14
“Oh my God,” Joni yowled for what had to be the fourth time since we had gotten out of Mass that morning. “Nonna, that was too much food. How am I supposed to wear my new crop top tonight when I have this pasta belly? I look freaking preggers!”
Because my youngest sister was always good for a bit of whining, the rest of us tended to ignore her. That included my grandmother, who was busy cleaning out the manicotti pan on the other side of the kitchen counter.
It was another Sunday meal at the ramshackle house off Arthur Avenue that my grandparents, Mattias and Sofia Zola, had bought in the spring of 1959, when they had barely been married two years. The paint was peeling on the front steps, the oak floors needed to be refinished, and the old fireplace needed its crumbling masonry repaired, but this would always be Grand Central to the Zola clan in more ways than one, particularly since the six of us had come to live here permanently when we were fourteen, eleven, eight, four, one, and six months old. Only Joni and Marie still remained with Nonna as the rest of us had gradually moved out, but we still came most Sundays to enjoy our grandmother’s homestyle cooking after Mass at Our Redeemer.
Today was different only because Nonna was leaving shortly for a friend’s birthday party. Matthew was also gone on his expedition to Italy with the Ice Queen, as Lea had christened her, leaving the rest of us to gossip while Sofia played with her cousins upstairs.
I smiled when someone screamed “READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!” from what sounded like the second floor, reminding me of similar games I played with my sisters when we were about the same age.
“No one said you have to eat four servings of manicotti, Joni,” Marie said, prompting Joni to stick out her tongue. “Just like no one said you had to quit school again. Do you know how embarrassing it is to tell people my sister is a stripper?”
Marie, only ten months older than Joni, could never resist the opportunity to cut her down a notch. It didn’t help that despite being practically twins and sharing a room until just a few years ago, the two of them were about as opposite as it got. Joni was loud, bright, and spoiled with her big gold earrings and long red nails, but a born flirt who could charm a snake out of its skin. Marie, on the other hand, was about as sharp as a thumbtack when she chose to be, but otherwise tended to fade into the background in her glasses and series of floor-length skirts.
The older two of the Zola sisters just rolled their eyes and went back to looking above the mess, the way older sisters do, as Lea nursed her youngest, Baby Lupe, and Kate just swirled her wine around in her glass.
And then there was me, stuck in the middle, both proverbially and geographically. At least at this table.
“No one said you have to be such a horrible shrew,” Joni retorted. “And it’s go-go dancing at a bar, not stripping.”
“Is there even a difference?” Marie haughtily pushed up her glasses, preparing for Joni’s revenge.
“Mind your own business, Mimi. Just because I don’t dress like I’m Amish, you think I’m a slut.”
“If the shoe fits…”
“Can you two stop for one damn second?” I stood and started collecting plates to bring to Kate, who had gotten up to help Nonna clean up. I’d only helped myself to one small serving since dinner with Xavier loomed that night.
“I don’t know why you have to wear these half-shirts anyway,” our grandmother commented wryly in her thick Neapolitan accent as she emerged from the kitchen, patting her well-sprayed helmet of black hair, and adjusting the cuffs of her tracksuit. “Show your belly all over the city, what does it get you? A trail of men to follow you home?”
“Only if I’m lucky,” Joni snarked with a grin my way. “Didn’t I tell you I got a callback for that audition for Chicago, Nonna? They need to see a little body.”
“Did you really?” I asked as I collected her plate. “Joni, that’s amazing!”
My baby sister preened, flipping her tousled waves over her shoulder and making her feather-shaped earrings twirl. She’d been dancing since she was in diapers, and between all the times she’d failed at school, it was the one thing she had ever been really good at. She had wanted to dance on Broadway since I could remember. I was genuinely proud of her.
“Don’t fall,” Marie sneered.
“Don’t be a shut-in,” Joni cut back.
“Don’t be children,” Lea snapped as she lifted Lupe to her shoulder for a burp.
Kate popped over the kitchen counter. “Nonna, the dishes are almost done. We’ll finish up if you need to get to Paulina’s birthday party.”
Nonna nodded. “Sorry I have to leave, but I promised her I would help with the sardines. She never makes them crispy enough.”
“It’s fine, Nonna,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek on my way to the kitchen with the plates. “Enjoy yourself. Tell Paulina I said hello.”
She smiled kindly at me. “My sweetheart. Maybe you should come with me to the party. Paulina has a very handsome grandson, you know.”
I shook my head. “Nonna…”
She shrugged. “I have to try.” Then she leaned in conspiratorially. “You’re the kindest of all my granddaughters, Frances. You deserve a good man to take care of you and my sweet nipote upstairs, eh?”
I swallowed. It was hardly the first time Nonna had tried to set me up—it had been a regular thing since I turned sixteen, though her efforts really jumpstarted once I was pregnant. But this time, it felt different. This time, a glowering pair of blue eyes watched from the back of my mind while she said it. Demanding that I tell her no.
Shoo, I thought, batting the image away. No one has time for you.