by Liz Talley
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Sal said, trying to keep his voice level. Not another shouting match, please. His nerves already felt shredded. “I’m just saying running the deli is a big commitment.”
His mother looked disgusted and eyed his father. “This one is always so difficult.”
Angelina leaned forward. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Genovese, once Sal sees how incredible the place is looking, he’ll be excited for a new opportunity.”
Sal turned his head. “How do you know?”
“Because I went by the Mello deli Friday morning. It’s an incredible location. Can’t believe you got it for that price.” She nodded like a good Realtor should.
He wondered if he’d fallen down a hole . . . in a desert . . . in Mongolia. “You went to the deli on Friday? Why?”
“I had a showing nearby and your mother invited me to drop in and check out the progress. At least she appreciates my expert opinion on what works in the neighborhood. I have a lot of experience, you know.”
Vincent’s gaze met his. His brother grinned. Sal thought about flipping his brother off, but he didn’t want to set his mother off again.
“And we appreciate you, Angelina. After all, you were the one who suggested the deli in the first place,” Natalie said.
What the hell?
“I thought Mac Terelli suggested the deli?” Sal looked at his father, something hot slithering into his gut. His father had told him Mac, a developer and close friend, had seen opportunity for the Genoveses to expand in the theater district. To find out Angelina was behind the sudden press to buy space and outfit it as a pizza and sub sandwich joint felt manipulative. Like she’d laid his future out for him like a woman setting out a suit of clothes . . . then waited for him to see how indispensable she was. She’d probably already ordered stationery with “Angelina Genovese” scrawled across it.
“Oh, and Angelina had such a good idea for that brick wall where customers line up. She knows a muralist who can paint the Mama Mello’s logo on the wall. Maybe a nice pastoral scene, too. Make the customer feel like they’re in Italy.”
Angelina vibrated with pleasure beside him. “Oh, and don’t forget I know a supplier for the tables and chairs. Old world iron would lend authenticity to the space,” Angelina said, shoveling around the pasta on her plate. Their conversation last Friday at Mama Mello’s hadn’t been mentioned and Angelina had been sweet as the cream cake his mother had sitting on the sideboard. Nauseatingly so. “As long as it’s okay with Sal, of course.”
He didn’t say anything.
What could he say? Everyone in his life, except maybe Brittany, who was clueless about everything, had set this new direction for him into motion. Sal was a trained ape. Come at this time. Stand here. Do this. Do that.
He pulled at his collar, feeling like he couldn’t breathe. He should have pleaded being sick that morning. Sal didn’t want to be there. Not even for Grandma Sophie, who looked to be falling asleep in her meatball soup.
“I have to go,” he said, dropping his napkin beside his half-eaten lunch.
“You haven’t finished your lunch yet,” his father said, looking pointedly at Sal’s plate. “Your mother and grandmother worked hard to cook this.”
“And it was delicious,” Sal said, pushing back his chair. “I forgot I have a commitment.”
“What commitment?” his mother asked, her brow knitted in discontent.
“Uh, I told some guys I’d meet them at the gym. We have a makeup game for league.”
“And you just now remembered?” Angelina asked, pressing her manicured hand on his arm. It felt like a shackle. He pulled away.
“Sorry, but lunch was excellent as always, Mama,” he said.
As he rounded the table, heading for the large opening to the foyer, his grandmother extended her cheek so he could kiss it. “So nice to see you, Salvatore. Come visit. The lavender smells lovely and the bee balm brings the butterflies. I miss you.”
Guilt pinged him. His grandmother Sophie loved to take tea in her garden. After she quit working in the restaurant, she’d turned her attention to the small courtyard behind her house in the Bronx, filling it with fragrant herbs and lovely blooms. Since Sal lived in Dyker Heights, it was hard for him to get out to see his grandmother, but he always found it restoring to sit with her on the cobbled patio, sipping herbal tea and watching the birds hop on the branches of the cherry tree draped over the privacy fence. A small piece of paradise, a place where he could breathe and think.
Angelina dropped her napkin and made to push back. “I’ll go with you. I love basketball,” she said.
Sal felt panic rear inside him.
“No,” he said, pressing his hands toward her as if it could hold her in place. “You know, the game will be a long one. And that gym smells like sweat and dirty feet had a kid together. Plus, we’re going out to a strip club for Jared’s bachelor party afterward. It’s a guy thing, you know?”
“A strip club?” Angelina repeated, her face growing stony. “Isn’t that a bit juvenile?”
“You know guys,” he said with a shrug, edging out of the dining room.
“Take me with you,” Vincent said.
“Me, too,” Dom chirped. “Please.”
Both guys got pinched by the women sitting beside them. Two yips of pain accompanied his scramble out of the dining room. As he fled, he heard accusations and laughter from his brothers and their women. The halfhearted fussing distracted everyone from his escape.
Of course the basketball game was total fabrication. He hated lying, but he’d blame it on that infernal woman his mother kept shoving down his throat. Every time he said something to his mother she’d say, “What’s not to like? Angelina’s beautiful, Catholic, Italian, and has a job. You got a better chance of winning the lotto than finding a good girl like her. Don’t be stubborn. And stop chasing girls with their snooty noses in the air. They don’t understand the life you lead. Angie is one of us.”
And his mother’s approval paired with innate confidence had Angelina believing he already belonged to her.
As long as Sal is okay with it.
Ha.
How many times had he heard his mother say the same thing when it came to his father? Hundreds. Natalie always pretended like she included his dad in decision making when she knew she made all the decisions. Big Donnie Genovese might be the face of Mama Mello’s, but his wife ruled with an iron fist.
Sal loved and admired his parents, but he’d never wanted the same kind of relationship. And settling for Angelina because it was easy felt like giving up on being the man he dreamed of being. Of course, he didn’t have an exact plan for who that man was, but he knew he was a man who made his own way.
Angelina had gone down to Mama Mello’s Express to pick out tables, make suggestions, and plan a goddamned mural to cover the wall. And then she’d looked at him with those wide gingery-brown eyes and said as long as it was okay with him?
As he walked briskly through the hall, he knew he was drowning. Eventually he’d grow tired of swimming and he’d give over to the current and be washed downstream toward a life planned for him. Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe three years from now he’d be married to Angelina, working at the deli, and oblivious to the mundane life he’d accepted.
But right now he fought to grab on to the southern girl who was his island in the middle of the current. Lush, simple, and untouched by the flotsam and jetsam of his life, Rosemary gave him reprieve. Even if he knew it was short-lived. Eventually the island would disappear, leaving him with only the memory of paradise.
Almost exactly two weeks.
That was all they had.
Then she’d fly back to Mississippi and leave him here to the life designed for him. Postponing the inevitable. That’s what if felt like. His life was inevitable.
After all, how could he change it?
Sure, it was easy for someone to suggest he quit the family business, take his meager savings, and move elsewhere to start ov
er. But it was altogether another thing to do it. Rosemary claimed to have been living in a bubble, hungry for experiences. Wasn’t he the same? His bubble was just different—bigger, noisier, and smellier. Like her, he’d been content to exist as a Genovese doing what Genoveses had done for almost a century.
He slipped through his parents’ parlor with the plastic-covered settee and the wall of photographs, wincing when he saw his geeky confirmation picture. His mother called, “Sal,” but he hurried out the door and down the steps of the brownstone he’d been raised in.
Then he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Rosemary’s number.
Please let her mother be gone.
Sweet baby Jesus, please.
Rosemary studied her mother over the fluffy stack of lemon-ricotta pancakes on her plate. Patsy hadn’t been able to get a flight out until Sunday afternoon. Or so she’d said. Rosemary swallowed the disappointment of not getting to see Sal until then and tried to be a good daughter.
And Patsy had tried to be a good mother, pretty much going along with her daughter’s suggestions. Still, her mother had taken to NYC like a duck took to the desert. As in she didn’t like it so much.
They’d started the sacrificial day early Saturday morning by purchasing tickets for the on-again, off-again bus. Rosemary had loved hearing about the various neighborhoods they passed through. Her mother had preoccupied herself with hand sanitizer. They’d stopped off at the World Trade Center memorial, visited Battery Park, and taken a tour of Ellis Island. She had a picture on her cell phone of her and her mother at the foot of Lady Liberty. Her mother hadn’t been smiling. Saturday evening they’d scored tickets for Wicked. Finally, she’d found something her mother loved. Of course, when they pushed through Times Square, her mother had almost needed a paper bag to breathe into. The cheesecake at Junior’s had eased the panic.
Then that morning they’d walked in Central Park, visiting several gardens, ending their sightseeing at Sarabeth’s with Sunday brunch. The restaurant rambled, making the small, crowded rooms uncomfortable, but the food was delicious, including the famous jams and jellies.
“Well, my veggie frittata was decent,” her mother said, wiping her mouth at each corner and folding the napkin beside her plate. “How are your pancakes?”
“Sinful.”
“Well, that seems to be your theme these days,” her mother said, tempering her comment with a half smile.
Rosemary let it slide. It was the truth. For once in her life, she wanted something a little bit wicked. Nothing wrong with that. Even the Amish had rumspringa. That’s what this was for her—a time to sow her oats and find out if the life she had was the one she truly wanted.
“I wish you weren’t so angry with me,” her mother said.
Rosemary had tried over the past day and a half to temper her irritation with her mother. She hadn’t done a good enough job. “I can’t help the way I feel.”
“But I want you to be happy, Rosemary. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“But you can’t get happiness for me. I have to find it myself. You may not approve of my coming here, or of Sal, but it’s what I need right now.”
“When I was eighteen I went on spring break with some of my sorority sisters and I met a guy from New Jersey. I understand the appeal of someone different.”
Rosemary took a sip of the French roast and said, “You went on spring break? Where?”
“Fort Lauderdale.”
“No way,” Rosemary said, disbelief edging her words.
Her mother smiled. “I, too, was young once.”
She tried to imagine her mother in a bikini lying on the beach covered in iodine and baby oil, humming along to the Beach Boys blaring out of a transistor radio. But she couldn’t. For as long as Rosemary could remember, her mother had dressed tastefully, said the right things, and drank only on special occasions.
“What was his name?”
“David. He went to a community college and drove a woody. Do you know what a woody is?”
Rosemary giggled, even though she knew very well what her mother meant.
“Oh, don’t be lewd,” her mother fussed, but she smiled. “It was a paneled wagon that surfers liked to drive. He had the best body, too. Wore those board shorts and flirted with every girl on the beach.”
“And you caught him?”
“For a few days.” Her words were wistful, her smile mysterious. “So I can understand the inclination to . . . uh, play with Sal.”
Rosemary nearly choked on the bite of pancakes. “What?”
“I may be old and set in my ways, but I have eyes. Sal has a certain attraction.”
“Mother.”
“What? His torso was very masculine.”
Rosemary did choke then. She gulped the water she’d ignored in favor of the coffee. Her mother rose and thumped her on the back.
“I can’t believe you said that,” Rosemary finally managed, wiping water from her chin.
“As you said, it’s only sex.” Her mother folded her napkin and lifted her purse. “Now I need to use the little girls’ room before we go. I want to get to the airport in plenty of time. They say it takes two hours to go through the security line.”
A passing waitress heard her and said, “Are you looking for the restroom?” She pointed toward the back. “To your right.”
“Excuse me,” her mother said, proper as ever. As if she’d discussed the weather rather than Rosemary having sex with Sal.
Rosemary watched Patsy weave around the small tables, murmuring, “Excuse me,” nodding her head and giving a warm smile as she made her way to the powder room.
As her mother disappeared, her phone rang.
Eden.
“Hey, you,” she said, answering the phone.
“Oh my God. Your father told Mrs. Daigle that Patsy flew to New York City. Tell me she’s lying,” Eden said.
“Nope. I mean . . . yes, Patsy’s here.”
“Oh my Lord,” Eden breathed. “Why in the world did she do that?”
“Because she thinks I’m lonely and making bad decisions,” Rosemary said, unable to stop her lips from twitching.
“She beats all I’ve ever seen. I hope you told her to get the hell back down here and to leave you alone,” Eden said.
“I’m about to put her in a cab for LaGuardia.”
Eden gave a hushed laugh, telling Rosemary she was at work at Penny Pinchers. “Good girl. So I’m on a fifteen-minute break and need to hear something good. Mr. Grabby Hands comes this week to go over reports.”
“Well, my bad decision has a killer smile and took me to eat at this cool marketplace called Eataly.”
Eden squealed and then caught herself. “You bad girl.”
Rosemary laughed. “Well, didn’t Lacy want us to kick up our heels, stretch ourselves, and grab on to something good?”
“I’m not sure those were the requirement for me, but for you? Probably.”
“I’m grabbing on to something with an amazing six-pack.”
“And how would you know that?” Eden’s voice went singsong.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Rosemary said, warmth flooding her. She’d not had a good talk with either Eden or Jess beyond a few text messages. It felt good to hear Eden’s voice. Something about the much put-upon Eden always soothed Rosemary, putting everything in context. Eden recognized how hard it was for Rosemary to step outside the box since she was trapped in a box herself, with nary a box cutter in sight.
“So you met a guy. Spill the deets.”
“Not much to tell other than he’s sexy, Italian, and likes to dance to Etta James and Sinatra. He helps run his family restaurant in Little Italy and has incredible puppy dog eyes.”
Eden sighed. “He sounds perfect. Seriously.”
“Only two weeks’ perfect. It’s not a forever thing.”
Eden was silent for a few seconds. “Why can’t it be forever? I mean, what if he’s the one?”
“He’s not. I mean, he c
an’t be,” Rosemary answered before she could latch on to a thought like that. Stay in New York City? No. This wasn’t where she belonged or what she wanted. Morning Glory cradled her business, her family, her friends, her entire world in its arms. Being in Manhattan was about living a fantasy. Here she could take chances, play naughty, and live for the moment. Coming to pet-sit in SoHo wasn’t the start of a new life. It was a break from her real one. “This isn’t about falling in love, Eden.”
“Why do you love it here so much?”
“I don’t know. I’m happy in Morning Glory.”
“So you didn’t need Lacy’s money or to live a dream?” Eden sounded perturbed.
“No. Look, Lacy was right. I’ve been treading water even if I’ve been doing it in a happy place. The problem isn’t Morning Glory. It’s me. Maybe coming here to NYC will shake me loose again. Maybe when I come back, I’ll be ready to find a shore.”
“Yeah,” Eden said halfheartedly. Rosemary knew what her friend felt. Eden was trapped in Morning Glory. Until her sister came back home, Eden would stay and care for her mother. “Then don’t go falling in love then, you hear?”
“In two weeks? That’s ridiculous.”
Yet Rosemary knew herself to be a hopeless romantic who’d slurped up fairy tales one right after the other . . . and not the original gruesome fairy tales. No, she loved the sanitized ones that nestled happily ever after deep within her heart like a . . . princess tiara in an upswept pile of golden curls. True love was real to her, and she knew falling in love didn’t necessarily happen when it was super convenient. No, it was apt to knock the wind out of her, leaving her on the floor gasping for breath.
“Don’t worry, E. I won’t. This is just sex . . . or will be if I can get my mother on the next plane out,” Rosemary said. “Now, how are things there?”
