That sounded really saintly. “Did she have hospice?”
“Nah. The doctor wanted her to but my father kept saying she was going to get better. Because of the miracle, you know? San Giovanni Rotundo.”
I could only nod. Something much larger than me, something divine, had led me to this girl, this house.
“Want to go inside?”
“Yes,” I said so eagerly that Antonietta shook her head.
We walked up three steps into the house, entering a hallway that had lots of boots and coats and umbrellas, two closed doors, and a stairway leading to the second floor.
“We live up there, but it’s Sunday so we go to my grandmother’s,” Antoinetta said. She put her hand on the doorknob, then turned to me. “Are you staying for lunch?”
“Great!” I said. “Thanks.” I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I thought of all the other things I might have been doing today—being forced to read the funnies to Cody or going to the mall with Eliza Harrison, watching her try on clothes at the Gap. But I was here instead. I made a very quick sign of the cross, a thank-you of sorts. I always did them fast because I wasn’t sure I knew the right way.
Antoinetta opened the door onto the most beautiful room I had ever seen. I had seen all kinds of houses that everyone thought were beautiful: the restored Victorians like Sophie’s with their stained glass windows and polished hardwood floors; the modern ones like Eliza Harrison’s with wall-to-wall carpeting and an all-white kitchen; the large Colonials like Nana Vandermeer lived in, all polished silver and heavy antique furniture. But never had I seen anything like this. My powers of observation told me I would never see anything like it again.
We were in the living room and all of the furniture was covered with plastic. Under the plastic, the sofa was maroon; on top of the plastic were round pillows in crocheted covers of gold and white, purple and red, an array of dizzying colors. There were lamps with goddesses dancing around their base and plastic covering the lampshades. Every table had ashtrays, big elaborate orange ones filled with ashes and cigarette butts. The drapes were gold and heavy. In the corner was another saint. I knew it was Saint Francis of Assisi because he was surrounded by animals.
Even though this seemed to be the biggest room downstairs, everyone was jammed into the kitchen, where smells like the ones at Francesco’s Restaurant in New York floated out. There wasn’t one book in sight, I realized, as I followed Antoinetta to the kitchen. Just a TV Guide sitting on top of the television beside a line of pictures: a wedding photograph, a man in a World War II uniform, and a close-up of a woman who looked like a movie star from the forties, all black-and-white. The soldier’s picture had crystal rosary beads wrapped around it, the silver cross dangling over his right shoulder.
“That’s my uncle Curly,” she whispered. “He died in the war.”
She took me by the elbow and led me into the kitchen. More dazzling sights: an old woman with bobby pins all over her thinning hair, frying sausage at the stove. Small children eating meatballs without any sauce on them, fat babies in rickety high chairs drinking orange juice from sippy cups. Women, all with Antoinetta’s luxuriant black hair and full figures, dressed in stockings and high heels and snug dresses, all with gold crosses around their necks, all talking while they cut spinach pie into slabs, pulled pigs in a blanket from the oven, put slices of homemade pizza on a platter. The men sat around the table, which was covered with heavy yellow plastic, smoking and drinking something clear out of small glasses, not talking, but eating as the food appeared on the table.
“This is my friend Madeline…” Antoinetta paused and looked at me. “Van Mars,” she said finally, and I didn’t even care that she got my name wrong. “We’re going to go upstairs until lunch is ready.”
No! I wanted to tell her. I want to stay here!
“Want to take a piece of pizza?” Antoinetta said, putting two on a pink plastic plate without waiting for an answer. She put some spinach pie on it, too. “Come on.”
Antoinetta and her father and sister’s apartment upstairs was dark and quiet. It smelled stale, like the windows hadn’t been opened in about a hundred years. The quiet up there felt like it had started a long time ago; it made me whisper.
“Want to see a picture of my mother?” Antoinetta said in a normal voice, chewing her pizza.
“Sure,” I whispered.