Francesca's Kitchen

by Peter Pezzelli

  “How’s my girl today?” he might say with disarming charm as he passed her desk. Or at seeing her approach, he’d say “Here’s some sunshine coming my way!”

  Loretta was too old and too wizened from experience to be taken in by his artful banter; as an attractive woman in a business dominated by men, she endured it almost every day. As a single, stressed-out mother, however, one who could only faintly remember what it was like to hold a man, she was still too young not to be flattered by the attention. Besides, the thought of someday having a knight in shining armor show up to rescue her, a prince to take care of her and allow her to finally bid farewell to her dread of the monthly electric bill’s arrival, was a pleasant daydream.

  “Get those little notions right out of your head, young lady,” said Shirley, bringing her back. “That man has the word ‘cad’ stamped all over his face.”

  “Oh, come on,” laughed Loretta. “Why do you say that?”

  “Don’t you know anything?” puffed Shirley. “The guy just got divorced three months ago. Don’t ask me how I know this. Anyway, from the stories I hear, he’s probably on the make for whatever he can get. Trust me, I’ve seen his kind in action. He’s just out looking for an easy score.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot,” said Loretta, even though she had heard some of the very same stories. “I didn’t know I was so easy.”

  “You know what I mean,” Shirley replied with a huff. “Just be careful, is all I’m saying, and make sure you give him the brush-off if he comes on to you.”

  Loretta settled back in her chair and smiled. “My word of honor,” she said with fingers crossed.

  “Good girl. So, anyway, what are your plans for your terrible nanny now that she has offended you with her cooking and cleaning?” asked Shirley, returning to the original subject.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” confessed Loretta, “but it’s Friday, and I’m going home on time for once. And for tonight at least, I’m taking care of dinner—somehow.”

  Shirley chuckled and gave her an impudent grin. “KFC, here you come,” she said brightly before taking a bite of her salad.

  Later that afternoon, after the firm had finished up the closings for the New England Trucking deals and the inevitable blizzard of papers flying back and forth between the attorneys had mercifully subsided, Loretta was finally free to go home. Anxious to beat the traffic, she hurried to the closet to get her coat and hat. On the way, she mulled over the options for dinner. Shirley’s last little dig at lunch had ruled out fried chicken as a possibility; Loretta wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of being able to needle her about it on Monday. Pizza or Chinese food seemed the most likely alternatives, she decided as she pulled on her coat and headed for the door. She was trying to remember which restaurants she might pass on the way home when she happened to walk by the glass walls of the conference room, where the last of the closings had just taken place. The room was now empty save for Ned Hadley, who was seated alone at the head of the table, talking a mile a minute on his cell phone. His brow was furrowed, indicating that he wasn’t entirely pleased about whatever the topic of the conversation might be. At seeing Loretta, his faced brightened. He flashed a winning smile and beckoned her to come in. Putting the phone briefly to his shoulder, he mouthed the words, “One minute.”

  Loretta was anxious to get going, but all things considered, she could see no harm in waiting one more minute. Despite Shirley’s admonitions at lunch, Loretta returned his smile and stepped into the conference room. Perhaps her friend was right. Maybe doing so wasn’t the best idea. But Loretta was curious, and as far as she knew, curiosity killed only cats.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Just for a few hours,” said a hopeful Loretta. “Maybe seven to ten?”

  They were standing in the front hall by the door, where Francesca was just getting ready to leave. Will and Penny were off in the kitchen, tearing open the boxes of Chinese food their mother had just brought home. As she wrapped her scarf around her neck, Francesca leaned over to get a peek at them. The two were kneeling on their chairs across the table from one another, quarreling over who would have the spring rolls. Even though she had looked forward to cooking once more for the children, it had been only a minor disappointment when Loretta has called earlier that afternoon to tell her that there was no need to bother, that she herself would be bringing dinner home. As things worked out, Joey had called Francesca just that morning to tell her that he might be stopping by in the evening to pick up some laundry she had done for him. Given that she had yet to breathe a word to her son and daughters about what she had been up to these days, Francesca had fretted all afternoon that Joey would arrive at the house before her if Loretta was forced to work late again. Not at all anxious to endure the inevitable questions that would have arisen about her whereabouts and activities, she was just as happy to go home on time. This new request, however, posed something of a predicament.

  “I know it’s kind of last minute, asking you to babysit tomorrow night,” Loretta went on. “I totally understand if you already have other plans, or even if you’re just not up for it, so don’t feel obligated.” Then, in a meek voice, “I, um, just thought I’d ask.”

  The pleading look in the younger woman’s eyes gave Francesca reason to suspect that a date with a promising gentleman was hanging in the balance. Other than five-thirty mass, Francesca had no plans whatsoever for Saturday night and would have been delighted to say yes right away, but again, her thoughts turned to her son. Occasionally, he came unannounced for dinner on Saturdays, before going out for the night. Alarm bells were certain to go off from Providence to Oregon if he called and she didn’t answer, or worse, if he came home that night to find her gone.

  “I don’t want to say no,” she told Loretta after mulling the situation over for a moment, “but I can’t say yes just yet. Could I let you know tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning?”

  “Of course,” said Loretta in that desperately hopeful tone that a parent acquires when the opportunity to socialize with another adult finally arises for the first time in ages. “Please, call me as late as you want tonight or any time tomorrow. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

  Francesca patted Loretta on the hand, promised she would let her know as soon as she could, and then went on her way.

  Although she was anxious to get home, Francesca did not drive directly there after leaving Loretta’s house. Instead, she headed first for the library, to pick up some new books being held there for her. She might just as easily have put off the errand until Saturday, for there really was no hurry, but for reasons of her own, it was important that she not wait. As she drove her car along the darkened streets, listening to the tires grinding through the salt and sand, Francesca tried to imagine what type of man Loretta—or the “Simmons woman,” as she still thought of her—was planning to go out with on Saturday night. Was he someone of her age? Was he handsome? Did he have a job? Whoever it was, she hoped he was someone worthwhile. From what Francesca had seen, a good man was something that little family desperately needed.

  These ruminations were interrupted by a sudden hesitation in the engine, something Francesca had noticed happening with increasing frequency lately. Though it passed quickly and the car accelerated back to its former speed, it still caused her heart to skip a beat. Francesca knew that the car was past due for service; judging by its occasional coughing and sputtering, especially whenever she turned the ignition, it seemed to have developed the vehicular equivalent of a cold. Sooner or later, she would have to get it looked at, but with her new responsibilities as a nanny, finding the time to do it was something of a challenge.

  “I could use a man of my own,” she muttered as she pulled into the library parking lot. She parked near the entrance and left the car running while she hurried inside to retrieve her books.

  Later, when Joey arrived at the house, Francesca was in the basement, pulling the last of the two big loads of clothes she had just washed
for him out of the dryer. At hearing the front door open, she called for him to come down to give her a hand. Joey descended the stairs and paused for a moment on the bottom step. He clicked his tongue and shook his head as he came over to help her.

  “I don’t know, but the service isn’t as good here as it once was,” he joked in that quiet, gentle way of his, the one that always reminded Francesca of her husband.

  “Oh, really,” she said with a harrumph. “And how is that?”

  “Well, I never used to have to carry my own laundry upstairs,” her son explained. “Somehow or other, it all just ended up back in my bedroom drawers. It was like magic.”

  “Hey, you want that kind of service again, you’ll have to get yourself a wife,” observed his mother.

  Joey let out a harrumph of his own and picked up one of the clothes baskets.

  Back upstairs, Francesca instructed him to dump the clothes onto the kitchen table and set the baskets on the floor. She took a seat and began to fold the clothes, while Joey stood at the sink, staring out the back window.

  “You know, if you weren’t so lazy, you could sit down and help here,” she chided him.

  “You want me to?” said Joey. “I don’t mind.”

  “No, just go back to what you were doing,” said Francesca, peevishly shooing him away.

  She was more likely to stand on her head than let her son fold the clothes; she just enjoyed heckling him about it. With a mischievous smile, Francesca hummed a tune to herself as she got to work.

  “My, you’re sounding rather chipper tonight,” said Joey over his shoulder.

  “Why shouldn’t I be chipper?” she answered. “What do I have to be sad about?” Then, changing the subject, “You hungry? I have some leftover ’scarole and beans in the refrigerator, if you want to heat it up while I do these clothes.”

  “Nah, thanks,” said Joey with a shake of his head. “I’ll get something to eat later on.”

  “Plans for the night?”

  “Nothing special.”

  “Good,” said Francesca. “Does that mean I’ll be seeing you this weekend?”

  “Well, not tomorrow night,” he said.

  “No, why not?”

  “I’m going out.”

  “A date?” said Francesca with interest. “Who is she? Anyone I know?”

  “No, she’s nobody,” Joey replied, still staring absentmindedly out the window. “Just someone I met.”

  Francesca let out a huff as she set about matching up the socks. “You know, that’s what you always say. ‘She’s nobody.’ It’s about time you stopped wasting your time with nobodies and started trying to find yourself a somebody, somebody you can settle down with and start a life together and maybe raise a family—or at least, somebody you could bring home to meet your mother one of these days.”

  Joey turned from the window and leaned back, his arms folded against his chest. “You know I tried all of that once already, Ma,” he said, not a hint of impatience in his voice, even though this was a well-worn topic of discussion. “Didn’t work out for me,” he went on. “And it was probably just as well. I like things better this way.”

  “What’s better about going through your life without someone who really loves you and wants to take care of you?” said Francesca. “That’s no way to live.”

  “Well, it works for now,” said Joey. With that, he brought the subject to a close by turning back toward the window. In so doing, he noticed the message light blinking on the telephone answering machine. “Looks like you have some messages. You wanna hear them?”

  “No, leave them,” said Francesca, perhaps a little more sharply than she had intended, for Joey looked back at her in surprise. “I’ll listen to them later,” she added quickly.

  “Whatever,” he answered with a shrug. Then, giving her a quizzical look, “You know, I didn’t leave a message, but I tried to call you myself this afternoon, and yesterday too. You’ve been out and about a lot lately. Anything up?”

  “What, are you writing a book?” snipped Francesca, intending to cut off this line of inquiry before it went very far.

  “Nope,” said Joey, ever placid. “Just asking.”

  “Well, don’t ask me about my business, and I won’t ask you about yours,” she told him.

  “But you ask me about my business all the time,” Joey pointed out.

  “That’s because I’m your mother and it’s my right! Now shut up and let me finish what I’m doing here.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Francesca waited until later on, after she had seen Joey off at the door, before checking the answering machine. As she had suspected, there were messages from Alice and Rosie. The two had both called earlier in the week, and Francesca had yet to get around to calling either back. It happened all the time, but her daughters inevitably went into a tizzy if they couldn’t track her down right away when they wanted to talk. Listening to their voices, she could detect the telltale sound of unease that pointed to trouble in the near future if they didn’t hear her voice. Now that she was certain that Joey would be occupied on Saturday night, she was anxious to let the Simmons woman know that she would be available to babysit. First, however, she had to call Florida and Oregon.

  Francesca picked up the telephone and dialed Rosie’s number first. To her relief, she heard her daughter’s answering machine come on.

  “Hi, everybody,” Francesca said after the beep. “It’s Nonna, returning Mommy’s call. Where are you guys? I just got back from the library…”

  It was barely a white lie—she really had just returned from the library—nonetheless, Francesca felt a little guilty about it, especially since she would have to spin the same tale to Alice. But it was, she decided, the best approach, even if it wasn’t exactly the truth. For the time being, she pushed the nagging thought to the back of her mind. If her conscience bothered her too much, she could always take it up with Father Buontempo next time at confession.

  CHAPTER 25

  One need not have been a psychic to perceive a certain feeling of high anxiety in the air at the Simmons residence when Francesca arrived the following evening a little before seven. Will answered the door and let her in before fleeing to the relative quiet of the living room couch, where he safely lost himself in a video game. The situation upstairs was not so tranquil. As Francesca stepped inside, she heard a good deal of commotion on the second floor. Voices were raised, particularly that of the Simmons woman, who was no doubt hurrying to get ready for her evening out. At issue seemed to be the location of a pair of earrings that someone must have misplaced when she was snooping around in her mother’s jewelry box, even though she had been told a thousand times not to. For her part, Penny was denying the accusations with shrill professions of innocence.

  It was, a chuckling Francesca decided, just a typical mother–daughter melee. She had endured enough of them through the years with her own daughters to recognize the signs.

  “Staying out of the line of fire?” she said to Will as she passed through the living room on her way to the kitchen with the big paper bag she had brought to the house.

  The boy rolled his eyes and raised a finger to the side of his head, where he made circles in the air to indicate his assessment of the emotional state of his mother and sister. “It’s like this every time when she’s getting dressed to go out,” he sighed.

  “Does your mother go out a lot?” asked Francesca.

  “Hardly ever,” answered Will. “But it’s always a disaster.” Then, nodding to the bag, “Whatcha got?”

  “Just a few things for later on,” she replied. “Nothing special. But come and see if you want.”

  Will paused the video game he was playing, tossed the controller aside, and jumped off the couch to follow her into the kitchen. He came to the table and stood by Francesca’s side, his eyes full of eagerness as she reached into the bag. The old woman looked down at the boy and smiled. Much in the world had changed since she had been a young mother, but wit
hout fail, children everywhere were still always fascinated to see what treasures an adult might have brought home for them at the end of the day.

  “I thought these might come in handy in case anyone wanted to play a game,” said Francesca, pulling a deck of playing cards out of the bag. She handed them to Will, who considered them for a moment with a look of faint disappointment before putting them aside.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “And I brought this in case we watch a movie or something good on TV,” she continued, producing a bag of popping corn. She gave him a conspiratorial wink. “It’s the only thing I’ll cook in the microwave,” she confided.

  The prospect of hot, buttered popcorn seemed to spark some interest, but only a little. “Anything else?” he asked, standing on his toes to get a peek inside the bag.

  “Just this,” said Francesca, reaching deep to get a good hold of the bottom of the glass-covered cake dish resting inside. Slowly she lifted it out, set it on the table, and lifted the cover to reveal the chocolate cake she had baked just that afternoon. She hadn’t bothered to frost it, but instead had sprinkled the top with ground nuts and confectioners’ sugar. The sight of it elicited the hoped-for look of approval on Will’s face.

  “Now you’re talking,” he said happily.

  “I hope you ate your dinner already tonight,” Francesca said.

  “Yup,” the boy assured her with an enthusiastic nod of his head.

  Having perhaps decided that her best course of action would be to come downstairs and get out of her mother’s way, Penny suddenly made an appearance at the kitchen door. She gave an anxious look over her shoulder—her mother was still carrying on upstairs despite her disappearance—before stepping closer to the table to take a look.

  “What’s all that?” she said with the same look of eager curiosity as her brother.