Heard It Through the Grapevine

by Pamela Browning

  “Well,” she said, putting her handkerchief away. “Let’s not go there, Josh. It serves no purpose.”

  With great effort, he pulled himself together. This was the first time that he had been confronted by a woman he’d pursued after he broke a relationship off. He had never seen the results of his moving on or understood the impact of his decision on the other party. “You’re right,” he told her. “We’ve said enough.” He forced a heartiness into his voice that he wasn’t feeling. “What do you say we order more wine?”

  “That’s a very good idea,” she said, and he was rewarded when she smiled.

  She had rallied, he had recovered, and maybe that was all they needed to put the past behind them. Still, at the moment he couldn’t have felt worse.

  The unexpected idea blossomed that if only they could spend enough time together, he could right past wrongs. “I don’t want this afternoon to end,” he said.

  She studied his face, looked away, seemed confused. “You want to make it up to me,” she said, obviously guessing but right on target.

  “Will it work? Is it worth a try?”

  “It’s hard to get over the past, Josh. I’m sorry, but it is. Now that I’ve told you that, I also want to tell you that I regret the way I’ve treated you since you came to Rio Robles. I wasn’t very nice, and I’m sorry.”

  He studied her expression for a long moment. “You’re not saying it’s a wash between us, are you?”

  She hesitated before speaking. “I suppose it could be,” she said with utter seriousness, “if you’d take me to dinner tonight.”

  It was a few moments before he understood the import of her suggestion. When he did, he would have liked to fling his arms around her. He would have liked to kiss her.

  But he didn’t do either of those things. “Yesss!” he shouted, and several people twisted their heads in their direction. He didn’t care. He hardly noticed anything else because Gina was tremulously smiling her beautiful incandescent smile at him, and in that special moment, all was suddenly right with his world.

  Chapter Nine

  “That’s Volare straight ahead,” Gina said as Josh tried to figure out the tight parking situation on this narrow downtown street in Rio Robles. It might be a small village, but the population was swollen with tourists.

  Josh braked to a stop. “Hmm, no parking places. Do you want to get out and ask the restaurant to hold a table while I park the car?”

  “That’s actually an alley where the blue car is turning onto the street. Take a right.”

  Josh did as she suggested, and Gina directed him behind the building into a vacant space that was a loading zone during daylight hours.

  “See?” she said. “No problem.”

  He got out of the car and held the door for her. “This way,” she said, leading him through a narrow arcade to the street.

  “We should have called ahead for reservations,” he told her when he saw the line at the door. This was a popular place with tourists, if the women in Reeboks and men with cameras suspended around their necks were any indication.

  “I always have a reservation here,” Gina said mysteriously.

  They crowded past everyone in line and presented themselves at the hostess’s desk inside.

  “Gina! How nice to see you!” exclaimed the dark-haired woman in charge of the seating chart. She flew around to the front of the desk and took Gina’s face in her hands, kissing both cheeks.

  “Aunt Laura, you remember Josh Corbett,” Gina said.

  “Ah, indeed. Margo will seat you. Margo, our Gina’s here!”

  Margo emerged from behind a curtain, and again, the cheek-kissing was repeated. “Come with me,” she said after an openly curious flick of the eyes in Josh’s direction.

  They followed Margo to a table that Josh quickly judged the best one in the house—away from the kitchen and at a window in the corner overlooking a garden with a gently splashing fountain. A man appeared magically in time to hold Gina’s chair for her, and another shook out her napkin with a flourish and spread it across her lap. This was followed by a wink for Gina and a long stare at Josh, after which the man disappeared behind a screen.

  Josh recognized the man as Uncle Aldo, one of the people tending the barbecue at crush.

  “Your family’s restaurant?”

  “Exactly,” Gina said. “The man peering through the screen and frowning is Paul. The one with the napkin is my uncle Art, who is married to Aunt Laura, the woman we met when we arrived.”

  Josh cocked his head toward a girl who was bussing tables. “All right, let me guess. That one’s Laura and Art’s eldest daughter. She works here most nights when she isn’t practicing for the school play.”

  Gina giggled. “You’re almost right. Vicki’s their daughter, but twirling is her thing, and she’s head majorette at Saint Vito High School. The boy filling water glasses over there is her brother, Marco. And the waiter carrying that tray toward the front of the restaurant is Lee, a cousin who fills in sometimes for the regular staff. And—”

  “Enough,” Josh said. “If you keep on, we’ll be discussing the Angelini family for the rest of the evening. We could talk about other things, you know.”

  “Oh? Like what?” Gina’s eyes were dancing.

  “Like what a good time I had today.” He kept his gaze steady.

  “I did, too, Josh,” she said, but before he could reply, yet another relative of Gina’s appeared with the menu and the wine list. This time it was Gina’s cousin Little Tony, whom Josh remembered from playing bocce.

  After the necessary polite remarks, Josh scanned both the wine list and the menu, then turned to Gina. “I’d like you to choose the wine,” he told her.

  “Hmm, what do you think your entrée will be?” she asked.

  He’d already decided. “It’ll be the roasted duck breast with cranberry-and-orange relish,” he said, and after a few moments’ consideration, she ordered a Vineyard Oaks zinfandel. He could tell she put a lot of thought into the selection, and when the wine arrived, he was impressed that she’d discerned exactly what he would like.

  Tony returned and suggested before he took their order that Josh stop by Rocco’s some night when they were all there playing bocce. Josh told him that he meant to do that soon, which was true.

  “Has Frankie’s dog had her pups yet?” Josh asked.

  “It’ll be any day now,” Tony said before rushing off toward the kitchen.

  “Have you changed your mind about wanting a puppy?” Gina asked.

  Josh shook his head. “I’d love to have one, but it wouldn’t be fair to keep a dog in my small town house.” He spoke regretfully because he’d always had dogs when he was a kid and would like to have one now.

  “Oh, there’s Aunt Donna,” Gina said. She smiled and waved, and an attractive fortyish woman came tripping over to the table.

  Josh hadn’t met Donna before, though he knew this was the aunt Gina had suggested he might like better than her. No way, though Donna was certainly attractive, with her short dark hair and clothes straight out of a fashion magazine.

  And then Gina unexpectedly invited Donna to sit down and have a glass of wine with them.

  “I can’t,” Donna said with unmistakable regret. “I only stopped in to check out the new fountain.” She nodded toward the garden outside the window. “Nice, isn’t it?”

  “Wonderful,” Gina said.

  Donna scrutinized Josh. “I didn’t think we’d see you again,” she said with the manner of someone who prizes frankness. “I thought that by this time you’d be back in—where was it, New York?”

  “Boston,” he said with reluctance.

  “That’s right, Boston,” she said. “I’d better be on my way. Gina, want to go to the ladies’ room?”

  Gina smiled sweetly at him. “Sure. I’ll be right back.” She got up and followed Donna into the nether regions of the restaurant.

  For perhaps the two-hundredth time in his life, Josh wondered why women co
uldn’t go to the ladies’ room alone. Worst of all, he decided that maybe the two of them were discussing him. Not only discussing him, but critiquing him. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, even though it was plushly padded.

  With Gina gone, he could better study the restaurant, which was decorated with restrained elegance. The walls were finished with some kind of subdued paint shading that he thought might be a color wash. Stained-glass panels divided the restaurant from the bar, and on the long opposite wall was a mural with nudes carrying water jugs. One of the nudes bore an uncanny resemblance to Gina. The woman in the mural had the same hairstyle, the same blond hair. The same large breasts, voluptuous body.

  He stopped gawking guiltily when Gina returned to the table. She had refreshed her lipstick and pushed her hair back behind her ears, making her look even more like the nude in the mural. “Aunt Donna said to tell you goodbye. She likes you.”

  “She’s the one you wanted me to go out with, right?”

  When Gina nodded, he said, “Gina, she’s not my type.”

  “I’m not so sure,” she said.

  “I am.” He paused to take in her flushed cheeks, unsure if their rosiness came from the wine or from gossiping with Donna about him, or both. “In fact,” he said, measuring his words as he watched for her reaction, “my type is that woman in the mural. The one leaning over the fountain.”

  Bingo. Gina’s cheeks, already suffused with becoming color, turned bright red. He had been right.

  He thought he’d string this out for a while. “That’s a wonderful mural, by the way. The nudes are tastefully done.”

  “It’s—well, it’s okay. I don’t think this restaurant needed a mural, that’s all.”

  “And what would you rather see on that wall?” he asked. “A wall hanging? Pictures of the beach?”

  “Anything,” she said tersely.

  “A picture of you, perhaps?”

  She stopped fidgeting with the napkin in her lap. “Listen, Josh. I’m not responsible for the wall art in this place.”

  He grinned. “Who is?”

  “Guess,” she said.

  “Probably Rocco. I didn’t know he had an interest in art.”

  “Rocco’s interest is in playing jokes. I thought you knew that. Couldn’t we talk about something else?”

  “Not until you let me know if that’s the extent of your modeling career,” he told her.

  “I hope so. For your information, Rocco brought one of my old yearbook photos in here when the artist was painting the mural and asked him to put my head on one of the nudes. I was furious when I found out.”

  Josh threw his head back and laughed. “I love that guy.”

  “Most people don’t recognize me,” she said stiffly.

  “Most people aren’t as interested in you as I am,” he told her in all seriousness.

  She only rolled her eyes and drained her wineglass, and someone else, a young man who was introduced as the nephew of a cousin by marriage, rushed over to pour her another glassful.

  Josh waited impatiently until the guy retreated. Every time he started to get somewhere with Gina, one of her relatives appeared. Here they came again, a group of Angelinis bearing trays. This meant that he could not return to the topic of Gina’s nude right away. Instead, he was caught up in the show of a Caesar salad being made at their table. Many flourishes accompanied this feat, which it appeared must be appreciated by onlookers, so he found himself smiling and nodding while sneaking surreptitious glances at Gina’s breasts, trying to figure out if they were really as spectacular as those in the mural.

  “Voilà!” said the waiter when he had finished with the salad, and then there were salad bowls in front of them and they were eating, and he couldn’t even see Gina’s breasts because her salad bowl was in the way.

  And then the main course was served, and Gina seemed determined to confine the conversation to uninteresting topics. For instance, the lack of rain last summer. The restoration of the old houses along the Napa River. He was almost grateful for the flurry of relatives who soon arrived at the table. One refilled Josh’s water glass, which didn’t need it. Another topped off Gina’s wineglass, which did. A girl carrying a cello pulled a chair close, oblivious to the other diners, and a boy with a violin appeared beside her, looking serious and businesslike.

  Josh glanced at Gina, who appeared nonplussed but eyed him mischievously. “We’re in for a treat,” she said.

  Josh adopted an air of nonchalance, but inside he was seething. Earlier today, he and Gina had finally gotten around to meaningful conversation. He’d hoped for a continuation of that honesty and openness, yet her relatives seemed to be conspiring against any possibility of that.

  The girl with the cello, whom he judged to be about sixteen, poised her bow over the instrument. The boy adjusted his violin more comfortably under his chin. And then they were playing a wobbly melody.

  Josh schooled his expression to be blank. Not that the kids were bad once they got going. Adding to the scenario were the pleased relatives lined up right outside the kitchen door to observe. A screen hid some of them, but he was well aware of their proud comments, which were whispered to one another.

  The song was finished with a flourish, and Gina began to clap. Following her lead, Josh did, too.

  “We can play another, Aunt Gina, if you’d like,” said the boy.

  Josh groaned inwardly, all the while gritting his teeth and smiling. Thus, he was treated to a dragging rendition of a vaguely familiar Italian melody that he couldn’t readily identify.

  Gina seemed enthralled along with the rest of her relatives, but twice he caught her casting her eyes sideways at him to assess his reaction. He kept staring straight ahead at the pattern on the boy’s tie, which was fairly mesmerizing. At least it gave him something to focus on besides the captivated mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and cousins behind the screen.

  “That was lovely, Sara. You, too, Victor,” Gina said. He could tell she meant it.

  “Right. Here you are,” Josh said, pulling a couple of bills out of his money clip and pressing them into the kids’ hands. The boy’s eyes widened, and the girl said, “Wow! This is great. Thanks, Mr. Corbett.”

  “Call me Josh,” he said, pleased in spite of himself. That is, he was okay with it until he saw that he had given them each a twenty-dollar bill, not a five as he’d intended.

  The kids left, thank goodness, and he saw them behind the screen sharing news of their good fortune with other Angelinis.

  “That was a sweet thing to do,” Gina told him, picking up her fork again.

  “I’m glad you approve,” he said dryly, hoping that his unintentionally grand gesture would provide Gina and him with a few minutes’ respite from the continual onslaught of attention.

  “Back to our conversation,” he said pointedly, and that was when Tony arrived with more bread, which had to be deposited on the plate just so while Aldo solicitously inquired about their enjoyment of the meal, and fast upon his heels appeared Marco, whose job it was to replace the butter patties stamped so carefully with the Volare name.

  Gina, who had watched his annoyance growing during the procedure, giggled when Aldo and Tony and Marco had gone.

  “I hope you don’t mind that they’re treating us as honored guests,” she said.

  “It’s impressive, but I was hoping for a little more privacy,” he said.

  “Angelinis don’t get much of that,” she said.

  “I’ve noticed. Do you think we could resume—”

  However, Victor was on the way over, carrying his violin. “Sara and I appreciate so much what you did for us that I’d like to play you a couple more songs,” he announced.

  Josh all but groaned aloud. “Go ahead,” he said without much enthusiasm, whereupon Victor tucked his violin under his chin and proceeded to play. By the time Victor had finished this impromptu serenade, Josh could tell from the wild look in Gina’s eyes that she was barely suppressing a fit of laughter.
>
  “Thanks,” he told Victor, who then shook Josh’s hand and disappeared into the far regions of the restaurant.

  “As I was saying,” Josh told Gina, with all the patience he could muster, and then she did lose it. She started to chuckle, which turned into a laugh, which took on knee-slapping proportions. She hid her face in her napkin to muffle the sounds.

  It was a while before she lowered the napkin. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “You seem so—so ticked.”

  He couldn’t watch her laughing so hard without laughing, too. Not as hard as she was, perhaps, but it was a release of sorts.

  “I’m not ticked, as you so quaintly put it. Disappointed, maybe. Up to here with Angelinis, maybe. But they’re nice people. I would never want to hurt anyone’s feelings.” He swept his gaze around the room to see if any Angelinis had observed their laughing fit and decided that everyone, for a change, was occupied elsewhere.

  “You know, I believe I’ve had enough to eat,” Gina said.

  Josh considered this a good portent for the evening. Maybe she wanted to be alone with him at last.

  Their plates were whisked away, and Tony arrived with the dessert tray. Despite the tiramisu, the profiteroles, the petites madeleines, they managed to resist, and after Josh paid the check, they were outside on the street, blessedly alone.

  He took her hand and swung it between them. “Where to, Gina? How about a nightcap?”

  “After all that wine, I couldn’t possibly,” she said demurely. “I’d better go home. I’m supposed to talk to a gift shop owner from Santa Rosa tomorrow who wants to buy herb wreaths for the holiday season. She’ll be there early.”

  To Josh, Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed a long time away. He was much more interested in the here and now.

  They got into the car, and Gina rolled down her window to inhale deeply of the cool night air. He glanced over at her and saw that her face was illuminated by the single streetlight. He loved her dark eyes, warmed to the sensuality in their depths—a sensuality that he judged to be unexplored. Gina possessed a kind of innate sexuality, an earthy voluptuousness that simmered slightly below the surface, though she seemed totally unaware of it. He would love to see her sexual qualities unfettered and unleashed, longed desperately to be the man who introduced her to her own passion. He doubted that she had ever given in to it, had ever discovered it.