Viola in Reel Life

by Adriana Trigiani

  “Suz, warm up some cream on the stove. About three cups,” Mr. Santry instructs.

  After a minute, Suzanne brings the warmed cream to the table and pours it into the bowl while Mr. Santry stirs it with his good hand. He becomes tired after a while, so Kevin takes the spoon and stirs.

  Once the dough is ready, Mr. Santry helps Romy wrap an apple in a circle of dough. He shows her how to pull the dough up over the cored apple, leaving a space at the top to put the sauce.

  “These are my grandmother’s apple dumplings,” Mr. Santry says. “I want you to learn how to make them exactly like she did.”

  “We’re on it, Dad,” Kevin assures him.

  Then Romy lifts a glass dish filled with apple dumplings nestled in their pockets of dough. Mr. Santry instructs Kevin to drizzle the sauce over the top of the dumplings while Suzanne follows behind him placing small pats of butter on top of each one.

  “Perfect,” Mr. Santry says and smiles.

  Mrs. Santry set two folding tables longways in the living room covered with a gold tablecloth with a giant paper turkey in the center, the kind with the wings that fan out. Mr. Santry is at one end of the table, and Mrs. Santry at the other. Marisol, Suzanne, and I are on one side of the table, while Romy, beaming with joy, has scored the single seat between Joe and Kevin.

  “Let us bow our heads,” Mr. Santry says. “We thank God for our family, our friends and our food, our good health and our good fortune. Amen.”

  Joe jumps up to help his dad carve the turkey, which he has a little trouble doing. Nobody says anything, but I can see that it bothers Suzanne. I pass the mashed potatoes; after all, Marisol and I killed ourselves peeling and I want everybody to try some. Kevin jokes around and Romy laughs. She’s actually listened to our beauty advice and laid off the lip gloss (thank God) and is almost charming instead of annoying. In twenty-four hours, she’s learned how to sit back a little and not try so hard with boys. I’m happy for her.

  I lie back in the trundle in Suzanne’s room, unable to sleep. I ate an entire apple dumpling by myself, and my stomach feels like a backpack loaded with rocks. I couldn’t help it; the scent of butter, cinnamon, and sugar nestled on soft dough just called my name—and I responded to that call.

  Suzanne sleeps on the air mattress under the windows, while Romy, who now after almost a semester at PA likes heights, sleeps in the top bunk.

  Marisol, in the bottom bunk, whispers, “You awake?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her.

  “I had too much pumpkin pie,” she says. “But the filling was creamy—just enough cinnamon.”

  “You know, I think you ought to be a chef. You really like food.”

  “I know.” Marisol laughs. “I like cooking more than boys. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

  I check my text messages. I have not heard from Jared—I sent him a turkey graphic in an email with a Happy Thanksgiving message. He did not email back and there are no text messages. Maybe he’s forgotten about me. Or, maybe he has something against turkeys or national holidays in general.

  “Did Jared text you?” Marisol asks.

  “Not yet. Do you think he’s dumped me already?”

  “Hardly,” Marisol says.

  “You never know.”

  “It’s the holidays. He’s probably as busy as we are,” Marisol whispers. “No reason to panic.”

  “Thanks.” I’m truly grateful for sensible friends like Marisol.

  “Viola, I’ve been thinking about the Red Lady, your May McGlynn,” she says.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “Not at all. You never make things up. You’re not hyperbolic—in fact, you’re the opposite,” she reasons.

  “Right! I’m droll. A flatliner! And I’m not mystical at all. I don’t even believe in ghosts. My friend Caitlin back in Brooklyn says I’m the least likely human being ever born to be haunted. I don’t even watch scary movies. I’m not interested in other realms at all.”

  “I am,” Marisol admits.

  “You are?”

  Marisol takes a deep breath. “In Mexico, there’s this patron saint we revere, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and there’s a shrine to her where she cries real tears. And my mother has seen it with her own eyes. She went with a group.”

  I sit up on my trundle bed so quickly that I have to hang on in order not to fall off of it. Marisol and Caitlin are so much alike—I just know if they ever met, they’d be BFFs. They are truly deep.

  Marisol continues, “So, I do think it’s possible that people from other realms can visit. But here’s the thing. What do you do? It’s not like people will understand.”

  “May McGlynn wants something from me, but what? Why didn’t she go to the guy who directed Slumdog Millionaire? Why show up on my footage? I’m nobody.”

  “You’re all she’s got. She died in South Bend. She must need somebody with a camera in South Bend.”

  “I wish I’d never heard of May McGlynn. I’m going to sell my camera. Then I won’t have to do anything about this ever.”

  “Don’t say that, Viola. You must never sell your camera. You’re talented. Every girl in ninth grade at PA wishes she was you. You have a camera everywhere you go—it’s like a purpose in life. You should be grateful for it.”

  Marisol makes sense. She always does. But she can afford to be supportive, because this weird stuff is not happening to her. And, let’s face it, she’s Mexican and they pray to statues and believe their icons actually weep.

  And for anybody out there who thought kissing a boy three times would make everything crystal clear, as if the thing you hope for will somehow bring enlightenment and a sense of calm, forget it. It just added to my stress level. It’s not bad stress—but it’s more change, the very thing I’d like less of.

  My BlackBerry flashes. I scroll down to read the message.

  Jared: Happy Turkey Day—got your bird. Liked it a lot. See you soon. XO

  “Who’s it from?” Marisol asks. “Your boyfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  I text back.

  Me: Safe trip back to GSA.

  JS: You too.

  Me: XO

  JS: Double.

  I sign off. Double XO’s from Jared Spencer have officially made this a perfect day.

  The train back to South Bend is packed with college students from Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s and Saint Joseph’s Academy. They are loud and laugh a lot, and most of them have totes filled with Thanksgiving leftovers. We do too. Suzanne’s mom gave us each a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a wedge of pumpkin pie for the ride home. Never one to save good food, I begin to unwrap my sandwich as soon as we’re on the train.

  “Thanks for a great weekend,” Marisol says to Suzanne.

  “I’m glad you guys could come back with me.”

  “Your family really made us feel at home,” Romy says.

  “You mean Kevin,” I say as I chew my sandwich.

  “He was nice to me,” Romy says without apology. “Does he have a girlfriend at Marquette?”

  “Yeah.” Suzanne shrugs as she checks her BlackBerry. Romy is crestfallen.

  Suzanne continues, “We all hate her though. She’s really pretty but she’s got an annoying giggle.”

  Romy’s face is galvanized with hope.

  Here is the perfect example of a sensible girl losing it the second she likes a guy. Romy knows the score. Surely she didn’t think college boys just sit around without girlfriends—and study. Surely she doesn’t believe that Kevin is thinking, “Romy is fourteen, but I’ll wait four years until she’s eighteen and then I’ll ask her out.” This is madness.

  “Is it serious?” Romy asks Suzanne.

  “Is what serious?” Suzanne puts her BlackBerry in her purse.

  “Kevin and his girlfriend.”

  “I don’t know.” Suzanne shrugs again.

  “Well, she didn’t come home with him for Thanksgiving.” Romy is persistent.

  Marisol and I look at e
ach other. I want to say to Romy, “Does it matter if it’s serious? He’s in college. He has college girls around him all day in class and all night in a coed dorm. Forget him. Find a nice guy at Grabeel Sharpe—there’re a million of them and they’re attainable.”

  “I don’t think it’s serious,” Suzanne says in a tone that is way too encouraging. Suzanne, like all younger sisters of older brothers, is clueless about girls who like her brothers as potential boyfriends. Suzanne sees her brothers as geeks, whereas we see them as cute and older.

  “Your dad seemed to have a great time,” I say supportively, and as a way to change the subject.

  “Yeah.” Suzanne smiles. “He loves to have us all at home, and he loved having you guys there.”

  Jared Spencer IMs me, like, the minute we walk into Curley Kerner and drop our duffels.

  JS: Are you back?

  Me: Yep. Just. The picture of your baby sister is really cute.

  JS: Thanks. Mom says she looks like me.

  Me: Lucky her.

  JS::)

  Me: Thanks for the application to the film competition. 15 to 18 minute short-subject submission? That’s a lot of time to tell a story. Don’t know if I can pull it off.

  JS: Sure you can. You just have to choose a subject.

  Me: Thinking about it. How about you?

  JS: Organic farming in a shrinking farm belt.

  Me: You’ll win.

  JS: Think so?

  Me: Know so. Organic farming is so in the moment. So green. I mean, that and the melting of the polar ice cap are hot subjects.

  JS: No ice cap. No funds to go and scout. Besides, the movies have to be about the Midwest. And there is only so much to say about the Midwest.

  Me: Tell me about it.

  JS: Gimme a sec. I have to say bye to my roomie.

  I turn to the girls. “There’s a film competition for high school students in the Midwest. Jared just emailed me.”

  “Are you going to make a movie together? How romantic!” Romy says.

  “No, he’s going to make a movie—maybe I’ll just help him.”

  “Why would you do that?” Marisol wants to know.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because you film movies too. Why tag along on his? Make your own,” Marisol says.

  I’m about to disagree, but she’s right. He sent me the application. I should think about entering a movie. I’m in high school. I’m in the Midwest. Why not?

  Jared comes back online.

  Me: Bus is taking us to a lecture series over at Saint Mary’s College next Tuesday.

  JS: Who is speaking?

  Me: Wendy Luck, the performance artist. According to the flyer, she plays the flute and sings to a video narrative about her Russian/Jewish ancestry and her foremother’s journey of immigration to the States.

  JS: Interesting.

  Me: Want to go with me?

  JS: Sure.

  Me: Great. I’ll get the details and e you back.

  JS: It’s a date.

  Jared signs off.

  “He wants to go to the lecture series at Saint Mary’s.” I’m so excited to have an official date after the official first dance that my voice squeaks.

  “Aren’t those lectures boring?” Romy unpacks her duffel.

  “Romy, it’s not about the lecture. It’s about Jared Spencer. It’s a date,” Suzanne says.

  “It is, isn’t it!” I marvel.

  “Of course it is. You’re going to an event, and it involves tickets and advanced planning. Therefore, it’s a date.” Suzanne says this with such authority, I can see her becoming a lawyer someday and swinging juries in her client’s favor. For now, I’m sold.

  I unpack my clothes and make a laundry pile to bring down to the basement. Boy, have things changed around here. I really gained some cache when I met Jared. Never underestimate cache.

  It’s like some miracle. I didn’t see this (a real boyfriend) happening to me for years. I thought most boys were dorks (can provide a list) or unrealistic reaches (Tag Nachmanoff) or strictly pals (Andrew Bozelli) but Jared Spencer doesn’t fit on any of those lists. He’s cute, he’s smart, and he’s into the exact same things I am.

  The current status of Jared and me (us) gives me a warm feeling—like I belong somewhere—even though I only have one night of talking, one full moon, and three kisses to go on. The rest I’m filling in from instant messages, pictures, and emails. I’m getting to know him, but as far as our quad is concerned, it’s already a done deal—I officially have a boyfriend.

  NINE

  WHEN IT SNOWS IN INDIANA, IT DOESN’T FALL TO THE ground silently, melt into pools of gray slush, and then turn black from soot and traffic like it does at home in Brooklyn. Rather, it accumulates several feet deep on the ground, pristine and white, and then the wind blows it around, turning it into drifts that look like giant swirls of meringue.

  As the snow blows across the flats, high winds clear paths leaving sheets of ice underneath as though somebody shoveled it, but they haven’t; it’s just the way it settles in South Bend.

  Snow, like everything else in Indiana, is a new and different experience for me.

  It’s only the beginning of December, but I can already predict that winter in the Midwest will be a doozy. It’s hit freezing temperatures, so layers of snow gear—as many as I can pile on—will define the winter of 2009. Thank goodness for my mother and her anticipatory Ziploc bags full of mittens, scarves, and long underwear. My mom must’ve remembered the South Bend winters in the 1980s and planned ahead.

  About seven girls from PA decided to take the van to Saint Mary’s for lecture night. My roommates decided to sit this one out and let me brave my first real date with Jared alone. Trish is the chaperone, and her joie gets even worse when she’s off campus and in charge of an outing. She’s downright sparkly on the drive over to the college.

  But so am I.

  I have a date.

  A real date.

  My first real date.

  Tickets required.

  Advanced planning.

  Perfect.

  So far.

  Jared and a few of the upperclassmen from GSA wait in the lobby of the theater. Some look at paintings displayed by Saint Mary’s college students; others mill around the concession table where they sell coffee, tea, brownies, and homemade cookies. Jared waves to me as we enter the main doors. It must be forty below outside, but I don’t care. I feel completely warm and welcome when I see him again. He’s even cuter than he was when we met at the dance. And he seems taller as he walks toward me—not that I care so much about that.

  I stomp the snow off my boots and take off my red wool hat with the giant orange pom-pom.

  “Elf hat.” I hold it up as Jared comes over.

  “Cookie?” he asks, giving me a large chocolate chip cookie in a wax paper sleeve.

  “Thanks.”

  I bite into the cookie, the first official food of our first official date. He preplanned the treat of the cookie, which makes me savor it even more. He had to think about what to get me before I got here, which is pretty wonderful in and of itself. If I had to imagine a perfect evening, it would be just like this—where the boy (or boyfriend!!!) actually did something nice for me without me fishing or having to ask first. Jared Spencer, you are winning my Brooklyn heart.

  O’Laughlin Auditorium is a 1,300-seat theater at Saint Mary’s College that is part of a larger facility called Moreau Center for the Arts. The theater is cavernous, reminding me of the big Broadway houses where my mom and dad take me to see Grand perform.

  We’re allowed to sit anywhere we want, so I follow Jared down the side aisle to the third row. “Is this okay?” he asks. Only about thirty of the 1,300 seats are filled.

  “Sure.” After we peel off our coats and gloves, we settle down into our seats to watch Wendy Luck, the flutist/singer/actor dramatize the story of her family’s Russian Jewish roots.

  Jared takes my hand when the lights go down, a
nd I think between the warmth of his hand and the sweetness of the cookie, I could close my eyes and go to sleep in total bliss. But I won’t. I want to be awake for every second of this date. I want to remember every detail of it, including the way his shirt has the scent of bleach, and his skin, of lemon and a little cedar. Just enough. Perfect.

  I was a little worried on the way over here that Jared’s feelings might have changed. What if he didn’t show up? And if he did, what if he were aloof, and had decided that I wasn’t the girl he remembered from the dance and that he would do what all boys seem to eventually do—second-guess his choice and drop me instantly and find somebody new who does match up to the picture in his head?

  I have seen with my own eyes, time and time again, how at first a boy will act interested and then, just like the early snowflakes of December, fall in lazy, unpredictable spirals, abandon all logic, and a girl has no idea where she stands. Jared Spencer, I am finding out, is not one of those boys.

  Miss Luck’s show is good—very deep. It would do well in one of those fringe theaters in Manhattan’s East Village. She is beautiful, with piercing blue eyes and a powerful singing voice. She’s a good storyteller, and the story of her grandmother’s trek from Minsk to Milwaukee is fascinating.

  When the performance is over, Trish waves to me to meet the group at the bus stop in a few minutes. Trish honors a date when she sees one.

  We go out into the lobby where Wendy Luck signs our programs. She writes: To the cutest boy in Milwaukee to Jared, and I like your hat to me.

  When we leave the theater, I see Trish talking to the Saint Mary’s organizer of the event. This buys me a little time alone with Jared.

  He walks me toward the bus stop and threads his arm through mine. I lean on him as we walk where they’ve thrown down salt to melt the ice. We go carefully, not because of the ice, but because we want to slow down this night to a crawl, to squeeze in as much time as possible to be together. At least, that’s what I’m hoping because that’s what it feels like.