Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,25

said from behind the lens of his camcorder. "Do something out of character for the camera, Emily."

Removing my eye makeup would have been pretty out of character, but it would have taken too long, so I gave him a little finger wave instead.

"Excuse me," Dick Teig said, addressing Dick Stolee's camcorder in an ever-increasing huff. " 'Chow' means good-bye."

Helen thwacked her husband's arm. "It does not! It means food. Don't you ever hear me when I yell, 'Dick! Your chow's on the table! Get down here pronto!' "

Which just goes to show that a person can be bilingual and not even know it.

Lucille raised her voice to be heard above the din. "Well, I hope 'bon jorno' doesn't mean bon appetit, because that ain't gonna happen here." She whisked her breakfast roll off her plate. "Look at this thing, Emily." She whapped it against the rim of her plate, making a loud chinking sound. "They call this crust? It's an armadillo shell! And watch this." She dropped it onto the table and began hammering it with her fist. BAM! BAM! BAM! Plates leaped. Glasses wobbled. Juice sloshed.

Dick Stolee aimed his camcorder at his jiggling plate. "An early-morning earthquake in Florence."

"See what I mean?" Lucille ranted, holding the unblemished roll up for my inspection. "Somebody goofed and used cement instead of flour. No way am I biting into this thing. And my Dick wouldn't have eaten it either, would he?" she asked the table at large.

"Nope," Dick Teig agreed, patting the image on his button with genuine fondness. "He probably would have taken it home and used it as a doorstop."

Dick Stolee turned off his camcorder. "I think he would have climbed to the top of that domed church here and dropped it on someone's head. Might have fooled some unsuspecting tourist into thinking it was manna from heaven. He would have gotten a real charge out of that. What do you think, Grace?"

Grace Stolee, whose once ballet-thin shape had expanded to the size of a third world country, shook her head. "He'd had his teeth capped just before he died last year. Remember? So he never would have chanced breaking a tooth on one of these rolls and having to fork out more money for dental work. You know what a skinflint he was."

They heaved a collective sigh and nodded agreement.

"So what are we supposed to eat?" Lucille complained to me. "Where's the bacon and eggs and sausage and hash browns and pancakes and toast and jelly?"

"In Ireland," I said in a small voice. "But the good news is" -- I flashed them a smile with my pearly whites -- "Italian breakfasts won't kill you!"

"Buon giorno," Nana greeted the crowd as she shuffled up beside me.

Lucille regarded Nana with consternation. "Did we decide what that means?"

"I thought you said it meant bon appetit," Grace fired back.

Nana stared at Helen, assessing her with her usual calm. "Jean Harlow used to have eyebrows just like them. But I think she used black ink."

"All I had on me was blue," Helen explained, "so it was either that, or Dick's red gel rollerball. I thought blue would look better with my skin tone."

Sure it would. If she was a Smurf.

"Just a minute," said Nana, rooting around in her pocketbook. "I got a Magic Marker. Will that help?" She squinted at the labeling as she held it up. "Nontoxic. Water resistant. Dries quickly. And lookit this! Permanent on most surfaces."

Helen leaned over and plucked the marker out of Nana's hand to inspect it. Behind me, I heard a bubble pop, which could only mean one thing.

I wheeled around to find Keely scanning the room for a place to sit. "You haven't seen Sylvia Root, have you?" she asked me. "I figure now's as good a time as any to make an impression on the ole literary agent. Maybe I can even convince her to drop her commission from 15 percent to 10."

I gawked at her, not because I was surprised at her gall, but because SHE WAS WEARING MY ROSEBUD SHEATH DRESS WITH THE RUFFLE AT THE HEM! "That's my dress!" I wailed. "It's brand-new. I haven't even worn it yet!"

She smoothed the slim skirt over her hips. "Tell you the truth, it's a little snug. Hope you don't mind. I let the seam out a little."

"YOU WHAT?"

"Yeah, I always carry a sewing kit in my pocketbook. Good thing, hunh? If it'd been in my suitcase, it would have gotten fried." She snapped her gum