The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany(17)

My smile fades. I feel like I’ve stepped into a sinkhole and it’s too late to pull myself out. As second daughters, Lucy and I share an unspoken bond. And now that we’re both in our twenties, we’ve grown even closer. But I can think of no more unlikely travel companions than Lucy and me.

“I—I didn’t know she was coming with us.”

“She doesn’t know, either. Shall we call her now? You can put her on speaker. Ask her if she’d like to have a three-way.”

I can only imagine my cousin’s colorful response to that proposition. “Uh, no,” I say. “Lucy is not someone you put on speakerphone.”

She claps her hands. “I like her already!”

“Aunt Poppy, Lucy’s got a new job. And she just started seeing someone. I guarantee she won’t leave now.”

Poppy scowls. “She’s afraid she might lose this new boyfriend if she’s away from him?”

“Exactly.”

“How positively dreadful, allowing someone such power.”

“Lucy’s a second daughter,” I remind her. “Like us.”

She gives me a sidelong glance. “You actually believe the myth.”

“Me? I already told you, no. Absolutely not.”

She stares at me. My heart stammers and I return to that day in Sister Regina’s classroom, when my seven-year-old mind slowly digested the fact that Fontana second-born daughters once shared a strange coincidence—past tense. It would be another three years before Nonna Rosa marched into the room I shared with Daria and announced that the Fontana second-born daughters are cursed—present tense. On the very day she handed me my first training bra, she told us the legend of Filomena and Maria. Who was I, a girl of ten with mosquito-bite breasts, to argue with a centuries-old curse?

But Daria, who was twelve at the time and my biggest cheerleader, burst out laughing the minute Nonna left the room. “That’s a load of bull crap, Emmie. Don’t believe a word of it. You are not cursed. I swear to God.” She snatched the garment from my hand. “You might have to accept this old hand-me-down,” she said, stuffing her frayed and graying tee-bra into my drawer. “But you must never accept Nonna’s ridiculous story.”

That day—and, if I’m being perfectly honest, as recently as a dozen years ago—I believed my sister. What girl doesn’t expect a conventional life with a husband and kids? But as I’ve grown older, I realize Filomena and the second daughters before me have given me a gift. I have a pass, a perfectly valid excuse, to turn my back on the wretched dating scene. Though I don’t for a minute believe in that ridiculous curse, I am grateful nonetheless.

I smile at my aunt. “Of course I don’t believe in the curse. It’s just an old wives’ tale, an old-world myth. But Lucy does believe. And she’s determined to break it.”

“Oh, for Goddess’s sake! You tell Luciana if she comes to Italy, we’ll put that ridiculous Fontana second-daughter myth to bed once and for all.”

I rub the back of my neck. “You can’t promise that. Lucy takes the curse very seriously. You’d be setting her up for disappointment.”

“Oh, but I can. Come with me to Italy, and you and Luciana will return freed from the curse. I swear on my life.”

The hairs on my arms rise. “That’s im—”

“It’s possible,” she says, finishing my sentence.





Chapter 10




Emilia

When I described the supposed Fontana Second-Daughter Curse to Matt a decade ago, I compared it to a baseball team with a losing streak. The fans have no idea when, or even if, the losing streak will end. But the faithful crowd watches with wonder.

It’s the same thing with the curse. Some in the Fontana family battle it head-on, like my aunt Carol. Others seem to accept it, like Nonna. Some, like me, swear the curse is an odd coincidence. But one common thread exists in our family’s patchwork of personalities: everyone—from Nonna to my sister to Aunt Carol—finds the curse curious. Every generation wonders if theirs will be the one to finally see a second daughter marry. And if so, which second daughter will it be? And there have been some near misses, like a distant cousin of Nonna’s who developed smallpox three days before her wedding. Or Livia, the unfortunate second daughter whose betrothed turned out to be a married preacher with six children. Now it’s up to my generation to break the curse. So far, Lucy is the crowd favorite.

The evening sun casts shadows over Uncle Dolphie’s barbershop. I go around to the back and climb the familiar porch steps. Even though I visit my uncle’s shop every afternoon, it’s been three weeks since I’ve been to the adjoining apartment where his son, my uncle Vinnie, lives with his family. I knock on the metal screen door, hoping whoever’s in there can hear me over the Ed Sheeran ballad coming from inside.

“Lucy?” I call through the open screen. “Aunt Carol? Carmella?”

I’m about to knock again when Lucy rounds the corner, adjusting her bra strap. Her long hair, a different color each time I see her, is platinum blond tonight, and she’s wearing a half smile that can only be described as sultry. She sees me and her face falls.

“Emmie? What are you doing here?” She cranes her neck to look down the street. “Carmella’s not here. My mom’s out making deliveries. Come back tomorrow.”