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Brood of a New Age

10.

In the morning at breakfast - which Graziella had again had to take alone with Maria in the kitchen because everyone else was already "out of the house" - Maria had given her a purse to hang around her neck. In it had been a little money and a thing that had reminded Graziella of her children's ID from Italy and was exactly that. Only for America. Then there had been a card with the address of the house in Manhattan and a phone number that might have been her dad's or one of his employees'. She was supposed to call that number if she needed anything or if there were any problems. But only if the problems were important! Finally, Maria had given her a plastic card and said that she should take special care of it, that it was something very important and would show how well her family would now take care of her. Graziella had briefly thought about putting it in Grigio's back like the card of the detective, but then she had put it in her purse.

Maria had then been kind enough to help her unpack and had also told her which dress would "go down well with the wives". Graziella didn't like the pink dress that her mamma had always liked so much in Italy, because it wasn't good for playing in - and she was supposed to play with other children of the family where she was going. She preferred to wear her pants. For example, the coarse dungarees. Or one of her jeans. But probably she should just make a "good first impression" again. Why that seemed to involve dressing up like a doll to do so annoyed Graziella but she didn't argue.

Graziella had been driven at just before half past ten to a townhouse across a river that was different from the one she had seen yesterday and she had asked the driver what the river was called. "Hudson," he had said. "And get used to Bunny's house in Hoboken, because you'll probably be there a lot now." The man's tone hadn't really been rude-he was, after all, a co-worker of her dad's and certainly wasn't allowed to be mean to her at all - but Graziella had understood that she would be living in Manhattan but would have to be on good terms with this Bunny who might be another aunt. So when a tall black woman had opened the door and greeted her with a shriek of delight and a painful hug, it had been as startling and unsettling to Graziella as the contrasting behavior of her father, aunt, and uncle the night before.

Graziella had been dragged through the house to the back patio - towards the screams of children. But she had not been brought to the scuffling and screaming children, but had been sandwiched between the four wives.

And wives was both job and title at the same time. Graziella groaned as Marnie pinched her cheeks and nearly dripped the nougat from her mouth that Francesca had just squeezed into it. Not all of the women were really wives, some were girlfriends and speculated on having the coveted ring on their finger soon. But what united three of them was their loud and unpleasant appearance. At first, they were all constantly chattering away and over each other. And although they were talking all the time, they never really seemed to say anything. Nothing important.

Then they were beautiful, all in different ways but still strangely similar because they seemed artificial and somehow desperate. Full hair, tight clothes about which her Nonna would certainly not have said anything nice, thick makeup and so much different perfume that Graziella wanted to cover her nose. (But she had to breathe. Even more so when she was constantly having candy shoved in her mouth.) All were in their late twenties or early thirties. Three already had at least one child. Marnie was skinny as a model but had a large bosom of which even Graziella could see there was something not right with it. Her six-year-old daughter was a terrible crybaby and shrieked in a shrill way whenever she didn't like something (which was every two minutes). Just as brunette and dolled up as Marnie was Francesca. This was also the one who tugged at Gabriella the most, poking her here and pinching her there because she just thought Gabriella was SOOO adorable. She might have wanted a girl, but she only had boys. A nine-year-old and ten-year-old twins who were constantly scuffling or hitting each other.

Giulia was a cool blonde who always gave Graziella a sour look and was the only one who didn't have any children. Graziella hated the look, but she liked that Giulia didn't swarm around her like the other three. Last of all was Bunny. The oldest woman with supposedly 35, wild curly locks and a bosom that was just huge but didn't look fake like Marnie's boobs because it was fuller and she was brimming with life. Something told her that Bunny was the leader- not because she was the loudest and most pushy, because pushy and loud were all three except Giulia. Bunny's daughter was seven and her son Sonny even fourteen years old and the big black boy seemed to Graziella the least annoying of the children because he seemed to have the job of watching the little ones and stood like a fierce guard at the edge of the pool to make sure no one drowned the other. At least he kept calling them to order in a biting tone - even if it only ever lasted thirty seconds before childish rabies set in again.

She had thought she would meet other family members but when she asked how they were all related - because Giulia was almost pale, the other two southern like Graziella but Bunny as black as Mister Glasses - the "wives" all laughed at her. Bunny was still the nicest and told her that family here was more than blood relations - even if Graziella was not sure what that meant. But she didn't dare to ask anymore and just tolerated that these women did with her and talked about her as they wanted.

"She's too thin. Here's another piece of white nougat," Francesca's gold bracelets jingled as she turned Graziella's head toward her and put chocolate in her again even though she was still chewing on the last piece.

"No, no, stop that, Francesca. She's getting too chubby," Marnie nagged over her own daughter's yelling in the pool behind them. "She won't be able to fit into her pretty little dresses like that in no time. Chubby kids turn into chubby adu-"

"That dress is so cute!", Bunny babbled, "I wanna go shopping with her immediately. Graziella, sweetie, you need to ask your dad for some money so we can-"

"-ese hair is a feast for the eyes - but way too curly. It would look better straight," Giulia interrupted, kneading the pendant of the necklace she was wearing, apparently lost in thought. At the same time, her gaze was again fixed on Graziella, and although it was icy, the child's cheeks became quite hot. She slid unsteadily in her seat in the middle of the outdoor seating area under the parasol where all the women were sitting. At that moment - while Marnie was holding her hair on one side and Francesca on the other, Bunny's son came with a glass of iced tea and placed it in front of Graziella with a coaster. He had a swollen eye. Immediately the wives' conversation broke off and even his mother gave her child a scowl, which Sonny either didn't notice or ignored. Graziella looked up and Sonny (in T shirt and knee-length jeans like she would have liked to wear), gave her a wry smile. And for the first time since she had had to leave Maria that morning, Graziella smiled too.

"Thank you" she said shyly, taking the glass and drinking big gulps because she was really thirsty and the iced tea was sweet and delicious. Sonny nodded gravely and turned away again.

When he was out of earshot, Bunny sighed.

"That kid is killing me. I know I'm his mother and I shouldn't feel that way, but -"

Taking the half-empty glass from Graziella, Marnie said "Don't drink that, it makes you fat," while Francesca patted Bunny's ebony skin, which peeked out from her off-the-shoulder blouse.

"It's all right honey. It'll grow out of it. Boys that age are curious and it will pass."

"I wish it hadn't started in the first place. It's just disgusting," she whispered, reaching for her small glass that looked like it had water in it with an olive speared on a toothpick.

"What will pass?" asked Graziella, and all four women looked at her as if they only now remembered that she was sitting in their midst.

Giulia made a snapping sound and rubbed one of her absurdly thinly plucked eyebrows.

"Should we tell her?"

"Everyone else knows. Better it gets to her now than my boys using hand puppets to show her", Francesca said, and Marnie almost poked her a finger in her eye.

"Not again! My Paola is still upset now and always looks at Sonny strangely like she expects him to grow a horn on the forehead any minute."

"Which can also happen to a different part of his body anytime he sees Brad Pitt or George Clooney on TV," Giulia muttered sarcastically, getting three resentful looks, which she just smugly shrugged off as if she was ahead of the other wives.

Graziella glanced at Marnie, who was tugging uncertainly at her ear. "So honey," she began cautiously. "Sonny's been looking at things he shouldn't. We don't know where he got it but Bunny found it under his bed."

"What was it?" asked Graziella for the first time really interested in what one of the wives had to say. Like any child, she loved adult secrets. Francesca continued to speak so quietly that she could barely be heard over the shouting of her three boys.

"It were dirty magazines. Do you know what those are?"

She looked at Graziella seriously and the child nodded just as seriously. Marco, from the class above Graziella, had already brought one of his father's magazines last summer. The thing, in which women seemed to be delighted with their pretty new underwear, had made Marco a star among the boys for weeks. Gabriella hadn't caught on. Her grandma's department store catalogs had women in underwear, too.

"All boys look at smut magazines once in a while. But it should be the right ones, too. The ones with girls in them," Marnie whispered.

"What was in it instead?" asked Graziella, and although at least three of the women had looked miserable before, Bunny even with tears in her eyes, they all snorted with laughter at that.

Graziella felt stupid and small again and wished she had taken Grigio with her, that he would support her. At the same time, she was glad she had left him in Manhattan because if one of those noisy kids hadn't taken her bunny away, the wives would have surely believed her to be a baby.

"Boys were in that magazine. And you're a big girl, you know boys like girls and girls will eventually like boys." Graziella nodded. She herself couldn't imagine a time when she wouldn't find a boy mean or silly but two months before she had left Italy, Viola had told her that Roberto was now her boyfriend. She had even kissed him and he her. And although Graziella thought Roberto was awful, and Viola thought he was awful, that spring she wasn't so sure why she thought he was awful. It was part of growing up to find some boys good at some point, her grandma had said, at the same time emphasizing that it was too early - MUCH too early - for Graziella to worry about such things.

"So Sonny was looking at the wrong magazine?" she asked, unsure, and Bunny bit her full red lip. "Let's hope it passes," she muttered.

"If only Mister Glasses hadn't found out about it," said Marnie.

"The WHOLE family knows about it!" hissed Bunny, giving Giulia a look that could kill. "Because of you, he beat Sonny so bad he couldn't sit down for two weeks."

"As long as he remembers that his ass is only for sitting you can be thankful," the blonde commented, smiling as she rubbed her pendant, which was nestled against her cleavage for all to see. Bunny, like the others, was staring at this pendant and for some reason Graziella had the feeling that this was the only thing that kept the other woman from scratching out the blonde's eyes. Despite the children's shouting and loud splashing in the background, the silence among the wives was almost painful. But only for a few seconds.

"Oh, I can see just now where my eyes have become accustomed to the shade here, how bad your skin looks!" Francesca exclaimed, grabbing Graziella's arm and twisting it. She was eager - no matter how clumsy and unpleasant for the girl - to change the subject and Marnie immediately went for it.

"Oh God, really. She looks like a porcelain doll but that suntan-"

"Or was your mommy like me?" asked Bunny now a little less miserable again and grateful for the distraction.

"Like you?"

"Was she black? A negro woman? Like me?"

"Don't think that would be Tony's style," Guilia said flippantly, and again the two women stabbed each other with glances. Graziella shook her head hastily.

"She wasn't black. I was just always outside a lot. It was the sun that made me so brown. Mamma didn't like it but Nonna always said healthy children need to be in the sun." All four women looked at her in horror and all had definite opinions on the matter.

"Old people are terrible, aren't they?"

"Well, we can't get rid of the working-class look with that attitude."

"Not in New York over the summer anyway."

"We could lighten the girl's makeup. I have some powders that-

"Powders! Marnie, the little doll needs full body spray - Permanent makeup."

"Don't we know someone who does that? It needs a professional."

"I have a phone number somewhere," Bunny replied, and was about to get up. But Graziella grabbed her arm.

"I- I just remembered-!"

"What, sweetie?"

"Im-important would be shopping," Graziella groaned, feeling desperate and mendacious saying that even though she knew it would be very exhausting to go shopping with these women. But it was better than this permanent makeup that these crazy people wanted to put on her. Permanent sounded like something she wouldn't be able to take off in the evening.

"Yeah, but we have to ask Tony for a little funding for his new fledgling first," Giulia fluted with a grin, drinking from her glass that had a slice of lime floating in it.

"I have this" Graziella whispered, undoing the zipper of her purse around her neck. She didn't know how long one could go shopping for thirty dollars but hopefully long enough for the wives to forget what they had actually wanted to do with her. As she pulled out the bills, the plastic card fell on the patio table and Graziella heard all four women gasp as if someone had punched them in the stomach.

"Oh my God!"

Marnie was the first to grab for the card though all four women jerked in its direction at the same time.

All four pressed against each other to get a good look at the thing.

"They gave you a fucking credit card!" exclaimed Giulia, hissing almost hatefully. The others sounded rather puzzled.

"It's got her name on it, my God."

"For a little kid."

"I wonder what the limit is there?"

"THAT'S what we're going to find out!" touted Bunny, standing up and tugging her pencil skirt into place. Forgotten was all sorrow, and new shine, or rather hunting lust, was in her eyes.

She ran towards the crowd of children.

"Heyyy, you savages!" she shouted energetically until all the children were looking at her.

"We're going away for a few hours. When we come back nothing will be broken and no one will be dead or the rest of you will be saying goodnight to the fish in the Hudson."

She flicked in Sonny's direction.

"Sonny, be a darling and watch the little ones. We need to go shopping. It's an emergency. We'll be back this evening."

For the first time, the big boy looked up truly horrified and overwhelmed. He ran after his mother while she grabbed Graziella. Her gait was much faster than that of the other wives in their high heels, thanks to her big flat but fancy sneakers. Still, Bunny was the tallest.

"What, no! Mom! Damn it, don't do this to me," Sonny shouted as he followed her through the house. Bunny grabbed the keychain and within seconds was through the front door and at a fancy blue car. All the while she was dragging Graziella behind her. The latter was pushed into the back seat and was suddenly sandwiched between Marnie and Francesca. Giulia got into the passenger seat and Bunny behind the wheel. Sonny desperately held the door open.

"Mom, you can't leave me with these monsters-"

"Be a good boy and I'll tell your dad you've been a good boy. That's what you want, isn't it?" said Bunny, patting him patronizingly on the cheek and then wrenching the car door shut so that it almost caught his fingers in it. Graziella turned around while Bunny drove out of the parking space and down the street. Sonny continued to watch them for quite a while. Graziella didn't know why he was acting like this. SHE had it much worse.

Thanks for reading, Q.T.