“All right,” Rosalee says in a dubious tone. “But how soon, Nina? Don’t forget that Timmy has to leave for work at five.”
“Rosalee, that’s hours from now!” Nina barks. “Go!”
Her sister beats a hasty retreat.
“So, um, Nina . . . I hear your soufflé won’t puff.”
“Don’t remind me.” She hands Joe a pair of potholders. “Can you take it out of the oven? I can’t bear to look at it again.”
“Sure.”
“And then would you mind tossing the salad?”
“No problem.”
“And the candles on the table need to be lit, and the water pitcher has to be filled, and the turkey has to be carved . . . or should we do that part first? My grandmother usually does it, and she’s sick so she’s not coming.”
“I’ll take care of it, Nina. Why don’t you sit down? You look tired.”
“I am tired. But there’s no time for sitting until we get dinner on the table. They’re waiting.” Nina opens a can of jellied cranberry sauce and dumps it into a cut-glass bowl.
“What are they going to do next year, when you’re not here?” Joe asks, wondering desolately, And what am I going to do?
“Who knows? They’ll probably eat takeout Chinese in front of the television. I bet they’ll be so psyched about not missing any of the game that they won’t even miss the turkey. Or me.”
“Well, I’ll miss you.” Joe sets the casserole on top of the stove and closes the oven door.
She looks up from the cranberry sauce. “You will?”
“Definitely.” He reaches for her again.
“That’s so sweet, Joey, but you’re not supposed to miss me. I mean, in a platonic way is fine, but . . .”
“Who said I’d miss you in anything other than a platonic way, Nina?” he murmurs, kissing her neck.
“Wait, stop it, Joey,” she says, pulling away from him. “We have to stop doing this.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s wait until later and sneak over to my place between the table-clearing and the pumpkin pie.”
“That’s not what I meant. We have to stop doing this altogether.”
“Nina—”
“Joey, it’s wrong. It’s really irresponsible of us. We’re like a couple of . . . a couple of . . . of sluts!”
He bursts out laughing.
“I’m serious, Joey!” she wails.
“I know you are, but I can’t help it. It’s just that word . . . slut. It’s not exactly—”
“Who’s a slut?” Rosalee asks, popping up in the kitchen doorway again.
Nina has already extracted herself from Joe’s embrace and says promptly, “Your friend Bebe.”
“Oh, please. She is not a slut, Nina!”
Nina shrugs and goes back to mashing the can-shape out of the cranberry sauce with a spoon.
“Nina’s annoyed with Bebe because she doesn’t like the bridesmaids’ dresses Bebe picked out,” Rosalee tells Joe.
“Of course I don’t like them. They’re horrible, Rosalee!”
“Well, you should have come shopping with us!”
“I told you, I had the stomach flu that day.” Nina looks at Joey. “Electric blue. With rhinestones. Need I say more?”
“I think they’re pretty,” Rosalee says.
“They’re gaudy. Not to mention low-cut and skin-tight.”
“So what? You’ll look great in it,” Rosalee says. “In case you haven’t noticed, Joey, Nina seems to have had silicone implants.”
“Rosalee! I have not! I told you, I just got a couple of new bras.”
“That’s what she says,” Rosalee rolls her eyes at Joey. “She won’t admit it, but look at her. No bra can do that. Right, Joey?”
“What do I know from bras?” Joe grins at Nina.
She makes a face at him and conceals her bulging middle behind a kitchen chair, conscious of her sister’s probing gaze.
“GREAT MEAL, DOLL,” Nina’s father says, pushing back his chair when the last bite of turkey and stuffing has been consumed. “Now I’m going to take a nap in my chair and make room for pumpkin pie.”
Nina wouldn’t mind a nap, herself. Lately, it seems as though all she wants to do is sleep.
Well, sleep-sleep, and sleep with Joe. It’s hormones. All the books she’s read say so.
“Did you make apple pie, too, Nina?” Ralphie wants to know.
“Just for you, sweetie.”
Six pies. She made six pies. Three pumpkin, two apple, and one chocolate cream. She stayed up until two in the morning on Tuesday baking after finishing her late shift at the restaurant.
Then yesterday after work, she had to clean the house, polish the silverware, make the cornbread, and set up Ralphie’s room for Grandma, whom they didn’t realize wouldn’t be coming until this morning.
When Nina was young and Mom was the one who handled Thanksgiving, she made it seem effortless—and as though she enjoyed every minute of the drudgery that goes into it.
Not me, Nina thinks. I can’t wait to skip a year next year. . .
Heck, probably always, from here on in. She’s had her fill of turkey and family dinners and men watching football while the women carry out the grueling kitchen rituals.
Next year, the fourth Thursday in November will be just another blissfully unpredictable day.
Nina shifts in her chair and is immediately conscious of the length of Joey’s leg pressing intimately against hers under the white Battenberg lace tablecloth.
Even with the extra leaf in the table, all the chairs are close together. Every time his arm brushed hers as they were eating, she felt a flutter of anticipation.
It’s not as though they’ve even looked at each other, or spoken directly to each other, other than small talk, or “pass the salt.”
But there’s a definite awareness between them. A definite unspoken agreement that later, after the dishes are done . . .
“Time to catch the last quarter of the game.” Dom is already halfway out of the dining room, adding over his shoulder, “Good food, Nina.”
“Yeah, it was great.” Timmy, Rosalee’s fiancé, pats his round stomach.
Nina could do the same. She feels as though her belly is bursting out of the control-top panty hose she put on this morning in a futile effort to conceal the growing bulge.
“Want more turkey, hon?” Rosalee asks Timmy.
“Nah, I’m stuffed. Think I’ll go watch the game with your Dad and brothers.”
“Are you sure?” Rosalee looks disappointed.
“Go with him, Ro. I’ll help with the dishes,” Joe says.
Rosalee looks at Nina.
Normally, Nina wouldn’t let her sister get away with escaping kitchen duty. Usually, it’s the two of them, and Grandma.
Today, it will be only Nina and Joe.
“Go ahead, Ro. It’s okay.”
“You guys don’t mind?”
“Nah,” they say in unison.
“I can’t let Nina clean up all by herself. In fact, why don’t you go rest, Neens, and let me take care of the dishes?” Joe offers gallantly.
“No, you’re the guest. That wouldn’t be fair. We’ll do it together,” she says, trying not to sound too enthusiastic.
Rosalee is already trailing after Timmy, leaving Nina and Joe alone together at the table.
“It’s about time,” he says in a low voice, putting his arm around her and pulling her close.
“Joey . . .” Her protest is lost, willingly, in his kiss.
When they come up for air, he whispers, “Let’s forget about the dishes and go next door, Nina, okay?”
“Okay,” she murmurs.
He kisses her again.
“Wait,” she says, getting hold of herself. �
�We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“What if they come looking for us?”
“They’ll never think to look in my bed.” He pulls her close again.
This time, his kiss is more insistent. Desire stirs within Nina, crowding out rational thought. All she wants is to—
“Oh my God!”
Startled, Nina pulls away from Joe and looks up to see her sister in the doorway of the dining room.
“What . . . what are you guys doing?” Rosalee’s voice is shrill.
“Ro,” Nina says hastily, “don’t tell—”
“What happened, babe?” Timmy materializes behind her. “Is everything . . .” His gaze goes from his fiancée to Nina and Joe. “Oh, I get it.” He breaks into a grin.
“What? What do you get?” Nina demands.
“Don’t bother denying it, Nina,” Rosalee says. “Even if you think I’m not going to tell him what I walked in on, you two look guilty as hell, and your hair’s all messed up.”
Nina’s hands fly to her head.
“Hey, Nina, you got any more of that—What’s going on?” Dominic asks, stopping short behind Rosalee and Timmy in the doorway.
“Ask these guys.” Rosalee is grinning. “You know, I thought something was up when I caught you two in the kitchen earlier.”
“Caught them what?” Timmy asks.
“Checking the soufflé,” Nina says.
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it now?” Dominic shakes his head. “Geez, Nin, in the kitchen? And on Thanksgiving? In Pop’s house?”
“We weren’t doing anything!” Nina protests. She looks at Joe. “Tell them, Joey.”
“We were checking the soufflé,” he says mildly.
“Well, I, for one, think it’s about time the two of you . . . uh, checked the soufflé together.” Rosalee wraps her arms around Timmy’s middle and rests her head on his shoulder. “I’ve been waiting for you to find each other for years.”
“What?” Nina looks at her sister, then at Joe.
He waves his hands, as if to say, go ahead—you fix this.
“No wonder you blew off Susannah,” Rosalee tells Joe. “Now I understand. She said you told her there was somebody else, and I figured that was an excuse—not that I told her. But I couldn’t figure out why you didn’t like her—”
“I liked her.”
“But you’re in love with Nina. Wow. I can’t believe the two of you have been going around kissing right under our noses—”
“Rosalee, it isn’t like that,” Nina says. “Joey and I might have been kissing, but—”
“Nina and Joey were kissing?” Ralphie has popped up in the doorway. “Cool. When are we having pie?”
“We haven’t even cleared the table yet, Ralphie!” Nina rubs her temples. Her head is beginning to ache.
“Yeah, because they were busy doing other things.”
“Shut up, Dominic!”
“How long has this been going on, Nina?” Rosalee wants to know. “And hey, does Pop know? Because he’s going to be—”
“Do I know what?” Anthony Chickalini materializes alongside the rest of the brood.
“I thought you were snoozing in your chair, Pop,” Nina says, casting a desperate glance at Joey.
“Who can sleep with all this racket? What’s going on?”
“Did they score, Pop?” Dom asks.
“Nah, it’s still in a commercial. What are you people talking about in here?”
“We’re talking about Nina and Joey.” Ralphie snatches a couple of olives from the nearly empty relish tray in the center of the table.
“What about Nina and Joey?”
“They’re together.” Rosalee is positively beaming.
To Nina’s amazement, her father’s face lights up. “You’re together? The two of you?”
Joe, his hands shoved deeply into the front pockets of his khakis, clears his throat and looks at Nina.
Rather, he looks pointedly at her stomach. As if to say, go ahead and tell them. All of it.
But . . . now?
Then again, why not now?
“You know, this is the best news I’ve heard in a long time,” Anthony Chickalini says, clapping Joe on the back. “I’ve been hoping for this.”
He has?
Wow. If he’s been hoping for this, then maybe now is as good a time as any to spring the baby on them all. Pop is crazy about Joey, they have everyone’s undivided attention, and the whole family is in one room, which never happens. Besides, Nina’s going to be showing any second now, because she isn’t about to sit around in these control-top panty hose all day.
So there’s really no reason to put it off any longer.
She takes a deep breath.
“Actually, Joey and I do have something to tell you guys . . .”
“You’re getting married?” Rosalee asks, looking a little worried.
“No!” Nina and Joe say it in unison.
Rosalee is relieved. “It’s not that I don’t want you guys to get married, because there’s nothing I’d like better,” she says belatedly. “It’s just—”
“She wants to hog all the wedding stuff for herself,” Dom says.
“I do not! I’d love for Nina to be a bride!”
“Yeah, in some other century.” Ralphie snickers. “So she won’t steal your attention.”
Rosalee, glaring, swats him.
“Well, it’s not that, so calm down.” Joe puts an arm around Nina. “It’s actually something even more exciting than a wedding. Not,” he says with a nod toward Rosalee and Timmy, “that a wedding isn’t exciting.”
“Will you just tell us already so that I can get back to the game?” Dom asks.
“Fine! I’m pregnant.”
Dead silence.
Then . . .
“I’m going to be an aunt?” Rosalee squeals, throwing her arms around Nina. Then around Joey. Then around her fiancé. “And Timmy, you’re going to be an uncle!”
“Hey, so am I. You too, Dom.” Ralphie grabs a pickle and takes a big bite.
Pop, Nina notices, is looking down at the floor.
“That’s cool,” Dom says. “I hope it’s a boy. Do you think it’s a boy, Nina?”
“I have no idea.”
“Nina was supposed to be a boy,” Rosalee tells Timmy. “Mom had this really strong feeling about it. They were going to name her Anthony—you know, Nino—after Pop. That’s why she’s Nina.”
Swallowing hard over the sudden lump in her throat, Nina sees her father look up at her, and then at Joe.
“You’re not getting married?” he asks, his gaze ominous.
“Uh, we—”
Nina rescues Joe. “Pop, it’s not like that. Joey and I aren’t together like that. We’re not going to get married . . .”
She trails off, seeing the expression on her father’s face.
“Yet,” Joe says, his arm tightening around her waist. “We’re not going to get married yet. We’re going to wait.”
“Why wait?” Anthony Chickalini wants to know.
“Because . . .” Joe looks at Nina.
“Because of Rosalee,” she says, hating herself and the lie she’s spinning.
Sooner or later, she and Joe are going to have to undo all of this. But if it makes her unwed pregnancy easier for her father to understand . . .
“Because of Ro? What’s she got to do with anything?” Dom asks.
“You idiot,” Rosalee says, “everyone knows you don’t have two weddings in the same family in the same year.”
“So, your wedding isn’t till June. If Nina and Joey get married now,” Ralphie points out, “it’ll be two different years.”
“Now?” Rosalee looks frantic. “But they can’t! Ther
e’s not enough time to—”
“Calm down, babe.” Timmy shoots his fiancée a look. To Nina and Joe, he says, “If you two want to get married, don’t let us hold you back. Hell, we can even have a double wedding if you—Ow!” He turns to look at Rosalee.
She smiles sweetly at Nina and murmurs, “Sure . . . a double wedding.”
“We wouldn’t do that, Ro, so don’t worry.”
“Anyway, I think it’s great about you guys,” Timmy goes on, undaunted. “And like I said, you should go ahead and get married. The sooner the better. The baby should have its father’s name.”
“Oh, it’ll have my name,” Joe tells him. “In fact—”
“In fact, if any of you know of first names that would go well with Materi, we can use some ideas,” Nina interrupts.
“We can?” Joe looks bewildered.
She narrows her eyes at him.
“Right, we can,” he agrees.
“We thought we’d go with something unusual,” Nina goes on brightly.
“How about Malachy?” Timmy asks. “You know . . . after the saint. You never hear of a kid named Malachy.”
“That is unusual,” Joe says diplomatically. “But maybe the name should, uh, have more of an Italian flavor. You know, to go with Materi.”
“I don’t know . . . I think Malachy Materi sounds great.”
“I agree with Timmy,” Rosalee chimes in predictably. “Only I always thought it was pronounced Malachee.”
“Of course you did,” Nina murmurs.
“Yeah, well, anyway, they want something Italian,” Dom says. “How about Caesar? That’s Italian, and it’s unusual.”
“Caesar? Like the salad?”
“No! Like the Roman emperor, Nina. Just think. Caesar Materi. How cool is that?”
“It makes me think of romaine lettuce,” she says with a shrug. “And anyway, we have plenty of time to think of names.”
“When are you due?” Ralphie asks around a mouthful of mashed potatoes, having seated himself at the table and resumed eating.
“May twentieth.”
“Oh, no, Nina . . . what about my wedding?” Rosalee looks stricken.
“Got any more gravy, Nina?” Ralphie wants to know.
“In the kitchen, Ralphie. And your wedding’s not until June, Rosalee. Even if I’m overdue, I can’t possibly be that overdue, so you have nothing to worry about.”
The Nine Month Plan Page 19
