Mafia Girl by Deborah Blumenthal Read Free Book Online Page A

before he had breast milk, I think, and they passed that love to him in their genes, so the fresh sardines with the sweet currants and the parsley and the thick bucatini pasta just about transport him back to his childhood.
    Tonight is pasta con sarde night, which may work in my favor. I help my mom with the salad and put in extra arugula, because my dad loves arugula, and then I dress it with oil and balsamic vinegar. I bought a chocolate truffle cake at Ro’s dad’s bakery and after we finish dinner I cut him a big piece and bring him his espresso and then I’m silent and patient and all attentive, transformed into perfect daughter mode, waiting for just the right moment as he sits for a little while enjoying the pasta con sarde afterglow or whatever until I can’t stand it anymore.
    “So guess who called me today?”
    He shrugs. “Tell me.”
    “ Vogue .”
    He narrows his eyes, not getting it.
    “ Vogue . Vogue magazine. They want to do a photo shoot of the best-looking daughters of celebrities.”
    I leave out the underage part and put a second wedge of truffle cake on his plate. My dad stirs his espresso with the small silver spoon and very slowly runs the sliver of lemon peel around the edge of the gold-rimmed cup. He shifts slightly in his chair, crossing one leg over the other, before cocking his head to the side.
    “In what, in bikinis?” he asks, because he’s afraid of saying thongs or panties and sounding pervy.
    “No, Daddy, in designer clothes!” Not that I have a clue what they’re thinking, but it’s Vogue and what are they going to use, low-end polyester shit from Walmart?
    “I don’t think so,” he says, blotting his lips with the linen napkin.
    I look at him. “Do you know why they want me?”
    “Eh,” he purses his lips. “I know.”
    “Because I look like you, Daddy. They said I got my incredible looks from my dad.” I give that a minute to sink in. My father lifts his chin.
    “They said that?”
    “Word for word.”
    He stares out the window and then turns back to me. “I’ll think about it.”
    I look over at my mom who I can tell is already on board so I just need her to move him from thinking maybe to saying yes. I remember a line from a movie where the wife says that her husband may be the head of the family, but that she is the neck and “the neck turns the head.”
    “Mom?” I say, just short of pleading.
    “Frankie would go with you,” she says.
    “Absolutely.”
    “And be there the whole time.”
    “Well, except the dressing room part,” I say.
    “Don’t be fresh,” she says.
    I hold out my hands.
    My dad turns to me. “Maybe,” he says. “If it’s Vogue magazine and you’re on the cover.”
    The cover? Who said anything about…?
    “You’re the best,” I say, jumping up and hugging him. Now all I have to do is make sure it’s the cover.

TEN
    No, I am not thinking about what I’ll be wearing for the Vogue pictures or what I’ll stand up and say to the assholes at Morgan to get them to vote for me, because my body is on orange alert and that makes me wired and dysfunctional and scared and excited and in need of a plan, and the only one I can come up with makes me semi-nauseous, but I don’t care.
    School goes by in agonizingly slow motion the next day as if the hands on the clock have been weighted down and time is playing a sadistic game of torturing me because it refuses to pass. When it’s finally lunch, I turn to Clive.
    “Can I borrow Thomas tonight?”
    “What for?”
    I dread telling him, but I do.
    “Are you sure that’s a smart move, Gia?”
    Smart? It’s a pathetic, desperate move. “I have no cards to play, and it’s the only one I can come up with since he hasn’t called.” And my hormones are like…
    “You can have Thomas, but be careful, Gia. And what about your parents? Are they really going to believe that you’re coming over to my place again for the math?”
    “They take Ambien.”
    After dinner I help my mom with