Chapter 6

Basement Games

Our tour ends in the basement, which I’ve been looking forward to since the moment I arrived. The basement was the true kid paradise of Vero Roseto. Adults ran—or at least heavily supervised—every other part of the B&B, but the basement was where we roamed free. Whole worlds were invented down here. Somehow it’s where we became our true selves.

Not that my straight siblings and cousins had any other selves to be. They were the same kids upstairs and downstairs. But me and Ben were the D word: different. For seven summers in a row—age six to twelve—he and I had no idea our differences were the same. By that eighth summer—age thirteen—we knew. But we found out too late. After my grandparents died, after my siblings got too old to hang around, and after Hutch, there would be no ninth summer.

I guess now is our long-delayed ninth summer.

The basement door opens, and I almost start bawling at the top of the stairs. It’s all the same. The steep, vinyl steps, patterned with florals that haven’t been updated since Mama Bianchi built this house. The staircase ends at a T-boned wall that cuts the basement into two sections. To the left is the game room—a well-lit, adult-approved kid play area. To the right is the cellar—a poorly lit, adult-not-approved area that was irresistible to us. If adults caught us over there, we’d be shooed away to the game room, even though we always crept back. The basement was like a personality test to see if you were “good” or “bad.”

A beast or a bunny.

Ben and I were—and are—beasts. We turn right into darkness.

Part of me is more afraid to look in the game room now. Everything is so well-preserved, it feels like I’ve time traveled, and Ben and I are about to bump into our child selves, still hanging out as if nothing is about to disrupt their lives.

In the dark, I grab the hanging light cord, which used to be hard to reach on my tiptoes but is now dangling near my neck. I tug on the light, and the cellar says, “Welcome back!” and reveals a long corridor of cracked cement, rusted piping, and wooden doors with heavy iron handles. The cellar is objectively off-putting, aesthetically. Yet it fills me with warmth to look at it. While the rest of Vero Roseto used to be postcard-gorgeous but has now fallen into junk, the cellar is like, “What’s up? Been ugly. Still ugly.”

That’s comforting.

Down here, there’s the furnace, breaker boxes, and two rows of laundry machines to manage the guest linens. Like the kitchen appliances, these laundry machines are older than most of my relatives, but it’s part of the charm. I’m sure I’ll still think it’s charming when they combust in the middle of the night, and all this rotting wood becomes my fiery tomb.

As Ben wanders beside me, he gazes at the labyrinth of pipes covering the ceiling, his long, muscular throat exposed to me. I eye it like a vampire, with all the lust and violence that particular monster intends for his victims.

“When I first started gardening here, I came down to the basement,” he says, eyes glued to the ceiling. “It wasn’t right being here without you, so I left.”

How dare he sweet-talk me! It’s like he spanked my heart—immediate pain, with an almost pleasant bouncing sensation afterward.

I smile awkwardly but don’t respond. If I speak, I worry I’ll sound all warm and friendly, and I intend to remain icy at him for the duration of my stay.

Behind us are my grandfather’s tool benches—with walls of medieval-looking devices still hanging where he left them the day he went upstairs, shut his eyes, and never reopened them. Next to the benches is the spare bedroom where my Uncle Dom stayed until my grandparents passed. We don’t hear from him much these days, but he would always be a star on the Fourth of July. Dom kept loads of illegal fireworks down here. God only knows how the Valle Forest avoided being “accidentally” burned down every summer—but Dom had plenty of cop buddies, and they’re all crooked as a box of snakes, so his antics were just ignored.

“Let’s open the Big Four,” Ben says, his voice lighter and brighter than it’s been all afternoon. Once again, being in the basement allows Ben to loosen up. Will it have the same effect on me? I’m standing next to a boy who has become two hundred degrees hotter since I swore to never speak to him again, so I’m going to say…no.

The Big Four are the cellar’s four wooden doors, lined side by side next to the laundry machines. Each one leads to a room of treasures and memories. Also, each one is filled with a highly distinctive scent. My fingertips crackle with anticipation at the mere idea that I’m about to smell these heavenly rooms again.

“Well, I was just thinking about Dom, so this one’s first.” I charge ahead. The door sticks. Clearly, it hasn’t opened in years. The wood whines stubbornly against its cement frame. Ben and I both grip the iron handle, our biceps flexed and kissing, and pull until it gives way. The scent is instantaneous, conjured perfectly from memory: soot and aging paper. The shallow pantry is filled with shelves of the largest fireworks collection I’ve ever seen. Bottle rockets the size of tiki torches. Trays of tennis-ball-sized smoke bombs. Black Cat firecrackers wrapped in red paper. A box of multicolored batons I recognize as Roman candles (my favorite—the color, the sparks, the drama!). And then there’s a shelf of pure weapons-grade explosives: M-80s and mortar shells.

Illegal with a capital I.

My mouth is on the floor. Ben’s eyes are almost out of their sockets.

“911, I’d like to report a terrorist operation,” I say, aghast. “What is this? I’ve been sleeping with this down here? These look like landmines!”

“Ro said she had some stuff she’d need me to get rid of,” Ben says, shaking his head. “But…I don’t know where to take this. It’s safer getting rid of toxic waste.”

“Doors closing, bye!” I shut away the death trap and add it to my list of things—starting with Ben—to demand an explanation about from Aunt Ro.

The next door opens more easily. A strong scent of brine smacks us in the face as we see the pickling room. It’s identical to the fireworks room, only these shelves are filled with less dangerous items: massive jars of pickled vegetables. Grandpa Angelo kept this room immaculate. It was his baby—the second phase of his garden. When he’d grill burgers or cook a roast in the open pit outside, the side dish would always be fresh, salted-to-death pickles. In middle school, when I stopped eating meat, I’d still get excited for the barbecues because it meant pickle time.

“Paul does the pickling now, but he brings veggies from town,” Ben says, shrugging. “You saw how nasty the garden got.”

“I’m sure you’ll get it growing again,” I say. Inside my head, I roll my eyes at myself for being so polite. Guess this basement is loosening me up after all.

The third and fourth doors are bigger than the others, and above them is an overarching plaque reading Il Diavolo Ti Ascolta.

“ ‘The Devil’s listening to you,’ ” I say, waving at the plaque.

Ben rolls his eyes. “You told me like a million times.”

A steel cage clamps tightly over my chest as I narrow my eyes. That smug smirk! Smacking my arm, he asks, “You still trying to impress guys with your big Italiano act?”

“No,” I huff, lying, my blood hotter than ever. “You still try to impress guys with your Scottish…pain-in-the-ass asshole act?”

“It’s not an act.” He grins. “And it’s a jock dropper.”

Damn him. I grunt, “Okay, well, I don’t need to hear about all the jocks you’ve dropped.”

Ben sighs and dabs his dripping cheeks with a hanky. “That’s funny coming from you.”

“Why?”

Ben leans boyishly, carelessly, against the last wooden door and laughs. “I had to hear about every speck of your last relationship totally against my will.”

My brow darkens. “What did Ro tell you?”

“Nothing. I follow you on Instagram.”

Suddenly, I want nothing more than to shut myself in the fireworks room and start pounding on mortars with my fists. I clear my throat angrily. “You follow me? When? I would’ve seen.”

And blocked your ass, I want to add.

Ben shrugs again. If he shrugs one more time, I’ll have those shoulders surgically removed! “I don’t know,” he says. “A while? I don’t have any posts, or a profile pic. Anyway, sorry it didn’t work out. But your Art Institute designs looked cool—”

“Thank you.” Cutting him off, I hurl open the third door to find a deeper pantry. The pleasing scent of oak and whiskey arrives exactly when I need something to stop me from strangling him. Grandpa’s casks are still here. Five large barrels of rye from different years. I don’t know what the dates are exactly, but I remember the one on the end is at least five-year aged. He barreled it after Grandma’s wake in August. He died that October.

Mama Bianchi and my great-grandfather also died a few months apart.

Aunt Ro says that’s the mark of true love, when you really can’t live without your partner. And both couples found each other because of the Wishing Rose. The jerkoff family legend attached to that rose has pumped more toxic ideas of romance into my brain than all the movies in the world combined.

So, if someone outlives their spouse by years, they’re what, not really in love?

It’s an awful thing to attach magic to grief.

I slam the door shut. This basement is annoying me.

Ben’s eyes flare at my loud racket. “Problem?” he asks.

“No, why?” Now it’s my turn to shrug as I haul open the final door—“Il diavolo ti ascolta.”

The deepest, longest-winding pantry of them all. Mama Bianchi’s wine cellar. A dark, electric-lamplit corridor greets us. Countless dusty bottles of richly hued Wishing Rose labels await us. Some of these bottles are from back in the forties when my great-grandmother built the whole place to impress my great-grandfather.

Everything smells darkly sweet and spiced with cedar.

Ben playfully knocks his hip into mine, sending shock waves of disgust through me. “Aren’t you gonna tell me the story again?” he asks in a goofy voice.

I roll my eyes. “I thought you didn’t want me repeating stories?”

“Such a sensitive little scrotum. Just tell me again. I want to hear it.”

My breaths are getting shorter. That trash compactor tightness is returning.

But still, I don’t think I can handle being made fun of for one more second, and I already feel like enough of a loser baby, so I oblige him: “Il diavolo ti ascolta. My great-grandmother carved ‘The Devil is listening to you’ above the wine cellar to keep out her nosy kids. Blah, blah, blah, that’s the story.”

Clicking his tongue with disappointment, Ben smacks my chest. I jump again. “You used to tell the story so juicily. How your mom got scared that she thought she saw the Devil—”

His giggling gets interrupted by my quiet hyperventilation.

The lamps overhead are growing dimmer.

The corridor is closing in.

Ben. Me. Here. Again.

This is where it happened. This exact spot is where I knew my wish became a curse.

It was during my grandma’s funeral. Weighted by guilt, Ben took me down here to confess he was hooking up with Hutch and that they were gonna try dating each other. I thought he was going to say he was in love with me, the way I was in love with him. But no.

Everything broke. My family. Our friendship.

“You okay?” Ben asks, concerned and reaching for me, but stopping just shy of touching. I step back, my ass clattering against the bottles in the cubbies behind me.

“Just claustrophobic. Can we go?”

I spin around, halfway toward the stairs, when Ben’s deep, throaty voice commands, “Hey.”

I turn. He hasn’t followed me. He’s still waiting by the laundry basket.

“What?” I ask.

“I have something to show you. Found it here last time.”

Ben drops to his soil-stained knees and crawls toward one of the washing machines. He sweeps a furry forearm under the basin and pulls out something. Whatever it is, it’s small enough to fit in his fist. As he walks to me, I have to control my breathing, or it’ll get erratic again.

He’s close enough to smell. Dirt and ocean-scented body spray.

His scent turns my boiling blood into a cool, placid lake. What is it about these smells—soot, brine, rye, and Ben—that on paper should be repulsive, but in reality excite me?

Grinning sheepishly, Ben opens his fist. In his chapped, ruddy palm is a Nerf dart. A shockingly orange foam finger with a rubber tip. It’s been lost under there since we were kids shooting action figures down the laundry chute. He remembered and went looking for it the very first chance he got.

“Been a long time,” I say, forced into a whisper by how powerfully my heart is pounding.

“Not that long,” Ben says, smiling. “Just been a busy five years.”

When he smiles, the boy appears beneath the man. And that boy and I have unfinished business, so the brief softness in my heart hardens. Swallowing, I lay down my boundary: “Ben, we can’t hang out like before.”

“I wasn’t asking to.” Again, he laughs, and again, anger tightens my jaw.

“I don’t know how long I’m gonna be here. I’m figuring stuff out.”

Ben nods, his lips curled angrily, and he pulls his cap backward. “In other words: shut up and garden.” Before I can defend myself, he drops the Nerf dart into my palm and closes my fist over it. “Still bugging over some shit that happened back when we still played with toys.” He stomps up the stairs. “I thought you were a man.”

“A MAN?” I shout, laughing. “Didn’t realize I was suddenly talking to your dad!”

He’s gone. I thrust my bare foot, hard, into the cement wall next to the dryers. Pain enters my big toe and rockets up the back of my leg. I hop in place until the pain subsides—but nothing dulls my dread. How am I supposed to spend the summer with him?

Aunt Ro rushes downstairs. “What’s all the noise about?” she asks.

Hissing at my scraped toe, I smile nastily. “Hey, Ro, you just missed the gardener.”

Her face floods with fear. Busted.