The Patron Saint of Ugly (10 page)

“Not that,” she said. “This.”

Pippa rubbed a caterpillar-size wound on her cheek, a reminder of her father’s belt buckle. With that shriveled foot, she was the easiest Fabrini to catch.

I wanted to cry as I imagined Pippa cowering in a corner, tiny hands trying to protect her face. At least my father never came after me in violence.

I yearned to give Pippa her heart’s desire by removing the painful souvenir, but I also wanted to coat her in bruise-proof skin somehow so that her father would never hurt her again. I didn’t have Nonna beside me, but I had something else. I pressed my hand to my chest, where I could feel the lump of my relic and the crucified Jesus beneath my top. “Close your eyes,” I said. The twins obliged as I rubbed a pumice stone against the evidence of their father’s cruelty. Three times I uttered, “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,” followed by a wobbly “Amen.”

“Amen,” said the twins, Dee Dee, and a few others.

When I pulled my hand away, the wheal was no longer red, but sooty gray.

Pia blurted, “It worked!,” which sent Pippa’s hand to her cheek. She rubbed at it, removing most of the dirt I had slathered there, unearthing the wound.

“No, it didn’t,” someone yelled.

“I told you she was a fake,” another spat.

I felt the pelt of gravel as the crowd, except for Dee Dee and the twins, dispersed.

“It’s still there?” Pippa asked, tears forming.

Pia nodded, and as the girls scuffed off, Pippa’s chin sank; she was no doubt envisioning even worse scars in her future.

Which left only Dee Dee standing there, ready to withdraw her devotion.

She walked up to me and looked directly into my pupils. “I still believe.”

The words rang in my ears as I lay in bed that night puzzling over my unreliable powers.

News of the disaster spread throughout the student body, so Sister Barnabas’s salve was to appoint me cafeteria attendant.
Eat your cheese stick or I’ll report you to Sister Barnabas!
Which was usually followed by high-pitched mockery:
Eat your cheese stick or Her Hiney Holiness will turn you into a booger. Poof!

I knew Sister Barnabas’s intentions were pure, unlike her cheeks, which were perpetually covered in red splotches. Which begs the question, Padre: Are facial anomalies a prerequisite for admission into Holy Orders? Your MoonPie, Father Luigi’s Abe Lincoln, Sister Barnabas’s rosacea?

Grandpa and Uncle Dom also thought I was a joke. Even Nicky drew an imaginary fifty-foot circumference around himself on the playground that I was not allowed to cross, not that I wanted to. Although there were a few times when I longed to be in his inner circle.

It was Palm Sunday after Mass, and Nicky stood in the narthex surrounded by admirers waving palms at him. All he needed was the donkey. Dad stood outside the ring beaming when Mrs. Valeri sidled over. “He’s a beautiful boy, Angelo.”

Dad nodded at Nicky and unfurled that smile.

“You must be proud of him.”

Dad sighed the way he did only after eating Nonna’s braciole.

Mrs. Valeri understood the sigh too. “You must love him more than anyone on the planet.”

I waited for Dad’s correction—at least I hoped it was coming—but all he said was “What’s not to love?”

I knew the answer.

When we got home, I raced to the bathroom mirror and looked at my face, really looked at it. I pressed my palms over my cheeks, shut my eyes, and whispered over and over, “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei.” I didn’t feel pulsing heat, but my desire was so earnest I felt sure that my stains would be gone. I peeled my eyes open, but the birthmarks were still there.

“No!” I said, louder than I intended. I closed my eyes and repeated the magic spell: “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei.” I had never prayed for anything harder in my life.

I opened my eyes.

Nothing.

I again slapped my hands on my face and squeezed my eyes shut, and this time I begged, “Go away! Please, please go away!” When I looked again, the birthmarks appeared, if anything, darker.

I heard sniffling at the door and there stood Mom, tears filming her eyes.

I held out my unholy hands. “Why can’t I heal me?”

Of course what I meant was:
Why can’t he love me?

TAPE SIX

Corpus Christi

Archibald MacLeish:

The sun has set and the ladies and I are huddled around the barbecue pit in the backyard toasting marshmallows. I imagine Le Baron grilled hundreds of steaks on this spit; his witch wife must have rotisseried something else entirely. Nonna and I, carnivores extraordinaire, understand God’s affinity for burnt offerings; all those sacrificial lambs and goats were a pleasing smell unto the Lord. T-bones are a pleasing smell unto us, even if it is forty-six degrees outside. Finally a use for Nonna’s red afghans.

We’re also warmed on the inside, courtesy of Betty’s peach schnapps, Nonna’s Marsala, and Guinness stout for me, though my few remaining
paesano
neighbors would disapprove. Tonight Betty concocted international hors d’oeuvres: egg rolls and nachos and baba gannouj—tidbits that would not have passed muster under the previous male regime. Nonna chose the dessert, s’mores. Her eyes never shine brighter than when she’s roasting the perfect marshmallow. I often wonder if in her mind, it’s Grandpa Ferrari skewered on her stick, the heat singeing his feet, his bulbous nose, and that dumb newsie cap erupting in flames.

I chose this locale because of question thirty-three. The first time I read it, Fresca shot from my nose. Was my father a strict disciplinarian? I mean, really. There was one time, however, when the paternal chain of command spelled bad news for me.

It was that sizzling June day of my First Communion. The entire Ferrari mob suffered through the pageantry at Saint Brigid’s as the first-grade class paraded in: bogtrotters in the left column, macaronis in the right. Though we were supposed to process evenly spaced, there was an inordinate amount of space surrounding me. I didn’t care, because Mom had finally bought me a proper veil made of tulle and lace to swap for the pillowcase. Before I donned it, I folded my novitiate headgear into a tissue-lined box and tucked it into the back of my underwear drawer, that holy of holies.

I should confess that after the publicly botched unhealing of Pippa Fabrini and my inability to heal my own stains, a wiggling seed of doubt had taken root in my soul. Not a doubt in God (yet), but a doubt in my sainted abilities.

When I questioned Nonna, she said, “God is-a the one Who decides who to heal and who not to heal. And besides, you no need-a the healing. You
perfetto
. You are Saint Garney. Santa della Collina. My granddaughter.
Mine!
”

On that first Corpus Christi day, as the children squirmed in the front pews waiting for Mass to begin, the side door opened three feet from me and in lumbered Mr. Giordano carrying his daughter, Donata, in his arms. Our class had heard about Donata’s broken leg, and there it was, in a gigantic cast from her toes to her kneecap, still as pristine as her Communion dress, which was beautiful. But not nearly as beautiful as the way Donata’s father carried her across the aisle and gently set her on the pew in front of me. Mr. Giordano arranged her veil around her shoulders, and before he left, he leaned down, cupped her face in his hands, stared straight into her eyes, and uttered the words “You look like a princess. I love you so much.”

I was stunned by this fatherly display to a
girl
child. I wondered if I was the only one astounded, but when I looked down the pew at my lacy sisters, several seemed as awestruck as I, including the Fabrini twins. I had never felt closer to them in my life.

Soon Mass began and my thoughts turned toward performing all the nun-drilled stage directions correctly. Then it was time to file up and kneel at the altar rail, where Father Luigi and Abe Lincoln made their way toward me.

Father’s voice boomed in the distance. “The Body of Christ.”

“Amen” came the meek reply.

We had been lectured about transubstantiation, how the bread and wine would change into the body and blood of Christ in our mouths. Classmates debated whether the hosts would turn into Jesus’s fingers or toes, His eyeballs or earlobes, or just a hunk of raw flesh torn from our Savior’s arm. I did not sleep well after that. On the big day I kept watching the girls ahead of me to see if Communion blood dripped down their chins. When Father stood before me, I stifled a gag—but no worse than the gag he stifled as he held the Necco Wafer–size host toward my face. He placed the disc on my tongue and I swallowed fast-fast-fast so that it would shoot past my taste buds before it morphed into Jesus’s palm or upper lip. Imagine my relief when I didn’t have even an aftertaste of blood.

Afterward the fam-i-ly came to our stifling cracker box on the hill. Before they arrived, Dad prepped the house. Emboldened by the vision of Mr. Giordano and Donata, I shadowed my father as he went from room to room to ensure all the windows were open before setting up the box fan in the kitchen archway. He knelt to plug it in, batting away my lacy veil fluttering in his face. Then we went out back to uncover the grill and fill it with charcoal. I kept fiddling with my hem. “This sure is the prettiest dress I ever wore. I feel like a princess. A regular princess.”

Dad was having trouble lighting the charcoal, his pressing concern. I changed tactics and elaborately pranced around the yard looking for mole holes to step into and break my foot—well, a sprain would have been sufficient, since I didn’t want to spend my summer in a cast. I couldn’t find a hole so on my third loop around I just sat in the grass and grabbed my ankle. “Ow! My ankle!”

Dad was still hunkered over the grill, cussing the matches that wouldn’t stay lit.

“I think I broke my ankle!”

“Damn charcoal.” Dad finally looked over at me. “Go get my lighter and some newspaper.”

I got up, shuffled into the house, and stood in front of the box fan to let the breeze billow out my petticoat and cool off the Cannibal Isles dotting my backside.

Dad yelled from outside, “Nicky! Bring me my lighter and some newspaper! And Marina, pull the meat from the fridge!”

Ah, meat. For this fam-i-ly meal, my father had procured thick T-bones. When Dad brought the steaks home the night before, he called us together to watch him unwrap them.

“Holy cow.” Nicky had reached a finger toward the blood pooling on the butcher paper.

Mom stilled his hand. “They’re beautiful, Angelo.” I’m sure she ate them six times a week back in Charlottesville. “Your father will love them.”

Dad’s chest jutted out.

The next afternoon as I stood in front of the fan and waited for the fam-i-ly to arrive, Nicky started reciting information gleaned from his reference books. This tic had recently erupted whenever he was anxious, but it was better than memorizing his reflection or composing doggerel poetry. He sat on the floor behind one of the wingback chairs in the living room and rocked back and forth while recounting the history of the slingshot.

Uncle Dom’s brood arrived first and he hauled in a grocery sack filled with cantaloupe and prosciutto. Ray-Ray thunked the back of my head. “Saint Varmint makes me want to vomit.” Mom hauled Nicky from behind the chair as Betty entered. “There’s my Nicky, and Garnet, our cherry-pie miracle worker.” She rushed to the kitchen to scoop melon into balls and fasten strips of prosciutto around them with toothpicks. I took a piece of the cured meat when they weren’t looking. Not as gross-looking as the capocollo Dom usually brought, thankfully, but it was extra-chewy and slick and salty. My baby teeth couldn’t pulverize it, so I spit the wad into the trash. I wouldn’t make the mistake of eating that again.

The potatoes were baking, the green beans were boiling, and Grandpa’s car pulled into the driveway.

“They’re here!” Nicky called from the front window. I ran to look out and so did Ray-Ray; he angled me out of the way like the pry bar he was. I muscled back to determine what kind of mood Grandpa was in, as if he had more than one.

Dad and Uncle Dom rushed out to genuflect to their king. Grandpa opened the trunk, and Nonna reached inside for a shirt box filled with her chocolate-dipped, pistachio-crusted cannolis.

Dad hooked his arm through Nonna’s and she climbed up the stairs stoically. When she entered, she passed the box to my mother. Then her hands opened like rose petals and she looked at all of us lined up for our kisses, even Ray-Ray. She took our faces in her hands and smooched our foreheads. “Such-a homely children. It’s a shame you so ugly.” She slid a quarter into each of our palms, the real reason we lined up. Dad escorted her to the kitchen and settled her in the chair facing the fan, letting hot air blow tendrils of hair from her braid whorled into a bun.

Dad galloped back out to where Grandpa and Uncle Dom were standing in the street looking up at Dad’s house, sour looks on their faces. Finally Grandpa labored up half the steps, paused, yanked a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the back of his neck, and then forged upward.

When he opened the screen door I heard him moaning, “You trying to give me a heart attack with those steps, Angelo?”

Uncle Dom entered on his father’s heels lugging a jug of Grandpa’s homemade wine. “You need an elevator to get up this hill, Pop. It’s even worse in winter, if you can believe it.”

Dad came in last, glaring at his brother. He didn’t say a word, but I bet he was looking for some excuse to hustle to the basement to saw wood.

“What I tell you about living up on this-a hill, Angelo?” Grandpa said. “Should-a been smart and bought a level lot you can mow without rolling over your foot.” He walked straight to the kitchen, passing us kids as if we were tree stumps.

Ray-Ray slipped outside, probably to look for baby turtles to tape firecrackers to. Nicky slunk to his room to crack open the pocket
Webster’s
he had bought that morning at Flannigan’s Pharmacy. I leaned against the kitchen archway and watched Grandpa sit at the head of the table and demand a juice glass for his wine. Dad obeyed as Betty presented the prosciutto.