Mafia Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

the tie that matches the shirt and knot it around his neck and then kiss him on the forehead like his guardian angel. I’ve seen that happen.
    I get nervous when he gets like that. It tells me that something is about to go down even though I don’t know what it is because he never tells us anything. We find out more from the six o’clock news unless it’s really bad. Then someone yells pack , and he sends Frankie to get us, and—boom—ten minutes later, we’re in the car speeding to an out-of-the-way motel in Jersey for however long. We pass the time playing cards and watching TV while my mom crochets afghans or sketches dresses because before she was married she made clothes for Valentino. And everyone mutters prayers and we order out and then complain about the takeout and my mom goes on a rant about how “everybody cuts corners and nobody makes their own sauce anymore,” which makes her crazy.
    Only now that I’m at Morgan, I can’t disappear and go into hiding no matter what because I’d miss everything and fail and never become president. And even if I could, I mean, how would it look to disappear for days without a sick note, which is a joke anyway because in my life, about everything is sick crazy and not normal because for us the only normal is abnormal.

EIGHT
    As I’m coming in the door after school the next day, the home phone rings. It’s usually for me or Anthony. Or it’s Aunt Mary calling to go to the mall with my mom. But we always check caller ID before we answer. Now it’s ringing and no one is home and I’m checking and it’s New York 1, the all-day news channel calling, which scares me because we’re not exactly listed in the phone book, so how the hell did they get our number?
    “Romano funeral home,” I say.
    There’s a pause. “Excuse me, I was trying to reach…” The voice drops off.
    “Sorry, wrong number.” I hang up and it rings again. I go through the same charade, but they’re on to me.
    Silence.
    Are they putting a tracer on the call? A few minutes later there’s another call. CNN now. I freak and call my dad.
    “We’ve had two calls from the news.”
    “On the home number?”
    “Yes. Daddy, are you okay?”
    Ten-second pause.
    “Don’t worry, Gia,” he says, his calm, blanket answer to everything, which makes me worry more
    “It’s nothing, nothing. You know how they chase me.”
    “But I don’t want them to.”
    “Gia, I’ll see you later, don’t worry so much.”
    There’s a knock on the door a few minutes later. My mom isn’t home because she’s at the church helping them get ready for the women’s bingo lasagna luncheon. Do I answer it? If I don’t, maybe they’ll break in. I go upstairs and look out my bedroom window. A cop car. Now a finger is glued to the door bell.
    I open the door. Two cops, one with his hand resting lightly on the top of his gun.
    “What do you want?”
    “We’re looking for your dad.”
    “He’s not home.”
    “Where is he?”
    “You know more about where he is than I do.”
    Cop one turns and looks at cop two.
    “Let’s go,” he says.
    They give me one more lingering look and then get into their car and drive away.
    I was ten when I found out about my dad. It was something my parents always worked hard to hide from me, to keep my innocent world intact and at arm’s length from reality, at least their reality.
    I remember everything about that day. It was snowing lightly in the late afternoon. I had been up in my room watching the snowflakes hit the windows and then slide down in slow moving, slushy drips. The room was cold and I remember putting a sweater on Beppo, my teddy bear, to keep him warm even though I was old enough to know that was silly. My mom was making minestrone and the whole house smelled good from the onions and garlic that she browned in olive oil in the giant soup kettle.
    When important things happen in your life, your brain has a way of archiving them so later on when you want to go over