The Lying Life of Adults

Giovanna begins watching her mother closely. She imagines her mother engaging in scenarios from the very romance novels that Giovanna reads and that her mother edits. Instead of anger, however, Giovanna is jealous: She wants her mother’s affection all to herself. Moreover, she wants to tell someone about what she saw under the table but fears destroying her life by telling Aunt Vittoria. However, when Ida and Angela press her for a meeting with her aunt, Giovanna begs her parents until her father relents. Despite both sets of parents uneasy about the meeting, Giovanna and Aunt Vittoria plan a date and time.

When Aunt Vittoria picks the girls up, she greets Costanza by touching everything she’s wearing, including her jewelry. Costanza mentions that her bracelet is a prized possession. The entire time, Giovanna regrets arranging the meeting; her aunt is acting even ruder than usual, and Giovanna isn’t sure why. Later, the girls quarrel with Aunt Vittoria about the existence of God and hell, and Giovanna’s aunt responds by calling them stupid. But Giovanna and the girls are happy because Aunt Vittoria is taking them to a church thrift sale and Margherita’s family will be present.

Giovanna and her friends meet Don Giacomo, a young father who chastises Aunt Vittoria when the older woman hits Ida for saying something facetious about God. Don Giacomo also mentions Roberto—Tonino’s friend—as a learned follower who instructs others that entrance into heaven comes from embracing a childlike attitude.

Though Margherita and her family are cordial with Ida and Angela, Giovanna feels sick and realizes that her aunt, too, is upset. Before meeting Don Giacomo, Ida and Angela say that Aunt Vittoria is cruel and ugly; now, Giovanna stares at her aunt as the woman acts out of character and wonders if they both are sick inside and ugly outside. When Giovanna can no longer bear her secret, she tells Aunt Vittoria about what she witnessed between her mother and Mariano, but Aunt Vittoria says that Andrea won’t care.

Aunt Vittoria’s mood continues to sour throughout the flea market experience. At one point she threatens a boy named Rosario for laughing at her. Rosario is the son of an influential attorney named Sargente. Despite his father’s influence, and despite Giovanna informing her aunt that, because of Rosario’s misshapen teeth it only looks like he’s laughing, Aunt Vittoria jabs Rosario with a pair of scissors and threatens Corrado as well. Giovanna appraises her aunt’s cruelty and realizes that her aunt will probably destroy Giovanna’s family now that she knows the secret. Giovanna ties her guilt to her growing pains, saying, “I could no longer be innocent, behind my thoughts there were other thoughts, childhood was over” (118). Her sadness increases when Angela motions toward Aunt Vittoria playing the accordion and grimacing, and Giovanna truly sees her aunt making ugly facial gestures.

Giovanna prays that her aunt will return them on time, which she does. Her aunt once again praises Costanza’s clothing. She pays special attention to the bracelet and even asks Giovanna if she likes it. Though Aunt Vittoria tells Giovanna that she loves her and will always be there for her, Giovanna resolves not to see her aunt again. She goes to her room, looks at her face, and cries.

One day, Mariano and Andrea have a fight that Ida and Angela overhear. During the fight, Mariano calls Costanza a “slut” and demands that she and Andrea leave. Andrea begins cussing in dialect but then runs after Costanza. Though Ida, Angela, and Giovanna talk on the phone about what could be wrong, they all know that the fight is really about a type of sex that is at odds with their romantic ideas of sex and love. Their parents’ strange behavior continues one day when Costanza arrives and gives her prized bracelet to Giovanna. When Giovanna asks why, her mother, who has been crying a lot lately, explains that Costanza is returning the bracelet. Giovanna tries to make light of the situation because she doesn’t want to understand what it means. Costanza leaves and never returns to their house, and Mariano, too, leaves their street. Because Giovanna knows deep down that the bracelet has to do with the recent fight, she stops reaching out to Angela and Ida so that she doesn’t give away just how much she knows.

Giovanna begins lying to herself about what’s happening in her home life. She also begins praying, hoping that Aunt Vittoria didn’t reveal her secret about her mother and Mariano. Yet Giovanna also reasons that the events which took place don’t give credence to her aunt telling on Mariano and her mother. She feels that she knows deep down what really happened but is too afraid of her world collapsing to admit it. However, at lunch one afternoon, Giovanna asks her father bluntly about the bracelet. When he affirms that Aunt Vittoria gave it to her, she then calmly asks why he gave it to Costanza, angering her father. Her mother says that Andrea has been having an affair with Costanza for 15 years. When Giovanna laughs at this, and then laughs at her mother’s sadness, her father says that Giovanna is really like Aunt Vittoria and leaves.