Chapter Twenty-seven: A Good Pot of Red Sauce

By twelve that afternoon, my mother’s side of the family from the near northwest (they all live off of Foster and Harlem) made a steady stream through my front door. “How she doin?” “Can we do anything?” “What’s for lunch?” “Has your Nanna been eating?” “Is she eating?” “How are her bowel movements?”
It was a breezy warm spring afternoon. The apartment smelled clean and fresh with just a hint of bleach from the bathroom and kitchen intermingled with hints of the red sauce simmering on the kitchen stove. I had grabbed a couple containers out of Nanna’s freezer because I knew my Mother was not going to attempt to make a pot!
Like I said, I have no first cousins. My parents are the only two from their families to wed and procreate. So, I have a bunch of second and third cousins, as well as several great aunts and uncles. The first to arrive was my second cousin Carla and my great Aunt Stella, and Carla’s adopted son—little Nicky. Nicky is also my godson. Yeah, the family made me the godmother at age twelve. Like, I really want to take care of him if anything should happen to his parents. He is a terror. His new thing now is to run up behind you and bite your ass.
You would think that since Carla is your typical olive-skinned Italian that she would have tried to adopt a baby that was Italian or at least of Greek origin, or maybe even Mexican! No, instead she got a very blonde, blue-eyed boy. We suspect that he is of Polish heritage, maybe even some Irish. Well, that’s what I have overheard from my mother’s whispering on the phone. Carla hands me a plate of cold cuts, and then kisses me on the cheek. “Nice hair and what’s up with all the black—is there a funeral?” I’ve always liked my Aunt Stella the best. She has a bubbly personality and never says anything mean to me to hurt my feelings. All she said as she handed me a plate of Italian sausages is she that she loved my new hair style. Little Nicky, the terror, came running in behind them, nearly knocking me down as he whizzed by me.
I meet my Nanna at the corner of Hoyne and Arthur, to help her walk the rest of the way. She was carrying a suitcase. I asked her where Papa and Uncle Leo were, she shouted “Out! They are always out!” I asked her if they were coming over for the family gathering. I didn’t bother to ask her about the suitcase as I heaved it up the flight of stairs to my apartment. She told me to put in Anna’s room.
“What the hell you got in here?”
“Stuff,” she said as she made her way to the living room. Whereupon everyone in unison shouted, “Sherry, you’re alive, oh my god look at your eyes. Poor thing!”
I looked down at the suitcase. It was one those old fashioned types, something from the fifties. I had seen it in the corner of my Nanna’s closet. I wondered how long Nanna planned on staying, and I was thinking about where she was going to sleep, and that there was no way in hell my sister was sleeping with me. But before I could get anywhere with my thoughts, I heard a car honk, and I looked out my sister’s bedroom window that over looks the alley. I saw my Papa and Uncle Leo emerging from a black sedan. I ran out to the porch, Papa shouted up at me to go and get Nanna. He had just bought her a new car! There IS a God! He had heard my prayers, because after Nanna saw the car, she did not stay the night in Anna’s bedroom.
On the last day of my freshman year, my opinion of having to attend St. Scholastic for the next three years had not changed from the first day when I walked through those intimidating oak doors, with the Virgin Mary staring down at me. I still despised my mother for sending me to an all girls high-school. I still felt as if I was being punished for my lack of academic participation in or lack of enthusiasm for the whole idea of scholarship. My teachers informed my parents back in March that I was not retarded nor was I suffering from any learning disabilities. This was a shock to my mother, who was hoping that there was an explanation other than attitude for my poor grades. They also reassured my mother that I could not have been mentally maimed by her drinking a beer a day during her pregnancy with me. However, they felt I was not living up to my academic abilities due to some emotional problem. Whereupon my parents burst out in a fit of laugher, proving the point of where my emotional problems stem from, they left feeling as if there was hope for me.
My Nanna was waiting outside for me in the school parking lot on that glorious day of the last day of school, in her new black sedan. I knew she was coming. She had called the night before to tell me she wanted to pick me up, and to be waiting outside. As I opened the passenger’s door, I saw she was wearing dark brown sunglasses to hide her still-bruised eyes. It also looked like she had just come from Sally’s, because her hair was curled and set and the car smelled of aqua-net hair spray. She looked pretty cool behind the wheel, wearing a velour blue jump suit that she’d gotten from Marshall’s (probably for twenty bucks). All that was missing was a pair of black driving gloves and gold chains around her neck and then she would really look like the wife of a wanna-be mobster.
The day before I had sprayed the car down with Lysol to get rid of the lingering scent of Papa’s cheap cologne, and had taken off the fake Christmas tree from the rear view mirror. I wanted the car to start smelling like Nanna; garlic and parmesan cheese. I guess I’d have to wait a couple of weeks, considering the hairspray was so over-powering that you couldn’t smell anything else.
A week before, I had found out that Mai had dropped out of school, circumstances unknown. Through the whisperings in the hallways and in the lunchroom, I put it together that she might be pregnant! I told this to my mother and she remarked, “Told you the girl was loose, wearing that red nail polish.” To this day, I don’t understand what the hell red nail polish had to do with anything. Maybe my mother was the one suffering from emotional problems, something to do with her childhood.
I told this to Nanna as we headed out of the school parking lot heading north on Ridge Ave. Nanna didn’t say anything at first. She seemed lost in thought. We sat on the corner of Ridge and Howard waiting to make a right hand turn onto Howard. “All my kids have emotional problems,” she says, “It has something to do with their father being such a jerk.”
The last time I spoke with Mai was in detention. I sat behind her staring at her black hair, envious that it was so thick and shiny, wondering how she got it that way. I was thinking it had to do with genetics instead of some secret beauty tip. I was serving detention for being late. She said she was serving it for not having a written excuse from her mother about her absence the previous Monday. She asked me why I was cutting my hair so short and said that I had looked good in the bob, but didn’t really like my recent hair cut. She said that it made my face look fatter. She wasn’t the only one that said that, my mother had mentioned it to me the other day.
Right when I was going to ask her if she was still hanging out with Vickie, Sister Mary Elisabeth walked in and shushed us. I spent the last hour of detention writing about why I wanted to be a cat instead of a human being. Sister Mary Elisabeth would not let us do our homework in detention; she said that detention was a punishment, not an opportunity to get our homework done. So, she made us write stupid meaningless essays to bide the time.
As Mai and I were walking to the El (I had decided to take the El with her to try and find out what was going on) I asked her why she was missing so much school lately. All she said was she had been sick. And then we just sat in silence until my stop at Loyal came up, and then I waved goodbye to her. That was the last time I saw her. The last image I saw of her was her waved hand at me with her red nails becoming a blur as the train passed me by.
I took the El stairs two a time, and decided to walk the rest of the way home, first stopping at the record store where I asked for an application. The college dude behind the counter sort of laughed at me as he handed it to me. “You got any experience with music?” he asked sarcastically, “besides what’s on the radio?”
I looked him straight in the eye as I slid the application into my purple back pack, and said, “I know who the Sex Pistols are.”
“Oh, you are so punk rock,” he said mocking me.
The guy thought he was so cool with his double hopped earrings, his Mohawk and blackened eyes. He thought he could intimidate me, but I stood my ground. I turned and headed out the door. I raced across Sheridan, heading towards my Aunt’s now defunct restaurant. I stared at the For Rent sign that was plastered across the door, peering in the window, seeing only empty space. All the tables had been removed, the big counter had been torn up, and even the industrial grey carpeting was gone, revealing the slab of concrete. There was nothing left to indicate that this was once a cozy restaurant that was filled with aromas of my Nanna’s cooking. Nothing at all, even the unused donut machine was gone!
***
I rolled down the window, letting the afternoon breeze hit my face and taking in the smells of the neighborhood, hoping to let out some of the toxic fumes coming from the Aqua Net. I breathed in deep, acting like one of those dogs you see with their heads sticking out the window.
“Hey, roll up that window!” Nanna yelled, “You’ll mess up my hair!”
“I’m dying over here,” I whined. “The smell is killing me.”
“You are so dramatic Gianna; at least it is getting rid of the Lysol smell that you sprayed in here last night.”
‘Well it’s a whole lot better than the smell of Papa’s after-shave!”
Nanna laughed. I liked it when she laughed. It made me feel as if my childhood was still intact. I turned on the radio and to my surprise” Rio” was playing. Humming along with it, I let my mind drift to the possibilities the summer could bring. I was seriously thinking about applying to the record store that was under the Loyal El stop.
I knew where we were headed as soon as Nanna took a right on Howard St-- to Marshall’s. Nanna had not been there for two weeks, I noticed her hands twitching in anticipation on the steering wheel. We had an hour to kill before we needed to pick up Anna from Bethesda. Nanna had promised me to buy anything I wanted for taking care of her while she was sick.
“Anything, even if it’s not off the discount rack?” I said in shock!
“Yes”, she said with a sigh, “anything you want within reason.”
As I wheeled my shopping cart around the aisle ways, my dreams of finding cool clothes even on the regular racks were shot to hell within seconds. I am telling you that there are no cool clothes to be found anywhere in Marshal’s. The store was really built for old ladies who’s eye sight has gone bad with age and don’t give a shit that the clothes all look the same and come off the rejects racks from the popular stores like—Marshal Fields. Nothing original can be found on the racks at Marshall’s. The old ladies just think that if they buy an ugly faded yellow shirt for five bucks that was marked down from fifteen that they are getting a deal of the century even if it will hang in their closet for years unworn never to see the light of day. Proof of this is just taking a look in my Nanna’s closet or mine for that matter where all the deals of the century line in wait for the day to be worn. That day never comes because the clothes are marked down for a reason—nobody in their right minds wants to buy the crap except little old ladies with bad eye sight!
I catch up with my Nanna at the check out line. Her cart is filled with bed sheets and more pillowcases, a couple pairs of slippers, needless crap that will just be stored in her hall closet collecting dust and smelling like moth balls. She looks over at my cart and says with disappointment, “All you found was a sweater? Put it back, it is way too expensive.”
‘But you said I could get anything I wanted,” I whine.
“I said you can get something within reason,” she snaps.
“Yeah, but you promised.”
“A black turtleneck? You couldn’t find something nice, like a pretty shirt for the upcoming summer months, or sundress, or maybe some shorts?”
“Nope.”
She bought the turtleneck despite her complaints because when she looked at the price tag and saw that it had been marked down from sixty dollars to fifteen, she just could not pass up the deal, even though I knew the sweater’s fate was to hang in my closet until the day I threw it out.
***
Anna was waiting on the front steps, and as soon as she got in the backseat she started whining that she was starving to death on account that she had forgotten her lunch, and could we please stop at McDonald’s. Nanna yelled back a firm, “No!” Whereupon Anna whined even louder that Nanna was as mean as a snake and Nanna then told her that she would feed her as soon as we got home.
"I am sick of pasta and red sauce,” she complained as we turned on to Western Ave., and headed down Pratt St. Nanna first had to stop at Dominick’s (another store that she shops at daily), “to pick up some things,” she said as she pulled into the parking lot. Anna and I waited in the car. Anna started babbling about how her hunger pains were killing her and that she was sure she was going to die before Nanna got back. I turned up the radio to try and drown out her whines. Nanna had left the car running. I started teasing Anna about how she had one more week of school left, and how I was going to sleep in until twelve o’clock. “Yeah, right, not if Ma has anything to do with it.”
“Whatever,” I said.
“Oh, I am so telling on you.”
“Tell her, and I will, so help me god…”
‘Tell her what?” Nanna asked as she opened the back seat door and placed her one grocery bag in. I glared at Anna.
“Nothing,” she said.
We drove in silence to Nanna’s apartment. She found a parking place right it front of the apartment, which is a miracle, and stomped up her front stairs. First she had to get her mail, which caused Anna to groan again that she was going to die of hunger. As soon as we got through the front door, Anna rushed to Nanna’s pantry and grabbed some bread and started stuffing it in her face.
“Jesus Christ,” I yelled, pulling the loaf of bread from her hand.
“Gianna, watch your mouth.”
Like my Nanna really cared if I said the Lord’s name in vain. The only time she ever goes to church is when someone gets married or someone has died. I plopped myself down on the floor and switched on the T.V. Papa and uncle Leo had left the day before. The apartment still reeked of them: a combination of Old Spice and dirty socks. Nanna was already heating up the pot of red sauce and had put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta. I watched Nanna out of the corner of my eye as she stirred the red sauce, humming to herself. I lowered the volume on the T.V, and heard her hum a few cords. “Will you still love me—will you still need me—when I am sixty –four.” That was our song. We sing that song on everybody’s birthday regardless of whether they are turning sixty-four. Last year, on Nanna’s birthday, Anna and I had danced around the dining room, jumping on and off the couch, singing the song out of tune, with Nanna laughing and crying at the same time as we all hugged and danced and sang. Finally, collapsing on the floor together, we are all singing the same verse over and over, “Will ya still love me when I am sixty-four?”
I looked over to Anna. She was still munching on her bread, humming the song through bites, as she looked at some movie magazine that uncle Leo had left on the kitchen table. I got up from the floor and went and stood behind my Nanna and noticed that I was almost as tall as her.
“Gianna, hand me the honey that is in the bag, please.”
“Honey? What do you need honey for?”
Anna stopped eating and looked over at us.
Nanna grabbed for the honey and didn’t say anything right away. She just looked at Anna and me, and then she squeezed some honey into the pot of red sauce and said, “Now you know the family secret for making a good pot of red sauce.” With that, she went back to stirring the sauce. Anna went back to stuffing her face with bread, and I went back to watching TV, fingering my mother’s silver bracelet that I had stolen back, and wondering to myself whether my mother knew about the honey in the red sauce!
The End