On Any Given Sundae (24 page)

Nick’s eyes grew wide. The clock ticked for
three seconds. “I’m so there.”

And with that Elizabeth realized how quickly
and easily other people could solve their long-distance
relationship problems if they were motivated to do so. Maybe
songwriters through the ages had gotten it right:

Love is all you need.

Love will keep us together.

Love will find away.

Love is the answer.

And, so, since nothing remotely that simple
applied to her relationship with Rob, perhaps she’d overestimated
the strength of not just his emotions, but also her own.

Well, no. She was pretty darn sure she loved
him. But sometimes, well, sometimes…
Love just ain’t
enough.

While Nick was packing the following day and
Miguel was gathering up the last of his equipment, Elizabeth snuck
into the backdoor of Tutti-Frutti to grab some more order forms.
They’d been so busy with the photo shoot that she hadn’t restocked
in a week, and they should never be allowed to run low on Mocha
Madness.

Plus, she needed an ice cream treat herself.
Today was August first and she’d just e-mailed her editor the text
of her cookbook with the jpegs of the photos. And, for good
measure, a hardcopy of everything was set to arrive in New York
City via express mail the next morning, too.

She snitched an ice cream sandwich and was
just about to be her stealthiest and leave unnoticed when she heard
a familiar female voice.

“Hi, Rob. How are you, handsome?”

“Tara. Hi. Nice to see you as always.”

Blah!

“I heard through the grapevine that you
finally ditched Frizzy Lizzy and you’re a free man again. That’s
true, right?”

Elizabeth couldn’t see her, but she could
almost hear Tara’s incredibly high-wattage smile beaming rays of
intense desire at him. She felt nauseated.

Rob, however, was probably staring lustfully
back at Tara, so he didn’t answer her question.

“Rob, honey, why don’t you come with me to
the Beer-N-Brat Fest in Milwaukee this weekend? We’d have so much
fun together. It’d be just like old times when we—”

“Why don’t you take Lance to it, Tara?” Rob
said.

“
Lance?
What does Lance have to do
with any—”

“The guy’s crazy about you,” he replied. “He
goes insane with jealousy whenever any other man so much as looks
your way. I know you’ve been more casual about dating him than the
other way around, but think about it. Think about the attention he
pays to you. You’re his kind of woman. You always were. Even in
high school. And, unless you don’t feel anything toward him at all,
he’s the man who should get the honor of spending time with you
now.”

Elizabeth listened to this statement without
taking a breath. Wow. He pushed Tara away, too. He must really be
set on heading back to Chicago soon. Tara must also have realized
this because she didn’t speak for a full fifteen seconds. Then she
said, “But what about you and me?”

“There’s no you and me,” Rob said simply.
“Here, have an ice cream cone on the house. And have fun in
Milwaukee at the Beer-N-Brat Fest. With Lance.”

Elizabeth heard a pause and some rustling of
paper napkins or other such things.

“Well, um. Bye, Rob. Good luck with
everything,” Tara murmured. Footsteps clicked toward the door and
the bells jangled as she left the shop.

After a lengthy moment of silence, Elizabeth
heard Rob mutter, “So long, Tara-rantula.”

In spite of herself, she almost laughed.
Tara-rantula?
And all this time she’d thought Frizzy Lizzy
was a bad nickname. Nothing like perspective.

Elizabeth knew she needed to get out of the
shop before Rob discovered her back there, eavesdropping and
guiltily holding a frozen novelty. Still, it was hard for her to
creep out the backdoor—which she did very, very quietly—and head
toward her car after overhearing what she did. Rob didn’t sound
like himself. He was breaking away from everyone. Not only her, but
the Wilmington Bay townspeople, too. He wasn’t the gabby Gabinarri
who’d strode so confidently into the shop in June. She felt sad for
him. And for herself.

Outside, she took a big bite of her ice cream
sandwich. Creamy. Sweet. But not nearly as good as one of Rob’s
kisses. Sometimes in life you had to settle, huh? At least he was
still here with her for a little while longer. At least she got to
look at him and admire him and remember everything they shared
together, which was helpful when her days seemed bleak.

But the thought of their lost relationship
gave her knots in her stomach again and, suddenly, the dessert
didn’t taste so good after all. She was about to toss it in the
trash when she heard a chuckle followed by a distinctive
“Liebling!”

Startled, she accidentally dropped the ice
cream sandwich on the ground and a curious squirrel nabbed it.
“Uncle Siegfried. You—you’re back.”

***

“Roberto! There you are.”

Rob almost stopped breathing. “Uncle Pauly?
When did you get home?”

“Just a coupla hours ago.” He marched up to
where Rob was standing at the counter and threw his hefty arms
around him. “The place looks great.”

The last time Uncle Pauly had hugged him that
enthusiastically, Rob had been under five feet tall. He shot his
mother’s big brother a suspicious glance. “Uh, thanks. How was the
trip?”

“Oh, great, great. Anita’s feeling real
healthy now. She invited us back sometime soon. Maybe we’ll take
your Mama along with us next time. She’d love it.”

“I’m sure she would,” Rob said, feeling the
oddest combination of emotions. If Uncle Pauly went back to
Europe—and Siegfried and Mama went with him—he and Elizabeth would
have to run the shop again. He’d be stuck returning to Wilmington
Bay, which hadn’t turned out to be so bad after all, and he’d get
to be with Elizabeth for another few months, which had turned out
to be damn terrific. Until very recently.

So maybe all they needed was a little more
forced time and then…and then what? He wasn’t sure how much she
really wanted a guy like him in her life, but more time to figure
out the truth couldn’t hurt, right?

“When are you thinking of doing that, Uncle
Pauly? The fall, maybe?”

His uncle shrugged. “Eh, I dunno. Maybe next
summer. Maybe not.”

“Oh.” And Rob had to face the fact that there
was only one feeling he was experiencing now: Disappointment. He
didn’t want to wait until next summer, or whenever it was
convenient for everyone else, to be with Elizabeth again. He didn’t
want
to leave her. Period.

“So, Siegfried and I are going to sleep off
our jetlag and then we’ll take over tomorrow. You can go home to
Chicago and not worry about us old men up here. You left everything
in great shape, Roberto.
Grazie
.”

“You’re welcome,” he said automatically, but
he felt dismissed. He wasn’t needed anymore. He could go. And no
one would miss him.

The bells jingled.

“Hi, Rob,” Elizabeth said, looking strangely
pale and walking in the shadow cast by her own smiling uncle. She
greeted Uncle Pauly and Rob said hi to Siegfried. “It’s great to
have them both back, isn’t it?” she asked him.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely.”
Hell, no.

“Uncle Siegfried just told me that we should
close the shop early today.” She glanced at her uncle and he nodded
earnestly.

“You two have done so much work for us,”
Siegfried declared. “Why don’t Pauly and I help you wrap things up
for the day, then we can all relax. I know Pauly and I need some
sleep.
Liebling,
you must have some writing business to
finish up and, Rob, you’ll probably want to start packing.”

Rob clenched his jaw. Everyone was trying to
get rid of him. “That’s…thoughtful,” he managed.

“Great.” Siegfried turned the sign on the
door to “Closed” and began washing the metal cookie sheets and ice
cream scoops. Pauly grabbed a broom and did a quick sweep of the
floor.

Rob and Elizabeth looked at each other. Their
Tutti-Frutti rein was officially over but, somehow, despite weeks
of anticipation and waiting for this moment to arrive, he got the
distinct sense that she was feeling the same reluctance to end it
as he was.

The tiny bit of hope that lived inside him,
the part that remembered the ecstasy of their lovemaking and the
thrill of her saying she loved him, began to grow bigger. Maybe it
all just came down to believing it could be done. Maybe when a
choice was made in favor of intimacy, barriers bowed down to a
superior power. Maybe he had to really look…and to really listen to
what she was saying.

He decided to take a chance and see if his
theory proved true. “I’ll head back to Chicago in the morning,” he
told Elizabeth and watched for clues.

She shuttered her eyes and tightened her lips
before nodding slowly. “I-I understand,” she said.

But she didn’t.

There was a tremor in her voice that had
nothing to do with stuttering, and a tiny, almost imperceptible
catch in her breath. There was a rigidity in her posture that
suggested she was working extra-hard to keep her shoulders from
drooping.

Rob felt a couple of obstacles shattering in
front of his eyes. She knew him well enough by now to know what she
was getting into with him. He was loud. He was talkative. He was
into sports. He wasn’t as smart as she was by a long shot.

Yet every nerve fiber told him she didn’t
want him to leave. And, hey, he was catching up in the brilliance
department. When given a chance and a little time to think, he
could make good choices. He was going to try his damnedest to make
an excellent one now.

He pulled her into the backroom, away from
the prying eyes of their uncles. “Are you doing anything this
Friday night?” he asked and, again, scanned her face and her body
for any signs that might give away what was really going on in that
whirling mind of hers.

Her forehead wrinkled. “I…can’t think of
anything. Why?”

Total confusion on her part. Cool,
ultra-reserved voice. Not exactly good, but not bad either. He’d
have to make his intentions clearer.

“I’m going to go to Chicago tomorrow, but I’m
going to come back up on Friday night.” He held her soft hands in
his and looked deep into her gorgeous green eyes. “I’d like to take
you out on a date.”

The eyes got significantly wider, and her
luscious lips parted in surprise. But those same lips turned up at
the corners, just the slightest bit, in an indication of pleasure
at the news. And her fingers tightened in his palms. And when she
said, “Oh, okay,” her tone warmed up about forty degrees.

He grinned and kissed her hands first and
then her forehead. “I’ll see you then, sweetheart.”

***

Elizabeth reviewed Rob’s parting line about,
oh, seventeen thousand five hundred and eighty-three times between
that moment and Friday.

Why did he want to leave immediately to
Chicago? Why did he want to come back after only a few days? How
long did he intend to stay here? What was he hoping to
do
on
Friday night—and did his plans also include Saturday morning? Was
this a guilt visit or more of an attempt to prove to her that he
valued her friendship? And, most perplexing of all, what did he
mean
when he called her “sweetheart”? A term of genuine
affection…or a sweet nothing?

Try as she might, she didn’t know any of the
answers for sure. But she intended to find out within the first
fifteen minutes of his arrival.

He only made her wait five.

They were at her apartment, sitting a
respectable distance apart on the sofa, when he turned to her.

“Elizabeth, I have a few questions for
you.”

She didn’t trust herself to speak so she just
nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Here goes.” He fiddled with
his wristwatch and gulped some air. He looked even more nervous
than she felt, which made her anxiety rise to match it.

“J-Just say it, Rob. Please.” If it was going
to be something unpleasant—like that this was his last visit to
Wilmington Bay for a while—she just wanted to get it over with.

“Remember that day when we were in third
grade together and you loaned me your very best pencil and we
talked and talked all through the art project?” He looked up at her
with bright, expectant eyes.

She smiled slightly. “You talked and talked.
I listened. But, yeah, I remember.”

“Good, because I thought you were the most
wonderful creature to walk the planet that day.” He took her hands
in his and they were shaking. Not her hands, but
his
. “I
still think that.”

Okay, this was going differently than she’d
expected. Better, but way, way differently.

“Um, thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome.” He paused. “All right. Let
me try this again. Remember how I said that I couldn’t imagine
having a whole houseful of kids? That I thought this was a really
strange female thing and that Tony’s ability to procreate little
Gabinarris was way beyond me?”

She remembered.

“Well, I’ve kind of changed my mind.”

Her heart did a weird little tap dance. She
squinted at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Not a
lot
of them, mind you,
but I could handle one or maybe even two…I think. Especially if
they’re half as sweet as their mother.”

He didn’t give her even five seconds to
process this before he said, “And you know how I was really glad to
leave Wilmington Bay and live in the big city far away from my dear
mama who was trying so desperately to marry me off?”

She remembered that, too.

“Well, to be honest, that part is still kind
of up for grabs. So, I wanted to know…” He reached into his coat
pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper he quickly unfolded. “Are
you afraid of flying?” he read from the list.