It’s not that I mind being driven to central booking in the back of a grungy patrol car that reeks of vomit, it’s just that I so have to pee and Officer Hottie is getting on my nerves because he is driving at an excruciatingly slow speed, every now and then glancing at us through the barrier between the front and back seat.
“What’s your name?” I say, to make convo. Ro slides her foot over and kicks mine, but I ignore her.
“Cross,” Officer Hottie says.
“Are you or is that actually your name?”
“Michael Cross,” he says with a smirky smile.
“So are you like a good Catholic with a name like that?”
Our eyes met in the rearview mirror. He doesn’t answer. “Well?”
“Where are we goin’ with this?”
“I was just wondering if you pray,” I say.
“You think I need to?”
“Not for my sake.”
His eyes meet mine and he looks away.
“So do girls find you hard to talk to?”
Ro kicks me harder.
“What?” he asks in disbelief.
“Well you don’t seem to actually talk.”
He shakes his head, refusing to get into anything.
“I mean it’s too bad,” I say, unable to leave it alone.
“Gia,” Ro says softly, treading carefully. “Can you stop?”
“What?” I say, holding my hands out helplessly. ”I’m just trying to lighten things up here by making con-ver-sa-tion, or at least trying to. But Officer Hottie doesn’t want to talk to me, which is too bad.”
“You have quite a mouth,” he says.
“Getting warmer.”
The convo ends when he pulls up to the front of the station and opens the back door to let his juveniles out. We’re walked up to the front desk where we wait while the cop behind it makes a point of looking up and then ignoring us.
“What ya got?” he says to Officer Hottie.
“Two under, DUI, speeding, no license, possibly stolen vehicle, resisting.”
“We. Are. Fucked,” Ro whispers.
“Yeah,” I whisper back, staring at Officer Hottie. “But it was so worth it.”
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like we ditch school and go joyriding and get picked up by hot cops on a regular basis. This was singular. They were doing construction on the new library and the work filled the air with flying soot, which we were convinced was asbestos, and it was seventy-five degrees in October and what better weather to declare it a mental health day, never mind the chance to avoid some of the cockroaches perpetually dissing me. All other days, Ro and I do a fair job of acting like the A students we are at the Morgan School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
And no one takes that lightly.
Only now? With a police record? How much hush money would my dad have to fork over to—
“GIA!” my mom shouts, making the walls vibrate as she bursts into the station with Ro’s mom and my brother, Anthony. She runs up and hugs me. “You scared me to death. You know I hate trouble.”
“Sorry, Ma,” I say because I can’t think of anything brilliant.
“Do you know what this is going to fucking cost us?” Anthony says under his breath.
That’s Anthony. Not I’m glad you didn’t get your head split open in the Porsche while going eighty. Not how are we going to keep this out of the papers? But I’m in the middle of a police station and what is the point of getting into an argument with my stupid guinea brother. I look at him and look away.
“Later, okay?”
“Rosemarie,” Ro’s mom says, shaking her head. “What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t think, I—”
“Right,” her mom snaps, her mouth in a tight line. “You didn’t think.”
We all stand around until my dad’s lawyer, Mario Della Russo, aka Super Mario, strolls into the station in his million-dollar chocolate-brown Armani suit with a cream silk shirt and his trademark alligator loafers.
“Theresa, Maria,” he says, kissing my mom and then Ro’s mom. “Always something, eh?”
He moves on to me. “My beautiful, beautiful Gia,” he says, leaning back and admiring me before kissing me on both cheeks. “Are the boys still killing themselves if you won’t look at them?” he says with a laugh.
“I’m still holding out for you, Mario,” which he loves me to say so I say it.
He throws back his head and laughs the way he always laughs because old guys love to hear things like that and anyway we need a lawyer who totally loves us to bail me and Ro out of this total fucking mess.
“I will take care of it,” he says with a wave of his hand like he’s about to talk to the first-class reservations desk at Alitalia for an upgrade instead of the low-life cops at the stinking ghetto precinct we are stuck in. He speaks to the desk sergeant. There is a discussion, paperwork, more discussion although I can’t imagine what there is to keep talking about because we’re so friggin’ guilty even though it’s a first offense for both of us. But then I see him uncover his gold pen and sign some papers. Finally he turns to us.
“Come,” he says in his soothing tone. “It’s getting late. We don’t want to miss dinner.”
Super Mario is cool. Perpetually cool, cool, cool, no matter how hot the water someone may be drowning in.
I wave good-bye with my fingertips at Officer Hottie who stands ramrod straight and stares but doesn’t wave back, then follow Super Mario out of the station into his Panamera.
“What did my dad say?” I whisper.
Mario raises his eyebrows and turns his upright fist in a circle.
Translation: I. Am. Screwed.
I set the table for dinner the way I always set the table, using the perfectly polished silver forks and knives and the lacy place mats that are really plastic lacy place mats so that you can wipe away the stains and pretend they never happened.
We all sit down and eat the way we always do without drama, at least for the time it takes to eat the stuffed artichokes and drink the first glasses of Chianti. Anthony wolfs down his dinner and my mom always says, “Slow down and enjoy your food,” and my dad never says anything. His mouth just tightens.
Then I jump up to carry the plates with the mounds of artichoke leaves into the kitchen while my mom puts on her elbow-length oven mitts and brings the manicotti to the table. I serve my mom first and then my dad. He holds up his hand because I’m about to give him a portion for three.
“Basta, basta,” he says, looking at me pointedly, which—knowing my dad—means not only enough manicotti, but also enough of everything I’ve put the family through. I put some of it back and he continues to x-ray me with his eyes because my dad gets most of the information he needs by reading people’s faces, leaving them no space to hide.
I look back at him and mouth, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry,” he says mockingly, lifting his chin. His mouth hardens and he looks through me until I look away. He’s not going to ruin dinner by punishing me now. He’ll think about it. Then after I go to my room and try to concentrate on homework, which I won’t be able to do because I’ll be waiting for him to come up, he’ll open my door without knocking.
“Starting tomorrow, no more…” he’ll say and let me know my sentence. I’ll listen and take it because when my father makes up his mind, if you want to live, you don’t try to negotiate.