Chapter Thirteen: A Good Pot of Red Sauce

I am miserable at school. I never see Marie. And Mai just ignores me now. She and Vickie pass notes all through class, giggling to each other about what ever they are writing about. I don’t understand what went wrong with my friendship with Mai. I thought we had something special, apparently we didn’t. I mean, what does she have in common with Vickie? Boys! That’s what my mother says when I complained to her that Mai wasn’t talking to me at school. She says I should try and befriend Fran. But, Fran is boring. She never speaks and just yesterday, I tried to pass her a note in French class and she said my handwriting was too sloppy and she didn’t know what I was writing about.
Papa is coming home for Christmas. Everyone in the family is tense. Nanna stopped picking me up after school. She said she has too much housework to do in preparation for Papa’s arrival. I was like, “what do you do all day that you can’t take an hour out or your day to pick me up?” It is freezing outside. It is so stupid, she hates the man, but I guess she has to keep up with appearances. Plus, it isn’t as if he is going to care. He spends most of his visiting time on the sofa ordering my grandmother around to bring him another cup of coffee, or some more pasta as the T.V blares.
‘Why don’t you just divorce him?” I asked one day. She didn’t respond right away. She looked blankly out the kitchen window. So, I asked again.
“Because, it wouldn’t be right.”
“Well, it’s not right that he lives in a big house in Palm Springs while you freeze your ass off in Chicago.”
“Watch your mouth! You are getting way too sassy. What happened to my Sweet Gianna?” She said, as she scrubbed away at the kitchen sink.
I watched as she scrubs the sink for the third time. Her hands showing the wear and tear of scrubbing pots and pan her whole life. They are brittle and rough.
When I was little, I would spend Friday nights at her apartment. She’d scratch my back to help me fall asleep. I never said it, but her hands were like a cheese grater. I know she uses a lot of hand creams and wraps her hands in special gloves at night to help with the dryness, but the damage had been done from all those years in hot dirty restaurant sinks. And because of it, it was quite painful for me to have her scratch my back. I have never wanted to tell her this because I knew it would hurt her feelings. I hold it against my grandfather who made her have that sort of life: scrubbing pots and cooking over a hot restaurant stove for thirty years. I don’t really like my grandfather. She deserves better. I’ve told her this too, countless times. All she will say to me is that if she hadn’t married him, my mother would not have been born, and therefore I would not exist. Baffling logic, but true, I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut.
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I am going to get in big trouble when my grades arrive. I am obsessed with thinking of plans to intercept them in the mail so my mother will not find them. But I am doomed; there is no way I am ever going to be able to get them before she does. So, for the next week I make the best of it at school, knowing that even though I look forward to Christmas break it is going to be ruined as soon as my mother gets hold of my report card. I try talking more to Fran, but she really doesn’t have much to say. Except today, as I am day-dreaming out the window about meeting John Taylor, and how he will sweep me off my feet and take me away from the boring existence of my life. I get this note from Fran, who attempts to try and write a little bigger because I had complained to her that I have a really hard time reading her notes because she writes so tiny. Well, in this note, she reveals to me that she and Vickie went to the same Grammar school, St. Henry, and that she use to go to all her birthday parties until the 7th grade, that’s when Vickie’s dad died. The birthday parties stopped and Vickie started hanging out with the “Wild group” at school and listening to heavy metal music. Satan Music! She writes in big letters.
“But, why is Vicki so mean?” I write back to Fran. But, she only whispers to me that she really didn’t know. I knew! It had to do with the Satan music she listens to. It pollutes her soul and damns her to hell that’s why she is so mean! She needs to listen to a little pop rock which eases the soul, puts one in a good mood, a jingle in one’s step, a smile on one’s face. I want to say all this to Fran, but I don’t. I don’t want to freak her out. That afternoon, Fran and I walk home from school together.
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