Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,4

religious sites in Italy, check to see if there's a dress code. Bare arms and hairy legs aren't permitted in the church proper of St. Peter's; however, the clothes police might let it pass if you're planning to play bingo in the basement." She snapped the tape recorder off. "They play bingo here, don't they? It's a Catholic church. What Catholic church doesn't play bingo? Can you imagine the haul? I mean, this place can accommodate sixty thousand."

She held her minirecorder up for my perusal. "Doesn't this rock? It's the perfect gadget to help me chronicle your every move. I'll be James Boswell to your Samuel Johnson."

Ever since Jack had become Jackie, she'd been searching for her new niche in life. After ending up on the same tour in Ireland with me last month, she'd decided she might like a job like mine, so she signed up for this tour of Italy in the hopes of recording the dos and don'ts of the successful tour escort. I tried not to let it go to my head, but it was kind of flattering.

Jackie flashed me a smile that suddenly turned to horror. "Eh! Where's your shoulder bag?"

"Mom has it. She wanted to free up my hands so I could bless myself."

"You gave your shoulder bag to your mother?" Her brittle tone made it sound as if I'd given away my firstborn. "Jeez, Emily, that was brave of you."

Unh-oh. Was St. Peter's no longer the safest place in Italy? Was Nana's information outdated? OH, GOD! Was the travel guide Mom checked out of the library the 1952 edition of Frommer's? I swallowed slowly, a cold sweat prickling my forehead. "Why was it brave?" I asked hesitantly.

"Because you can get picked up by some really hot Italians in St. Peter's. You need to keep your cosmetic bag handy for those critical lip gloss touch-ups."

I waited a beat before thwacking her on the arm with the back of my hand. "Jack! You're married! What are you doing looking for men?" She'd eloped a month ago with a Binghamton, New York, hair designer named Tom whose specialty was corrective color and infliction of the choppy cut on unsuspecting heads.

"I'm married, Emily. I'm not dead."

I rolled my eyes, thinking if I came down with another case of stress-induced hives, I was going to kill her.

"Okay," she said, consulting a paper in the side pocket of her bag. "I made a list, and the next 'must see' in the basilica is" -- she turned around -- "this way." She banded her hand around my arm and dragged me half a mile down the center nave. We stopped before a mammoth five-sided pillar to regard a bronze statue of a fuzzy-haired man with a beard. "St. Peter," said Jackie. He was seated in a marble chair beneath an ornate canopy, one hand raised solemnly like Al Gore in a vice presidential debate, the other clutching a set of keys. I'd read someplace where the body of the statue might originally have been that of a Roman senator, with the haloed head and hands soldered on later. I had to compliment the Italians. St. Peter looked pretty darned good considering he might have been pieced together like Robocop.

"We need to get in line so we can kiss his toe," Jackie instructed.

I remembered back to my grammar school catechism and wondered what kind of spiritual reward we might receive for paying homage to this great saint. Partial indulgence? Plenary indulgence? In the days of the old Church, the faithful accumulated indulgences like frequent flyer miles and could use them to get out of Hell free. You didn't hear much about indulgences anymore. Wasn't that always the way? You just get locked into a great reward system and boom, all the perks expire.

"What significance does kissing his toe have?" I asked.

Jackie shrugged. "I thought it was the Italian version of kissing the Blarney stone. Hey, look. There's some of the people on our tour up near the front of the line. You see the tall guy in the rose-colored polo shirt? Silver hair. George Hamilton tan. Big bottle of water in a harness over his shoulder? That's Philip Blackmore, executive vice president of Hightower Books. They tell me he's a legendary marketing genius. He's supposedly the one behind Hightower's switch from literary to more commercial fiction."

It was Hightower Books who was sponsoring this two-week holiday to promote its unprecedented venture into the historical and contemporary romance market. The theme of the