It was only because you wanted to and wouldn't." Then she clucked like a petite, Italian-American chicken.
Tea sighed. "What do you want?" she asked Eve.
'To take you to coffee." When her sister smiled like that, the angels had to be singing in heaven.
Tea was not so soft a touch. At least not with the promise of Johnny returning in just a few hours. "Can't. Have to work. Big job, big important job to discuss this afternoon, so now I have to go home and change." She thought of something else that had to be done as well. "And you should be sure to tell Cosimo I don't have time for coffee or an interest in any more flowers, either. Sending gifts or my sisters is not going to work on me."
Eve studied her face, and then, to Tea's everlasting surprise, shrugged her shoulders. "All right, then."
Joey looked at her older sister as if she'd grown another head. "What? Wait - " But Eve, was already dragging her away by the simple, sisterly expedient of grabbing her shirtsleeve and towing her to the Mercedes.
Pleasantly surprised by the quick capitulation, Tea watched after them, smiling. That had gone remarkably well.
Then she turned toward her office, only to face the ruined apricot roses strewn across the concrete. Her smile died and the warm October morning turned chilly.
Or maybe things had gone too well. In her experience, nothing came without some kind of price.
Chapter Nine
"It Had to Be You" Doris Day I'll See You in My Dreams (1951)
Riding in the passenger seat of her father's Ford F-150, Rachele Cirigliano might as well have been on her way to a Brownie Scout meeting or a tap dance lesson. Her father's meaty hands were in their usual ten and two position, the radio was tuned to Rush, and a quartet of empty 7-Eleven disposable coffee cups bounced around her feet like Mexican jumping beans every time the truck hit a bump on Ramon Road.
Except Rachele wasn't six years old and dressed in a scratchy tan dress or toe-squeezing patent leather dancing shoes. She was twenty-one, and the only uncomfortable thing she was wearing were the several sticky coats of vampire-black mascara and the tiny diamond in the new piercing in her left nostril.
"Thanks again for the lift, Papa. My car should be fixed by four, the mechanic said. Tea will take me there to pick it up."
Her father grunted in acknowledgment without glancing over at her. He never looked at her, not as far as Rachele could tell. Her mother had died when she was four years old and it was probably over-the-top romantic of her, but she figured it hurt her father too much to see the reflection of that love he'd lost in Rachele's face.
Not that her mother had sported eleven piercings and hair freshly colored by a package of Purplesaurus Rex Kool-Aid.
Her boss, Tea, had once gently mentioned that the body and hair adornment might be Rachele's shout for her father's attention. Not hardly. She had her father's attention, all right. She had his overprotection.
But because he never looked at her, in his mind she'd never grown up, and she didn't have the guts to set him straight.
So she wasn't surprised that when he pulled in front of the Inner Life design office he jumped out of the truck to walk her inside. He'd make sure there were no strangers lurking in the nonexistent noon shadows and he'd do a visual sweep to make certain all was well in the reception area, too. Then he'd talk a few minutes with Tea to nail down the exact minute he should expect his only daughter home.
This evening, Rachele would make an antipasto while he grilled steaks. After dinner, she would fold the clothes she'd put in the dryer that morning, then watch TV while turning the pages of a Jane magazine. Just another night waiting for whatever force it was going to take to rocket her from her dutiful-Italian-daughter place on the couch and into her own adult life.
'Thank you, Papa," she murmured as he held the office door open for her. Tea looked up from the stack of mail she was sifting through on the receptionist's desk and winced.
Rachele didn't know if it was sympathy for the sore pierced nose or reaction to the muddy-violet hair color. Considering that Tea's personal style icon appeared to be none other than vanilla-flavored First Lady Laura Bush, Rachele didn't let the maybe-criticism bother her.
"What's up, boss?" she