Mafia Girl (13 page)

“Hello…Hello?”

I wait and hear breathing, but not pervy hard breathing, just soft, normal breathing like someone is there but not willing to break the strained silence and speak. And since Clive is here with me, only one other person comes to mind, but I don’t know if he’d do that. Although the more I hold on, the surer I am that it’s him and he’s up thinking about me, and that’s based on nothing but intuition. But I have this built-in radar so that when I know things, I’m rarely wrong.

“God,” I say, almost pleading and then keep holding the phone.

I know he hears me breathing too and this is getting so hard for me because he is so there and it’s like each of us is imprisoned in our separate painful worlds and there’s a barrier between us, like in the visiting room of super max prisons. And what can I do to change that?

I wait a minute more.

Say something.

But he doesn’t. He can’t. Off in the distance I hear the growing whir of a fire engine or an ambulance like a cosmic cry of distress. Is it coming from here or his part of the city? I can’t tell. I feel like I need a compass to show me where on the map I am right now, so I hug the phone to my heart for a few seconds before I press end and then wait.

Call back, please.

But he doesn’t.

The connection is broken.

Back to the bakery.
I’m behind the counter, hair pulled back, starched white apron, positioned behind pyramids of sugary cookies like chocolate chip, chocolate fudge, vanilla nut, café au lait, anise, Italian macaroons, chocolate biscotti, lemon drops, raspberry dainties, and butter cookies.

I wear white gloves and it feels like I’m in a church, only the religion here is sugar worship, and for three solid hours I fold cardboards into snow white cubes and line them with white translucent paper, filling each box just so and then tying them tightly with white string.

Teddy is forever snooping to make sure I’m being neat and careful, and after do overs and do overs and him muttering something, I’m finally left on my own and I think about people who have this job and do this every day, five days a week and Jesus…

When he has nothing better to do, Clive comes into the bakery and hangs out even though Ro’s dad doesn’t like kids sitting there like all day and taking up a table if they’re just having a cappuccino and a few cookies. So I keep bringing him more cookies and more and his bill is like a hundred dollars for cookies that he doesn’t eat, but he doesn’t care. I sit with him on my break and drink so much espresso that I get bug-eyed. Finally when it’s seven I can leave and Clive comes with me and we parade past all the reporters outside my house, ignoring them and what they shout. My mom makes rigatoni and sausages and salad and I reach into my pocket and give her the pathetic twenty-one dollars I earned.

“Eh, good,” she says. “You learn the meaning of work.”

I make a face behind her back but don’t say anything because then she’d tell my dad and he’d make me work weekends too for being fresh. I go up to my room and Clive comes with me. My mom sits in the living room and makes sketches of fancy Cinderella dresses she’ll never wear and crochets lace doilies as if we need more.

The phone rings the next night. “Gia,” Clive sighs, “my parents are back, so would you please, please, please go to dinner with us?”

I hesitate for just a minute.

“They’re dying to meet you. I told them so much about you. We have a reservation at Le Bernardin, so please say yes.”

“Um, fine,” I say, staring into my closet.

What the hell do I wear to meet his parents, who are these major media moguls and world-class sophisticates, and what will they think of the little guidette?

“What time?”

“Seven. Thomas will get you.”

Thomas is now my partner in crime and he’s totally cool, especially after I gave him a joint once and he gave me one back, which we vowed never to tell anyone because it definitely could get him fired.

I look through everything I have and can’t decide and then just say screw it and go with the backless dress because where else am I going to wear it? I put on one gold cuff bracelet and cranberry heels and lipstick to match and I’m done. I wear a jacket over it though, so that when I leave the house it looks like lah-di-dah, Gia is just dressed in a nice, simple black outfit that’s totally appropriate.

Thomas is waiting and I get into the car and he takes me to West 51st Street. I bolt out of the car before he has a chance to open the door for me, never mind nearly falling on my fucking head again because there’s this massive pothole that Thomas obviously didn’t know about.  But still he apologizes fifty times over and I stop and take a few large gulps of air and then try to relax.

Le Bernardin is unbelievably friggin’ cool and there’s this giant ocean painting, which is the first thing you see. It looks like if you reach up you’ll get soaked by ocean waves, it’s that real. The maitre d’ greets me and I tell him I’m meeting the Laurents and he acts like yes, yes, yes, how boring, because he already knows that. And after giving me the once over, he walks me back toward their table.

I had an image of Clive’s parents in my mind and it’s not at all like what I see.

His mom is pretty in a cool, elegant, chairwoman-of-the-board kind of way. She’s wearing a camel-colored cashmere dress with no jewelry at all except a ring with a diamond that could double as a paperweight. She has beautiful skin and blue eyes and sleek chin-length golden brown hair with amazing highlights. And she glances at my dress and seems to approve, but I haven’t taken the jacket off yet and when I do she’ll freak and think I’m a slut and snub me.

Clive’s dad looks like he goes with her because he’s wearing a simple tan and brown wool jacket that looks casual perfect and designer expensive with a tan shirt and a slim silk knit tie. His dad’s name, I know, is Claude and his mom’s is Alice, although they pronounce it Aleeze, Clive told me, because her mom is French.

Just to be on the safe side, I say, “it’s so nice to finally meet you Mr. and Mrs. Laurent and they immediately say please call them by their first names, which obviously makes more sense, so I do.

“Gia, we heard so much about you,” Alice says, “and Clive was right, you’re lovely. And you like clothes,” she says, touching the sleeve of my jacket. At that moment I feel comfortable enough to slip out of my jacket, and her eyes open wide. Just as I’m thinking oh crap, I just blew it, it’s over, she says, “Oh, Claude, that’s the dress I ordered in Paris but couldn’t get.”

After all the chitchat about the dress and all, we look at the menu, but duh, I don’t understand anything. I mean, geoduck? Tairagai? But Clive and his parents are familiar with every little morsel. Clive jumps in and saves me and says, “Gia, you’ll love the crab cakes,” so I order them.

At the end of the meal, Alice starts to talk about a new magazine that they’re doing a prototype for, even though I don’t really know what a prototype is. And she hints that they could use someone like me for an article they’re including on personal style and finally says, “Gia, would that interest you?”

“I…I’m not sure.” I’m almost stuttering because, whoa, I don’t really know. “What would I have to do?”

“Just take a quick trip over Christmas to Paris, London, and maybe Milan and Rome to see what you’d buy to lend a European feel to the piece.”

And I’m like,
are you kidding me!? That’s work?

“Well, only if my parents are okay with it and if Clive could come to keep me company.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Alice says.

Clive nods, never mind the pained expression on his face.

I wake up
the day of the school election knowing that it’s going to be the longest day of school ever. We start the morning by voting and the results are usually tallied by the end of the day. Or if not, by the beginning of the next day.

“You own it,” Ro says, high-fiving me.

“It’s a slam dunk,” Clive says.

“It’s not over until the fat lady sings,” I say, which is one of Anthony’s dumb expressions that I really don’t understand, but it seems to fit.

For the entire day I pretend this is no different from every other day, never mind that Ro already told me that they bought a keg and plan on getting pizza and having everybody over once we find out officially that I’m the new class president. At three o’clock I meet Ro and Clive and Candy in the hall near the principal’s office and we go up to the wall where they post the results. Only no results are up.

“Crap,” Ro says, “I wanted to celebrate.”

“I can’t imagine what’s taking so long,” Clive says. “I mean all they have to do is count the ballots. How hard is that?”

Even though in the real world ballots are counted electronically, at Morgan we do it the old-fashioned way, which they must think is quaint. But it is actually more like how corrupt third world countries do it, with everyone filling out a paper ballot that they slide into a cardboard box marked
voting machine
.

We leave school with an empty feeling, wondering if we should celebrate prematurely then decide that would be dumb. So for one more night I remain a candidate and nothing more is said.

Only the next morning when we get to school and go to the bulletin board the results are still not posted. After lunch we go back to check. And there it is, the new student president of the Morgan School is
Brandy Tewl
.

“What?” Clive says.

“It can’t be,” Ro says.

“No,” Candy says.

A vocab word pops into my head, flummoxed. It means bewildered, confused. That’s what I am because maybe it can’t be, but it is, and I get this uneasy feeling. Clive has it too because his face is suddenly paler than usual.

Down the corridor come Brandy, Christy, and Georgina and they’re holding hands and skipping and smiling like they won the lottery. They stop in front of the sign.

“Yes!” Brandy says. “We did it. We won.”

“We
fixed
her,” Georgina whispers as they walk away.

I stand there and stare, not sure what I just heard.

Someone comes up behind me and looks at the notice.

“Jesus, Brandy?”

Other kids look and a few of them make a point of applauding, even though I’m standing right there. Then Jordan walks up to the board.

“Brandy?”

That’s all. “Brandy?” as though if he lost it would at least be to me and if Brandy won then he really hit rock bottom. Without another word, Clive and Ro and Candy and I leave school in total silence.

“Go home without me,” I tell Frankie who’s waiting outside because it’s his shift. “And don’t send Vinnie later because I’m going to Clive’s.”

“Be careful,” he says.

We all storm across the park without a word. When we get into Clive’s apartment we hit his fridge and take out all the beer that he bribes the maids to buy for him and we get drunk and then crush the cans one by one by one while we’re thinking about Brandy and Christy and Georgina, because how else do you handle losing to such cockroaches?

“They screwed you over,” Ro says, coming out with what we didn’t want to say because it sounds like sour grapes. “Maybe they threw out some of your votes or just ignored them,” she says. “I mean who was in charge of counting anyway?”

“I thought the teachers,” Clive says.

“Me too,” Candy says.

I don’t say anything, but at that point I’m thinking, you know, maybe it’s a blessing in disguise because really, why do I need to be president of that place? I mean volunteering my time to come up with ways to make it a better school when the best way would be to just expel some of the people who go there.

My mom looks up expectantly when I walk in.

“Did you win?”

“No.”

“Someone else did?”

“I’m not sure.”

She looks at me like,
what?
because she doesn’t understand that and neither do I, but I’m getting the gut feeling I get when things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be. But I try to put that out of my head because it’s time to go to work.

I sometimes wonder why people have pastries at dinnertime, but I guess they have different schedules or different needs and if your life is sweetness-starved, pastries might be the ticket.

I’m standing behind the counter dressed in white like a nun minus the cross but feeling like one anyway since I have no real social life beyond Ro and Clive and Candy. And I’m counting out the cookies, which in a strange way is therapeutic because when you’ve loaded up a whole box and tied it tight, you feel you’ve accomplished something, and I feel good about that. Until I hear voices. Familiar ones. So out of context though. It couldn’t be. But my heart is pounding like tribal drums because it knows, yes it can.

Georgina and Brandy are waiting in line. They’re whispering together and glancing at me and finally when it’s their turn they look me in the eye and burst out laughing.

“Oh, hi, Gia,” Georgina says. “We didn’t know that you work behind the counter here as a
server
.”

I look at her dead on. “What would you like?”

They pretend they’re deciding and stand there forever, holding up everybody else in line.

“Those,” Georgina says finally, pointing to the lace cookies. “Because we’re celebrating,” she says, staring at me pointedly.

I start to wrap some up.

“No, no, we’re staying,” she says.

I unwrap them. “There’s table service.” Isn’t that obvious? If it’s not bad enough that they came in, they sit at a table near the front and order tea and coffee and cookies. Only when their cookies arrive they taste them and Brandy shakes her head in disgust. “They’re so sticky,” she says. “Can we get some other kind?”

“Like what?” the waitress says.

Georgina runs to the case again and makes a show of deciding, finally pointing to the raspberry cookies and the chocolate chip, so the waitress brings those and they sit there untouched because maybe they’re dieting but more likely just dissing everything and getting off on being guests while I’m the help.

Georgina and Brandy start whispering about something and laughing out loud and Georgina takes out her phone and snaps pictures of Brandy like she’s a celebrity and something about what’s going on is starting to make me crazed because I know what will be happening next.