This was as if there was flavor running all through her insides. It was good, but unfamiliar. It was as if it came from the inside rather than the outside, but she still couldn’t define it. But she knew how it made her feel. It made her feel desired. It made her feel alive.
She climbed from the bed and carefully tucked the precious note under her alarm clock. Then she shifted the tray to the top of the dresser, and, facing Angelo, stripped the t-shirt off over her head, dropped it behind her, and climbed back into bed.
His eyes were transfixed upon her, the coffee mug frozen halfway to his lips. She’d never had such an effect on a man and it made her feel freer than she could have imagined possible.
She lay back on the pillow atop the covers, “By special request.”
He set his coffee on the coaster on the nightstand.
Then he slid over her and whispered in her ear, “By special request.”
Chapter 23
“Mama. We need to talk.”
Angelo and his mother were walking in the sun together, moseying along First Avenue from the apartment up to the restaurant. The Saturday morning traffic was busy with some tourists, some locals, and monstrous city buses jockeying for position like sumo wrestlers amidst a stampede of Chihuahuas. Seattle was always busy during the day. Thankfully, unlike New York, the city did sleep at night. He liked that, felt it added some character that the Big Apple had somehow lost.
Men kept turning to look at them. No. To look at his mother and he didn’t like it a bit. She wore her hair loose, with a bright floral scarf over it. The powder blue sweater swept low across her chest and clung in all of the right places. She wore a dark skirt that wrapped tight about her hips and revealed good legs.
He wanted to buy her a trenchcoat.
“Is it about this girl, this Jo? When does she come by? When do I get to sit and share a meal with her?”
“No, it’s not about Jo.” They’d never made their bike ride. They’d barely made it through breakfast.
“What I see, my son, is a very happy man. But he confuses me. It also looks as if you slept last night. That is not a nice thing to do to a new girlfriend. You are not supposed to sleep a wink together.”
“Mama!” He really couldn’t be having this conversation with her. And she agreed with Jo that he should have just ravaged her though she’d been sleeping so sweetly. What did he know anyway, he was just a guy.
“What? I don’t get to be glad for my boy? You should marry her.”
“We are so not having this conversation.”
“Why not? You marry her and we can all live happy together.”
Angelo caught his shoe on a shifted block in the sidewalk and almost planted his face on Madison Street. The cars were bolting down the steep Seattle hills as if the waterfront shops would float away before they got to visit every one. Or, perhaps more realistically, as if the last available parking spot on the full length of Alaskan Way was about to be filled.
His mother grabbed his arm to keep him on the sidewalk and burst out laughing. It was such a merry sound. He was being sassed by his mother. What was up with that?
“It was the restaurant I wanted to talk about.” And he definitely didn’t want to talk about Jo or marriage or married life with his mother in the apartment or…
She harrumphed at him as they waited for the red light at Spring Street.
“Okay, so talk.”
“You shopped with Manuel this morning, like I asked?”
“Of course I did. I take care of things so that you can not sleep with this Jo, but instead you—”
“Mama!”
She offered an elaborate shrug that only an Italian mother could achieve which told him, “Fine, change the topic if you want but I gave birth to you and cleaned your bottom and you still need someone much smarter than you to take care of you and this topic is not even a little bit done with.”
Angelo inspected the blue sky between the towering buildings, searching for patience. William was just unlocking McCormick and Schmick’s as they passed by. Angelo waved at him as he put out the “Lunch Specials” sign, a classy chalkboard sign with cheerful yellow chalk. Angelo’s Hearth didn’t do “specials” but he was considering it. The board did catch the eye.
“Hey, Angelo,” they knew each other by name, but not much more. Then he turned to his mother, “Hello, Mrs. Parrano. When are you going to leave your son and come live with me in sin?”
She patted his cheek as if he were a little boy rather than a man her own age, “Just as soon as your wife stops choosing your clothes for you. You are dressed far too nicely to have chosen that yourself.” They traded air kisses.
William did look sharp, even if Angelo couldn’t quite identify why. He looked at his own comfortable clothes and knew his mother had not been talking to William alone.
Angelo rolled his eyes at her back.
William just winked at him over her shoulder.
Once they’d left William behind, Angelo opened his mouth and then closed it sharply. Had she charmed every male in the whole city while he wasn’t watching? If he started down the path of that topic, he’d never find his way to where he wanted to go.
“Mama,” he tried again. “I’m going to have a problem at the restaurant and I was hoping you could help me.” What on Earth was he doing? Jo. This was Jo’s fault. She’d cooked up the idea this morning when they’d finally pulled on handy clothes and then taken their cold breakfast and reheated coffee out onto her umpteenth floor balcony. The egg and bacon flavors had still been good, but retoasting the toast hadn’t helped the texture of it. He’d told her about Eugene leaving and the complications his mother was causing the restaurant.
“It’s perfect, Angelo,” Jo had assured him as she glowed in the morning light and ate cold eggs. “It sounds as if she’s doing wonderful things for you, but I would conjecture that retired life is not sitting well with her. I’ll bet she’s bored. She wants to help you, which is so sweet. I wish I’d had parents, or even one parent like that.”
When he’d asked her about that, the subject had changed without his really noticing, at least not until just now.
“My pastry chef, Eugene, is following his girlfriend to Hawaii,” he told his mother.
“Is he sure that she wants to be followed?” She didn’t even miss a pulse beat before jumping to the question that had taken Angelo some time to arrive at. And that Marlys had been unable to answer when Angelo had gotten her aside.
Angelo gave her a shrug that felt both uncomfortable and made it clear that in the end it was none of his business.
“The problem is, Mama, I need a pastry chef, at least until I can hire another one.”
“And what does this have to do with my shopping with Manuel?”
“That’s different. Last night I decided that you have made us too successful. So,” he took a deep breath because it was still too huge to really comprehend. “I’m going to open another restaurant.”
“Just like that?” She stopped in front of a storefront window and posed with her hands on her hips. Not realizing that she’d taken exactly the pose of the anorexic, aqua-clad mannequin in the clothing store window behind her. He started to smile until he saw the fire on her face.
“Just like that you go and decide to open another restaurant and you don’t even consult your mother?”
“Ah...”
A business man in smart Saturday attire, but still swinging his briefcase on the way to work, cut right between them without a glance either way.
“Ah. Mama, I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“No! You no think!” She began ticking points off on her fingers. “You no think about little treats to advertise your food. You no think that Manuel can shop just as good as can you.” As her ire rose, her English frayed even more than usual around the edges.
“This Eugene,” she flicked her fingers. “You are so worried about losing him. Well, his Panna Cotta is not one-half so good as mine. His Zabaglione is a disg
race. And his Lemon Olive-Oil Cake is so sad that little girl Graziella could make better. You no understand why you, the head chef, the owner, spend so much time at the desserts. Let him go, that boy is why you waste so much time with them. Oh,” she continued her rant as more people passed close by eyeing him curiously as to why the beautiful Italian matron was yelling at him.
Angelo stepped across the flow of people through a gap until they at least stood side-by-side without blocking the sidewalk, but her tone did not soften in volume or ire, despite their now standing barely a foot apart.
“Oh, he is a good enough cook. But he has no heart,” she thumped the center of his chest hard enough to sting while making her point. “No heart in his chest!” Thumping him again. “And no heart in his food. Let him go. Let him find out how fickle love can be. Let him learn like your father never learn—”
She stopped herself, her expression shifting abruptly to one of deep distress.
“My father what, Mama?”
She looked away down the street, turned back when he rested a hand on her arm. Tears were welling in her eyes.
“Mama?” the sinking in his stomach left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“I should have told you.” Her gaze veered away from his. She never did that. Maria Amelia always looked right at you with those wide, dark eyes.
“Told me what?” He had to ask, yet would bet that he didn’t want to know. He could see something in her eyes.
“He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
She nodded then shrugged a “maybe.”
Angelo couldn’t think of how to react to that. His mother continued before he could react.
“Your father,” then a flash of that heat came back into her eyes even as she blinked against the tears, “he had no heart. I tell him I’m pregnant and I never see him again. My family was very Catholic. So, I was sent to America to have my baby, to have you. But my Julia and John, they take me in and I cook for them. They love you like their own son when you are born and I stay. I never hear from your father again. I’m sorry. I should have found a better and sooner way to tell you, but I never could.”
Angelo leaned against the cool window so that his knees did not let go. His father hadn’t died, he’d left a pregnant single mother.
“You told me he was dead.” He’d never felt so lost. Nor had he ever wanted to kill a man before. Leaving his mother? If he ever met the man, he’d murder him.
“He was dead to me.” Again that impossible strength and undeniable truth. She had that in common with Jo, an ability to speak from perfect truth. How scared she must have been, but she had come through it and he’d wanted for nothing. His mother had pampered and punished him with equal amounts of Italian passion. And loved him no matter what he’d done.
“Did you love him?” That felt intensely important, as if he might cease to exist if the answer was no.
But his mother nodded and sniffled.
“What was his name?”
At that she smiled softly and brushed a hand down his cheek.
“His name was Angelo.”
Angelo and Maria sat in the little coffee shop at the corner and held hands across the table. Little potted palm trees scattered about the shop offered a feeling of privacy, even though their table sat close against the glass with the First Avenue crowds just beyond. The coffee was good enough to justify the price.
“Is he still alive?”
She shrugged again.
“Are you still married to him?”
At that she blushed for a moment and inspected her coffee.
“Mama?”
“I was young. He was so beautiful, you look much like him. He too was a chef. He taught me to cook and he taught me to make love.”
“But you weren’t married?”
Again the eloquent shrug.
Angelo looked around as if someone else had the answer among the people waiting for coffee or walking the trek from the Market to Pioneer Square. He was a bastard, born out of wedlock. He probed the feeling, like you might a sore tooth, with great care. Every memory of his mother was a fond one, he had not suffered. His mother had seen to that. Fine. He’d often wondered about the man, and now, surprisingly, found that he didn’t care about him any more. It didn’t matter that his father was useless, his mother was only all that much more amazing for it.
“I just hate to think of you having been alone all these years, Mama.”
“Who said I was alone? Did I say I was alone?”
Again they were abruptly in a territory Angelo really didn’t wish to tread. Mothers weren’t supposed to have lovers, not even beautiful Italian mothers.
“I was not so foolish as to flaunt my men in front of my teenage son no matter how many empty-headed girls my son flaunted in front of me.”
“They weren’t empty-head—”
“Feh! The only boy in this whole world with worse taste in women than my son is Russell Morgan.”
She held up her hand to stop his protest before he even made it.
“It took a good woman with good sense like our Cassidy to see what was there beneath all of the dirty clothes.”
Okay, but it wasn’t just Cassidy. “Melanie was good for hi—”
“No!” She stopped him again. “She wasn’t.”
“But she—”
“Yes. She is nice lady, I know that. But all she did for Russell was stroke his ego. She did no hold his heart even if he so dumb he almost break hers.” She placed a hand over her heart in sympathy. “That one, she is so pretty and so lost.”
Lost? Melanie was about the least lost person Angelo had ever met. Successful supermodel, her own manager, as sharp a businesswoman as he’d ever met, and still a fun lady. Before he could form a coherent protest, she pinned him again with her dark gaze.
“Who holds your heart, my Angelo?”
How in the world had they looped back around to Jo?
“See,” his mother aimed a neatly trimmed nail at his heart. “I see even if you are too stupido. So, I ask again, when do I see this girl my son is sleeping with? Sleeping with.” She smacked her hand to her chest again as if mortally offended. “I can no believe you are so stupido.”
“Fine, Mama. You win. Monday. The restaurant is closed Monday. I’ll see if she is available Monday.” Oh, no. He’d just agreed to “bring Jo home for approval.” First, Jo just might kill him for doing that. Second, was it possible he was actually serious about her? Serious enough to bring her home?
He was.
Angelo took a deep breath and tried the thought again. From the first time he’d seen Jo Thompson, his ability to be seriously intrigued by other women had been swept away. Had he even gotten to a second date with anyone since then? Not that he could recall. All he could think of was Jo Thompson. He really was gone on her.
Bring her home for approval? Bring her home for keeps was more what he was feeling. He’d never felt that before. He knew almost nothing about her, but in some ways he knew her better than he knew himself. He could read her moods easily and enjoyed every one of them. She’d gotten all the way under his skin. Russell was right, he was in so much trouble. Who knew it would feel so good when it happened?
“Good,” his mother must have read something in his expression that she acknowledged with a very satisfied nod. “I cook a wonderful dinner. You have such a nice kitchen in your condo. You have not such good taste in decorating, but you are smart, the kitchen is good. The location too I like very much. It is such a nice change from the Morgan mansion. So much happens in Pioneer Square. You are such a good boy to let your Mama live there.”
As if he’d had a choice. Angelo buried his face in his hands. His head ached. This had started as such a simple conversation. At least Jo had told him it would be simple.
At the warm touch of his mother’s hand, he looked up into her eyes.
“Of course, I would love to be your pastry chef. Though you must hire at least two more in the kitchen and another for front of house and do it
very fast. They must be good people, I will help you pick them out. You will train them right.” She brushed her hands together as if dusting them clear of all of the impossibly complex problems which she now declared resolved.
“Now, tell me about your new restaurant,” she took a sip of her coffee.
He eyed her carefully, wondering where the trap lay.
“I thought you were angry I didn’t consult you first?”
“Surprise? Yes. Angry? With my Angelo?” A brush of her hand over his hand again. “I am so proud I could die. I’m only angry I did not think of it first. So tell me.”
So Angelo did.
Chapter 24
Jo was just returning from a half hour swim in the lapless, jet-current pool on the fifth floor gym of her condo. She still preferred to work out at the gym on Eastlake. They had more machines, on-site trainers, and classes whenever she needed the motivation. But they didn’t have a swimming pool, and the condo had three of the powered tanks where you could swim in place against a driven current. She wore a light robe over her damp swimsuit and flipflops as she headed down the hall to her condo. Cassidy and Perrin were coming back down the hall, clearly not finding her home.
“You’re all wet,” Perrin observed as they hugged. Today she wore a simple summer dress that looked shockingly normal when compared to the other clothes she usually wore.
“I know. I know.” Perrin looked down at herself. “It’s so…pedestrian. But I wanted to remind myself of how it felt. Streetwear rather than fashionwear. I’m playing with some ideas. We came to see the dress.”
The dress. Jo had managed not to think about the dress. Cassidy simply smiled at her. No, she wasn’t humoring Perrin, she’d come to see the dress as well.
Whatever. Jo led them back down to her condo.
In the bedroom, Perrin stooped and pulled something from under the edge where the quilt brushed the floor.
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