I walked the few blocks to the El station and boarded the train. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my mind off of the pharmacist. My secret crushes normally faded fast, instead this one seemed to be dragging. Why was I always attracted to the shy, smart guys? Just like Seth. I’d never gotten anywhere with them. Those guys never made a move, at least not at me. Jen would say its karma for how I treated them when I was young.
All through school, I’d rejected being a nerd, so not skipping those two grades had been fine with me. I hung out with the popular kids, cut class, went to parties, and had way more fun in high school than my mother ever needed to know about. My grades stayed perfect and I never got arrested so my parents could remain blissfully ignorant of the rest.
Much as I’d tried to remind myself that this was not high school, I knew Seth would never ask me out so I had no idea why I bothered flirting with him. Other than the fact that he was cute with a great body and naturally polite manners, there had to be something wrong with him. When the train pulled into my stop, I put my fantasy on hold. There was one thing I had to do before heading home to trade information with the others on our search for the men from our pasts.
I entered my mom’s bakery to preempt any nagging about never seeing my family and to get supplies. I loved it there. It looked like every Italian bakery should. Murals on the walls depicted old Italy. Thanks to my artist cousin Anthony, the floor to ceiling hand-painted pictures of vineyards, fields, and cottages were updated regularly.
It always made me feel at home to come to the bakery. I might not have any talents in the kitchen yet I liked to contribute so Jen doesn’t always have to feed us and she gets a taste of home baking.
My mother and her sisters have been brilliant bakers all of their lives and when we children got older they opened the Three Aunts Bakery on Taylor Street
. All of the daughters, including me, had worked the register during their high school and college years. Now it was my youngest cousin Penny’s turn.
“Hey Penny.” I waved at my cousin and headed to the kitchen. “Hi Mom, Aunt Marie, Aunt Louisa.” I dutifully gave them each a peck on the cheek and hopped up on a vacant countertop. The old Chicago building was deep rather than wide and the oven dominated one of the walls. The island in the middle was full of delicious creations in progress. The heat was oppressively familiar, I felt at home.
“Marina, where have you been?” My mother demanded adding spices to her dough while my aunts chimed in with similarly loving scolds.
“Work. I need a dozen Parmesan rolls please.” I picked at a new creation and got the requisite slap on the hand by one aunt while the other slipped a sample into my package of food. Whatever I requested would be tripled and just about anything could find its way in there.
“Fresh from the oven,” Aunt Louisa said proudly.
“Thanks,” I replied.
“How was Lori’s birthday?” Mom’s hands never stopped working her dough.
“Bad. She’s not happy about being thirty. I have a plan.” I smiled.
“What plan? She’s just got to get over it. I’m sixty and I don’t care who knows it.” Mom wagged a finger at me.
“You don’t care because you’re the youngest.” Aunt Marie cut in.
“What’s the plan?” Mom ignored her sister.
“You remember when she was dating Nick?” My mother heard most things eventually. Trying to keep her out of my personal life was a fight and I picked my battles. She always got the censored version though. When Lori and I were in college, Mom had practically adopted Lori. Actually, it was more Lori who decided my mother was what a mom should be.
“Nick? Sure. He was a nice boy. Hardworking mechanic. I took my car there after you told me about him. Lori was foolish to let him go. Nice looking too and very polite.” Mom added a layer of butter to the rolls as she boxed them up.
“Don’t tell Lori’s family that,” I warned. That was very high praise from my mom and my aunts knew it.
“What? A mechanic isn’t good enough for them?” Aunt Louisa asked.
“Aunt Louisa, royalty wouldn’t be good enough for them. All lawyers, judges and politicians.” I rolled my eyes. “They’re snobs and he was good for Lori. So the plan is we’re going to look up old boyfriends and put the past behind us for fun. It’ll get Lori’s mind off of her birthday.”
“Who are you looking up?” Aunt Marie asked.
“Remember Lucas?” I grimaced as they all groaned.
“That dull boy who played with stocks?” Mom held nothing back. “You don’t want him. You need to find a new man.” She thought Lucas had been a waste of time.
“No, I’m sure he’s probably bald or married by now so I’ll be off the hook. I just had to pick one to get Lori to do it,” I explained.
“You’re a good friend. We’ll light a candle tonight that you find a nice boy,” Aunt Marie promised and crossed herself on my behalf. Aunt Louisa nodded in agreement.
“Thanks but I’ll survive turning thirty and being single. Cross yourself for Lori.” I had no fear of ending up thirty and alone. Then again, I’d never been in love. At least not the kind that took more than a few days and new cute guy to get over. Alone was safe and easy.
“What about the tiny redhead with the freckles? Is she playing too?” Mom asked.
“Jen?” I supplied. “Sure, she wants to find some chef she only saw a couple of times. Maybe he’ll be right for her. They didn’t spend enough time together to let it develop. Whether it works or not, it’s better than being depressed about our age.”
“Good! Action is always better than doing nothing. Maybe you’ll find a nice man in all of this.” Mom’s advice was always supportive. I was lucky that she rarely criticized seriously.
“Action toward finding a good man is even better.” Aunt Louisa winked.
“As long as my plan is mom and aunt approved I can’t lose.” I added a loaf of her special bread to my stash. “I’ve got to go. We’re getting started tonight so hopefully it’ll get our minds off of anything negative.”
“Let me know how it goes. I’m not going to tell your father about this plan of yours. I don’t think he’d like it. He still thinks of you as the baby.” Mom patted my cheek.
“Dads aren’t supposed to approve of their daughter’s love lives.” I shrugged and left the kitchen. “Bye everyone, bye Penny.”
“Find me a man while you’re at it, Marina!” Penny called as I left with a wave. Some days I think I should have gone into matchmaking. Of course, Lori is my first intentional attempt. I did some by accident in college and with clients at the animal hospital. Always setting up others and never finding a good one for myself. My luck had better change one of these days.
This would still be entertaining. Finding Lori’s Nick would be the perfect distraction to keep her from being depressed. Hopefully this time Lori would be strong enough to keep her mechanic. We all had baggage to clean up in order to face age thirty and this might do the trick. I might have real hope for Lori and Nick if I weren’t so worried she’d screw it up again.
~* * *~
I arrived home to find Jen pacing in a panic with her apartment door wide open, not a good idea in the city even with our building’s reliable security. Her Wisconsin roots were showing.
“What’s the matter?” I asked setting down the packages of food carefully on her island.
“The interview is tomorrow morning. I completely forgot with all of this Lori’s birthday and men stuff.” Jen didn’t stop pacing and started biting her unpainted and short nails. I glanced at my cherry red polish and wondered how I’d talk Jen into fixing up her makeup. That was a project for another day. She was stressed enough already.
“You’ll be great.” I popped a few rolls in the microwave to get them all gooey hoping Jen could be tempted by my mom’s latest creation.
“What if I’m not? What if I don’t get it?” Jen was panicking.
“Jen, you’re a great chef. You’ll get the job.�
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“Where is this crystal ball of yours?” Jen was a worrier and never knew when to quit.
“Fine, so you don’t get the job. Did you quit your old job? Are you stupid enough to walk away from a paying job because you have an interview?”
“No, of course not. But I hate that job!”
“It’s better than eviction.” I extended both hands and mocked a scale in distinct favor of the disliked job. “You’ll live with your current job until the right one comes along. If it’s not this one then there’ll be another.”
“I just want tomorrow to be over with.” Jen sunk into the sofa as I deposited the roll and a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. The idea of slipping a few tranquilizers into her drink crossed my mind. She’d survive.
“Tomorrow won’t be the end. What are the odds they’ll offer you the job tomorrow? I’m sure they have to make a decision and maybe have other candidates to evaluate.” Then you have to wait.
“At least the interview will be over. You know I’m not very good with words.” Jen bit into the roll and groaned. “Won’t your mother give me any of her recipes?”
“So you can sell them at triple the price at some fancy restaurant? She’d die first.”
“I can’t believe you never learned how to cook or bake.” Jen finished the roll fast and drained the glass.
“What for? Two of my cousins work at the bakery part time in the kitchen while they’re going to college. They’ll probably take it over from the aunts. Of course, my cousins will have to force them into retirement, yanking the rolling pin from them. And most of my sisters can cook. I’ll never go hungry.”
“What if Lucas comes back into your life? Don’t you want to impress him with your culinary talents?” Jen teased.
“Not really,” I admitted. “It’ll be funny to see where he is. Bald, arrested for insider trading, or married with triplets. We didn’t click. It’s strictly entertainment value, Jen. Don’t waste too much energy on this guy. He’s boring.”
“Maybe Lori shouldn’t bother looking for my Brian.” Jen walked to the kitchen to put the dishes away. “We were only together that one time.”
“You liked him,” I reminded her. “You lit up like New Year’s Eve when you talked about him.”
“He was nice but there’s no guarantee.” Jen chewed her lower lip nervously.
“There are no guarantees in life, about your job or boyfriend. That’s the whole point of this. We get out and do something different. If we hang around here all winter, we’ll pack on ten extra pounds, which I don’t need, and be depressed. Besides Lori needs to get Nick or get him out of her system.” I propped my feet up on the coffee table with my own roll and savored the smell.
“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” Jen asked.
“What all what is about?” I pretended not to follow her and took a bite.
“This whole best in bed thing. You’re doing this for Lori’s sake.”
“Well, she was the one depressed about her birthday.” I waited to see if Jen would push the issue.
“Our guys are pretty random. Okay they were good in bed. Unlike Lori, we don’t really have some huge emotional connection with them.”
I grinned slyly. “You won’t tell her, will you?” All I needed was for Jen to spill it. Lori was too wrapped up in the thought of Nick and turning thirty so she’d gloss over the plot even knowing me as well as she does.
“No, this is fun! Lori came up with his name really fast. I just hope it turns out for the best.”
“Either way she’ll have some closure and can move on with or without him. She ended things with Nick so abruptly when she took the job and put this brick wall up. She wouldn’t even discuss the break-up with me. I don’t think Lori and Nick ever really sorted it all out.”
“And you never met him?” Jen returned to the sofa and stretched out.
“No, she was studying for the bar and I was finishing up vet school. I’d hear about him all the time but she never brought him around. I think she thought she was supposed to be ashamed of him. Why, I don’t know. I’m from the Southside working class. Did she think I’d kick him out?”
“Her parents,” Jen whispered like they were in the room.
“Her parents have let me in their home.” I shrugged. “Anyway I’ve never met him. I heard plenty of stories though.”
“Like?” Jen insisted.
“You’d better not, Marina,” Lori said from the doorway. “This is what happens when I leave you two alone.”
“You’re the late one. Jen and I got started without you. We’ve already covered Brian and Lucas, right Jen?” I defended.
“Right,” Jen agreed.
“Fine, fine. I got stuck on a conference call. What smells so good?” Lori headed for the kitchen removing her jacket on the way. Her pumps clicked on the Mexican ceramic tile with confident steps.
“Mom sent rolls.” I winked at Jen. “Why don’t you share a Nick story and have one?”
“Don’t make me lose my appetite,” Lori scolded me as she dove into the food.
“Come on Lori, how can Marina find him if she doesn’t know stuff?” Jen nodded.
“That isn’t the kind of story I wanted to hear.” I grinned.
“If all you want is a juicy story fine.” Lori settled down with coffee and pastry on the sofa next to us.
“So?” Jen pressed as she grabbed a throw pillow.
“My car was in and out of the shop for about a month and his garage happened to be on the way to my study group for the bar,” Lori began.
“How soon after you met him did you two start dating?” Jen asked.
“The dating sort of happened later. Other stuff happened right away,” Lori replied.
“I like a woman who knows her priorities,” I teased.
“You shut up! You already know this story.” Lori turned back to Jen and smiled. “Anyway we’d been having fun for a couple of weeks and he picked me up from my study group to bring me back to the garage because my car was ready.”
“I like a man who picks up and delivers,” I laughed and was stuck by a blue shag throw pillow, compliments of Lori, which I returned with equal force.
“We started fooling around, you know just kissing. All the guys from the garage were gone now so it was just us. Things got a little out of control.” Lori blushed.
“Go on,” Jen urged.
“Well, there was this black Astin Martin there and I just love that car!”
“A what car?” Jen asked.
“One of James Bond’s cars,” Lori supplied.
“Oh.” Jen nodded.
“So I started looking at it and touching it and Nick kept touching me and before I knew it I was naked! He’d taken my clothes off and I hadn’t even noticed.”
“Good with his hands,” I chimed in.
“Very!” Lori agreed.
“So you guys did it in the car?” Jen asked.
“Close,” I whispered.
“More like on it.” Lori shrugged.
“On the hood of the car?” Jen’s jaw dropped.
“Wrong end,” I supplied.
“Wasn’t that hard on your back, lying on the trunk of a car?” Jen asked.
“I wasn’t on my back.” Lori’s pale skin was deep red now.
“Doggie style on the trunk of some stranger’s expensive car? The two of you there naked for anyone to walk in on!” Jen’s jaw dropped.
“He wasn’t technically naked,” Lori corrected. “He left his mechanic’s cover thing on, only had time to unzip it.”
“Wasn’t it all dirty and rough?” Jen asked.
“Yes, just the way I like it,” Lori said. “I need chocolate.”
Jen bounded up and found the next best thing to sex to soothe the beast we’d created in Lori. Gourmet chocolates.
“That settles it, I’m getting you a vibrator for Christmas,” I said. The laughter broke the sexual tension our fantasies had created.
“It’s
not the same,” Lori argued.
“True. It’s better than nothing. Before we have another of Lori’s tales from the garage, maybe we should trade information on these guys?” I suggested.
Chapter Two
Jen on Pins and Needles
So maybe I hadn’t told the exact truth. Brian was the best guy I’d felt really connected to in my life. So we hadn’t technically slept together or even kissed. We’d only had a few hours of a few days to spend together at that culinary convention.
I straightened my pretty powder blue and white bedroom. When I get nervous, cleaning is the only thing that helps. I tucked the down comforter in and fluffed the pillows properly, trying not to think of Brian.
It was one of those instant things and we clicked. He was too much of a gentleman to make a move after such a short time. He didn’t say that. He didn’t have to. I never had the chance to give him my number. I had to catch the flight back home. He lived in Los Angeles so it wasn’t like we’d get to see much of each other.
The thought of Lori tracking him down made me cringe. She could be so dynamic and yet ruthless when she went after something. I half hoped she couldn’t find him. The trail might run cold and Brian could remain a happy memory of what could have been. On the other hand, that’s exactly why Marina wanted to do this, to erase Lori’s regret. So why not erase my own?
As I changed into my third and final interview suit option, I crossed my fingers that Brian, if found, wouldn’t reveal that things had been innocent between us. Marina and Lori would have a field day with my virginity. I couldn’t help that I hadn’t found the right guy yet. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who regretted their first time.
Obviously, I was way behind Lori and Marina’s count. I didn’t have Lori’s adventurous sexual nature or Marina’s self-confidence.
Looking in the mirror, I saw a nearly thirty-year-old virgin who was going to blow her interview. The red suit made me look like a strawberry. I decided on the professional navy blue Lori had insisted I should wear. Lori was right as usual. I changed and tried to get a grip on my breathing and pre-interview jitters by pacing in the kitchen. Coffee wouldn’t help so I resisted the urge to pour a cup just to keep my hands busy.
Best in Bed Page 2
