The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany(7)

I pushed up my glasses and peered at the felt-penned branches, where I’d carefully written my ancestors’ names on the leaves. I’d always known Nonna’s aunt Blanca was single. She was the reason my great-grandparents couldn’t come to America. And I knew my nonna’s sister, my great-aunt Poppy, hadn’t married, either—an old maid, Nonna Rosa called her. But tracing the branches with my finger, I found that Nonna’s cousins Apollonia, Silvia, Evangelina, Martina, and Livia were also single . . . and also the second daughters.

My eyes drifted downward, like a falling leaf. And there it was, plain as the white posterboard it was drawn on: my branch of the Fontana family tree.

Beneath my mother, Josephina Fontana Lucchesi Antonelli, and my father, Leonardo Phillip Antonelli, I placed a finger on my sister Daria’s name. I slid it to the right and found my name, Emilia Josephina Fontana Lucchesi Antonelli. The second daughter.





Chapter 5




Emilia

Clutching the box with both hands, I trot down the sidewalk toward Sixty-Seventh Street, my temporary fit of melancholy replaced with excitement now. I imagine Daria and me bustling around her kitchen, chatting as we set out the snacks and drinks for book club. I cross Bay Ridge Avenue, watching my step as I approach the curb, taking care that the box doesn’t shift. The pizza di crema is a masterpiece, if I may say so myself.

Please let Daria like it, I chant silently. Moments later, I realize my mental chant has become, Please let Daria like me.

A horn blares and I lunge onto the sidewalk, my heart racing. Then I spot the shiny black truck with Cusumano Electric splashed on the side door. The vehicle slows and the window lowers. Matteo Cusumano lifts his aviator sunglasses.

“Hey, gorgeous. Need a lift?”

I smile at my dearest friend—one I’ve never not known. Cradling the cake, I lean into his truck. “You sure know how to spoil a girl, showing up when she’s two blocks from her destination.”

“Hey, I’m that kind of guy.” Matt laughs. “Hop in. Let’s grab a beer.”

“Don’t you have electricity to restore? Wires to cross?”

He grins. “Just finished my last job for the day—the exhausting task of changing a lightbulb in Mrs. Fata’s kitchen.”

“Wow. That electrician’s license is really paying off.”

“Smart-ass.”

I climb into the cab of his truck, holding tight to the box as I fasten my seat belt. “You do realize Mrs. Fata is hoping you’ll change more than her lightbulbs, don’t you?”

“Women in their sixties love me,” he says. And it’s probably true. Matteo is lean and lanky, with a beautiful head of curly dark hair, front teeth that overlap slightly, and an infectious laugh that’s been known to tease a smile from Nonna Rosa herself. He elbows me. “It’s those twenty-nine-year-olds I can’t seem to charm.”

I stifle a groan and turn to the window, where a young mother pushes a stroller down the sidewalk. Though Matt is ten months older than I am, he’s always felt like my kid brother. He’s the scrawny boy who walked me to Saint Athanasius on the first day of kindergarten, the one who bloodied Joey Bonofiglio’s nose when he called me “fish lips” in the fifth grade, the brainiac who let me copy his chemistry homework our entire sophomore year, the sweetheart who took me to prom and later accompanied me to Daria’s wedding and every other event that required a date. Matteo Silvano Cusumano is my plus-one, times a hundred. Nobody could hope for a better friend. And that’s exactly how I want to keep it.

“Can you drop me at Daria’s, please?”

“No time for a beer?”

“It’s book club tonight, remember?”

“Right. All the more reason for alcohol.”

I shoot him a look. Matt isn’t a fan of Daria. “A raving bitch,” he once dubbed her, before I called him out on it. Nobody talks about my sister like that.

The truck slows to a stop in front of her house. “Thanks for the ride, MC.”

“What time does this shindig end? I’ll pick you up.”

“It’s okay.” I open the door. “I can walk home.”

“Seriously. It’ll be the highlight of my night.”

His eyes are as tender as a lover’s. I cringe, hating the awkward moments that seem to be creeping into our conversations more and more frequently. Our relationship shifted last May, when Matt broke up with Leah, his girlfriend of eight months. It’s always easier when Matt’s in a relationship. But our friendship reached an unspoken tipping point last month, when we attended his best friend’s wedding. Afterward, when we were walking through the parking lot, still howling over the father-of-the-groom’s attempt to moonwalk, Matt grabbed hold of my hand. Naturally, I let out a crack of laughter, slugged him in the arm, and stuffed my hand into my coat pocket. Matt and I hug. Sometimes I kiss his cheek. We high-five and fist-bump. We don’t hold hands. Ever. But I hurt his feelings and I feel awful, and there’s no way to apologize without bringing up the mortifying event—or worse, having to talk about “us.” So I pretend it didn’t happen.

I step out of the truck. “You’re pathetic, Cusumano. Thanks anyway. Really.”

I wave good-bye and turn up the sidewalk to the 1940s row house Donnie and Daria bought after Donnie’s dad passed. Their plan was that Donnie, who lays brick and claims to know a “shitload” about construction, would fix up the dated interior. Two years later, aside from a coat of paint in the bathroom and new carpet in the girls’ room, the place still looks like a set from I Love Lucy. It’s retro-cool, I tell Daria. A classic.