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MOM LIFTED THE ZEBRA printed blanket away from my face and sat along the edge of my mattress. “I’m sorry for what I said last night.”
I shrugged and rolled over.
“We need to talk. I know things have been up and down lately, but if Giovanni hadn’t come lookin’ for you yesterday, I would’ve been sending the cops to his house thinkin’ you were there. Some vague message sayin’ you’re alright ain’t enough. Ya’ hear me?”
I rose halfway and leaned against the headboard. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s not good enough. I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to talk to me, to keep me in the loop. I mean, what could I have told the cops if something had happened to you? I know things have been extra hard, and I’m trying to give you your space, but please, don’t shut me out.”
I nodded slowly and rubbed my eyes.
Giovanni knocked on the front door. Getting to her feet, she paused at the foot of the bed. The corners of her mouth lifted. “Now go brush your teeth. Your breath stinks.” Mom scrunched up her face for the full effect. “Oh, and here’s your phone.” Digging it out of her scrub pocket, she tossed it onto the bed. “Don’t turn it off again.”
Giovanni knocked a second time gently.
“I’m comin’,” she said.
GIOVANNI SAT ON THE edge of my bed, observing me in my natural habitat. I dug a rolled pair of ankle socks out of the bag on the closet floor.
“What’s up?”
Making his way over, he kissed my lips and held me. “I worry for you, bella. Why did you not leave with my ma last night?”
I shimmied out of his embrace. “‘Cause we were in the middle of a conversation. I wasn’t plannin’ on talking to him at all. I was gonna hide somewhere and watch him, but there was nowhere to hide. He spotted me and chased me down. I didn’t know what else to do but walk the dogs. Then, he offered me a different job.”
“Then, you had dinner with him!”
“You act like I went out on a date with the guy. It was business. I don’t need you tryna guilt trip me for it.” I slipped on my socks and adjusted my pant’s leg.
“You went there to his house alone! Anything could have happened?” Holding my face, he peered at me through tears. “Please, bella. I do not want you to see him again. I cannot lose you.”
“You won’t.” I peeled his hands away and stepped into my sneakers.
Mom exploded through the door. “Giovanni, we need to talk,” she said tensely.
He pleaded to me with his pitiful stare to rescue him, but what could I have done? She never listened to me anyway.
WE AMBLED THROUGH THE lobby door into the brisk morning air.
“What did she say?”
“She wants me to keep you safe, and she said that she loves you. I have to ask for her permission before I go with you anywhere.” Giovanni pocketed his hands.
“I didn’t tell her exactly where I was last night. She’d lock me in a closet and never let me out again if she knew.”
“Joy, there–there is something I want to ask you. It could be an option if it gets dangerous here.” Sucking in a sharp breath, he said, “Would you help me to find my real mother?”
“A–Are you sure?”
Worry lines formed above his brows as he looked at me. “Yes.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But do you think she’d come all this way to New York?”
“I thought I would go to her.”
Stepping around a daydreaming walker in my way, I choked back my sorrow. “Do you think your mom has other kids?” I asked, trying to divert my thoughts to something more exciting.
“I do not know.” A half-smile softened the distress on his face. “I never think of it before, but I hope she does.”
“Do you at least know her name?”
“No.” He nibbled his bottom lip distractedly.
“Can’t you look at your birth certificate and find out?”
Giovanni slowed his pace. “I have never seen it before.”
I turned my stunned gaze to a white butterfly dancing happily ahead of us. “Then, we’ll have to look up your birth date and see what we can find.”
Bumping his shoulder with mine, he grinned. “Do you think you will discover my secrets too?”
I hooked my arm through his and pushed the hair behind my back. “I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”
MY PHONE BUZZED AGAINST my hip as we stood in the aisle to disembark from the bus. I declined Sal’s call and sent him a text.
—Did you talk to your boss yet?
He called again. Once more, I declined it.
—Yes or no, I messaged.
I put the ringer on silent and slid the phone into my jean jacket pocket.
“Who was that?” Giovanni asked, stepping onto the curb beside me.
“Sal. He won’t answer my questions.”
Giovanni folded his arms and huffed. “I want you to stay away from him.”
“Okay. And I want you to stay away from Mariah.”
“Tell me how!”
“That’s easy. Tell her to leave you alone. Tell her you don’t like her. And I’ll send Sal the same message and block his number. Deal?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll text him now, then.”
Five missed call notifications lit up the screen.
—Please don’t contact me anymore.
As soon as the message went through, Sal’s number flashed across the phone.
—Pick up. I gotta talk to you! he texted then called again.
I didn’t trust him.
After rejecting the call, I blocked his number. “Kay. Now it’s your turn.”
Giovanni nodded stiffly and entwined our fingers. We squeezed past the kids crowding the narrow sidewalk.
“Joy,” Sal’s deep voice boomed over the chatter around us.
Giovanni gripped my hand tighter when I turned to face the man.
“We gotta talk. And it’s too much to type up,” he said, his chest heaving from running to catch up to me. Sal’s thick eyebrows disappeared behind the sunglasses’ lenses as he frowned at the curious faces staring at him in awe.
“Yo. How tall are you?” a boy asked him.
Sal pressed his lips together. “Six, nine,” he said quickly. “Joy, come on.”
Giovanni shielded his eyes from the sun and broadened the distance between Sal and us. My shoes sank into the thick grass bordering the walkway to the school’s entrance. “Do not go. Stay away from him.”
“But what if he has something important to say?”
“I do not trust him.” Giovanni glared at Sal ten feet away.
“I’ll deal with him this last time, alright? Then, you can take care of Mariah.”
He twisted his hair and mumbled under his breath.
Giovanni and I strolled across the street to Baisley Pond Park, with Sal leading the way. A dancehall beat of a Shatta Wale song blasted from a passing car. Giovanni stayed close enough to watch but not to hear.
Parking himself on a bench, Sal removed the sunglasses and scratched his bristly chin. The leather jacket crinkled with his every move. “If you would’ve picked up your phone, we could’ve had this conversation a while ago. What’s goin’ on wit’ you?” Even seated, the man dwarfed me.
“I blocked your number.” I folded my arms. His two-toned eyes shifted from the spouting fountain to me. “What was so urgent you had to call a million times?”
His tanned skin looked golden in the morning sun. “It’s my boss.”
“Did you tell him what I said?”
“I couldn’t. He don’t take no for an answer.” Sal slid a white business card in my hand. “He wants you to meet his daughter on Saturday at eight a.m. at that address.” Sal pointed to the card. “Don’t be late.”
“No!” I tried to return it, but he refused to accept. “I told you I’m not doing it. I won’t.”
He exhaled slowly and leaned forward. “You don’t get it. Cesaré has had guys workin’ on your dad since the day he got caught. How much longer do you think he’s gonna hold up?”
Goosebumps pricked my skin at the thought of Dad being outnumbered and unable to fight back. I imagined him as helpless as Mom used to be. Hugging myself, I shook the images from my mind.
“He’s offerin’ you seven hundred to have a quick conversation with the man. That price starts goin’ down if I gotta let your mom in on it. But I’ve got a feeling she’d be more willing than you are. It’s either that or...” Sal swallowed the words before they could be spoken. “This ain’t a game. And time’s runnin’ out. He ain’t givin’ you a choice. Take the money.” Sal rose from his seat. “And unblock my number. If I need to get a hold of you, you’ll regret it. I’ll keep it strictly business, alright? So, you can tell your boyfriend not to worry.” His eyes filled with sadness. “I thought at first when you came back...when you stayed it was ‘cause...”
“You tempted me with delicious food.” He smirked at the reminder. “I should’ve never come back, but I needed information.”
Sal’s fingers drummed on the side of his leg. “So, you won’t be comin’ by to walk the dogs?” He stared at my mouth.
“I’d love to, but I can’t.”
His sigh blew my hair and swirled a woodsy-scented cologne around me.
“W–What if I double your price? The dogs really like you.”
More temptations. I would’ve gone for free just to spend time with Luna and Romeo.
“I have to go.” I turned to leave.
“Joy, wait,” he called out.
“I need you to leave me alone.” Facing him again, I kept my sights on his black sneakers. “I’ve already given you my answer about seeing my dad and the dogs. There’s nothing left to talk about.”
I started toward Giovanni and glanced over my shoulder at Sal. Like a dark angel painted gold by the early morning sun, he stood there watching me. His eyes held a familiar look of rejection.
“What did he say?” Giovanni asked, drawing my attention to his forgotten presence. Flecks of sunlight dotted his fair skin through the trees.
I slipped the card into my pocket. “Uh, nothing I didn’t already know.” I looked both ways before crossing the street at his side.
Giovanni stared at me for a long time, unhappy with my cryptic answer. He scooped my hand in his and marched to the school’s entrance with single-minded determination.
We stood beside one of the fat white columns, waiting for our turn through security. Giovanni hugged me from behind. The warmth of his breath in my ear sent shivers through me.
“I love you, bella, but I am afraid I am losing you,” he whispered. “Am I losing you?”
Twice this morning, he mentioned his fear, and I lacked the courage to express mine even once. How could I protect my heart and his at the same time with my confession? I couldn’t. And there was no way to reveal all of my fears right now.
Giovanni’s hold around me slackened. I turned to him and whispered into his ear, “We’ve got a lot to talk about.” I peered into his eyes for a moment and kissed him.
“Would y’all go? You’re holding up the line,” a girl whined from behind us.
His face blazed with embarrassment. Releasing him, I stepped through the metal detector and waited for Giovanni to do the same.
“HEY, JOY.” TRINA DRAGGED me away toward my locker. My hand slipped out of Giovanni’s. “Boris wants to talk to you.”
Confused, I looked back at Giovanni to discover Mariah shoving him against a locker and devouring his lips. He squirmed and tried to get away.
I ripped my arm free from Trina. She reached for me again. I moved out of range, but she kept coming at me. Kneeing her in the groin, I forced my way through the bystanders. Giovanni finally weaseled out of Mariah’s hold and wiped his mouth. My mind and body aligned with one mission: to kill this girl.
His fearful eyes met mine.
“Was it as good for you as it was for me?” Mariah laughed, oblivious to me inches away from her.
I snatched the silky locks at her nape with a roar. The echo of her forehead slamming the locker increased the crowd around us. Mariah stumbled backward. A smear of orangey foundation stained the door where she’d made an impact.
Giovanni snaked his hands around my waist. “Come on, bella.” His breath on my ear called me out of my rage. I broke my murderous gaze from a stunned Mariah and onto him.
“Let’s go.” He tugged my hand, expecting my feet to follow him.
I didn’t wanna disappoint him, but her perfume on his clothes wound me up again. Then, the memories of the party and all the pent-up frustration over the last week of her picking on me and messing with him finally yanked the pin from my grenade.
“No!” I backed away and glowered at a vengeful Mariah.
Her dark eyes sliced me up a million different ways. Our principal’s short, white hair beamed like an angelic halo behind her, but I didn’t care about the consequences. The electricity pulsing through me was too intoxicating. Mariah felt it too.
She smiled, then charged at me like a bull. Catching her wrist mid-swing, I used her momentum and twirled her. She wobbled forward. One shove sent Mariah tumbling onto her knees. As I raised my hand to strike, Mrs. Williams caught it.
“That’s enough!” she said.
Mariah got to her feet and charged at me again. Mrs. Williams boldly stepped between us. A red egg protruded from Mariah’s head. Tears rimmed her dark, almond eyes. Still, she grinned like the Devil at me.
Mrs. Williams took her arm. “Officer Jenkins, would you please escort Joy to my office.”
The hefty cop maneuvered through the cluster of students still watching the show.
“The bells’ about to ring, people,” Mrs. Williams warned our audience. “Get to where you need to be.”
I SETTLED ONTO THE seat beside an Asian boy.
“I heard what happened with you and Mariah,” he said, repositioning an ice pack to his bruised cheek.
I smoothed my curls self-consciously. “Yeah? And what happened to you?”
Shrugging casually, he rested his head on the wall behind us and left my question unanswered.
Mariah slow-walked past me in a proud strut like she’d won. That fat egg on her head, though, told its own story.
I glanced at Mrs. Williams’ tall, pear-shaped frame lingering in the doorway to her office. She waved me over, shaking her small head from side to side. “Have a seat, Joy, and enlighten me, would ya?”
I found myself distracted by the striking contrast of her white cropped hair against her deep-brown skin. She was so pretty.
“Sit,” she urged again.
Officer Jenkins stood like a soldier for justice beside the door when I entered.
Settling onto the chair slowly, I turned my attention to my hands on my lap.
“Whenever you’re ready.” Readying a notepad, she eyed me over her reading glasses and waited.
“She planned it,” I blurted out.
“Care to elaborate on who and what you’re talkin’ about?”
I revealed the truth in one swift breath. “After I got away from Trina, I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never felt like that before. I remember going up to Mariah and you bringing me here. Everything in between is a blur.” I stared at the watercolor flowers on the box of tissues beside her nameplate.
Mrs. Williams frowned at me and lowered her pen. “Well—”
“Giovanni is a good person. He won’t hurt anyone even if they hurt him. Everyone’s scared of Mariah because of her lies about her brother. Giovanni is too. I have to protect him. No one else will.”
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness for Giovanni’s safety, but the safety of all of our students is paramount here. You will be staying after school today to meet with your guidance counselor. I’ve already spoken with your mother. We’ll let you know what we’ll do with you soon. As for Mariah, the next time you two get into it like that, try reporting it and letting us do our jobs. That bump on her head looks really bad. You’d be lucky if she doesn’t press charges.”
“Press charges?”
“Yes. You assaulted her...unless I missed something.”
I frowned. “She assaulted Giovanni!”
“And she will deal with the consequences of that like you will.” Mrs. Williams’ face softened. “Look, I can see you’re a good kid, Joy, but you need to get a handle on whatever is goin’ on with you. There are plenty of resources here. Use them, and as often as you need to.” She removed her glasses and set them on the desk. “How are things at home?”
I stared at her in a daze, searching for the right answer. So much had happened over the last few weeks. “I don’t know,” I said, fighting facial paralysis. Don’t cry! Don’t you dare cry! I commanded myself, but my body had its own agenda.
I ugly cried and dropped my face into my hands.
“Officer Jenkins, would you give us a minute?” she said in a quiet voice.
The door opened and closed behind my back.
“I can’t even look at her picture anymore. I–It reminds of what she looked like when I f–found her.”
Mrs. Williams offered me a tissue. “Death is so hard. I’m so sorry for your loss. Maybe you should see your guidance counselor now.”
I dried my face quickly. “No. I’m fine. I’ll see her after school.”
“Do you want me to send you home too?”
My thoughts turned to Giovanni. “No. I’m okay.”
Mrs. Williams studied my face skeptically and nodded. “Alright. Get yourself cleaned up and go on to class.”
Once I reached the door, she added, “And no more fighting. You’re a good kid, Joy. Try to keep it that way.”
As I ambled out of the office, her earlier words played on in my mind, returning my anger to me.
She said I’d assaulted Mariah. What about a justified defense? I only slammed her once into that locker. Why not admire my restraint? Where was my reward for not ripping her head off?
I hurried to my locker. Rummaging through my bookbag for the tiny camera, I positioned it against the high corner of my locker in the shadows. After our fight, I knew Mariah would be coming for me full force, using every dirty trick she could think of against me.
I passed a cluster of lockers en route to the cafeteria when Giovanni appeared from nowhere and stole my hand, pressing the river of moisture from his palm to mine. “I am worried about you,” he said with a firm hug.
I rubbed his back and felt him wince. “Did she hurt you?” I asked, leaning away.
He nodded slowly. “The lock hit my back.”
My body tensed.
“No, Joy. Please. Do not do anything. You will get into trouble again.”
“Did you tell Mrs. Williams about it?”
His chest caved. “No. I want to forget about this morning.”
Shaking my head, I walked ahead of him into the cafeteria.
Giovanni dropped his bookbag onto his seat. “I do not like to see you fight,” he said, chasing my eyes as I plopped down.
“Yeah, and I don’t like to see you hurt. I will fight for you every single time, so get used to it.”
He searched the room in terror.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They sent Mariah home because of her head.”
Boris joined us at the table. “Yo, I didn’t think you had it in you,” he said, showcasing his overlapping teeth. “Mariah is a beast when she fights, but you didn’t even give her a chance.”
Giovanni frowned and proceeded to the lunch line curling into the hall. I threw my bag around my body and followed. “Giovanni.” His feet stilled at the sound of my voice. “I’m not hungry. I’ll be in the library.”
He brushed the hair out of my face. “You said earlier that we had to talk.” Taking my arm, we strolled back to the table. Giovanni lifted his bag again. “Then I will go with you. We have a lot of work to do.”
Papers thumbtacked to a bulletin board fluttered when we breezed past them in the mostly empty corridor.
“I never asked you. How are things with your dad?”
Giovanni shrugged. “He does not come home for dinner anymore. He is always with his friend now.”
“That Rocco guy?”
He nodded.
“Do you know what he looks like?”
“No. I never met him before.”
“Well, apparently, he wants me to meet his daughter on Saturday at this place.” I showed him the card Sal had given me this morning. “I wanna find out exactly where this place is and check it out.”
“Will you meet her?”
“No, but Sal keeps acting like I don’t have a choice.” I gripped the handle for the library door.
CESARÉ ROCCO’S SQUARE portrait stamped the right corner of the restaurant’s About page. His round brown eyes looked soulless as they gazed at us from the computer screen. I made sure to take in every detail of his oval face—his skinny, beak-like nose, low sparse brows, chubby cheeks, and a wide, thin mouth framed by a goatee. This was the man responsible for the latest stress our families were under, and I needed to take him down.
We moved on to the restaurant gallery. Initially, I had planned to eat there and get an inside look at the place, but the pictures of the luxurious interiors quickly plucked that idea from my mind. The fixtures, fine china, and the artful presentation of the meals screamed decadence. I doubted I could afford a glass of water, let alone a meal there.
I needed a new way to get inside, considering I lacked an inconspicuous kind of face, especially in a place like that.
“Bella, what did Sal say to you this morning? You are different after you spoke to him.”
I opened a new tab to search Rocco’s home address. “He just tried to scare me into giving in. That’s all.”
“What did he say?”
I propped my chin on the heel of my hand and peered at Giovanni. “He said that my dad has been getting beat up since the day he got caught, that he can’t take it anymore, but he still won’t tell them where the package is.” I shuddered inside at the thought. My dad had suffered so much in his life. His internal struggles today were evidence of that. Then again, what if it was a lie, a trick to manipulate me into doing what Sal wanted?
Giovanni gulped loudly and dropped his eyes to the keyboard.
“You think I should go through with it, don’t you?”
He nodded. “He is your father. If he is in jail for hurting someone, then he is where he belongs, but if he is being tortured and you can help to stop it, you should do what you can.”
I nibbled my bottom lip and clicked on Cesaré Rocco’s name. An address in Bayside, Queens, popped up.
“Will you help him?” Giovanni asked.
“I don’t know if what Sal says is true. His job is on the line. He’d say anything to get me to do it. He even offered money.”
Giovanni’s eyes widened. “And still you will not do it?”
I sat back in my seat and frowned at him. “My dad isn’t some stubborn idiot. If what Sal says is true, that he’s getting beat up and keeping his mouth shut no matter what, then he has to have a good reason to put up with it. He warned us that we were in danger. He told us to leave town.” My stomach dropped. Sal kept implying that we had no choice. Dad wanted us to escape before they tried to use us to get to him. He had to have known we wouldn’t listen, though. We didn’t, and now the wall was closing in on us.
My heart thundered in my ears the longer I thought about it. I tried to write Rocco’s address in my notes, to occupy myself with something other than Dad’s messy problem spilling into my life, but the tears stinging my eyes distorted the words and numbers on the screen. I drew in a shaky breath and wished them away. I had quit crying about my father long ago, and I refused to start crying about the man now.
Giovanni waved his hand across my back. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I wish we could run away together and forget all this crap.” I dried the tears clinging to my lashes.
Giovanni’s lips curled into a thoughtful smile. “Where would we go?”
I straightened my back. A surge of excitement shot through me. “Everywhere! We could find the best chocolate places around the world and do walking food tours. They do them all over New York, but I wanna taste more Italian food and French food. I’ve never had French food before.” My smile faded as I imagined the likelihood of achieving that dream or any of my dreams. I sighed. “I feel like I’ll never make it outta here, though.”
Taking my hand, he pressed a kiss to the back of it. “We will one day, but we must stay positive.”
If only that was enough.
KAI STOPPED ME AT MRS. Powers’ door. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I followed him across the hall where Mrs. Powers had hung up the drawings from yesterday. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s about Mariah. She’s comin’ after you harder than before.”
I folded my arms. “I ain’t afraid of her. If she even thinks about touching him again, I’m gonna—”
“You’re not listening,” he said louder. “You won’t be fighting just her. Diego won’t do nothin’, but her cousins will. I told you to be careful.”
“If being careful means to let her hurt or try to seduce Giovanni, then I’m not gonna do it. Let her cousins come.”
Kai stared at me in confusion and stopped me from leaving. “Joy, I don’t wanna see them hurt you.”
“What do you want me to do? Tell me.”
Kai withdrew his hand from my arm. “Let her win. Give her what she wants.”
I laughed. “Give her what she wants?”
Kai looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Did she tell you to tell me that, or did you come up with that on your own?”
His naturally arched eyebrows knitted together in anger. He stomped into class ahead of me and chose a stool across the room from mine.
Letting my messenger bag slip to the floor, I slouched onto the stool and stared off into space. One more year. I had one more year of dealing with Mariah and Trina. Giovanni said to stay positive. How could I? With every new day, I struggled to keep my footing and not get swept away by negativity’s dangerous currents. Every day, some new challenge arose, be it from his family or mine. I had done my best to discover a solution, on top of dealing with the bullying here at school. Constantly fighting forces inside and out was wearing me down, leaving me to wonder what would remain of me when it was all over. Could I last another year, let alone the end of this week?
Somebody touched my hand. Mrs. Powers peered at me with concern. “I need to talk to you in my office,” she said softly. The class crowded the doorway and watched me with the same wide-eyed stare. I’d missed her announcement to file into the hallway for the critique.
Standing from my stool, I trailed after her. She closed the door. “I called your name three times.”
“Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“We’re trying to do the critique, but your drawing is missing. I hung it up yesterday. Did you take it?”
“No.”
Mrs. Powers studied my face. “Do you need to see your guidance counselor and talk some things out?”
“No. I’m fine. I have to see her after school anyway.” I shifted from side to side.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go now?”
Forcing a smile, I nodded. “I’m good. Thank you.”
Mrs. Powers examined my eyes, sensing the truth behind my mask. “If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask for it.”
I nodded and waited to be dismissed already.
“Joy’s drawing is missing,” Mrs. Powers announced to the class waiting in the hall. “Does anyone know where it is or who took it?”
Kai shook his head and locked me in his sights. We knew exactly who the culprit was. Still, neither of us said a word.
A PLANE SOARED OVERHEAD while I waited for the bus. Giovanni had already gone home, since I had to meet with Mrs. Andino, my guidance counselor, after school.
“Bella, my cameras come already. I am so excited. And you are not here to see my dance,” he voice-messaged me.
I smirked at the reminder. I never wanted to see that awful dance again.
“I bought bugs too that look like keychains. I hope I can learn more than what they are telling me,” he added.
I smiled to myself. Yesterday, Sal had accused me of acting like a cop. and today, Giovanni thought he was the FBI.
THREE DAYS. SAL SAID he would see me in three days. The twenty-minute ride to Selena’s put his threat into perspective. Saturday night, I’d warned Giovanni not to wait until something scary happened before deciding to take action. And today, I realized I needed to take my own advice. Grounded or not, I was going to Rocco’s fancy restaurant.
After a quick shower and change into black pants and a white button-down shirt, I slicked my hair into a low bun and hid my freckles under layers of foundation. I had no idea if Rocco knew what I looked like, if Sal had taken pictures and shown him, or if my father’s eyes might give me away. So, I heavily outlined what Mariah called my alien eyes with black liner to make them appear smaller. A message from the Uber driver vibrated the phone on the sink’s ledge. Grabbing Selena’s retired, oversized handbag to conceal my camera and cash, I rushed through the door.
—Joy, where are you? Mom texted me on the ride to Astoria.
—I’m trying to get a job at a restaurant.
—You’re grounded, remember?
—But you said work and school. This is for work, I replied.
—A restaurant where?
I looked up a place closer to home and sent her the address.
—You’d better come straight home afterwards.
I sighed and texted, I will.
I knew as I typed those words that I would not keep them.
I leaned into the seat and watched the stop and go traffic outside the window.
I ARRIVED AT THE RESTAURANT at a little past five o’clock—the same time they opened for dinner according to the website—and lingered near the street sign, hesitant to enter. A few people trickled inside. Still, I waited for business to pick up before stepping foot in there.
My nerves were getting the best of me. I strolled eastward a few blocks to avoid drawing attention to myself and walk off my nerves. The more I suppressed the urge to run the length of the sidewalk to free myself of the jitters, the more the voices in my head played on the anxiety already consuming me.
“You got lucky yesterday. That’s all,” they reminded me. “Don’t expect things to ever work out for you. You’re cursed, remember?”
And they were right. What if I were to run into Rocco himself? Could I play the part of an aspiring waitress without giving myself up? What if Sal is there and exposes my identity to his boss and ruins everything? How will I escape?
I should’ve prepared more thoroughly, but if what Sal said about Dad was true, I didn’t want to bear the weight of his suffering on my conscience by doing nothing.
Leaning against a parking meter, I bounced my gaze from one wall to the next, taking in the stunning murals around me. I would spend my summer days watching world-famous artists at work here and interviewing them about their inspirations and goals for future works. Unfortunately, as with most everything else I loved, Dad ruined it for me.
Last summer, I stumbled on him setting up to work, and although he didn’t see me, for which I was grateful, I slinked back the way I came, my mind in shambles until I was safely around the corner and a whole block of buildings stood between us.
Dad could’ve done anything. I still believed that. Once he set his heart on something, nothing could stop him. There was no telling what our lives could’ve been had he been able to pour the same ambition into his family and deflate the power his addictions had over him. Sadly, those habits were part of two different problems—chemical imbalances in his brain and the host of secret childhood traumas he kept locked inside.
I arrived at the spot where I cowered from him and stopped across the street from his wall. The solemn memorial to my family broke my heart all over again. My father lay sprawled out, his scabby skin a pale blue. Sapphire tears leaked out from his hollowed-out eyes as he kept his death stare fixed on my mom. I could almost see him flailing in her arms.
My mother’s form bent over him, her silhouette filled with fragments of colored mirror pieces, her lips poised to gift him a final kiss while a fractured tear splashed onto his face and another barely clung to the apple of her cheek. Even in his interpretation of her, I felt her tragedy.
I hurried to the far-left side of the mural to the little girl watching her parents in terror, the right half of my baby face concealed by the partition wall between the living room and kitchen of our old house.
I found his minimalist depiction of Mom intensely irritating. She deserved to be immortalized and honored for her strength and beauty.
Moving back a few paces, I analyzed it again until it hit me. Mom was a supporting role in the scene, a tragic scene taken from a real chapter in our lives. How could he paint the woman he loved then? She was every bit as broken as those tiny bits of mirror, and deep inside, he’d crushed her heart beyond repair.
His mural portrayed only one of a thousand depictions of what years of darkness had led to—him knocking at death’s door and me watching from a corner in the room while he overdosed. It was a slow, violent, and repetitive death for us all.
I started to backtrack toward the restaurant when something caught my eye at the last second, freezing me in place.
A faded message floating into the ear of the little girl version of me read: “Eternally sorry, Dearheart,” and over Mom’s head, another. “It wasn’t worth all I lost.”
I leaned into a car behind me for support, trying to keep my heart from melting into a puddle at Dad’s words. I never used to let those familiar apologies affect me before. Still, my talk with Giovanni this afternoon was messing with my head. It didn’t matter who Dad was to me. We were too far gone now.
I thought back to what Mom had said in her sleep the other night about how I always judged her. But I didn’t judge her. I just wanted to protect my mother, to save us all from more pain. It seemed for as long as we lived, we would always suffer because of Dad. It wasn’t fair.
I couldn’t use Dad’s safety as an incentive to go after Rocco. I needed a purer motivation. Closing my eyes, I envisioned Mrs. Vitali and the turmoil she lived in because of the man. I would have done anything for her and Giovanni. Whatever benefit it brought to my father, so be it, but the Vitali family...no one who had the audacity to mess with them would be left unscathed.
I dragged myself toward Rocco’s restaurant again. As I stepped onto the street, I glimpsed Mr. Vitali. He pulled the handle of the heavy wooden door and disappeared inside. Once more, I second-guessed my plan. How could I explain my reason for being here if he asked? This restaurant was as far from convenient for me to get to, not to mention, there were countless others much closer to home to choose from.
I hadn’t seen Mr. Vitali since before Giovanni and I discovered that article about his old job. Giovanni said his dad had been coming here every night this week to eat. Maybe I could use that to my advantage, to hint at his family’s suspicions about his activities. I felt just as dirty thinking of deceiving him as I did picking people’s pockets, but I couldn’t stand here all night. Plus, going home without a tidbit of useful information on Rocco was not an option.