Page 4 of Better Than Gelato
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“I would rather light myself on fire!”
Isa punctuates this proclamation by throwing a fistful of colored pencils all over the kitchen. Her eyes are wild, and her fine hair sticks out from her head like the halo of an angry god.
The homework page she’s supposed to color lies on the dark mahogany table next to her overturned backpack.
My first full day as a nanny has been…challenging. Isa was scowly and grumbling in the morning, but who isn’t? She threw a plate against the wall when Sofia put the wrong snack in her bag, but who hasn’t?
Sofia edges along the counter toward Isa’s position by the fridge. She moves slowly, so as not to enrage Isa further. Marco left for Portugal this morning for a fashion summit of some sort, so Sofia’s on her own.
“Mi piccolo topino,” she says, calling Isa her little mouse. “It’s just one page. You can do one page. One tiny little page,amore?”
“I would not color those triangles if you gave me a million gazillion euros!”
Yikes. Good luck with that one, Sofia. This is when I’m glad I’m the nanny and not the mom. I tiptoe down the plush gray carpet to my room but stop at the door.Wait. Is helping with homework supposed to be part of my job?
I creep back down the hall and peek around the corner to make sure Sofia has it all under control. She does not have it under control. She has the eyes of a sickly wildebeest facing a hungry lion.
If my mom were here, she would whip Isa into shape in no time. She raised five kids and not a single one of us would dare raise our voice at her. But I’m not my mom, and I don’t know how to whip people into shape.
I think for a minute, then zip to my room and grab the adult coloring book I brought for the plane ride. It has underwater scenes that are supposed to be relaxing to color. By the time I return to the kitchen, Isa’s standing on her chair shrieking.
“Scusi, Isa, could I borrow a few of your pencils? I can’t find mine.”
Isa and Sofia look at me startled. Isa blinks.
“Maybe just three?” I ask and bend over to pick up three colored pencils from the tile floor. I make sure Isa gets a good look at the cover of my coloring book. “Ti va bene?” Is that okay?
Isa nods her head and goes back to screaming, but it’s not quite as loud.
I walk to the living room, leaving the kitchen door open behind me so Isa can see me settle into a navy armchair, select a page and begin coloring.
“No, I won’t!” She’s still yelling in the kitchen, but it’s clear she’s distracted. “Leave me alone!” she yells at Sofia, and I hear Sofia murmur something as she leaves the kitchen and heads to her bedroom.
It takes thirty seconds for Isa to stomp over to my chair.
“Che ci fai?” she demands. What are you doing?
“I’m coloring,” I tell her. “Thanks for lending me your pencils. They’re really nice.”
“That doesn’t look like any of my coloring books,” she says.
“It’s not. It’s a coloring book for grownups. My mom got it in a special store.”
Her brow furrows as she works up the courage to ask for a page, but I don’t make it easy for her. I keep coloring as though I don’t notice her opening and closing her mouth.
Finally she asks, “Could I have a page from your book to color?Per favore?”
“Of course,” I reply immediately. “Choose any page you’d like.”
She takes her time and finally settles on an ocean scene with a tortoise and some jellyfish. She carefully pulls the page out and sets it on the black and chrome coffee table. I go back to coloring my dolphins, and she heads to the kitchen and picks up all the pencils she threw. She comes back and lays them out on the table next to her page.
We color in companionable silence for twenty minutes. In my head, I make a list of positive things about Isa.
1. She didn’t cry at school drop off this morning, when most of the other kids did.
2. She’s funny. Calling our bus driver a monkey face was mean, but also hilarious.
