Free The Witch of Little Italy by Suzanne Palmieri

back alleys between the buildings.
    “Who are you talking to?” Anthony asked from behind her.
    Elly jumped. “You scared me! Don’t do that!”
    “How about you start dressing appropriately for winter? Look at you, out here again with no coat and no shoes.”
    “I heard someone crying, and then I came out here and met a long-lost best friend I can’t even remember.”
    “That’s good. Making friends. See? At home already.” Anthony put his arm around her shoulder and pivoted her back toward the house. “Let’s go, the day isn’t getting any longer.”
    *   *   *
    “So, you really don’t remember anything?” asked Anthony as he drove Uncle Georgie’s 1965 Chevy Cavalier, the same red as Carmen’s favorite nail polish color, “Honeymoon Red.”
    “Nope. My first memory is standing on the stoop with Carmen, only I didn’t recognize her. She still hates me for it. I was only ten. But she hates me anyway. There’s a little more but it’s silly.”
    “ No. Come on, fess up.” He nudged her as they crept along I-95 northbound to New Haven, caught in traffic of mythical proportions.
    “I remember doing crochet … and cartwheels,” said Elly softly. “Just the beach and the sea air, damp sand and cartwheels.” She looked at him and shrugged self-conscious shoulders.
    “Well, while we’re stuck in the car, push harder, close your eyes. Anything else?”
    Elly closed her eyes and let her mind reach back. She tumbled hand over hand, her feet kicking up and out like a starfish, and through the fog it came to her, a boy, a sense of love, and a girl standing behind him holding up rabbit ears and laughing.
    “I remember you,” she said with a surprised laugh. “And … that girl … Liz, I think. And that’s all.”
    “Well, hell, if you remember me, then that’s enough,” said Anthony as traffic began to move.
    Driving through New Haven made Elly increasingly queasy. Anthony must have sensed it because he kept asking, “You okay?”
    Am I okay? she asked herself. What does that even mean? No one ever asked her that question. She didn’t even ask herself that question. As she looked out the window at the familiar buildings surrounding the campus, Elly took a chance and asked herself the same question— Are you okay? She answered as Eleanor: “No. You are definitely not okay.” As Elly: “I think so. I think you’re on the mend.” And as Babygirl: “Of course you are okay! You are always okay! And you’re home now, with Anthony and Mimi and Fee and Itsy. Get on with this chore and get back to the Bronx!”
    “You okay?” asked Anthony. Again.
    “I don’t know,” said Elly, “I have a lot of … um … mixed feelings.”
    “Totally understandable,” he said.
    “At least you think so,” she said as they drove around Downtown New Haven. “I’m starting to think I have multiple personality disorder.”
    Even though most classes were not in session the campus was still lively, and parking was an issue. In the end she made him double-park because she thought if they circled the streets of downtown New Haven one more time she’d just give up and go back to the Bronx. Already Elly felt this life fading. The castlelike buildings with towers piercing the sky. The stuffy professors riding bicycles to and from campus, even through the now slushy streets. She watched couples walking hand in hand, wearing matching Burberry scarves and clutching Starbucks coffee. It all seemed so shallow. How had she survived it for so long?
    The art. Her art. It was the painting. Her only real escape. And that’s why we’re here, she reminded herself. To get my paintings before Cooper can destroy them. And he would, too. He’d waited so long to be given a valid reason to obliterate the last shred of herself that belonged to just her. She wouldn’t let him do it.
    “We have to move fast,” she said.
    “Why?” asked Anthony.
    “I think Cooper is taking an intersession course … he might be