The Patron Saint of Ugly Page 7

  Nonna crossed her chest three times. “It’s-a true.”

  I looked twice to confirm, but the sty was definitely gone. I also felt wetness on my bare foot and was stunned to see that my recent hot flash had melted Antarctica’s glaciers, the second instance of someone toying with my geography. I twisted around to see if some old gabbo had snuck into the room to toy with me, but it was just Nonna and Dee Dee, who looked at me in a way no child ever had.

  An hour later, Arabella Bellagio appeared on my front porch. “Her eyelid is stuck. Heal my doll too.”

  She held the doll out, but I was captivated by Arabella’s face, so peppered with freckles that I wanted to grab a pen and connect the dots. Nonna nudged me, so I took the doll and tipped her forward and back, the motion that would get her eyelids blinking. The right one winked at me; the left remained open, glued in place by Popsicle drippings, perhaps. Fizzies juice. I did what any healer would do under those circumstances: I spit in the doll’s stuck eye socket, mashed the eye around with my finger, then dried it with the hem of my shirt while praying, “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei.” Then I tipped her forward and back and—ta-da!—her eye was cured, and about every fifth freckle on Arabella’s face had vanished. I rubbed my own eyes in disbelief and looked at Nonna, who was rubbing her eyes too.

  That night after dinner I sat on the floor in my closet nurturing the hope that I actually was the reincarnation of Saint Garnet. I rifled through my cigar box of treasures: found marbles and buttons, a tire-mashed ring, a collection of bottle caps, cigar bands, and, from the nuns, an assortment of holy cards.

  I fanned the cards—Saint Dymphna, Saint Agatha, Saint Germaine (another child whose birth defects made her a target for cruelty)—and wondered if it could possibly be true. Had I really healed those dolls and their owners? I didn’t know the answer, but I felt holy, or as if I had to be holier than my natural tendency (all those fights with Nicky were certainly unsaintly). I hoped that one day my likeness would grace a four-color card that children would unwrap from bubblegum packs and trade during recess. Perhaps my father would collect them too. I understood that if I wanted to make the dream come true, I would have to clean up my act. The image of pews full of praying nuns sprang forth and that’s when I got the idea.

  I ran to the bathroom closet and reached for the stack of pillowcases. Because we didn’t have black ones, I settled for a blue one, which I bobby-pinned to my head. I even used one of Mom’s stretchy white headbands to secure it. The veil felt weighty around my shoulders and gave me courage, somehow, more like a superhero’s protective garb than a nun’s. The added bonus was that it tamed my hair.

  I pointed my praying hands to heaven and walked down the hall imitating the nuns’ measured gaits. I paused before the front door when I heard Mom and Dad on the porch, smoke from his stinky White Owl wafting in.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Dad said. “It was probably a scab. Kids pick scabs off all the time.”

  “But your mother said she saw—”

  “Not everything my mother sees is there.”

  “But Angelo! The freckles!”

  “You’re a college-educated woman, Marina. Don’t get hysterical. There is no way—”

  I don’t know which puzzled me more: my agnostic mother’s belief or my Catholic father’s unbelief, both of which hung in the air as I banged open the door.

  Dad muttered, “What in the—”

  “Shush!” Mom said as I descended the porch steps.

  I walked heel-toe-heel-toe in the center of the street, veil flapping as streetlights flickered on, powering me with courage as I lifted my chin for all my neighbors to behold my glory. Boy, did they ever. Every porch-sitting father and mother sipping Chianti. Every nonna doing supper dishes behind the kitchen window. Every cluster of girls making clover chains in the yard.

  Nicky rode past me on his bike. “Who are you supposed to be?”

  Immediately his left training wheel spun off and he toppled into the culvert in front of Mr. Gambini’s house. I tried not to gloat since I was above all that now, ordained as I was Santa della Collina.

  After that, other hill children brought me their tangled-up army men, their Mr. Potato Heads with stuck mustaches, their missing-eyed stuffed animals. Though I couldn’t fix everything, I mended enough to establish my calling, and along the way I cured warts, bee stings, and ingrown toenails. Those were curious healings, occurring only when my back was turned, or when I blinked, or overnight. In the morning, a kid would come show me the pink spot on her heel where a roller-skating blister had once bulged.

  Archie, I wish I could deny that those banal healings occurred. It would make life easier. But they happened, and since Nonna didn’t question their authenticity, neither did I. Nor did I question who was genuinely responsible. Of course it had to be me, the landmassed replica of that original Saint Garnet, which Nonna thought would make me a target of jealousy. To ward off enchanters, Nonna insisted that pilgrims approach only when she was present to offer protection. She also set up two folding chairs in the garage and placed an upturned apple crate before them. More than once, I saw Mom watching through the basement’s screen door, an enigmatic smile slicing her face. Nicky often pressed his nose to the mesh and mumbled, “Gimme a break.” Dad stood there a few times grimacing, but I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me or his saw on the pegboard, which he never once used when I was holding court.

  Dad also suffered mightily when I insisted on wearing my veil to Mass instead of the stupid doily non-sainted girls wore. The first time I appeared, the nuns beamed at my divine imitation. Parents and older kids raised their unholy brows. “Who made Map Head queen?” The little girls stayed quiet, though, particularly Dee Dee Evangelista, who clutched her dolly and stored up all these things in her heart.

  One afternoon when Mom and Nicky were gone, Nonna again closed the drapes and cleared the junk from the kitchen table. Someone rapped on the front door, and Nonna invited in four hill nonnas clutching packages.

  Nonna ushered them into the kitchen, where we all sat down. The old women unwrapped their parcels and laid the goods on the table: half a dozen Pius XII–blessed gold chains, six tiny coral horns, six mini-crucifixes holding up wee Jesuses, and six nickel-size lockets with bubble glass on both sides. I wondered if I was supposed to bring something to this odd party until Nonna pulled a pair of scissors from her apron pocket. Everyone looked at me or, more precisely, at the hair beneath my veil.

  Nonna stood and whispered, “We just need a few clips, Garney.”

  The nonnas smiled so sweetly, I couldn’t refuse.

  I didn’t breathe as Nonna slid the pillowcase from my head, my hair springing free, and made the first careful snip, the old women gasping. Nonna held out the ringlet, which Nonna Petraglia took and inspected, the red hair coiling even tighter so it fit perfectly into one of the glass lockets. She snapped it closed, kissed it, and passed it to the next nonna, who kissed it as well. Nonna clipped off five more ringlets, and once the lockets were filled, the women formed an assembly line and strung each chain with a horn, a crucifix, and the locket holding the precious relic of my hair. It was an odd entwining of love for God and fear of the malocchio—their Old and New Religions colliding in a way that made complete sense to them, and me. They fastened the chains around one another’s necks and then slipped the necklaces under their tops, where the talismans would rest in the valleys between their breasts. There was one locket left, and I wondered who the lucky recipient would be until Nonna presented it to me. I was thrilled to be in this exclusive club that had me at its center.

  That night when Mom tucked me into bed, she caught sight of the relic. She lifted it close to her face and stared into the glass so intently that I thought she might claim it for herself. I prayed that she wouldn’t, since I had a fantasy of that tiny crucified Jesus unlocking the bubble-glass locket and reaching inside so that He could tickle His nose with my hair while we both drifted off to sleep.

  “Where’d th
is come from?” Mom asked.

  I swallowed hard. “Nonna.”

  Mom’s face was a strange blend of relief and incredulity. “She adores you.”

  I wish I could send you one of the lockets, Archie, but four of them are buried around the necks of their embalmed owners, Nonna fiercely guards the one she still wears, and though I wore mine for much longer than I should have, I eventually tossed it among brambles hundreds of miles from Sweetwater where it’s probably a rusty, disintegrating clump.

  Regardless of the nonnas’ reverence, for two years I was the focus of ambivalent attention. Is she or isn’t she? When I skipped down the hill with my pillowcase flapping I often had a train of girls tittering in my wake. Other kids lined the street to fling pea gravel and yell, “You big fake!”

  One Sunday I slipped out of Mass for a drink. I was bent over the water fountain, right hand pressing the chilled button, left hand holding back my veil, when suddenly, from behind, someone pushed my face into the arc of water. I jerked up, sputtering, and found Eleanor Sweeney, the only girl my age with more residual baby fat than me.

  “You look like a retard.”

  “I—”

  “Take that stupid thing off.” She reached for my veil.

  I held on tight. “Hey!”

  She was still grabbing for the fabric when the sanctuary door opened and out came one of the pretty hill housewives and my father, both giggling. Their smiles collapsed when they saw what Eleanor was up to. She darted back inside the church as Dad looked at me, though his face was beet red. The hill housewife tiptoed to the ladies’ room.

  Dad saw my wet veil. “Are you all right?”

  Before I could answer, he tugged a handkerchief from his pocket, knelt, and blotted the water dribbling down my chin. He even cupped my face in his hand and tipped it this way and that.

  As Dad ushered me back to our pew, I said a prayer of thanksgiving that he had not only intuited that I was in danger but also touched my face. Finally another treasure to put into the box in my chest.

  When I started first grade I no longer needed Nonna as a babysitter. I hated losing my ally, and even worse than that, though I could hoist our garage door up by myself, I could no longer perform any miracles. Even my staunchest apostles stopped believing in me, which made those school years horrible.

  Every morning I feigned a bellyache or fever, but Mom insisted I get up, saying, “You’re beautiful just the way you are!,” a refrain I chanted all the way down the hill and through town until I slid into school on a ribbon of howls from children who couldn’t make sense of my skin. “Sister! What’s wrong with—” No one wanted to sit near me, so I was relegated to the last desk by the door, where I drew cartoon Saint Garnets that might one day grace my holy card, Sister Agnes hollering, “Garnet! Stop humming!”

  During recess I hid in the office of Sister Barnabas, the principal, but one sunny day she shooed me outside. “The sun will do you good.” I was hunkered down by the flagpole digging holes, pumice stones popping out, when the Fabrini twins, Pia and Pippa, came over holding hands. I could hear Dee Dee Evangelista urging, “Go on.”

  The girls, identical except for Pippa’s polio-withered foot, lived two spirals down from us. The impeccable hill acoustics allowed everyone to hear Mr. Fabrini’s tirades. They weren’t any louder than outbursts that erupted in about every fifth house in Sweetwater, but he was one of a handful of fathers and mothers who also pounded their children (or spouses or nonnas) with boot heels or soup ladles.

  “Can you heal me?” Pippa asked.

  Other kids ambled over, boys and girls, some rattling pea gravel in their palms. I trembled at the immensity of this challenge, but I really had no choice. “I’ll try.” I inspected the foot.

  “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.