The Spoiled Cassata

Camille Leonardi is dead, and she is making a fuss about it.

Poor Veronica Sollazzo, who had spent hours doing her make-up. ‘It’s very hard,’ she complained to her husband over boiled eggs that morning. ‘The young ones always look like whores.’ But Veronica had done her best, painting Camille’s teenage lips not red or pink but a rosy brown, gluing her eyelids shut with only a little adhesive and not going crazy on the blush. Then, just a single spray of perfume through her brown curls—something light, something of the earth, that would remind everyone of Camille’s sweet, secret nature.

Everyone thought she looked spectacular. ‘Just like that photograph in my wallet,’ whispered Maria Vercelli to her children seated alongside her in the pew. She was reminded of the younger, fat-cheeked version of her niece, sandwiched between lottery tickets and her healthcare card. And poor Maria! After this service, no one would be able to stomach her cake, a cassata siciliana, Camille’s favourite. She had never said she liked it exactly—Camille would never be so expressive—but years ago, at the christening of Giovanna Filipini, Maria had noticed that the girl had gone back for a second helping, cutting herself another enormous piece of cassata before scuttling away to some lonely corner. So Maria had told everyone she would make the cake. She had slaved over it, spent days on it, smearing ricotta on the sponge and laying the pieces like bricks, spreading the icing over the marzipan with a hot knife and sticking candied oranges all over its green outer layer. What could she do now except shove it in the freezer, like the top tier of a wedding cake, and haul it out for the messa di suffragio next year. But it would never keep. Besides, how could it ever feed all the nosey hoards bound to show up?

Maybe it was all Antonia Leonardi’s fault. She had been the one to request ‘nothing but red roses’. They made the church air dizzying and stagnant, a floral soup. Ah, poor Antonia, acting like a little dictator in her grief, terrorising the funeral directors with her demands. For her saintly daughter, she told them, she wanted to evoke the miracles of the roses—those stories of ancient queens who crept out of their castles to feed the poor, bread nestled in their aprons, only for it to turn into a big bouquet once they were caught. Then there was the Virgin Mary, Rosa Mystica herself. Oh, Antonia, so lost without her daughter to boss around! Now who would be the target of her anxious, screeching torrents? Camille, don’t go outside in the cold without your wool coat. Come back here, and let me feel your neck. Look, your glands are swollen—they are as big as golf balls. Get your backside into this house right now!

One wonders why Camille chose that moment—right in the middle of her father’s speech!—for her grand display. Poor Dominic Leonardi, who was already struggling at the pulpit. You might think he was just a man bewildered by grief, but let’s be honest, Dominic was no orator. You could hear bums shifting on seats whenever he took to the stage at a wedding or when he addressed his employees at a work luncheon. He had no feel for a sentence, never knew where to pause. He garbled the simplest of words. You would have hoped his wife might have sat him down and made him go over his lines. But no, he took to the altar and ran his mouth, spouting something difficult to understand. Camille was… Gorgeous and unknown? Reliable? Perfect? Pliant? Quiet? Happiest when playing with the family pets in the garden, two devilish sheepdogs called Bruno and Georgio.

The mourners were horrified by the interruption, but beneath their terror was a thin layer of relief—Dominic could not go on! Thank God. In fairness, it had been hard to hear anything over Vincent Leonardi. Poor dear Vinnie, who wept like a maniac throughout his sister’s service. He played the bereaved, crazed lover that Camille never had, strapping his arms around his chest and moaning, swaying back and forth, his gold chains thumping against his chest. Squiggles of veins popped across his temples, like snakes surging under sand. Nothing could have pulled Vincent off the ship of tears.

He seemed to barely notice when his sister spat out her cotton balls, shot her left hand out of the coffin and crushed a rose in her palm—sending waves of perfume into each pew. The whole thing lasted seconds, only seconds! But the damage had been done. Vincent’s wails didn’t alter one bit, but now a chorus of screams reverberated off the stone walls and pink babies cried out in confusion. Wet handkerchiefs littered the consecrated ground. Some relatives even ripped apart a row of wreaths, convinced that whatever evil must be coming from those soft velvet petals.

Pietro Gerosa, who had spent the service crouched over, sore from his night sleeping in his childhood bed, finally straightened up. A single tear fled his left eye. He missed his young cousin, whom everyone thought shared his propensity for mystery—and now misfortune. Still, he was pleased with himself—pleased he’d had the good sense to bring for the wake three bottles of Grappa Bocchino instead of two.

This story is a runner-up of the KYD Flash Fiction Prize 2025.