Every Single Second (9 page)

Rounding a bend in the path, she saw the statue of a
young girl. She was on her toes, one arm stretched upward. Her face tilted toward the sky. Every inch of her yearned.
Yearned
.

Her name was carved in the base.

MARIE MAGELLAN

CHILD OF LIGHT

Nella sank onto a stone bench thick with pollen and grit. No one must have sat here for a long time. In the whispering air, the girl kept reaching for something invisible.

“You died in a state of grace,” Nella said softly. “You went straight to heaven. Marie? Can you look down and see me?”

A small, yellow-flecked bird lighted on the girl’s lifted hand. It sang three sweet, rising notes, tra la la, then flew away.

It wasn’t till she got home that Nella realized it was May 3, the day Marie died.

AIUTA!

now

W
et bags drooped from the trees like vampire bats. Nella had surreptitiously borrowed the long-handled claw thing Nonni used for reaching things she dropped. Once she was armed with this mighty weapon, no piece of pukey plastic could defeat the CRAPP.

Invincible, Nella and Clem bought lemon ices from Terraci’s, then ate them sitting on the steps of the church. This morning, they had taken the magnet school admission test. They definitely were not talking about it.

“My mother took Vinny for a checkup this week, and the doctor said he recommends a neurologist.”

“Einstein didn’t talk till he was three.”

“So maybe Vinny’s a genius?”

“Maybe on his third birthday he’ll say,
I have unlocked the mystery of dark matter.
”

“Or maybe
This family is certifiably crazy.
”

They passed the souvenir shop. In Nella’s pocket was the stolen scarf, which she’d brought to the test as a good-luck charm. This was how pathetic she was. The admission test had been so hard, her brain was still gasping like a hooked fish.

It wasn’t like she wanted to go to a math-and-science magnet school anyway. Nella was terrible at math and didn’t care about science. Girls were not supposed to say things like that anymore, but it was the truth.

All she wanted was to stay with Clem.

She tripped.

“Invisible gnome alert!” Clem laughed and pushed her new glasses up her nose. The lenses were even thicker than the last pair. Nella kept growing clumsier and Clem kept growing blinder. The clouds parted, turning the rain-washed air all silvery.

“Did I tell you what Bobby did? He dropped Legos in the cake batter. My father chipped a tooth.”

But Clem was distracted. She scratched her head with the claw.

“There’s no known law of physics that says time has to run forward. But it always does. It never reverses. Time always moves toward the next thing, not the last. It’s like the future is . . . irresistible.” She spun to face Nella. “The Leap Second I was telling you about? The extra second they’re adding to the clock in August? Remember?”

“Umm . . .”

“Okay, listen. To stay in synch with the Earth’s rotation, sometimes they have to fiddle with how we keep time. So this August, we get a free extra second of future. Think about it. It’s a colossal gift. Nell, we can’t waste it. We need to catch that special second and make it officially ours. Clem and Nell, Time Sisters!”

Holding the claw at arm’s length, Clem marched like a drum majorette. They reached the top of the hill and the gates to the university campus. Hung between two massive stone columns, they loomed heavy and important, just like the gates to the cemetery. Clem gave back the claw and headed for her father’s lab.

Maybe time never reversed, but Nella had to. Pulling the scarf out of her pocket and looping it around her neck, she retraced her footsteps down the hill to Nonni’s.

Who sat on her porch, wearing her black sweater buttoned to her chin, a plastic visor, and the giant sunglasses
they gave her last time she went to the eye doctor. Not exactly a relaxed, springtime look. Dad had un-burlapped the fig tree, and its leaves glowed with green gratitude. Adjusting her Kryptonite-deflecting sunglasses, Nonni pointed across the street.

“No like.”

Bright purple curtains billowed in the upstairs window. Today, the music was dazzling as a skipping stone. On the porch a girl with one of those red dots on her forehead sat reading.

“Gypsies!”

“No, Nonni. She’s a student at the college up the hill.”

“Baby snatchers!”

“I’m going to make you some lunch.”

When she came back with a sandwich, Hairy Boy was hopping off his bike, dashing inside. A moment later, the music stopped midsong. Nella imagined him and Turtle Girl kissing. He’d hold her face between his hands. She’d go up on her toes to meet his hungry lips. Imagining it, Nella tottered. Her head bumped into a hanging pot. Her body had grown again without her permission. A stealth body, that’s what she occupied.

Who would ever love her? A clumsy, pimply skyscraper of a girl like her?

Nonni curled her lip at the sandwich and pointed to
the mailbox. When Nella lifted the top, she found a bag of Laffy Taffy. The candy sometimes stuck in her dentures, but Nonni still loved it.

“Where does the general put his armies?” she read.

Nonni leaned forward expectantly. She loved Laffy Taffy jokes.

“In his sleevies!”

Nonni slapped the arms of her chair and laughed that crazy big laugh. As Nella handed her the candy, a sudden memory flitted across her mind: Nonni feeding baby-her a bite of perfectly ripe fig.

Hairy Boy dashed back outside, jumped on his bike, and pedaled away. Did he just stop by to steal a quick, passionate kiss? His hair flapped like a great, hairy sail. The music started up again, even brighter and more dazzling. It coaxed the sun to shine brighter, the fig tree to release a hint of delicious figgy perfume.

Nonni’s fingers suddenly pinched Nella’s arm so hard she yelped.

A uniformed man was walking by. He had close-cropped blond hair and wore a black shirt with an emblem on the sleeve, a shiny badge on the pocket. A black belt with unfriendly things buckled on. Nella’s heart lurched. Anthony! She knew he was a security guard now, but she’d never seen him in uniform.

“Stop him!” Nonni was amputating Nella’s arm.
“Aiuto!”
Help!

Anthony looked up. That familiar smile. Nella’s heart did a cartwheel.

“Nella-smella-marshamella!” He climbed the porch steps. “Mrs. Sabatini.”

“Anthony!” Nonni pressed her hands together in prayer. “
Grazie a Dio!
You’re police now?”

Nella rolled her eyes, and Anthony gave her a wink. Pulling a pad from his back pocket, he propped his foot on the porch railing and pretended to take notes as Nonni complained about the Invaders out to steal her money. (What money? Nonni never stopped lamenting how she didn’t have two nickels to rub together.)

What Anthony was really doing, Nella saw, was sketching. The alien sunglasses, the plastic visor, the bony cheeks—it was Nonni, but improved. Anthony took that old face and made it fierce and brave, almost the face of someone you’d want to know. His hands moved quickly and easily, his deep-set eyes barely glancing at the paper.

But his hair was clipped so short it bristled instead of curling. And his arms, once so scrawny, were muscular. Nella felt uneasy. This wasn’t her Anthony, the one who drew her castles and unicorns. The gentleness was
sandpapered away, leaving behind something raw. Suddenly, she felt afraid for him.

“Gitani!”
Nonni whispered.
Gypsies.

Turtle Girl, instrument case on her back, butter-yellow scarf around her neck, stepped outside. She paused, giving them a questioning look.

“See?” hissed Nonni.
“Male.”
Evil.

Turtle Girl frowned. What if she crossed the street and demanded that Nonni quit harassing them? Nella would die of mortification.

That was when she remembered she was wearing the stolen scarf.

The girl furrowed her brow. Nella slid down in her chair. She yanked the scarf off and stuffed it in her pocket. But the girl wasn’t looking at her. It was Anthony making her frown. She didn’t approve of men with badges and uniforms and unfriendly-looking belts. Nella’s cheeks grew warm. What did that girl know? Just because she was a college student, with a cute boyfriend and dainty feet and who knew how many silk scarves, what did she know? Did she know what a great artist Anthony was, or how much he loved his little sister, or that his father loyally served their country? No, she did not. After a moment, the girl turned on her heel and walked away.

A turtle, protected by her shell.

Anthony rubbed the scar above his eye. He looked sad and squashed. He looked, Nella realized, like that stiff uniform was wearing him, not the other way around.

“She’s just a dumb ignorant student,” she said.

Now Nonni started talking about PopPop’s brother, Vito, who was a mounted policeman. He’d take the nieces and nephews to the stables and let them feed the horses apples.
Molto grande.
Huge
—those horses were huge. Their hooves were the size of a newborn’s head. Vito and his horse stood guard when the coloreds made that riot down at the bottom of the hill. He was there, on his powerful horse, making sure they didn’t cross the line into this neighborhood. And when they bused their kids into the old school, Vito and the others were there, letting those people know: no one wanted them here. They did not belong here.

Nonni told these stories when she got really worked up. Nella didn’t know how much was true, how much was old-lady craziness. Once she’d asked Mom, but her mother had told her she didn’t need to worry about things that happened before she was born, things nobody was proud of. The past was the past, Mom said.

And then grew quiet, as if she knew that wasn’t always true.

Anthony was frowning now, sliding his notebook back into his pocket.

“With all due respect, Mrs. S,” he said, “times have changed.”

Nonni’s look turned uncertain. Anthony dipped his head.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You’re safe now, okay?”

Nella followed him out to the sidewalk. Making people feel safe—now it was his official job, but it had always been who he was. Watching over Angela. For years, watching over her, too.

For the first time she wondered, who was watching over him?

Anthony hooked a finger in his belt. Was one of those things a gun? Looking at him again, she saw she was wrong. He wasn’t sad and squashed. He was angry. Furious. Beneath those new muscles, deep inside, something was coiled up tight.

(Later, she would remember that.)

“She seems kind of shaky,” he said.

“Who?” Confused, for a moment she thought he meant Angela.

“Your great-grandmother, that’s who.” Anthony gave her a funny look. Then he ruffled her head like she was a silly puppy, and that was the last she saw of him, till long after it happened.

ANTHONY’S SECRET

then

A
nthony won a scholarship to take classes at the art school. He kept up his part-time after-school job too, so Nella hardly ever saw him.

Mr. DeMarco got into a fistfight at Mama Gemma’s. He was banned from there now. Also the social club. About the only place he was welcome these days was church, and he hardly ever showed up.

That summer, the summer after fourth grade, Anthony fell in love.

Her name was Janelle Johnson. He met her at the art school, Angela said, swearing Nella to secrecy. One
afternoon they followed Anthony up the hill, past the university gates, down a street lined with cute shops, to the corner where Janelle waited. Nella and Angela hid behind a tall sidewalk planter and watched him kiss her hello. Janelle’s eyes were dark and shiny, like plums dipped in water.

Hate was a sin. But Nella hated Janelle.

“Why do they sneak around?” she hissed. “What’s their problem? It’s stupid. It’s dumb.”

“You know why,” Angela said.

Nella pretended not to. “Because she’s black, you mean?”

Angela looked away. “You can’t tell anyone. We have to protect them.”

They crossed pinkies and touched all four fingertips together. The Secret Sister Sign.

Someone else ratted to Mr. DeMarco. Angela suspected Kenny Lombardo, that meathead.
Ballistic
was too feeble a word for Mr. DeMarco. He took away Anthony’s phone. He threw his drawing supplies in the garbage. He said he’d rather have a son who was a retard or a homo than a liar and a sneak. He went insane, even for him.

“So did Anthony,” Angela said.

They sat on the playground swings. The rusty chains left orange powder on their hands.

“He called Papa names I never even heard of. And I’ve heard plenty. Then he slammed out.” Angela twisted her swing. “Papa locked the doors. He said if I let Anthony in, I’d be sorry.”

As much as Nella hated Janelle, she hated this story more.

“After he went to bed, I unlocked the door. In the morning, Anthony was in the kitchen, making eggs. His face was like this.”