Every Single Second (15 page)

“No,” whispered Nella. This was wrong. Time, stopped in its tracks, lurched forward again. The wrongness of what the man just said made the world start back up. Anthony
wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was trying to help, not hurt. Nella knew it.

She
knew
it.

“Where are you going?” asked Mom as Nella pulled a cap over her messy hair.

“To see Angela.”

“Take Vinny. You know how she loves him.”

Nella grabbed her brother. The stupid stroller kept trying to veer left, and it took all her determination to forge ahead.

Outside the smoke shop, the conversation was loud and intense.

“That boy had to be drunk out of his mind. Banging on doors in the middle of the night?”

“Maybe he had a concussion? Didn’t know where he was.”

“It was midnight! He drove off the road! Why wasn’t he home with his wife and kids?”

“
Girlfriend
and kids.”

“Some stranger threatens me and my family, I’m ready. That’s all I got to say. I am armed and ready.”

“Anthony Jr.? That kid always looked scared of his own shadow.”

The men flicked cigar ashes onto the sidewalk. Their eyes slid to Mr. DeMarco’s empty chair. Today, nobody
paid any attention to Nella.

A woman at the bus stop was reading the paper, and Nella glimpsed Anthony’s face, creased and wrinkled. Vinny banged his heels against the stroller and leaned forward, like a ship’s captain ordering full speed ahead.

But when they got to Angela’s block, Nella skidded to a halt. TV vans blocked the narrow street. Strangers with cameras and headsets clustered outside the DeMarco house. At the foot of the front steps, arms folded across his chest, a burly police officer stood guard. People from the neighborhood clustered and watched.

“Nella!” Sam waved. He was with Victoria and Kimmy. Nella manhandled the stroller around a van parked right up on the sidewalk and almost clipped a woman in a turquoise suit. The TV reporter! She was picking her teeth in the side-view mirror. People on TV never seemed real. Not real real. But something slimy and disgusting was stuck between the woman’s very real front teeth.

“Oh my God, oh my God!” Victoria grabbed Nella’s arm. She was out of breath. “Can you believe this?” She wore mascara and a cute shirt, like she was on her way to a party. “I already got interviewed by a blogger.”

“The story’s going viral, now that the guy died,” said Kimmy.

Nella looked at Angela’s house. A faded American flag
hung from a pole. All the curtains were pulled tight.

“Viral!” she said. “Why?”

“The guy is black and Anthony’s white.” Victoria gave her hair an impatient flip. “It’s like, you know. Civil rights. People are totally outraged. The blogger dude said it’s already trending.”

“What?” repeated Nella, and Victoria rolled her eyes so high in her head, it was amazing they didn’t get stuck up there.

Sam scowled and punched the air. Nella hadn’t seen him since that awful night at the sausage stand. She looked even worse today, sweaty from pushing the stupid stroller, her hair a disaster.

“I’m on Anthony’s side,” he was saying. “But—”

“But what?” Victoria’s hands flew to her hips. “Mrs. Manzini was all alone with her baby! What do you expect her to do, open the door to a guy covered in blood and say,
Can I help you? Would you like a cup of tea?
”

“I would’ve died of fright,” put in Kimmy.

“Are you saying the guy deserved to get shot?” asked Sam.

“Nobody
deserves
to get shot, Samuel Ferraro.” Victoria lifted her chin. “But sometimes there are
circumstances
.”

“Maybe it was no one’s fault,” said Nella.

“Oh my God!” Victoria threw her hands in the air.
“Like any judge is going to say that.”

The judge. Nella hadn’t thought ahead to all that. The sun beat down. The sidewalk sizzled. Vinny was fussing, and Nella lifted him from the stroller. Grabbing her T-shirt, he scrubbed his boogery nose against it before she could stop him.

“I heard about your great-grandmother,” Sam said then. “Is she okay?”

“We don’t know for sure yet. We have to wait and see.”

“That stinks. That’s messed up.” He actually sounded like he cared. “Man! What is up with this neighborhood?”

Nella stared at Angela’s house and tried to remember before, but the past was gone, stolen clean away. Time was a thief. It was lawless. Time should go to jail. Vinny kicked her, wanting to be set down, but she needed something solid to hold on to, even if it was a snotty, squirmy brother.

A sudden commotion broke out. The DeMarco front door was opening, and the crowd of media surged forward. The police officer set his legs far apart and spread his arms, a human barricade.

“Do not cross this line!”

Mr. DeMarco stepped outside. He looked terrible. He had dark rings under his eyes. His white T-shirt barely covered his sagging belly, and his arms were so hairy, all that
matted yellow hair. Nella strained to see behind him, but the doorway was dark.

The media people all shouted questions at the same time. Nella saw the house the way it would look on the news. The drawn curtains. The limp flag. No shrubs or bushes, just those cracked concrete steps. Mr. DeMarco blinked and looked confused, as if he wasn’t sure what was happening. He raised a hand, like a person under attack.

“What was your reaction when you heard what your son did?” someone shouted.

“Does he have a history of violence?”

Mr. DeMarco swayed. He caught at the railing. From the corner of her eye, Nella saw the living-room curtains move. A pale oval floated behind the glass. Nella’s arms tightened around Vinny.

“Do you know where he obtained the gun?”

“Is it true your wife abandoned the family?”

The face behind the glass seemed to flicker in and out.

“Has your son expressed regret for his actions?”

Mr. DeMarco drew himself up.

“My son is a brave boy! He was doing his duty. If you can’t understand that, you can go straight to hell.” He stumbled back over the threshold. “Now go away and leave us alone!” The door slammed. The living-room curtain fell back into place.

“Oh. My. God,” breathed Victoria.

“He’s so gross and terrifying,” said Kimmy. “No wonder Angela’s the way she is.”

“Here they come!” squealed Victoria. She patted her hair and smoothed her shirt as the reporter in the turquoise suit marched across the street. A red-haired young guy with a camera on his shoulder trudged behind.

Some neighbors shielded their faces, refusing to comment, but others were eager to say what a good, quiet boy Anthony Jr. was. He was at church every Sunday. Since their mother left, he was even more devoted to his little sister.
Was was was
, like he was the one who’d died.

Vinny sneezed translucent green bubbles just as Turquoise Suit and the cameraman approached. With a disgusted face, the reporter pivoted away and held the mic out to Victoria.

Who was ready. Who was born for this moment. Her face went beatific as a saint in a holy painting. She said she went to school with Anthony’s little sister. Angela was nice, Victoria said, but personally, she felt extremely sorry for her.

“Sorry?” The reporter went on high alert. “How so?”

“Her father’s totally strict. He has a really wicked temper, like you just saw.” Victoria’s ultra-lashes fluttered. “Her mother had a nervous breakdown, so all Angela’s got is her brother. She doesn’t really have any friends.”

The red-haired man peeked out from behind his camera, his face sad. Not Turquoise Suit. She ate this up. She got Victoria’s name, then dashed back to her van, gesturing to the camera guy to hurry up.

“Oh my God,” said Victoria. “I sounded like a complete loser!”

Sam and Kimmy assured her she didn’t, but Nella couldn’t even look at her. Why? It wasn’t as if Victoria had lied. Mr. DeMarco was as bad as she said. Mrs. DeMarco did run away. And the part about Angela not having any real friends? Well.

Nella tried to put Vinny back in the stroller, but he arched his back and spouted his embarrassing gibberish. He yanked the cap off her head and threw it in the filthy gutter. Her messy hair fell in her face. If so many people weren’t around, she might have smacked him.

“This is unreal,” Sam said. “It’s like we’re in a movie. We’re part of somebody’s script.”

“And exactly who’s making this movie?” Victoria asked, hands on hips again.

Sam, who had an answer for everything, gave a one-shouldered shrug.

That night, the shooting got promoted to national news. Civil rights activists, church leaders, and politicians all had
opinions. Mom and Dad were at the hospital, so Nella was in charge of the TV. Her brothers called her a naked mole rat, but she kept it tuned to the news.

Just as she expected, the DeMarco house looked ugly and dreary. You couldn’t tell how scrubbed and neat it was inside—inspection ready, Angela called it. You couldn’t see Anthony’s barbells or Angela’s collection of little glass animals. All you could see was a house that looked exactly like where a murderer would live.

Mr. DeMarco stepped outside. He yelled at the camera. He slammed his door. A moment later, Victoria commanded the screen. She leaned into the microphone and said how extremely sorry she felt for Angela.

“She doesn’t really have any friends.”

“There’s you, Nella!” Kevin pointed. “There’s you, Vinny! Gross! Look at your snot rocket!”

Towering behind Victoria, Nella looked stupid as a statue. She and booger-faced Vinny gaped at the camera. Which made it appear she was agreeing with every word Victoria said. The evil microphone hovered in the air, so black it seemed to be absorbing all available light.

“Chief of Police Michael Corcoran is expected to announce tomorrow whether charges will be brought,” Turquoise Suit said. “We’ll be following this tragic case closely as it unfolds.”

“You’re on TV!” Bobby couldn’t get over it. “Everybody in the whole world saw you.”

Nella clicked the set off. Her brothers raged in protest, but she informed them that if they weren’t in their beds by the count of five, unspeakable things would occur. They let her get all the way to four before they ran.

Collapsing on the couch, she felt sick. She’d spent all afternoon hoping against hope that when Angela peeked through the curtains, she hadn’t noticed Nella in the crowd.

That hope was over now. Angela would watch the news. Angela would see her and Vinny, who Angela loved so much, and who loved her back so much—see them standing alongside Victoria. She’d see their stupid, blank stares as they agreed: Angela DeMarco didn’t have any friends.

MARIE, AGAIN

then

O
ther graves were decorated for the holidays. Christmas wreathes, Easter lilies, miniature American flags, but Marie’s was always bare. Whenever Nella visited, she left a pebble on the stone bench, a token that someone remembered.

One cloudy spring afternoon, as she rounded the bend in the path, she saw two pale legs sticking out from the bench. Motionless. Bloodless. Nella’s heart froze in her chest.

Her lips formed the syllables.
Ma-rie.

The feet levitated, then hit the ground.

“I thought you were a serial killer!” yelled Angela.

“I thought you were a ghost!” yelled Nella.

They both burst into semihysterics.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here?”

Nella picked up a pebble and set it beside the others on the back of the bench. Angela stopped laughing.

“You? You put all those there?”

“It’s Marie,” Nella whispered. “The girl my father . . .”

Angela looked from her to the statue and back again. “How do you know?” She whispered too.

“I can just tell. I . . . I recognize her.”

They huddled together on the bench. Angela’s jeans and sweatshirt needed to be washed, and her braids were fuzzy. She didn’t smell that good, to tell the truth.

“That’s why I’m here,” Nella said. “What about you?”

“You know. My father. My house.” Angela hunched her shoulders. She bit her thumb, which was what she did now to keep from sucking her hair. “I come here sometimes, just to get away. I’m not allowed, but way back here nobody ever sees me. Till you.”

They both gazed at Marie.

“Nobody cares about her,” Nella said softly. “They don’t come see her or bring her flowers. It’s so sad. It’s like they abandoned her.”

A soft breeze blew, and the shadows of new leaves flickered across the statue’s cheeks and brow.

“It’s like a fairy tale,” whispered Angela. “She was reaching for something forbidden, and she got turned to stone. Now she’s forced to reach forever.”

“Not forever! That’s too sad.”

Angela jumped up and stood on tiptoe. For a second Nella thought she was imitating Marie. But Angela stretched higher yet and snapped off the tip of a tree branch. A dogwood, just coming into bud. Angela tried to put it in the statue’s hand, but it slipped to the ground. Nella tugged the elastic out of her ponytail. Together they fastened the branch to the cool stone fingers.

They kept bringing Marie presents—a string of pearly rosary beads, a pinwheel from the Feast, a stick of Laffy Taffy. They did it because they felt sorry for her, forgotten and alone. They were too old to believe in magic. They knew that no matter how many offerings they brought, Marie would never come to life. Her cold white cheeks would never flush, her frozen lips would never move and say,
Thank you. You have remembered me when everyone else has forgotten. For your kindness, I will grant you each one wish.

All that spring they came, and into the summer and fall.

(Nella couldn’t remember when they stopped.)

SEASHELL

now

N
onni couldn’t talk.

Or she could, but no one understood her.

“Maybe Vinny can translate,” Clem said over the phone. “Oh wait. Maybe that’s not funny?”

It definitely was not, but how could Nella blame her? Clem might as well be in that galaxy far far away.