On Any Given Sundae (8 page)

Another bash, bang, boom. “Fine. Fine. Tell
him we’ll get it done. Gotta go now. Thanks for being so flexible,
darling.” And on that note, Camden hung up.

She stashed her phone in her purse and
stepped onto the sidewalk. A young man and woman strolled by
holding hands. Teen lovers, oblivious to the world, made out on a
bench across the street. An elderly, longtime married couple
window-shopped in the stores nearby.

And Camden was in love with Annabelle the
Karate Queen.

And Rob was probably daydreaming about
Tara.

And she was still alone…and needing to go to
yet another heartbreaking dinner at the house of the man who only
wanted her to
pretend
to be his girlfriend.

CHAPTER FIVE

Could this day get any worse?
Rob
thought as he cleaned up after his three to five-thirty shift and
prepared to hand the reins over to Nick and Gretchen.

Tara Welles and Lance Burk. Now there was a
pair who deserved one another.

He shook his head remembering their
visit.

Seeing Tara was like running into a pesky
little sister, but seeing Burk always inspired him to violence. To
want to sack him. It was the very
way
of him. So. Damned.
Annoying.

He spotted Elizabeth’s car pulling up in
front of the shop. Punctual, as usual.

Jacques stood by the counter, chatting it up
with Gretchen. Nick played a final round of his favorite electronic
game on his smart phone. Some sports thing, of course. A couple of
customers lingered over waffle cones and sodas. Rob slipped out
unnoticed.

“Hey,” he said to Elizabeth. “Recovered from
the rappin’ jugglers yet?”

One small corner of one side of her mouth
lifted into a very literal half-smile. It was a funny thing. For
someone who didn’t talk much, the lady sure had a way of expressing
herself.

“Ah, don’t worry,” he said. “They’ve got gigs
lined up for weeks. We probably won’t see them again.”

She stepped out of the car and he saw she was
wearing a long skirt. A nice one in a pretty shade of green. Very
delicate ankles.

“Th-That’s not what w-worries me, Rob.”

“What worries you?”

She raised a brow at him and sighed. “Let’s
just go.”

He put his palm on her shoulder to stop her
from turning away. “No, c’mon. Tell me. Please.”

Some kind of private battle duked it out on
her face, but she seemed to give in to his request. “This
m-m-morning, what you did, getting those jugglers. I-I didn’t like
it. It was risky and it made me nervous, but—”

“But what?”

“But it was also k-kind of ingenious. How you
p-pulled it off. It’s not something I would think of. Ever.”

A pride he didn’t want to admit, but couldn’t
deny, crept into his spine and crawled up it, making him stand
taller. “Thanks, I think,” he said.

“You’re welcome. Sort of,” she said back.

“Anything besides that on your mind?” he
asked her, hoping it might be something else good but fearing it
probably wasn’t.

“No,” she answered quickly and, before he
could fish for more compliments, she slid into his car, sank into
the leather seats and angled herself away from him. Great. They’d
make a believable couple, all right, just not a couple still in the
throes of infatuation.

He cracked his knuckles, revved up the engine
and played his part by pretending to ignore her, too. And, so,
onward to Mama’s for a second dinner they went. Two meals down.
Only twenty-eight to go.

As promised, a huge pan of lasagna awaited
them. The aroma of oregano, basil and garlic greeted them at the
door like a butler, while the “Material Girl” sang cloyingly
through the speakers of Mama’s stereo. Home again.

Mama was busy in the kitchen and the kids
were with Maria-Louisa in the basement again, but Tony ushered them
in, took the plate of cookies they brought, clapped him on the back
and smooched Elizabeth lightly on the cheek.

“You look smashing tonight,” his brother told
Elizabeth, giving her the Male Eye-Scan (face, chest, legs,
chest).

She grinned at Tony. Tony winked at her.

“Knock it off,” Rob said to him. “You’re a
married man. You don’t get to ogle or wink or flirt.” At this,
Elizabeth turned her big, surprised eyes on him.

“What?” he said to her. “You’re my
girlfriend, and my brother ought to be checking out his wife, and
his wife
only
. There are rules.”

She and Tony made eye contact, and Rob heard
her whisper to Tony, “You know the truth, don’t you?”

Tony reached over and took her hand, then he
kissed it gently. “You’re an amazing woman, Elizabeth, and my
brother is a world-class idiot.”

She didn’t say anything to that, she merely
sighed.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he
said to Tony, lowering his voice in case Mama snuck in on them.

But it wasn’t his brother who answered him.
It was Elizabeth.

“He knows w-we’re not really a couple,” she
whispered. “He’s sharp. He figured it out last night.”

Panic gripped his throat. “When last
night?”

“During dinner, would be my guess.” She
motioned to Tony with her palm.

“Before, actually,” Tony said. “When we all
talked in the hallway.”

She nodded. “And Maria-Louisa knows, too,
d-doesn’t she?”

Tony shrugged. “Probably. We didn’t discuss
it.”

“Liar,” Rob said. “You two discuss
everything.”
Dammit
.

“Okay, fine, but you fooled the kids,” Tony
said, his voice taking on a hard, dangerous edge. “And, of course,
you sure bamboozled Mama. That’s gotta make you proud, big
brother.”

“Well, hell, you know how she gets when—”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Tony said.
“But, since Elizabeth was willing to play your game to help you, I
won’t snitch on you. Not this time. But you’ll owe me.”

Rob may have missed Tony’s moment of
realization last night, but he didn’t miss the threatening note in
his brother’s tone tonight, nor could he avoid seeing the sadness
lingering in Elizabeth’s eyes as she looked away from him and
headed toward the dining room.

He felt like the idiot his brother claimed he
was.

The trampling of little feet thundered up the
stairs and beelined straight for the table. Jeez, did those kids
ever slow down? After a chorus of enthusiastic Hi’s and Hello’s to
and from Maria-Louisa and the kids, Mama marched into the room.

“Oh,
good
. Our Elizabeth is here
again!” Mama held her tight, and “Frizzy Lizzy” embraced his mother
with a warmth she might have reserved for her own dear mom.

And now he felt like guilt-ridden fool.

“Roberto.” Mama kissed him. “How was your day
at the shop? You want to follow in your Uncle Pauly’s footsteps
now? Work at Tutti-Frutti?” Hopeful, futile questions.

“I like what I do in Chicago, Mama. And,
besides, Siegfried and Uncle Pauly will be back before we know it.”
He said this to try to convince himself, but four weeks still
seemed like an eternity of two-and-a-half hour shifts.

“Tell her about the j-jugglers,” Elizabeth
said with a crafty look made all the more wily because she
routinely passed herself off as such an innocent.

He narrowed his eyes at her before turning
back to his mother.

“We’ve been having a little fun at the shop
and doing some different things,” he explained without really
explaining. “Some jugglers entertained us today for a while. No big
deal. I doubt they’ll be back and, besides, I’m sure our uncles
will go on doing things their same old way when they come home.
That’s what works best for them.”

His mother raised a dark eyebrow.

“I’m not trying to interfere or change things
too much, Mama. There’s no room for another person’s vision anyway.
Too many chefs and all that.”

Mama tweaked his nose. “So sure of yourself,
Roberto, aren’t you? Now go wash your hands for dinner.”

He sighed and did as he was told.

Strange night, though, and he didn’t know why
exactly. A certain vibe shimmied between him and Elizabeth. Maybe
because he sat next to her tonight instead of across the table from
her. Maybe because they had this shared secret. Or maybe just
because the moon grew fuller as the June nights grew longer, making
weird ions hang in the air everywhere. Or something.

Anyway, for whatever reason, all through the
meal he felt himself being hyper-attentive to her: The way she
talked (so sweetly) to his niece and squirmy nephews. The way she
interacted (so politely) with his Mama and Tony and Maria-Louisa.
The way she emitted (so surprisingly) a very grown-up sensuality
that seemed both innate and unpretentious.

He’d never allowed himself to think of her
like
that
. Like a potential conquest. Partly because they’d
roamed in such different spheres during high school, but mostly
because she’d never been the kind of girl who threw herself at
him.

She still wasn’t.

But, he remembered overhearing her say he had
a “hot body” yesterday. That was something, he supposed, although
not nearly as promising as the “kind of ingenious” compliment she
gave him about getting the jugglers today. And once, during their
junior year, she’d called one of his world-history project ideas
“very clever” after class.

He smiled at that.

“Why are you laughing, Uncle Rob?” Camilla
the little pixie asked him.

“I wasn’t laughing.”

“Yes, you were!”

“I was smiling,” he said, noticing all the
eyes at the table turning toward him and looking more interested
than they needed to be. Elizabeth, in particular, seemed pretty
damn curious.

“Why were you
smiling
, then?” Camilla
said.

“I just had a happy memory.”

“Oooh! Was it from your birthday?”

“No,” he told the girl. “It was from a long,
long time ago.” Then, taking a chance, “It was from a conversation
Elizabeth and I had when we were in high school.”

He put his hand over Elizabeth’s jittery one
and gazed into her shocked green eyes. Hey, what was the use of
pretending to have a girlfriend unless he acted somewhat
affectionately toward her, right? He had to make the show
believable, if only for his mother’s benefit.

“Remember history class with Mr. Monroe?” he
said to Elizabeth, rubbing the top of her hand and feeling the soft
skin with the firm bones just beneath. “I remember how you used to
know the answers to just about everything in there. Really
impressive.”

She tried to tug her fingers away. No way was
he letting her. He held fast with one hand and began stroking
gently with the other.

“I-I d-didn’t know all th-the answers.”

“Sure you did.” He traced her tiny blue veins
with his fingertip and grinned at her. “You sat two seats away from
me, so I always noticed what you were doing. Most of the time you
were looking at the clock or staring out the window. You were at
least three million light years away. Then Mr. Monroe would ask a
question about World War II or the Russian government or something.
If you heard it, you’d slink down in your seat behind Kent Grommer.
If you didn’t, you’d just keep on daydreaming. He’d ask a bunch of
people, but they wouldn’t know the answer. Then, when he couldn’t
stand it anymore, he’d call on you or on Matthew Landers. And, no
matter what, whether you’d been paying attention or not, you could
answer the question. It was freaking amazing.”

She shot him a glare, which confused him.
He’d kill for a compliment like that, but she was clearly sending
an I’m-Pissed-Off vibe in his direction. And also still trying to
get him to release her hand.

He tried to put it another way so she’d get
his meaning. “Look, everybody wished they could do that, too. Be
acknowledged as the smartest one. That’s why girls like Tara Welles
were so jealous of you.”

She stopped both tugging and glaring.
“W-What?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I couldn’t do what you
did either, and I even liked history. I’d concentrate as hard as I
could, but I could barely follow Mr. Monroe’s train of thought. For
you, it didn’t even seem as tough as breathing.”

Her hand lay like a limp dinner roll beneath
his. Her blank expression gave away nothing. “Y-You’re
kidding?”

He shook his head. “Nope.” Then he turned to
Tony. “Tell her. Wasn’t she like a legend in high school?”

Tony didn’t speak. He merely answered with
one of his sage nods and a grin.

Camilla piped up, “Was that your happy
memory, Uncle Rob?”

“Kind of,” he said, knowing he’d be too
embarrassed to explain the real recollection. He turned to look
deep into Elizabeth’s eyes and saw a flash of something there. Her
big brain must be hard at work trying to process his words,
evaluate their merit. What her conclusion would be was anyone’s
guess, though.

“Ah, young love,” his Mama mused, standing to
clear away the dessert dishes. “Why don’t you all go relax on the
patio?”

“Th-Thank you, Mrs. Gabinarri,” Elizabeth
said, almost jumping to her feet, “but I have to g-get back a
little earlier tonight.”

“You do?” Rob said. She hadn’t mentioned this
to him before.

Her head bobbed vigorously. “Work.”

Like hell.

“Okay, sweetheart.” He patted her hand, which
was clenched tight again. What had he done to get her so angry and
why was she shorting him forty-five minutes? Not that he didn’t
want to leave, too, but they had a
deal
. “Sorry, Mama. I
guess Elizabeth’s cookbook project can’t be put off any
longer.”

“Well, that’s all right,” Mama said. “We’ll
see you both again tomorrow, yes?”

Elizabeth smiled at his mother. “Of
course.”

“Absolutely,” he said at the same time.

Mama disappeared into the kitchen. Elizabeth
snatched her hand away from him once and for all and turned
abruptly away.