asked instead, tossing her neon backpack onto the padded secretary's chair.
"Hey, Rachele. Good afternoon, Beppe." Tea moved around the desk to double-kiss Rachele's dad's cheeks. Then she stepped back, beaming at them both. "Guess what? Johnny Magee said yes."
"No kidding?" Rachele shrieked, jumping toward her boss to deliver a boisterous embrace. "Make-me-throb gave us the job?"
"Hush, figlia mai!" Her father said, his voice shocked.
Tea laughed, her hands already at work to undo Rachele's hug damage, straightening her clothing from mussed to its usual neat dowdiness. "Don't try to rein her in, Beppe. You know it's an impossible task."
Her father knew no such thing -
"She's a nice girl," he said, frowning. "And she needs to act like one."
- see?
"Of course she's a nice girl," Tea assured him. "Nothing to worry about there."
Ignored by the other two as if she'd left the room, Rachele rolled her eyes. Here she stood, of legal age, wearing outrageous hair coloring, amethyst lipstick, and more stud jewelry than some rock bands, and her nearest and dearest were convinced this particular "nice girl" would never do anything to cause them concern.
It made her want to throw off her clothes and dance naked on the desktop. It made her want to embark on a new career path at some place like Hooters. It made her want to run away with a completely unsuitable man.
Which wouldn't be the least bit difficult, come to think of it. Her father considered any man over the age of fifteen and under the age of sixty-two unsuitable. And if they were below or above that range, yet not of Italian descent - fuhgeddaboutit.
But as she trudged toward her chair, she dismissed the wild ideas. Watching her watusi in her birthday suit would put her father into cardiac arrest, and unlike Tea - who spent a fortune on minimizing brassieres - she didn't have the rack for titty-bar work. As for finding some man to break her out of her rut...
Maybe her father's warnings regarding the hairier sex had sunk in over the years or maybe she was waiting for that love-of-a-lifetime feeling she was certain her parents had shared. Whatever the reason, she'd never yet been pricked by Cupid's arrow.
Settling behind her desk, she half-listened to the drone of her father's conversation with Tea.
How was her mother?
Fine. ·
No, really. How was her mother?
Really. Fine.
The conversation went like this every time the other two met as well. Her father had been Salvatore Caruso's best friend, and he still worried about Sal's widow, Rachele knew. As a matter of fact, her papa worried a lot, seeing bogeymen behind every bush. Sometimes she wondered if it was more than that, though. Sometimes she wondered if his concern for Bianca Caruso was a different kind of concern altogether... but no. Her father was as saintly in thought and deed as Rachele wished she wasn't.
Tea drew him into her adjoining office to discuss an upcoming project. Though mostly retired from a landscaping and rockwork business, her father still enjoyed looking at blueprints and home designs. So Rachele was alone in the reception area when the front door half-opened.
One boat-sized black hightop stepped inside. Rachele caught a glimpse of a classic Beatles flop of dark hair.
Both retreated.
Bemused, she watched the door open again and two big feet enter this time. Then followed a lanky body of a male in his mid-twenties. He had a laptop case strapped across his chest, that shaggy mass of hair, a pair of cool, thick-framed glasses, and the shyest, sweetest grin she'd ever seen in her life.
Ouch. A little nick, right over her heart, caught her by complete surprise. Then liquid fuel ignited somewhere inside her, propelling her in one big whoosh, right out of her comfort zone. Gripping the edge of the desk, she could only hold on for the ride and stare at the man who, in the space of a step, a heartbeat, a half-drawn breath, had just rocked her world.
"I had to doublecheck the address," he explained, with a self-deprecating shrug. "I have a lousy sense of direction."
Rachele ran a hand through her purplish hair. "You've found the right place," she said over the hip-hop beat of her heart.
He appeared pleased. "I have?"
"Uh-huh." Her certainty wasn't because he carried multiple sets of rolled blueprints, Inner Life's stock-in-trade, under one arm. It wasn't because he'd done that doublecheck of the address. She rose from her chair, comparing her own five-five height to his - six? - feet. Perfect.
With one hand, he