Courting Trouble (30 page)

“Tell you what?” Anne asked, uncertain but touched nevertheless. She’d never felt so cared for, so quickly. It was as if Mrs. DiNunzio had been waiting for her, to help her. But her trouble wasn’t anything that Mrs. DiNunzio could help with, unless she owned a bazooka. “My trouble is this man, Kevin Satorno. The police will get him. They’ll call as soon as they’ve arrested him tonight.”

“No, no, no.” Mrs. DiNunzio clucked, as if Anne had misunderstood. “Not him, he’s a no trouble.”

“Ma,” Mary broke in. “You don’t have to know everything. It’ll just upset you. We’re handling—”

“Shhh, Maria!” Mrs. DiNunzio hushed her daughter with a raised index finger, and even the last trace of a smile vanished. “
Cara,
you have trouble. Yes, Anna. It hurts your head. It hurts your heart. Yes. This I see. This I know.”

Anne didn’t know what to say, except that, truth to tell, she did have a bad headache. And lately she had begun to think her heart would never be right.

“Argh!” Mary’s forehead dropped theatrically into her hands. “Ma, don’t embarrass me in front of the other kids. I’m trying to make a nice impression here.”

“Mare, this is something you don’t interfere.” Mr. DiNunzio rose suddenly and picked up his coffee cup. “If your mother says Anna’s got ’em, then she’s got ’em. Now let’s get outta here. This is between Anna and your mother. Your mother, she knows. She’ll help Anna.”

I need help?
Anne felt vaguely alarmed. The mood changed quickly in the kitchen. Mrs. DiNunzio turned suddenly grave. Mr. DiNunzio was escaping with his coffee, and Mary was on her feet, too. Even Mel stopped drinking milk and dropped to his Alarmo Cat crouch over the saucer.

Anne turned to Mary. “What’s happening, Mary?”

“My mother has superpowers. She’s her own action hero, with X-ray vision. She thinks you need her help and she can help you, so, just go along with it. Let her do what she wants to do.”

“What does she want to do?”

“You’ll see. This is an Italian thing, grasshopper. You must never reveal it to the outside world.” Mary patted her shoulder. “We all took a vow of silence, the entire race, except for Maria Bartiromo, who I still don’t believe is Italian. No Italian girl can understand the stock market. It’s against nature. We’re not built that way.”

What
? Anne laughed, mystified. She looked over at Mrs. DiNunzio, who squeezed her hand like a doctor bracing her for bad news. “Mrs. DiNunzio, what—”

“Anna, you got the overlooks. Somebody
hate
you. He wish
evil
on you. You have
malocchio
!”

“Mal
what
eo?” Anne asked.

“
Malocchio!
Evil eye!”

Mary was following her father out of the kitchen. “Yes, she’s serious, Anne, and this is South Philly, the land of spells and curses. But don’t worry. My mother knows how to take off the evil eye. The prayer was passed to her on Christmas Eve by her mother, who was also a superhero. Just go with it, and please don’t tell her there’s no such thing as ghosts. She owns a wooden spoon and she
will
use it.”

“I have the evil eye?” Anne asked, incredulous.
I don’t have the evil eye, I have a stalker.
“Mrs. DiNunzio—”

“No worry, I take away,” Mrs. DiNunzio said, with another hand squeeze, which was surprisingly firmer, more oncologist than GP. “I make better for you, Anna. This I do for you. Now.”

Were these people nuts?
“Mrs. DiNunzio, it’s very nice of you, but there is nothing you can do about this man.” Mental note: Maybe I’ll stay Irish.

But Mrs. DiNunzio had gotten up from the table and was already at the sink, running water from the tap into a clear Pyrex bowl. She turned off the faucet, took a gold tin of Bertoli olive oil from a shelf over the stove, and brought both back to the table, where she set the bowl and olive oil down between them. Then she took her seat, her eyes faraway behind her thick trifocals.

“Mrs. DiNunzio—”

“Shhh!” Mrs. DiNunzio held up a hand, then looked at Anne, her gaze softening. “You have
malocchio.
This, I know.
Vide!
Watch!” Mrs. DiNunzio picked up the tin of olive oil and poured three gimlet-hued drops in the bowl of water, one on top of the next. A large drop floated for a moment on the water’s surface, and Mrs. DiNunzio watched it intently. The warm kitchen fell quiet except for the occasional popping of the tomato sauce on the stove. “Wait, Anna.”

“For what? The oil?”

“Si,
if you have
malocchio,
the oil, it goes apart.” Mrs. DiNunzio pointed at the bowl, and the oil split into two drops, edging away from each other. “See?
Malocchio!
”

What is this, Italian Chemistry? “
Mrs. DiNunzio, water and oil will always separate—”

“Anna, you have
malocchio
very bad. You have trouble, inside, yes?” Her eyes were so kind, and her soft voice so concerned that Anne couldn’t help but feel the truth behind her words, despite the silly bowl of spreading Bertoli.

“Okay, I admit it, I have trouble,” she found herself answering, low so Mary couldn’t hear, if she was lingering in the dining room.

Mrs. DiNunzio was pointing at Anne’s lip, directly at her scar. “I see you have,
come se dice
?” Her forehead wrinkled with concentration.

“A cleft lip.”

“Madonna mia!
A gift from God!”

“A gift?” Anne blurted out. “It’s a curse!”

“No, no.” Mrs. DiNunzio waved her finger between them, slowly. “God, a gift, he give you. You are so beautiful, Anna, that people, they will be jealous. They will
hate
you. God knows this. This is a gift from God, and you must thank him.”

I’ll get right on that,
Anne thought. She couldn’t imagine a God who would give a cleft lip to any kid, much less one with bright-red hair. Why? To make sure nobody would miss it?

“Shhhh.” Mrs. DiNunzio squeezed her hand. “Close your eyes, Anna. I’m gonna help you. Let me help you. Nobody gonna hurt you no more.”

Anne couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes. It was absurd, wasn’t it? There was no such things as ghosts, or the evil eye.

“Close your eyes, Anna!” Mrs. DiNunzio ordered, and Anne found herself doing as she was told. She closed her eyes and in a minute focused on the warmth of Mrs. DiNunzio’s hand on hers. Breathed in the wonderful smells of the garlic and onions. Eased into the softness of the plastic pad on her chair. Listened to the percolating of the tomato sauce. In the next minute, Mrs. DiNunzio was mumbling softly in Italian, in a cadence regular and calming. Anne couldn’t understand the words and she didn’t try. In the next minute she felt a warm fingerpad, slick with oil, on her forehead.

“What are you doing?” Anne whispered.

“Shhh! I make sign of cross. Three times. Shhhh!” Mrs. DiNunzio resumed her chanting, presumably lifting the spell of the evil eye, and Anne would have laughed at the absurdity of it, except that she couldn’t help but listen to the motherly tones of Mrs. DiNunzio’s voice and loved the warmth of the oil spreading across her aching forehead. She felt somehow blessed to be in this kitchen, which was a remarkable conclusion for someone who didn’t believe in God, the evil eye, or even mothers.

“Open your eyes, Anna,” Mrs. DiNunzio whispered, with a final squeeze of her hand.

Anne did as she was told and looked at Mrs. DiNunzio, whose dark eyes drew her in like a loving embrace. She held Anne’s gaze like that for a minute, and squeezed her hand across the table without speaking.

“All better now, Anna,” Mrs. DiNunzio announced, after a moment. But it didn’t sound like a question and didn’t seek confirmation. In the next instant, Mrs. DiNunzio was reaching around her own neck for a long gold chain Anne hadn’t seen before, tugging it from behind her apron and lifting it over her head and pink hairnet. It was a gold necklace, and Mrs. DiNunzio handed it across the table to Anne. “Anna, you take. For you. Take.”

“No, Mrs. DiNunzio!” Anne didn’t get it. The woman was giving her jewelry now? It was a longish gold chain with a fourteen-carat gold charm swinging at the end. “I can’t possibly take it. I can’t take your necklace from you.”

“Take! Take! See!” Mrs. DiNunzio caught the charm and showed it between gnarled fingers, fingerpads still glistening with olive oil. The charm gleamed in the light and was shaped like a wiggly pepper. “Is for you! A
cornu,
a horn. You take! For protect you, from the
malocchio
!” She handed it to Anne, who pressed it back.

“No, I couldn’t, really.”

“Take! Is gift, from me. From me to you, Anna!” Mrs. DiNunzio’s tone grew almost agitated. She dropped the necklace on the table in front of Anne, where it landed with the tiniest jingling sound. “You need, Anna! You must have!”

“Mrs. DiNunzio, I can’t—”

“TAKE IT!” Mary shouted from somewhere in the dining room, and Mrs. DiNunzio smiled.

“I can’t, Mary!” Anne called out.

“TAKE IT OR SHE WON’T LET US BACK IN!”

“Please, take!” Mrs. DiNunzio reached across the table, picked up the necklace, and slipped it over Anne’s head with finality.
“Perfetto,
Anna. Now you stay safe.”

“Thank you so much,” Anne said, overwhelmed. She looked down at the gold chain, glinting in the kitchen light, and held the oily horn in her palm. She didn’t really understand how a charm could keep away the evil eye, but she felt so touched that Mrs. DiNunzio had given it to her that she couldn’t keep the wetness from her eyes.

“MY COFFEE’S GETTING COLD!” Mary shouted, and they all laughed.

“Okay, Maria!” Mrs. DiNunzio called back, smiling with obvious relief. “All better now. No worry now.”

Mary came in, clapping. “So you kept it! Good for you. Now you have Italian insurance. The Prudential has nothing on us, do they?”

Anne blinked the tears away, and when she found her voice, could say only one thing: “You’re lucky, Mary. You know that?”

“I certainly do.” Mary came over and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, and behind her, her father shuffled into the kitchen, bearing his coffee cup.

“How’s your headache, Anna?” he asked, and Anne had to think a minute. Actually, she didn’t feel anything. Her head was amazingly clear.

“It’s gone!” she answered. It was the truth, and no one was surprised but her.

“Anne, wake up,” Mary was saying, her voice loud in Anne’s ear. “It’s morning. You have to wake up. Anne?”

Anne didn’t open her eyes. She was so sleepy. The pillow was so soft. Her tummy was awash with spaghetti, sweet sausage, and chianti. She wasn’t getting up.

“Anne, Anne!” Mary was shaking her gently, insistent. “Wake up, it’s important.”

Anne opened an eye and took in her surroundings. The bedroom was small, clean, and spare, the walls creamy white. High school Latin trophies and religious statues cluttered a white shelf. A square of sunlight struggled through a lace curtain. It must be morning. A night table sat six inches from her nose, and on it glowed the red numbers of a digital clock. 6:05. Anne moaned. “It’s so early.”

“Wake up! You have to see this!” Mary’s tone was urgent, and she held up a copy of the
Daily News
. “Look!”

“What?” Anne started to ask, but the question lodged in her throat when she saw the headline. Her eyes flew open. She took the newspaper and sat bolt upright. “This can’t be true!”

“It is. I called Bennie and it’s all over the web. She’ll be here in five minutes.”

“Maybe it’s just more lousy reporting? Gonzos at work?” Anne blinked at the front page in disbelief. Her headache roared back. Then, with a bolt of fear, she remembered. They’d fallen asleep around two o’clock, after calling Bennie for the tenth time, to see if Kevin had been taken into custody. “Didn’t Bennie call last night, about Kevin? Didn’t they arrest him?”

“No. The cops never got him. He never came back to the motel. He’s still out there. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, you’re in danger now, Anne. We have to get you out of here.”

Anne couldn’t take her eyes from the newspaper. She flashed back to the tabloid from the first morning, when this had all started. But today’s headline was even worse. She read it over and over:

MURPHY’S MOM: “NOT MY DAUGHTER!”

Underneath the headline was a photo of Anne’s mother. And she was standing in front of the city morgue.

T
he commissioner’s private conference room at the Roundhouse was large and rectangular, and contained a long walnut table with a single piece of polished glass protecting its costly surface. An American flag stood furled in one corner behind the head of the table, and in another corner Anne recognized the blue polyester flag of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania she’d seen in state courtrooms. Air-conditioning chilled the room, but it could easily have been her emotions.

Ten high-backed leather chairs sat around the table, reflected in fuzzy shadow on its shiny surface, and Anne, Bennie, Mary, and Judy took seats in the ones on the left, across from Deputy Commissioner Joseph Parker, Detective Sam Rafferty, his partner, and a young black man in a suit, who introduced himself as a lawyer from the city solicitor’s office. The city lawyer shook hands all around and began taking notes on a fresh legal pad as soon as he returned to his seat. Anne reminded herself it wasn’t a war, despite the battle lines on opposing sides of the table, the lawyer making notes in anticipation of litigation, and the woman entering the room and quietly taking a seat at the head of the table, the putative plaintiff, one Terry Murphy. Anne’s mother.

No doubt it was her, though Anne hadn’t seen her in so long. She seemed shorter than Anne remembered, perhaps five two, and years of pills and alcohol had destroyed a woman once lovely enough to attract dozens of men and entertain fantasies of movie stardom. Her cheeks looked sunken, her skin withered, and the blue of her eyes seemed watered down, especially in contrast with too-thick liquid eyeliner. Her mouth was enlarged by coral lipstick, and she wore a matching melon-colored T-shirt with a scoop neck and white cotton Capri pants, with white Tod knock-offs. Something about the shoes made Anne sad.