Antoinetta had long dark hair that fell in about a million curls all around her head. Her nose had a bump on the bridge, smack in the middle, and her eyebrows were dark and heavy. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Much more beautiful than the pale blond Sophie from next door, or Eliza Harrison with her short bob and perky smile. Antoinetta had an air of tragedy around her, like she had already suffered a great deal. Like she was a martyr.
During the Lamb of God part, Antoinetta finally noticed me looking at her and she frowned. Another good thing: She took church seriously. I watched her solemnly walk up to get her communion. If only I were Catholic, I could go up there, too, walking as slow and steady as this girl, head bowed, my mind preparing to receive the body of Christ.
When the mass ended, Antoinetta slid out of the pew so quickly that I had to run to catch her.
“Hey!” I said at the front. “I’m Madeline. Do you want to go get a hot chocolate or something?”
“I’m Antoinetta Calabro,” she said, shaking her head. “My father’s out in the car waiting. He doesn’t come in anymore.”
“He just sits in the car?”
“Ever since my mother died he says he doesn’t believe in church anymore. After he went to San Giovanni Rotundo and made an offering for her to get better and she died, anyway, he says he doesn’t believe in anything anymore.” She sighed. “He will, though. He just needs time. That’s what faith is, right?”
She started to walk out again but I grabbed the sleeve of her beautifully ugly purple coat and stopped her.
“Please,” I said. “Maybe I could come home with you or something. I need to talk to you.”
“To me?” She looked completely surprised, as if no one ever needed to talk to her. I wasn’t letting go, so she shrugged. “Okay,” she said.
Out in front in a big Oldsmobile, Antoinetta’s father was waiting. He had a droopy, sad face, a dead wife, a car that smelled of stale smoke, and a Christmas-tree air freshener. I thought this must be exactly what heaven was like.
I closed the back door firmly and settled in the backseat alone, so happy I practically started humming the Ave Maria, my all-time favorite hymn. Also the only one I knew. When I glanced up, he was staring at me in the rearview mirror, puzzled.
“I’m Madeline Vandermeer,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“What are you? Dutch?” he said. His voice was gruff and gravelly.
“A little,” I said. That was one of the oddest questions I’d ever been asked. “Also Scotch, Irish, and German.”
He laughed. “A Heinz 57!”
What a weirdo, I thought. Then I remembered the dead wife and forgave him.
Neither Antoinetta nor her father wore seat belts. I considered unbuckling mine, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. These people were definitely martyrs, I thought. I was practically giddy. From where I sat I had a perfect view of the father’s head. He was mostly bald on top, with just a few strands of black hair. Still, it looked like he had put on some kind of hair cream to keep that little bit in place, and to make it shiny. He reminded me of Sonny Bono, the same hangdog face. Sonny Bono and his wife, Cher, were famous in the 60s, a husband-and-wife singing team who ended up also getting divorced. Then Sonny Bono skied into a tree and died, but by then Cher had married a bunch of other people and Sonny had a wife and a new kid. My parents had all of Sonny and Cher’s albums. On car trips, they used to sing “I Got You, Babe,” my mother singing Cher’s parts and my father singing Sonny’s. My mother got the albums in the divorce, but she doesn’t play them anymore.
“Wasn’t that sad when Sonny Bono died?” I said, because he reminded me of him and also because no one else was saying anything.
“You go to school with Antoinetta?”
“Uh,” I said. “No.”
“I know her from church,” Antoinetta said.
I watched as we passed the State House, which everyone always got so excited about.
“Third largest unsupported dome in the world,” I said, showing off.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mr. Calabro said suspiciously.
“You know, the roof,” I said. “The dome.”
He squinted at me in the rearview mirror and I squirmed. I decided not to tell him the other two, which were the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., and, my favorite, Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome.
We were going past the Castle Cinema, the second-run movie theater on Chalkstone Boulevard. I didn’t know anyone who lived in this part of Providence. It was almost like being in another country. We stopped in front of a three-story blue house. Right there, on the front lawn, a statue of the Virgin Mary was standing in what appeared to be an open oyster shell. A shrine! I was elated.
“I love your house,” I said, and meant it.
Antoinetta’s father looked at me like I was crazy again. Then he went inside.
“So,” Antoinetta said. Then she just stood there in that purple coat. It had big black buttons and every one looked like it was about to fall off.
Even though it was almost Easter, there were still some patches of snow in the front yard and when I talked, puffs of air came out. There was a candle lit in the shrine and some artificial flowers in an empty Fresca bottle.
“What happened to your mother?” I asked her.
“Female trouble,” Antoinetta said.