Penny from Heaven (6 page)

“Come on,” Stanley says, grabbing Jack by his arm. “We’re going to be late.”

As they walk away, Jack looks back at me. I can see the shocked expression on his face from where I’m sitting.

“I got rid of them pretty good, didn’t I?” Pop-pop says in a pleased voice.

“You sure did,” I say, and sigh.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nonny’s Underwear

It’s a hot July day, but it’s nice and cool in Nonny’s basement.

Frankie and me are helping with the laundry. I feed the wet clothes through the wringer like Me-me taught me. The clothes get squeezed through the rollers, and the water is wrung out of them. Me-me always says to be careful, because you can get your fingers pulled in the wringer if you’re not paying close attention.

Nonny’s upstairs, arguing with Aunt Gina.

“Mother Falucci,” Aunt Gina says, her voice loud, “I counted three eggs this morning. I would appreciate it if you’d at least ask me before taking things from my refrigerator.”

Nonny shouts back in Italian, and Aunt Gina yells, “You know very well how to speak English!”

“I don’t know how Uncle Paulie stands it. They’re always at each other,” Frankie says, shaking his head.

Above us, a dish goes flying, and a pair of Aunt Gina–like heels clip-clops out the front door.

“Sounds like Nonny won,” Frankie says with a small smile.

I love Nonny. She’s a tough old lady.

“Remember the kite?” I ask.

Frankie smirks. “Bobby’s lucky he still has both hands.”

One time when we were little, we were playing outside in front of Nonny’s with a brand-new kite that the uncles gave us. This older neighborhood bully named Bobby Rocco came along and tried to take the kite from Frankie. But Frankie, being Frankie, wouldn’t let that kite go, even though Bobby Rocco was twice as big as him. They started tussling, and Bobby just smacked Frankie like he was a fly, and poor Frankie fell on the ground.

Well, Nonny was watching from the front window, and when she saw this, she grabbed up a meat cleaver and came running out, waving it at Bobby. She said that if he ever smacked Frankie again, he wouldn’t have anything to smack with—she’d chop off both his hands herself. He hasn’t bothered Frankie since.

“So what do you think you’re getting for your birthday?” Frankie asks.

Every year the uncles get me a big gift. Last year we went to the circus and then for a lobster dinner afterward. The year before that I got a fancy dollhouse. Frankie gets presents from the uncles on his birthday, too, but not as big as mine. The uncles are always trying to make up for my father being dead.

“I don’t know,” I say, although I’ve been dropping hints about a new bicycle to replace the one Pop-pop ran over.

“Do you think Uncle Dom would teach me how to drive?” Frankie asks. “I figure of all the uncles, I have the best chance with him.” What he means is Uncle Dominic is strange and does things nobody else does, like live in his car when there’s a perfectly good bedroom in the house.

“Why do you want to drive?”

“So I can get a real job—you know, make good money,” he says.

“Frankie,” I say, “you’re too young.”

“Hey, Miss Smarty-Pants, I can drive if I want. Joey Fantone is driving already and he’s fourteen,” Frankie says.

Joey Fantone is almost six feet tall. The coach from the basketball team started talking to him when he was in elementary school.

“But he looks like he’s eighteen,” I say. “And he’s not supposed to be driving.”

“You’re saying I don’t look old enough to drive?”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.” I look at him more closely. “What’s this all about, anyhow?”

Frankie looks down. “Pop lost his job again.”

Uncle Angelo is always losing his job. It probably doesn’t help that he likes to drink whiskey a lot. The other uncles used to give him money and help him out with work, get him jobs and everything, but then there was a big fight and now Uncle Angelo says he doesn’t want “nobody’s handouts.” But I know that Nonny and all the aunts sneak Aunt Teresa money, and Aunt Fulvia lets her get anything she wants from the store for free.

“When we came home yesterday afternoon, he was on the couch. He said they just fired him for no reason. No reason at all.”

“Oh, Frankie,” I say, and as soon as the words leave my mouth, Frankie’s face darkens. If there’s one thing Frankie can’t stand, it’s pity.

We work in silence for a little while, and then I say, “Maybe you should ask Uncle Dominic. You never know.”

“You’re just saying that,” he says.

“Yeah, I am,” I say, and laugh, and he cracks a smile and I know we’re okay again.

Frankie holds up a slinky-looking red satin slip. “Must be Aunt Gina’s,” he says.

“Sure isn’t Nonny’s,” I say.

“Hey, you think Nonny has black underwear?” Frankie asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, and shrug. “Maybe. Everything else is black.”

“Ain’t you curious?”

“Not really.”

“Come on. She wears black all the time, even in the summer,” Frankie says.

“It’s a tradition, you know. Mourning clothes. Because of my father. Grandpa, too, I guess.”

“Have I got an idea!” he says, a note of excitement in his voice. “We case her room.”

“Why don’t you just ask her?” I say.

“Nah, let’s spy on her,” he says.

“Frankie . . .”

“Well?” he demands, a bulldog expression on his face. “You gonna help or what?”

Maybe because I want to know too, or maybe because Frankie is my best friend, my cousin, and I’d do just about anything to make him stop thinking about how his father will never be any good, I say what he wants to hear.

I say, “Sure.”

Nonny gives us lunch in the dining room. It’s ricotta-ball soup, which is really good. Nonny looks pleased when Frankie and me ask for seconds. There’s nothing she likes better than feeding people.

The telephone rings. Since Aunt Gina’s out, Nonny picks it up and listens for a minute and then says, “Nobody home. Good-bye.”

Frankie shakes his head. Nonny always does this if the person on the other end doesn’t speak Italian. She’s scared to talk on the phone.

After lunch Nonny goes upstairs. She takes her bath in the afternoon, and then a nap, and Frankie figures that this is the perfect time to look in her room. We pretend to play cards, but when we hear the water start running, Frankie nods to me.

“Go,” he whispers.

“I’m going, I’m going,” I say.

I creep upstairs, pausing outside the bathroom to make sure that Nonny’s in there. I can hear her humming, a soft song that sounds sort of familiar, like something you would sing to a baby. I hurry down the hall to her bedroom. I feel like I’m breaking the law by going in there; it’s just not something you do.

The room is filled with large pieces of heavy, dark furniture, and there’s a crucifix hanging over the bed. In the corner is a washstand with a pitcher that I know she brought over from Italy, the only thing that survived the trip. The pitcher has been cracked and glued back together, and I can’t help but think it reminds me of Nonny: small but tough enough to leave a whole world behind.

There’s a big four-drawer dresser, and I open the top drawer, the drawer where most people keep their socks. And sure enough, there are rolled-up balls of black stockings and neat stacks of black lace handkerchiefs. The next drawer down has black sweaters and blouses, but no underwear. The next one down has men’s clothes, tidy piles of trousers and button-up shirts with carefully mended collars. With a start, I realize that they must have belonged to my grandfather. I don’t know very much about Grandpa, except that he played the mandolin. He died before I was born. Frankie says he heard Grandpa had some sort of fit and just keeled over. I wonder how long Nonny’s had his clothes in here, and then I wonder how come it’s always Frankie who’s coming up with these schemes and always me who’s doing them.

Finally, I open the bottom drawer, and lying right on top is something that’s black and silky and I think I’ve hit pay dirt. Only it’s just a silk kerchief, not underwear, but when I move it, I find something else.

It’s a photograph of Nonny holding a fat, round pudgy baby dressed in a white gown on her lap. I turn over the photograph and see that someone’s written “Alfredo.” It’s my father! They must have still been in Italy; they didn’t come over until my father was two. All the other kids were born here.

Nonny is young in the photograph—her hair hasn’t turned white yet, and her skin is smooth, like porcelain. The photographer has caught the exact moment when she’s looking down at the baby and not at the camera, and the expression on her face is one of such happiness, such joy, that I just stare at it. She looks like the happiest mother in the whole world.

Underneath the photograph is a black photo album, and I open it. It’s filled with newspaper clippings—articles written by my father. It looks like Nonny kept everything he ever wrote. Most of the articles are in English, but a few are in Italian. I start reading the articles, and it’s like he’s in the room with me, I can hear his voice so clearly in my head.

This looks to be a close election with—

The bathroom door opens and closes, and there’s the soft pad of footsteps making their way down the hall. I put the album back and shut the drawer just in time. Nonny opens the door wearing her bathrobe, which is black, naturally.

“Penny?” she says, surprised.

“Uh, hi, Nonny,” I say.

I’m expecting her to yell at me for being in her room, but instead she just closes the door and walks over to her dressing table. She sits down on the little stool and undoes the single tortoiseshell comb and then hands me her brush. I used to brush her hair when I was a little girl.

The brush is heavy, with a thick wooden handle that fits my hand and bristles that are bare in places. I carefully brush out her hair. It’s long, almost all the way down her back. After her hair is smooth and free of tangles, I twist it into one thick braid, tying it at the end with a piece of black ribbon she hands me.

“There,” I say. “You look real good, Nonny.”

Nonny takes off her bathrobe and there it is: a long white slip, an old-fashioned cotton one with handmade lace at the hem. I look in her eyes, and I suddenly know why she wears black. It’s her shield, her armor in a country where she can’t speak the language, where she’s still afraid after all these years to talk on the phone or answer the door because she might not understand what someone’s saying. It’s her way of looking fierce, of hiding the fact that she’s old and tired and homesick.

“Tesoro mio,”
she says, her voice weary.

I help her into bed and tuck the sheet high around her neck. She is asleep before I even leave the room.

Frankie’s waiting for me when I come downstairs.

“Well?” he asks.

“You were right,” I lie. “Black.”

He slaps his palm on his leg. “I knew it!”

But I know that it doesn’t really matter. Black, white, or purple underwear, she’s still my Nonny.

CHAPTER NINE

The Slider

Uncle Dominic says the thing about a slider is that you never see it coming. It’s the one pitch that can fool even the best batter.

When I get home from delivering orders with Frankie, I find Mother in her bedroom, sitting at her dressing table. She’s wearing a dress I haven’t see before. It’s lemon yellow and strapless. It looks glamorous and shows off her freckled shoulders.

“Are we going out for dinner?” I ask. We don’t go to restaurants very often and, believe me, it’s a real treat when we do.

“Actually,” she says, “I’m going out. Me-me’s made hamburger-olive loaf for you.”

I groan. Me-me’s hamburger-olive loaf is so bad, it should be in jail.

“You going out with Connie again?” I ask.

She turns around on her little stool and looks me in the eye. “Mr. Mulligan asked me out to dinner and dancing.”

“Mr. Mulligan?” I say.

“Yes.”

“The milkman?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going out to dinner with the milkman?” I blurt out.

My mother’s voice doesn’t have to get loud to show her disapproval. “His name is Mr. Mulligan, Penny, and he’s a very nice man. And there’s nothing wrong with being a milkman. He does quite well for himself.”

“Hold it,” I say, remembering the two of them talking on the porch. “Is this the first time you’ve gone out with him?”

She hesitates and then says, “No.”

“You’ve been dating him? For how long?”

She looks out the window, idly picking the dead leaves off the plant on the windowsill. “A little while.”

This is even worse than Me-me’s hamburger-olive loaf!

I look at her ring finger and notice that it’s bare; the engagement ring is gone!

“Mother, where’s your ring?”

“Penny,” she says, her voice cool, “I need to finish getting ready. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“But—”

She cuts me off with a look.

“Mr. Mulligan will be here at six,” she says, and then she turns her back to me and starts putting on her lipstick.

I stay awake waiting for my mother to come home. Scarlett O’Hara keeps me company in the parlor.

All these years I’ve wanted a father and this is what I get? The milkman? What does she see in him? My real father was handsome as a movie star, not going bald like Mr. Mulligan.

“I can’t believe she’s dating the milkman, Scarlett O’Hara,” I tell my dog.

She whines like she’s as shocked as me.

Pop-pop wanders through and says, “What’re you doing up?”

“I can’t sleep,” I say.

“What?” he asks. “What?”

“I said, ‘I can’t sleep,’” I say loudly.

“Drink some warm milk.”

“I hate milk,” I mutter. “Especially now.”

“Hmph,” he says.

When I finally hear the car pull up, it’s late, nearly midnight. I creep over to the front window and peek out.

Mr. Mulligan is walking around to the passenger side of the car. He opens the door for my mother and helps her out. He whispers something in her ear and she laughs. Then he leans over and . . .

Kisses her! Right on the lips!

At that exact moment, Scarlett O’Hara tinkles on the carpet.

My sentiments exactly.

A few days later, on Saturday, I go into the kitchen and open the refrigerator and there’s a big plate of delicious-looking fried chicken just sitting there. It’s almost lunchtime and I’m hungry, so I take a leg and am about to bite into it when I hear my mother say:

“That’s for later, Penny.”

“For what?” I ask.

“I know you’re a bit upset about Mr. Mulligan, but he’s very nice,” my mother says quickly. “Why, when I told him how much of a Dodgers fan you are, he offered to come over and listen to the ball game with you.”

“What?”

“So you can get to know him,” she says. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

Wonderful? Is she
pazza?

“But I’m supposed to listen to the game with Uncle Dominic,” I lie.

“Just this once you can listen to it here,” she says.

“I can’t. I promised him,” I say.

She frowns. “You were over there yesterday and practically every day this week.”

“So what? I like it there. They have fun. They laugh. They eat food that tastes good. Their toilet’s not always leaking!”

“Penny,” she says.

But it doesn’t matter. Some line has been crossed and there’s no crossing back.

“They talk about my father!” I shout. “They talk about him all the time. Not like here. It’s like you’re embarrassed of him or something. Why won’t you talk about him? Why?”

She stares at me and I think she’s going to say something, but then it’s like a shutter closes over her eyes, and she shakes her head.

“Because there’s nothing to say,” she says.

We sit in the parlor listening to the game. I don’t know what’s worse: having to wear a babyish ruffled pink skirt or listening to Mr. Mulligan.

The whole game, Mr. Mulligan’s been trying to make conversation with me, asking me about my summer. There’s nothing worse than someone talking during a ball game. I’ve been doing my best to ignore him, but it’s already the eighth inning, and I swear I’ve only heard about two minutes.

“And there’s the pitch,” the announcer says over the radio.

“Say, Penny,” Mr. Mulligan says, a cheery little smile on his face, “you looking forward to starting seventh grade?”

“Shh,” I say.

“Pardon me?” he asks.

“Can you be quiet? I can’t hear the game,” I say.

“Penny,” my mother says. “Apologize immediately, young lady.”

“Why?” I ask. “He’s been talking the whole time!”

My mother shoots me a look.

“Ellie, it’s fine. I’m sure this is all a surprise to her,” Mr. Mulligan says in a soothing voice, reaching over and clasping her hand gently.

“Ellie?” I say. “You let him call you Ellie?”

“Penny,” my mother says, “there’s no call to be so dramatic.”

I look at Mr. Mulligan’s beefy hand on my mother’s slender one, and I see my whole life changing in the blink of an eye. No more uncles, no more Pop-pop and Me-me. It’ll be boring old Mr. Mulligan talking through the ball game. I can’t believe I ever thought he was funny.

The next thing I know I’m leaping up from my chair and racing out the front door, Mother calling my name. I’m running down the street, my legs pumping fast, my skirt flying in the air. All I can think is Mr. Mulligan is going to end up being my father, and I can’t bear it. Everything’ll change; my whole life will be ruined.

I run and run, like I’ve just hit a ball to left field and am rounding the bases. Mrs. Farro’s is first, and the Sweete Shoppe is second, and Falucci’s Market is third, and then I’m rounding third, heading for home, and I can see Uncle Dominic’s car—he’s in the front seat, the window down, the portable radio on. I don’t even ask him; I just fling open the passenger door and throw myself in and the tears start pouring down my cheeks, pouring and pouring like they’re never gonna stop. I’m bawling my head off, crying so hard, you’d think the fire department would hire me.

“Princess,” Uncle Dominic says, alarm in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

But I can’t speak; I’m too busy crying, and it must scare Uncle Dominic, because he grabs me by the shoulders and gives me a little shake.

“What happened? Did some boy touch you?” he demands, his voice urgent.

That snaps me out of it like a blast of cold water.

“No,” I say. “Nothing like that.”

“Oh,” he says, and his shoulders relax immediately. “Okay, then. What’s with the waterworks?”

“It’s Mother,” I say.

“Something happened to your mother?”

“She’s dating the milkman!”

He blinks.

“He came over to the house and talked through the whole game,” I say.

“The milkman,” Uncle Dominic says.

“Yes! The milkman!” And then I burst into tears again.

He digs out his handkerchief. “Here. Come on now, it’s not so bad.”

This from a man who lives in a car and talks to dogs?

“Don’t you understand? What if they get married? What if he becomes my father?”

“Then you have a new father,” he says. “Right?”

“But he’s all wrong! He’s not the kind of father I want!”

“Why? Does he drink?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “Unless you count milk.”

“That’s good,” he says. “Does he have a job?”

“He’s a milkman,” I say.

“Sober and employed,” Uncle Dominic says. “What more could you ask for?”

“It’s just that I want someone like, like . . .” and my throat closes up.

“Your father?” he finishes.

“Maybe you can marry Mother?” I ask, and start talking fast. “You know all about me. And you know how to fix the toilet. Even Me-me will like that.”

Uncle Dominic just shakes his head sadly.

“Princess, your mother and me, we just ain’t never gonna be like that.”

I lean back against the seat. “It’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair,” Uncle Dominic says, and I know he’s right. After all, he could be playing for the Dodgers right now instead of listening to them on the radio.

“Are you sure you won’t think about it?”

He shakes his head.

“Why did she have to pick the milkman?” I mutter.

“Look at it this way,” he says, putting his arm around my shoulder. “At least you’ll get a lot of free milk.”

Uncle Dominic drives me home. My mother’s sitting on the front porch swing when we get there, and Mr. Mulligan’s car is gone.

“Think she’s mad?” I ask Uncle Dominic.

“Knowing your mother, I’d say so,” he says.

“But she threw me a slider, Uncle Dominic! Honest, I never saw it coming.”

He shrugs. “That’s the game, Princess.”

“Well, I struck out,” I grumble, and I open the car door and get out. I poke my head back through the window. “What should I do?”

“Apologize and then stay out of her way. She’ll cool off.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Anytime, Princess,” he says.

I wait until he’s driven away to walk up the steps.

“I’m sorry,” I say to her.

My mother doesn’t have to say a word. The door banging behind her as she goes into the house says it all.