MARCH 1-4
1105 Words
“I’m telling you, Angelo. It sucks out there.”
“What does?”
“This.” Russell turned around his bottle of Birra Morena aiming the label in Angelo’s direction. The beautiful Italian girl on the label was impossibly beautiful: black hair, blue eyes, perfect skin.
“Vecchio mio. You are so sad. You know this. That’s my sister.”
“You don’t have a sister.” Russell considered heaving some of the tiramisu at Angelo, but his kitchen staff was mostly done with cleaning up for the night, so he ate it instead.
“You worry too much. She is a pretty Italian and probably a very nice girl. Nice like your Melanie and almost as pretty.”
Melanie. s**t! He still couldn’t figure out how he’d screwed that up. He dug at the edge of the label with the rough edge of his thumbnail.
Angelo stopped clowning and pulled up a stool next to his.
“Russell, my old friend. What’s up? This is me, Angelo. Every time I mention her since you bring her here two weeks ago, you clam up like an oyster. Come on, buddy. Give.”
“I don’t think she had much fun here.”
“Duh!” Angelo took a sip of Russell’s beer and set it on the stainless-steel prep table.
“What do you mean?” Russell grabbed his bottle back and took a deep pull that did nothing to slake his thirst.
“Please tell me that you didn’t show her the boat?”
Of course he had. Why wouldn’t he? He shrugged and finished the bottle.
“s**t, man! You’ve never been dumb about a girl before. Think, amico. Think about Melanie.”
Every time he did that he saw her eyes watching him from across the hot tub. Eyes filled not with l**t, nor was it playfulness, though that was there…
“That boat is what you want. What do you think she wants?”
He planted the bottle back on the table with a crash and started to get off his stool. Angelo grabbed his arm and jerked him back down to his seat before he could turn away.
He pushed his face so close to his that Russell wanted to pound a fist into it.
“I know what she wants. Even if you’re too damn stupid.”
He let fly and caught Angelo on the point of his jaw. Angelo flew backwards off his stool and crashed against a rack of storage shelves.
Seconds later a dozen hands had grabbed him and shoved him down on the wet, tile floor. He tried to fight back but they had him pinned until all he could do was scream out his frustration.
They let go of him so abruptly that he didn’t move for a moment. He regained his feet to face Angelo who was rubbing his chin. A circle of dishwashers and cooks stood to either side of him; all ready to tackle the bull who’d wandered into their f*****g china shop.
“Good thing you’re half drunk or that wussy-a*s excuse for a punch might have hurt.”
“s**t!” The heat roared to his face. He hadn’t taken a real stab at Angelo since junior high.
“Great! Just f*****g great!” He sat back down on his stool. “Now I’m damn stupid and a wussy-ass.”
Angelo moved forward and clapped him hard on his shoulder. One by one the cooks and dishwashers faded back to their cleanup tasks.
“You are always both of those. In spades.”
“f**k you.”
“Man, it just makes you sick that I’m smarter than you, and better looking too. We Italians, no one as good as us.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s your chin that’s hurting, not mine.”
Angelo opened a fresh pair of beers and sat back down across from him.
“Okay. I’ll give you that much credit. Now, you gonna shut up and you gonna listen to your best buddy Angelo.”
Russell sipped his beer and nodded. He could still feel the heat on his cheeks.
“How do ya feel about Melanie?”
“She’s a lot of fun. We’re good together.”
His friend waited but Russell couldn’t think of what else to say.
Angelo slapped his forehead with his palm. “Figlio di puttana.”
“Calling me a son of a b***h really isn’t helping my mood. Remember who taught me to cuss in Italian.” He aimed a finger at his friend’s white-smocked chest.
“And don’t think Mama didn’t give me hell for that when you paraded it all through the house.” Angelo pushed off his stool, walked to the far end of the kitchen and back.
“Okay, Russell. We a-gonna talk ‘bout sometin’ else. Hokay?”
“Hokay, if you lose the stupid accent.”
“Hokay. I’m making a meal. I think about how I want the diner to enjoy it. Do I start with a light pesto pasta, go to a lemon chicken, and a plate of Santa Lucia cookies with decaf coffee? Or do I start with the same pasta, but with veal meatballs. Then I follow with Rabbit alla Campagnola, a tiramisu, and an aged port. Light and fluffy. Serious and solid. You with me?”
“I have no idea where you’re going with this, but I’m not stupid.”
Angelo slapped him upside the head. “You’re an i***t. Now shut up and listen to Angelo, your only friend in the world.”
“Hokay. But I might have to pay you back for that.”
Angelo rubbed a hand across his jaw and Russell shut up.
“Now. I tell you about another meal. Then you tell me ‘light and fluffy’ or ‘serious and solid.’ Deal?”
“Deal.” One of the burlier cooks swung by and stared at Russell to make sure he wasn’t getting out of line.
“My boyfriend invites me across the country for a holiday. Not any holiday. Valentine’s Day. You probably greeted her with roses.”
“A dozen reds. Prickly bastards.”
“Shut up. I didn’t give you permission to talk.”
Russell closed his mouth.
“Takes me to nice restaurants. Has enough damn brains to bring me to the best restaurant in town where his best friend cooks like he never cooked before.”
“It was good.”
“It was a f**k of a lot better than good. Then a nice hotel.”
“The Sorrento. Penthouse.”
“Damn nice hotel. More roses?”
“More roses. Champagne. Strawberries.”
“Shut up.”
Russell shut up.
“Now, my boyfriend does all that for me, what am I thinking?”
“I don’t want a boyfriend.”
“s**t, Russell. I’m trying to help you out here.” For a moment he thought Angelo might return the favor by massaging Russell’s chin with a fist.
“Okay. Okay.” So, if he were Melanie, he’d be wearing a little— Yeah. Shaddup, Russell. If he were Melanie, who had just received first class tickets, roses, scenic flights, penthouse suite…
“Oh s**t!”
Angelo raised his hands to the sky. “There but by the grace of god go I.”
“I proposed to her.”
“But you didn’t.”
He closed his eyes. But he hadn’t.
He’d wanted her to come out Seattle and have a good time. To see that there was life beyond the city and maybe she’d want to go sailing with him. They’d have a hell of a lot of fun.
But they wouldn’t.
He would have the fun and she’d be miserable every single day.
He could see her eyes. Finally understood how she’d looked at him in the shower.
He lay his head down on the cool stainless steel of the counter. It burned against his flushed face.
Russell also finally understood the expression in the photograph as she soaked in the hot tub.
Angelo rested his hand on Russell’s shoulder for a moment before going to finish closing his restaurant.
Of course he hadn’t recognized it.
He’d never photographed love before.
- Writer
