Scrumptious (23 page)

Marlene was crying now too, and didn’t care who saw her. “I thought I’d never see the day when Olivia Marconi would realize that running a restaurant isn’t a one-woman show. Does this mean I can actually call a couple numbers on those résumés you’ve been hoarding in the office?”

Olivia nodded.

“Then I want another garde-manger cook. And Anthony stays.” Marlene held Anthony’s eyes. He wouldn’t let her down again. “We traded Keith for him.”

Olivia glared at Keith, now dead center in the middle of the Capozzi clan with Nikki reading him his rights and Rocky supervising. He looked wretched. Olivia grinned.

“We also need a pastry chef. I can’t do everything.”

Olivia nodded again.

“And another grill cook.”

A slower nod. “Anything else?”

“Nope, I’m all yours.” Marlene held Olivia’s eyes. “I always was. I don’t think I could have left Chameleon, even if I wanted to. It’s home,” she said simply.

A home she hadn’t been willing to share, and because of that, Joe was gone.

“I do have one small favor to ask,” Marlene said to Olivia.

“Name your price, chef.”

She winced.

“Better get used to it,” Olivia said with a giggle. “How much do you want?”

“No, it’s not money. I, uh, just…well.” The words broke free in an awesome rush. “I promised God I’d go to my father’s wedding if He gave me a break on the last river card, so I need a day off.”

Olivia burst out laughing. “You got it.”

Marlene walked back to the poker table and picked up the deed to Chameleon. She put it in Olivia’s hand.

“Try to keep an eye on that,” Marlene admonished.

Olivia turned. “Nonna? Are you coming?”

Both girls stared, wide-eyed, as Nonna Lucia slowly shook her head. “You go. Benito will take care of me.”

Marly grabbed Olivia’s hand and pulled her away from the bizarre spectacle of Olivia’s seventy-year-old grandmother sitting on the lap of Big Daddy Capozzi while a naked woman gyrated overhead. Nonna Lucia was old enough to play her own games.

Marlene was ready to cash it in for the night. She didn’t want to push her luck.

“Pathetic,” Olivia said.

“Oh, shut up.” Marlene shot back. So what if the steaks falling away from her blade were a little over or a little under? They were close enough.

“Maybe if you hired a grill cook, you’d have time to use the scale.”

“It’s harder to find a good cook than I thought.” In fact, it had been downright impossible. Four cooks had tried out on the line this week. Nobody had stuck.

Even Anthony was getting irritated. Next to Marlene, Joe’s absence had hit him the hardest and not only because some of the extra work was falling into his station. Marlene hadn’t realized how much Anthony had idolized Joe. Now she felt guilty for his sake too.

In fact, everybody seemed to miss Joe. Jacques was grumpy without his sweet-toothed ally. Even the freaking health inspector, as good as his word, had given her crap for losing such a clean cook when he stopped in for Sunday brunch.

Olivia cleared her throat. “Yes, it’s tough to find someone willing to work with a chef who criticizes every move they make. Ease up, Marly. You aren’t going to find anybody who can cook like Joe.”

Marlene kept her eyes on the meat. She didn’t want to see pity in Olivia’s eyes. She carefully layered the steaks in a pan, being careful not to splash blood on her sundress.

Olivia sighed. “When are you leaving for the wedding?”

“Right now.” Marlene untied her apron and carefully pulled it over her head. “Mom’s picking me up. You’re all set for service. Thanks for covering my shift.”

Olivia nodded.

Marlene had been shocked when her mother offered to accompany her to her father’s wedding. Her heart flew into her throat every time she thought about seeing her father again. She couldn’t imagine how her mother felt.

Olivia touched her arm. “Joe didn’t go to California, Marlene.”

“He didn’t?” Surprise stopped her in her tracks.

“He went to Kentucky. To see his dad.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Olivia shook her head.

“Well…that’s nice,” Marlene finally managed. She washed her hands and escaped through the swinging door into the dining room.

Her mother was already waiting for her, looking beautiful and calm, not in the least bit rattled that she was about to attend the wedding of the first man to break her compound-fractured heart. Marlene ran her hands over her hair, trying to equal the casual perfection of her mother’s elegant twist.

“You look beautiful, baby. Are you ready to go?” she asked, tucking Marlene’s wayward curls into place with deft fingers.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she mumbled, not that she was looking to her mom for moral support. Marlene led the way out the front door of the restaurant where her mother had parked squarely in front of a fire hydrant.

Typical.

There was no ticket on her mother’s windshield. Also typical.

She sank into the passenger seat.

Awkward silence settled between them as they pulled away from the curb. “So, how’s life?” her mother asked. By life, she meant love life, of course.

“Fine,” Marlene said.

“Anyone new?”

“No.” Nobody new. Just somebody old Marlene couldn’t forget. And she’d tried to forget Joe. With a vengeance. She had spent every night this week sitting at Johnny’s bar, looking for someone new to take home with her.

Nobody caught her eye. Worse than that, every time she walked into the bar, she scanned the room for a certain set of broad shoulders, a perfect pair of cool, blue eyes. Every time the bar’s door opened, she looked up to see if it was Joe. Olivia was right. She was pathetic.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Definitely not.”

“It’s been hard for me too, you know,” her mother admitted.

Thank God she thought Marly was upset about the wedding. “Watching you grow up without your father, knowing that if I just could have been a bigger person back then, when he left, you could have him in your life right now. If I had been less selfish, maybe you wouldn’t be so alone,” she said, looking at the road. “I know all about your men, you know.”

Okaaaaaaay.

Marlene eyed her mother. She was driving, negotiating traffic easily, as if she wasn’t wielding an AK-47 on her daughter in the passenger seat. “What men?” she asked cagily, inner teenager on full alert.

“Oh, please, I’m your mother. You haven’t pulled a stunt in twenty-nine years that I haven’t been aware of, including all the smoking.” Marlene looked at her mother with dawning horror. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, baby. You’re more sensible than I am most of the time. I realize that. That’s why I don’t like to interfere in your business.”

“Thank you,” she said. Inner teenager slammed the door. End of conversation.

Her mother laughed. “Not so fast, babe. I know I’ve been tied up in my own romantic trauma for most of your life. I was a mess. Every man who walked out that door was your father, over and over again. I got stuck in my own repeating pattern: falling in love with a man and then driving him away, all the while hating him for leaving me. I was attracted to worthless men because they reinforced my belief that I was worthless too.” She paused.

Whoa, what self-help book had her mother been reading this month?

“I’m afraid some of my bad habits have rubbed off on you,” she finished.

Ordinarily, Marlene would have laughed at her mother’s psycho-babble, but, holy hell, she had a point.

Unworthy men. Huh. Marlene tried it on for size. It fit. Until Joe, that certainly described the men in Marlene’s life. Temporary. Easily forgotten. Unimportant. Marlene had wanted it that way because marriage brings misery. Men leave. She’d said as much to her father the other night, only without the ache of self-awareness. She had circumvented that little problem by kicking her guys out the door before they decided to go. Low expectations were a sure cure for disappointment, right? Would any of those men have stayed with her? Danny would have, Marlene imagined. The thought made her heart hiccup. Danny wasn’t the one for her.

“What about, uh, Richard?” Marlene remembered the name of her mother’s new fiancé.

“Richard has been helping me understand myself. He’s a wonderful man,” she said, serenely, pulling into the church parking lot.

Now that Marlene was paying attention, she realized her mother had been different lately.

The other night, her mom hadn’t had more than a glass of wine, and she had let Marlene do most of the talking while she was working on Marlene’s hair. Not to mention, it had been almost a year since she had called Marlene in the middle of a meltdown. Maybe her mother was finally growing up.

The question was: where did that leave Marlene?

More to the point, where did she want to be?

Not here, she discovered. Not stuck in her own repeating pattern. Not hating her father. Not alone.

“Mom?”

Her mother turned off the engine.

“What do you do when a man wants to stay?” she asked.

“What did I always tell you, baby? Life is like poker. You gotta play big to win big. You can play smart. You can play safe, but sooner or later, you have to pick a hand or you’re gonna lose all your money anyway. Of course, the tricky part is picking the right hand.”

A car pulled into the parking lot next to them. Richard waved to her mother.

“Richard is the right hand?”

Her mother took her hand and squeezed it. “For me, he is. That’s why I wanted to introduce him to your father. Now, are you ready to do this, baby?”

“Yeah,” Marlene said, as peaceful resolve temporarily gagged inner teenager. “I really am.”

After the drama in the car, the actual wedding ceremony wasn’t as painful as she had though it would be. She was honestly happy for her father. And her mother. The hard part was sitting still in the church pew while piercing realizations jabbed her heart. By the time the I do’s were said, she felt like a pincushion.

Marlene caught her father’s eye as he walked up the aisle, hand in hand with Margaret. She wanted him to know she was there because she was going to skip the receiving line. When he saw her, a broad smile creased his face. Margaret’s damp eyes asked for understanding, which Marlene was happy to supply.

“Mom, can I borrow your car?” she asked. “I’ll leave it in the Chameleon parking lot. Can Richard drive you back?”

“Sure, baby. You okay?”

Marlene nodded. “Never better. Gotta go see if I’m still in the game.”

Her mom winked at her. “You’ve got a full house now, baby.”

Joe sat on the back porch of his father’s cabin and stared into the trees. He had spent an entire week at the log house, the de facto haven of heartbreak for Rafferty men. It was a new record for time spent in his father’s company since Joe had gotten his driver’s license. A few minutes ago, he had broken his silence and told his father about what had happened at the casino.

“Sounds like you really screwed the pooch this time, boy. It’s not easy to go back when you’ve made a mistake, is it?” he sympathized. “You really thought your money was all you needed to get Marlene to let you stick around?”

Joe didn’t bother to nod. He’d already copped to the details. His dad was just rubbing it in now.

“Yeah, boy, it’s always worse when they tell you to go, especially when you’re afraid they mean it. When your mama kicked me out of the house, she told me if I ever came back, she’d shoot me.”

That was new information. “Mom told you to go?” he asked.

“You bet your ass, she told me to go. Swore she meant it too. What with the screaming and the cursing, it took balls I didn’t have to go back to the house. Had my tail so far between my legs, it was wrapped around my cock. Couldn’t even look her in the eyes.”

Joe could well imagine. Helen Rafferty in a rage had been a truly terrifying vision. He kept his eyes on his dad, waiting for the end of the story.

“It was the most humbling moment of my life when your mama forgave me. I never strayed from her side again.”

Just the once. A mistake then, not a curse.

“Go back to Marlene, son. Learn something from your old man. Apologize. Stick around until she knows you mean it.”

“She doesn’t want me to stay, Dad.”

“Women are complicated. They say things they don’t mean. They mean things they don’t say. And sometimes they don’t know what the heck they want in the first place until they try it on for a while. Your mama drove me flat-out crazy, but I didn’t care. She was worth it. The good ones are worth it. You’ll see.”

Joe hung his head. “She heard me call her a piece of ass.”

His dad chortled. “Well, then you better get your tail between your legs. Unless I miss my guess, she’ll want you to come back, just so she can torture you some more. Just like your mama liked to torture me.” He glanced at the table where his drink wasn’t. “My girl is gone
—
yours is still waiting. Go get her, son.”

“She’s not waiting for me.” Joe’s voice was dead certain. “Marlene’s either running Chameleon right now or she’s quit and has moved on to another restaurant entirely.”

“So go find her. No boy of mine wimps out and hides in the woods when he still has a chance. You’ve got too much of me in you to give up a good fight.” Joe was shocked to hear pride in his father’s voice.

His dad fished around in the front pocket of his bib overalls. He pulled out something shiny and examined the small object. Then he flipped it through the air.

Joe caught it.

His mother’s engagement ring.

Damn.

His dad had made a mistake, a huge one, but in the end, his father had made amends and Helen Rafferty, with her clear eyes and fresh lipstick, had loved him to the very end of her life. His father, for all his sins, had whispered a kiss into his wife’s last breath. Joe would bet on it.

“Go get your girl, son. Your mama would approve.”

Before Joe had a chance to respond, he heard gravel crunching under slow tires. A car was making its way over the ridge.

“Expecting company?” he asked his father.

“Nope.”

Both men grinned when a car with a New York plate crested the ridge. “Told you she was a keeper.”