Every Single Second (6 page)

Nella already had her doll out. How small Fiona was. It was funny how the other girls’ dolls seemed bigger. But Nella danced her against the white marble base of the monument, already dreaming of tomorrow, when she and Angela could join the club. When that rotten Victoria would have to eat her words.

“I love my doll,” Nella told Anthony. “I swear to love her into eternity.”
Her and you.

Carefully, Angela slipped her doll back inside its egg.

“I want to keep her clean,” she said.

She was spoiling everything. Why wasn’t she happy? Why didn’t she say thank you? She was hurting her brother’s feelings. Anthony’s shoulders slumped, like he wished he’d never done it. Without a word, he started back toward the gate.

“Don’t tell your parents,” Angela told Nella.

Why?
The word bloomed and faded on Nella’s tongue. Something was wrong. You didn’t have to understand what, exactly, to know it.

“This is a secret,” Angela said. “A secret sister secret.”

The next day, Angela didn’t bring her doll to school.

“We don’t get an allowance.” She had her braid halfway
to her mouth but stopped herself. “If we get any money, Papa takes it and puts it in the bank.”

“I already know that.” Nella clutched Fiona. “What are you telling me that for?”

Angela didn’t answer.

At recess, when Nella joined the other members of the Disaster Doll Club, Angela held back. Why was she so stubborn?
They
didn’t snitch the dolls—Anthony did. It wasn’t their fault! Besides, Anthony would never do anything bad, so it must be all right.

Angela made Nella so angry, Nella couldn’t stand to look at her. Except she did. Peeking over her shoulder, she saw Angela huddled beside St. Amphibalus. Somehow his blank eyes looked sad and troubled.
Nella
. For a second, she imagined he whispered her name.

Her heart did a painful twist. A line drew itself down the middle of the school yard, and she wanted to be on both sides at once. When she turned back, all the dolls looked tiny, not just hers.

The next week, Victoria showed up wearing a sweater that buttoned down the back. And nobody cared about Disaster Dolls anymore.

AMONG THE BARBARIANS

now

N
ella walked home, snitched scarf in her pocket. She waved to Mrs. Manzini, walking along with her toddler daughter. The little girl proudly carried a loaf of epi bread half as big as she was.

At Nella’s house, the brothers lay in a TV coma. The only one who paid any attention to her was little Vinny. He lassoed her knees and she swooped him up. The boys had been born with eyes the color of blueberries, but they’d turned brown, all except for Vinny’s. His were gray-blue, the color Nella thought the ocean must be.

“Promise you won’t turn into a repulsive boy,” she begged him.

Vinny replied in a language unknown to other humans. Babble babble. Gibber gibber. Two years old, and so far he couldn’t talk. The doctor at the clinic said speech delay could be a symptom of serious problems. If Vinny didn’t start making words soon, major intervention might be called for.

Vinny waved his hands. He arched his eyebrows. He didn’t know he was on a deadline. Nella kissed his ear and set him back among the barbarians. She wandered into the kitchen, where every surface was crammed with industrial-size boxes of cereal, barrels of peanut butter, and baby wipes. Upstairs, the rooms were wall-to-wall beds. Once, Clem slept over for two nights before anyone even noticed.

Mom was chopping onions for sauce. Long hair swooped up in a clip, she wore a faded skirt and flip-flops that used to be Nella’s. Mom was beautiful, but treated her beauty like a silly gift she never wanted. She was just out of high school when she married Dad and got straight to making babies, namely Nella.

“How’s Nonni?” she asked.

“The same. Unfortunately.”

“People only become more themselves as they age.”

That was a depressing thought.

Mom smiled through her onion tears. She was an optimist. In the face of all contrary evidence, she considered Nella beautiful and brilliant. She was sure Nella would win
a scholarship to a good Catholic high school, where she’d win a scholarship to an excellent college. Mom had it all planned out, which was amazing and also alarming, since Mom was a disaster at planning. Witness: four brothers and a house with one bathroom.

In the living room the troglodytes rolled around the floor making the lamps wobble. Mom called to them to stop, so they went on mute, wrestling in silence, which was pretty funny to watch. If you were a moron.

All at once they were on their feet, thundering toward the door. Dad radar. When Nella didn’t move, her mother gave her a beseeching look.

“Go on.” She wiped at her eyes. “Say hi to your father. He’s had a long day.”

Reluctantly, Nella stepped out on the porch. Farther uphill, the wall of the cemetery rose like the edge of a fortress. That wall was all a person saw from this porch, unless she tilted her head back and found the sky.

If there ever was a landslide, acres of graves would come down on their house. Buried by the buried.

Nella pulled the scarf out of her pocket. She twined its almond-scented softness round her neck as her father trudged toward them.

Dad always worked hard, but hardest of all in spring. The cemetery’s trees needed trimming, the grass needed
mowing, the flower beds needed planting and weeding. Almost three hundred acres, and he was in charge. He’d hardly be able to stay awake through dinner. The Neanderthals swarmed him.

“Dad! Dad! Dad!”

Dad swung the baby onto his shoulders and tucked wiggle-worm boys under his arms. He was the president of the USA, a rock star, and the quarterback who finally took the Browns to the Super Bowl, all in one—just ask the Sabatini brothers.

They didn’t know what she knew.

“How’s my Bella?” His voice turned soft for his only girl. But he didn’t pause, just pulled the front door open, not expecting an answer.

BREAKDOWN

then

I
n fourth grade, they had weekly vocabulary words.
Yearn
was one of Nella’s favorites. It made her think of birds at twilight, a princess gazing sadly out her window, a silver bell in the distance.

That year they learned another word, not on the vocabulary lists. In Nella’s mind, this word appeared like a neon sign.
POPULAR
.

Popular. Suddenly, mysteriously, certain girls were. Life was once an art project covered with glitter, but that year some invisible giant picked it up and shook it till most of the glitter came loose and fell on the floor. What was left—the
popular girls—stuck together in a hard, sparkly mass.

This was the year Mr. DeMarco tried to re-up, but the army wouldn’t take him. On the surface, nothing changed. Angela came to school with her hair in the same neat braids, and Mr. DeMarco sat outside the smoke shop, chewing a cigar and spitting on the sidewalk. Sometimes he got a job pouring concrete or laying asphalt, but it never lasted more than a week or two.

One night when Angela slept over (she was still allowed to sleep over, though that would soon change), she told Nella that she didn’t know where her mother was.

“She said she was going to stay with Aunt Ginny in Pittsburgh, but Anthony called, and Aunt Ginny said she’s not there.”

Nella sat up. Adults lied—she knew that much by now. But not mothers. “Maybe she got lost. Maybe something happened to her!”

Angela pulled her sleeping bag up to her chin. “She doesn’t want my father to find her.”

“What?”

“She . . .” Angela spoke to the ceiling. “Did you ever hear of a breakdown?”

Nella had, but with cars, not people.

“Anyway,” Angela told the ceiling, “we don’t know where she is.”

Nella lay back down and held still, like their neighbor’s dog did during thunderstorms. Like if he stayed perfectly motionless, the storm monster wouldn’t notice him.

“Can’t Anthony go find her?” she whispered.

“He won’t. He hates her.”

“Oh.”

Angela’s face was suddenly close. Too close.

“My father killed people.”

Nella drew back.

“He was a soldier!” Angela said. “He had to.”

It was true, Nella knew. But her brain spun. How did he do it? With a gun or a knife or a bomb? Did the people cry and plead for their lives, but he killed them anyway? “Thou shalt not kill” was the most obvious commandment, like did God even have to say it? Just stepping on a bug, feeling its body crush and flatten beneath your foot, felt wrong.

“It was a war,” Angela said.

“I know,” Nella whispered.

“He never, ever talks about it. But my mother told us. He saw his best buddy die. Papa was right there trying to save him but it was too late.”

(Too late. Years later, Nella would decide these were life’s cruelest words.)

“My mother said he saw kids die too.”

Kids.

“She said he lost himself over there. She said she couldn’t find him anymore.”

Nella’s hands were sweating, and a disgusting taste rose in the back of her mouth.

“But . . . ,” she said. “But he wanted to go back into the army. He must like it, or else why would he go back?”

As soon as she said it, Nella knew it was the wrong question. Angela rolled over and wouldn’t talk anymore. Nella scooched her sleeping bag away till no part of it touched Angela’s.

Thank you, God.
Thank you for my father, who would never hurt another human being. Thank you for my family that is normal and good and not like hers.

They were still secret sisters, but now Nella heard other girls whispering: Angela’s braids were dumb. She smelled like cigars. Her parents were whack jobs. Nella didn’t know what to do. She pretended not to hear.

Anthony did the shopping, cooking, and laundry, all the things Mrs. DeMarco once did, plus he got an after-school job. He had no time for friends or sports or other teenage stuff. If he managed to keep any money, he spent it on Angela—bracelets, hair clips, little glass animals. Sometimes he gave Nella a matching present, as if the two of
them were best friends, same as ever.

They were, weren’t they?

The older her brothers got, the more deeply they worshipped Angela. They never farted or burped in her presence, an act of extreme reverence. Angela would listen to endless explanations of who you had to destroy how in which video game. She pretended to guess their ridiculous riddles. She tickled Bobby and told Sal he was handsome—Sal, who had enormous ears and front teeth coming in at bizarre angles. Kevin said he wished she was his sister instead of Nella.

“Me too,” said Nella.

Clearly, God had gotten mixed up when assigning brothers.

Nella and Angela took lunch to Nonni every Saturday, but that winter day Nella told Angela she’d go by herself. She could’ve explained that Nonni and her friend Ernestina had an appointment at Elena’s Beauty Shop, but she didn’t. Angela just said okay. In that quiet, annoying way of hers.

Nella walked up the hill to her great-grandmother’s door, so technically she wasn’t lying. She brushed snow off the mummified fig tree. And then she just stood there, not knowing what to do next. The old lady across the street
stepped outside to throw bread for the birds. She waved at Nella.

“Freddo! Freddo!”
she called,
Cold! Cold!
Then hurried back inside.

It was strange. When you were little, you never thought about what to do next. Your life just kept happening. But by the time you were ten, life grew these pauses. These spaces, when you looked around. Unsure.

The pigeons battled over the bread like it was the last food left on earth. Nella’s breath made dragon puffs. She walked to the corner.

“Nella! Hey, Nella!”

Victoria. She was with Kimmy, another girl from their class, and a girl Nella had never met.

“This is my cousin Megan from Akron.” Victoria sounded as awed as if introducing a supermodel. Megan was older. She wore eyeliner and big hoop earrings. “We’re hanging out,” said Victoria. “Want to come?”

Nella was so surprised, she barely got out an okay. They went to Franny’s, and thank goodness she had just enough money so she could get a twist and cocoa, too. They stood outside Adele’s Boutique while Megan criticized the clothes in the window. Megan had an iPod and let them take turns listening. Victoria sang along and did a little dance, and when Megan smiled, you’d think
Victoria had won first place on
Who’s Got Talent?

They walked up the hill, giggling as they slipped on the ice, and even though Nella didn’t say much, and wished she’d worn her mittens, she started enjoying herself. Megan and Victoria walked together, and Nella walked beside Kimmy, who gave her a piece of gum and told Nella she liked her scarf. Nella said her mother knitted it, and Kimmy said her mother was so pretty and Nella looked a lot like her.

Just when things were going so well, Megan stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

“I am so cold. This is so boring.”

Victoria’s face fell. For a second, Nella felt sorry for her. But then anger took over. Who died and made Megan Empress of the World?

“Wait,” said Victoria, and Nella hoped she’d tell Megan to quit being so snotty. “I’ve got something to show you. You will not be bored, promise.”

Megan yawned. Victoria led the way to the tall iron gates of the cemetery.

“This place is definitely haunted. You definitely wouldn’t want to be here after dark. Once Sam Ferraro got chased by something. It made this deep, growling noise, and when he got home the back of his jacket had claw marks in it.”

“You believe Sam?” said Nella. “He’s just trying to get attention!”

Megan laughed. But you could tell the place made her nervous. “I’m not a graveyard fan,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” said Victoria. “Nella’s father works here. He’ll protect us, right, Nella?”

“Your father works here?” Megan’s eyelinered eyes went wide. “That is so gruesome. Does he dig graves?”