That morning Troo was dawdling behind me, a little cranky because I’d told her I wasn’t in the mood to get chased by Greasy Al, so like Mother said, she better mind her p’s and q’s. She was kicking a rock the way she liked to do when she was thinking and then she said real quietly, so that I almost didn’t hear her, “She’s gonna get better, right, Sal?”
I didn’t turn around because if I did she’d get real mad. Troo hated it if I caught her being scared because she forgot to whistle in the dark. I figured out what that meant by paying attention to details. Granny wasn’t getting the hardening of the arteries after all. Mother and Troo were two peas in the pod, both of ’em always pretending that things were okay when they weren’t.
“Yeah, she’ll be fine,” I said over my shoulder, but wondered what would happen if she wasn’t. Would Troo and me just go on living with Hall and Nell? Or maybe go stay with Granny and Uncle Paulie? Oh, Troo would just despise that. She avoided Uncle Paulie whenever she could. When I asked her why, she said, “Cooties.” I suspected it was more than that, but never did ask her again since I did not wish to have Troo’s volcano mad erupting all over me. Besides, Granny’s house was too small, and she was in a bad way money-wise. Everybody in the neighborhood knew that.
“If she dies, what’ll we do?” Troo kicked at the rock and it flew past me. “Do you think we’d have to go live at the orphanage?”
Every year around Christmas our Brownie troop would go to the orphanage up on Lisbon Street called St. Jude’s, who was the patron saint of lost causes. That was a very mean thing to call your orphanage and musta made those poor orphans feel really hopeless. We would sing “What Child Is This?” and give them presents like holy cards wrapped in green tissue paper and red ribbons, and I hated it. I just couldn’t stand looking at those kids who didn’t have fathers or mothers or anybody else who gave one hoot about them. And that made me say, “No. We won’t ever have to go live in that orphanage. I promise.”
Troo had stopped in front of the Piaskowskis’. The yard was all weedy and the house looked like it was shedding and a concrete statue of Jesus was laying on its side next to the porch like it was taking a nap. Nobody ever saw much of Mr. or Mrs. Piaskowski after Junie’s funeral.
“That would be just about one of the worst things that could ever happen to you, gettin’ murdered like that,” Troo said. We held our breaths when we walked past and didn’t talk much for the rest of the way, but I was thinking that maybe there were some other things that could be worse.
After mass half the neighborhood was standing out on the church lawn and I heard Mrs. Callahan, who was still Mother’s best friend and had been for a long time, say to Mrs. Latour in a very tired voice, “Helen is resting peacefully.”
Mrs. Latour said back, “I heard that Hall has taken up with Rosie Ruggins.”
And then Mrs. Callahan said back to her, “Helen should never have married him in the first place.” It was rude to eavesdrop, but no one would tell me if Mother was getting better and I had to find out so I could get prepared if she wasn’t. What Mrs. Callahan said, I took that to mean that Mother might be dying since she was Resting in Peace, which was what it said on Daddy’s gravestone. And what Mrs. Latour said about Hall? That probably meant that Hall was gettin’ some of the sex from Rosie Ruggins.
When Mrs. Callahan turned and saw us, she said in a surprised voice, “Well, O’Malley sisters, hello!”
I looked down at Mrs. Callahan’s bare legs in front of that church. She had on a little gold ankle bracelet and she wore blouses sometimes too unbuttoned. Granny told me Mother and Mrs. Callahan were crazy little she-cats when they were young, when they lived in houses next door to each other across from the cookie factory.
Mrs. Callahan bent down and said, “Are you okay, Sally?” I tried not to cry even though my eyes were blurry because Mrs. Callahan smelled so much like Mother and I bet she had made her kids sunny-side-up eggs for breakfast. “We’re fine, Mrs. Callahan,” I said. “Hall and Nell are taking very good care of us. Mother’s gonna get better, isn’t she?”
Mrs. Callahan said, “Well, my pa’s been real sick up at the VA Hospital so I haven’t been by to check up on Helen as much as I woulda liked, but I’m sure she’ll…” Then she started to cry. And I just couldn’t take that and neither could Troo because she pulled on my hand and we got lost in the crowd.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The reason I lied to Mrs. Callahan was just in case she went up to the hospital to visit, I didn’t want her getting Mother all worked up. The truth was neither Hall nor Nell was taking very good care of us at all. Hall was drinking all the time up at Jerbak’s. So Mrs. Latour was probably right when she said he’d taken up with Rosie Ruggins, who was a cocktail waitress there. And Nell was so busy with Eddie that she didn’t want to cook for us, which was okay, because unfortunately I would really have to agree with Hall on that one thing and only that one thing-Nell’s cooking was crap. She was also talking about going to beauty school, so she was spending a lot of time giving Toni perms in the kitchen, which had begun to smell worse than the bathroom up at the service station. Half the girls on the block now looked like they’d stuck forks into light sockets, thanks to Nell.
Because Troo and me were pretty hungry, Troo came up with another one of her famous plans. She said, “We should just start showing up at people’s houses around suppertime.” So last night we ate at the O’Haras’, which wasn’t that great because I really didn’t like liver no matter how much bacon you put on it. But tonight, we were on our way over to Fast Susie Fazio’s house because they had the best food, and because even though they were Italians, the Fazios were okay Italians, not like the Molinaris. Troo told me that was because the Fazios were from someplace called Nice, Italy, not like the Molinaris, who were from another part of Italy that wasn’t so nice.
There were ten Fazios plus Nana, so mostly I don’t think anybody even noticed when Troo and me got plates out of the cupboard above the sink and pulled up chairs next to Fast Susie in the kitchen, which always smelled of that spice called garlic that Nana used on just about everything.
I was sitting across the table from Nana. I tried to smile at her even though I knew she wouldn’t smile back because I had tried before and she never did. That was because she was a Strega Nana… a witch. Under no circumstances would you want to cross Nana. Other Italians came from all around the city and would bring her stuff and she would say some Italian words and wave her arms around to ward off the evil spirits and she always dressed like she was on her way to a funeral. Fast Susie told me, even though I didn’t believe her, that Nana threw pee on somebody’s new car once as some sort of blessing, so they would never get in a crash. I tried not to think about that when I reached around one of Fast Susie’s older brothers for a piece of that nice skinny bread with butter.
“So how’s your mother doin’?” Johnny Fazio asked right after I’d stuffed the bread in my mouth. He reminded me of this movie star called Earl Flynn who was in this movie Troo and me had seen and liked at Old Time Movie Matinee Day. It was called Captain Blood and Earl was a pirate. Johnny had a thin mustache like Earl’s and his dark hair grew up on his head like a big wave and he was a singer in a band called the Do Wops, which all the older girls thought was very hep.
“Eh… you.” He poked me in the arm. “What’s your name… I asked you how your mother was doin’.”
“She’s fine,” Troo answered for me.
“Ain’t she dyin’ or somethin’?” Johnny asked.
His words hung in the air like skunk smell and made everybody stop eating. Then Nana Fazio’s chair made a scraping sound when she pushed quickly back from the table. Her bosoms were so long she had to hold them to her waist with a belt and she didn’t speak very good English, but Nana knew a wisecrack in any language. She had begun to undo her bosoms belt.