A Kiss Under the Christmas Lights Read online

  All that finally done, I lifted Arianna in my arms, doused her with sweaty, sloppy kisses, and made my way back upstairs to rejoin the mass.

  Communion was just commencing. I’d missed all of Fr. Santini’s first sermon.

  Chloe took the baby from me and kissed me quickly on the cheek, then let me in front of her as we processed up to the altar.

  I folded my hands together, prayerlike, in preparation, and to my utter horror, noticed I’d missed a large smear of baby poop on the outside fleshy part of one of my palms. If I’d been able to wash my hands properly, it wouldn’t have remained.

  The moment I’d noticed it visually, I also began noticing it nasally. Nonna was in front of me and I heard her take a deep, loud sniff, and then she turned her head around to me, made a pinched I-smell-something-foul face and looked down at my hands.

  With eyebrows shooting almost to the back of her skull they were raised so high, she reached into her valise-sized purse and extracted a couple of tissues—used tissues—and shoved them into my hands.

  “Use this, Gia, before the father smells you,” she ordered in Italian.

  Whenever Nonna doesn’t want people around her who aren’t family to know what she’s saying, she slips into the language of her birth. My entire family was raised speaking the old language at home just so we’d be able to understand her.

  Two of the tissues she’d given me were hardened and crusted together, and I didn’t for the life of me want to guess what the glue was, so I did as I was commanded. When my turn came to receive the body of Jesus Christ, I had three crumbled up tissues tucked inside my sleeve, but my hands were poop free.

  Fr. Santini lifted a wafer from the chalice and held it up in front of my face. “The body of Christ,” he said in his deep, warm, and honeyed voice.

  Now, even though St. Rita’s is an old-fashioned parish, we do adhere to some of the newer Church dictates, such as placing the host in the parishioner’s hands and allowing them to place it in their own mouths.

  But.

  There was no way I was going to have the Body of my Lord Jesus Christ put into hands that had the subtle aroma of baby poop and might still have some remnants of the same on them, so I tilted my chin up—way up because the good father is so tall—and silently signaled for it to be given to me in the old-school way.

  A little surprise jumped in his beautiful dark eyes, but he did as requested.

  I swallowed and crossed myself, marveling at the fact my pulse was staying normal, my breathing was even and low. So in contrast to yesterday.

  It was clear to me my little pseudo-crush on the handsome young priest had been a fleeting one.

  Grazie, Gesu. Thank you, Jesus.

  I made the sign of the cross and moved on to take a sip of the sacramental wine and, mama mia, did I need that little nip just about then.

  When mass ended, all the parishioners lined up in the back of the church to shake the new padre’s hand and introduce themselves.

  While we stuttered and staggered forward single file, Chloe kissed my cheek again. “You are a godsend, baby sister. Thank you.”

  “No worries.” I tickled Arianna in her belly, and she beamed up at me. “I don’t remember Lorenzo’s poop being so noxious or copious. I used almost your entire package of baby wipes.”

  “You gotta be careful with your foods, Chloe, like Mama told you,” Daddy said from behind us, shaking his head. “I remember with Antonio, one sausage was enough to send your mama to the bathroom for an hour and give your brother belly troubles for a few days so she couldn’t leave the house with him for fear of an explosion.”

  “I couldn’t eat any cheeses with my babies. Gave me putrid gas that stank the house up for months,” Aunt Gracie said in a volume not proper for church. From in front of us, some parishioners turned around and threw her annoyed stares.

  When my family’s turn came to overwhelm the young priest, I hung back a little, letting my parents and everyone else go first. Nonna had her usual help me, I’m old and might fall and break a hip death grip on my arm and wasn’t letting go, even when she stuck her hand out to Fr. Santini.

  She said something to him in Italian that had his eyes crinkling at the corners and a wide, pleased smile erupting across lips I’d fantasized about last night and which, bless you God, had no effect on me today.

  He responded to her in Italian, charming her into a one-toothed grin of her own. I didn’t want to shake his hand because I was still leery of any residual poop being transferred, so I smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Father.”

  He smiled back.

  That was it.

  No trace of recognition. No “How’d you do after I left yesterday?” Nothing to hint we’d spent the better part of an hour together, working and talking.

  And in my case, lusting.

  To say my ego suffered a little hit at his behavior would be true.

  Oh well. I sighed as I helped Nonna into the car.

  He’d probably met a hundred or more people in addition to me since yesterday. I guess I didn’t leave a lasting impression. Which, in reality, was all for the better.

  During the drive home, Mama told me I’d missed Fr. Santini’s introduction of himself while I’d been in poop-ville with Arianna.

  “He’s one of ten kids.” She checked her image in the car mirror again as she had when we’d driven to church. “Three brothers, six sisters. Three sets of twins. Ten pregnancies. Madre di Dio, that poor woman’s insides.”

  “I had ten pregnancies,” Nonna said with pride in her craggy voice. “She only had seven, ’cause the twins count as one each.” Okay, pride and a little splash of maternity one-upmanship. “My doctor says I got insides that look like shredded wheat,” she added, with a smug-filled smirk.

  This was way too much information for me.

  “So, a big family?” I said to the back of Mama’s head, hoping she’d take the hint and keep talking so we’d all be spared Nonna’s pregnancy horror tales.

  “Yeah. One brother’s in construction, and one manages a restaurant downtown. He’s got a sister who’s a nun, too. They’re a very holy family.”

  “I wanted to be a nun,” Nonna declared.

  “You did not.” Mama turned her head to face her mother.

  “Si, Francesca. E la verita. It’s true. I wanted to join the Little Order of the Flower. I loved the order, and the nuns were very popular in my province. So holy, so pure. All the boys back in the village were wild for me, though, and my papa needed money for the farm, so since I was the oldest girl, he married me off to your papa for two cows and a herd of goats.”

  “Guess who got the better part of that deal,” Daddy said under his breath, forgetting the stealth-hearing Nonna possesses. From the backseat, and without any regard to the fact he was driving and could crash and kill us all, she clapped him on the back of his head so hard her palm turned beet red from the force.

  “Hey!” Daddy rubbed his hand along his skull.

  “It’s your own fault,” Mama said without a drop of sympathy and then reapplied her lipstick.

  “She hits me again she’s going in the room next to Uncle Vito at the home.”

  Nonna’s eyes narrowed to slitty little lines, and I know she was planning some kind of silent revenge on Daddy.

  Nonna never wasted a malocchio.

  How to be a Good Italian, Lesson Four:

  Keep your mouth shut

  and your opinions to yourself.

  Welcome to my family.

  Chapter Four

  Die-hard Italians do two things and two things only on Sundays. Attending mass with family is one. The other is something referred to as il pranzo della domenica, or the Sunday Lunch.

  Most people eat their main meal in the evening on Sundays, just as they do during the workweek.

  Not so, Italians. We eat our big meal—and by big, I mean humongous—in the early afternoon, usually starting between noon and one o’clock.

  After mass everyone will go home to
freshen up and then meet back at a chosen relative’s house for the actual meal. Since Nonna is the oldest surviving parent in our immediate family and she lives in my parents’ home, the relatives flock to our table every Sunday afternoon.

  And so it was after Fr. Santini’s first mass that my entire family was seated at Nonna’s imported dining- room table again as we’d all been the night before.

  Mama began cooking the moment we arrived home. Nonna had hobbled to her bedroom off the kitchen first, removed her black “church” dress, hung it back up in the closet to be worn again next Sunday, and replaced it with an identical one, straight down to the twenty buttons that lined it from shoulders to calves. For as long as my memory could recall, she’d worn no color other than black on her body.

  When I’d been younger, I’d asked Nonna why all her dresses were the exact same color and style. She’d clipped me once on the side of the head and told me I had no business asking such a question. It was from Chloe I learned wearing black is a sign of reverence in our culture and that Nonna wore it out of respect and remembrance for all the deaths she’d suffered in her life: her parents, her siblings, some of her children, her beloved husband.

  I could understand that, I truly could. But you’d think she’d vary the style a little. In her closet she had seven identical black dresses, one for every day of the week; three pairs of identical black orthopedic shoes; two black coats; two black spring jackets, and an assortment of sweaters in—you guessed it—black. All her undergarments were midnight colored as well.

  By all accounts, my nonna was the most respectful woman to ever walk the earth.

  Lunch was, as usual, loud, raucous, lit with laughter, and filling. By the time the caffè was served hours later, and along with it the pastries Chloe had brought, my pants were tight around my waist and I knew I couldn’t eat another morsel. As my father, uncles, and brothers undid their belt buckles and popped open the top buttons on their trousers so they could consume dessert in comfort, I had an overwhelming desire to run away for a little while.

  I love my family. Truly. There is no doubt of that. But sometimes all that love and togetherness can be overpowering and stifling.

  “Mama, I’m gonna take a walk,” I told her when I found her in the kitchen pouring a shot of limoncello into Nonna’s caffè.

  “You okay, bambina?” She cupped my chin in her strong hand and peered at me with love and concern in those all-knowing Mediterranean-blue eyes of hers.

  I bent and kissed her soft cheek. Managing a smile, I said, “I’m fine. I just need a little air to clear my head.”

  “You got a lot going on in that smart brain of yours, with your exams and all, Gia baby. I know.” She patted my cheek. “Go. Tu vai.”

  I grabbed my coat, stuffed my laptop into my purse, and snuck out the kitchen door, not wanting anyone to join me.

  Mama called after me. “If you walk by Pontevecchio’s, bring me back some pizzelles.”

  I promised her I would.

  I swear on a stack of Bibles, Mama is either a mind reader or a psychic. Pontevecchio’s, our neighborhood bakery, was actually where I was heading. At this time of day, I knew the shop would be quiet since most of the locals would have stopped by earlier to purchase their Sunday baked goods and desserts. I wanted that quiet, peaceful atmosphere to do a little last-minute studying and knew I could find solitude there.

  The minute I opened the bakery door, my mouth started to water. The aroma of warm sugar, the doughy tang of bread yeast, and a hot blast of cinnamon all assaulted my senses. My stomach cramped with craving, forgetting it had been eating for the past four hours.

  “Gia! Come stai?” Papa Pontevecchio called from behind the counter, his wide, toothless smile filling the bottom half of his face.

  Giancarlo “Papa” Pontevecchio was of Nonna’s generation and had owned the bakery for over sixty years. He should have retired thirty years ago but argued to one and all that a life spent lounging around wasn’t a productive one because he had flour in his veins. So at somewhere in his nineties, he still worked six days a week, rising when other people were heading to bed, and baking the night away.

  “Ciao, Papa. I’m fine. What are you doing here so late?” I leaned over the counter and kissed each of his wrinkled, weathered cheeks.

  “Sonya went into labor this morning, and Carlo and the family’s with her at the hospital.”

  Carlo was his great-grandson and the afternoon bakery manager; Sonya, his wife.

  “Complementi! Congratulations.”

  “Grazie. This makes my first great-great-grandchild.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell Nonna. She’s gonna be so jealous.”

  He laughed, knowing my grandmother’s sense of one-upmanship in everything in life.

  “So, what can I get you, bella ragazza?”

  I placed an order for Mama’s pizzelles and ordered a small cup of espresso for myself.

  “I need about a half hour on the cookies,” Papa told me.

  “No worries. I want to sit and chill, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  The bakery was empty, so I grabbed a table in the corner and booted up my laptop. To say I was a little nervous about my first exam in the morning would be an understatement. Even though I was math proficient and a quick study, there were so many laws and theorems with the profession of accounting that I needed to know each and every one inside and out just in case an obscure question came up on the test.

  Soon, I was engrossed in debt management, deaf and blind to everything around me. I don’t know how long I sat there, sipping my delicious coffee and reading, but suddenly I heard my name.

  When I looked up from my screen, a pair of gorgeous dark eyes stared down at me.

  “I thought that was you.”

  Santini.

  Looking, well, handsome doesn’t seem strong enough a word to use, but that’s what he did look like. All six foot plus of him, garbed from head to toe in inky raven black.

  His wheat-colored hair was a little windblown on the top, and the tips of his ears were an adorable pink, probably from the chilly bite in the late afternoon air. He wore a black, extremely well-fitted suit jacket over his clothes that just couldn’t be clerical issued. It fit as if it had been hand tailored to his perfect shoulders, and not institutionally manufactured.

  Once again, that fallen angel impression drifted into my mind.

  “What are you doing here?” I swear, sometimes I want to slap my own head, just like Mama and Nonna do when someone misbehaves. “I’m sorry,” I told him, wincing. “That came out a little more than rude.”

  He laughed and pulled out the chair across from mine. “No worries. You seemed pretty engrossed in what you were reading, so I’m sorry I startled you.”

  Now here’s the funny thing. Yesterday when we’d met, I’d been struck dumb by his hotness. This morning at mass, not so much. But right now, seated across from him, noticing how his cut-from-glass cheeks and granite jaw were just a little wind chapped from the winter weather, I got a little squirmy in my seat, a hot bead of lust tickling my thighs and points directly north of them.

  “And to answer your question—” His gaze fixated on my face, while he held up a little Pontevecchio’s bakery box tied with a blue string. “I’ve got a few hours before I need to be back on duty, and I’m on my way to visit my nonno. Fr. Mario mentioned this place has the best cookies in town so I wanted to bring some with me.”

  Awww. Why did this guy have to be an almost-priest? Why couldn’t he be a red-blooded, single, straight male looking for a mate, instead of promised to the Lord?

  If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck, according to Uncle Sonny.

  True.

  “What kind?” I asked.

  “Well, my family calls them venetians”—his teeth looked, befittingly, pearly-gates white when his lips opened into a smile—“but I think most people call them rainbow cookies or—”

  “Seven layers.” I g
rinned. “Those are my all-time favorites.”

  “Really?” If possible, his smile got even brighter. “Mine, too. I’ll have to remember that.”

  Okay, what?

  Why would he need to remember my favorite cookie?

  “Does your grandfather live close by?” I asked for something to say.

  “About six blocks from here. He’s lived with my uncle since my nonna died a few years ago.”

  I cocked my head to one side. “Usually, it’s the girls in the family who inherit the widowed parent.”

  “True.” He chuckled. “At the time, my mom asked him to come and live with us, but with so many kids still home, he told her he didn’t want to be an added—”

  “Burden,” I finished.

  This time he full out laughed, and the sound heated my insides like warmed milk and fresh-from-the-oven bread.

  “Exactly. My uncle Nunzio’s never been married, so it seemed like the perfect solution, two bachelors sharing a house. Nonno cooks and cleans, and my uncle keeps an eye on the old guy to make sure he takes his heart pills and watches his sugar intake.”

  “Your mom is okay with the living arrangement?”

  “Pretty much. She would have preferred to have him with her, but she’s just happy her dad has someone looking out for him. A slip-and-fall and broken hip is always a heartbeat away, you know? Something to worry about at his age.”

  I nodded and took a sip of my espresso, gagging at how cold it had grown.

  How long had I been sitting here?

  “So you know what it’s like, I take it? First hand?” he asked.

  “Yeah. My grandmother moved in with us two days after we buried my grandfather. I don’t even remember there being a discussion about it. One day she was visiting. The next, she was unpacking. That slip-and-fall worry is universal, by the way, especially by the women in my house. Nonna’s gotten a little frailer the past year or so, so I’ve been assigned as her walker whenever we go out and she’s with us.”

  “Let me guess.” His lips quirked as he lifted his chin a little and looked at me from under his lashes. “A grip like death? A begging voice pleading, “Don’t let go, bambina, don’t let go?”