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favorite part of our house, although I don’t go there much since it’s mostly off-limits. I remember staring at the vase of fresh roses on the table near the window.
    He has a mahogany desk with a gold letter holder where he keeps bills. Next to it is a tall lamp with a wine colored base and gold handles that look like ears that stick out too far. On top of it is a shade with tiny pleats. I remember how the room smelled, like lemony furniture polish. I sat in the red velvet armchair with the lace doily over the footstool and stared at him, waiting. He was reading the newspaper and finally looked up.
    “Gia, what’s the matter?”
    I didn’t know how to answer. I wasn’t sure what the matter was.
    “Those things,” I said, “that they say about you…on the TV…Are they right?”
    “What things?” he asked, lifting his chin slightly.
    “That you’re the one behind it when people get killed,” I said, so low I didn’t think he could hear me. Our eyes met across the room. I don’t think either of us blinked.
    His eyes darkened. “Don’t listen to the TV. They’re trying to make headlines to be popular. Just remember the only important thing is that I love you. That’s all that matters here.”
    “But is it true?” I said, refusing to look away.
    “Sometimes things happen, Gia,” he said, looking down at the gold rings on his fingers and at his nails, always perfectly covered with clear polish. “People don’t always act the way they’re supposed to. They cross you.” He looked back up at me. “If you’re running a business you have to trust the people around you, like we trust each other, right?”
    I nodded.
    “So we have to do the right thing when other people don’t do the right thing. If you’re the boss, you have to act like the boss.”
    I must have looked confused because he shook his head and smiled. “It’s complicated,” he said, “and I don’t want you to worry about it. You’re safe here, that’s all you have to know.”
    I swallowed hard and got up to leave.
    “Come, come here,” he said, motioning to me. I walked over to him and he hugged me, kissing me on the top of the head again and again, as if he was trying to fill my head with his love instead of the thoughts I came in with.
    “Who loves you more than anyone else in the whole world?”
    That was our game, the game we had played since I was a two-year-old. He asked me that question again and again, each time as if he had never asked it before. Every time he did I was back to being two again, looking up at my dad as if he were this giant, the most perfect man in the whole world.
    “You do,” I said, and he broke into a smile the way he always did.
    “That’s right. Now go and see if you can help your mother with dinner. She’s making chicken cacciatore,” he said. “You love that, no?”
    I nodded. He patted me on the back and I walked toward the door. I turned to look at him one last time, expecting to see him already looking down, reading his paper again, but he wasn’t. His face was darker, his eyes hooded, and he was still watching me.
    I never asked him again.

NINE
    I get a reprieve from being grounded because we have to do campaign posters, so Ro and Clive and Candy and I hang out at Clive’s, and at dinnertime we’re starving so we speed-dial for hot and sour soup, egg rolls, moo shu pork, shrimp and Chinese vegetables, ten-ingredient fried rice, sweet-and-sour chicken, and shrimp lo mein.
    After everyone pigs out and we read the fortunes in the cookies— All your hard work will soon pay off (mine), Don’t let the past and useless details choke your existence (Candy), The one you love is closer than you think (Clive), and Be direct, usually one can accomplish more that way (Ro). I force them into the bathroom to wash their hands ten times to get rid of the grease before touching the oak tag for my posters.
    When everyone’s clean, we sit on the floor in Clive’s room.
    “Okay,” I say, clapping