Page 2 of Mafia Kings: Valentino

I dreamed up ways of getting them to notice me. At first I tried making cannoli for them – hard pastry shells stuffed with sweet ricotta cheese and things like chocolate or nuts. They loved them, but they didn’t do anything but ask me for more cannoli.

When I finally got the attention I craved, it didn’t come from the boys in my own class – but older boys in school.

Mucholder.

I’m joking! They were only two or three years further along than me.

But they still seemed so worldly and cool.

Some of them evensmoked.

Oooooh!

Realbadboys.

And I got plenty of their attention!

All it took was getting boobs.

I ended the school year flat-chested and came back the next fall more developed than every other girl in my grade level. All the older boys came flocking to me after that.

It was uncomfortable dealing with grown men leering at me, which felt icky and gross –

But cute boys a couple years older than me?

Bring it on.

I kissed a boy for the first time when I was 13.

I had sex for the first time when I was 14, with my first real boyfriend.

It was all downhill from there.

Sex and cooking and cute boys… that was all I could think about. Which distressed my parents to no end.

I kept my romantic activities secret by sneaking out at night. I’d learned from the best.

My older sister snuck out for years before she got married. She got pregnant at 18 from her boyfriend, which – since my parents were devout Catholics – meant automatic marriage. Her boyfriend would’ve been a dead man otherwise.

My sister was a huge cautionary tale for me. I knew I didn’t want to settle down yet, so I sure as hell couldn’t get pregnant. As a result, I always used condoms, and I got on birth control as soon as I could, just to be sure.

Anyway, my older sister had doled out a constant stream of candy to me and my sister so we wouldn’t snitch on her. Once she moved out, the candy stopped. But whenIstarted sneaking around, I had to bribe my younger sister again, who demanded her cut every Friday afternoon. I used to tell her she was worse than the mafia about getting her ‘payments.’

I could hide my sneaking around… but I couldn’t hide my terrible report cards.

My mother and father both yelled at me non-stop, telling me I was ruining my life. But I already knew I didn’t want to go touniversity. University was for people who wanted to read and study – to become doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers…

Bleh.

In Italy, if you don’t want to go to university, you choose a profession while you’re a teenager and go to a school specifically for that. You basically choose your life path when you’re 15.

I went to a high school for the hospitality industry – anistituto professionale.That was the closest I could get to being able to cook all the time.

However, if my parents had told me there would betonsmore cute guys at university, I might have done better in school.

My parents eventually found out about my ‘extracurricular activities.’ We lived in a small town, and people talked. Probably some boys bragged about sleeping with me, their parents overheard,theystarted gossiping about it, and then some busybody decided to informmyparents.

“I have to hear from other people that my daughter’s the town slut?!” my father raged.

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