Mom reaches beyond me and shuts the window, locking the gold clasp at the top. She closes the curtains. “Luna, it was just a dream.”
“I’d know if it was a dream.” Mom ushers me off the window bench and toward my bed.
She rubs my shoulders. “Seeing things that aren’t there wouldn’t be good, Luna. Maybe you’re just overtired. Or the medication is causing you to have lucid dreams. I’ll call Dr. Tucker tomorrow.”
“I know what I saw,” I whisper.
“Please,” Mom says, her shoulders slumping forward. Little horseshoe-shaped shadows are bruised into the skin under her eyes. “No more sitting outside in your tree tonight. Or on the window bench. Just get into bed and try to get some sleep. We all need some rest.” She smiles that tired half smile she gives when her mind is elsewhere. “I know it’s hard, Luna, but please.”
“Okay.” I look over at the window once more, before climbing into bed and letting Mom tuck the rainbow comforter around my body. “I’ll try. For you.”
“That’s all I ask.”
“Hey, Mom?”
“Hm?” She brushes the curls from my forehead and kisses me.
“Do you know what the word ‘spazzatrici’ means?”
“It’s pronounced spa-tsa-tree-chee,” she says, sounding out the syllables. “It means ‘sweepers.’ Try saying it slower.”
“Spaz-za-tree-chee,” I say again.
“Close.”
“The word was on the truck next door.”
“Okay, Luna,” Mom says with that tone in her voice that means she doesn’t believe me. “Don’t forget to say your prayers.”
I haven’t done much praying lately. Ever since the car crash, talking to God feels uncomfortable. I used to say my prayers every single night and go to Mass at school once a week. But even with all that praying, God still didn’t stop my dad and me from getting into a car wreck.
Mom walks to the door and shuts off the light. “And don’t forget Jean.”
I turn Jean Valjean, my sleep turtle, on, and the stars carved into his shell illuminate across my bedroom ceiling in soft whites, greens, blues, and purples. My cousin Rocco says I’m too old to have a night-light, much less one that’s also a stuffed animal. But I can’t give Jean up. He’s been with me since I was little, and he’s stuck with me through everything. Having him around is extra comfort and makes the tossing and turning a little less difficult.
“I love you, Luna,” Mom says from the doorway.
“I love you too.”
She closes the door.
“Spazzatrici,” I mumble. “Sweepers. What in the world could they be sweeping?”
My toes touch the floor just as she turns off the light in the hallway. I scurry across the room and push back my curtains. The lights are still out in the house next door.
Maybe it was a hallucination. It has been weeks since I slept through the night.
I grab my sketch pad and pencils and head back toward my bed when a small flicker of light catches my eye. I pull the curtains back an inch and peer out from behind them. All alone in the vast and quiet darkness is a single firefly floating near the window across from mine.
My breath catches in my throat, and I leap onto my bed, turning Jean Valjean off and my bedside lamp on. “Sorry, Jean. I know I promised Mom I’d sleep. But it’ll have to wait just a little longer.”
I hurry back to my window bench and pick up a pencil. Underneath “spazzatrici,” I begin to draw a big house filled with little furniture and a small girl at the center of it all.
Chapter 2
Bursts of red and orange leaves shoot across the drizzly late-autumn sky like flare guns. They rise up off their branches before tumbling from the trees and collecting in wet piles on the yellowing grass in our backyard. I stifle a yawn, my eyes fixed on the small corner of the next-door neighbor’s house that is visible from the kitchen window. No one has come or gone since they moved in last night. At least I don’t think anything happened. I did fall asleep on my window bench sometime around two thirty and woke up as the sun started peeking over the rooftops.
Since last night, I’ve done thirteen drawings of the Sapienti house. Each one time-stamped like the photographic records private investigators keep on TV. I would’ve done more, but Mom made me come down to eat breakfast and do some homework. She’s got me on a strict schedule. Homework between breakfast and lunch on days I don’t have morning doctors’ appointments and between lunch and dinner on days I do.
“What’re you looking at, Luns?” Uncle Mike asks, pronouncing my nickname like loons. He comes by every day. Most days after closing at Bianchini’s Deli to talk business with Dad because Dad misses being in charge at the deli. But today he snuck away at lunchtime to have one of Mom’s famous chicken parms.
We all sit at the kitchen table, devouring our sandwiches. They’re my favorite, the breading crispy and flecked with cayenne to give the chicken a bit of a kick. Even better than Nonna Bianchini’s. Mom’s is light, and she toasts the hoagie roll with butter, chopped garlic, melty mozzarella, and grated parmesan to make it a garlic-bread sandwich. Then she tops it with homemade gravy. Nonna’s is too greasy and sits in my stomach like a horseshoe. But I’d never tell her this. It’s an unspoken family rule: Never, ever tell Nonna Bianchini her food tastes anything less than delicious.
“It must be something special that’s piqued your interest,” Uncle Mike adds. “Can’t even get any attention from my favorite niece and goddaughter.”
“It’s nothing.” The word “magic” scratches at the back of my throat, wanting to be said aloud, but I swallow it down with the chicken parm.
I pause from monitoring and take a big bite of my sandwich. I shouldn’t tell anyone about what I saw just yet. Especially after Mom’s reaction. This can be my secret for at least a little while. Inspiration for my latest collection of drawings. I’ll find out more about them and fill my sketch pad with their strange magic.
“Delicious sandwiches, as always.” Uncle Mike wipes bread crumbs from his beard and grins at my mom. Uncle Mike looks just like my dad even though he’s younger—same black hair, same bushy eyebrows, and same big sloping nose with a hook at the end. The Bianchini beak. Mine used to look like that.
“Thank you, Mike. You and your brother are always such good eaters,” Mom says.
“We got it from our pa, who got it from his.” Dad moves his hand from his wheelchair’s armrest to jostle his brother’s shoulder. “A Bianchini knows good food and knows never to turn it down.” He grins, always smiling when Uncle Mike is over for a visit.
I pop the last bit of sandwich into my mouth, savoring the oozing mozzarella, spicy chicken, and sweet tomato sauce. I need to go outside and get a closer look at that house. Their arrival next door is stuck in my brain like a piece of pepper between my teeth.
“Slow down, Luna.”
Eating became difficult after the accident because my jaw gets sore from all the chewing. Sometimes it makes me not want to eat much at all. But my stomach is always roaring and Mom’s chicken parm sandwiches are too good to pass up. Like my dad said, we never say no to good food.
Mom smiles at my empty plate. “A gold star,” she says, picking up everyone’s plates and putting them in the kitchen sink to wash later.
“I haven’t gotten a gold star for eating everything since I was little,” I say.
“Maybe we should bring them back,” Dad says. “Get you to eat more.”
I shrug. “Or maybe Mom can make chicken parm for every meal.”
“You’d get sick of it after a while.” She wipes her hands on her jeans and sits back down at the kitchen table. “And then what would I bribe you with?”
“New art supplies? A huge easel made of nice wood. Not the cheap kind from those craft stores.”
Dad laughs, a deep bellowing sound that emerges right from his diaphragm. He should have been an opera singer with such a rich, musical laugh. “My little da Vinci. I didn’t know you were interested
in painting.”
“Painting?” Uncle Mike says, a glimmer in his dark eyes. “I knew you’d be an artist like me. Ever since you picked up your first crayon.”
I smile at him. “I’d like to try it. Watercolors aren’t my thing. I like the thick oil paints. We got to use them once in art class.”
“You could paint something like that.” Uncle Mike gestures to one of my last drawings from art class. Mom hung it on the wall. Gloria, one of my cousins, is dancing at her ballet studio. Her tulle skirt twirls around her legs as she spins on one slipper. It’s one of my best drawings. Even my art teacher, Ms. DeSario, thought so. She said I was great at getting out into the world and capturing life on the page. I don’t go to Gloria’s dance classes anymore to sketch the ballerinas. I don’t sketch much of anything beyond what I can see from my tree.
For a moment this all feels normal: eating chicken parm, talking about art, having lunch together. When Dad could still work and didn’t have to be in a wheelchair. When Uncle Mike wasn’t coming over every single day to keep Dad in the loop about the deli. When I was in school on Tuesdays and eating tacos in the big, busy cafeteria with Tailee and the others instead of at home with my family.
Maybe a chicken parm sandwich can heal me after all.
The phone rings, and Mom jumps from her seat to check the caller ID. “Luna,” she calls from the kitchen. “It’s Tailee.”
My stomach rolls over. Tailee and I first met in kindergarten, when I accidentally sat in wet paint. Her mom had packed her a spare dress since she was prone to spilling milk all over herself. Tailee let me borrow it. Ever since, we’ve shared a love of neon colors, scary movies, and spicy foods.
The rings grow louder.
Tailee must be sneaking in a phone call from the girls’ bathroom during lunch. She knows not to try texting or calling my cell phone anymore. I haven’t charged it in a few weeks. There’s no point in having a cell phone when you don’t really go anywhere.
“Do you want to talk to her today?” Mom asks, her voice light.
Right after Dad and I got out of the hospital things still seemed hopeful. The doctors said my face would heal, the burns would fade, and the mask would be needed for only a month at most. In that month, Tailee called me every day and came over nearly every other day. We’d talk like things were fine. Or at least close to fine. I felt okay, even though I’d wear my hair in a way that covered most of my mask whenever she stopped by. But then the doctors said my mask needed to stay on another month. Then the word “surgery” sprouted up in doctors’ appointments like a prickly weed. It was harder to believe I’d ever get better.
After that first month, Tailee would still try to fill the silence with jokes and stories from school. But my voice was trapped in my chest. Buried under the debris from the car wreck. Talking became more difficult the longer the mask stayed on. Strained and awkward. So I stopped. Now I hide whenever she brings my homework or asks to hang out on the weekend. I don’t want to wonder about what she thinks of me now. The word “ugly” wriggles up in my head, but I beat it down. Tailee wouldn’t think I’m ugly. But maybe.
Now it’s been two and a half months since the accident and nearly a month since I’ve seen Tailee. The longest we’ve gone without seeing each other.
When you’ve been changed so completely, it’s nearly impossible to be the same person for your friends. Pretending to be yourself is hard when you don’t even look like yourself anymore.
I stare down at the table and shake my head.
Mom clicks her tongue, but she says nothing. The answering machine picks it up. My stomach flips again. Tailee hangs up without leaving a message.
Half of me is relieved she didn’t; the other half wishes she did. Maybe so I could hear her voice or know for sure whether she’s mad at me for avoiding her.
“I’m dropping you off at the deli around two, right?” Mom says to Dad, then looks at the clock. “I still don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to be going to the deli today.”
“Why?” Dad asks, anger immediately rising in his voice.
And just like that the bubble pops.
“It’s hard for you to get in and out of there. You don’t want to overexert yourself. Dr. Madan says—”
“He doesn’t know everything.” Dad dismisses the idea. “I used to be there every day at four a.m., handling shipments and making sure the lights stay on. I can handle a few hours of doing paperwork in the back.”
Mom squints at him. She knows it’d be more than him sitting in the back office looking over the books and reviewing schedules.
After Dad’s parents got married, they opened a small store and lived above it. Bianchini’s Deli. Old black-and-white pictures of the storefront dot Bianchini’s walls like a timeline of sorts, spanning its forty-four years in business. Dad and Uncle Mike started working there with my nonno when they were kids. As Nonno got older, Dad took over, bought the old tailor’s shop next door, and made it even bigger. Everyone in Staten Island knows Bianchini’. The newspapers call it the best Italian deli in the whole borough.
When I was little, Mom and I would go in every Saturday and Sunday morning. I was just tall enough to peek over the counters and see my nonno and Dad busy managing deliveries, slicing meat, and laughing with customers. Their work was so precise, so artistic—even when they were just wrapping deli meat in butcher paper. Nonno says art is in everything. From the way you slice the prosciutto to the way you treat your employees and deliverymen. The art you put into your work is what makes it special.
Mom pinches the bridge of her nose. “Fine, but we need to get you cleaned up a bit first.”
He glares down at his hands, at the wheelchair he’s had to use since the accident. “I’m fine the way I am.”
“You got gravy on your shirt,” Mom says. “It’ll take ten minutes.”
“C’mon, Frank.” Uncle Mike pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t be a grump.”
“I’m not a grump,” Dad snaps.
Mom stares at him, her eyes narrowed. The clock ticks out the long, uneasy silence. It finds its way under my skin and into my body, squeezing around my heart until it aches. I can’t stand it, so I jump up from the table and walk over to the map of Italy hanging on our wall. I run my finger over the glass, catching a thin layer of dust, and distract myself as the silence between my mom and dad deepens. Their tense quiet is like the seconds between thunder and lightning, with the rest of us getting all soaked from the storm.
I look for Stelle, Italy, the town from the side of the Sapientis’ truck. I trace the map with my finger, lingering on the places I know best. Nonno and Nonna Bianchini were both born on the boot, in Tuscany. Granny Ranieri was born all the way down in Messina, Sicily, and Papa Ranieri is from Naples.
My eyes travel from Naples down the coast and toward Sicily. A little black dot, all the way in the boot’s heel, leaps out at me. I almost press my face to the glass. My heart jumps into my throat. Scrawled over the little dot is the word “Stelle.” I’ve never noticed it before. Though I guess I never had reason to notice it until now.
There it is.
The city that disappeared from the white truck in their driveway.
The city I scrawled in my sketch pad next to the word “spazzatrici.” Sweepers.
“C’mon, Frank,” Uncle Mike says.
Dad sighs and tosses his hands in the air. “Fine. Do what you must, Sofia.”
I look over my shoulder. Mom plasters a smile on her face and wheels Dad from the kitchen. Uncle Mike drums his fingers on the table but doesn’t say anything.
I let out a deep breath once they leave the room.
“Tough, huh, kid?” Uncle Mike says.
His words don’t register with me.
“Stelle.” I tap the dot repeatedly, as if doing so will make it spill all its secrets. It is real.
“Stelle’s a beautiful place.”
I whip around. “You know about Stelle?”
Uncle Mike scratches at the
scruffy beard on his pale face. “I went once. To their Cielo Stellato celebration way back before my first year of art school. Talk about inspiration!” He stares at the map, a dreamy look in his eyes. “It’s such a teensy little speck of a town with all these incredible stone towers that cut right into the skies.”
“Really?” I move closer. “What’s Cielo Stellato?” My tongue stumbles over the words, too big and awkward to handle the musical syllables.
He smiles. “It means ‘starry sky.’ Stelle has the best view of the stars in all of Italy. Maybe all the world. My pa would say they were blessed by the goddess of the moon, whom you’re named for.”
“Nonno told you that?”
He nods. “Yeah. He’d tell us all these Italian folklore stories when we were kids. Luna loved Stelle and the towers they built to reach her and the stars. So she shines brightest on them. Every summer they pay thanks with a huge celebration. There’s tons of dancing and food. It goes all night long, and then everyone sleeps the next day.
“It was amazing, Luns. The food, the wine, the music.” He laughs again and runs a hand through his long, curly black hair. “The people of Stelle know how to live. The sky was filled with fireflies—thousands of them.”
Fireflies. Like the gold, glittering ones on the Sapientis’ truck. A tingle zips through me.
Uncle Mike stretches his hands out above his head. “The night stretched on forever. As if it were twice as long. Like the whole town convinced the goddess Luna herself to extend the night for the celebration.
“And Luna smiled down on the whole thing, bigger and brighter than I’ve ever seen her. Her face beaming as she watched the entire city honor her.” He closes his eyes and leans back in his chair. The most relaxed I’ve seen him since he’s taken over the deli. “I ended up lying down on a hill and tried my best to fit the billions of stars in a drawing, but I couldn’t.”
“I want to go,” I say, bouncing up and down. “We went so long ago that I don’t remember Italy at all.”
“You don’t remember going to Italy?”
“I was only six.” I furrow my brow. “I do remember the sunflowers in Tuscany.”
The Trouble with Shooting Stars Page 2