Page 7 of Summer, in Between
‘That’s not going to happen, Cat,’ Mum says.‘From what I hear, he’s a good kid.’
‘He’s a Neanderthal and he’ll be here, at my house.’I spit a watermelon pip into my hand.
‘How is you calling him a Neanderthal any different from thisstuck-uprubbish?You don’t think that’s a bit unfair and hypocritical?’
‘Fine, you’ve got me.I’m an unfair hypocrite.’I take a big slug from the water bottle Paul gave me, swallowing the last of the dregs.‘Hey, Tommy, can you bring out the water?’I yell over my shoulder.
‘How many times must I tell you?It’s Tommaso,’ says Nonna.She’s the only person who doesn’t contract our names.None of this Anglo Cat, Matty or Tommy for our Nonna.Dad might call us the Dirty Three, but to her, we are Catarina, Matteo and Tomasso, whether we like it or not.Mostly, we lean towards not, but with all things Nonna, we’re fighting a battle we’ll never win.My name is the perfect example.In her house I am Catarina, complete with full rolling of the ‘rina’.I’m named after Nonna’s mother who by all accounts was a complete and utter witch, and not the good kind.My mother doesn’t have a single nice thing to say about her, yet there’s her name on my birth certificate.
‘I think I know my brother’s name, Nonna, thank you.’
‘Cat...’Mum shoots me a pleading look.It’s a familiar one that says that she knows Nonna gives me a hard time, but can I please just suck it up for her sake?
‘And do you have to sit like that?’Nonna leans down and pushes my knees together.
We lived with Nonna while Dad built our house.That was fun.So much fun!Dinner at five, soapies all night long.There’s a high probability she loves the soapie characters more than she loves her actual family.The only good thing about them is you can say anything you want when Nonna’s watching; she doesn’t hear a thing.We lived there for almost a year, and when we left, moving a whole fifteen minutes away, both Mum and Nonna cried as if our house were interstate.
I think Dad probably missed Nonna most of all because she fussed over him and my brothers like they were crown princes.She sent him off to work with lunches that could have fed a factory, and Dad still gets a packed lunch courtesy of his mother-in-law every single day.
I didn’t shed a single tear.I was too excited about my new room.A new room, and the fact that we’d be seeing her every day after school anyway.Every.Single.Day.
Our school bus drops us off in town after school and we walk the few blocks to Nonna’s, where either Mum or Dad pick us up.Dad works everywhere, wherever he’s building, and Mum’s office is at home, but she spends a lot of time back and forth to the city depending on what she’s working on.When we arrive at Nonna’s we fling our school bags through the kitchen door and yell, ‘we’re here!’Matty races straight into the kitchen to find what treats Nonna has left out for us, Tommy’s focus is the TV, and I head to the percolator and jam it full of espresso.My conversation with Nonna is a daily ritual performed as she watches me make coffee.
‘Caterina, you need sugar!Put some sugar in.’
‘Nonna, no, I don’t like it.’
‘Just one teaspoon, it takes the bitterness out of the coffee.’
‘No, it’s fine, it’s not bitter.’
‘Here, I’ll do it for you.’
‘Nonna, no, I don’t like sugar.’
‘I don’t know how you drink it like that.’
Rinse and repeat that conversation five times a week, fifty-two weeks a year.Still, I have a horrible suspicion that I’m going to miss sitting at the table with my Nonna.When I was a child, I thought Nonna’s espresso cups were the most gorgeous things ever.Picture pastel cups a quarter the size of normal ones, all the colours of gelato.We’ve drunk hardcore espresso out of Nonna’s tiny cups since we were toddlers.Okay, maybe not toddlers, but I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t sip from a cup.It’s amazing that all three of us don’t have Type 2 Diabetes.One of my earliest memories is Nonna feeding me spoons of sugar stained with coffee.That’s what she’d do; she’d make us our own espressos, in the beautiful, magical cups of course, and then to weaken the caffeine she’d add sugar, at least three teaspoons.In a tiny espresso cup.Yes, caffeine might make a child hyper, so let’s add sugar.Now I can’t stand the slightest sweetness in a hot drink.I still adore the cups and at least once a week I remind Nonna that when she dies, they’re to go to me.I know that sounds macabre, calling dibs on a living person’s belongings, but it’s one of Nonna’s expressions: ‘You like it?You can have it when I’m dead.’
It’s not only a miracle we’re diabetes free; by all measures we should be morbidly obese.Most kids get home from school, maybe have some fruit, perhaps some crackers or biscuits.Nothing too heavy to spoil their dinner, right?Not us.We come home to a feast.A bowl of pasta.Some eggplant that’s been crumbed and fried in olive oil.A frittata.Cake.Pastries.Biscuits.A giant bowl of jelly.One time even scones that she’d made from a packet mix, God knows why.The boys love it.They easily put away a bowl of spaghetti, reach for the pastries sitting on the table, then work their way through the salad she’s picked that was originally destined for at least two neighbours.So basically, after school we get to my Nonna’s house, leave our shit everywhere, eat all her food, the boys go play with the local kids in the street, I get started on my homework, Mum or Dad walk in after an hour or so, tell us to clean up our shit, Nonna waves us out her door, we leave, and she cleans up after us.
When we were younger, I used to play with the other kids in the street too.I was the only girl in a group of about seven and the moment I turned eleven, without a hint of approaching body changes, my grandmother began standing at the front gate watching us play.Or more specifically, watching me, her eyes like red target lasers circling me, following my every move.No amount of ducking or weaving could make her lose track.Even with my back turned I felt her eyes drilled into me.That was bad enough, but then, just to ramp up the mortification, she began calling me from the gate.If I waved her away, or yelled, ‘five more minutes,’ she’d hit me with her most powerful weapon in her arsenal.
‘Catarina!Come away from the boys!’
As if Italian wasn’t her native tongue, her shrill voice would ring across the street, her English flawless.Heads would turn, equating the panic of an elderly woman’s voice with a situation of grave danger: a wolf pack, an out-of-control car, the local creepy old man.Nope, it was just my Nonna’s warnings about the dangers of a young girl hanging around the terrifying prepubescent boys of the neighbourhood.Never mind the fact that most of them were my brothers’ ages, and that both she and I had known them all their lives.No.According to my Nonna, at eleven I was on the cusp of the terrifying descent into womanhood, and as such I was a magnet for debauchery and depravity.The boys wouldn’t be able to fight my subconscious bewitching siren calls nor their own willpower to hook up with me in the street.According to Nonna, I’m in constant danger of being ravished.As if reading my mind, she starts up again.
‘You’re a woman now, Catarina,’ she hisses at me.Her eyes narrow as she takes in my posture, sprawled in a deck chair, my feet resting against the balcony glass balustrade.‘Sit like a lady.The whole town can see your underwear.’
‘It’s okay, Nonna,’ I say.‘I’m not wearing any underwear.’
Nonna pins me with a glare as unforgiving and merciless as the stony mountain ranges of her ancestors.She opens her mouth to strike but Mum steps in.
‘Mama, enough.She’s just teasing you,’ she says.‘At least, I hope she is.’She reaches for the edge of my skirt, and I push her hand away.I sit up and wriggle my skirt back down over my hips.
‘There, Nonna, all sorted.Virtue intact.’
‘You go on and laugh.One day you’ll see that I’m right and you won’t be laughing then.’
