our school were trying to ward off the boys with God’s army.

  But no army, godly or otherwise, could scare me at the moment. I was on cloud nine about the week’s two biggest events.

  The whole neighborhood was buzzing about Mrs. Bevalaqua’s miraculous healing. She’d been to visit the store again last night, at which point Mom, Gram, Mrs. B, and I celebrated her cure with tiny glasses of limoncello. Though Mrs. B kept insisting on toasting me. For some reason she associated that peck on the cheek with the beginning of her recovery. I kept telling her that if we were going to toast anybody it should be St. Sebastian, since he was the man to thank for the miracle. But Mrs. B wouldn’t hear of it and Mom kept shushing me and saying I needed to stop contradicting my elders.

  Second only to Mrs. Bevalaqua’s recovery was the thrilling news that Mom had hired Andy Rotellini as a stock boy (!!!), proving, yet again, that the saints were making miracles happen all the time.

  “Antonia, you need a serious uniform adjustment,” Maria said the second I arrived. She was staring at my kneesocks. As usual, Maria was the picture of Catholic Girl Hotness and probably didn’t even realize it. No wonder so many guys were in love with her. Little did they know we were, like, the last two surviving virgins at Holy Angels.

  “Oh, right, thanks,” I said, kicking off my loafers so I could take off my socks. “Mom’s been giving me such a hard time about the uniform lately. She’s been lurking by the door every morning, waiting to pounce. Gram thinks it’s hilarious.”

  “Your grandmother would probably let you out naked if your mom wasn’t around,” Maria said, laughing.

  “Yeah. Gram’s a little crazy.”

  “A little? She hid a coffeepot in your underwear drawer last week.”

  “She just put it down and forgot about it,” I said in Gram’s defense.

  “In your underwear drawer? Why did she have a coffeepot in your room anyway?”

  “I really don’t know, Maria,” I said, “but can we change the subject to more important topics? Like the fact that aside from Miraculous Monday, there have been zero Andy Rotellini sightings and I am too scared to ask my mother what his start date is because I don’t want her to get suspicious. It’s been three whole days.”

  “Don’t worry. Soon you’ll be seeing Andy on a regular basis.”

  “I know,” I said dreamily. “But when? And can I just say one more time that he looked so hot Monday night that I thought I might die.”

  “I am willing to listen as many times as you need to tell me.” Maria is truly the best kind of best friend.

  “Andy had on his white Bishop Francis oxford, which totally set off his gorgeous, dark skin, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Well, except to notice how good his butt looked in the jeans he was wearing. And, he was standing right underneath my bed, Maria. If only I could have gotten him upstairs,” I added, wistful. “Monday night marked the first time that Andy and I moved beyond exchanging mutual ‘heys.’ ”

  “An important occasion, I agree,” Maria said.

  Mrs. Bevalaqua couldn’t have picked a better moment to get miraculously cured and show up at the market. Once everyone heard me yelling and came to see what the fuss was about, it got a little chaotic with all the excitement and celebrating. Ma and Mrs. Rotellini were taking turns hugging Mrs. B and saying loud prayers of thanks to Jesus (wrong guy if you asked me—Sebastian was clearly the miracle worker here), and then Mom pulled out a bottle of brandy. This allowed Andy and me the opportunity for meaningful conversation, since no one was offering us any brandy.

  “Hey, Antonia,” he’d said in his sexy voice. “Where do I find the tomatoes that come in the yellow cans?”

  “The San Marzanos, you mean?” My voice was ever so calm. But I have to add: I thought it was a little strange that Andy was worried about tomatoes when we were, at that very moment, witnessing what might be the greatest miracle of the twenty-first century, not to mention the fact that this was his first time alone with the future love of his life: me.

  Meanwhile, brandy snifters were clinking in the background. Then Andy began walking toward me, at which point I thought to myself, NOW! KISS ME NOW OUT OF JOY FOR MRS. B! QUICK, while Ma and everyone are getting DRUNK!

  He didn’t, though. Instead he said, “Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that’s what I want. My mother’s making a sauce. How many, do you think? I don’t really want to bother her right now.” He gestured at the brandy-snifting foursome to explain his reluctance before turning his giant brown eyes back to me.

  “Two of the big cans or three of the smaller ones,” I answered, dazzled by his stare but still confused why we were talking about groceries when there were so many other interesting things happening around us. “There is a huge tower of San Marzanos in the far-right aisle, on the left, toward the middle. You can’t miss them.” Of course, inside I was still screaming, KISS ME! KISS ME! DO SOMETHING ROMANTIC FOR ST. JUDE’S SAKE!

  “Great, thanks,” Andy said, walking away, luckily not having heard a word of anything I was thinking. He seemed totally unmoved by the lightning storm of emotion behind us. Maybe Andy was the quiet, silent type on the surface, but deep and passionate underneath?

  “Earth to Antonia,” Maria said, snapping me out of my daydream. “Let’s figure out how you can take advantage of the serendipitous opportunity your mother just handed you by hiring Andy.”

  As Maria speculated that Andy Rotellini was sure to fall in love with me in aisle 3, where the light falls in such a way that it gives everyone an angelic glow, and soon we would be going on double dates with her and John, out of the corner of my eye I noticed Hilary, Angela, and Lila a few cars away, drooling over the two hockey-player seniors from Bishop Francis that were chatting them up. When they saw me watching, they paused long enough to smile and wave, but soon turned their full attention back to the guys. Girls at HA died for Bishop Francis hockey players. Angela and Lila were both cheerleaders, and I was sure, at the moment, they were envisioning themselves proudly wearing letter jackets to the season opener this coming weekend. I would of course miss the game because of the fig-tree-burying extravaganza. Some HA girls, like Angela and Lila, were what Maria and I called “Seasonal.” Well, really they were Aspiring Seasonals.

  Defini
tion of a “Seasonal” Catholic Schoolgirl

  Seasonal girls date guys according to the current sports season. For example, you date the soccer star during soccer season, the hockey star during the winter, the best baseball pitcher during spring. Then you always have a game to go to, a guy to root for, a letter jacket to wear with the appropriate star-player-guy’s name on it while you’re oohing and aahing him in the stands. Some girls take it even further and try to find a guy who will cover them for more than one season, meaning he’s a superathlete and plays both soccer and hockey, or football and baseball (but then those winter months are really a drag).

  I know what you are thinking: not very feminist of us to be revolving our love lives around our ability to say “Go, sweetie!” from the sidelines at a game, but hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t make the rules. I’m just the messenger.

  I suspected that Lila had better karma for success in the Seasonal Dating department since Angela had the misfortune of being named after the Patron Saint Against Sexual Temptation, which was almost as bad as being named after the Patron Saint of Teenage Purity. Of course, with my record I’d be lucky to date a guy on the chess team. Maybe I should try being Off Seasonal, and go after the guy before the season started so there would be less competition. Like now, when we were a full two seasons before baseball, Andy’s sport. When the season began he would become far more desirable and every girl I knew would be watching him pitch at games, and the team would start wearing those ugly satin baseball jackets that all the girls dream of snagging.