Читать книгу The Next Best Thing - Kristan Higgins - Страница 11

“SO? YOU WANT TO DATE HER? She’s perfectly nice. A widow. Sure, she was sad when her husband, bless his heart, crashed into that tree, but none of the Prozac, you know what I’m saying? And as you can see, she has a nice figure.”

Aunt Iris has just dragged me from the kitchen, where I was taking out fifteen loaves of rye. A man in his forties, short, plump, balding, stands in front of the counter, frozen in terror. Was I wishing that the Black Widows would fix me up? I take it back.

“Sorry about this,” I said. “Can I help you?”

“Um…I just…I wanted a danish.”

“And you got a danish,” Iris says pointedly. She jerks her head toward me. “So what do you think?”

“I need some change,” the man whispers to me.

“Sure.” I snatch the twenty from where it’s being held hostage in Iris’s hand and hit a key on the cash register. “Just one danish? Anything else?”

“Nothing else! Uh, I mean, no thanks.” He looks warily at Iris, then back at me. “I’m sorry.”

Iris bristles, swelling like an indignant and regal toad. “Oh, she’s not good enough for you, is that it? Why? What’s special about you, huh, mister?” She grabs me by my shoulders, gives a brisk shake. “Look at those hips. She was born to have children, and none of this epidural crap. Ask my daughter. She’s a lesbian doctor.” Aunt Iris releases me, folds her arms and stares the man down. “I had two children, not a drop of painkiller for me. Did it hurt? Of course it did. It was childbirth, for heaven’s sake. I made do. I bore it. The tearing…not so bad. It didn’t kill me.”

I hand the man his change. “Have a nice day. Come again.”

The man won’t be coming again, I assure you. He scuttles out the door. I’d be willing to bet he never comes to the island again.

“Iris, maybe you could…tone it down a little?” I suggest.

“What?” Iris asks, wounded. She snatches up a rag and starts polishing the immaculate counter. “Tone what down?”

“Well, parading me out here like a farm animal at an auction.”

“You said you wanted to date someone, so I’m helping, that’s all.”

“That was more along the lines of pimping, with a crash course in obstetrics thrown in.”

“So fussy! I thought beggars couldn’t be choosers,” she huffs.

“I’m not a beggar! I just…I can meet someone on my own. You’re so nice to try, but please don’t harass the customers. Business is bad enough.”

“Business is fine,” she snorts. “Listen to her. Business is bad. Fifty—seven years of bad business, huh? Put you through your fancy—shmancy baking college, didn’t it? Hmm?”

“Yes, Aunt Iris. It did,” I admit. “It’s just that we could do a lot more if we put in some tables, offered coffees and—”

Iris’s magnificent eye roll is interrupted as the bell rings. My aunt’s usually stern face morphs into sycophantic adoration. “Oh, Grinelda! Hello, hello! Come in, dear! So nice of you to visit us.”

I stifle a sigh.

Grinelda is a frequent visitor to Bunny’s. She is a self—proclaimed gypsy, and my aunts and mother revere her. Gypsies have a special place in the hearts of Hungarians, and the Black Widows, devout Catholics all, view Grinelda as second only to the Book of the Apocalypse in terms of prophetic abilities. Like Madonna or Cher, Grinelda has no last name, which means she must be paid in cash. Also like the aforementioned pop stars, Grinelda likes to dress up. Today’s ensemble is sort of “attention deficit disorder meets kindergartner on sugar high.” Long, shiny purple skirt riding higher in the back than in the front, as it must make the long journey over Grinelda’s impressive rump. Red blouse with a piece of duct tape running up one shoulder seam, pilling black shawl, a sliding jingle of cheap bracelets and punishing, clip—on earrings.

Her voice rusted by fifty years of small brown cigars, Grinelda now croaks out a greeting. “Daisy, Iris, Rose…your loved ones await a word.”

“Lucy, honey, don’t just sit there like a lump, get her something to eat!” Aunt Rose trills, bursting from the back of the kitchen from where she was slathering a wedding cake in her special blend of Crisco and confectioner’s sugar. “Go!” She yanks off her apron and smoothes her hair.

I do as I’m told, heaping ten of Bunny’s most garish and colorful cookies on a plate and stirring three teaspoons of sugar into a large mug of “staff—only” coffee.

My mother emerges from her office, applying another coat of lipstick as she does. “Oh, good, she’s here. Lucy, do you want a reading, too? Electrolysis, maybe?”

“No, thanks,” I say, ignoring the mustache crack. “Mom, Grinelda’s about as a psychic as a fern. And a hundred bucks a pop? I just don’t think you should—”

“Shh! She’ll hear you, honey. Quiet down and go in the back if you’re such a cynic. Go! Shoo!” Mom takes the plate of cookies from me, and approaches Grinelda with the reverence of a Wise Man nearing baby Jesus. “Grinelda! Welcome!”

I’ve always found it odd that Mom is as sold as her sisters on Grinelda, since she seems so much more sophisticated, but I guess we all have our weak spots. And though I am indeed cynical about Grinelda’s abilities, I peek from the kitchen. Grinelda may be a fraud, but she’s still fun to watch.

“Daisy, my dear,” the gypsy croaks, cutting her crepey eyes to me, “it’s so good to see you. I’m feeling a bit tired today, but I’ll do my best.”

The three sisters cluck and fuss around Grinelda, who doesn’t waste time, shoving two cookies into her mouth at once. Through a spray of crumbs, she says, “I’m getting a letter…someone’s coming.” My aunts and mother clutch hands, crowding around the little table. “The letter is…L. Yes. It’s a man whose name begins with L. Does one of you know a man whose name begins with L?”

“Doesn’t everyone know a man whose name begins with L?” I ask sweetly. I am ignored.

“Larry,” Aunt Rose breathes. “My Larry.” As if Grinelda didn’t know Rose’s husband’s name. She’s been bilking the Black Widows for years.

“Larry…he wants you to know something…he’s still with you. True love never dies. And whenever you see a yellow flower next to a red flower, it’s a sign from him, a sign that he loves you.”

The fact that Grinelda walks through Ellington Park to get here, and that the park is planted with dozens and dozens of red and yellow chrysanthemums currently in robust bloom and easily visible from this very shop, is lost on little Rose. She clutches her hand to her ample bosom. “Oh, a sign! Larry, honey, I love you, too, sweetheart!”

Well, I can’t help it. My throat feels a little tight. Sure, Grinelda’s full of garbage, but the expression on Rose’s face is probably worth the hundred bucks she just shelled out.

“The man is fading…and now there’s someone else. Another man…tall. Limping. Name starts with a P.”

“Pete! My Pete!” Iris trumpets. “He walked with a limp! Shot in the leg by his idiot brother!”

Grinelda lights a cheroot and sucks on it, nodding wisely, then exhaling a bluish stream of smoke. “Yep. Limping.”

While I don’t believe Grinelda can see the dead, I do believe that those who have died visit us. There are those rogue dimes, for example, found in unusual spots…the exact middle of the kitchen counter, or in my sock drawer. Occasionally I’ll dream that Jimmy’s back on earth for a chat. He always looks gorgeous in those dreams, and is always just checking in. The widows group I’d belonged to assured me that this kind of thing was a fairly common experience.

So it’s not that I don’t believe. I just don’t believe Grinelda.

My latest batch of bread has twenty minutes to go before it’ll be done. A little air would be nice, so I head out for a stroll down Main Street. The trees have lost their deep green summer lushness, and the sunlight has a mellow, golden softness to it. An elderly couple walks slowly across the green, him with a cane, her clinging to his arm. Beautiful. They head into the cemetery, and I look away.

The dark, rich scent of roasting coffee wafts out from Starbucks. I could really use a strong cuppa joe…I was up till 2:00 a.m. this morning watching The Hunt for Red October, and my tired brain yearns for a caffeine fix. I can’t go in, of course. Starbucks is my competitor, and it’s run by the meanest girl in Mackerly—Doral—Anne Driscoll.

Well, she’s not the meanest girl anymore. That’s not fair. She’s the meanest woman. I’ve known her all my life, and she basically lived the cliché of Tough Townie…multiple piercings in her ears, eyebrows, nose and tongue, jeans so tight you could count her pocket change, a surly sneer perpetually spreading across her thin and usually cursing mouth. Tattooed by the time she was fourteen, smoking, drinking, sleeping around…the woiks, as Bugs Bunny would say. And then there was the utter contempt she had for me, a rather meek and shy child who lived to please teachers and sang in St. Bonaventure’s choir.

Unlike most of my graduating class, Doral—Anne never left Mackerly. She sneered and spat with what we all knew was just envy whenever college was mentioned. She waited tables at a diner in Kingstown, and when Gianni’s opened in Mackerly, she got a job there.

Well before I met Ethan or Jimmy, Doral—Anne was talking about Gianni’s. Every time I ran into her when home for the weekend, she’d bring it up. How great it was working there. How much money she made. How fantastic the owners were. College—especially my college—was for pussies. She was in the restaurant business. Probably Gianni’s was going to train her to be manager.

In my “try to be nice to everyone” way, I’d tell her that sounded great, which seemed to make her nastier than ever. “‘That sounds great,’” she’d mimic. “Lang, you’re such a stupid little goody—good.”

When I met Jimmy, Doral—Anne was still a waitress, no management position in sight. She didn’t dare take potshots at me at Gianni’s, not when the chef himself was in love with me, not when the owners treated me like gold, and man, did she hate it. Narrowed eyes every time I came in. Jerky, hard movements. Overly loud laughter to show how much fun she was having.

A month after Ethan introduced Jimmy and me, Doral—Anne got caught stealing and was fired. And because I’d seen her in action there, heard her claims of being groomed for manager and because I now held a place of honor in the Mirabelli family, she hated me all the more.

Doral—Anne’s hostility toward me didn’t waver after I became a widow. Once, four or five months after Jimmy died, I saw her at the gas station; she was obviously pregnant. I’d heard through the gossip that floated into the bakery that the father was some biker dude who’d passed through town.

“Congratulations, Doral—Anne,” I said dutifully.

She turned to me, eyes narrowed with malicious glee, she stuck out her pregnant belly, rubbed it with both hands and said, “Yeah. Nothing like a baby. I’m so happy. Bet you wish you could have one, too, huh? Too bad Jimmy didn’t get you pregnant before he died.”

Wordlessly I’d stopped pumping, though my tank was far from full, got into my car and drove home, my hands shaking, my stomach ice—cold.

Doral—Anne had her baby—Leo—and a couple of years later, popped out another one. Kate. Rumor had it the father was Cutty, the married owner of Cutty’s Bait & Boat Rental, and though Cutty’s wife left him, he never publicly acknowledged paternity. Doral—Anne bounced from waitressing job to waitressing job. Then a year ago, Starbucks opened in our tiny little town, and Doral—Anne was hired as manager. From the way she acts, Starbucks has found the cure for cancer, AIDS and the common cold.

Speak of the devil. Doral—Anne appears in the doorway, broom in hand. Seeing me standing across the street, she shoves the broom behind her, the ropy muscles of her thin arms snaking and lean. “What’s up, Lang?” she calls, the edge in her voice carrying easily across the quiet street.

“Hi, Doral—Anne,” I answer. “How’s it going?” Then I bite my tongue, wishing I hadn’t asked.

“It’s great! Business is booming. I guess you know that, since so many of your customers come here now. Guess your fancy cooking school didn’t help so much after all. Welp, see ya!” She flips back her lank, overly long bangs and goes back inside.

Gritting my teeth, I chastise myself for giving her the opening. I need to get back to the bakery, anyway. My internal timer says there are only five minutes till perfection.

As always, the smell of bread comforts me, not that Doral—Anne did any real damage…she’s nasty, that’s all. The comforting murmur of the Black Widows communing with the dead floats into the kitchen, though I can’t make out actual words. I open the oven door. Ah. Five dozen loaves of Italian, baked to hot, golden perfection. “Hello, little ones,” I say. Flipping them off the sheets so they won’t overcook on the bottom, I leave them to cool, then head for the proofer, the glass warming cupboard where the loaves rise before going into the oven. This batch contains a dozen loaves of pumpernickel for a German restaurant in Providence, some sourdough for a fusion place, and three dozen loaves of French for the local customers who just love my bread (as well they should). I set the temperature a little higher, since our oven tends to lose oomph around this time of day, then take a warm loaf of Italian and just hold it, savoring the warmth, the rub of the cornmeal that coats the bottom, the crisp and flaky crust.

It occurs to me that I’m cradling the warm loaf as one would hold an infant. Really need to get cracking on that new husband.eCommitment has yielded nothing so far, so I may need to try another venue. But first, lunch. I’m starving.

Putting the loaf gently in the slicer, I press the button, still as charmed by the machine as I was as a child, then open the fridge to see what offerings it holds. Tuna salad, no celery…perfect. I pop two slices of the fresh bread into the toaster, then open a bottle of coffee milk and wait.

While I love the bakery and love working with my aunts, I can’t help wishing Bunny’s was different. More tables, more refined pastries than just danish and doughnuts. If we sold biscotti, for example. (“Biscotti? That’s Italian,” my aunts said the last time I broached the subject. “We’re not the Italians.”) If we sold cakes by the slice—not Rose’s wedding cakes, but the kind that people might actually like to eat. Coconut lime, for example. Sour cream pecan. Chocolate with mocha frosting and a hazelnut filling. If we sold coffee and cappuccino, even, heaven protect us, lattes.

“Lucy, honey, can you get Grinelda some more coffee?” Aunt Rose calls.

“Sure,” I answer. My toast is still browning. I grab the pot and sugar bowl and, heading into the front, note that my mother is wiping her eyes. “How’s Dad?” I can’t help asking.

“He thinks Emma is just beautiful,” Mom answers. “It’s amazing, Grinelda. You have such a gift.”

“Such a gift,” I murmur with a dubious glance at the gypsy, who is chewing on another cookie. An eleven—by—seventeen—inch piece of paper is taped to Bunny’s front door…the door through which Grinelda entered. Daisy Is A Grandmother!!! the sign says, right above the picture of my niece. Emma Jane Duvall, September 8, 7 lbs. 3 oz.

The readings are over. My aunts wander back to the kitchen to get a box for Grinelda’s loot as my mother fills the medium in on Corinne’s nursing issues. As I pour Grinelda some more coffee, she cuts her pale blue eyes to me.

“I have a message for you, too,” she says, a chunk of sugar cookie falling from her mouth onto her sequined lap.

“That’s okay, Grinelda. I’m fine,” I answer.

“He wants you to check the toast. Your husband.” She pops the fallen cookie bit back into her mouth and regards me impassively. My mother quivers with attention.

“Lucy! Your toast is about to burn back here, honey!” Iris calls.

Mom’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. “Oh. My. God!”

“Thanks, Iris,” I call.

“What else?” my mother breathes, reaching out to clutch Grinelda’s age—spotted hand.

“Check the toast. That’s his message,” she says, taking a slurp of coffee.

“Got it. Thanks.” I look up at the ceiling. “Thanks, Jimmy! My sandwich would’ve been ruined without your divine intervention.”

“A cynic. That’s what she is,” Rose says, hurrying to pat Grinelda’s shoulder. “She’ll come around.” Rose looks outside. Across the street, the chrysanthemums planted around the statue of James Mackerly glow with good health. “Oh, my word,” she whispers. “Yellow flowers next to red! Oh, Larry!”

I RACE FOR SECOND, SLIDE AT THE LAST second, and bang! I’m in.

“Safe!” calls Sal, the umpire at second.

My teammates cheer. “Of course I’m safe, Ethan,” I say to my brother—in—law, who missed the tag. “You’re no match for my incredible speed.”

“Apparently not,” he murmurs, a smile curling up the corners of his mouth. Something tugs in my stomach, and I look over at third base. May need to steal that, too.

“Nice try, Ethan!” Ash calls from the stands.

“Thanks, Ash!” he says, tossing her a little salute. She blushes so fiercely we can practically feel the heat. Poor Ash…she really needs friends her own age.

Just about every able—bodied adult under the age of seventy plays on the Mackerly Softball League, and every one of the six downtown businesses sponsors a team. So does International Food Products, Ethan’s company, the team Bunny’s Bakery is playing tonight.

Not only am I the organizer of our little baseball club, spending hours and hours each winter on team assignments, scheduling, equipment maintenance and so on, but I’m one of the league’s best players, I’m proud to say. My batting average this year is .513. (Crazy, I know!). As pitcher, I lead the league in strikeouts, and I have more stolen bases than all my teammates combined. It’s fair to say I absolutely love playing softball.

Ellen Ripling is up and takes a strike. She hasn’t been on base since June 22, and given that it’s now mid—September, my hopes are not high that she’ll get me to third. However, it’s 4-1 Bunny’s, and it’s the bottom of the eighth. I watch and bide my time. Ball two. I glance at Ethan, who’s smart enough to stand close to the base in case I bolt. “How’s your new job?” I ask. Aside from a few chance meetings in the lobby of our building, Ethan and I haven’t really talked since he moved back to Mackerly permanently.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Lots of meetings.”

“You haven’t really told me about it,” I prod.

“Mmm. Well, I’ve been busy. Settling in, all that crap.”

I take another look at Ethan. His brown eyes flick to me, and he smiles automatically, that elvish smile that curls so appealingly at the corners. “Want to come over later?” I ask. “Tell me about it?”

His gaze flicks back to the batter as Ellen strikes out. Inning over. “Not sure about that,” he says.

Charley Spirito, Bunny’s right—fielder, ambles over as Ethan and I make our way off the infield. “Hey, Luce,” he says, “what’s this I hear about you looking for a man? Your aunts were saying you’re gettin’ back in the game. True?”

I wince. My aunts may not fully approve of my efforts to remarry, but that hasn’t kept them from advertising my wares to every male who comes in the bakery. Iris’s method of not handing over change until I have been viewed has caught on. This morning, Rose presented me to Al Sykes and asked him if he wanted to date me. Given that he was my social studies teacher in sixth grade and roughly forty years my senior, I was grateful when he declined.

“So?” Charley prods.

“It’s true,” I admit. “Why? You know any men?”

He grins, hitches up his pants and looks at my chest. “I’m a man, Luce. You wanna go out with me? I could show you a good time, you know what I’m saying?”

Ethan cuts him a glance but says nothing.

A Del’s Lemonade truck pulls into the parking lot, and I find myself wishing I was sipping a frozen drink—or driving the truck—or lying underneath its wheels—rather than talking about my love life on the infield. I’ve known Charley my whole life. The idea of kissing him…getting naked with him…I suppress a shudder.

“Then again, a date with you is basically signing my own death warrant, right, Luce?” Charley says, apparently irked at my hesitation. “I mean, who’d want to do a Black Widow?”

My mouth falls open in surprise, but before I can do anything, Charley is lying on the field, clutching his face.

“Fuck, Ethan! You hit me!”

“Get up,” Ethan growls.

“Ethan,” I say, putting my hand on his arm. He shakes it off.

“Get up.” He stands over Charley, waiting.

I grab Ethan’s arm a little harder this time. “Ethan, he’s not gonna fight you. You know that. Leave him alone.” Charley, whose eye is rapidly swelling, shoots me a watery and grateful glance. Ethan did some boxing for a while, one of his many hobbies that involve physical harm to his person. Charley, though he’s the middle school gym teacher and seems as physically fit as the next guy, would be an idiot to fight Ethan Mirabelli. And though it could be said that Charley is indeed an idiot, he’s not that dumb.

“Lucy, I’m sorry for what I said,” Charley announces loudly enough for all to hear. “I’m a fuck—up, and that was a shitty thing to say. Okay?”

“Thank you for the beautiful apology, Charley,” I say just as loudly, turning to Ethan. His jaw is tight, his eyes hot. “Good enough, Ethan?”

“Good enough,” he mutters, then goes to his dugout.

Paulie Smith is our closer and makes short work of International’s final three batters. I wonder if he has a date…but no, there’s his wife. My teammates and I touch knuckles and pack up our gear, exchanging insults and compliments in our dugout.

“You coming to Lenny’s, Lucy?” Carly Espinosa, our catcher, asks, slinging her bag over her shoulder, then wincing as it hits her in the leg.

“Um, no, I have something I need to do,” I say.

“See you around, then,” she answers, sauntering after the rest of the team as they head toward the park.

I walk over to the other dugout, where Ethan stuffs his gear into his bag with considerable force. His temper, though rarely unsheathed, takes a while to fade.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says, not meeting my eyes.

I sit on the bench next to him. “Charley’s a dope, that’s all,” I say.

“Yup.” He shoves his glove into the bag, then sits for a second, staring at the concrete floor of the dugout. “So what kind of guy are you looking for, anyway, Lucy?” he asks.

I take a quick breath. “I don’t know. Someone decent. Someone who’d be good to me.” Someone who won’t die young. “You want to grab dinner, Ethan? I’m heading over to see your folks.”

“Have you told them about your plan yet?” he asks knowingly. I haven’t, and a little moral support would be appreciated.

“Um, no, not yet. I figured I would tonight.” Please come.

Ethan tightens the drawstring on his bag and gives me a sidelong glance. “Sorry. I’m having dinner with Parker and Nicky.” He reaches out, ruffles my hair and is gone, leaving me to sit in the dugout alone. He stops and says something to Ash, who is lingering, hoping for just this interaction.

“Have fun,” I call belatedly. Dinner with the nuclear family. How nice.

I wonder for a minute if, now that he’s in Mackerly all the time now, Parker and he will get together. If their fondness for each other will blossom into something deeper. If they’ll end up married after all this time. I kind of hope so. They’re both great people, and they already have Nicky, who’s about as wonderful a child as a child can be. Ethan says something to Ash, earning a smile, then continues toward home.

My sentiments about Ethan and Parker are echoed by my mother—in—law an hour later as we sit in the owners’ booth at Gianni’s.

“That Ethan,” Marie begins, her traditional opening when talking about her younger son. “He’s working in Providence at that horrible company, he’s here, he makes a decent living. He should marry that Parker. Be a father to Nicky.”

“He is a father to Nicky,” I say mildly, looking at the mural of Venice above our table. “A wonderful father.”

“A full—time father,” Gianni corrects. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he adds as Kelly serves our dinner. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, where’s the parsley? Ivan, for the love of God!” Gianni lurches up from the table to go yell at his latest chef, which has happened roughly every six minutes since I’ve been here, and probably happens more often when I’m not.

My father—in—law had bypass surgery last year, and he just can’t take the stress of running the kitchen himself. That being said, he goes through chefs like tissues. No one, of course, was as good as Jimmy. No one knew the family recipes, the traditions. No one could ever fill Jimmy’s shoes, either as a son or a chef. And so Gianni suffers, his knees increasingly stiff, his temper increasingly short.

“Eat, sweetheart. You’re too thin.” Marie, who is wider than she is tall, spears a tortellini from her own plate and holds it out for me. I eat it obediently, smiling. Marie always loved two things about me—I adored her son, and I ate well. I’m not thin, let me assure you, but to an Italian family who owns a restaurant, I look like I just staggered back from forty days in the desert.

Gianni returns from the kitchen, his face flushed, blood pressure up, no doubt, and sits heavily. “Eat, sweetheart,” he urges me, shoving my plate closer.

“It’s wonderful,” I say, and it is…eggplant rolatini, one of my favorites. The sauce is a little too acidic, granted, not like when Ethan made it last month at his place. For a vice president of a company whose sole purpose is to get people to avoid eating, Ethan is a fantastic cook. I wonder if he has to hide this fact from his bosses.

“It’s not as good as Jimmy’s,” Marie declares, putting her fork down with an abrupt clatter.

“Of course not,” I murmur, patting her hand and swallowing. Now or never. “Listen, speaking of Jimmy…” My in—laws regard me somberly from across the table, waiting. “Well,” I begin, “um…you know that my sister had a baby, of course.”

“Did she get our eggplant?” Gianni asks.

“Oh, yes, she did. And it was wonderful. She was so grateful.”

“She called, dummy, remember? You talked to her yesterday.” Marie elbows her husband in the side.

“Anyway,” I attempt.

“She’s nursing, I hear,” Marie interrupts.

“Um, yes. Anyway—”

“Should I send veal next time? You know what they say about new mothers and red meat,” Gianni says thoughtfully.

“Actually…well, Corinne doesn’t eat veal. But getting back to—”

“Not eat veal? But why?” Marie frowns.

Rather than launch into the story of Halo, a calf whose birth Corinne witnessed during a field trip in third grade and her resultant “no—beef” policy, I sit back and fold my hands on the table. “I need to tell you something,” I say firmly. My mother—in—law takes Gianni’s arm protectively. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Jimmy,” I say more quietly. “And I think I’m ready to…maybe…start dating.”

They don’t move a muscle.

I take a deep breath. “I want to get married again. Have kids. There will never be another Jimmy…he’ll always be my first love.” I swallow. “But I don’t want to grow old alone, either.”

“Of course not,” Gianni says, rubbing his chest, Italian sign language for Look what you’ve done to me. “You should be happy.”

“Of course,” Marie says, knotting her napkin in her hands. Then she bursts into tears. Gianni puts his arm around her, murmurs in Italian, and they’re so dang loving and so joined that I start crying, too.

“You deserve happiness,” Marie sobs.

“You’re a wonderful girl. You’ll always be like a daughter to us,” Gianni says, wiping his eyes.

“And you’ll always be my family,” I hiccup. “I love you both so much.”

Then we clutch hands and indulge in a good old—fashioned crying jag.