The Witch of Little Italy (20 page)

I was standing in the doorway and she pushed past me. She turned around to look at Mimi who was carefully hanging up the unpacked dressed when I noticed her eyes move to the rocking chair by the window. Mama’s rocking chair she’d brought with her from Fairview. Mimi saw the look, too.

“Oh no, you don’t,” she said.

Carmen took in a deep breath and dropped the suitcase. She swept back into the room and picked up the rocking chair over her head.

“Oh yeah?” she said. “Just you try to stop me, old woman.”

I backed out of the doorway because I knew she’d plow through me. She carried that rocking chair all the way out of the building. Once at the stoop she put the chair down and tried to hail a cab. None were coming down 170th Street. With Mimi and the rest of us on her heels she picked up the chair over her head again and ran for the corner. Really, I’ll never forget it. Her long hair in the wind. Her cheeks flushed with anger.

A Checker Cab stopped for her and I watched as she tried to shove it in the backseat. It wouldn’t go, of course. I watched her talk and yell and cry … her hands moving all around her. The cabbie was won over, of course, and he put it in the trunk but it wouldn’t fit there, either. He got some rope and tied the trunk together somehow.

And that’s how Carmen Amore left 170th Street. She left with nothing but Mama’s rocking chair hanging out of the back of a Checker Cab and a copy of
The Bell Jar
she must have dug out and then shoved in the back of the waistline of her long purple skirt.

Mimi watched with me. Fee and George were long gone, back in the house for lunch. Mimi didn’t cry. I did, a little.

“She’s gone now, it’s over,” she said.

I nodded.

“She’s going to have a really hard life. Maybe it’s good … maybe she should have Mama’s chair. Something solid to cling to when everything goes to hell.”

And Mimi was right. Carmen’s early life unraveled itself just as it had under our hands when she was inside Mimi’s stomach. But was it fate? Or was it our doing? I don’t know. All I know is that when Babygirl came to us as a little girl herself, I tried to make it right again. We all did. We threw ourselves at the child because we all felt guilty about Carmen. We didn’t talk about it. We just knew it.

And it worked. For a summer. Everything seemed okay again. When Babygirl was with us she reminded us of the days before. She didn’t hinder us or our power the way we assumed another little girl a lifetime ago would have. She made us even stronger. And I know how.

It was George. George who’d become a hoarder, a recluse. She fixed him. She brought our Georgie back. One hundred seventieth Street shimmered with laughter that summer. With Babygirl and Anthony, with my sisters, George … and Babygirl’s very best secret friend, Liz. The channels were open between the Bronx and Far Rockaway, between the Amore clan and the Greens. Mama and Papa were resurrected inside all of us.

It was brilliant. And then she found my secret, I made a promise, and we all went back to square one.

24

Elly

Elly didn’t go to her graduation from Yale. There were many reasons why. It was hot. She didn’t feel like explaining her belly (that had “popped” since her last visit) to those that might ask, and she didn’t want to risk seeing Cooper. She’d successfully avoided him all semester by going directly to and from the art studio. And Cooper had no reason to go there, especially since he didn’t realize she existed anymore. Mimi explained the spell they’d woven around him, the one that made him forget her, would be broken if he saw her. So she decided to stay on the safe side. She painted and she left. She was never happier she’d gotten all of her course work done early, ceremony or not, she was
done
. And it felt good to be free.

She celebrated by painting a little and then gardening with Fee.

“My class is graduating today,” she said as she found the cluster of five leaves on the rose bush and used the sharp garden shears to cut just above them.

“Oh yes,” said Fee. “This should be a big day for you! Do you want us to have a party? It would be fun! Mimi could have a houseful of people here in an hour if it pleased you. What do you say?”

Mimi, who was hard at work on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor of the back hall couldn’t help but overhear Fee’s loud voice. She sat back on her heels and poked her head outside. “Would you like that? A party?”

“
No,
” said Elly. “I feel as if I’ve already graduated. Moved on from that life. Even commuting was surreal. Go to the studio, leave. I felt invisible.”

Fee laughed.

“What?” asked Elly, a smile growing inside of her, Fee’s laughter was so contagious.

“You
were
invisible,” said Fee.

“You witches and your spells! How did you manage that? Slip me an invisibility cloak or something?”

Mimi walked out into the sunshine and placing her hands against her round sides, stretched her back. “No. Nothing like that. It was
you
Elly. You did it.”

“What? What did I do?”

“You wished yourself invisible and so became invisible. The world sees what we want it to see. It’s the same for everyone, really. It’s just we … Mama’s children … and you, too … we notice the magical nuances of life.”

Elly stood up. “Okay. Then here is my wish to the universe. I wish Aunt Itsy would tell me her secret. And I wish that Liz would come over so we could sit around and be lazy. And I
really
wish that kid in our walls would stop crying! Those are my graduation wishes.”

Mimi went to her and hugged her close. Elly was growing so fond of Mimi’s smells. Garlic and perfume and bleach.

“Well, I guarantee you a visit from Liz. But Itsy? She won’t spill her beans. Not even for you,” said Mimi.

“Okay, then what about the crying kid?”

“That’s your problem,” said Fee. “We can’t hear it.”

“You can’t hear anything,” said Elly quietly so Fee couldn’t hear her.

Mimi laughed. “You’re so bad!”

“I’m learning,” said Elly.

*   *   *

With the gardening done, and Mimi and the aunts out shopping, Elly walked around the side of the building lazily, letting her fingers dance across the brick and mortar. She looked at her hands, fingernails blackened with garden soil. Stepping over a few low bushes growing in the narrow space between 170th Street and its neighbor, she walked out into the light. Liz was sitting on the front stoop.

“That was fast,” said Elly.

“Come again?” asked Liz.

Elly lowered herself slowly down on the stoop. She was getting bigger by the day and it was hard to keep her balance. Liz put out a hand for support.

“Well, a little while ago I was pruning roses and getting a lesson on things we wish into the universe. And I was wishing you’d come by and we could spend the rest of the day just lazing around. And here you are!”

“The sun is strong for this time of year. It’s going to be a hot summer,” said Liz.

Elly looked at her friend. She seemed pale and tired. Her energy so different from the rambunctious girl she’d met in the snowy garden.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yes. I’m fine. Just a little world-weary. Let’s go inside and be lazy, like you wished. Okay?”

“Yes! Let’s!” said Elly.

They headed to Elly’s bedroom where she changed into light pajamas—a deliciously indolent thing to do in the afternoon—and the two sat on her bed and painted their toenails red while listening to Carmen’s old records.

“This is so much fun,” said Elly.

“What?”

“Laying around and listening to records. I never had a girlfriend growing up.”

“You always had me,” said Liz.

“I didn’t remember you.”

“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t with you. Sometimes heads and hearts don’t communicate so good, you know?”

“I
do
know. Like today … I knew Carmen wouldn’t call. But I wanted her to. I tried wishing her to. But even if my head thought she might, my heart felt she wouldn’t. Is it better to listen to your heart?”

“
Always!
The only problem is the heart is quiet. It takes a very special kind of person to hear what the heart says. Most can’t hear it at all and they have to guess. There are a lot of people walking around just guessing.”

They moved side by side, stretching their legs out so the box fan in the window could blow their toes dry. Elly turned her head on the cool cotton pillow to face Liz, whose eyes were closed.

“I’m afraid,” said Elly.

Liz’s eyes fluttered open. “About what?” She reached out her hand to tuck some of Elly’s stray hair, loose from her messy bun, behind her ears.

Elly reached up and held Liz’s hand to her face. She closed her eyes and tried to think of a way to put her fear into words that would make sense. The emotions ran high now that most of her memories were coming back. It was easier
not
to remember. Before the memories there’d been a wall, tall and high all around her. It kept Elly from herself and her feelings. It kept her safe, in its way. And as that wall crumbled she was afraid to see what lay beyond. It could be a magical garden like the one blooming in the back of the building. Or it could be blackness—the blackness she saw every time she placed her hands on her belly and tried to dream of a moment in the future with her child.

“I’m afraid my baby is going to die,” she said, picking the deepest, realest fear.

“Why on earth are you afraid of that? Your baby is just fine.” reassured Liz. But Elly noticed right away Liz didn’t seem shocked, or even surprised.

“See … you can feel it, too. Some kind of ‘wrong’ I just can’t put my finger on,” said Elly.

They drew closer as their words came out quieter, the unspoken things now out in the open.
This is what it feels like to have a friend,
thought Elly. She looked back upon the months she’d been here. Getting to know Liz. Remembering her as a little girl. She thought about painting the mural with her, laughing about Anthony’s goofy and spectacular love. Telling Liz about her engagement as they walked together to church and her screaming in delight. Reminiscing about the days at Playland. And it was true, Liz had changed, grown serious, older, and pale.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Well, I might be getting sick or something,” said Liz. “It’s you I’m worried about. Here, turn over and lie down on your left side.”

“Why? I’m spoken for, you know!” joked Elly.

“Just do it!” laughed Liz.

Elly smiled, glad to see Liz spunky again. She turned over as Liz scooched in close, putting her hands on Elly’s stomach.

The baby started kicking furiously.

“How did you do that?” Elly squealed in delight.

“Your heart is on the left side. When you place your body on the side of your heart the blood shifts. It wakes up the baby.”

“Thank you, Liz,” said Elly.

“You are welcome.”

A quiet fell between them, the soft whir of the fan lulling them into comfortable silence.

“Liz?”

“Ummmhmmm?” answered a sleepy Liz.

“I know you and I were friends here … when I was ten. And I have most of those memories back now, thank God. Drips. They came like Chinese water torture … And I remember you from the time before. The time when it was just Carmen and me. And I don’t know how that can be, because I didn’t know you yet. Did I?”

Liz paused a moment. “I think I met you when you got here … and you probably had an imaginary friend before that. Maybe you just made her into me, or vice versa. No matter, really. And when you came back, when you were thirteen? For that short visit? I got to see you then too.”

Elly rolled over, bouncing the bed like Aunt Fee … and faced her friend. “Ha! I got you! I
didn’t
see you when my mom brought me back here that Christmas! I remember everything about that night. Carmen got drunk. She didn’t want to come back. But she’d made a trip to India and the yogis told her to make
peace with her past.
I swear she
never
forgave the whole damn country of India for that fiasco. And I fell in love with Anthony … and I fell in love with this whole place, really. But not you. I don’t remember you.”

Liz turned even paler and looked at the ceiling. She covered her hands with her face, sighing. “Oh yeah,” she said. “I watched through the window…”

“Why didn’t you come in?”

“You weren’t there long enough. By the time I got up the nerve to knock on the door you were gone.”

“Yeah, Carmen wanted out of that situation so badly,” said Elly. “I wish I’d seen you then. You at thirteen would have been fun…”

“Me at thirteen? Lord. I was nothing but an open wound.”

“Me, too.”

“Maybe all girls are,” said Liz.

“Maybe,” Elly said, yawning.

“How about we take an afternoon nap? It doesn’t get any lazier than that,” suggested Liz.

“Yes. Let’s. How about you sing me a song. Like I remember from when we were little?”

“Sure, glad to …
Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anybody else but me, anybody else but me, anybody else but me
…”

And in the moment between sleep and awake, when one realizes
great
things and believes they’ll be remembered forever but never are, Elly Amore realized Liz never sang her that song when they were ten and playing on the beaches of Far Rockaway. She sang it to her when Elly was very small, in Europe, with Carmen.

*   *   *

Later when Elly woke, the memory was gone and so was Liz. She went to the dressing table and opened her diploma. They’d sent it to her early when she filled out the papers saying she wouldn’t “walk.” A hard blue case and a beautiful piece of paper. A real accomplishment. She held it down and lifted up her pajama top just above her belly button. Elly was convinced her baby could see out from that one spot, like a periscope. “See this, baby? Mommy did a good thing!” And the baby kicked.

Elly tried not to think about how Carmen hadn’t called. But she knew Carmen was just being Carmen. And that Elly wasn’t on the top of her list of priorities right now. A heavy feeling, the blanket of sad that always accompanied Elly remembering that she had a mother who she missed and loved began to descend. A note came flying under the closed door and across the shiny wood floor stopping at the fringe of the Persian rug.