The Possibilities of Sainthood

by Donna Freitas

  “And you just assumed I was one of those girls.”

  “Your loss, Antonia.”

  “My loss?” I felt dizzy with disappointment. It wasn’t supposed to be like this! All those romantic scenarios I’d imagined for years—all for nothing. All for a guy who clearly had never before and still did not see or respect me for who I really was, who regarded me as just one of the “plenty of other girls lining up” to be with him. What I had interpreted as mysterious, shy, and quiet was really just self-importance and vapidity.

  “You just missed out on the best thing you could ever hope for, Andy Rotellini. Make sure to cross me off your girls-in-waiting lineup,” I spat, dashing out of the storeroom and back up the stairs.

  It was suddenly clear what I needed to do, what must be done. I’d had a vision—maybe from God, maybe from bumping my head against that shelf of canned artichokes after shoving Andy Rotellini away—regardless, it didn’t matter. My mind was racing, my body urged on by a new sense of mission: to protect unkissed girls everywhere from heartbreaking scenarios like the one I was just subjected to by the now FORMER love of my life, Andy Rotellini.

  Stupid, horny St. Augustine. I took the stairs two at a time.

  I had pressing Vatican business to attend to.

  18

  I DRAFT AN EMERGENCY SAINT PROPOSAL, AND GET IN GRAM’S CAR, RISKING LIFE AND LIMB

  “What took you so long? And where’s the bag of flour?”

  I dashed through the flurry of activity in the kitchen, ignoring my mother’s confusion, her protests, and the concerned look from Gram, who must have noticed my disheveled state.

  “Antonia?” Gram asked, worried.

  “Antonia!” My mother yelled, angry.

  When I reached my room I threw open the door, and let it slam shut behind me. I turned the lock. Grabbing a pen, paper, and my Saint Diary from the nightstand, I flung myself onto my bed, took a deep breath, and tried to calm down. I didn’t know whether to sob or be thankful I’d found out that Andy Rotellini was a total mascalzone (that means “jerk-face” in Italian, more or less) before two more years of loving devotion from yours truly, or, even worse—marriage! I’d wasted all this time on a guy who had to be THE LEAST ROMANTIC PERSON IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

  Our love affair was over before it even started.

  “You come out now, Antonia Lucia Labella!” My mother was banging on the door with her fist.

  “Leave me alone,” I shouted. For once I didn’t care if she was mad. I had more important things to think about.

  “Antonia!”

  “Go AWAY!”

  “She used to be such a good girl when she was small.” My mother was grumbling loud enough that I could hear her through the door. “They grow up and they are like aliens.”

  Who in the world thought boob-kissing a girl before mouth-kissing her was acceptable? Other than Andy Rotellini, the most obvious person who came to mind was St. Augustine! You’d think the former fourth-century Don Juan would know better—what women liked and all. When I mentioned that business about “amorous attention” and wanting to see Andy before me “ready to pounce” in all my petitions, I didn’t mean it literally. All I wanted was a little kiss. Clearly, Augustine was not the saint to petition for all your kissing needs. There wasn’t any saint for this sort of thing—not yet, at least—which was exactly why what I was about to propose to the Vatican was essential to the well-being of Catholic girls like me the world over. And probably the boys, too.

  I picked up my pen and began to write:

  Vatican Committee on Sainthood

  Vatican City

  Rome, Italy

  December 9

  To Whom It May Concern (ideally the Pope if he’s available):

  I’m writing to inform you of a grave oversight in the area of patron saint specializations, to replace my earlier letter this month about a Patron Saint of People Who Make Pasta, which I ask that you just file away for the time being. Though this is not to say that pasta making isn’t important, since I, of all people, daughter of the most famous pasta maker in the state of Rhode Island, should know (that’s Labella’s Pasta, in case you were wondering or want to place an order since we ship everywhere). But there are more pressing matters at hand than pasta. Dire even!

  Like the fact that, as yet, there is no Patron Saint of the Kiss, and, to be more specific, the First Kiss! I ask you: how is this possible? Young Catholic girls and boys everywhere are in DANGER, not only because of the Vatican’s general need of a reality check in all matters teen-related (I mean, can you be more out of touch about us? Please!), but specifically with regard to your total lack of foresight in the area of kissing. Let me tell you what happens when there is no Patron Saint of Kissing, especially for us kissing virgins. I mean, not that I am one or anything—I’ve kissed plenty of boys in my day. Though, not to say that I overdo it either—I don’t want you to think I’m unchaste or something—but anyway. As a result of this deficiency, teenagers, who shall remain nameless to protect their identity, might possibly be praying to saints whose specialization is not kissing, and sources tell me that when this happens, it’s like intercessions gone haywire! Girls are getting attacked left and right. Attempts to kiss and then some, if you know what I mean, are made by overzealous boys. And this, I say, is a terrible sin!

  Lord knows, it is virtually impossible to get yourself kissed in general without some heavenly intervention, and then before you know it, a little prayer here, a little prayer there, to saints who clearly are not trained in the art of kiss intercession, and suddenly you are in big trouble. I know you might be thinking, “Hmmm. We are not in support of premarital kissing because that has to do with the big S word,” but listen, it’s not like I’m proposing a Patron Saint of Losing Your Virginity. Kissing is about as innocent as you can get. I mean, when did a little tongue hurt anybody? When? Only when it’s misdirected, that’s when! Not that I would know personally, but this is what I have heard from others.

  And finally, this is a matter of teenage purity! Girl teenage purity especially, because I believe it’s the boys who are most responsible for kissing confusion. And isn’t that your favorite topic? Protecting a girl’s purity? And I, Antonia, being named after the Patron Saint of Teenage Purity herself (well, it was an accident really, the naming thing, since supposedly I was named after Anthony, but my mother didn’t do all her homework on the name thing)—I implore you to realize that naming a Patron Saint of the First Kiss and Kissing is essential to prevent haphazard kissing from becoming rampant in Catholic high schools across America, and I am sure Italy, too! It may already be at crisis levels.

  Thank you for your attention to this matter.

  Blessings,

  Antonia Lucia Labella

  Labella’s Market of Federal Hill

  33 Atwells Avenue

  Providence, RI USA

  saint2b@live.com

  P.S. I humbly offer myself as the ideal candidate to not only become the Patron Saint of the First Kiss and Kissing, but the first ever living saint in Catholic history! Come on, you could use a little good PR these days, if you get what I’m saying. Hope to hear from you soon!

  I folded up the letter and stuffed it inside one of the airmail envelopes I kept in my Saint Diary, carefully sealing the flap. This midmonth change of plans required special action, so I decided to ask Gram for a ride to the post office in her Lincoln Town Car. I’d overnight my letter to the Vatican, special delivery, since tomorrow was a Saturday.

  Desperate situations required desperate measures.

  No thanks to St. Jude, that was for sure.

  “Stupid St. Augustine! You and your lecherous ways,” I said, jumping up from my bed, a new sense of purpose coursing through my veins. “Antonia of Providence, Patron Saint of the First Kiss,” I said, thinking how ironic my new proposal was. I hadn’t even gotten myself kissed yet—for-real kissed, at least—and there I was recommending myself as the Patron Saint of Kissing. Ha!

  Hi
dden in the back of the drawer in my vanity was a single tube of lipstick in a deep shade of red. Even though it was against my mother’s rules, I was feeling bold and decided to put some on. A Patron Saint of the First Kiss would obviously wear lipstick. I found the matching lip liner and carefully drew a thin outline around my mouth, noticing in the mirror how the red color gave my lips a fullness, even a brightness. Maybe girls wore lipstick as a creative way to mark the spot where boys were supposed to kiss, directing them away from other, less appropriate first-kiss places.

  Like, for example, girls generally didn’t apply lipstick in the boob area.

  I threw on my uniform with lightning speed, and took one last look in the mirror, admiring my pouty red lips. I’d shower later, before the guests arrived for the party. It wasn’t as if I had anyone to impress today since Andy Rotellini had fallen from grace big-time, TAKING MY HEART WITH HIM.

  “Grandma!” I yelled, grabbing the letter. By tomorrow morning someone in Rome would be opening my newest appeal—the most urgent one yet. On a whim, I planted a big red kiss over the seal. Satisfied, I headed out the door to find Gram standing in the hall, purse and keys in hand, as if she’d known I needed her help. “The post office and then on to school,” I said.

  “Whatever you need, sweetheart,” she answered, glancing at the letter, nodding her head. She reached up, wiping the corner of my mouth, a red smear staining her fingers. “That’s better.”

  “Thanks, Gram.”

  The two of us swept past my mother, standing infuriated and alone before three unfinished mounds of pasta dough. I was too busy to care, praying Gram would make it to the post office in time.

  Sainthood was calling me.

  19

  MARIA AND I DEBRIEF “THE UNTHINKABLE” AND SHE TELLS ME HER “OTHER IDEAS”

  “He did what? Where?”

  Maria and I were sitting in the school cafeteria at lunch and I was giving her the scoop about The Andy Attack. We were alone at one end of a long Formica-topped table leaning over slices of pizza and Cokes. The buzz of everyone else talking gave us some semblance of privacy.

  “In the storeroom, up against the wall,” I said. “At first I was all, you know, breathless and excited and everything.”

  “Well, yeah. Who wouldn’t be? I remember the first time John was about to kiss me—”

  “Can we please focus?”

  “Yes. Sorry,” she said, wiping away the dreamy look she always got about John. “I’m listening. Undivided.”

  “So there I am, pinned against the wall, in my pajamas, feeling grateful I made the commitment to wear a bra even while sleeping—”

  “You what?”

  “I decided like a month ago that I’d start a twenty-four-hour-a-day bra-wearing campaign in my effort to become more saintly. That part isn’t important, though. The main thing is, THANK AGATHA, Patron Saint of All Things Boob-Related, that I was wearing something underneath my tank top so Andy couldn’t, you know, see or touch anything he wasn’t supposed to.”

  “I thought you said saint specializations having to do with boobs were off-limits.”

  “Only if they have to do with boob enhancement, not boob concealment or boob disorders.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Can I get on with my story, please?”

  “So you’re wearing a bra under your pajamas and Andy has you pinned against the wall . . .”

  “And there’s this box of something behind me—I think it was instant polenta—digging into the back of my legs, so I’m not exactly comfortable. But at the time, I am trying not to care, of course.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So I can feel his breath against my face, he’s so close, and I’m thinking this is it! Andy Rotellini is FINALLY GOING TO KISS ME, so I close my eyes, getting ready for the kiss, even though, you know, it’s not at all how I expected our first kiss to happen, at six-thirty in the morning and all, when I’m covered in flour and have a wicked case of bed-head. But anyway, he has one of his hands touching the skin on my arm and my neck, which at first feels really sexy and good and which I presume means we are headed somewhere romantic, like, you know, he’s going to brush the side of my cheek, like in the movies.”

  “But . . .”

  “But suddenly I realize his hand is not headed anywhere romantic or sweet like my face and neither are his lips! Suddenly one hand is sliding the strap of my tank top off my shoulder while the other is moving YOU KNOW WHERE up under my shirt and his mouth is, like, heading across my chest with absolutely no respect for the presence of my bra, if you know what I mean,” I said, getting upset all over again. “I can’t even say it out loud.”

  “Wow. That’s, um, a bit forward of him.”

  “And then he’s all pressed up against me!”

  “Against the wall?”

  “Yes! Good thing I shoved him before he reached any of his ultimate destinations.”

  “You shoved him?”

  “Yeah. Hard. Right into the boxed capellini. He knocked it right over.”

  “Go, Antonia. He so deserved to be shoved. I’m proud of you for standing up to him like that. What a total and shocking disappointment, though.”

  “My LIPS, Maria! He was supposed to kiss my lips, not my boobs! I mean, who wants her first kiss to be a boob-kiss? I swear to I don’t know what saint, since I’m through with petitioning them for help in this area, it is seriously impossible for me to get kissed.”

  “Obviously Andy just wasn’t the right guy, Antonia,” Maria said. “But there will be somebody who is right. I promise you. As your best friend in the entire world, I swear it will happen and it will be wonderful when it does.”

  “I thought it would feel different, Maria. Having a chance with Andy,” I said with a sigh.

  “I know,” she said with sympathy. “This is hugely unfortunate.”

  “I finally get to the moment I’ve been waiting for,” I continued, picking at the pizza crust, “you know, with Andy standing there looking like he wants me. But he doesn’t really want me, he only wants the body parts of me.” It made me shudder to even think about the whole fiasco. “I obviously didn’t get the saint-kissing-request thing right. First, I pray to celibate Jude, who basically ignores me. Then I petition the horniest known saint in history. I should have known better than to pray to a saint who could barely keep his pants on for something as innocent as a kiss. Of course St. Augustine botched it up.”

  “Hey, lower your voice,” Maria whispered. “Your favorite person just sat down two tables away.”

  “That’s all I need right now.” I sighed, glancing left. “Veronica learning about my Andy disaster. And on the day of the party.”

  “She’s jealous of you, Antonia.”

  “Jealous of what?”

  “More like jealous of who,” Maria said.

  “Michael?”

  “Yeah, Michael. He follows you around like an adoring puppy and Veronica is totally in love with him.” She paused, taking a sip from her Coke. “Hey. Do you think this could have been some sort of revenge on Veronica’s part? You know, like, she told Andy to do all that? Or told him you wanted things to happen like that?”

  “Nope. I am confident this was Augustine’s fault. Who I am currently on the outs with. I may even have to remove his page from my Saint Diary.”

  “At least you tried, Antonia.”

  “I guess. This is also exactly why it was worth the small fortune it cost me to overnight my new proposal for sainthood. I can’t even believe I hadn’t thought of it before. Since”—I paused for dramatic effect—“a Patron Saint of the First Kiss and Kissing is in dire demand.”

  “You waited all this time to spill this crucial new information?”

  “Well, the post-office excursion with Gram took forever, which is why I was late this morning. She drives, like, five miles an hour because she can’t really see that well over the dashboard. My original plan was to tell you everything in the parking lot before school.”

>   “I can’t believe your mother hasn’t taken the keys away yet.”

  “Once we finally got to the post office I found out it cost almost seventy dollars to send a package overnight to Italy and I only had fifty. I knew it would be expensive, but not that bad.” Recalling the painful hit to my savings account made me wince. “Gram offered to cover the difference, but of course she couldn’t find her wallet.”

  “Because she buried it in the yard with the fig trees last weekend?”

  Maria’s comment made me laugh for the first time since the beginning of lunch. I took another bite of my pizza—nowhere near as good as my mother’s. “So anyway, we detour to the bank, and Gram doesn’t have a bank card because she’s convinced people will steal her money through the machine, so we have to wait until eight-thirty when the bank opens so she can withdraw money from the teller. Good thing they know her, since she didn’t have her ID. Meanwhile, I am practically hyperventilating because I am traumatized, dying to talk to you, but knowing I’m going to be late for school, and having an anxiety attack that we are never going to get this overnight delivery in the mail.”

  “Well, you did send it, and it’s over, with Andy, I mean, and now we need to think about you moving on.”

  “Moving on to what?”

  “A new love of your life! The best way to get over one person is to get interested in somebody else,” Maria said as if she was an expert on these matters.

  “Well . . .” I began, but then stopped. Thoughts of Michael entered my mind—his recent nighttime visits, and Maria’s insistence that he respected me, something I may have undervalued in the past. But I pushed them away, reminding myself that we were just friends, and that, besides, he and Veronica had something going on between them. Veronica was the last person I needed to cross right now.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe what happened this morning is a sign, Antonia—which, as you know, is something I almost never do since I’m not at all superstitious and saint-oriented like you are.”