Lost in the Spanish Quarter by Heddi Goodrich

Author:Heddi Goodrich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

Christmas was only days away when the phone rang. Pietro picked up and asked in a monotone, “Have you eaten?”

It wasn’t a real question but a greeting with a deep stratification of meanings, a custom used perhaps throughout Irpinia or maybe just within the walls of the Iannace household. For me, those first words to his mother were my cue to leave the room. I fiddled in the kitchen until I thought enough time had elapsed before going back to the living room. Pietro had already put down the receiver but was still sitting there on the couch with his mouth in an unfamiliar contortion.

“Something wrong?”

He combed the floor with his eyes as if he hoped to spot a gold nugget. In the end he said, “It’s about Christmas.”

“What about it?”

“She wants it to be, you know, just a family deal.”

“You mean I’m not invited.”

“I’m sorry. I assumed it would be OK.”

I sank into the couch beside him. The vinyl screeched, my stomach churned. It wasn’t simply the effect of the bad news: it was the inexplicable feeling that something terrible was about to happen, in the same way that I knew that a cold sore was about to erupt on my lower lip.

“And what did you say?”

“What was I supposed to say? I didn’t say anything. But, baby, this holiday is just one big act. A bunch of best wishes here, best wishes there, visiting people you see only once a year because in real life you don’t have a thing in common with them. Zilch. And then, not because they genuinely like you but only because they feel obligated to, they offer you something to drink, something to eat—and if you refuse, woe to you and your entire family. All this deep-fried, sickeningly sweet stuff. At Christmas they stuff themselves like it’s postwar famine, I swear. They eat like if they don’t gobble it down fast enough the wolves are going to come down from the mountains and snatch it straight out of their mouths. Believe me, I would much rather stay here with you.”

For a moment that flood of resentment toward his hometown left me speechless. Then I said, “If it’s going to be so awful, then don’t go.”

“If I don’t go,” Pietro answered gravely, “we’re both in deep shit. My mother could actually decide to disown me. So even if she pisses me off, I bite my tongue for the sake of peace and quiet. I have to appease her for a little while longer.”

I went quiet, stunned by the amount of anger he was now spewing at his mother. Was he simply venting or was he trying to get me to intervene in some way? But on such short notice, just three days before Christmas Eve, I struggled to find the oomph for a rebellion. I already had a more intimate battle on my hands, a battle against a loathsome self-pity I’d known since I was a little girl. A negative trait of Cancerians, I

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