The Nine Month Plan

by Wendy Markham

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  By Wendy Corsi Staub

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Acknowledgments

  This book is dedicated with love to my dear friend Kyle Cadley, who has a knack for being there whenever I need her most . . .

  To my terrific husband, Mark, who is always needed and always there for me . . .

  And my sons Morgan and Brody, who are here, there, and everywhere these days!

  With deepest gratitude to my agent, Laura Blake Peterson, and my editors, Nicole Fischer and Lucia Macro, for the Two Month (publishing) Plan!

  Prologue

  NINA CHICKALINI IS no stranger to the tiny, windowless room just off the rectory of Most Precious Mother church on Ditmars Boulevard in Queens.

  It was here that she made her first—­and last—­confession to Father Hugh. Make that, the late Father Hugh. But that part—­the late part—­wasn’t her fault, no matter what Joey Materi said then . . . and continues to say.

  Until that May weekday afternoon a decade ago, the parishioners of Most Precious Mother made their confessions in the blessed anonymity of the closest-­like confessionals in the main church. But apparently, face-­to-­face confessions in a casual setting had become all the diocesan rage, and Nina’s pre-­confirmation class was to be initiated into confessing their sins in the new-­fangled way.

  Ordinarily, Danny Andonelli would have gone first. But he had caught a nasty throwing-­up kind of flu from his little brother—­or so he said. Nina suspected he was loathe to confess his failure to Keep Holy the Sabbath Day—­he’d been caught throwing water balloons at passing subway trains the previous Sunday afternoon.

  Anyway, Danny was absent that day, leaving Nina alphabetically next in line to make her first confession.

  She sat on the folding wooden chair opposite the kindly old priest, took a deep breath and forced herself to look him in the eye.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she began, as Sister Mary Agnes had taught them to do in CCD.

  He nodded encouragingly.

  But Nina noticed that he seemed a bit pale and distracted as she launched into a detailed account of her sins: cheating on a social studies test (but not really, because she had glimpsed Andy O’Hara’s paper merely by accident); taking the name of the Lord in vain (which she couldn’t really help doing because she had dropped Grandma Valerio’s massive hardcover bible on her fragile pinky toe); covering her friend Minnie Scaturro’s brand-­new canopy bed—­

  Suddenly, the priest keeled over, clutching his chest.

  “Father Hugh?”

  He writhed on the floor, gasping.

  For a moment, Nina thought he was kidding. After all, he had a pretty decent sense of humor for someone who wore somber black from head to toe every day of his life.

  It turned out Father Hugh wasn’t kidding.

  Nina ran shrieking out into the rectory, where her pre-­confirmation classmates were waiting to make their first confessions.

  As Sister Agnes rushed to call 911, Joey Materi said, “Holy shit, Nina, you must’ve confessed one hell of a sin!”

  That remark was miraculously overheard by the distracted and nearly-­deaf Sister Agnes, resulting in an unpleasant penance for Joey, who had his mouth washed out with soap.

  Nina never did receive any penance for her curtailed first confession.

  And Most Precious Mother promptly went back to using the confessionals—­which is why Nina hasn’t set foot in this tiny room since.

  Now, on a rainy Saturday June afternoon, the first thing she notices is that it looks exactly the same—­pea-­green indoor-­outdoor carpeting, beige-­painted cinderblock walls, a ­couple of wooden folding chairs, and a giant wooden crucifix as the only decor.

  It smells the same, too—­of incense and mildew, mothballs and musty hymnals.

  The next thing she notices is that unlike the room, Joey Materi—­whom she has seen practically every day of her life—­looks startlingly different.

  It isn’t just that his dark hair is slicked back from his handsome face, or that he’s wearing a black tuxedo instead of his usual jeans and flannel shirt.

  The thing is, he suddenly looks like . . . well, like a man. The tux makes his shoulders appear broader than usual, his lean frame taller than usual. His dark eyes bear an uncharacteristically solemn expression as he stares off into space, and his full lower lip is pensively caught beneath a top row of even white teeth. The devilish, jocular Joey Nina has known all her life is gone, replaced by this—­this man. This . . . Joe.

  Nina takes a step closer to him, her periwinkle taffeta skirt rustling around her dyed-­to-­match satin pumps. She can hear faint organ music coming from the adjacent church, which is packed with expectant friends and family. You’d think someone would have instructed Millicent Milagros to stop playing “The Wedding March,” but she’s just launched into yet another round.

  Nina closes the door behind her, shutting out the music and instantly becoming aware that Joey doesn’t just look different—­he smells different, too.

  Not that she is prone to sniffing Joey Materi. But she senses that if she were, he wouldn’t normally smell so . . . yummy. She can smell the white carnation that’s pinned to his lapel, a scent that reminds her of the Easter Sunday corsages her father used to buy for her. She can also smell a tantalizingly musky, citrus scent.

  “Are you wearing aftershave or something?” she asks incredulously.

  Joey looks up, startled, as if he’s just noticed her. “What the heck are you doing back here, Nina?”

  Oh. That.

  She takes a deep breath, forgetting all about the cologne.

  “I have something to tell you,” she says, trying not to sound overly ominous.

  “Who’s dead?”

  Okay, so she needs to work on the ominous thing. Then again, why beat around the bush?

  “Nobody’s dead, Joey . . .”

  “Thank God.”

  “It’s worse.”

  “Worse than dead? What can be worse than dead? And why are you telling me this now? I’m getting married any second.” He checks the gold wristwatch he borrowed from his older brother, Phil.

  Phil, who is currently shirking his best manly duties, the lousy coward. In Nina’s opinion, Phil’s the one who should be doing this. Not her. The maid of honor is supposed to tend to the bride, not the groom.

  Then again, the bride must be halfway to the Port Authority right about now.

  Meanwhile, Phil is suddenly nowhere to be found, the other groomsmen are useless in the wake of last night’s rousing bachelor party, and the stricken bridesmaids are dabbing mascara-­tinted tears from their cheeks in the ladies’ room.

  Which leaves only Nina to break the bad news to Minnie’s would-­be groom.

  She puts a hand on his arm.

  “Joey . . . you’d better sit down.”

&nbs
p; “Nina, what the he—­” He glances at the crucifix—­“heck is going on?”

  “Shit!” She gives him a little shove toward the folding chair.

  He sits.

  “Nina, why are you—­” He breaks off, and then an uh-­oh expression dawns. “Where’s Minnie?”

  “She’s . . . gone.”

  Joe gasps—­a sound not unlike Father Hugh’s last tortured breath.

  “I’m sorry, Joey,” Nina says, swallowing hard over a lump in her throat.

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

  “She’s left town.”

  The look on his face tells her he doesn’t get it. She’d better be more specific.

  “She’s left . . . um, you.”

  “She’s left me? But—­”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “This can’t be happening. She can’t leave me.”

  “I’m sorry, Joey,” she says again, patting his muscular arm.

  She can’t leave me. . .

  The same haunting words were spoken by Nina’s father just last summer, about her mother Rosemarie.

  She can’t leave me. . .

  But Mommy is gone, too. Just like Minnie Scaturro. And Nina is left behind once again to pick up the pieces.

  “Where did she go?” Joey asks miserably.

  Nina sighs, forcing away the image of her mother lying eerily still in that hospital bed. “Minnie said she wants to find—­”

  “Wait, let me guess. To find herself? Isn’t that why ­people get jilted? Because the other person wants to find herself?”

  “I don’t think it’s herself that Minnie’s going to find, Joey.”

  “Then who is she going to find?”

  “God,” Nina says flatly. “She said she’s going to find God.”

  Joey looks at her in disbelief. “God’s right here,” he says, gesturing at the crucifix. “I mean, this is a church, for Christ’s sake. Where does she think—­”

  “She said she got the calling, Joey,” Nina blurts.

  “The calling?”

  “The calling.”

  “She got the calling now?”

  “No. Last night.”

  “Last night,” he repeated. “Last night, while I was out turning down lap dances and watching Danny puke all over the limo because he drank too many Jell-­O shots, Minnie was getting the calling? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Nina nods sympathetically. “I’m so—­”

  “Sorry?” he cuts in. “You said that, Neens. A few times.”

  “I don’t know what else to say.”

  “I don’t, either.” He shakes his head, tears in his eyes. “I love her, Nina. You know that? I’ve loved her since eighth grade. Every plan I’ve ever made was built around marrying her.”

  “I know, Joey. I know.”

  She holds him close while his heart shatters into a million pieces, wishing she were anywhere but here. Wishing she were the one on the number seven train heading for a whole new life.

  For the first time since the canopy bed, Nina finds herself envying Minnie Scaturro, who, instead of settling for a boring life as boring Joey’s boring wife, gets to leave Queens behind at last.

  Any day now, I’ll be outta here, too, Nina consoles herself as Joey’s tears soak her taffeta-­covered shoulder. Any day now. . .

  Chapter One

  Fifteen years later

  “NEXT YEAR AT this time, I’ll be on the French Riviera,” Nina announces, tapping her bare foot in time with the pulsating beat of hip-­hop music vibrating from a passing car.

  “Yeah? I thought you were going to be in South America with Minnie.” Joe settles on the stoop next to her and licks his scoop of frosty lemon-­white Italian ice.

  “Not in August. Come on, Joey, how many times do I have to give you my itinerary? I’m going to visit Minnie at the beginning of July—­”

  “Oh, yeah, on the fourth.”

  “Not just the fourth.” Nina licks her own neon green ice dotted with small dark flecks, wondering how many times she’s explained to Joe exactly why she’d selected that particular departure date. She’s waited a lifetime to leave the confines of Queens—­to fly off on her own and be free at last. What better day to start her new life than—­

  “Independence Day. Right.”

  “And then after I leave Minnie I’m going to see Pete and Debbi in Germany . . .”

  Pete and Debbi would be her brother and his bride, both in the military.

  “Right, and then you’re going to Paris and then the French Riviera. Gotcha.” Joe shoves his white fluted paper cup beneath her nose. “You want a taste?”

  “It’s lemon, Joey. If I’m not mistaken, I think I may have tasted lemon before.” She grins and offers him her own cup. “Want some of mine?”

  “Nah. Looks like that slime stuff Ralphie used to play with. And those dark things look like—­”

  “They’re chunks of pistachio.”

  “Well, they look like—­”

  “Don’t say it.”

  Naturally, he says it.

  Nina makes a face. “What is it about me that brings out the twelve-­year-­old boy in you, Joey?”

  He just laughs.

  She gazes at the familiar street scene before them, wondering if she’ll miss the old neighborhood when she’s gone. She didn’t used to think so . . . but maybe she will get a little homesick.

  After all, she’s spent all thirty-­six years of her life right here on Thirty-­third Street just off Ditmars Boulevard in Queens. It’s one of the nicer blocks in the neighborhood, although it could use a few more trees—­especially on a steamy August Saturday at high noon.

  There’s certainly no shade here on Joe’s concrete stoop. Nor is there any shade on the nearly identical stoop of her nearly identical house next door—­which she can practically reach out and touch from here. The houses on the block—­most of them vinyl-­sided, two-­family homes—­are all set so closely together that you can sniff the air at four-­thirty every afternoon and know precisely what the neighbors will be having for dinner.

  The tiny yards, most bordered by low black or white wrought-­iron fences, are barely big enough for a few blades of grass, let alone the occasional religious statue. When they were kids, Joe irreverently referred to those ubiquitous plastic sculptures of the Blessed Mother in an arched grotto as “Mary on the half shell”—­but only when pious Minnie was out of earshot.

  Nina shoves a sweat-­dampened tendril of dark hair from her forehead, wishing she never decided to grow out her bangs again. They’re at that awful in-­between stage, and tufts of hair keep escaping the confines of her high ponytail.

  Every time she reaches this stage in bang-­growing, she gives in and has them cut again. But how long can she go around with the same hairstyle she’s had since she was three? Same bangs, same straight, shoulder-­length brown hair.

  Her sister Rosalee—­the wistful veteran of many home perms and body waves—­is always telling Nina how lucky she is to have such a nice head of naturally thick hair. Rosalee’s hair, when it isn’t fried from overprocessing, is fine, limp and flat.

  But on a humid day like this, Nina would quite happily settle for less hair—­or for being bald.

  Giving up on the bangs, she pushes her black sunglasses higher on the slippery bridge of her sweaty nose.

  “New shades?” Joe asks.

  “Yup. Five bucks on the street, down on Saint Mark’s Place,” she says proudly. “I got them from the same guy who sold me that great retro pink-­ and orange-­flowered umbrella that day in April when I was meeting you for lunch and it started pouring.”

  “Yeah, that umbrella was a big hit when you showed up in front of my building,” Joe says dryly, gazing at her from behind his own black sunglasses—­a designer brand,
of course. She was with him when he bought them in an upscale department store and he paid roughly fifty times what Nina’s cost.

  “Hey, somebody has to liven up Wall Street,” Nina informs Joe.

  “It’s Vesey Street.”

  “It’s all Wall Street to me,” she says with a shrug. “And my umbrella was the only splash of color within a ten-­block radius.”

  “Oh, you’re a splash of color, all right, Neens.”

  She swallows a big gulp of slushy ice, then clutches her skull as a sharp pain radiates from her throat to all points above.

  “What’s the matter?” Joe licks his own ice. “Head freeze?”

  She writhes in agony. “Yeah . . . ow!”

  An elderly woman, oblivious to Nina’s torture as well as to the blazing August sun and humidity, trundles by wearing a long-­sleeved black dress with black stockings and sturdy black shoes, pushing a wire cart full of purchases from the supermarket down the street.

  “Hello, Mrs. Mylonas,” Joe calls.

  Mrs. Mylonas, who is all but deaf, just keeps on going.

  “Poor thing,” Joe says.

  “Poor me.” Nina rubs her throbbing temple with one hand, holding her drippy ice in the other.

  “You know, I can’t help noticing that you’re not so good with pain, Neens.”

  “Shut up, Joey.”

  “All I’m saying is that you have a low tolerance for pain.”

  “And all I’m saying is that right about now I have a low tolerance for you, too.”

  “Uh-­huh. You know you love me,” he says, as Nina notices two teenaged girls walking slowly up the block. They’re both wearing skimpy tank tops with shorts that expose long, bare, tanned legs.

  “Yeah, yeah, I love you . . .” Nina admits absently, glancing down at her own legs. They’re long, bare—­and paler than Joe’s lemon ice. She hasn’t had a tan in years. But next year, on the French Riviera . . .