Saving Francesca (10 page)

“Maybe I should just wait out here.”

He sits on the front porch, and I have no choice but to sit there with him. No matter who his grandmother is, my nonna would be furious if I left him outside on his own.

I’m racking my brains for something to say. He’s tapping his leg, pretending that my nonna’s garden is the most fascinating he’s ever seen.

“It’s good of you to run around after your grandmother,” I tell him.

He nods. He thinks he’s fantastic too.

“I’m her favorite. Youngest grandson and all. You know how Italians are about all that stuff.”

The girls in my family have always been the favorites, so no I don’t, I’d like to say.

“You don’t look Italian,” I tell him.

“Half.”

“Which half?”

He thinks for a moment, and I see a ghost of a smile appear on his face. “The pigheaded side.”

“I thought you said you were only half Italian?”

He bursts out laughing. It’s short, as if he’s regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction’s already mine.

“Do you live around here?”

“Kingsgrove,” he says.

“That’s miles away.”

“She has nine grandchildren. We take turns staying with her and it’s my week. You?”

“Annandale.”

We nod again, and I suddenly know how teachers feel when they’re trying to get information from us. After a moment he turns to face me, leaning his back against the pillar.

“You don’t seem to like Sebastian’s.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You just seem . . . down around the place.”

I shrug. “It’s being new and all. You’ve just forgotten what it’s like to be new.”

“No I haven’t. But I kind of know what you’re saying. I’ve been at that place since Year Five, you know. I was a choirboy, like your brother.”

“You don’t sing for the cathedral choir anymore?”

“No. Just the school one. My voice broke and now I do a very average baritone
. Very devastating,
” he says dramatically, but in a way I can tell he means it.

“So what do you want to do next year?”

“Civil engineering. New South Wales University. No matter how high my marks are.”

It’s strange speaking to someone who is stressed by the idea of getting high High School Certificate marks. But I like the fact that he’s scared that those same high marks may get in the way of something he seems to be passionate about doing.

“You?” he asks.

“I haven’t the faintest clue. I dread next year, when I’ll be asked a thousand times a week.”

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration. You only get asked one hundred times.”

He looks relaxed. As if he’s enjoying himself.

“So about that list,” he says. “I don’t get number nine. What does ‘
Stalag 17
is a travesty of co-educational drama’ mean?”

I can’t believe he knows it by heart.

“The girls say they need participation,” I inform him. “It’s not just about sports, either. They didn’t even audition us for drama or debating or anything. They stuck with the preexisting teams.”

“It’s kind of hard to explain, but people didn’t like you girls coming in. Teachers, students, parents. They wanted things to stay the way they were, because the way they were worked. You’ve been here not even two terms. In drama, for example, don’t push for something this year, push for next year’s production.”

“Fair enough. I’ll put it forward to the committee,” I say, pretending that we actually have one.

“How come you always do the asking?” he asks.

“Because they think William Trombal and I are like this,” I say, crossing my fingers.

Before he can respond, we hear a sound behind us and turn just as my nonna is politely escorting his nonna out. Signora Trombal gives me an evil look, and our nonnas insincerely kiss each other on both cheeks.

As they walk away, she clutches on to him, whispering something urgently in his ear. When he reaches the gate, he turns around and there’s this hint of a smile on his face, and he begins to walk back to me. I’m petrified. She’s sending him back to demand the biscuits, and he’s enjoying it like hell.

He stops in front of me, silent for a moment, and I’m trying not to give away my fear.

“It’s Will, by the way,” he says.

I don’t ask what he means.

“Not William.”

“Okay,” I say, relieved.

He goes to walk away but then stops again, and a flash of something comes over his face, like a grimace. “Don’t come and watch rugby this week. Please.”

“Why? Could it get any worse?”

“We’re playing last year’s winners . . . plus our winger, Sallo— big guy, big hair?—he’s going out with their captain’s ex-girlfriend. It’s going to be ugly.”

“Then you’ll need fans.”

“So you’re a fan, are you?”

I think he’s flirting with me and I have this ridiculous grin on my face but I can’t help it.

He goes to leave but then stops again. “And just so you know,” he tells me. “I
know
you’re behind the disappearance of the biscuits.”

“Biscuits?”

“My nonna’s S biscuits.”

“Funny, that. My nonna makes S biscuits too. She’s actually the Queen of S Biscuits.”

He’s trying not to grin.

And I don’t know why, but I sit on that step until the last person’s gone home and I’m still grinning.

Like someone who has a bit of a crush.

Angelina takes me bridesmaid-dress shopping. Her mother comes along and so does Nonna Anna. Her mother doesn’t get on with Nonna Anna because Nonna Anna can’t stand anyone who’s married to her sons, and Angelina doesn’t get on with her mother because, even though Angelina’s getting married soon, her mother keeps on inviting Angelina’s ex-boyfriend over for dinner, hoping that Angelina’s going to forget he was a lying scumbag with a zero IQ. Angelina’s mother doesn’t like me because she thinks that Luca and I are Nonna Anna’s favorites, and I hate Angelina’s mother because she once said that my mother should stay home and look after her kids instead of getting another degree, and at the moment I don’t like Nonna Anna because she won’t let me stay up after 10:30 and I missed out on
Buffy.

Nonna and Angelina’s mother make me try on fourteen dresses. Angelina sits on the other side of the room, shaking her head, mouthing obscenities. The dresses are hideous, and Angelina’s wedding is in danger of being hijacked by two very angry women who are only united by their obsession with bright-colored taffeta.

I’m a rag doll, pulled at from each side. The moronic shop assistant tells me I look beautiful, and in the distance, I can see that Angelina has had enough. When they make me try on something that’s lilac, with boning in the bodice and something called a sweet-heart neckline, she lifts herself from the chair and makes her way toward us.

“Get dressed, Frankie. I’m making the dresses.”

“You can’t sew,” her mother says.

“I’ll teach myself.”

I put on my jeans and throw the dress at the shop assistant. Angelina takes my hand and we make a run for it.

Later on, we’re sitting in a café. She’s just smoked her fifth cigarette in an hour.

“Those things are going to kill you.”

“My mother will beat them to it, so I may as well enjoy another one.”

I try to smile, but I can’t.

“Luca reckons that everyone’s saying that my mum’s had a nervous breakdown as opposed to a ‘bit of a breakdown.’ ”

She looks at me, and I can see there are tears in her eyes. Mia’s always been her idol. The number of times Angelina ran away from home when she was a teenager and came and stayed with us are countless.

“They’re just words,” she says. “People use them to try to explain things they don’t understand.”

“What would you call it?”

I’m about to hear the truth, because Angelina doesn’t lie, and after I hear this truth I won’t be able to lie either, and that frightens me to death.

“It’s depression, Frankie.”

“I don’t understand. Sad people with sad lives are depressed. Mia’s not one of them.”

Angelina takes hold of my hand.

“I think everything’s just shut down on her. Maybe for one reason or maybe for a thousand. It’s kind of like a grief, and it’s not a puzzle that you’re supposed to work out on your own, Frankie. But I’ll tell you this. Mia is not going to get better being looked after by her mother. You have to find a way of getting back home. For you and Robert and Luca and Mia to get back together—and then you start from there.”

“But I don’t know how,” I whisper, trying not to cry. “I just want to go home and I don’t know how.”

“Then find a way,” she says firmly. “I love Nonna and I love the aunties, but don’t let them own this. Don’t let Mia wake up from this nightmare and find you guys in pieces. It’ll kill her more than anything else.”

I see Nonna Anna and Angelina’s mum coming toward us. I picture a world of
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
and no
Buffy.

I need to find a way home.

chapter 12

I’VE BEEN AT
my nonna’s for two weeks and nothing has changed at home. Actually, I think it’s worse, but the first casualty of all this is truth.

My dad rings me one morning and tells me to contact Mia’s university and ask for the rest of the term off.

“I thought you said she was out of bed,” I say almost accusingly, as if my dad’s lying.

“She is, but she’s not ready to go back. Just ring them and we’ll talk about it later.”

“Why can’t you ring them?”

“Because I’d like you to.”

“Papa, they’ve got degrees, not machetes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sounds harassed. With
me
. Am I the one who’s locked herself in the house? Since when do I have to fix things around here?

“We can’t keep on telling people that Mummy has the flu.”

“Then tell them the truth, Frankie.”

The truth? I haven’t said the truth out loud yet, and I don’t know how to go about doing this. I’m in Year Eleven. I’m sixteen years old. I don’t want to call up my mother’s boss and tell her she’s not coming in for the rest of the term. I don’t want to use any of the terminology out loud. I’ll say it one thousand times to myself, but I can’t say it out loud, because if I do, it means it’s real.
Nervous breakdown
.
Depression
.
Nervous breakdown
.
Depression
. Such overused words until it actually happens. How many times has Mia said, “I’m having a nervous breakdown, kids”? How many times have I said I’m depressed? Too many times to count. Nothing close to the reality of it at all.

The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, “We’re pregnant.” I want to go around the neighborhood saying, “We’re depressed.” If my mum can’t get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it’s eating us alive.

I want to stay in bed for the day and not go to school, but I can’t bear the idea of Luca being there alone. So I turn up for second-period English. My teacher, Brother Louis, has set us some study questions based on
Henry IV,
and we work on our own. I hold my pen in my hand, but I don’t do the work. I haven’t slept all week and I can’t even see straight.

Brother Louis stands by my desk and looks over my shoulder. He’s in his sixties and knows every text we’re studying inside out. I’ve never met anyone who knows so much about literature. I’m not used to Brothers. At Stella’s we didn’t even have nuns. But he’s the kindest man I’ve ever met, and he’s the only person I do homework for because I couldn’t bear it if he was disappointed in me.

“Would you like to go to sick bay?” he asks quietly.

I shake my head.

“Then go to Ms. Quinn’s office,” he suggests gently.

I collect my books and walk out, and I’m so tired that I feel weepy.

Ms. Quinn is on the phone and beckons me in. I don’t know what I’m going to say to her. Brother sent me down because I looked sad?

“Do you want to go to the counselor?” she asks gently. It’s as if she knows what’s going on and I don’t know how, because I couldn’t imagine my father ringing up the school and revealing anything. Then I realize it’s because of Luca.

“Is my brother okay?”

“I haven’t seen your brother. Do you want me to?”

“No.”

“Will said you were a bit down.”

Oh God. Will Trombal thinks I’m a charity case.

“Can I just lie down?”

“I think the counselor—”

“Please, Ms. Quinn. I’m just tired and I want to lie down and not have to talk.”

And that’s how I spend my day. Sleeping in Ms. Quinn’s office. I think, wouldn’t it be great if I could open my eyes and it’s six months down the track and everything’s back to normal?

But when I open my eyes, it’s one day down the track, and for the time being, that seems to be enough.

During a House meeting the next day, when Will Trombal stands in front of us talking, I’m all ears. Whether it has to do with the night at my nonna’s or whatever he told Ms. Quinn, I just can’t be indifferent anymore. I
so
don’t want to be attracted to him, and the fact that I am surprises me. Sometimes when I get home, I convince myself that I’m just romanticizing anyone who’s actually spoken to me, but then I see him the next day and my heart starts beating fast and I can’t really kid myself. It’s not as if he’s good-looking, because he’s not. Sometimes he’s so plain that he looks bland. But it’s his voice and his mannerisms that fill him with some kind of color. I listen to his voice and its resonance hooks me in. The worry lines on his forehead, his expression when he twists his face into a smile, and the way his whole face lights up when he laughs those short bursts of laughter. When he looks at me, he must see an annoyed look on my face because I get the same annoyed look back. That’s how I feel. Annoyed that I like him.