by J. D. Griffo
“My father was demanding and expected perfection from all of us, including my mother,” Natalie said. “Everyone seemed fully capable of ignoring him except me. I didn’t want to look at him, but the harder I tried, the harder it was to look away. The main thing I remember from my childhood is being constantly afraid.”
“Poverino,” Alberta said. “That’s no way to grow up.”
“What other way is there when you’re constantly afraid of disappointing your father?” Natalie asked. “I was afraid of saying the wrong word, doing the wrong thing, making a wrong move. He would always say, ‘If you can’t be perfect, it’s better to be nothing.’ I knew I would never be perfect, especially not in his eyes, so I chose to be nothing.”
“That’s no way to live,” Helen said.
“Not trying was better than failing, at least that’s how I felt,” Natalie said. “Everyone else around me knew precisely what they wanted to do with their lives. They were focused, they were driven, they eventually succeeded. Me, I’ve never found my footing.”
“You may not believe this, but I felt the same way for a very long time,” Alberta said. “I had given up trying to make my life any different than what it was.”
“How did you change things around?” Natalie asked.
“I started to believe that I could change,” Alberta replied. “Granted, the universe gave me a push. I inherited this house, I moved to a new town, met new people, but change wouldn’t have come if I didn’t believe it was possible.”
“Be careful what you say, Mrs. Scaglione,” Natalie said. “Words like that could give a girl hope.”
Alberta felt like she was looking at a younger version of herself. This girl that she hardly knew, the one Rudy had warned her about, was as frightened and broken as Alberta had once been. “Hope is the most beautiful gift in the world.”
“Don’t ever give up trying,” Helen said. “Everyone makes mistakes. You can have a bright future ahead of you if you want it.”
Natalie looked at the wall again and saw Sergio’s high school graduation photo. It made her laugh out loud.
“That’s what Sergio keeps talking about, our future,” Natalie said. “Up until this moment I didn’t think we could have a future together. I know that he’s destined to have . . . all of this, but me . . . I never imagined something as good and as permanent as what your family has could ever be something that I could call my own.”
Alberta and Helen didn’t have to speak to know what they were each feeling. They weren’t ignorant, they knew there were many people who moved through the world alone without the support of a family, whether that family was bound to them by blood or by choice. Hearing Natalie’s words, and the resignation in her voice, was staggering. Alberta knew she had to throw Natalie an anchor.
“He’s a good boy, my grandson,” Alberta said.
“He really is a sweetheart,” Natalie said. “I just don’t want to screw up his life like I’ve screwed up mine.”
During the pause in the conversation Lola decided it was a good time to flip over onto her feet and jump from Natalie’s lap to the carpet. In doing so she bumped into the mug Natalie was holding, making its contents spill all over her cardigan sweater.
“I’m so sorry,” Natalie cried.
“Lola! You’re a bad girl,” Alberta yelled.
“I hope I didn’t get any on your couch,” Natalie said.
“Don’t worry about the couch,” Alberta replied. “Let me help you take off this sweater before you burn your arm.”
When Alberta pulled Natalie’s sweater off she saw that Natalie hadn’t been burned, but she had been hurt. She had a black-and-blue mark on her biceps that almost wrapped around her entire arm. Alberta looked at Helen and they both saw fear in each other’s eyes.
“Who did this to you?” Alberta asked.
“It’s nothing, really, Sergio was upset and . . .” Natalie replied.
“Sergio!” Alberta cried.
Out of the corner of her eye, Alberta saw Helen make the sign of the cross for both of them.
“My grandson did this to you?”
“He didn’t mean it,” Natalie said. “It was an accident.”
All three women in the room knew that the bruise on Natalie’s arm was not the result of an accident. But all three women in the room wished to God that it was.
“Promise me, Mrs. Scaglione, you won’t say a word about this,” Natalie begged. “It’ll only get Sergio into trouble.”
It didn’t matter if she kept silent or shouted it throughout the town with a megaphone, Alberta knew her grandson was already in serious trouble.
CHAPTER 14
Venite tutti voi fedeli.
The most wonderful day of the year had finally arrived. It was time for the Mistletoe Ball. It was the event that filled the entire town with holiday spirit. Alberta and Helen would have been as excited as everyone else if they could only forget what they had learned last night.
The morning sun filled the kitchen, brightening the space, and Alberta let the light fall on her face. She greeted the sunlight as she did every morning, by silently reciting the Hail Mary. This morning she added an Our Father and a Glory Be. When she was finished she looked at Helen, who was sitting on the other side of the kitchen table, her eyes closed, her lips moving quickly. Alberta was sure Helen was praying with the same intention—to save Sergio’s soul.
Save him from what exactly? Thus far the only thing he was truly guilty of was leaving home without permission to follow Natalie to New York and not being in communication with his parents. Disrespectful and inconsiderate, but hardly criminal. If he did, in fact, cause Natalie’s injury, there could be extenuating circumstances. They didn’t feel it was likely, but they had learned many times before not to jump to conclusions.
As evasive as Natalie was acting, they couldn’t pin a crime on her either. According to her version of the story, she’d tried to persuade Sergio not to follow her or even remain her boyfriend, but he didn’t listen. She was also involved in a business venture that had gone south but had been cooperating with the authorities. So far, so good. Then why did Alberta and Helen feel worse than if they had stumbled upon a triple homicide? Because the cliché was right, this time it was personal.
“If this is true, Berta, Sergio is going to need counseling,” Helen said. “It can’t be ignored or swept under the rug, he has to own his anger and control it.”
“I know, but for the life of me, I can’t wrap my head around the fact that my grandson could’ve hurt a woman like that,” Alberta said. “A woman he supposedly loves.”
“You think domestic abuse takes place among strangers?” Helen asked. “We can’t make up excuses for Sergio. I’ve seen this type of thing play out too many times before, we have to break the cycle before it breaks that boy.”
“You constantly amaze me, Helen,” Alberta said. “Everyone thinks a nun does nothing but sit around and pray while life passes them by. The things you’ve done to help people, the teaching, the counseling, the prayer work, you’ve done more in your lifetime than most of us could do in two.”
“We all have our purpose, Berta,” Helen said. “Yours is to be the matriarch of this family, mine is to boss everybody around.”
The chief of police’s purpose was to ruin their morning even further.
“She lied to us?” Alberta asked.
Vinny sat at the table, a fresh cup of coffee in front of him, Lola rubbing against his leg, and nodded. “Straight to your face. I spoke with several members of the FBI, not to mention staff at the governor’s offices in both New Jersey and New York, and there is no investigation involving Natalie Vespa. She made the whole thing up.”
“Why would she do such a thing?” Alberta asked.
“The main reason people lie is to cover up the really bad stuff they’ve done,” Vinny said.
“Now we just have to figure out what really bad stuff Natalie has done,” Helen said.
“And possibly Sergio too,�
�� Vinny added.
Alberta took a sip of coffee and wondered if she should share what they suspected about Sergio’s behavior. She knew that in such matters Helen always followed her lead, so she wasn’t worried that she would blurt out that Sergio may have hit Natalie. She also knew that the Ferraras and Vinny had entered into a pact not to hide information from one another while they were working on a case, but they weren’t working on the case, so Alberta could remain silent about her suspicions and it couldn’t be considered concealing information. She was simply keeping a family matter private. For now.
“I know it will be hard to accept, but Sergio might be more involved in whatever Natalie’s involved in than he’s admitted,” Vinny said. “He might not be such an innocent kid after all.”
Alberta sighed and nodded her head. “We understand and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I think we should wake up Sleeping Beauty and find out if we’ve been harboring a criminal.”
They went upstairs and stood outside the guest room. After a slight hesitation, Alberta knocked on the door. She waited a moment and then knocked again. When there was no response a second time Alberta looked at her watch.
“It’s after nine o’clock,” she said. “It isn’t that early in the morning.”
“Natalie!” Helen shouted. “Come out here. We need to talk to you.”
This time the silence caused alarm in all three of them and they knew when they opened the door they would find no one inside. They were right.
“She must’ve left at the crack of dawn,” Helen said. “We both got up around seven.”
The room looked like no one had been there for months. The bed that Alberta had turned down last night had been remade so perfectly an Army vet would be proud, the pile of towels on the armchair in the corner of the room meant for Natalie’s morning shower remained folded, and the small wastebasket next to the end table was empty. The only thing that gave any indication someone had been in the room was the note on the pillow. The paper was folded in half and Alberta’s name was written on it. The letters large and circular, as if they were written by a teenage girl.
“Is it okay if I read it, Vinny?” Alberta asked.
“There’s no mystery about who wrote it,” Vinny said. “Only touch it by the corners in case we need to lift her prints from it.”
Alberta gingerly lifted the note as Vinny instructed and began to read it out loud. She was thankful it was only a few lines.
“ ‘Dear Mrs. Scaglione,’” Alberta began. “ ‘Thank you for your kindness. I’ll remember it wherever I wind up. Please tell Sergio he can do better. Natalie.’”
When she was finished, Alberta sat on the bed and tears welled in her eyes. She was heartbroken because she could hear the sadness and heartache in those few words that Natalie scribbled out before taking her few belongings and leaving in the middle of the night to parts unknown. She felt that the poor girl must’ve been at the end of her rope. Helen had a different take on the turn of events.
“She duped us,” Helen said. “She played us all.”
“Helen, what do you mean?” Alberta asked.
“The whole story about the FBI was a lie and so was the sob story she told us last night,” Helen said.
“What sob story?” Vinny asked.
Helen relayed what Natalie had told them last night, that she lost her mother at a young age and her father led the family with a closed fist instead of an open heart. She presented a living portrait of a lonely girl trying to find her place in the world when, in truth, she was a lying woman who knew exactly what her place in the world was. One step ahead of getting caught.
“I don’t know, Helen,” Alberta said. “I mean, Dio mio, could she really have faked all that emotion last night?”
“Alfie, you know better than most how easily people will lie and conjure up emotions in order to get out of a jam or divert attention,” Vinny said. “I know Christmas magic is in the air, but don’t ever forget that no one can be trusted.”
“Per l’amor di Dio!” Alberta cried. “Yes, I know that. I don’t want to believe it, but I know that.”
“How do we explain this to Sergio?” Helen asked.
An hour later Alberta and Helen still hadn’t figured out a way to tell Sergio that Natalie had run off without knowing it would break his heart. Before he left, Vinny promised not to share the info, and the only solution they had was not to tell him until after the Ball.
“Don’t you think Sergio is going to expect to talk to Natalie at some point today?” Helen said. “Even if she isn’t going to the Ball, he’s going to want to see her and show off his tux.”
“Or convince her to change her mind and be his date,” Alberta said.
“We could say that Natalie’s sick and is taking a nap,” Helen suggested.
“Or use the burner phone I bought to send Sergio a text saying it’s from Natalie, telling him she has the stomach flu and needs to stay away because she’s contagious.”
“As Father Sal is fond of saying,” Helen said, “una piccola bugia bianca fa male solo un po.”
“This little white lie might hurt Sergio a lot,” Alberta said.
“I think it’s a chance we have to take if we’re going to salvage this night,” Helen said. “Otherwise, you might as well replace all the mistletoe with poison ivy.”
When Lisa Marie and Tommy burst into Alberta’s kitchen a few minutes later it felt like that had just happened. Lisa Marie was frantically waving a note and Tommy looked like he wanted to punch the wall. She slammed the note on the kitchen table in front of Alberta, and for the second time that morning she read aloud someone’s handwritten words.
“ ‘Don’t be angry, but I can’t stay here any longer,’” Alberta recited. “ ‘Natalie needs me and I have to be with her. I’ll call you in a day or so. Love, Sergio.’”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Helen said.
“Didn’t you hear the note, Aunt Helen?” Lisa Marie asked. “Once again Sergio up and left because of that . . . sciattona!”
“You know about three words in Italian and that’s one of them?” Alberta asked.
“What does it mean?” Tommy asked.
“Remember how much your wife hated Natalie before?” Helen asked. “Double it.”
“What Helen means is that it doesn’t make any sense that Sergio left to be with Natalie,” Alberta said. “Because Natalie left us a note saying she was leaving town without Sergio.”
“She dumped my son?” Lisa Marie asked.
“Isn’t that what you wanted from the beginning?” Helen asked.
“Well, yes, but I never thought she’d actually do it,” Lisa Marie said.
“Based on Sergio’s note, I’m not sure if she actually did,” Alberta said. “Maybe she lied to us again to make us think she left Sergio?”
“Either Natalie’s lying or my son is,” Tommy said. “Either way, I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I, Tommy,” Alberta said. “But, unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“What do you mean, there’s nothing we can do about it?” Lisa Marie said. “This is exactly what you do. You solve mysteries.”
“Yes, Leese, we do,” Alberta said. “But for now, we’re going to let the police handle this and we will begin our search tomorrow. Because if you haven’t forgotten, we have a party to get ready for.”
* * *
The Tranquility Manor had been the home of many festive occasions since it opened its doors in 1972. Countless wedding celebrations, St. Winifred’s Academy’s junior and senior proms, the annual conference of the Italian American Business Leaders of New Jersey, and a very successful fundraiser for the not-so-successful Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro presidential campaign run of 1984 all took place at the one-hundred-square foot venue.
The banquet hall was built in the Greek architectural style. A strong rectangular foundation with a white façade and six Doric columns created a semicircle at the entrance, an
d a small dome topped the entranceway that served a dual purpose as a bell tower. Inside, the hall was divided into five rooms of various sizes named after precious stones. The Sapphire and Emerald rooms were the smallest and were used for Venetian hours and small business luncheons, the Ruby and Pearl rooms were used for proms, conferences, and reunions, and the largest of them, the Diamond room, was ideal for large weddings, the occasional bar mitzvah, and spectacular events like the Mistletoe Ball.
A festive event needed a festive locale, and the Diamond room was the perfect match. The floors were pink marble, red velvet wallpaper with a delicate floral inlay design lined the walls, on top of each table was a Swarovski vase filled with flowers that represented the event’s theme, and four Empire-style crystal chandeliers hung from the four corners of the room with one larger, crystal Rain chandelier hanging from the center. It was New Jersey opulence at its best. Which is exactly what the Mistletoe Ball deserved.
Once the rest of Tranquility heard about the Ball’s big comeback, enthusiasm had spread throughout the town like pixie dust. Even the Scroogiest adults were transformed into wide-eyed children looking up at the night sky in hopes of seeing the glimpse of a rotund man in a red suit driving a sleigh led by flying reindeer. Imaginations started to run wild.
Every Tranquilitarian wanted to be involved. The Herald started running a series of teaser articles that would culminate in Jinx’s multipage homage to the histories of the Ball and St. Clare’s, Vitalano’s Bakery added the Mistletoe cookie to its menu, which was a cluster of red berries in the center of a pistachio cookie shaped like a leaf, and the Tranquility Library created a short video using archival footage to which Sloan added commentary as narrator that ran on a loop in their rotunda to serve as visual documentation of the Ball’s history. Christmas had truly come early to this part of New Jersey.
The town leaders imagined that the Mistletoe Ball would serve the same purpose it always had, which was to act as the official kickoff to the holiday season. With that in mind, they worked with the mayor, the Department of Public Works, and Vinny as chief of police to turn Tranquility Park into a Winter Wonderland.