My Best Friend's Bride (33 page)

“Then why not say it?”

She felt her eyes mist. “What’s the point in pretending?”

“Ah, yes.” His words were tender, caressing. “Or in dreaming, either,
no
?”
 

“Tell me your dreams, Luigi. I want to hear them.”

“The beautiful ones? About you and me?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “And start at the very beginning.”

“With a boy and a girl on the beach?”

She nodded and he laughed warmly. “Okay,
cara mia
, I will indulge you one more time. But I have to warn you about how my story ends.”

Lucia held her breath and waited for him to say it. For, each time he did, it was like a symphony to her ears.

“With
happily ever after.
”

Chapter Two

The Plan

The next day the cousins held an emergency meeting to discuss the whole situation. The women met at Angie’s house, since she had the largest one. What was supposed to be a living room looked more like a playroom. Toys littered the floor as two toddlers wrestled over a stack of blocks in the corner. Angie’s oldest spent her mornings in preschool.

“I don’t know how you can possibly Zumba in here,” Haley commented.

Angie appeared a tad defensive. Today her sweats were tangerine orange. “I do it during their nap time.”

Trish breezed in the door without knocking, her freckled face flushed. “Sorry,” she said, out of breath. “It took a few minutes to get away.”

They were gathering during an early lunch break, so as not to have any of the men in the way. Emma reined in the puppy, who had nabbed a pacifier off the carpet and was gnawing on it. She glanced around, then stealthily took it from the dog’s mouth and wiped it on the side of her jeans.

“Emma!” Claire said, “What are you doing with that paci?”

Emma studied the thing, then plucked off a small yellow hair before setting it on a side table. “Just getting it off the floor.”

“You’ll have to sterilize that,” Jane told Angie.

Angie shrugged. “That was with the first baby.”

Rachel checked her watch. “Guys, I don’t have much time. I’ve got six more houses to hit before five o’clock.”

“Geez, Rachel,” Trish said with a smirk. “Sounds like you’re breaking and entering.”

Rachel huffed, dark curls bouncing. “You know that I care for the plants.”

Susan settled in on the sofa with her knitting. “Isn’t that how you met Tom?”

“No, I—”

Bev stared at them with interest.

“I don’t think we need to get into any of that now,” Zoe added.
 

“Right.” Bev still wore her Parisian neck scarf, only today it was knotted on the left side. She adjusted it slightly, then spoke, taking charge. “We’re here to discuss Nona’s predicament.”

“And to devise a plan,” Angie agreed.

“Sounds good.” Tiny’s gaze rolled toward the kitchen. “But first, do you think we could have something to eat?”

A few minutes later, Angie had brought out a bowl of trail mix made with kids’ cereal, chocolate candies, goldfish crackers, pretzels, and raisins.

Jane scooped up a handful and stared at it. “Nice.”

“Shut up,” Angie said. “It’s tasty.”

“Mmm,” Tiny agreed, digging in for some more. “Thanks, Angie. I was starving.”

“Wish I knew how you can do that.” Emma stared down at her curvy figure. “I’ve gained ten pounds since this morning.”

“You have not,” Claire said kindly.

“You look great!” Rachel affirmed.

“We’d all look great if we took time to work at it,” Jane said flatly.

Haley was bending down, tightening the laces on her running shoes. She ran her own bakery in town, but could have doubled as a personal trainer. She looked up to see them all staring at her.
 

“Nona!” Zoe reminded the group.

“Right,” Bev said. “What are we going to do?”

Susan pulled some yarn from her bag. “Help her if we can.”

One of the kids in the corner hit the other over the head and Angie went to mediate.
 

“That would be great!” Emma said above the squalling. “If only we knew how!”

The kids yelped louder and Angie hissed from the corner. “Stop yelling, already. You’re scaring them!”

Emma rolled her eyes at the others.
 

“Well…” Jane spoke firmly, but not in a yell. “As far as I can see, we have two options.”

“Like?” Trish pressed.

“We can send her there, or bring Luigi here.”

“What are you talking about, Jane?” Susan asked. “Buying plane tickets?”

“Precisely.”

“But none of us has the money,” Zoe objected.
 

“How about if we all chip in?” Claire asked.

“Yeah,” Haley said. “We’re all gainfully employed.”

Trish glanced at Rachel. “In a manner of speaking.”

Rachel refused to acknowledge Trish and turned toward the group. Everyone knew Rachel secretly wanted to be a writer, but had never gotten up the courage to try. Except for that one time in high school when she’d chronicled her dating exploits in the high school paper. Who knew it was possible to date three boys at once and not have any of them the wiser? Until the article went to print, that was. The episode had earned Rachel the nickname
Runaround Rachel
, and also a reputation as a boyfriend stealer. To add insult to injury, she’d been reprimanded by the principal and grounded by her parents. She’d given up her literary ambitions shortly thereafter. Or so she said. She’d still majored in journalism in college. Not that she’d done anything with it. The only lasting ramification from that early ordeal appeared to be the fact that Trish still hadn’t gotten over Rachel nabbing Brett. Okay, so that had left Trish without a date to homecoming. But that was
so
long ago. “How much would that cost?”

Bev pulled out her smartphone. “I’ll investigate.”

“What if Luigi doesn’t want to come here?” Angie asked.

“He may not,” Lena said. She fingered the highlights in her hair. “As I recall, the invitation went the other way.”

“Well, that’s asking a lot,” Jane snapped. “It doesn’t exactly seem fair. That he wouldn’t be willing to make the same sacrifice.”

“You weren’t listening to Nona,” Susan said kindly. “She
wants
to go.”

The women studied each other a moment in silence.

After a beat, Bev looked up from her phone. “It’s more than I thought.” She met their questioning faces. “The tickets. Since the island is off the coast of Sicily, it seems there’s no way to get there except by ferry. And you can’t fly straight to Sicily from here. You have to go to Rome, and maybe Frankfurt first, via New York or Atlanta.”

Zoe sucked in a breath. “Can Nona do all that?”

“Sounds like a lot of connecting,” Haley conceded.

“I don’t think she could manage it alone,” Trish said.

“Then one of us will have to go with her,” Bev added hopefully. “As a companion-slash-escort.”

“So, now we have to raise money for
two tickets
?” Emma asked. “One for Nona to get there, and another round trip—for one of us to take her and come back?”

The women slowly shook their heads. “Maybe this was a silly idea,” Lena said with a frown.

Tiny stopped chewing a moment. “No. It was a good idea. A great one, in fact. We just need to find a way to make it work.”

Haley bent forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “How about a fundraiser?”

“What do you mean?” asked Rachel.

Lena’s face brightened. “What a cool thought. We’ll raise the money!”

Tiny considered this. “Sounds good, but how?”

Angie had gotten the kids occupied with a huge bucket of connecting toys by the window and now returned to join them. “What about crowdfunding?”

“You mean online?” Trish asked. “I know it can be done, but this seems a little personal.”

“She’s right,” Jane said. “We don’t want to ask complete strangers for money.”

“They wouldn’t have to be strangers,” Claire said. “We could start with friends.”

“By asking them for handouts?” Bev asked. “I don’t like that idea.”

Emma stroked the snoozing puppy in her lap, then spoke thoughtfully. “It’s for a worthy cause.”

Zoe nodded. “But Bev and Trish are right. It seems a little… I don’t know…”

“Like airing our dirty laundry in public,” Susan said, speaking for the first time.

“This isn’t dirty!” Lena protested. “It’s about love.”

Bev adjusted her scarf, flipping its long end back over her shoulder. “Yeah, but how do you think Nona would like it if she knew what we were up to?”

“Maybe she’d be flattered?” Rachel said hopefully.

“And maybe she’d be embarrassed,” Trish shot back. “Embarrassed if her financial state got laid bare for the whole world to see.”

“She can’t help it that she lost her money,” Claire defended.

“She didn’t lose it,” Trish corrected. “She spent it.”

“Yeah,” Zoe said with a frown. “Most of it on us.”

The women hung their heads and sighed. Everyone knew it was true. None of them came from wealthy backgrounds. Their Nona generously had helped put all of them through school. Eleven of them had graduated from colleges and Haley had attended a culinary institute. They wouldn’t have made it without their Nona’s help and the assistance of student loans. Now Nona lived on social security in the big house her husband had built them on the hill. Everyone in town still thought of her as a wealthy widow. Only her granddaughters knew the truth. Nona had sworn them to secrecy over not telling their fathers about the contributions she’d given them.
 

Their dads were hardworking men with big hearts, but a little clueless when it came to the costs of higher education. That was likely because none of Nona’s boys had been to college. She’d wanted more for her granddaughters, and had finally been in a financial position to help. When her husband died, he’d left her a tidy sum of cash, a sum that was—at this point—all but gone. If they’d known how greatly their Nona was sacrificing, they would have refused her kindly offers. But Nona had kept her financial particulars to herself until recently. She’d had some complicated tax matter and had asked Trish to straighten it out. Trish had been dismayed by how little of Nona’s initial estate was left. She’d lost additional money due to investments she hadn’t properly adjusted during the recession.

Susan stared down at the knitting needles in her lap, then slowly looked up. “She wouldn’t be embarrassed if we were clever about it.”

“What are you talking about, Susan?” Haley wanted to know.

“I mean, what if it looked like we were raising money for something else?” Susan tucked her knitting needles in her bag and gave a sneaky smile. “Something worthy?”

Bev gaped at her in shock. “Are you talking about doing something under false pretenses, Susan?”

“Not false. Veiled.”

Zoe stretched her legs out in front of her on the carpet and lunged forward, gripping the soles of her feet with her hands. “Now you’ve lost me.”

“How about…” Susan surprised them all by raising her normally soft voice. “We raise the money for charity: a historic preservation fund?”

Fine lines worried Claire’s forehead. “Isn’t that kind of cheating?”

Angie grinned. “Not exactly.”
 

Lena set her chin in her hands, highlighted hair swinging forward. “Nona’s historic.”

“Over eighty,” Haley agreed.

“We do want to preserve her,” Tiny said.

“She’s not like pickles, Tiny!” Rachel cried.

“No,” Emma said slowly, “but what she and Luigi have definitely deserves a chance. A chance to…” The puppy squirmed awake, but she snuggled it back to sleep.

“What, Emma?” Zoe asked impatiently.

“Hang on. I’m thinking.” Emma’s gaze panned to the window where the kids were finally behaving, then back around the room. “How about if Nona writes a book?”

“A
book
?” the others asked with surprise.

“Sure,” Susan said, apparently getting it. “Her story.”

Bev’s eyes lit up. “An immigrant’s tale in America!”

“That one’s been done,” Trish said. “Many times.”

“Not by Nona,” Tiny said.

Zoe met Emma’s eyes. “Are you suggesting that she do research? To recapture the flavor of her early days?”

Emma wore a proud grin. “I am.”

“Why, Emma!” Rachel said, “that’s geni—”

“Insane,” Jane cut in. “Who’s going to believe an eighty-something-year-old woman traveling abroad for research?”

“Anyone who knows Nona would believe it,” Claire said.

“Which includes everyone in this town,” Rachel agreed.

“She’s got more spunk than most sixty-year-olds,” Emma confirmed.

“But
Nona
write her story?” Bev asked. “You mean actually write it down?”

Zoe tucked her knees up under her arms and grimaced. “It’s true. Nona isn’t much of a writer. Never has been.”

“She’s a talker, though,” offered Haley.

“That’s it!” Angie beamed. “She could record it.”

“Someone else could write it down.” Susan gave Rachel a pointed look and all heads turned in Rachel’s direction.

“Wait a minute. Why’s everybody staring at me?”

“You’re the writer, Rachel,” Jane said.

“You mean, when she’s not practicing her green thumb?” Trish asked pointedly.

Rachel blinked and her cheeks tinged pink.

“Let’s get back on track,” Bev suggested. “It sounds like we’re getting somewhere.”

“But why does there have to be a story?” Rachel questioned.

“Because,” Jane said logically, “this way it all makes sense. Nona is writing her life’s tale, and she’s going back to her home country to fill in the details.”

Susan nodded. “Recapture the essence of her youth, so to speak.”
 

Rachel appeared unconvinced. “Who would read this book?”

“Maybe nobody but us,” Angie said. “But that would be okay. Wouldn’t it?”

“I’d love to have Nona’s story,” Claire said. “Her complete story, written down to share with my children some day.” Her sisters and cousins nodded their agreement.

Bev wryly twisted her lips. “You might not want to share all of it.”