The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. (13 page)

When I look up, there’s my backpack. Flung into a shower stall, damp from sitting under the dripping faucet. All around it are empty plastic bags. Note cards that used to be matched up with leaves for my project sit in soggy puddles, with ink running off in little streams across the tiles. The leaves are scattered everywhere—like a storm blew in the window. It blew in an empty water bottle, too.

My eyes burn. I press the heels of my hands against them—hard. I’m not going to cry. She wins if I cry. And that’s not going to happen. Not now.

But I feel like I can’t breathe in here anymore. I open the door to the hall and head for the drinking fountain. Bianca and Mary Beth are heading down the hall from the front entrance with Coach Napper. Bianca’s carrying the first-aid bag and looking up at Coach like she’s the president.

If I look at her, I’m going to lose it, so I stop in front of the drinking fountain. But my teeth are clenched so tight I couldn’t take a drink if I tried.

They walk right up to me and stop.

“Shouldn’t you be home working on your leaf project?” Bianca says.

The back of my throat starts to close, and my eyes sting again. But I’m not going to do it. I swallow hard and force myself to smile at her.

“I’m not worried about the leaf project—it’s just about done.” I stare her down. “In fact, I just need to finish picking up a few of my things that got scattered in the locker room. Then I’m heading home to finish. And then I’ll probably take a late run after dinner. To get ready for sectionals.”

Bianca’s smile fades, but Coach doesn’t notice. She pats me on the shoulder, says, “Well done,” and heads off to her office, with Mary Beth following her. Bianca glares at me for a second and then turns to catch up to them.

I go back to the locker room and shuffle the rest of the papers and bags and cards and leaves into a big pile.

The leaves are okay, even if they’re a little wet. They’re just not identified anymore.

So I’ll do what I told Bianca I was going to do. I’ll go home. I’ll lay them all out in my room. I’ll get out my identification key and start over.

I have to. Because mean, glittery girls do not belong at sectionals.

I’ll just start all over again. From the beginning.

Way down the hall, I hear the school’s back door slam. Finally.

I sit down on the bench next to my leaves and cry.

When I finally stuff everything into my backpack and leave school, it’s almost four.

But Zig’s waiting for me just outside the gym door. He had electronics club after school, and he’s playing with a doorbell buzzer hooked up to a nine-volt battery. Every time a kid walks out the door, he makes it buzz. It’s loud enough so they all turn and look into the building, thinking they’ve set off some kind of alarm at the door. I set down my backpack, sit down next to him on the warm concrete steps, and take a long drink of water from my bottle.

“How was practice?” he says.

“Good,” I say. That’s all. If I tell him what happened I’ll cry, and that’s not an option. Not now. I swallow the lump in my throat and take another slug of water to wash it down.

“Wanna go finish the leaf project?” I don’t answer. Zig buzzes an especially long buzz. “It’s . . . uh . . . due Friday.” He looks at me with that little worried wrinkle between his eyebrows, and it makes me smile a little, in spite of everything.

“I know.”

Sometimes he’s as bad as Mom. I love him, though. I mean, I like him. Like a good friend. He nudges my arm. My stomach does a loopy flip, and I feel a weird little zip of electricity. He catches me looking at him and brushes his hair from his eyes. I look away and take another drink of water. What
is
it with us lately?

“Gee?” He nudges again, and I jump. Water spills down my chin, onto my shirt.

“What?”

“Sorry . . . should we go get started? I know how much you want to go to sectionals, and I know how you feel about the whole Bianca thing.”

“Ha. You don’t know the half of it,” I say. “I’ll finish. I will. I need to get three more and then identify everything.”

“Want some help?”

“I always want help.” I take a deep breath and reach down to pick up my backpack. “It must be nice to be a genius.”

“It has its benefits.” One of the freshmen track stars struts by, a tall, lanky kid named Robbie. He pretends not to notice the lowly seventh graders. Zig buzzes him, and he jumps about a mile. Zig smiles, and a leaf flutters down from the tree above us. I reach for it but miss. Zig swoops down and catches it just before it hits the ground.

“Trembling aspen.” He hands it to me, and I tuck it into my bag.

CHAPTER 15

W
hen we get home, Dad is helping Nonna into the van.

“Let’s go, Gianna.” He taps his watch.

Nonna’s appointment. I forgot I was supposed to hurry home after practice. I can’t work on my project today.

“Can I call you later, when we get back?” I talk over my shoulder to Zig while I reach for the car door.

“You can call me anytime.” It sounds like some cheesy line from a movie. I turn around to make a face at him, but he’s already jogging away. It must have just come out wrong.

“Sorry I’m late.” I toss my backpack into the car and hop in. “Where’s Ian?”

“He went home with a friend after school. How’s the leaf project?” Dad eyes me in the rearview mirror.

“Good,” I lie. “It’s just about done.” I’m getting good at that one. There’s a bag of apples on the floor that Dad must have missed when he unloaded groceries. I polish one on my shirt and take a bite.

“Just about?” We’re at a stoplight, so I get Dad’s full mirror attention.

“Well, not quite,” I admit through my mouthful of apple. I swallow. “I have a bunch to identify. Zig says he’ll help me later.”

“I think there are some nice trees around Dr. Hebert’s office.” Dad looks at Nonna, waiting for her to chime in, but she’s staring out the window while the old brick buildings of downtown flash by.

“Aren’t there, Mom?” Dad puts a hand on her arm, and she jumps, like she had forgotten she wasn’t alone.

“Aren’t there what?”

“Aren’t there lots of nice trees around Dr. Hebert’s office? I was just telling Gee that she might get some more leaves there.”

“I suppose there might be, yes.” Nonna looks out the window. She’s quiet today. Normally, she’d be asking me all about my day at school and if I sat next to any cute boys in lunch.

She seems more like herself when we pull into the parking lot, though. She pulls a lipstick from her purse and flips down the windshield visor to open the mirror.

“Have to look my best,” she says. “Dr. Hebert is quite a gentleman.” She puts the cap back on her lipstick, smacks her lips, and turns to face me. “He once told me I’m his favorite patient.”

I grab my damp backpack and follow her up to the office door. “He says that to all the old ladies, Nonna.” She laughs her laugh that sounds like a waterfall. I roll my eyes, but I’m happy she’s back for right now.

Dr. Hebert must have the coolest waiting room in town. There are giant spider plants hanging from the ceiling and framed modern art prints covering the walls. I see a few Picassos and plan to point them out to Mom when she shows up after her Junior League awards reception to meet us. There’s a cool totem pole painting that I’m pretty sure is by a Canadian artist named Emily Carr. I’m about to check it out when Dad’s cell phone starts playing Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana.”

“You have got to change that to a respectable ring,” I hiss at him as he flips it open. Nonna reaches for a
Good Housekeeping
on the table, and I pick up a copy of
People
. That fifteen-year-old movie star Brenda Belinda is on the cover. How come her freckles look cute and mine just look splotchy?

“Okay, I’ll be right there,” Dad says into his phone. He flips it shut and turns to Nonna. “Mom, I’m going to have to leave to make a home pickup. Angela should be here from her Junior League meeting in just a few minutes. She’ll go in with you and talk with the doctor. Gianna can wait with you until then.” Dad looks at me and I nod.

Whenever someone dies at home, he needs to go to the house to move the person’s body. He has to go right away or they’ll call someone else. So he goes. And we understand. It’s part of the unwritten rules for funeral home families. When Dad gets a call for a pickup, it takes priority over family dinners and birthday parties. And doctor’s appointments, too, it turns out.

“We’ll be just fine.” Nonna pats my knee and leans over to look at what I’m reading. I hear a
“Tsk.”
Must be she noticed Brenda Belinda’s skirt, which is about two inches long.

Nonna’s doctor is running late, which is good, since Mom seems to be running late too. I’ve breezed through four weeks’ worth of
People,
and Nonna has surreptitiously ripped five recipes out of Dr. Hebert’s
Good Housekeeping
and stuffed them into her purse, when the nurse pops her head into the waiting room.

“Mrs. DiCarlo? The doctor will see you now, okay?” Nonna looks up and frowns. We both look over at the office door. Where’s Mom?

“Mrs. DiCarlo?” the nurse says again, and Nonna stands up. I stand too.

“I’ll go with you.” I expect Nonna to say no and tell me to wait, but instead, she puts a hand on my back and follows me through the door.

“Just hop up on the table, and the doctor will be with you soon, okay?” The nurse is wearing a skirt that’s only a little longer than Brenda Belinda’s, and she’s using an extra-chipper voice that makes me want to give her a good push.

“Well, I don’t hop much anymore, but I’ll certainly make a go of it.” Nonna reaches for the paper robe on the chair.

“You can leave your dress on, okay?” Nurse Brenda chirps. “Doctor Hebert will just be asking you some questions today, and you’ll come back for blood work next week. So just hop on up there, okay?” She pats the table and leaves before I can process what she said. Just asking questions? That doesn’t sound like any physical I’ve ever had. And no, really, none of this is okay.

Nonna looks at the table. “You want to help me out with this hopping?” I pull over a small stool, and she uses it to climb up. “Thank you,” she says. “Really. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I’m not sure what we’re talking about.

“This may be a rough appointment,” she says, biting her bottom lip and swinging her feet a little.

“I’m sure I’ve seen worse. Remember that time I fell out of Zig’s fort and split my knee open on the tree trunk? I had to get seven stitches.”

“I remember,” she says. She was the one who took me in to the emergency room. Mom was at a charity board meeting. “But that’s not what I mean, really. Gianna, you know I’ve been having a tough time lately. I can’t always come up with the words I want to use when I talk, and—”

“And you lose things,” I interrupt. “But you’ve always done that. So do I.”

“It’s different.” She stares at me, and I nod. I know. I can tell she knows too. It
is
different. And it’s getting worse.

There’s a knock on the door, but before either of us can answer, Dr. Hebert barrels into the room. “Hello, Francesca! How’s my favorite patient?”

Nonna smiles my way. The words “told you so” are written all over her grin.

“Just fine, mostly.”

“You look well.” So does Dr. Hebert. I see why Nonna put on lipstick. He has black-and-gray hair, all thick and wavy, and bright blue eyes that squint when he smiles. He’s a silver maple, I decide. He flips open the manila folder in his hand and pulls a pen from behind his ear as he sits down next to Nonna. Then he notices me.

“Well, hello there! You must be Gianna, the artistic and beautiful granddaughter.” I blush and reach out to shake his hand, hoping that mine isn’t too sweaty. I sit down on the other rolling chair next to the table and pull my math book from my backpack so I can get a little work done while I wait for Mom.

“Francesca, Angela tells me you’ve been having some trouble.” I look at Nonna, expecting her to deny it, but she doesn’t. She nods.

“She says it’s not serious, but she did describe some issues that concern me. So let’s just have a little chat, shall we, and see how things are ticking.” Dr. Hebert flips over a page on his clipboard, and his voice takes on a more businesslike tone.

“I’m going to ask you some questions and give you some problems to solve. Please try to answer as best you can.”

I still have my math homework out, but I can’t look away from Nonna and Dr. Hebert. Her medical exam is going to be an
exam
. And she looks just as nervous as I felt on the day of my French quiz.

“What month is this?” Dr. Hebert holds his pen over the paper and looks up at Nonna.

“October,” she says, and I let out a breath. It’s going to be easy stuff. She can relax. I go back to my equations, half listening as he asks her about the season, the year, and the day of the week. He names three objects—ball, car, man—and asks Nonna to repeat them and then remember them. She repeats the three things. Nonna’s doing great. Maybe she was just tired last week, with the smoke alarm and eggplant incidents. She said she’s been having trouble sleeping, so it’s understandable she’d be a little more scattered on those days. I’m just about to finish my second problem when it gets very quiet.