“Penny!”
Out in the ocean, just past the next big wave, I see a dark head bobbing in the water, hair slicked back like a seal’s.
My father lifts his hand and waves.
I wade out into the water, and when it reaches my chest, I dive into an oncoming wave. I’m a good swimmer. I learned how to swim at the lake we go to every summer. But for some reason, the farther I swim, the farther away my father seems to be, until he is just a speck on the horizon.
“Penny,” my father calls to me, his voice distant now.
A wave rises from the ocean and comes crashing down, dragging me under.
His voice rings through the water: “Penny!”
I fight my way up to the surface, but when I blink my eyes open, I’m not in the ocean. There’s no sand, no blue sky, no waves.
I’m lying in my bed, the sheets kicked off. Water is pouring down through the ceiling, and it doesn’t smell at all like seawater.
“Pop-pop,” I yell. “The toilet’s leaking again!”
“Give me the other wrench,” Pop-pop says, banging around on his hands and knees on the black-and-white-tiled bathroom floor.
“Which one?” I ask, looking in his mess of a toolbox. There are at least five wrenches.
“What?”
“Which wrench?” I say loudly.
“The other one,” he says. “The other one!”
I pick one out and hand it to him.
“Useless,” he grumbles, and starts smacking it on the toilet.
The toilet is always breaking, and lucky for me, it’s right over my bed. Pop-pop refuses to hire a plumber. He always says, “Any man worth his salt can fix a toilet.”
Me-me is in the kitchen when I go downstairs.
“Did he fix it?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“That man is so stubborn,” she says under her breath. “I swear, he’d sit on the Titanic while it was sinking just because he wouldn’t want to give up his seat.”
There’s a loud bang followed by a curse, and we both look up.
Me-me shakes her head. “I’d better go up there before he tears apart the whole bathroom. Go see if the milk has been delivered yet.”
Me-me likes to put the top cream from the milk into her coffee, and after dealing with Pop-pop, she’s going to need some coffee.
I go out to the porch just in time to see Mr. Mulligan, the milkman, coming up the walk carrying two bottles of milk.
“Hi, Mr. Mulligan,” I say.
“Hi, Penny,” he says back. “I think we’re in for a hot one today.”
Mr. Mulligan is going bald and only has a tuft of red hair left, like Woody Woodpecker. He’s from an Irish family and he’s got real pale skin. We get a lot of deliverymen coming here—milk, bread, vegetables—but Mr. Mulligan’s the nicest. He’s got a good sense of humor.
“Let’s see, you have four bottles of milk, right?” he asks, which is what he always asks. It’s sort of a joke with us, because we get the same thing every week. Not very exciting, but there it is.
“Four bottles,” I say.
“You a big milk drinker?” he asks.
“I hate milk,” I say. “But Me-me makes me drink it.”
He laughs. “See you next week.”
After fixing the toilet, Pop-pop announces that we’re going to paint Me-me’s desk. Lately, Pop-pop’s been painting all the furniture in the house black. Me-me thinks our old furniture will look nicer with black lacquer paint. She got the idea from her friend Mrs. Hart, who’s painted all her furniture and woodwork with black lacquer paint and says it’s very stylish. I can’t say that I like it very much. You kind of feel like you’re in a funeral parlor.
“Ready for some fancy painting?” Pop-pop asks.
We drag Me-me’s desk out to the summer porch. First we sand the desk so that the paint will take, and then we start painting. It’s not exactly the best day to be painting; it’s about a hundred degrees out. The whole time we paint, Pop-pop keeps up a running commentary on how I’m doing everything wrong.
“You’re using too much paint,” he’ll say, or “Hold the brush this way.” His favorite is “Don’t they teach you anything in that school of yours?”
Scarlett O’Hara is sitting on the porch, looking out at the squirrels in the backyard. All at once a large puddle forms at her feet.
“Scarlett!” I say, but it’s too late. She blinks up at me and wags her tail.
“Out of here, mutt,” Pop-pop says, holding the door open and glaring at Scarlett O’Hara.
“Go on, Scarlett,” I say, and she bolts out after a squirrel.
Scarlett loves chasing other animals. Anytime she senses another creature, she goes after it. Once she chased a chipmunk all around the house before scaring it into running up the chimney, which Mother didn’t think was very clever but I thought was pretty funny, especially when the chipmunk came back down all covered in soot and ran around the parlor.
“Pop-pop,” I ask, “do you think something’s wrong with Scarlett O’Hara?”
“She’s an old dog,” he says.
Scarlett O’Hara’s almost fifteen, which I guess is old in dog years, although she sure doesn’t act old. My father gave my mother Scarlett O’Hara when she was just a puppy, but now she’s my dog. Mother says that when I was a baby, Scarlett would bark whenever I cried.
“What does that have to do with tinkling on the floor?” I ask.
He groans and stands up. “When you get old, sometimes your innards stop working the way they should.”
“Does that mean she’s going to die?”
“We’re all going to die,” he says. “I’m planning on dropping dead next week. That way I don’t have to wear a necktie to that social with your grandmother.”
We paint together for a while, and then Me-me comes out to the porch with meat loaf sandwiches and lemonade. I don’t like meat loaf to begin with, and Me-me’s meat loaf is dry and crusty. Pop-pop starts right in on his sandwich, but when I try to take a bite of mine, my stomach gives a little flip. All this talk of dying is getting to me. Either that or it’s the meat loaf. It’s hard to say.
I pull the lucky bean out of my pocket. It doesn’t look very lucky. I think of my dream. Would my father have died if he’d had this bean? I know he got sick and was taken to the hospital and died there, but no one on either side of the family ever really talks about what was wrong with him.
“Pop-pop, what did my father die from?” I ask.
“What? What?” he sputters.
“I just thought you might know, is all.”
“How would I know?” he asks with a huff. “Do I look like a doctor?”
Before I can say anything, the squirrel Scarlett O’Hara’s been chasing runs in through the open screen door and starts racing around the enclosed porch, with Scarlett right behind it. Scarlett streaks by the desk, smearing black paint all along her side.
“Penny, get that blasted dog out of here!” Pop-pop hollers.
“Scarlett O’Hara,” I call. I lunge for her, but she outmaneuvers me, and my foot catches in the rug.
And that’s when I go tumbling headfirst right into the can of paint.
“Oh, Penny,” Me-me says with a sigh.
We’re in the upstairs bathroom, hers and Pop-pop’s. Leaky toilet aside, I’ve always liked it better. It’s bigger than mine and Mother’s. The bathtub has great big claw feet and it’s deep, so deep that you can almost disappear in it when there are bubbles.
Me-me’s looking over my shoulder into the mirror on the wall. One chunk of my hair has a swipe of black paint on it that even the turpentine won’t take out. Me-me is going to shave down Scarlett O’Hara where she got paint on her fur, but she doesn’t know what to do with me.
“You have such pretty hair,” she says, touching my curls. “Your mother’s hair looked the same way when she was a girl.”
It was burned by a perm? I want to say. Instead, I say, “Maybe I can try soaking it for a wh
ile.”
She runs a big bath, pours in some bubbles, and I slip out of my clothes and get into the tub, leaning back against the high white rim. I close my eyes as Me-me soaps up my hair, her fingers strong. It feels wonderful.
“Can we make ice cream tonight?” I ask. “Butter pecan?”
I love pecans. I could eat pecans on anything—ice cream, cookies, hot dogs, you name it.
“I don’t see why not,” Me-me says.
Me-me is like this: Sometimes she’s tough as old nails and sometimes she’s a real softy.
“You know,” Me-me says, “when we lived in Key West, we made sugar-apple ice cream. That was always my favorite. Can you imagine when I learned there were no sugar-apple trees up north? It almost broke my heart.”
Me-me grew up in Key West, Florida. Pop-pop met her when he was in the army. Me-me’s always talking about how she misses Key West, and Pop-pop always says that it was the worst place he ever lived, nothing but scorpions, and that he couldn’t wait to get back to New Jersey.
“Is the paint coming out?” I ask hopefully.
“I’m sorry, Penny,” she says.
I get out of the tub and put a towel on and stand still while Me-me cuts. When she’s done, it looks like someone was drawing me and then erased part out. I sure hope it grows back fast.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been thinking about my father all day, but I just blurt out, “Do I look like my father?”
Me-me hesitates and then says, “You look like him around the eyes. You have his eyes.”
“I do?”
“Yes,” she says finally. “Your father had beautiful eyes.”
My bedroom was once a closet, so I guess you could say it’s cozy.
It wasn’t planned that way. My mother and father bought this house when they were first married. But then he died and my mother needed help with me, so Me-me and Pop-pop sold their own house and moved in here. They converted the upstairs into their half and the downstairs into ours. My room used to be the pantry, and on a damp day it still smells like cinnamon.
All that fits in my room is a bed and a small dressing table. I keep my clothes in a closet in Mother’s room. I got to decorate the room myself, and at the time I really liked poodles, so there’s poodle wallpaper and a poodle headboard and the lamp has a poodle base. I even have a matching poodle bedspread that Me-me made. Lately I’ve been thinking of asking Mother if I can redecorate. I’m a little tired of the poodles.
But now as I lie in my bed, I’m thinking maybe I should ask if I can get a window while I’m at it. It’s not too bad in the winter, but on nights like this, it’s just awful. It’s hot as an oven. Even though I’m wearing the thinnest cotton pajama set I have, I’m still sweating up a storm. The fan that’s propped in the doorway isn’t helping one bit. Me-me’s the only one not bothered by hot nights like this.
Finally I give up and grab my pillow and head out to the summer porch. It’s still hot, but at least there’s a stingy breeze here. Pop-pop’s already on the wicker couch, snoring away, so I take the swing. Scarlett O’Hara must have forgiven him for the paint job, because she’s curled up behind his knees. She looks sort of naked and embarrassed without her hair. I know just how she feels.
After Me-me butchered my hair, I went over to see Frankie. I don’t see Frankie as much during the school year because he goes to Catholic school and I go to public school. But Frankie’s pretty much my best friend. Not that I have a lot of friends lately, thanks to Veronica Goodman. I ran into her outside the Sweete Shoppe with a bunch of other girls from school. She burst out laughing when she saw my horrible hair.
“That the new style, Penny?” she asked. The other girls laughed too.
I wanted to disappear right into the ground.
Veronica and I used to be friends. In fact, we were good friends until last fall, when everything changed. See, my uncle Ralphie owns the building next to Falucci’s Market, and he rents it out. Veronica’s father wanted to rent the space to put in a shoe store, but Uncle Ralphie rented it to someone else. Uncle Ralphie said it wasn’t personal; the fella he rented it to could pay more. But I guess Mr. Goodman didn’t see it that way, because he got angry and went and called my Uncle Ralphie some bad names for being Italian. Ever since that happened, Veronica has been mean to me, and most of the other girls have ignored me. Veronica’s pretty popular.
The scent of black paint swirls in my nose as I lie there looking out at the dark night. These are the times I think about my father the most. What is he doing up there in Heaven? Is he just sitting on a cloud, or is he listening to Bing Crosby? Is he dancing the jitterbug? Eating an ice cream sundae?
If I could ask Mother one question about my father, it would be what he thought of me. Did he think I was funny? Or smart? Did he love me?
I hear a soft step and look up to see my mother standing there wearing a nice dress and hat. Her cheeks are glowing. She went out to dinner and to play bridge with her friend Connie. They’ve been going out together a lot lately, and I think it’s good for her. She seems happier.
“Too hot in your room?” she whispers.
I nod. “Pop-pop beat me to the couch.”
“He’s fast for an old fella, huh?” she says with a laugh. “Scoot over.”
She sits down, unpins her hat, and then blinks as she takes in my head. “What happened to your hair?”
“I got paint on it,” I say. Scarlett O’Hara whimpers as if she doesn’t like to be left out, and I say, “Scarlett O’Hara did, too.”
My mother just shakes her head. “How was dinner?”
“Beef Stroganoff.” I wrinkle my nose. “There’s lots of leftovers.”
She laughs. “No, thank you.”
“We made ice cream,” I tell her. “Butter pecan. Want some?”
“Now that I’ll take,” she says, and I go inside and get her a bowl.
She takes a spoonful and makes an appreciative sound.
“Did you have fun with Connie?” I ask.
“I had a lovely time,” she says, and smiles to herself.
My mother leans against me and kicks the floor, which sets the swing in motion. We stare out at the night, the fireflies dancing in the trees. Pop-pop snorts in his sleep and turns over. There’s a small hissing sound, and Scarlett O’Hara whimpers and jumps off the couch and trots over to us.
“Mother,” I whisper, wrinkling my nose.
“Yes?” she says.
“What’s that smell?”
“I think it’s Pop-pop,” she whispers back, and we both giggle.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Luckiest Fella Ever
The first difference between Me-me’s kitchen and my Italian grandmother’s is the smell. My grandmother Falucci’s kitchen smells delicious: like basil and tomatoes and garlic. It makes your mouth water.
The second difference is that Nonny’s kitchen is downstairs in the basement. There’s a stove and a refrigerator and a big sink and a wooden cutting table and pots and pans.
In the corner is a wringer washing machine. It’s usually my job to help with the laundry if I’m around, same as at my house.
There’s a regular modern kitchen upstairs that my aunt Gina uses. Uncle Paulie bought the house from my grandmother, but she still lives here and everyone still calls it her house. Nonny doesn’t approve of the way Aunt Gina cooks and so she demanded a kitchen of her own in the basement. At first Uncle Paulie said no, but then he put one in “to keep the peace.” Uncle Paulie spends a lot of time keeping the peace between the women in his life.
“I should’ve been a diplomat,” he always says, shaking his head. “Least I’d be getting paid.”
When I walk down the rickety basement stairs, Nonny’s back is to me. She’s tiny, maybe eighty pounds, and her legs are like two thin blackstockinged toothpicks poking out from underneath her black dress. I’ve never actually seen her in anything but black. Even her winter coat is black Persian lamb.
“Hi, Nonny,” I say. Nonna is Ita
lian for “grandmother.” The story goes that I couldn’t say Nonna when I was little, so I called her Nonny, and it just sort of stuck. Now everyone calls her that.
Nonny turns around, takes one look at me, and bursts into tears.
I sigh. I’m used to it, I guess. She cries every time she sees me.
My father, Alfredo, who everyone called Freddy, was her favorite, the firstborn son. He was the first person in the family to go to college, and he became a newspaper writer. Everyone was so proud of him, especially Nonny. His death was the worst thing that ever happened to the family. A real tragedy. Which is why Nonny wears black and cries every time she sees me.
“Tesoro mio,” Nonny says, wiping away her tears with a black lace handkerchief. She calls me tesoro mio, which means “my treasure.” Nonny doesn’t speak English very well.
I take my usual spot on the stool by the table, and she pushes a plate at me and says in her thick Italian accent, “Too skinny. Eat. Eat.”
Sitting on the plate is something Nonny calls pastiera, a dish made with spaghetti and eggs and cheese and black pepper that’s baked and served cold. It’s one of my favorites, so Nonny cooks it all the time for me.
I watch as her small, gnarled fingers knead dough for fresh macaroni. All the Italian women in my family make their own macaroni. Nonny carefully rolls out the dough and then takes a sharp knife and cuts it into long strips and hangs it to dry on a wooden rack. Sometimes she lets me help her make it.
Nonny wipes her hands on her apron. “We see your papa now, yes?” She says this like it’s a question, but I know it’s not.
Uncle Paulie is already waiting for us in the upstairs hallway.
“There’s my ladies,” Uncle Paulie says with a broad smile.
My uncle Paulie’s a big, round fella. Probably because he has to eat two dinners every night: one cooked by Aunt Gina and one cooked by Nonny.