The Patron Saint of Ugly Read online

  Because La Strega died first, her complete fortune was passed onto Radisson for exactly fifty-two minutes. I can only imagine what kind of hilltop monarch he might have been, but I bet his reign would have involved Ferris wheels and dodge-’em cars for the local children.

  When Radisson died, his will superseded La Strega’s. He had bequeathed all his worldly possessions, which now included his fifty-two-minute fortune, to the only person who had ever been kind to him in his life: a mottled girl who’d once filled his pockets with Bazooka bubblegum and who had actually called him by name.

  Thus, like so many orphans and spinster-governesses in all those great books of British lit-ra-toor lining La Strega’s library, I was rescued by an inheritance I never even knew I was in line for.

  The three smiling lawyers who represented Radisson’s wishes were grinning, since their hourly rate was huge.

  The nephews’ lawyers, all frowning despite their fat hourly rate, were contesting Radisson’s will and the fifty-two-minute gap that to them was far worse than Nixon’s eighteen-and-a-half-minute one.

  Radisson’s attorneys advised me to take possession of the mansion immediately; they had a limousine waiting, as well as a moving van. I raced to my room and grabbed the only thing I wanted: my father’s saw.

  It was my turn to wiggle my fingers in a farewell ta-ta to the little patch of earth that had been my home for nearly half my life. I also left behind an unfinished education, since I was sixteen credits shy of my dual degrees. I do not regret that decision.

  Twelve hours later, under the radiance of a full moon, me sitting shotgun beside Benny the limo driver, we crossed into West Virginia. I heard a faint hum that grew more pronounced the closer we got to Sweetwater: a blessed E note that hadn’t played in my head for ten years. We crossed the railroad tracks and turned onto Appian Way, and I growled as we passed the entrance to Grover Estates, the G on the sign crooked, both Ts missing. We drove down snake-bricked Via Dolorosa and circled a Nereid statue not spitting water and stopped in front of Nonna’s house, where the windows were dark. The note in my head rung loud and clear and soon a lamp went on in Nonna’s bedroom. I was stunned to see her porch light illuminated too, with an actual bulb. I wanted to race up and pound on the door, but it would likely be Grandpa Ferrari answering in his underwear; the image made the bulb flicker, and I thought, Shit. My weird circuitry still existed, at least in Sweetwater. I urged Benny onward and we coasted by Saint Brigid’s and through the village, where most of the businesses were boarded up. Thankfully, the neon Sweetwater Cinema sign still blinked, as did the one for Dino’s Lounge. The Plant where my father had labored, however, was now defunct, with broken windows and graffiti spray-painted on its shell.

  As we began our ascent up the hill, all my portafortuna-opening deeds resurrected themselves. I closed my eyes when we passed the silhouette of a toppled-over brick wall because I didn’t have the courage to face it, or our old house either.

  We arrived at the pinnacle and that massive gate, where Benny stopped the car. A spindly figure loped from behind the brick column. For an instant I thought it was Radisson coming to hand me a begonia, but it was Mr. Billheimer, who also closed the gate behind us. He opened my car door and handed me a ring of skeleton keys, which I rattled without thinking to clear out La Strega’s ghost.

  “Welcome home,” he said, adding a caution: “Lie low for a while, and though it may be tempting, don’t do anything rash.”

  For two weeks I didn’t venture beyond my gates. Initially I slept in Radisson’s apartment above the garage, though I tried not to look at the mangled Packard that had been towed inside and that I have since had restored. Upstairs I found a welcoming armchair by the fireplace and a twin bed beside a window that overlooked a mulberry tree. My benefactor apparently spent his off-hours reading Barbara Cartland romances and crafting model World War I biplanes, which he had strung from the ceiling with fishing line, so it was as if I were falling asleep beneath dogfights every night.

  Mr. Billheimer visited daily. We sat in La Strega’s parlor, where he divulged the extent of my holdings, which unfurled from his mouth like adding-machine paper. He also had me sign stacks of documents so he could transfer stocks and bank accounts, the house title, and sundry other properties and businesses to my name.

  My proximity to our old house made me long for my mother. When I dialed Grandma Iris’s number, an automated operator still droned: “The number you dialed has been disconnected.” If I’d known which sanitarium Mom had been sequestered in, I would have sent my own hatchet man to rescue her. I started dialing the rotary dozens of times to call Nonna or Betty, but I couldn’t complete the calls. I didn’t yet have any words to utter if they did answer, especially if the topic shifted to Ray-Ray.

  I spent the rest of my time snooping into La Strega’s many, many rooms, looking for secret dungeons and cauldrons, books of incantations, a closet full of Garnet voodoo dolls. I found none. What I did find was that my geography, which had been dormant for a decade, began rearranging itself with a vengeance. Every morning I awoke to discover countries split in two, whole islands submerged, borders incrementally shifted, as if ten years’ worth of tricks were playing out in one week, which left me with the deeper mystery: If not La Strega, then who? Or what? Or could it be Sweetwater itself?

  Outside, the rose garden had been put to bed for winter, the barbecue pit draped in plastic. I discovered the foundation of the whippet-tipped springhouse that had erupted a decade before. Instead of rebuilding it, La Strega had cemented over the spring. I heard burbling water, and after clearing away dead leaves, I found a pipe jutting from the side of the concrete slab. A right angle sent the pipe into a grate-covered trench that led from the springhouse to the chateau, providing the house’s water supply. There was no supply for the Sweetwater villagers below or for the empty reflection pond, its cement sides crumbling, the scary elements of the heating system corroded.

  When I wasn’t snooping I began my penance anew, working through La Strega’s library on Nicky’s behalf but mostly sniffing as I looked at the chair my mother had sat in years before. I also set up a stool in the conservatory because the acoustics made my saw playing sound better than ever. As I coaxed strains from the blade, I imagined them swirling around the room carrying my unspoken proclamation, which I hoped would somehow reach my father beyond the grave.

  My other pastime was looking out various windows at my old neighborhood, now quite bedraggled. Eventually local kids appeared at my gate, trios and quartets, perhaps offspring of the children Nicky and I had grown up with, pressing their faces against the iron bars like inmates. These were the homeliest children I had ever seen, covered in rashes and boils, hair falling out in clumps, skin tinged gray instead of a healthy pink. A few of their parents sauntered up. All of them looked unkempt, and I wondered what plague had descended on Sweetwater since I had moved away. Eventually a smattering of hill nonnas, looking older and bent, appeared, but not the four nonnas who had helped make those Saint Garnet necklaces, one of which was tangled at the bottom of a Charlottesville briar patch. The nonnas hovering at my gate made the sign of the cross when I accidentally ruffled the drapes and I thought, Crap, that sainted bullshit still lingers.

  The Saturday I discovered the whippet room, the buzzer in the pillar by the front gate sounded throughout the house. I looked out and saw a nun standing there, or more likely a novice, judging by her in-training white veil. I was going to ignore her as my predecessor would have, but several of those mangy children ran to her, and at the sweet way she received them, Pharaoh’s heart was softened. I bumbled downstairs, shrugged on one of Radisson’s coats, and went outside.

  The children squealed, not Sister, what’s wrong with—but “It’s her! It’s Saint Garnet!”

  “Yes, it is,” the nun said.

  By the time I reached into the little box and pressed open the gate to slip outside, I knew who the nun was: Dee Dee Evangelista.

  “Garnet,” she s
aid, eyes moist with nostalgia.

  “Hi, Dee Dee.” I looked to see if she was carrying a Betsy Wetsy doll, but she was holding the hand of a little girl who was smiling broadly, her gums as gray as the cloudy-snow sky. I was afraid Dee Dee was going to heft the child and place her in my arms for a healing, but she merely said, “I just wanted to welcome you home.”

  “Welcome home!” the children squealed, flocking over to hug my legs and squirm their fingers into my hands. At first, I marveled at the fact that they were not repulsed by my skin, but then, looking at them, I realized my stained flesh was no longer such an anomaly. Three of the old hill nonnas ambled up, their faces covered in sebaceous cysts and warts. “It’s-a her!” They brazenly pushed the children aside, falling on their knees to kiss my hands. I pulled free and yanked the nonnas upright. “Stop that! Stop that right now!”

  “Ladies.” Dee Dee nudged them back a few paces and planted herself between them and me. “Don’t crowd her.”

  The nonnas were insistent, trying to reach around her to grab my coat, my hair. “But it’s-a Santa della Collina.”

  “She return just-a like I knew she would!”

  “Help us, Santa Garnet. Please heal-a the bambinos.”

  “And us! Please heal-a the old nonnas first!”

  Behind them, a black sedan pulled up; the back door popped open and out jumped a priest who wasn’t even wearing a coat. He bolted toward me. “Miss Ferrari! I’m Father Shultz! The new parish priest!”

  “What the hell?” I said, overcome by ordination.

  “I’d like to talk to you about donating a new roof for the church!”

  “Father!” Dee Dee scolded. “Now is not the time.”

  I didn’t bother with farewells, just stepped inside my fence and slammed the gate on not only the priest but Dee Dee, the old nonnas, and the children, who were beginning to whimper.

  I ran to my front door but before it closed behind me Father Shultz yelled, “We look forward to seeing you at Mass!”

  Thus I started hiding again, not inside makeup, but inside another mansion, though this time it had nothing to do with shame. I couldn’t fulfill the requests of those aggressive old women and children, and I refused to grant Father Shultz his.

  Eventually I moved into the main house, and one afternoon as I unloaded groceries delivered from the A&P (formerly O’Grady’s), the buzzer sounded. I thought it might be Dee Dee or those persistent nonnas, but when I looked out front I saw Nonna holding a shirt box of sweet bliss, Betty standing beside her. I ran outside to buzz open the gate, not put off by Nonna’s dingy braid or Betty’s acne-splattered face. Nonna enveloped me in her python’s grip, an E note pouring from her mouth. Her warm embrace sent surges of electricity through us both.

  “You feel-a that?” Nonna said.

  When we pulled apart, her hair—and mine—was charged with static.

  Betty planted kisses on my face. “How we’ve missed you! You’ve gotten so skinny and tall!” We wept until a swarm of nonnas and children raced my way. I pulled the women inside, closed the gate, and we hustled to the mansion, where they gawped at the luxury.

  Nonna paced the upstairs kitchen trying not to touch those frightening appliances, but she found La Strega’s coffeepot. She lifted the lid on that box of chocolate-dipped cannolis, and I sighed when she laid them on a platter. I built a fire in the parlor, where we sipped Nonna’s strong brew, the two women smiling, exposing stained teeth.

  “The coffee is delicious,” Betty said, scratching a pimple.

  “It’s a-true,” Nonna said. “Best coffee I make since a-before . . .”

  She didn’t have to finish.

  Betty delicately recounted how she and Nonna had reunited just a day earlier. Everyone in Sweetwater knew that someone had moved into La Strega’s mansion, and rumors abounded as to who it might be: Le Baron’s love child claiming his birthright; Jackie Onassis; Hugh Heffner, who would turn it into a Playboy mansion. Though several ordained people confirmed that they had seen Garnet Ferrari, for most of the populace, that was harder to believe than Jackie O.

  Betty was determined to see for herself and used the opportunity to reunite the fam-i-ly, a brave maneuver, and I adored her for it. She convinced Nonna that it was time for the iron curtain to come down for my sake, if it was indeed me on the hill. They kept their mission a secret from their husbands, and now Nonna was sitting in my parlor glaring at her daughter-in-law, though she relaxed somewhat when Betty relayed the news that Ray-Ray was MIA in Vietnam, that land sliver on my right hip that had also gone missing. I watched her eyes to see if it pained her that her stepson was possibly, quite probably, dead or a POW in some jungle hellhole. She held her cards closer to her chest than I would have thought possible. I was not wearing a poker face, and neither was Nonna, our scowls expressing that we hoped the bastard was a pile of rotting bones sunk beneath a rice paddy.

  Nonna mercifully changed the subject. “You know, the Plant-a, she close. The whole town, she is in-a ruin.”

  “Dommy had to take a job selling shoes in Vandalia,” Betty added.

  Why did my heart feel like singing?

  We gossiped and ate cannolis until the women had to sneak back to their husbands, but for five days straight, they slipped out and visited me to guzzle that delicious coffee.

  Eventually my identity was confirmed in the newspaper: “Garnet Ferrari New Hilltop Monarch!” Thus, on Nonna’s and Betty’s sixth visit, they came bearing not gifts, but ogres. When the buzzer sounded I spied Uncle Dom and Grandpa, each holding a grocery sack as they stood beside their apologetic-looking wives. I was tempted to ignore them, but I understood that if I wanted Nonna and Betty in my life I would have to endure their mates.

  As I walked to the fence, Dom checked his breath and Grandpa adjusted his number-one newsie cap. When I clanked open the gate, Dom dove forward and hugged me for much longer than was necessary, though he kept looking over my shoulder as if he thought someone else would be traipsing from the house. Grandpa didn’t hug me, but he removed his hat, revealing a spectacularly liver-spotted pate.

  “Garney.” His eyes scoured my face. “You look-a so, so . . .”

  “Yes, you do,” Dom finished.

  We approached the front door, Grandpa growling at the gargoyles his brother had sculpted and that I had once been so afraid of. Now I was delighted to have them protecting my stoop. I allowed the men inside, and naturally they tromped ahead of me and their wives. Betty leaned close to my ear. “We are so sorry.”

  The men crossed the hallway, picking up vases along the way to read markings, looking behind paintings for secret wall safes—something that had not occurred to me, but, boy, would I be flipping paintings that night.

  We settled in the library in those clawfoot chairs, Grandpa claiming the one Nicky used to sit in, me in the one beside him, Uncle Dom on La Strega’s settee. Betty and Nonna hovered by the door.

  “So where’s your mother?” Dom asked. “She upstairs?”

  Mother. No one had asked about her, Betty and Nonna perhaps too afraid or angry.

  “She’s living with Grandma Iris.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  Dom’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. Well, I brought you a few gifts.” He pulled out of his grocery sack a wedge of Fontina cheese and a bottle of sambuca, but no Playboy.

  “Me too.” Grandpa heaved a jug of homemade wine onto my lap. Grandpa looked at his wife. “Go get-a some glasses.”

  “And cut up this cheese,” Dom ordered Betty.

  Nonna and Betty left me alone with the men, Dom standing to scan bookshelves for first editions.

  “So we hear you inherit quite the fortuna.” Grandpa’s eyes roved from treasure to treasure.

  “Such-a big house. Bigger than Dommy’s over in Grover Estates.”

  Uncle Dom sneered.

  “With a lot of-a rooms. So many, many rooms.”

  I already knew where he was heading and wanted to spit out, Guess the hill is good enough for yo
u now.

  “You know, Nonna, she is-a getting so old she no clean-a the house so good. She no cook-a so good and the laundry, she comes out gray. Look. Look at my shirt!”

  The shirt was indeed discolored.

  “It would-a be so nice if she no had-a to clean no more. If she had more space to, uh, put up-a her feet.” He paused, hoping that I would immediately invite him and Nonna—but mostly him—to move in. I didn’t utter a peep.

  Betty and Nonna returned with a teacart loaded with fruit and cheese and cordial glasses—not a single juice glass. Betty had filled Grandpa’s wineglass with mini-cubes from the automatic icemaker, a contraption that both confounded and frightened Nonna. “That thing will bite off-a you hand!”

  Betty rolled the cart in front of Grandpa and me. Dom sat back down, casually sliding one of my books into his jacket pocket. I was about to say something when Betty tucked a napkin into her husband’s shirt and filled his plate with food. Nonna did likewise for Grandpa. I wanted to protest and make Yvette proud, but I didn’t want the women to pay the consequences later for my outburst.

  They stayed for an hour, the men blabbering about themselves. I was never more relieved in my life than when Grandpa untucked his napkin, threw it on his plate, and took his leave.

  The next day all four showed up again, though this time Grandpa paraded to the sunniest expanse of lawn in the backyard, near where the springhouse had once sat. He walked heel-toe in a rectangular formation as if he were engineering a project. I finally ushered him inside, where he again sat in Nicky’s chair and he and Dom ordered their wives around. That was the day the gold candlesticks went missing.

  The pattern continued, them showing up to eat my food and be waited on by their women. Uncle Dom broadened his snooping to include every room on the main floor; he scribbled in a notebook and even snapped photos when he thought I wasn’t looking. Little figurines and silver lighters disappeared, though when I questioned him, he always said, “What lighter? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I brought you more Fontina!” I began to wonder if the man actually did have a job selling footwear, as his afternoons were habitually free and his own shoes looked worn.