Page 7 of Mafia Queen
“I wore that scapular from first grade to third,” I remind the tabletop statue of the Virgin, but not for her sake, for my own.
My zia made me wear it under my shirt. I was orphaned in a new country where I didn’t speak the language, and the feel of the brown felt was a comfort. I could see the ribbons and matchbook-sized rectangles under the thin white cotton shirts of the other kids at school. This was a key to making me feel as if I belonged, and for a few years, I thought I wanted to be a nun. Not out of devotion to the Church or love for God, but because—in my new world of St. Anselm’s—they had all the power, and they wielded it like a coven of psychopaths.
This says more about me than it ever did about them.
“Gia should have been a nun,” I tell myself, rubbing away a last itch from my chin.
I had been stolen from my life, and Gia had wiped away my tears so she could put eye shadow on me. She held up the train of my dress and placed the veil over my face so I could walk into Hell blind.
With her cheerful friendship, she’d somehow lulled me into compliance. I’m smarter this time. Tougher. So much fucking older.
Santino may be dead, but I can still make him proud.
I pick up the Virgin statue and slam it against the little stained-glass window. Our Lady of Plaster smashes against the tight lead web between the glass pieces, having no effect on the window itself, but magically transmutating into Our Lady of Ruins.
My disappointment is like a shot of adrenaline, and it’s just as short-lived. I pick up a shard and run it against the length of my finger.
Sharp.
The Virgin might save me after all.
I open the top drawer of the cabinet and sweep the pieces and dust into it, then notice a long, clear plastic sleeve. Taking it out, I turn it over and laugh to myself.
It’s ridiculously convenient, almost magical, that there should be a sleeve full of scapulars with a white SKU sticker proving they were shipped directly from the Sisters of Our Lady of Carmel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA.
Well, if I’m going to die today, there’s no harm in hedging my bets.
I slide one out. A doubled brown ribbon about a foot long connects two rectangles. One has a picture of Mary sewn on, the other with the pale-skinned, blue-eyed Jesus with a thorny, glowing heart in his chest. The brown felt side has a little pocket for a medal that’s going to stay empty right now. I loop the ribbon around my neck, under my shirt, placing the felt side against my skin.
There’s a click from the door, and I quickly shut the drawer, putting the cabinet to my back so the missing statue isn’t noticed.
It’s Gia again.
“It’s a beautiful day,” she says, sliding my veil off the chair. “Did I interrupt something?”
“Just praying.”
Either she knows I’m lying or she’s not impressed by my devotion.
“Cool.” She holds up the rectangle of lace, but all I can see is the ring. “Do you want me to pin this on, or are you going to let it just drape? Either way it’ll cover…” With her nose wrinkled, she draws a circle around her own eye.
“The eye that Damiano hit so hard it’s swollen shut?”
“You’ll think that’s funny when you see him.” She already thinks it’s funny. “You stuck a pin in his eye.”
“I did.” I indicate the veil. “Is this the one you brought from Naples?”
“No,” she scoffs. “That’s formywedding, wheneverthatis. My mother’s over on the other side with all that stuff. This is the one you had on when you married Santino.”
I’m not sure if the repeat use is meant as a kindness or an insult, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of either gratitude or anger.
“Drape is fine,” I say.
She holds out the fabric for me to take, but I have a razor-sharp shard in my fist. I bow so she can lay it over my head. When I look up, I have the same view through the netting as I had when I woke up in the chair, except now the light’s behind me and I can see the woman I destroyed everything to save. She looks just fine… as if she never needed to be rescued. All she needed was a little time to figure out how to fuck someone over before she got fucked.
“No dress this time.” She shrugs.
“You held my train.”
