Barefoot Dogs Read Free

Italy, Diane was wondering, wouldn’t it be great if she could put together a suitcase with new clothes and shoes and even some facial creams and over-the-counter medicines for her mamma, along with some cash, and wouldn’t it be fantastic if one of us could deliver all that to her in Genova?
    “I’d be forever grateful,” she says in a voice so low that the words greet the evening air in a whisper. “We all could go visit your mom!” Tammy exclaims right away. “It’d be great to meet her!” Jen adds. “We could even take her out to dinner and practice conversazione on her!” Sash offers, making the idea sound immediately like The Truest Italian Summer Experience Ever. I volunteer to carry the bag, and we decide we’ll iron out the details of our expedition to Genova over chianti the following week. “Molto grazie, i miei amori!” Diane exclaims, back to her original marvelous self again. She refuses to let us pay for the cappuccinos that night. I’m excited to meet Diane’s mamma and venture into her past, but I’m shocked to learn she doesn’t have the resources I’d assumed she had from looking at the fierce features of her face, the exclusive shapeof her body, the European self-confidence she carries herself with around Mexicans.
    In the evening we bypass Mixup and head directly to Tammy’s, where we discuss Diane’s petition with curiosity and fascination while listening to La Traviata . Italy has never been closer, the summer of our lives has already started. I get home later than usual, dying to tell my parents about Diane’s mamma, but they are not there (Nicolasa, my younger sister, is not at home either; she’s in Costa Rica on an end-of-school-year trip with her class).
    Justina, our nanny, who has taken care of us since we were born, is waiting for me in the kitchen. The small TV set where she likes to watch soap operas while cooking dinner is off, which immediately raises a red flag. Justina is past forty-five, but her round, bright face remains girlish as ever. Tonight she looks exhausted, as if a decade has run her over since the last time I saw her, that morning. Her eyes are swollen, redder than usual.
    “Are you okay?” I ask, kissing her on each cheek—my superb friends and I have been practicing kissing like Italians do, and I practice with Justina as well—and this makes her smile wearily, but instead of answering she asks whether I’ve already had dinner. I say I have, but she insists.
    “Fercita, are you sure you don’t want me to prepare a sandwich or some quesadillas for you?” she asks imploringly, as if by saying yes I’d save her life.
    I say I’m sure and press her further, for something’s definitely going on. Justina coaxes me into the living room. She says we need to talk. When we sit on the sofa, Justina says Mom and Dad are not home because they’re at Grandpa’s. He left his office yesterday to head out for lunch and didn’t return. He didn’t go home either. He hasn’t called. They’ve tried toreach him on his cell phone, but he’s not answering. Mom and Dad and my uncles and my aunts are at his home, waiting for news. I struggle to understand why this is all a big deal, Grandpa should be somewhere fun, hanging around with his friends, probably partying hard, he won’t call his children to tell them that, right? It makes no sense for Justina, and everybody else, to freak out.
    Then it hits me.
    This image of Grandpa taking a taxicab outside his office and disappearing into the city thunders into my head, but it makes no sense, I say to myself. Grandpa doesn’t need to take taxicabs. He never takes one—here. These things only happen to people who don’t have cars. These things don’t happen to people who live in Polanco, people like us, like Grandpa.
    “I’m sure he’s fine,” I say, but I say it more to myself than to Justina. “I’m heading to Grandpa’s to tell Mom and Dad there’s nothing to worry about.”
    “No!” Justina raises