Whistling In the Dark by Lesley Kagen Read Free Book Online

us at all. Hall was drinking all the time up at Jerbak’s. So Mrs. Latour was probably right when she said he’d taken up with Rosie Ruggins, who was a cocktail waitress there. And Nell was so busy with Eddie that she didn’t want to cook for us, which was okay, because unfortunately I would really have to agree with Hall on that one thing and only that one thing—Nell’s cooking was crap. She was also talking about going to beauty school, so she was spending a lot of time giving Toni perms in the kitchen, which had begun to smell worse than the bathroom up at the service station. Half the girls on the block now looked like they’d stuck forks into light sockets, thanks to Nell.
    Because Troo and me were pretty hungry, Troo came up with another one of her famous plans. She said, “We should just start showing up at people’s houses around suppertime.” So last night we ate at the O’Haras’, which wasn’t that great because I really didn’t like liver no matter how much bacon you put on it. But tonight, we were on our way over to Fast Susie Fazio’s house because they had the best food, and because even though they were Italians, the Fazios were okay Italians, not like the Molinaris. Troo told me that was because the Fazios were from someplace called Nice, Italy, not like the Molinaris, who were from another part of Italy that wasn’t so nice.
    There were ten Fazios plus Nana, so mostly I don’t think anybody even noticed when Troo and me got plates out of the cupboard above the sink and pulled up chairs next to Fast Susie in the kitchen, which always smelled of that spice called garlic that Nana used on just about everything.
    I was sitting across the table from Nana. I tried to smile at her even though I knew she wouldn’t smile back because I had tried before and she never did. That was because she was a Strega Nana . . . a witch. Under no circumstances would you want to cross Nana. Other Italians came from all around the city and would bring her stuff and she would say some Italian words and wave her arms around to ward off the evil spirits and she always dressed like she was on her way to a funeral. Fast Susie told me, even though I didn’t believe her, that Nana threw pee on somebody’s new car once as some sort of blessing, so they would never get in a crash. I tried not to think about that when I reached around one of Fast Susie’s older brothers for a piece of that nice skinny bread with butter.
    “So how’s your mother doin’?” Johnny Fazio asked right after I’d stuffed the bread in my mouth. He reminded me of this movie star called Earl Flynn who was in this movie Troo and me had seen and liked at Old Time Movie Matinee Day. It was called Captain Blood and Earl was a pirate. Johnny had a thin mustache like Earl’s and his dark hair grew up on his head like a big wave and he was a singer in a band called the Do Wops, which all the older girls thought was very hep.
    “Eh . . . you.” He poked me in the arm. “What’s your name . . . I asked you how your mother was doin’.”
    “She’s fine,” Troo answered for me.
    “Ain’t she dyin’ or somethin’?” Johnny asked.
    His words hung in the air like skunk smell and made everybody stop eating. Then Nana Fazio’s chair made a scraping sound when she pushed quickly back from the table. Her bosoms were so long she had to hold them to her waist with a belt and she didn’t speak very good English, but Nana knew a wisecrack in any language. She had begun to undo her bosoms belt.
    I pretended not to notice and reached for another delicious meatball in red sauce.
    Then these words came shooting out of her little body—because really, Nana Fazio could almost be considered a midget—and she marched over to our side of the table and slapped Johnny across his shoulders with her belt. “You don’ talk like that. Thas the little girl’s mama, you don’t say nuthin’ about her mama dyin’, capisce ?” Nana shouted at Johnny in this