Chapter 4 Leticia
LETICIA
MORE THAN THIS PROVINCIAL LIFE
“Leticia, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you it is not up to me what your father decides he wants for lunch.” Mom huffs as she tucks her scarf into her jacket.
She begins adjusting the little beret hat on her head and checking her makeup in the hallway mirror.
“All I’m wondering is, did you tell him that I already had lamb marinated and ready to be eaten?” I grip the ties on the back of my apron. Arms crossed painfully hard behind my back, it keeps the anger from boiling over.
Mom turns to look at me. She drops her shoulders slightly and raises her chin. “Leticia, your father wants a calzone. I know for a fact you know how to make one.”
The conversation is over, and she turns to the elevator. Her chauffeur stands in the lift, holding the door open for her.
It’s been four days since what I finally learned was an apparent attempt to kidnap me at the university.
But you’d never know I was a near victim of the Mafia life because my life is as it always is: cooking, cleaning, and ridiculous last-minute requests to appease the patriarchy.
I may get called ‘princess,’ but it’s been made abundantly clear that I need to be able to ‘manage’ a house to impress whoever I’m married off to.
But since Mom manages our house, I’ve been relegated to the menial tasks with the ‘learn by doing’ method.
“Yes, Mamma.” I drop my arms, bringing them in front of me as I spin to go.
One time, she saw the angry marks I’d made on my skin before it had lightened, and she scolded me for making myself ‘look ugly like that.’ Now, I do better to hide them and pray for patience when dealing with her and Dad.
My phone is right where I left it in the kitchen, but now it’s blinking. I tap the screen, and the notification shows a preview of the message.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
Hey, it’s Toni. Are you still alive?
My mouth goes dry, and I look away from the screen only to make sure I grab my drinking-water cup and not my dough-water cup from where I’d been letting the filtered water come to room temperature.
My thirst is quenched by the time the next message arrives. It’s an image, and the warning on my phone pops up — ‘Do you know this person’ and ‘Possible sensitive content’ — but I click through it anyway.
Please be her, please be her.
The photo is of a hand creating a half-heart shape. The nails, manicured but short, a small speckling of flour. I’d know that hand anywhere.
I take a picture of my opposite hand so that they’ll kinda sorta match up in the texting feed to make the heart image.
Leticia:
OH MY GAWD. YOU’RE STILL ALIVE?!
I know I’m being melodramatic with that one, so I follow it up with something a bit less dramatic but still conveying my heart.
Leticia:
I miss you so much. Ugh. It’s been so weird without hearing from you.
Tell me what you can without getting killed.
I love you so much.
I instantly save her number into my phone and add it to the favorites. I should have known she’d get a new number. I feel silly now for sending all those texts that probably went nowhere. There have been days of random jabberings that are out there in the ether for someone else to come across.
Sadly, I can’t stand and stare at my phone until I get a little more work underway. I have a whole calzone to just ‘whip up’ for Dad’s lunch, because of course I do. But I leave the screen up where I can see everything.
Toni:
It’s weirdly nice. Don’t get me wrong, it’s only been a little bit, but I’m not sure this was the worst decision I’ve ever made.
Leticia:
That’s great! I miss you so much. It’s been so weird not having anyone to talk to. Sarena is moving on with her life and now you’re . . . well I will SPARE you some of the words Dad has called you. My finals are soon.
Now Mom isn’t pleased with the housekeeping staff. ALLEGEDLY they have something to do with the security system acting funny? Now she’s breathing down my neck all the time.
It’s like I’m being punished. Cleaning AND cooking all the meals. Luckily next semester my classes are heavier so she will HAVE to accept hired help.
Toni:
Leave it to Francesca. I’m so sorry. I wish I was there to help you.
Tears well up in my eyes. Antonella wasn’t home long. She was in New York, getting her master’s degree and teaching before coming back this year to teach here in Chicago.
I shouldn’t be this emotional. If Dad were to see me crying, he’d list it as another reason he’s done with me. Anything is possible ammunition for ‘it’s time you have a husband’ and ‘it’s not proper for girls your age to be unwed’ and all that misogynistic bullshit.
The walls are closing in on me. My college graduation date looms in the near future, and an arranged marriage will be quick to follow.
Toni’s message gives me hope though. Maybe being married off to whoever Dad picks won’t be so bad after all.
It surely can’t get much worse than the work I’ve been doing since I graduated from high school.
Getting my bachelor’s degree was a huge compromise to his plan.
So, the last five years, I’ve been dragging out progress on my degree, ‘learning’ to manage Mom and Dad’s entire house, and cooking practically every meal everyone eats.
Maybe I’ll get lucky, and it’ll be a charming prince instead of some beast of a crime boss. I snort at my own joke and flour my hands so I can get back to work.
With the small bit of relief that my cousin is safe in her new life, I breathe a little easier and go back to rolling dough.
My phone beeps.
Toni:
Could you dehydrate some starter for me? Buns from scratch for the rest of my life with instant yeast will be the death of me.
I giggle and go to the refrigerator where the family starter has been chilling in her antique glass jar. Something told me when I woke up this morning not to feed the sourdough starter, and here it is. Toni needs me to get her some.
“Okay, Nona Agnesia, it’s time to make you a new daughter for a new home,” I tell the little glass jar as I set it out in the warmth of the kitchen.
I’ll still finish making Dad’s lunch first, but giving the starter some fresh air and warmth before I feed and divide her feels better than keeping her in the cold fridge.
In the family for forever, everyone calls the starter Nona Agnesia. Even back in Italy, everyone refers to the starter as Nona. As the grandmother of the family, she’s been told all the kitchen secrets. She’s heard everything before, and I think it’s why she’s so spirited.
Mom doesn’t believe in all the ‘nonsense’ I do. Like how Nona knows when the family is upset and rises more quickly as if she wants us to make more bread.
I made the mistake of telling Mom about Nona Agnesia and how she works. It got me one of those looks that only mothers do so well. She calls the things I say like that ‘witchcraft,’ and has made me go to extra catechism classes in the past for all the ‘blasphemy’ I bring around her.
She can say what she wants, but I can tell if she’s been banging around in the kitchen. Everything feels more hostile. Nona Agnesia knows, too, and doesn’t bubble as pretty. Heck, I would go so far as to say the produce tastes more bitter and less sweet because of her rage.
Leticia:
Nona has started making a daughter for you.
So, in OTHER news. There was another attempted kidnapping. I swear, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Berto doesn’t come out with it and say it. He and Dad have used the same code for it since the one time they took me ice skating at the winter carnival.
Toni:
You’re kidding me. The least they should be doing is telling you so that you know what to be on the lookout for.
Leticia:
Instead I get lectures about how I must stay vigilant and the two of them talking in code about dragons coming to take the princess.
I’m twenty-three not twelve.
No, you know what, not even cousin Martina would fall for that bullshit. I’m twenty-three not eight.
Toni sympathizes with me, but it’s no longer her place to try to talk sense into Berto and Dad, so I don’t expect her to offer.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m in the middle of talking with Toni through text about Violetta and Nicolas and cousin Sarena’s engagement plans, when the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
The feeling of being watched creeps in, but it’s not the malicious kind.
Not the kind of being watched that makes you want to hide under the covers or put your back up to the wall so no one can sneak up on you.
We weren’t supposed to know about the cameras in the house. But when it becomes your responsibility to clean, you’re not doing a very good job if you don’t notice things like cameras.
When I brought them to Dad’s attention, thinking they were from federal agents or our enemies, he laughed in my face and told me to ‘stop being so silly’ and not to worry my ‘pretty little head about men’s work.’
It’s not my fault that my ‘pretty little head’ told me to look up the model of the security system. I found out it came from this little subsidiary, which I then found to be owned by the Cavanagh technology corporation, Clark Enterprises.
Since no one wanted me, a woman, to talk about the cameras, I didn’t think it was worth arguing over. And I let the information I discovered about the company go. Maybe it’s Valor showing Toni that they’ve been keeping tabs on us and still plan to.
Dad was so desperate to win the war with the Cavanaghs, and maybe it’s because he knew they were already so close to victory ahead of him.
The truce goes both ways. We’re supposed to play nice with the Cavanaghs, and they’re supposed to play nice with us. There really isn’t a reason Toni and I can’t hang out together anymore. I’ll have to make it happen myself.