Charmingly Yours (A Morning Glory #1)

by Liz Talley

  You’re a fucking liar. Don’t call me again.

  Sal felt his heart break into small pieces. So much for protecting himself from heartache. He’d tried to stay away from love, but it had thrown a net over his head anyway. Held captive by heartbreak. Sounded like a romance novel.

  Rising, he winced. Not only did he hurt inside, but his legs felt achy, as if he’d run a marathon. Sal could hang around the building, hoping to gain entrance, but Rosemary was too angry with him to talk at the moment. She’d actually used the F word, something he’d never heard her say. Hell, she rarely used any profanity. Rosemary was a good girl and he’d unwittingly turned her to the dark side.

  And not in a sexy, kinky, good way.

  In the worst of ways. He couldn’t stand the idea she might feel used or cheap.

  Thanks to Angelina, Rosemary thought he was the lowest of low. What if Rosemary questioned everything she was? What if she regretted the entire time he had spent with her? That thought hurt him as bad as the actual heartache. He didn’t want her to regret the time they’d had together. It had been the best two weeks of his life, a beautiful, wonderful time he’d never forget. He’d fallen in love with her and would savor every touch, kiss, laugh, and moment they’d spent together. But now a cloud of shame and betrayal covered the memory for Rosemary.

  Looking up at the top floor, he stuck his hands in his pockets and closed his eyes.

  I’m sorry this happened, Rosemary.

  I love you.

  Be happy.

  And then he walked away, feeling lower than the dog crap some moron hadn’t picked up on the sidewalk.

  Game over.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rosemary stared at the four walls of her cousin’s loft and felt so incredibly alone.

  So heartbreakingly alone.

  Thirty minutes ago she’d taken Gilda the pillows and told her to not, under any circumstances, let that no-good, cheating Italian into this building.

  “Which one?” Gilda had asked, smoking a cigarette.

  Rosemary made a face. “Sal.”

  “No,” Gilda had said, shaking her head. “He seemed like such a nice boy. But they all do, don’t they?”

  Her temporary neighbor wore a shiny fuchsia unitard that looked straight out of a 1980s Jazzercise infomercial. She even had a braided headband. She looked ridiculous but somehow comforting.

  “Well, I’m a stupid girl,” Rosemary said, handing her the two bags.

  “You’re not stupid. Being open to life doesn’t make you stupid. It makes you incredibly brave, dear. You’re not standing on the sidelines. You’re playing the game. Sometimes you lose. You get knocked down, kneed in the testicles.”

  Rosemary made another confused face.

  “Oops. It’s the standard speech I’ve given to Stanton all his life. Sorry. Sometimes you get kicked in the, uh, shins. Hurts. But you’re out there. You can’t win if you don’t play. I’d say suck it up, buttercup, but it’s too fresh. Go have yourself a good cry and don’t worry—he’ll get into Fort Knox before he’ll get in here. I’m calling Herman in 4A and telling him to let Caesar out if he sees the Italian. That dog hates men and if he bites Sal, well, he deserves it.”

  Rosemary thought Gilda a little too bloodthirsty, but maybe that’s what she needed. “Thank you, Gilda. For everything.”

  Gilda tilted her head, her dyed hair sticking out like wings beneath the headband, making the woman look like one crazy angel. “You’re not saying good-bye, are you?”

  Rosemary shrugged. “I’m not fit company. Won’t be for a while. Thank you for the opportunity you’ve given me with Trevor. Thank you for siccing Caesar on Sal. You’re a perfect Obi-Wan.”

  Gilda smiled. “He was a generous lover.”

  Rosemary looked confused again.

  “Alec. You brought him up, dear. I’m merely paying the man a compliment,” Gilda said with a shrug.

  Rosemary didn’t feel much like smiling, but how could she resist in this instance? Impulsively she leaned forward and kissed Gilda on her leathery cheek. “You’re one of a kind, lady.”

  “It’s what I’ve always strived to be,” Gilda said, pressing her hand to Rosemary’s bare shoulder. “Now, I have to go watch National Geographic. It’s that crazy vet who’s always sticking his arm up cows’ hoo-has. For some reason, I have to watch.”

  Then Gilda had shut the door, leaving Rosemary to wonder what in all that was holy the woman talked about. She went back to Halle’s, plopped on the couch, and got a semi-nuzzle from Moscow that essentially meant, “Feed me, human.”

  And finally the tears came.

  Like a felled tree she slumped over and gave in to the horrible emotion she’d dammed up in front of Angelina. Once unleashed, she couldn’t seem to stop.

  Her phone chirped and she felt for it in the bag she’d dumped inside the door.

  Sal.

  He had lots of excuses. Lots of platitudes. Lots of begging. But she wasn’t going to be suckered again. In the words of Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner’s Daughter, she might be ignorant, but she ain’t stupid. No matter what she professed to Gilda. Too many things added up, including how eager Sal was to keep her from his family, from his normal life.

  He didn’t want anyone to know he was a lying dirtbag.

  Kitty cat paws dug into her back.

  “Okay, okay. Jeez,” she said, pushing the cat off her. Struggling to her feet, she staggered toward the kitchen. The phone kept chirping.

  Finally, she picked it up and told him to go away. She threatened the police though she knew she wouldn’t involve them. No way would she have some police report and court date. Not after Patsy Reynolds had predicted such disaster.

  “You’ll probably end up in a hospital or police station,” her mother had said right before Rosemary climbed into the car to the airport.

  So, no. No police report. But if it got Sal to give up and go away, she’d threaten it.

  She poured the cats some food and they went right to work, crunching and smacking.

  The phone buzzed, rattling on the table.

  She looked at his platitudes and when she saw the final text, she wanted to throw the phone across the room.

  I love you.

  Anger blanketed her. Oh, so now he loved her. Couldn’t say it to her face. Begged her not to say it to him. He wanted nothing to do with love, but he’d use it to get to her?

  No. Effing. Way.

  She tapped her response, throwing in the never-to-be-used-unless-really-pissed-or-dropping-a-can-on-her-toe F word.

  Then she pressed SEND.

  Emphatically.

  Like she pressed it so hard she dropped her phone and the screen shattered.

  “Gosh darn it,” Rosemary said, tears leaking from her eyes, making the last text from Sal a blurry blue stained-glass window. So Rosemary shut her phone off and lay down on the couch. She had to figure out what to do.

  Her first inclination was to grab some ice cream, climb into her cousin’s bed, and turn on a movie. Ride it out. She’d be home tomorrow afternoon and she could lick her wounds in her own bed.

  But part of her wanted to leave now.

  Go to the airport. Buy a ticket. Just get back to her world. Away from any possibility of seeing Sal again.

  She rose, grabbed her phone, and called the airline. Moving her flight cost a small fortune, but she could swing it. She didn’t want to be in New York any longer. Since Halle was coming home on Monday afternoon, she could leave the cats extra food and water and a clean litter box. They’d be fine for forty-eight hours. She’d send Halle an e-mail, tidy up, pack, and get the hell out.

  Pulling her suitcase out, she started packing. Tears spilled down her cheeks as her mind tripped through the past two weeks—images of the carriage ride, of making love as droplets of rain plinked against the windows. The crazy staircase striptease. Her mother in rollers. Sal’s hands, his ruffled hair, the sound he made when he came, arching his head back, pure pleasure on his handso
me face. The way he laughed, did funny voices, and made the tags for her pillows.

  She expended the grief for what she’d lost.

  And it hurt like a razor slicing through skin.

  But she had to do it. She knew this because this was how it was to lose Lacy. Finality. Never going to see them again. Cry a river and get over the hump.

  When she packed Mimi’s vintage black dress from the fifties, new tears appeared. She had planned on wearing the cocktail dress tonight, to dance at Luna on the top of the Morey Hotel. The skirt was full enough to swish and she’d planned on wearing her pearls and the Louboutin pumps she’d splurged on. She’d even searched on the Internet for a vintage hairstyle, planning on being Sal’s old-fashioned glam gal.

  But not anymore.

  Something popped into her head as she carefully folded the dress.

  Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

  The charm for the bracelet.

  She had to get a charm to signify her very big-girl attempt to live and love in NYC. Or rather, her failed attempt.

  Hurriedly, she shoved all her things in the suitcase, not worrying if she accidentally forgot something. She could always have Halle send it later. She had to hurry because if she was lucky she might have just enough time to do what she’d promised.

  Zipping the suitcase, she left her cousin a note, petted the cats (who didn’t seem to give a flip that she was saying good-bye), and locked the door. Placing the key in an envelope, she slid it under Gilda’s door so Halle could pick it up.

  She knew not to interrupt Gilda when she was in the middle of watching a program.

  She pressed a hand against her cousin’s loft door. “Good-bye, SoHo.”

  Then Rosemary walked down the stairs for the last time, her suitcase bumping behind her.

  Once Sal had walked away from Spring Street, he realized he had nothing to do for the entire day. He canceled his reservation at Tavern on the Green and started walking north with no particular destination in mind. Just a walk. To clear his head. Regroup. Try to forget about how shitty his life was.

  In his mind the sun had been extinguished.

  But what? He had already known this would be the end result. Just hadn’t expected it to happen with ugly words and unstated accusations. And for it to be at the hands of such a scheming woman.

  Still, he couldn’t put all the blame on Angelina. By nature, she was a woman who stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. Aggressive and smart, Angelina used what was at hand to make her path easier. In this case, she’d used lies to dispense with her competition. If he hadn’t wanted to choke her, he might admire the cool way she’d played it off. She’d actually made it sound like his fault.

  As he’d walked, he thought not only about his heartache but about everything. Like a bottle tossed in the ocean, he’d allowed himself to be flung about, never landing anywhere. He’d dropped out of culinary school and contented himself with working for his father. Doing so was easy. He made decent money, he could shift his schedule to suit him, and he could spend his evenings hanging with his friends, picking up girls, and watching whatever the hell he wanted on his TV. The path less traveled was hard, the life he led now, easy.

  Yet where was his passion for living?

  Sure, he’d fallen in love with Hillary and thought he’d build a life with her. Her parents had money and she’d convinced him to open an upscale pizza place out in the Hamptons. For a few months, he’d been obsessed with finding real estate there . . . or at least real estate he could afford. She’d planned their wedding while he designed menus in his head, daydreamed about write-ups in the New York Times, and delved into market research. For a month, he’d been consumed with the possibility of Sal’s Downtown Pizza.

  But then he and Hillary split and he’d shoved the dream of his own place into a cubbyhole, never letting it back out into the light. And he’d gone back to being the Sal he’d always been.

  He disgusted himself.

  Passing an elderly lady coming out of Macy’s, he was reminded of the person who always shot straight . . . and put liquor in his tea. So he’d hopped a train and headed out to the Bronx and her small garden, where life seemed better.

  Sal’s grandmother Sophie Mello Genovese had been thirty-eight when she’d given birth to his father, her only child. So she was ninety-one years old and wizened like a raisin. Still, she had a razor-sharp wit and a feisty disposition. Her old dog was missing an eye, and she spent nearly every day in her patio garden with the mutt. Every square inch of the garden was covered with blooms, herbs, and interesting shrubs, but the highlight was the weeping cherry tree that when in bloom was showstopping. Sal loved being with her.

  “The last time you looked this way, that bitch married the investment banker,” his grandmother Sophie said, handing him a delicate bone-china cup full of brandied tea.

  “Yeah.”

  Her eyebrows were still dark, though the rest of her hair was a stiff white mushroom. Her beauty operator—that’s what she called the old hen who took clients in a small beauty shop in the back of her house—believed in heavy hair spray. “That’s all you have to say, eh?”

  His grandmother smiled and crossed her legs. She wore elastic-banded pants and a flowered Hawaiian shirt and didn’t seem to be in a rush to say things. He appreciated that about her. His mother could learn a thing or two from her mother-in-law.

  After several minutes of watching small sparrows hop on the branches of the cherry tree, he said, “Ma is set on me marrying Angelina. Pops is set on me opening the new deli off Times Square.”

  “And what are you set on?” his grandmother asked.

  Sal shrugged.

  Grandma Sophie tsked. “Well, that’s your problem. You don’t set on anything, Salvatore Genovese.”

  “Ma’s already lectured me on my poor decision making.”

  “I’m not lecturing,” she said, taking a sip of tea, again falling silent.

  “Maybe I need a lecture,” he said, setting his empty cup on the scrolled iron table. His stomach felt warm from the brandy . . . or perhaps it was the sunshine striping the patio with its heat.

  “No one needs a lecture when they’re hurting. I can see this is more than confusion over what your parents have planned for you.”

  “There’s this woman.”

  “Ah,” his grandmother said, holding up a finger crooked from arthritis. “The best and worst stories start with those words.”

  He managed a smile. “But she’s from a different world. It won’t work.”

  “What world would that be?”

  “Mississippi,” he said.

  “Oh yes, very different. I went down there when your grandfather was in the navy. I couldn’t even understand what those people were saying half the time.”

  Sal smiled. “They say weird things like ‘It’s hotter than a billy goat’s butt in a pepper patch’ or ‘He’s useless as tits on a boar hog.’”

  That made his grandmother giggle. “So what’s wrong with Mississippi?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, confused about her intent.

  “I mean if you love her and she loves you, you have to meet her halfway. You’re not happy here, so what’s wrong with Mississippi?”

  Sal looked hard at the old woman. “You’re suggesting I go to Mississippi?”

  Her mouth turned down, and she tilted her head in the age-old expression that meant, “That’s what I’m saying, dumb ass.”

  “But I can’t live in Mississippi. I’m a New Yorker.”

  “And that’s why you’re working for your father and considering marrying that cow Angelina? Because you’re a New Yorker? And I suppose you’d cut off your nose to spite your face, too.”

  “Angelina’s not a cow. She’s actually very slender.”

  “Cow,” his grandmother said, jabbing a finger at the ground. “I don’t like her. Never have. Spoiled rotten. Her mother should have whipped her ass when she had the chance. If you marry her, I won’t be at the wedding.”<
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  Sal shook his head. “I’m not marrying her.”

  “Good. Maybe you’re starting to find your balls.”

  “Grandma Sophie,” he said, trying not to laugh.

  “What? It’s the truth. That’s what I liked about your grandfather. He never let me walk all over him. He was a man who knew what he wanted. He wanted me. I danced in the chorus line and he was the boy who pulled the curtain, you know?”

  He nodded, because she loved to talk about her dancing days.

  “But that Anthony’s eyes burned with fire. He wanted more than what life had given him. He didn’t know my papa owned a restaurant. He thought I was a little songbird of no account, but he knew he wanted me. Smart man to take what he wanted and gain a restaurant in the process. My papa loved Tony like a son, and he loved him even more because he loved me. Tony was never afraid to roll the bones and see what came up.”

  Sal didn’t say anything because his mind was glutted with too much to think about.

  “Why don’t you stop holding your dice, Sal?” his grandmother said, reaching for the brandy she’d set on the table and pouring herself half a cup. “You don’t want the life you’re living. Give them a roll.”

  “But . . .” Sal started to say that everything he knew was here, but he couldn’t. Because the one person who made him happy had shut him out of her life and would board a plane for the South tomorrow. What would life be if he settled for the life he’d had before? Where was his passion? His challenge? His reason for getting up every morning?

  He looked down at his hand and opened it.

  Stop settling. Roll the dice.

  “Years after Tony and I were married, he told me that he’d spent his last two dollars to take me for ice cream. For three days, he ate scraps so I could eat ice cream and fall in love with him. Ah, his smile and the way he looked at me. If they could bottle that, we’d all be rich, you know?”

  Sal nodded. His grandfather hadn’t been afraid to disappoint or to fall on his ass. He’d rolled his dice, spent his last dollar on love.

  “I’d like to say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but your father, ay-yi-yi. He has a romantic bone somewhere in his pinkie, maybe. Hard to tell. And your mother is from a forward family. She has always pushed, pushed, pushed. The woman must be exhausted. But you—you I’ve always had hope for. You’re a dreamer, though they would beat it out of you. But the dreamers are always the ones who win big. Or they go home.” His grandmother drained her brandy and rose, creeping across the garden much like the snails she’d drowned in the small containers of beer sitting round the patio. Picking a lovely rose from a thorny shrub, she carried it back to him. “See how beautiful?”