“polenta waits for no one!” Great-Aunt Lilliana shouted and then blew a whistle, which brought aunts and cousins running. She directed one after the other to carry the pots of sauces and meats out to the tables while Lucy stood there covered in goop. Her pure white dress with pockets ruined.
Milo’s mouth was a perfect O, but Great-Aunt Lilliana didn’t let him come to Lucy’s rescue. She sent him out with a fresh glass of grape soda for Grandma Miller, while she took Lucy by the arm and directed her to the spare bedroom. There, she slid open the closet door to all Nonnina’s dresses that Papo never had the heart to get rid of. Great-Aunt Lilliana swept the hangers, her rings flashing, along the wooden post, until she came to a particular dress. It was orange eyelet with a cinched waist and buttons up the front. Lucy, not thinking much about her own modesty, just shrugged out of her white sundress and stood like a stick bug in her undershirt and underwear. Obediently, she put her hands up while Great-Aunt Lilliana slid the new dress over her head. It hung loose on her nonexistent hips, about two sizes too big. Great-Aunt Lilliana put on her rhinestone eyeglasses and inspected her from hair to toes.
“Here, I’ve got just the thing.” Great-Aunt Lilliana crossed the room to a bleached-wood dresser and opened the top drawer. She pulled out a long silky scarf with sunflowers and wrapped it around and around Lucy’s waist. “Some sunglasses, and you look like a young Audrey Hepburn.”
Lucy peered in the floor-length mirror and was surprised to find it was true. She did have her dad’s wide brown eyes. And Audrey Hepburn’s nose wasn’t all that tiny, either. Plus, the dress was pretty great, even if it was from the fifties.
“Let me just set this in some cold water,” Great-Aunt Lilliana said, and picked the white dress up off the floor.
“No, I can do it,” Lucy said, but it was too late. Great-Aunt Lilliana had discovered the rocks in her pockets.
“Is this something I should worry about?” Great-Aunt Lilliana said. She held out a handful of stones.
“Counting them calms me down,” Lucy said with a shrug.
Great-Aunt Lilliana nodded and peered into Lucy’s eyes. “Maybe you are Fattucchiera as well.”
If she was Fattucchiera, it meant she’d know things deep in her Rossi bones. Lucy suddenly wondered how she ever could have thought superstition was such an unreasonable thing. In fact, wasn’t her Homeostasis Extravaganza really just a fancy name for her superstitions?
Great-Aunt Lilliana rummaged around in Nonnina’s closet and came back with a small purse, one with a long strap that could go across Lucy’s body and over one shoulder. She helped Lucy transfer the stones, and then placed it over her head. She tucked in a sprig of rue for good luck, and Lucy didn’t mind as much as she once might have.
“There. Now you are ready for whatever happens.”
“I don’t feel ready.” Lucy was feeling like a sack of broken crackers again. Like she had when she’d first seen the Mac and Cheese men.
“Anyone can do anything a few hours at a time.”
Lucy wondered if it could, in fact, be that easy. As easy as changing her mind.
It was.
Lucy and Great-Aunt Lilliana had been gone only ten minutes or so, and rushed out to help with the last of the food preparations. Four extra-long rectangular tables festooned with herbs and flowers and small American flags sat in a square around the courtyard. There was a water fountain in the corner, three frolicking angels with water spouting from their mouths and fingertips, one on each tier.
Papo sat in the center of one of the long tables, Nonnina’s urn in the chair to his right, Dad sitting to his left. Each table had large planks of polished wood set on top, evenly spaced, instead of plates. Milo had saved Lucy a seat and so she scooted in next to him. Great-Uncle Lando sat on the other side of Milo, pouring him a glass of pink champagne instead of apple cider because Great-Uncle Lando had had enough champagne for himself by now and didn’t know the difference anymore.
A couple of burly muscled family friends, Carlo and Chooch, walked out into the courtyard, each carrying the handle of the copper pot of polenta. Great-Aunt Lilliana stood in the center of the tables and directed the boys to set the pot down on a rolling cart. She held a large serving spoon up the way the Statue of Liberty holds her torch.
“Al fine!” Great-Aunt Lilliana said.
“Al fine!” the whole world responded.
Which meant “to the end.”
To the end of what? Lucy wondered. The end of life? The end of time? The end of how much a person could take?
Great-Aunt Lilliana ceremoniously glopped the polenta out onto each of the plywood planks on each of the four tables, quickly designing the boot of Italy with her spoon. The Belly Button Aunts then followed with glops of sauce on top of the polenta.
“What is she doing?” Milo said, fork in hand.
“It’s a family tradition. The wood is treated, like a cutting board. And we all eat together without the boundaries of a plate.”
Lucy looked around for Grandma and Grandpa Miller to see how they might be taking the news about eating off a plywood board instead of plates. She wasn’t sure if Mom had warned them about the polenta, as she usually did about whatever they were having for dinner at Papo’s house. They both sat next to Mom with matching looks of stunned incomprehension.
Lucy picked up her napkin to hide her unexpected fit of giggles.
“What?” Milo said, smiling along with her. Mrs. Bartolo sat on the other side of Great-Uncle Lando, who was explaining how pink champagne was manufactured by adding red wine to the white wine or by simply using grape skins, and wasn’t that fascinating? Mrs. Bartolo giggled instead of saying that it was fascinating, which made Lucy laugh even more.
“Look at my grandparents,” Lucy whispered. Grandma had her large black handbag in her lap and was digging around in it.
“Did your grandma just give your grandpa a sandwich?”
Lucy had to bend over into her napkin to keep herself from howling, and Milo laughed alongside her.
Finally, they turned to the board of polenta, and Lucy explained, “You take the meat and some sauce and just drop it over your portion of the polenta. See, my section is Calabria. You can have the boot. And don’t stuff yourself. This is just the first course.”
Milo didn’t talk. He just ate. Lucy looked around at her family and watched Gia and Josh at the long table directly across from her, the Belly Button Aunts like bookends on either side. Gia was staring into her lap, and Josh had his long arm wrapped around her shoulder. He kissed her temple and whispered something into her ear. Gia nodded but didn’t look up, and Lucy felt a shiver of longing. Not for the kiss, necessarily. The idea of someone’s mouth on her face sounded about as tempting as being attacked by a swarm of bees. But Lucy knew Gia could tell Josh anything because she’d seen evidence of this over and over again. They’d lie in the backyard grass on a blanket whispering to each other and weaving daisies into each other’s hair. She’d seen the way they looked at each other sometimes, like there was no one else in the universe but the two of them. They were connected by that invisible string she’d imagined, just like the rest of her family.
It wasn’t fair.
After fifteen minutes or so, when everyone had taken the edge off their hunger, Papo Angelo stood and raised his glass. “I want to give a toast to my son. We’re so grateful to have our boy home.” He opened his mouth to go on, but instead broke down into tears, which made Lucy’s throat grow tight. Dad stood up, and they hugged, clapping each other on the back.
What followed was a series of toasts to Dad.
Salute!
Cent’anni!
Cento di questi giorni!
Without even knowing it was happening until it was happening, Lucy found herself standing with her own glass of sparkling apple cider in her hand, wanting desperately to feel that invisible string of connection.
“To my brave dad. I’m glad you’re home.”
The feelings of sadness and fear and anguish and longing came swooping in and took her breath away. Afraid of sobbing right there in the middle of her entire family, she sat down quickly and put on the bravest face she could find so Dad would know she was his brave, strong girl.
Dad stood up, walked all the way around the table and wrapped her with his good arm, taking her off her feet and swinging her around.
“My brave, strong girl,” he whispered before setting her back on her feet.
There weren’t any dry eyes left after that. Once Dad made it to his seat, after being thumped on the back and touched on the arm and attacked by the Joes, the volume of the conversation slowly turned up once again.
Soon, the plywood boards were removed and more food was put down in their place. Platters of rosemary-and-garlic-stuffed porchetta, herb-roasted potatoes, rotisserie chickens, plates of spicy Italian sausage, roasted red peppers and Great-Aunt Lilliana’s famous dinner rolls. There were all sorts of sautéed vegetables that had come from many gardens, broccoli, asparagus and chard. Even Grandma and Grandpa Miller filled their plates with a few bites of the less spicy offerings.
Lucy looked around at her family, soaked them all in like a roll in sauce and, for the first time, felt the tiniest thread of a connection. Because she loved them. Whatever their eccentricities, she loved them with every bit of her heart.
It wouldn’t be a Rossi family party without the dancing. Of course, Lucy would rather have turned her eyelids inside out than dance in her rather uncoordinated fashion in front of Milo, but the choice was out of her hands. “North to Alaska” came over the speakers, and Josh waved at her from where he was sitting with Gia.
“Come dance with me!” he shouted, and stood up to fetch her.
Lucy could not help but be fetched by Josh. She turned to Milo and shrugged, as if to say, What are you going to do?
Soon enough, everyone was dancing. Great-Uncle Lando was cheek to cheek with Great-Aunt Maria, even though it was a fast song, and the Joes chased each other in between the dancers. Lucy looked around for Mom and Dad, thinking it would be good to see them close together, reminding her of the times she’d caught them dancing in the living room or on the rooftop beside the barbecue grill in Chicago.
She didn’t see them anywhere.
After bobbing up and down and calling it dancing, Lucy was relieved when the song finally ended and “Love Me Tender” came on, thinking Josh would go pull Gia onto the dance floor. But he didn’t. He held his arms out to Lucy, and when she stepped forward, he took her hand and put it on his waist and took her other hand in his. There was about a foot of space between them as they rocked from one foot to the other. It was her first slow dance. And it happened to be with the boy she was sure she would love for the rest of her life.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Josh said.
Lucy looked up into his hazel eyes and felt as though her bones had liquefied, making her quivery. She was angry at her bones for deserting her at such a time.
“You know the draft lottery is coming, right?” Josh said.
“August fifth.”
“And you know I’m eligible for the draft.”
All Lucy could do was nod.
“Gia’s smart. She’s brilliant. She’ll end up going to Berkeley or Columbia or some other super-smart school. As smart as she is, she doesn’t have a lot of common sense sometimes. Do you know what I mean by that?”
Lucy, unfortunately, knew exactly what Josh meant.
“She’s passionate, and I swear she’d run into a burning building to save the animals or for women’s rights or the hundreds of other causes she cares about. She’d run into a burning building for her family, for you,” Josh said.
Even though all they ever managed to do was get on each other’s nerves lately, Lucy knew that Gia loved her fiercely. The way she did everything fiercely.
“If I go to Vietnam, you’ll know what she’s going through,” Josh said.
“Don’t say that!” Lucy stopped her foot-to-foot swaying. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I have a one-in-three chance of being drafted. I just want you to promise me that, even though Gia can be a pain in the butt, you’ll help her. You know what’s coming.”
Lucy felt so many different things. Boneless from dancing with Josh. Terrified he’d go to Vietnam. Flattered he believed she was someone Gia needed.
Strong and capable, because she knew he was right.
The song ended, and Josh gave her a twirl, then hugged her close.
He smelled like Aqua Velva.
When the party was over and most of the family had gone home, Lucy and Milo helped Great-Aunt Lilliana put the leftovers away in plastic containers to stock up Papo’s fridge.
“What happened to the dress?”
It was Grandma Miller, of course, her voice shrill, even though Lucy had seen Great-Uncle Lando pouring lots of pink champagne into her glass.
“Grape soda explosion,” Milo said. “And then she landed in some tomato sauce. It was gnarly,” he finished.
“Great-Aunt Lilliana is soaking it in the bathtub,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry, Grandma. But I don’t think the stains are going to come out.”
“Bring me a bucket, some white vinegar and baking soda! Pronto!” Grandma dug under the kitchen sink and came out with a pair of rubber gloves.
“What’s this?” Great-Aunt Lilliana came into the kitchen carrying a platter of chicken, Gia following close behind. “You’re going to help with the cleaning, Loretta? Nonsense. Go sit down and enjoy some anisette.”
Grandma held up her gloved hands like she was about to operate. “I’m going to save Lucy’s dress!”
“Save her . . . Oh, I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Great-Aunt Lilliana said. Then to Lucy, “Didn’t Gia tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Lucy said, panicked. She rushed into the bathroom where she had left her dress, and found it tie-dyed an orange-red, like a sunset, and hanging from a line in the shower.
Lucy was completely speechless.
“It was ruined,” Gia said. “There was no getting out the pasta sauce, so I ran home to see what was left of the dye I just used to tie-dye some shirts for me and Josh last week. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Grandma said. “That is some ingenuity at work.”
Grandma didn’t think much of tie-dye and hippies, but she was a sucker for ingenuity and people who used their brains.
Lucy touched the skirt. Somehow, Gia had made a bunch of small white circles into the shape of a heart on the chest. Great-Aunt Lilliana, Grandma, Milo and Gia all stood too close to each other in the small bathroom, fidgeting, staring at Lucy for a response, maybe.
“Can I have a minute?” Lucy said as calmly as she could.
“Of course!” Great-Aunt Lilliana said, and shooed them out.
“Except Milo.”
Milo turned back and closed the door. Lucy slid down the tile wall until she was sitting on the floor.
“That’s quite a trick,” Milo said. He tried to do the same thing, but his legs were too long and so his knees ended up close to his ears. They were quiet for a few minutes, watching the dress drip, drip, drip into the shower drain.
“It’s just a dress,” Milo said.
“Actually, I love it. I don’t want to love it, but I do.”
“Why don’t you want to love it?”
“Because I still might be mad at Gia. I’m not ready for her to be nice to me, maybe.”
“You can’t love a dress and be mad at Gia at the same time? That is very complicated.”
“Life is very complicated.”
“Sure it is.”
Milo stood up and snooped around the bathroom, which was also very pink. Just not as pink as the kitchen. He picked up the soap and smelled it.
“Why are you so mad at her, anyway?”
“I overheard some plans she had to protest at Travis Air Force Base. I’ve seen what those protests look like. They throw stuff at soldiers, and I don’t think that’s right. But it feels like a dumb reason to still be mad at her.”
“This war makes people do crazy things.”
“She just wants it all to end, I guess. Just like me,” Lucy said. “Just like everyone.”
Milo opened the medicine cabinet and took out a floral shower cap. Whether it had belonged to Nonnina or Great-Aunt Lilliana, Lucy wasn’t sure.
“How do I look?” he said, putting it on.
“It lacks the element of surprise. I’ve already seen you in a shower cap. Although the flowers are nice.”
Milo sat down on Great-Aunt Lilliana’s makeup bench. He clicked on the lights around her makeup mirror and picked up a bright red lipstick.
“It’s just a dress,” he said again, and put on the lipstick. “And it’s time to stop being mad at Gia.”
Lucy laughed against her will at Milo’s red lips. Then Milo laughed. Then he stopped laughing when, even after wiping away the lipstick, it had stained his lips a bright orange.
Which matched Lucy’s new dress.