Mafia Girl (19 page)

It may be that Clive wants to distract me from everything or he just doesn’t know what else to do, but at lunch he starts talking about the school fund-raiser called Celebrate and about volunteering to help and me helping him to get my mind off my life, which is useless. So I say yes because it’s easier than saying no.

And then I’m getting crazy about how I’m feeling about my dad and for the first time how final it feels and how alone I am now, and I think about my grandma’s funeral and how he looked after he came home, like someone cut out his heart.

I feel that way too now. I get what he went through and there’s nothing you can do about the hurt. Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems like everyone at school is looking at me and then turning away when I catch them.

It doesn’t help that the TV news did a report on how our family’s assets were being seized with pictures of our townhouse, my dad’s Mercedes, the Cadillac, even a shot of my mom taken years ago in a sable coat that she doesn’t even own anymore because she donated it to charity.

Candy stops me by my locker and touches my shoulder. “I…I just feel so bad for you.”

“Thanks, Candy.”

She stands there staring at me, hesitating.

“What?”

She glances around then steps closer. “I never told anyone here this, Gia, but the reason we moved to New York”—she stops and looks lost in thought and then turns back to me—“was because my dad got convicted of tax evasion and he was sent to prison.” Tears fill her eyes. “It was embarrassing for everyone, so we moved here, where no would know us.”

“Candy, I’m sorry.” I am. She looks so victimized, so hurt. I look at her expression. It was hard for her to say that. She did it to try to help me not feel so alone. Everything I thought about her world in LA and the movies was wrong.

“I wanted you to know…because I know what it feels like, in a way. So if you ever want to talk…”

I feel a lump in my throat. “Thanks.”

“I think you’re stronger than I am, Gia. And surer of yourself. I think you’ll be okay. I really believe that.”

Me?
“Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t help,” I say.

Then Brandy and Christy come down the hall, and I cross my arms over my chest, stand taller, and start walking.

Ro catches up with me in the hallway.

I pull her over to the side. “Did you see the TV last night?”

“I’m so sorry, Gia.”

“We’ll have to move.”

“Where?”

“My grandma’s apartment. It’s small, but it’s decent. It’s a few blocks from my house. Everything will be different, Ro.”

“But you’ll get through it, Gia. You’re strong. ”

“Everybody thinks that. What do they know?”

“They can take your money, but not who you are inside, Gia. Your belief in yourself, everything that your dad gave you, they can’t seize that.”

“When did you get so fucking sure of everything?”

She smirks. “When you survived the bakery. I saw what you were made of.”

We meet Clive in the dining hall, and after we get our food, we sit down together at our usual table.

“I heard that there’s a van outside from CNN,” Ro says. “Someone heard that the reporter is going to wait until you come out at three o’clock to get a comment or whatever.”

“Oh good, I’ll tell them how terrific it feels to see your dad put away for life.”

No one says anything and everyone kind of stares down at the table.

“If they’re really out there, Gia,” Clive says finally, “I’m going to go into the office and have the school call the police to ask them to get the van off school property because it must be harassment or something.”

I’m not sure he’s right, but since I’m a minor, that sounds reasonable and why not try to chase them away if we can.

I can’t help thinking that yeah, in fact, the cops will be here after school because I’m meeting Michael, which is humorous in a dark way, so at the end of lunch everyone goes off to class and I stop at the bathroom.

A moment after I sit down, I’m hit by the nauseating scent that Christy shrouds herself in, which means she probably followed me in along with her joined-at-the-hip friend Georgina, who comes in next because they even pee in tandem.

It’s awfully quiet, which makes me wonder because the two of them are incapable of
not
talking. I wait and then think
screw this
and go out of the stall and I’m face-to-face with them.

Christy looks at Georgina and Georgina looks at Christy and they both smile these little, smug, full-of-themselves smiles. For no reason, I hold my hand up to them like it’s a gun.

“BANG, BANG, BANG!” I shout.

They look at each other and run from the bathroom.

For the first time in a week my mouth curls up into a smile.

Bio seems to last
for hours instead of forty-five minutes and I’m getting a migraine. So when Klosky, the bio prof, is rambling on about proteins being made from polypeptides and that amino acids are the building blocks of polypeptides and that the RNA made from transcription is used as a template that determines the sequence of the amino acids in a polypeptide, I get that woozy, low-blood sugar, hazy brain fog and the sounds all come together in my head as white-sound soup. And anyway it’s warm in the room and my sweater is too thick and everything is putting me to sleep.

But fortunately there is a merciful God and Klosky doesn’t call on me. When I look up at the clock and see the class is over, I simultaneously hear and feel a vibration in my bag, which is on my knees, and it feels like the sound is coming from inside me, which freaks me out, and I jump.

It’s my phone, I realize. It’s a text from Michael.
I’m on NW corner. CNN at main. Avoid
.

Ro was right. I’m glad Michael warned me. I slip out the side entrance and the only ones outside are a group of parents. Michael is standing away from the corner because he has this way of hanging back, which I guess is a cop thing because they learn to watch and wait before they pounce. I should remember that. I go toward him and as usual get weak just looking in his direction. He’s wearing a black turtleneck sweater over faded jeans and he looks up and stares at me with those intense, brooding eyes. I rush across to him and want him to crush me in his arms, but he glances anxiously at me.

“Let’s get out of here before someone sees you.”

Michael puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me down the street, and I don’t know where we’re going. But if he wants to try walking across the East River, I’m in.

He knows where we’re going and it’s not the water. We finally stop at a small Euro-type bistro on Madison Avenue. He asks for a table in the back, and since it’s three thirty, most of them are empty. Michael faces the door, and I sit with my back to it. I look at him, trying to catch my breath.

“I haven’t seen you…in so long,” I say.

He sits with his hands tented, covering his mouth. He doesn’t answer but he holds my gaze as the electricity fires up between us again. His eyes darken. He feels it too, only he pretends he doesn’t and shifts his gaze to the table like it’s his safe zone.

“I know,” he says.

“What will it be?” the waiter asks, appearing out of nowhere, breaking the mood.

“Coffee with milk,” I hear myself say.

“Black,” Michael says.

The waiter turns away and we’re back to staring at each other again, the air weighted, the silence thick with what’s ahead.

“Tell me about your Thanksgiving.” I want to break the tension and get him talking normal and everyday and us stuff, not about my dad or the mob or everything ahead for us. “So you went home—to Maryland?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

He looks at me hard as if he’s deciding if he even wants to go there, and I’m suddenly getting this sinking feeling that I do not want to be getting, but whatever, I could be wrong. I could be, because sometimes I am, and screw my internal radar.

“My mom’s an alcoholic, so the whole Thanksgiving thing is too much for her.”

Something personal. It takes me by surprise.

“So you cooked?”

“Yeah,” he says with a half smile.

“Are you good?”

“Pretty good, yeah.”

“What’s your specialty?”

“Chestnut stuffing.” Then he inhales sharply and shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “Why are we talking about this, Gia?” His mouth is set in a hard line.

I draw a deep breath, trying to hide that I need more air. “I don’t know, Michael. What should we be talking about?”

“Listen,” he says. “I’ve been thinking…about everything…”

Everything?
Here it comes. I can hear the words before he says them and what I want to do is jam my fingers in my ears so I can’t hear anything at all, but I don’t. Instead I look right back at him like I don’t follow.

“So, Thanksgiving, tell me, I want to know about your family.” I stare him down to delay
everything
and force him to shut up about
everything
and maybe make him want to forget what he is going to say or at the last minute change his mind altogether or…I, I don’t…

“It’s fucked up,” he says. “I have a brother who’s a recovering junkie.” He pauses to give that time to sink in.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” he says, his jaw tightening.

“So he was there?”

“He’s always there. He lives with her. He’s not working so he can’t afford a place of his own.” He looks away. “He lives in the bedroom he grew up in, like when he was six years old.” He shakes his head in disgust.

“And your dad, when did he die?”

“He’s been…out of the picture for a long time.”

“Is your brother…clean now?”

“For now.”

“So you’re, what, his big brother and you try to take care of him and your mom?”

“Right.”

I stare down at the table and think about my family. He has three people and we have three hundred with aunts and uncles and cousins and people that aren’t really family but sort of are by now and people and even neighbors around day and night and people calling all the time and…

“You know why I became a cop, Gia?”

“Why?”

“Because I hated the crazy, sick people that my brother got involved with, the ones who ruined his life, and I wanted to bust their asses and lock them up.”

“The pushers?”

“The pushers and the people behind them,” he says, his face hardening. “You know who they are?”

Before I can say no he glares at me.

“The mob.” He waits for that to sink in. “They bring in the shit and distribute it.”

It takes me a few seconds to feel the impact, and I wince. I put my cup down so hard that the coffee splatters everywhere.

“So that’s what this is about. You’re blaming me? It’s my fault?”

“I’m not blaming you, Gia. All I’m saying is I can’t separate you from them and your dad and the whole picture.”

“You don’t know me. You don’t know my dad, Michael. You just hate us, like everybody else.”

“No, I hate the business,” Michael says. “The restaurants, the carting, the waste disposal, the gambling, the tax evasion, the payoffs—the payoffs to cops, cops that they squeeze and then they own. Do you understand that? Do you have any idea what goes on?”

“That’s not my life.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“I don’t fucking know, Michael, okay? My dad doesn’t sit down with me and go over his business.”

He looks back at me like he’s deciding whether to believe me.

“Maybe you actually don’t know,” he says, “but I can’t
not
see it. I’m not blind and I can’t not see how the mob squeezes people and fucks up their lives. To me it’s personal.”

“Oh, I get it. You see it all and you’re not blind—blind like me?”

He stares back at me and just shakes his head.

The write-off, the stereotype. It’s who I am to almost everybody and they can’t let go of it or see past it. Only why does it continue to surprise me? How could I imagine that he’d be different? He’s a cop. He thinks like a cop. It’s in his blood. Ro was right.

I didn’t choose to be born into my family. I never endorsed what they do, even though most of the time—he’s right—maybe I am blind, because I have no idea what the hell they really do, because my dad doesn’t exactly come to me for advice, at least not unless he’s buying my mom a birthday present.

Now all this pushes my buttons and makes me crazy and depressed and alienated because no matter what the truth is, I’m blamed and guilty by association, and the fury rises up in me. How could I be stupid enough to imagine that this cop would be different and see past that? How could I possibly imagine that he’d want to know me or feel anything for me other than rage?

“If you’re going to be a good cop, Michael, maybe you better sharpen your skills a little so you don’t lump together the guilty with the innocent—”

“Gia, I’m—”

“And automatically accuse someone who might not be guilty because of your own prejudices and fucking stereotyped way of seeing the world.”

He stares at the table and shakes his head then looks up at me. “I’ve tried. And there’s more to it—”

“I don’t want to hear more, Michael, because you know what I think? I think you haven’t tried at all. You never tried to see me for myself. You never took me out when I just about threw myself at you. You never made any effort to find out who I am. What did you do, kiss me back? Call me in the middle of the night and breathe in the phone? Is that what you call trying?”

“I was—”

“All you do is nurse your grievances and play clean cop and purist and Mister Self-Righteous—”

“Jesus, stop—”

“No, I won’t stop,” I say, getting angrier by the second. “The world’s not black and white. And for whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry your brother is a junkie or was a junkie because that sucks. But don’t blame me, I didn’t do it to him, although maybe it’s easier for you to think that so you can trash the don’s daughter from your high and mighty place and keep your distance and not give or risk losing something, and you can devote your life to chasing bad guys to make up for the shit your brother got into.” I get to my feet and Michael jumps up at the same time.