People always said I was cursed.
Gwen Stallone is a Realm Walker with a lot of family drama and a mysterious connection to Jason Todd. They share a terrible secret, but one that will draw them together.
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Tomato Day.
Oh God, if anyone ever found out about it, I'd die. There we sat last Saturday in my grandmother's backyard cutting the bad bits off overripe tomatoes and squeezing them.
After doing ten crates of those, we boiled them, squashed them, then boiled them again. That in turn made spaghetti sauce. We bottled it in beer bottles and stored it in Nonna's cellar.
I can't understand why we can't go to Franklin's and buy Leggo's or Paul Newman's special sauce. Nonna had heart failure at this suggestion and looked at Mama.
"Where is the culture?" she asked in dismay. "She's going to grow up, marry an Australian and her children will eat fish-and-chips."
Robert and I call this annual event "Wog Day" or "National Wog Day." We sat around wondering how many other poor unfortunates our age were doing the same, but we were sure we'd never find out because nobody would admit to it.
His grandmother and mother and father and brothers and sisters came over as well and we all sat around like Sicilian peasants. My Zio Ricardo had a hanky on his head with each of the four sides tied in a knot. By the end of the day all the little kids had the same type of headpiece.
I didn't know where my brother was, though he was probably running around like a dickhead with his mates. And my dad never came to these thing - Nonna still thought he was the devil incarnate and he had the farm to run.
"We have been doing this for over sixty years, Gita," my Zia Patrizia told me, wiping her hands on a polka-dot apron (the same apron as every other woman in the yard because my second cousin Rita had once bought ten meters of material on sale).
Nonna and Zia Patrizia were sitting side by side, beaming at me. They look very similar except Zia Patrizia isn't as vain as Nonna and has done nothing about her graying hair. I looked over to where Mama was with Zio Ricardo, wishing she would look my way. I wanted her to save me from Zia Patrizia and Nonna Angela. From their reminiscing and gossip.
"Remember the year Marcus Sandford helped us, Angela? An Australiano squeezing tomatoes wit us."
"Marcus Sandford?" I asked, looking at Nonna. "He came back on the scene?"
"Who's Marcus Sandford?" Robert asked, wiping his hands on my T-shirt.
"He was an Australian policeman who helped Angela and me when Nonno Ricardo and your Zio Francesco were in the camp."
"During the war Zio Ricardo was working with Nonno Francesco in the sugar fields, so I had to look after Patrizia because she was pregnant again," Nonna explained to us.
"One day," Zia Patrizia interrupted, "they came wit the truck. They started from the north of Queensland and drove down. They took every Italian man. Even the boys. It was because of that bastardo Mussolini."
