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my bedroom floor together to thank God for all our blessings, which we would tick off one by one. Tender as it was, that connection we had did not immunize poor Nonna against my wicked sense of humor.
    One night when I was twelve, I was hosting a sleepover with friends, and we were all giggling and listening to New Kids on the Block in my room while Nonna snored contentedly in her bed. We decided that we needed to make Manute more noticeable than he already was. I broke out the cans of Play-Doh, and my friends and I went to work. Soon, I was climbing over my sleeping grandmother with our masterpiece in hand, ready to be affixed to Manute. It wasn’t a perfect match: Manute’s complexion was nowhere near the “flesh” color of Play-Doh (seriously, are there actual human beings that sickly shade of melted Dreamsicle?), and the generous appendage we’d sculpted for him kept falling off onto Nonna’s pillow. Eventually, it stuck to him more or less where nature intended it to, and we fell asleep and forgot about it, until my mother walked into my room the next morning.
    It was always hard for my friends to gauge just how much trouble we were ever in at my house, or if there was trouble at all, since my whole family routinely conversed in high-decibel Italian with the kinds of theatric gestures Americans usually save for sudden heart attacks, shocking news, or declarations of war, not requests to pass more linguine. The casual swearing also threw most outsiders for a loop, especially when I bothered to translate it for them. My mom could smile like Mrs. Brady, tellme something in Italian, and I’d smile, nod, and say something back, and a friend would nudge me and want to know what she’d said.
    “Oh, nothing, she just called me a dumb little bitch,” I’d shrug.
    (Shocked silence.)
    “Omigod. What did you say?”
    Another shrug.
    “I told her to go fuck herself.”
    I picked up a ton of junior high street—okay, cul-de-sac—cred as the girl who was allowed to curse. In two languages, no less. Being considered cool was something new and exhilarating to me, and since all adolescence had given me so far was acne, braces, and a bad perm, I was eager to work with whatever little scraps fate tossed me. “Did you know Julie can say fuck and shit and piss at home and not get in trouble?” a friend boasted one day at the lunch table. I confirmed that I had blanket potty-mouth immunity, and offered to prove it by taking any doubters back to my house for a live demonstration. Mama was in the kitchen and greeted us warmly.
    “Mama, I’m allowed to say ‘fuck,’ right?” I asked. Mama said yes, of course, why not, and went about her business.
    “Mama, I can say ‘shit,’ too, can’t I?” Another distracted nod. I then turned to my friends like a magician about to perform the grand, saw-the-beautiful-girl-in-half finale. “Now I’m going to say ‘cunt’ in front of my mom,” I announced. My friends gaped as I proceeded to do just that. Mama, having never heard that word before, couldn’t have cared less. My audience was hugely impressed. I smirked triumphantly, and was still reveling in my newfound coolness when I heard a roar and felt myself being picked up by the ankles and thrown to the floor.
    “Don’t you ever cuss at her, you fucking little shit, if you ever call Mama that again I will fucking kill you!” My brother, sixfoot four and seven years older, then proceeded to swing me head first against the wall while I screamed at the top of my lungs. My friends looked on; this show just kept getting better and better. “Pasquale, why-
a
you killing your sister?” Mama shouted over the commotion, stopping short of actually forbidding Pasquale to murder me.
    Pasquale’s God status made him the perfect fodder for what would turn out to be by far the worst prank I ever pulled. I was twelve or thirteen, and I was up in my room talking with my friend Matt Donnelly when I got the brilliant idea that we should