A LITTLE BIT OF SUGAR

by Lindsey Brookes

  My sister was nineteen, three years younger than me, and giving me sex advice. Great. “For your infor-”

  “Gina!” our Aunt Lorna exclaimed as she stepped into the kitchen from the laundry room with a basket full of clean clothes.

  I turned from my sister. “Morning, Aunt Lorna.”

  She stepped up to me and pinched my cheek. “You took such a good picture.”

  “Picture?” I replied in confusion. “What picture?

  “The one in today’s paper,” Carla said.

  I gasped. “You didn’t say anything about my picture being in the paper.”

  “That’s because we were too busy talking about you having-”

  “Such a great time at the parade,” I lied, cutting my sister off. I shot her a warning glare and then turned back to my aunt. “Are we talking newspaper?”

  “Where else?” she said with a delighted grin. “Your father is so proud of you.”

  Carla shoved the newspaper across the table. “Take a look for yourself.”

  I did and let out a shriek that shook the kitchen windowpanes.

  My father came running into the room in his bathrobe, his cheeks still covered with shaving cream, less one cleanly shaven streak.

  “What happened?” His gaze darted around the room. “I heard a scream.”

  “Gina’s just freaking out over her picture,” Carla told him as she spread peanut butter across her toast.

  Did they expect any less? I had made the paper, fake smile and all, holding a scepter with a gold plated weenie on the end of it. Now everyone who hadn’t made it to the parade the day before knew what the Sausage Queen looked like. Maybe I could make some sort of drastic change to the way I looked, shave my head, or go Goth or something like that. People wouldn’t be able to recognize me as easily that way.

  “Your mother was going to pick up extra copies of the paper on her way in to the restaurant this morning. We want to send them out to all our relatives. Come to think of it,” he added, “I should call her to get extras to keep out on the counter at the Casa di Pasta.”

  “Oh, good,” I replied, wanting to puke.

  “I’d better go finish getting ready for work. After yesterday, we’re bound to be pretty busy.” With a swish of his terrycloth robe, he disappeared down the hallway.

  Not only had I been voted in as the festival’s sausage queen, but my mother had won first place in the cook off with her special sauce.

  “Now, honey,” Aunt Lorna said as she joined us at the table, “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. Look at the bright side. Being voted queen will give you a leg up with those job interviews you have set up today.”

  “Today?” I gasped again. I had forgotten all about them. I shot up from the table.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?” Carla asked as she bit into her toast.

  “No time,” I told them as I raced from the room. I needed to grab a quick shower. Then I needed to guarantee my independence and find a second job.

  * * *

  I stepped out of my house feeling a lot less confident than I had been when I set up my interviews. My making the paper had a lot to do with my change in attitude. Maybe I would strangle Anthony after all.

  “A little overdressed for shopping, aren’t you?”

  Speak of the devil...

  I looked toward Anthony’s house where he sat perched at the edge of his front porch steps, clutching his usual morning cup of hi-octane coffee.

  “You’re a real comedian, Carboni” I called back as I stepped off my porch and crossed the yard to his house.

  Anthony was wearing dark gray sweatpants and an OSU sweatshirt that he’d ripped the sleeves off of, probably to make room for his bulging biceps. His dark hair hung down over his brows like he’d just crawled out of bed. Hopefully, his own.

  Not that Anthony’s sex life was any of my business. I just felt it my neighborly duty to look out for him. My sister’s words played in my thoughts...‘Why don’t you two just hook up and get it out of your system?’

  He wasn’t in my system. Was he?

  Once glance at my hunky neighbor and I knew – he was. Just a little. Not enough to where I couldn’t refrain from acting on it. I had no choice. Giving in to Anthony’s male magnetism would only complicate things between us. It wasn’t his fault he was born with the girls-go-nutso-over-me gene.

  “See anything you like?”

  My gaze snapped up to meet his. “Not really,” I lied. “I prefer short, skinny, blondes with no muscles, crooked teeth and glasses.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a grin, “and I prefer women over sixty with gray hair and saggy boobs who like to play bingo twice a week.

  “Great, I’ll be sure to have my mom give Mrs. Gianbelli your number.”

  He groaned. “Don’t do me any favors.”

  I flashed him a sweet smile. “It’s the least I can do after what you did to...I mean for me yesterday.”

  “Still pissed at me, huh?”

  “How did you guess?” I asked as I stepped up to his porch. “So what’s up? You not working today?”

  “I am, but I pushed my first job back a few hours this morning.”

  My playful smile faded. It wasn’t like Anthony to start work late. “Are you sick?” I wanted him paid back for the humiliation he’d caused me the day before, but not that way.

  He shook his head. “No. I ended up working on Mr. Smoldini’s house until eleven-thirty last night.”

  “Why so late?”

  “He’d like to have the room finished by Thursday because the carpet he ordered for it is going to be delivered Friday afternoon.”

  The Smoldini’s son had just gotten married to some girl he’d met at the Flats and they were redoing his bedroom into an office or something.

  “Must be nice to set your own hours,” I teased. Anthony had it made, being the boss and all. That didn’t mean he was a slacker. His rock hard body was proof of all the physical labor he did in his line of work.

  “There’s always a trade-off. Running a business comes with a lot of headaches at times, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”

  I sat down on the porch steps beside him, adjusting the beige linen skirt I’d picked out to wear for my interviews that day.

  “Since you have some free time this morning, maybe you should work on those windows you promised your mom you’d clean for her.”

  “Can’t,” he said with a teasing grin.

  I couldn’t resist. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m still waiting for you to help me.”

  I reached down to tighten the heel strap on one of my wedged sandals. “You’re going to have a really long wait.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be worth it,” he said, running his finger around the rim of his coffee cup.

  I watched him, noting that he seemed a little distracted, maybe even tense. So unlike the Anthony I knew. He was one of the most laid back people around.

  “So what’s really up with you, Carboni?”

  He looked at me. “What do you mean?”

  “You seem a little out of it.”

  “I do?” he said, but I could tell he knew I’d busted him.

  “You’re not your usual all-out annoying self this morning which tells me that something’s wrong.”

  He glanced past me toward the house with a deepening frown. “It’s nothing.”

  I followed his gaze to the dark green Jeep parked in the driveway behind Anthony’s mother’s car. “Does that ‘nothing’ have anything to do with Lance?”

  “You could say that,” he muttered not-so-happily.

  “He stay for breakfast this morning?” I asked. Lance had been doing a lot of overnighters at the Carboni residence lately.

  “Again,” Anthony grumbled.

  “Are you upset because he’s been staying over?”

  “No, I’m upset because I came home last night to find my mom and Lance making out on the couch.”

  “Oh, man.” It was weird
enough to envision my own parents doing something like that.

  “Oh, man, is right,” he said, raking a hand back through his unruly hair. “I’m just glad it was Lance’s bare ass I saw when I walked into the family room and not my mom’s. That would have been so wrong in so many ways.”

  I couldn’t blame him for being a little weirded out by the whole thing. I know I would have been. “What did your mom say when she saw you?”

  “She didn’t know I was there. I got the hell out as soon as I realized what I’d just walked in on.”

  “Did Lance see you?”

  “No. He was otherwise preoccupied.” He dragged a hand down along his unshaven jaw and then turned to me. “I’m telling you, Gina, I can’t take it anymore, all that damn lip smacking and bed springs creaking.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little unfair?” I asked, eliciting a scowl from Anthony.

  “Unfair? How?”

  “It’s been a long time since your mom.... Well, you know what I mean.” I wasn’t going to say it. I knew Anthony didn’t want to hear the words ‘sex’ and ‘your mom’ in the same sentence. He knew what I was getting at so I let it go at that.

  “Well, she sure as hell is making up for it now.”

  “She’s been alone for a long time. She deserves to have some fun in her life.”

  He nodded. “Don’t you think I know that? But whatever happened to finding someone your own age to have fun with? Hell, Lance isn’t much older than me.”

  “Must be something in the town’s water,” I said, thinking about how old Ms. Gianbelli had flirted with Mr. Domiano at the cook-off.

  Anthony looked at me like I was crazy. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  He sighed in frustration. “All I know is that I’m going to need some serious therapy if I stay here much longer. I’m moving out.”

  I felt an odd sense of panic. “To where?” Please don’t let him say to another state.

  “I don’t know for sure, but you can bet I’ll be looking for a place as soon as I pick up a paper on my way to the jobsite this morning.”

  The paper. I groaned at the reminder.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just wait until you see today’s front page and you’ll know.”

  “I’ll be sure to check it out.”

  I glanced toward the front door. “I take it you’re out here to avoid having to deal with things.”

  “I’m telling you, Gina,” He crooked his forefinger an inch or so above his thumb, “I’m about this close to putting Lance into a horizontal position and not the way my mom seems to prefer.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at that. Lance was older, but I had no doubt Anthony could kick his ass if provoked to.

  Anthony’s frown had me reining my smile in.

  “Sorry.”

  His irritated expression eased into a grin. “I’m so glad one of us is finding humor in my situation.”

  I raised my chin, my smile returning. “Looks who’s talking. I seem to recall you getting a whole lot of pleasure out of my misery at the Sausage Festival parade.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit I might have had a little more fun there than you did.”

  I arched a brow.

  Anthony laughed. “Okay, make that a lot more.”

  “That’s better.”

  His gaze moved over me assessingly. “You’re looking pretty hot this morning. You get all dressed up just for me?”

  “Don’t you wish,” I replied, but inside I was thrilled that he had noticed. I’d put a lot of effort into looking good for my interviews that morning. Hot wasn’t exactly the look I’d been going for, but I’d take it just the same since it was coming from Anthony.

  “Let me guess,” he said as he sipped at his morning coffee. “Another interview?”

  “I’ve got a nine o’clock appointment at Brasco Pipe and then one with Shaylor and Sons at eleven-fifteen.”

  “You thinking of becoming a welder?” he teased, his killer grin returning.

  “No. I’m interviewing for a secretarial position.”

  A dark brow lifted.

  “What?” I demanded, irritated that he could look so sexy with his hair sticking up everywhere like that. It had to be a guy thing because we girls looked just plain scary first thing in the morning without our hair done and makeup on. Believe me I’d been to enough sleepovers in my lifetime to know that wasn’t an exaggeration.

  He looked me over and then his gaze met mine. “I just can’t see you parked behind a desk all day every day.”

  “Why not? My major is in marketing which will probably land me behind a desk. Besides, I certainly have no intention of spending the rest of my life waiting tables.”

  “Much to the disappointment of guys everywhere.”

  “What does my waiting tables have to do with guys being disappointed?”

  He chuckled. “You really don’t know, do you? Think about it, Gina.”

  “Anthony,” I groaned in irritation. It was too early in the morning to have to think about anything.

  “I’m referring to the increase in male customers at the Casa di Pasta since you started waitressing there again?”

  After graduating from college, I’d gone right back to work at the restaurant, but I hadn’t noticed any increase in male customers.

  “You are so full of it,” I said, shaking my head.

  “I’m serious. Why do you think I eat there so much?”

  “Because you get your kicks out of being a pain in my ass.” Anthony loved to give me a hard time when I was working. Always needing more water, more rolls, another straw, you name it.

  “Actually, I prefer watching your ass,” he said and then tipped his head back to drain the rest of his coffee.

  I gave him a shove. “Shut up, Carboni.”

  “What?” he asked with an innocence I wasn’t buying. “I’m just being honest.”

  Two could play that game. “I guess that’s why I always sit out on the back deck when you’re mowing.”

  He looked up, his dark eyes meeting mine. “What?”

  “To watch yours,” I admitted with a grin. “Gotta run.”

  Shooting to my feet, I made my way down the porch steps and cut across the yard without looking back. That would teach Anthony to flirt with someone who was immune to the Carboni charm. Well, more immune at least than most girls.

  Anthony had been a flirt for as long as I could remember, but the flirting between the two of us had changed since my coming home from college. It was more often. Felt more exciting. Like we were playing with verbal fire. And I liked it. I liked it a whole lot.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Can I help you?”

  I smiled at the receptionist. “Yes, I have an appointment with Mr. Frazetti.”

  She looked down at her appointment book and then back up at me. “Gina Stewart?”

  “Yes.” My stomach was in a knot. I’d never had to do the interview thing.

  She picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Mr. Frazetti, your next appointment is here.”

  His next? That meant I wasn’t the only one going for this job. I’d have to be on top of my game. I would go in there and convince him that his company couldn’t live without my secretarial abilities.

  Thinking it and doing it were two different things. Because twenty minutes later I walked out of Mr. Frazetti’s office, knowing I had just bombed my first real interview.

  No one had warned me that I’d have to do a typing test. It wasn’t like I couldn’t type. I just couldn’t do it fast or without looking at the keyboard. And who knew a phone could have so many buttons?

  My next appointment at Shaylor and Sons was like a deja vǘ of the first interview. Only it wasn’t my poor typing skills or phone handling abilities that blew that one for me. It was my refusal to pee in a cup.

  I knew a lot of places did drug testing as a part of their hiring process, but I was not in the mood to try and hit some dinky little paper Dixi
e cup. And the thought of handing someone other than the nurse at my doctor’s office a cup of my urine was...well, ick.

  This interview thing was all new to me, so I tried not to get too down. It didn’t work. I had really been counting on one of those two interviews to come through. The more I drove around thinking about it, the more depressed I became. How would I ever become independent if my financial security depended on my family?