Isabella for Real Page 10

  “I am! Right after the election for sixth grade class president, because Jenna Colson is my best friends’ mortal enemy and they are counting on me to beat her—and I think I have a good chance, too, because everyone loved the eggplant.”

  “Eggplant?” Bobby says, looking more confused than Auntie Ella.

  “The thing is,” Jeffrey says, “Isabella needs a little more time—which is where you come in, because you’re the only guy who can give it to her, Bob.”

  “I am, am I?”

  “Once her friends see, with your help, of course, that Isabella is an actress making a film in New Jersey with her brother, you can take that information off the site. Just as if it was never there! No harm. No foul. What do you say, Bob? I mean, Mr. Kostopoulos? Sir. Will you help Isabella out here so her friends won’t hate her?”

  “And I won’t end up swallowing Palmolive?”

  “Will you?”

  “Will you—can you—won’t you? Please?”

  Bobby smiles his wide, gap-toothed smile and chuckles. “Wow. That is some story.”

  “You’re telling me,” says Frankie.

  “Then you’ll help us?” asks Jeffrey.

  Bobby looks at me and grins. “No.”

  2:59 p.m.

  Scene 35/TAKE 1

  “No?” Jeffrey says in a pitiful voice.

  “But, Bobby, you have to! You’re my only hope!”

  Bobby heaves a long, heavy sigh. “Would love to help you. But, I have scruples. I’m a professional, after all. I can’t destroy the sanctity of the site and damage my credibility. Not to mention the responsibility I have to the Contessa and all her devoted fans around the world. I cannot put out information that will float forever in cyberspace when I know in my heart those words are fraudulent and not real.”

  “But the whole thing isn’t real!” I cry. “Everything on that site is made up!”

  Bobby puts his hands on his more than ample hips. “Excuse me, little girl? What words have just emanated from your lips? Did I hear not real? Made up? Because if that’s what I think I heard—”

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa!” Frankie shoves the lollipop stick into his hoodie pocket. “Let’s not get excited,” he says, putting his hands up. “Everyone chill. Cool the jets.” He pokes me with his elbow and whispers in my ear, “Let me talk to him.”

  Frankie stands up from the couch and moves around the room, his arms gesturing wide. “Bob, picture the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade . . .”

  “What?” Jeffrey and I both say.

  “The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade,” he says again. “Are you picturing it, Bob? The bands with all those trombones? Clowns? Floats? Big balloons coming down Broadway . . . Superman. Good ol’ Snoopy. The Pillsbury Doughboy.”

  Bobby smiles. “Love that Doughboy.”

  “Well, here’s the thing, Bob. That balloon is ready to pop. The question is, do we want the Doughboy to burst and leave a mess of himself all over Thirty-Fourth Street, or deflate gradually? Drifting to the ground, letting out air little by little so nobody gets hurt. What do you think?”

  Bobby rubs the stubble on his unshaved chin again, and as he thinks, deep lines appear on his broad forehead. “I see where you’re going with this, kid.”

  Jeffrey and I look at each other. “He does?” We look at Bobby. “You do?”

  Bobby crosses one leg over the other and pulls up his white sweat socks. “In other words, the Doughboy is a metaphor for the mess in which Isabella finds herself now engulfed. And I, moi, the webmaster of all that is the Contessa, control the amount of ‘air’ in which the truth is to be released. Am I correct in this assumption?”

  Frankie claps his hands. “There you go!”

  Jeffrey leans closer to me and whispers, “I’m impressed. I didn’t think Frankie knew metaphors.”

  “I didn’t think he knew the word assumption,” I whisper back. (I don’t think I know the word assumption.)

  “So, Bob,” continues Frankie, taking a seat next to him on the far side of the sofa. “Would you help Isabella keep her friends? I mean, what’s more important than having friends?”

  Bobby sighs. His head goes up and down. And up and down. Down and up.

  “No.”

  “No?” I cry. “But you have to! You just have to!”

  Frankie looks at me with eyes widening and twists his hand to his lips, as if he is silently turning a key. “Bob, I see you want to help. I see you are . . . struggling. Conflicted. You’re a reasonable guy. How can we make this happen for the good of all? What can we do for you to help change your mind?”

  Bobby smiles at me and grabs Frankie around the neck. “Underrated. Didn’t I tell you? This kid here is underrated! Totally underrated.”

  I sigh. “So, uh, what do you want, Bob? An autographed photo of the Contessa? Personally addressed to you? How’s that?”

  Bobby frowns and shakes his head. “A photograph? That’s it? I’ve got plenty of those right here!”

  Frankie stares at me and narrows his eyes. “Isabella, let us not insult a supreme webmaster with small-time stuff. The man needs something special. Perhaps arrangements can be made for a phone call from the Contessa to one of her most devoted fans.”

  “The most devoted,” Bobby says. “Go on, kid. I like what I’m hearing. Keep talking.”

  “Or, say, a personal one-on-one meeting with the Contessa.”

  Bobby grins. “Getting warmer.”

  “Dinner? Dinner with the Contessa?”

  Bobby rubs his chin.

  “How about it, Bob?” asks Frankie.

  “Mmmmm. I don’t know . . .”

  “With the Contessa’s favorite fig and pear tart for dessert!” I blurt out. “Homemade crostata di fichi e pere!”

  Bobby claps his hands. “Deal!”

  3:10 p.m.

  Scene 36/TAKE 1

  “Thank you so much, Bobby!” I say as he walks us to the door.

  “Thank my boy Frankie here,” he says, giving him another bear hug. “The kid is totally underrated.”

  Frankie looks at me. “Hear that, Isabella?”

  So maybe his eyelashes are sort of long.

  Just don’t get me started about that dimple on his chin.

  3:10:25 p.m.

  Scene 37/TAKE 1

  Home

  The three of us take the long way around the block back to my house. Jeffrey and Frankie walk me around the sticky bushes and garage toward my back door.

  “Now remember,” says Jeffrey as we get to the back porch, “as soon as Bobby calls me and says the info is up and running, I’ll text Oakleigh. When I hear from her, you’ll hear from me. Everything is going to be fine.”

  I sigh. “Sounds good. You’re the best, Jeffrey. Thanks for helping.”

  “Yeah, I think we did it.”

  Frankie grins. “We did, didn’t we?”

  Jeffrey puts his arm around Frankie. “Let’s go, Domenico. See you later, Isabella,” says Jeffrey as he turns.

  “Yeah, see you later,” says Frankie, smiling over his shoulder.

  I roll my eyes and head for the back door.

  3:12 p.m.

  Scene 38/TAKE 1

  I open the door and step inside the kitchen.

  I tap the front burner of the Norge for good luck and smile as I head downstairs for something to drink. An orange Gatorade would hit the spot. All that negotiating with Bobby made me thirsty. Hungry, too. I skip down the steps thinking even one of Aunt Rosalie’s bricks might not taste too bad right now. I reach the bottom and turn toward the furnace.

  I never make it to the refrigerator. Or that Gatorade.

  3:12:06 p.m.

  Scene 38/TAKE 2

  My family is lined up liked bowling pins over at Bloomfield Lanes, with Vincent the headpin.

  “Mind telling us here where you’ve been?” he says, arms folded. “I hope you know you ruined the interview with Channel Four.”

  “Dahling! What were you thinking?” gasps Aunt KiKi as Gran
dma begins sniffling and reaches for a box of tissues.

  Aunt Minnie shakes a finger. “Rosalie is the cook all of a sudden?”

  Nonni’s hands are on her hips. “I can’t believe you stole my eggplant!”

  “Forget the eggplant!” says Ella. “Look at her! She lost my sweater!”

  From this point on it’s a jumble of voices talking all at the same time: “you said,” “she said,” “I can’t believe you did what you did!” It’s pretty much one of those big you-know-whats that I had a feeling was coming. So many tongues are clicking that the sound rivals cicadas.

  The number ten pin is my mom.

  She’s the one person not saying a word.

  She doesn’t even look angry . . . but her eyes are shiny.

  She looks sad.

  She looks worse than sad.

  “Isabella. . .” she says, in a voice barely above a whisper. “What did you do? . . . And why did you do it?”

  Sunday, 10:30 p.m.

  Scene 39/TAKE 1

  Attic Bedroom

  Glug. Glug. Glug.

  My life is pretty much down the sewer, and way stinkier than any story Poppi Flavio’s cousin ever told. I finally came clean to Mom, Grandma, Grandpop, Nonni, Vincent, Aunt KiKi, Uncle Babe, Aunt Rosalie, and . . . well, you get the picture.

  At least I was spared the Palmolive treatment. (Luckily we are out of Palmolive, and Nonni doesn’t think a cake of Ivory tastes bad enough.)

  I have no idea what Emory, Oakleigh, and Anisha must be thinking right now—I’ll find that out tomorrow. Bobby never got the chance to add anything to the website. I know that from the one call I was allowed to make to Jeffrey before heading to my room for solitary confinement. Don’t know much else, because I’ve been banished here for the rest of my life.

  Well, practically the rest of my life.

  Until I get a reprieve, Mom is calling it “an ongoing open sentence.” (I never thought she could be tougher than Judge Judy.)

  I toss my pillow to the foot of my bed, give it a punch, and lie down facing the wall. I put my hands behind my head and stare at the painting of Great-Great-Grandpoppi’s farm in Pienza . . . I bet that little farmhouse was a villa to him and Great-Great-Grandma Lucia.

  Looks like a villa to me, too.

  Better than any penthouse or castle Contessa Mon­chetti was supposed to have, that’s for sure.

  I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I don’t bother sliding into my slippers. I walk to the door and turn the knob. I’m breaking the rule, but I leave the room and tiptoe downstairs to the first floor. The house is dark except for the light coming from the TV on the jalousie porch.

  10:35 p.m.

  Scene 40/TAKE 1

  The Jalousie Porch

  “Swee’ Pea!” Uncle Babe waves me in from the doorway.

  “Watching anything good?”

  He smiles. “Only getting interference tonight.”

  I sit next to him on the old futon, and his arm slips around my waist as we stare at the snow on the old set. My head finds just the right place against my uncle’s broad chest, between his shoulder and the pocket of his flannel robe. He smells of tangerines and a Hershey bar.

  He kisses the top of my head. “Had one of those days, did you?”

  “Everyone hates me, Uncle Babe.”

  “Naahhhhh. Everyone doesn’t hate you.” He pulls me closer. “It’s just that nobody around here likes you too much right now. But trust me, they don’t hate you.”

  “Are you sure? Nonni is so mad, she burned dinner worse than anything you ever barbecued.”

  Uncle Babe gives a halfway grin. “Everyone might not like you, but remember, they still love you.”

  “They do?”

  He hugs me. “Of course! You are part of them, they are part of you. Never forget that.”

  “Do you mean I’m a storyteller like Nonni, and have Aunt KiKi’s eyebrows and Grandpop’s nose?”

  He chuckles. “Something like that.”

  I look up. “You don’t think I’m going to inherit Nonni’s beehive, do you?”

  Uncle Babe’s eyes smile, and he pats down the knot of hair in the back of my head. For a long while we don’t talk. We just sit quietly on the couch.

  “Uncle Babe?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I think everyone is disappointed in me.”

  He sighs. “It happens. When family loves like this family loves, they want the best for you. And they want you to be the best. Isabella, you can never be the best—not even good—if you pretend to be somebody you’re not.”

  “Is that what you call philosophy, Uncle Babe?”

  He pats my arm. “Sort of.”

  “I only wanted those girls to like me.”

  “You don’t think they can like you for being you? Maybe you can give them a chance.”

  I sigh. “I think it’s too late for that. Who wants a friend who is a fibbing, faking phony? I never thought those fibs I told would turn everything into such a mess. I never meant to hurt anybody’s feelings, Uncle Babe. Honest. Especially”—it’s hard for me to swallow—“Mom’s.”

  Uncle Babe rubs his thumb against my cheek. “What do I always tell you?”

  “Tell me?”

  “You know. What does Popeye say?”

  I sniffle. “‘I yam what I yam’?”

  “And?”

  “‘That’s all what I yam’?”

  He kisses my hair. “You is pretty good. Remember that.”

  10:56 p.m.

  Scene 41/TAKE 1

  On the Stairs (Again)

  I leave Uncle Babe watching the snow fall and walk across the living room to the stairs. Frankie (yes, the cat) is waiting for me on the first step. He meows. I pick him up, and he nuzzles me under my chin as I carry him up to the second floor.

  When we get to the top of the stairs, I don’t turn for the third floor. I take a deep breath and head down the hall . . . to Mom’s room.

  10:56:18 p.m.

  Scene 42/TAKE 1

  Mom’s Bedroom

  My knuckles lightly tap Mom’s door.

  She doesn’t answer.

  I turn the knob, open the door just enough to pass through, and tiptoe into the room, Frankie still in my arms.

  From the streetlight coming through the side window, I see Mom in bed, her back to me, facing the wall.

  I walk across the carpet to the double bed and place Frankie near her feet. He circles twice then sits, tucking his front paws underneath him. I lift the flowered quilt and white sheet, then slip under the covers next to my mother. I put my head on the pillow and feel Mom turn toward me. Beneath the covers, her arm comes around my waist. She pulls me close.

  I whisper into the pillow. “I never wanted a mom who is a contessa. I’m not making that one up, either.”

  She kisses me behind my ear.

  “I think your real eyelashes are longer than Aunt KiKi’s, too. Just saying.”

  Monday, 8:02 a.m.

  Scene 43/TAKE 1

  Still Mom’s Bedroom

  Can a person be asleep when her eyes stay open all night?

  The sun inches across Mom’s bedroom carpet. I roll over and see that Mom is gone. She’s probably in the bathroom getting ready to leave for the hospital and an early shift. I think about telling her and Nonni I have a stomach­ache and can’t go to school, but I know the odds of that old excuse working are not in my favor. They sort of got wise to that one back when I was in second grade.

  Breakfast is putting up a fight as I try to get it down. The corn flakes are limp and soggy waiting around in the bowl of milk for me to eat them.

  Nonni points to the glass on the table.

  Somehow, I manage to drink every drop of orange juice, but it isn’t easy. Especially with Nonni standing right behind me.

  Aunt Rosalie walks into the kitchen and jangles the car keys. It’s the “long linoleum mile” as I make my way out of the kitchen, up the stairs, through the back door, across th
e drive, and into the back seat of the LeSabre. We hit every red light from our house to school, but it feels way longer with Aunt Rosalie giving me the silent treatment.

  But as quiet as it was at home and in the Buick, my reception at school is anything but.

  8:25 a.m.

  Scene 44/TAKE 1

  Fortier Academy

  From the moment Aunt Rosalie drops me off in front of school, it’s obvious most every girl, no matter what grade, has watched the videos or seen my face on TV. Walking through the foyer, I’m greeted with smiles, pats on the shoulder, thumbs pointing up.

  “Hey, Isabella!”

  “Saw those videos!”

  “Cool!”

  “Isabella! Everyone in my family clicked Like on the videos with your family!”

  “You’ve got my vote tomorrow!”

  A cluster of third-graders follow me up the stairs waving scraps of lined notebook paper, wanting my autograph.

  As I head for the sixth grade lockers, Jenna Colson stops me in the hall, holding a bunch of lollipops.

  “Pretty good last-minute move, Antonelli, being on TV and all,” she says with a sly smile. “But the election isn’t today. We’ll see who wins tomorrow.”

  I don’t care about tomorrow.

  I only care about the three girls standing by my locker.

  8:26 a.m.

  Scene 44/TAKE 2

  There’s a whole lot of me saying, Turn around and head for anyplace else in the building. And there are some good places to hide, too. But one very tiny part keeps pushing my legs to the end of the hall until I’m standing only an arm’s length from Emory, Oakleigh, and Anisha.

  I look into their faces. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” they say back.

  I take a deep breath. “Sooooooo . . . guess you know I’m not who you thought I was.” I swallow. “Who I let you think I was.”

  Anisha leans against her locker and fingers the end of her braid. “Pretty much.”