Page 6 of Mafia Bride
Zia scoffs, then punches the dough.
“I tell you what,” I say. “I’ll spend an hour working through the reading list, then I’ll come help.” I take a deep breath and hold it, waiting to see if my compromise sticks. I don’t like them making decisions for me, but I hate watching them argue more. Maybe they’ll just send me back to bed. My mind can return to Greece and pretend none of this ever happened.
The doorbell rings, but it’s just a courtesy. Zia’s younger sister, Donna, comes right in with her three kids.
With the help coming through the door, I figured Zia lost the fight. But Zio frowns deep again, then mops his head with a handkerchief.
“Fine, Violetta. You work a little and then you help.”
He shoots a look at Zia that I can’t quite decipher and disappears into the folds of the house. With a floury hand, Zia pats my cheek gently and turns her attention to the dough.
Feeling like a bocce ball knocked against the wall, I try to slink off, but my tiniest cousin, Tina, catches me in the hall.
“Vee-oh-letta!” she cries in the squeak of a four-year-old as her patent leather Mary Janes clack on the wood floor, then clop the rug.
“I made a horse for you!” She holds up a sheet of paper with a drawing of a blue, four-legged creature with red spots.
“Wow,” I say, kneeling to take it. “It looks exactly like the horse I took you riding on for your birthday!”
“Yes!” Tina claps. “That’s her! Freckles!”
“Oh my God,” her thirteen-year-old sister Elettra says with crossed arms. “It looks like a trash bag on sticks.”
I swat the teen’s calf, noticing the stockings and dressy shoes.
“It does not,” I say to Tina. “Can I keep this?”
“I want to make it better.” She snaps the paper away and runs to the TV room where her aunt keeps her crayons.
“Hey.” I stand up as Elettra’s trying to storm away. “She’s little. Why can’t you be nice?”
“Because I’m in this dumb dress,” she whispers angrily. “And these shoes are killing me.”
“Why are you guys still dressed up from church?”
“I. Don’t. Know,” Elettra snaps, then stomps into the kitchen like a warrior sent to fight an injustice her generals won’t even define.
* * *
Medical nonfic is agony.I can barely concentrate because I keep circling back to the argument between my aunt and uncle. My precious Z’s. Zio’s never been down my throat to study before, and it was never a problem for me to help in the kitchen.
Surgical processes I memorized the second I read them the first time look like gobbledygook on the page while I try to work out what just went on. The doorbell rings as people arrive. The usual suspects for Christmas or Easter, but not a random Sunday. Must be one of those lucky weeks everyone’s around.
At the end of the hour, I close my book and decide surgery is easier to understand than human relationships.
I’m about to go down when I remember how Elettra and Tina are dressed. I might not know why they’re staying in their Sunday shoes, but I can’t go down there unshowered in sweatpants and sock feet.
After a shower, I rifle through my closet, finding a dark pink peasant skirt and white button-front shirt. I put them on and check the mirror. My friends would laugh at this getup, and Mr. Dreamy Blue Eyes—who is definitely out there somewhere—wouldn’t take a second glance at me looking like this. I undo the second button of my shirt to show a hint of white cotton bra. I look a little like a movie star in that plunging neckline and decide my skirt’s long enough to skip stockings.
I slip on a pair of white sandals and go downstairs, where the entire extended family has packed into the house. Gross smoke from stubby cigars seeps from under the door to Zio’s study, curling around deep conversations about important things. Every woman in our family, from tiny cousin Tina to ancient Nana Angelina, hums between the two kitchens, carrying, stirring, chopping. Between gossiping and instruction on proper cooking technique, Zia’s usually the head of a well-practiced surgical team, but she seems more subdued today, and the players aren’t at their Sunday chattiest.
As soon as I join them, it goes quiet.
“Will you miss school?” Zia breaks the silence.
“Probably not.” I smile tightly, ever aware they are all staring. “It’s been so busy. I had like a million study groups this week and I bet I could sleep until grades come in.”
My friends and I didn’t get much studying done in group, but it felt like the right thing to say, with everyone treating me like a goldfish in a tiny bowl.
