Courting Trouble

Anne laughed. She and Mel had evidently been rechristened. “You got it.”

“Come on, Vita. Let’s get Anna’s cat some milk,” Mr. DiNunzio shuffled out of the living room, holding Mel. “Come, girls. Anna. Come and get something to eat. Did you eat, Mare?”

“No, not yet. Feed us, Pop. We’ve been here five minutes already.” Mary hugged her mother out of the room. “Whatsa matter, Ma? You stop loving me?”

“Don’ be fresh!” her mother said, with a soft chuckle. She turned and grabbed Anne’s hand, and they passed through a darkened dining room and entered a small, bright kitchen, hot with brewing coffee and steaming tomato sauce. Mrs. DiNunzio made a beeline for the stove and began stirring the sauce with a split, wooden spoon, and Anne came up behind her.

“You need some help, Mrs. DiNunzio?” she asked, catching a whiff of the pot. The richness of cooked tomatoes and garlic made her realize how hungry she was. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten and she’d never had home-cooking like this. The tomato sauce was thickly red, with bumpy meatballs bobbing below the surface and hot sausage curling at the ends, churned up by the gentle stirring of the wooden spoon. Anne tried to guess the recipe but it had to be genetic.

“Sit, sit, Anna!” Mrs. DiNunzio waved her off with a spoon covered with steaming sauce, and Mary grabbed Anne by the arm.

“Don’t even think about helping, Anne. She’ll hit you with the nearest utensil. She’s very territorial, my mother. It’s her kitchen, right, Pop?”

“Right, baby doll. Soon as I do this, I sit down too.” Mr. DiNunzio had gone to a photo-covered refrigerator for a waxed carton of milk, which he poured into a saucer and set down on an ancient linoleum floor in front of Mel. The cat started lapping away. “Cats, my wife trusts me with. Everything else, she feeds. Go, sit, Anna.”

Anne was about to say thank you for the fifty-fifth time, but settled for “I give up,” as Mary sat both of them down at the table, of Formica with gold flecks. A heavy amber-glass fixture was suspended on a gold-electroplated chain over the table, white refaced cabinets ringed the small room, and faded photos of several popes, Frank Sinatra, and a colorized John F. Kennedy, hung on a wall. On a thumbtack was a church calendar with a huge picture of Jesus Christ, his hair brown ringlets against a cerulean-blue background, and his eyes heavenward. Mental note: Start worshiping something other than shoes.

“Anna, Maria. Is ready, the coffee.” Mrs. DiNunzio set the sauce-covered spoon on a saucer, then lowered the gas underneath the pot. She took a dented, stainless-steel coffeepot from the other burner and brought it to the table, where she poured it steaming into Anne’s cup, then Mary’s and her father’s, who was sitting catty- corner.

“Thanks, Mrs. DiNunzio. This looks awesome.” Anne sniffed the aroma curling from her chipped cup and tried to remember if she had ever seen coffee perked on a stove. It seemed like making fire with twigs. Everyone else took his coffee black, but Anne mixed in cream and sugar from the table, then sipped the mixture. It was hot as hell and even better than Starbucks. “Wow! This tastes great!” she said, in amazement.

“Grazie! Drink!” Mrs. DiNunzio went back to the stove, set the coffeepot, and returned to the table, easing into her seat. She didn’t touch her coffee, and her brown eyes had clouded with concern. “So, Anna, the police, they look for this man? He wants to hurt you?”

Mary shot Anne a let-me-handle-this glance. “Yes, Ma, but soon it will be all right. Don’t get all worried,” she said, but Mrs. DiNunzio ignored her, gazing at Anne with an intensity that couldn’t be chalked up to country of origin.

“I see trouble. You have trouble, Anna. Big trouble.” Mrs. DiNunzio leaned over in her chair and reached for Anne’s hand. “Your trouble, you tell me. I help you.”

“Tell you what?” Anne asked, uncertain but touched nevertheless. She’d never felt so cared for, so quickly. It was as if Mrs. DiNunzio had been waiting for her, to help her. But her trouble wasn’t anything that Mrs. DiNunzio could help with, unless she owned a bazooka. “My trouble is this man, Kevin Satorno. The police will get him. They’ll call as soon as they’ve arrested him tonight.”

“No, no, no.” Mrs. DiNunzio clucked, as if Anne had misunderstood. “Not him, he’s a no trouble.”

“Ma,” Mary broke in. “You don’t have to know everything. It’ll just upset you. We’re handling—”

“Shhh, Maria!” Mrs. DiNunzio hushed her daughter with a raised index finger, and even the last trace of a smile vanished. “Cara, you have trouble. Yes, Anna. It hurts your head. It hurts your heart. Yes. This I see. This I know.”

Anne didn’t know what to say, except that, truth to tell, she did have a bad headache. And lately she had begun to think her heart would never be right.

“Argh!” Mary’s forehead dropped theatrically into her hands. “Ma, don’t embarrass me in front of the other kids. I’m trying to make a nice impression here.”

“Mare, this is something you don’t interfere.” Mr. DiNunzio rose suddenly and picked up his coffee cup. “If your mother says Anna’s got ’em, then she’s got ’em. Now let’s get outta here. This is between Anna and your mother. Your mother, she knows. She’ll help Anna.”

I need help? Anne felt vaguely alarmed. The mood changed quickly in the kitchen. Mrs. DiNunzio turned suddenly grave. Mr. DiNunzio was escaping with his coffee, and Mary was on her feet, too. Even Mel stopped drinking milk and dropped to his Alarmo Cat crouch over the saucer.

Anne turned to Mary. “What’s happening, Mary?”

“My mother has superpowers. She’s her own action hero, with X-ray vision. She thinks you need her help and she can help you, so, just go along with it. Let her do what she wants to do.”

“What does she want to do?”

“You’ll see. This is an Italian thing, grasshopper. You must never reveal it to the outside world.” Mary patted her shoulder. “We all took a vow of silence, the entire race, except for Maria Bartiromo, who I still don’t believe is Italian. No Italian girl can understand the stock market. It’s against nature. We’re not built that way.”

What? Anne laughed, mystified. She looked over at Mrs. DiNunzio, who squeezed her hand like a doctor bracing her for bad news. “Mrs. DiNunzio, what—”

“Anna, you got the overlooks. Somebody hate you. He wish evil on you. You have malocchio!”

“Malwhateo?” Anne asked.

“Malocchio! Evil eye!”

Mary was following her father out of the kitchen. “Yes, she’s serious, Anne, and this is South Philly, the land of spells and curses. But don’t worry. My mother knows how to take off the evil eye. The prayer was passed to her on Christmas Eve by her mother, who was also a superhero. Just go with it, and please don’t tell her there’s no such thing as ghosts. She owns a wooden spoon and she will use it.”

“I have the evil eye?” Anne asked, incredulous. I don’t have the evil eye, I have a stalker. “Mrs. DiNunzio—”

“No worry, I take away,” Mrs. DiNunzio said, with another hand squeeze, which was surprisingly firmer, more oncologist than GP. “I make better for you, Anna. This I do for you. Now.”

Were these people nuts? “Mrs. DiNunzio, it’s very nice of you, but there is nothing you can do about this man.” Mental note: Maybe I’ll stay Irish.

But Mrs. DiNunzio had gotten up from the table and was already at the sink, running water from the tap into a clear Pyrex bowl. She turned off the faucet, took a gold tin of Bertoli olive oil from a shelf over the stove, and brought both back to the table, where she set the bowl and olive oil down between them. Then she took her seat, her eyes faraway behind her thick trifocals.

“Mrs. DiNunzio—”

“Shhh!” Mrs. DiNunzio held up a hand, then looked at Anne, her gaze softening. “You have malocchio. This, I know. Vide! Watch!” Mrs. DiNunzio picked up the tin of olive oil and poured three gimlet-hued drops in the bowl of water, one on top of the next. A large drop floated for a moment on the water’s surface, and Mrs. DiNunzio watched it intently. The warm kitchen fell quiet except for the occasional popping of the tomato sauce on the stove. “Wait, Anna.”

“For what? The oil?”

“Si, if you have malocchio, the oil, it goes apart.” Mrs. DiNunzio pointed at the bowl, and the oil split into two drops, edging away from each other. “See? Malocchio!”