Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“Tablier,” she’d snap with a twinkle in her eye.
I came to learn that meant apron, and I’d don mine quickly. It was comically large, and she had to tie it up so I wouldn’t trip over it. Some days she’d teach me the proper way to wash dishes (yes, there is an art to it), other days she’d show me how to make the laminated dough required for croissants. It’s an intensely complicated process, and to this day I still don’t come close to mastering it the way she did.
Ms. Paulette inspired me to go to culinary school, and she was the first person I ran to with my acceptance letter. She’s retired now, and her successor has no open positions. I know; I asked just yesterday.
I hear the ruckus from inside my parents’ apartment even before I arrive outside their door, and I drop my duffle on the welcome mat with a sigh of relief. I have a duffle bag because for the last two weeks, I’ve been couch hopping and hotel hopping, but tonight, desperate to save my friends’ goodwill and what little of my dwindling savings I have left, I’m staying with my parents.
I’m only there on the mat a second, not even two, before the door is flung open and my brother Gio greets me with a big smile.
“She’s here!” Then he shouts over his shoulder. “Ma, hang up with the police.” He grabs the bottle of Campari—my contribution for the evening—from my hands. “Aw, you shouldn’t have, sis.”
Then his big meaty arm is around me and he’s dragging me inside. I get passed from one relative to the next like a rag doll. My cheeks are squished and kissed. My hair is brushed from my face. My chin is tilted this way and that. They ask when I last ate, why I look so pale, why it took me so long to arrive, how come I didn’t bring one of my fancy desserts.
“Let her breathe!” my mom insists, clutching my hand and dragging me out of the throng of concerned aunts and uncles.
Like me, she’s small. Our family is a study in contrasts. My brother Gio is as tall as a house and built like a bull, as is my dad. By comparison, my mom is so fragile I genuinely worry she’ll blow away in a heavy gust of wind.
There’s a lot of personality crammed in that pint-sized body though, and her hair adds to her height too. She teases it every morning. It stands inches taller than the top of her head, and she used to do the same thing to me for special occasions. Every framed family photo in this apartment probably required two to three bottles of hairspray to execute. To this day, if I scrub hard enough, I’m sure I could find some remnants of Dollar Tree hair gel still lingering on my scalp.
She leads me into the relative quiet of the kitchen, acting as my shield. Then, when she has me to herself in a corner, she turns and grabs my chin, tilting it this way and that just like all the others.
“Now, tell me, why do you look so pale and what took you so long to arrive?”
I roll my eyes.
She throws her hands up. “What? Can’t a mama worry about her baby? You’ve had a hard few weeks. That Miles…scum of the earth.” This quickly devolves into a string of Italian cursing.
“Ma.”
“I’d spit on his grave!” she insists with flushed cheeks. Then she does spit.
“It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Not a big deal?” she erupts. “He broke my baby’s heart. Who does he think he is? You want me to have Gio go down and rough him up?” Her eyes grow wide with an idea. “Or your uncle Antonio might know somebody.”
She waggles her eyebrows to be sure I’m catching her meaning. I truly think she wants me to put out a hit on my former boss and ex-boyfriend.
“Have you and Dad been watching reruns of The Sopranos again?”
She looks offended. “I don’t see why that matters.”
“I told you! You two can’t—”
“When’s dinner?” Gio shouts from the living room. “I could eat a horse!”
My father shouts back at him about respect and not yelling in this house, which is absurd because there is one default setting in this family: loud.
Just then my little cousins come flying through the kitchen, playing chase. My mom grabs a dish towel and whips it at them, telling them to mind their manners. They squeal like feral pigs and keep right on running and laughing.
Over the next hour, I help my mom and aunts in the kitchen, finishing up the last of the food. There’s an aperitivo spread of olives, cheese, and nuts; bruschetta al pomodoro; sausage-stuffed mushrooms; zuppa toscana; and shrimp and lobster. For dessert, I make tiramisu, and after it sets, we’ll eat it along with sipping strong espresso, despite the late hour.