The Next Best Thing (4 page)

The bell over the front door opens, and in comes Captain Bob, an old friend of my father’s. Bob owns a forty-foot boat in which he takes groups for a one-hour cruise around Mackerly, complete with colorful narrative and irregular history. I know, because I often pilot his boat as a part-time job.

“Hello there, Daisy. A beautiful day, isn’t it?” His ruddy face, the result of too much sun and Irish coffee, flushes redder still. He’s been in love with my mother for decades. “And who’ve you got there?” Captain Bob adds, his voice softening. He takes another step toward Mom.

Mom turns away. “My granddaughter. Don’t breathe on her. She’s only five days old.”

“Of course. She’s beautiful,” Bob says, looking at the floor.

“What can I get you, Captain Bob?” I ask.
Other than a date with my mom.

“Oh, I’ll have a cheese danish, if that’s okay,” he says with a grateful smile.

“Of course it’s okay.” I smile while fetching his order. The poor guy comes in every day to stare at my mother, who takes great delight in snubbing him. Perhaps this should be my first lesson in dating—treat men badly, and they’ll love you forever. Then again, I never had to treat Jimmy badly. Just one look, as the song says. That’s all it took.

My sister emerges from the bathroom, her eyes red. “I need to feed her,” she announces. “My boobs are about to explode. Oh, hi, Captain Bob.”

Bob flinches and murmurs congratulations, then takes his danish and change.

“Is nursing hygienic?” Rose wonders.

“Of course it is. Best thing for the baby.” Iris turns to Captain Bob. “My daughter’s a lesbian doctor. An obstetrician. She says nursing’s best.” It is true that my cousin Anne is a lesbian and an obstetrician…not a doctor to lesbians (or not solely lesbians) as Iris’s description always causes me to think. Bob murmurs something, then slinks out the door with another look of longing for my mother, which she pretends to ignore.

“I never nursed,” Rose muses. “In my day, only the hippies nursed. They don’t bathe every day, you know. The hippies.”

Corinne takes the baby to the only table in Bunny’s—the Black Widows don’t encourage people to linger. “This is not the Starbucks,” they like to announce. “We don’t ship food in from a truck. Get your fancy-shmancy coffee somewhere else. This is a
bakery
.” My aunts are one of the many reasons the Starbucks down the street does such a brisk business.

Corinne lifts up her shirt discreetly, fumbles at her
bra, then moves the baby into position. She winces, gasps and then, seeing me watch, immediately slaps a smile on her face.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

“Oh, no,” she lies. “It’s…a little…it’s fine. I’ll get used to it.” Sweat breaks out on her forehead, and her eyelids flutter in pain, but that smile doesn’t drop.

The bell rings again, announcing another visitor. Two, in this case. Parker and Nicky.

“Nicky!” the Black Widows cry, falling on the lad like vultures on fresh roadkill. The boy is kissed and hugged and worshipped. He grins at me, and I wave, my heart swelling with love. He is a beautiful boy, the image of Ethan.

“Is there frosting?” he asks, and my mother and aunts lead him to the back to sugar him up.

“Frosting’s not good for him, Parker,” my sister points out, wiping the nursing-induced sweat from her forehead. “It’s all sugar. You shouldn’t let them give Nicky sugar.”

“Well, given that
my
aunts taught me how to throw up after meals,” Parker replies calmly, “a little frosting therapy seems pretty benign.” She smiles at me. “Hi, Luce.”

“Hi, Parker,” I return, smiling back.

Maybe it’s because she was the first friend I made after being widowed, one of the few people in town who hadn’t known me before, maybe it’s because I generously ignore the fact that she’s tall, slim, gorgeous and rich, but Parker and I are friends. The first thing she ever said to me upon learning that I was Ethan’s brother’s widow, was “Jesus! That just sucks!” No platitudes, no awkward expressions of sympathy. I found that quite refreshing. I was rather flattered when she called me after her breakup with Ethan, and even more when she included me on the details of her pregnancy. At the time, everyone else was still doing the
kid-gloves thing.
Don’t mention babies…she’s a widow. Don’t talk about your love life…she’s a widow.
To Parker, I was just me—a widow, yes, but a person first. You’d be surprised how rare that take on things can be.

“So this is the baby,” Parker says now, leaning over to gaze on Emma, who is glugging away like a frat boy at a kegger. “Wow. She really is beautiful, Corinne.”

“Thanks,” Corinne says, shifting the baby away so as to avoid any ebola or tuberculosis Parker may be carrying. “Lucy, can you just reach into my bag and dial Chris’s number? I just want to check in.”

“You just called him,” I remind her.

“I know,” she says, a tear slipping down her cheek.

“You okay, honey?” I ask. “Is this just hormonal?”

“I’m wonderful,” she says, smiling through her tears.

I do as instructed. Corinne takes the phone and stands, the baby still firmly attached, and wanders into the corner to talk with her husband once more.

“Your sister has issues,” Parker states, glancing into the kitchen to ensure that her son is eating enough frosting. She takes Corinne’s seat and smiles.

“True enough. How was your weekend?”

“It was great. Ethan came over, and we all watched
Tarzan,
and then he rigged up a rope in the dining room so Nicky could swing around like the Ape Man. Wait till my dad sees that.” She smiles fondly. The dining room at Grayhurst (yes, the house has a name, which I always thought was so cool) probably could seat a couple dozen.

“Sounds fun.” I pause. “Um, so, guess what? I’m going to start dating again.”

“Oh, yeah? You and Ethan gonna be a real couple?”

Parker knows about Ethan and me and our, er, arrangement. I told her one night, over too many mojitos and not
enough food. Parker never seemed to have a problem with it. It was long after they’d broken up, after all.

“No. Not Ethan. He’s just…no.”

“He’s just what?” Parker asks, picking up one of Corinne’s ignored cookies and taking a bite. “He’s great in bed, as I dimly recall. Of course, it was almost five years ago, and we were only together a little while, but I remember this thing he did—”

“Shh!” I glance around, praying that the Black Widows haven’t overheard. “Please, Parker!”

“What?”

“What? Well, Ethan’s my brother-in-law,” I whisper. “And just for the record—again—no one else knows that we’ve been…um…intimate. I’d like to keep it that way, okay?”

“Well, aside from him being Jimmy’s brother, why?” Parker says in a lower voice. “He’s a great dad, which I’m sure is number one on your list of priorities.”

I blink. “How did you know there was a list?”

“Please. Of course there’s a list. Probably a color-coded list.”

There is a list, of course, and yes, Strong Fatherhood Potential is indeed in the top three (in red, for nonnegotiable). I bite my lip. “Well, Ethan’s not, um…the right type.”

“Except in bed?” Parker suggests with an evil smile.

“Shh, Parker! Come on!” She chuckles, and I sigh. “He’s just not…well, first of all, I want a husband who’s not going to die anytime soon. And Ethan’s always jumping out of things and driving a motorcycle and stuff like that.”

“He wears a helmet,” Parker says.

“Not good enough.”

“So is immortality also on the list, then?” She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“Of course not. I’m not unrealistic. But yes, Low Risk for Early Death is on the list.” Number one in fact. Parker grins, and I continue. “The fact remains that Ethan, while a great guy, is just not for me, okay? And you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you’ve told me the same thing, even though you’d make a beautiful family and could have more little Nickys running around.”

Parker smiles. “Did you know he moved back to Mackerly?”

I pause. “Ethan?”

“Yes, dummy.”

“What do you mean?”

Parker takes another bite of cookie. “He took a job with International Food’s headquarters in Providence so he could be closer to Nick. Around all the time, not just on weekends.”

“Oh,” I say, mildly hurt that I don’t know this already. Right…he mentioned something Friday night about having something to tell me, but must’ve forgotten. “Wow. That’s big news.”

“Mmm. Anyway. He’ll be back permanently as of this weekend.”

“Well. That’s good.” I pause. “Good for Nicky, certainly.”

“Mommy! I ate blue frosting!” Speaking of Nick, the little guy charges out of the kitchen, the lower half of his face stained with blue from the hideous fondant Rose uses to frost her cakes (I’d only use butter cream, but Rose is the cake decorator at Bunny’s, no matter how superior my frosting might be).

“That’s great, buddy!” Parker says. “Give me a blue kiss, okay?” She leans over and puckers, and Nicky laughingly obeys.

“Want one, Aunt Wucy?” he asks. Though he’s lately
mastered his L sound, he still calls me “Wucy,” which I find utterly irresistible.

“I sure do, honey,” I answer. He climbs onto my lap and obliges, and I breathe in his smell, salt and shampoo and sugar and hug him tight for second, relishing his perfect little form, before he wriggles down to play with his Matchbox cars.

“I gotta get going. Books to write.” She sighs dramatically.

Parker is the author of a successful children’s series—The Holy Rollers, child-angels who come down from heaven, don roller-skates and help mortal kids make good choices. Parker hates the Holy Rollers with a mighty passion and wrote the first one as a farce…stories so sticky-sweet that they made her teeth ache. However, her sarcasm was lost on an old Harvard chum who ran the children’s division of a huge publishing company, and The Holy Rollers are now published in fourteen languages.

“What’s this one about?” I ask, grinning.

She smiles. “
The Holy Rollers and the Big Mean Bully
, in which the God Squad descends to beat the shit out of Jason, the seventh-grade thug who steals lunch money.”

“Beat the shit out of Jason!” Nicky echoes, zipping his car along the window.

“Oops. Don’t tell Daddy I said that, okay?” Parker asks her son, who agrees amiably.

“Want me to keep an eye out?” Parker asks, scooping up Nicky’s little cars into her buttery leather pocketbook.

“For what?” I ask.

“For your new husband?”

“Oh. Sure. I guess,” I say.

“Now there’s a can-do attitude!” she says with a wink, then takes my nephew by the hand and breezes out, her blond hair fluttering in the wind.

E
THAN WAS TWO YEARS BEHIND ME
at Johnson & Wales. I didn’t know him until my junior year—while I’d grown up in Mackerly, the Mirabelli family had moved to town and opened Gianni’s my second year of college. They heralded from Federal Hill, the Italian section of Providence, and their restaurant was an instant success. I’d eaten there a time or two, but I hadn’t met any of the family until Ethan approached me one day as I was lounging on the grass at school, sketching out my final project for Advanced Cake Decorating.

“Aren’t you one of those bakery babes from Mackerly?” he asked. I grinned and affirmed that indeed I was.

“I’m Ethan Mirabelli,” he said. “My family owns Gianni’s. Do you know it?”

“I sure do,” I said. “Best food this side of Providence.” I shaded my eyes and took a better look at young Ethan Mirabelli. Fairly cute. Lively brown eyes, mischievous smile, the kind that curled up at the corners in a most adorable way. “Do you work there?”

“Not yet. My brother and dad are the chefs now, but maybe someday. What about you? Are you in the chef program, too?” he asked, sitting on the grass next to me.

“Pastry chef. I’m a sucker for dessert,” I answered.

“She loves sweet things,” Ethan murmured, lifting an
eyebrow and giving me a sidelong glance. Flirt. I grinned again. “You’ll have to come in and try my mom’s tiramisu,” he said. “It’s the best in four states. Including New York.”

Ethan and I became instant pals. We hung out together, met for lunch a couple times a week, sat together on the old couches at the Cable Car theater and watched foreign movies, snickering inappropriately at the love scenes. “Sex in German,” Ethan murmured. “How awful.” The couple next to us glared, then muttered to each other—in German—sending us into gales of silent, wheezing laughter.

We didn’t date, but we were compadres. He was a sophomore, I was a senior, and we were at the age where that still sort of mattered…my almost twenty-two felt much older than his still nineteen. He couldn’t go out for a beer—not legally, anyway—and I was interviewing with hotels and restaurants while he was years away from graduation. And though he was pretty cute and very fun, it wasn’t, as we girls liked to say,
that way.
We never held hands or kissed or anything. We were just friends.

A few months after we met, Ethan and I shared the short ride home to Mackerly, and he brought me to Gianni’s.

“Hey, guys,” he called as we went into the kitchen.

“Hey, college boy, nice of you to drop by and visit the working class” came a voice, and Jimmy turned around, and that was that.

His eyes got me first…blue-green, ridiculously pretty. The rest of his face was awfully nice, too. Gorgeous cheekbones, generous lips, a little smile tugging at one corner. Time seemed to stop; I noticed everything…the golden hair on his muscular forearms, a healing burn on the inside of one wrist. The pulse in his neck, which was tan and smooth and seemed to urge me to bury my face there. Jimmy Mirabelli was tall and strong and smiling, and I
didn’t realize I was staring at him—and he at me—until Ethan cleared his throat.

“This is my brother, Jimmy,” Ethan said. “Jim, this is Lucy Lang. Her family owns Bunny’s Bakery.”

Jimmy took a few steps over, and rather than offer me his hand, he just looked at me, and that little crooked grin grew into a slow smile that spread across his face. “Hi, Lucy Lang,” he murmured as I blushed. Ethan said something, but I didn’t hear. For the first time in my young life, I’d been hit hard with lust. Sure, I’d had a couple of boyfriends here and there, but this…this was indeed
that way.
A warm squeeze wrapped around my stomach, my mouth went dry, my cheeks burned. Then Jimmy Mirabelli did take my hand, and I almost swooned.

Hours after I left the restaurant, Jimmy called the bakery and asked me out. I said yes. Of course I did. And when Ethan and I drove back to school that Sunday night, I thanked him for introducing me to his brother. “He’s a great guy,” Ethan said mildly, then listened as I gushed some more.

Jimmy Mirabelli was, I quickly learned, the missing link in my life—a man.

It hadn’t been easy for Mom, raising Corinne and me alone. She’d done her best—we had enough money, with Dad’s life insurance policy and Mom’s small but regular income from the bakery. Mom wasn’t a bad mother, but she was a little distant, not the type to ask where we were going or with whom—she said she trusted us to make smart decisions, and then she’d turn back to her crossword puzzle or true-crime novel, her parenting done for the night.

I grew up in a constant state of father-envy. I adored my friends’ dads…the approval, the affection, the strictness, the rules. I remember Debbie Keating, my BFF from grade school, getting absolutely chewed out for wearing a trashy
tank top and blue eye shadow to our seventh-grade dance. Boy, did I ever want a dad to make sure
I
wasn’t trashy! To protect me and adore me the way only Dad could. My small and precious cache of memories told me my dad had been a very good father, and a good father loves his daughter like no one else. He adores her, protects her, bails her out when she gets in trouble, defends her from her mother’s chastisement. He urges her to be whatever she wants (president, astronaut, princess), and later in life, advises on which boy is good enough for her (none) and when she can start dating (never).

But, given the Black Widow curse, men were scarce in my life. I had no uncles, no grandfathers, no brothers…my closest male relation was Stevie, and you already know about him. Corinne and I used to try to summon our father, sitting in the closet where my mom still kept a few of his clothes, holding a coat or a sweater against our faces, chanting, “Daddy, Daddy, talk to us, Daddy.”

Mom never even considered dating, but I enjoyed picturing her with another guy, marrying him, some gentle, kind soul who would love Corinne and me as his own and indulge us in ways our mother didn’t. One summer, I waitressed at a nice restaurant in Newport, and Joe Torre, then manager of the New York Yankees, came in for dinner with his wife. Though Rhode Island is part of Red Sox nation and we’re raised to hate all things New York, I thought Mr. Torre was a very nice man. Dinner cost $112 that night; he left $500 and a signed napkin that said “The service was very special. Thank you so much. Joe Torre.” Whenever I pictured a stepfather, it was always Joe Torre’s dolorous, bulldog face that came to mind.

It was fair to say that I was hungry for men…not in the sexual way necessarily, but in the way a vegetarian yearns
for a steak when the scent of roasting meat is in the air. The way a Midwesterner can yearn for the ocean, even if they’ve only seen it once. When a man came into the bakery, I hustled to be the one waiting on him, regardless of his age, and soaked up all that fascinating masculinity—how he moved, spoke, stood. How his eyes crinkled when he smiled at me, how decisively he’d ask for whatever it was he wanted. The blunt fingers, the hair on the back of the hands, the shadow of beard.

At the time I met Jimmy, Ethan was probably my closest male friend, but he was all fun, no gravitas. A boy, in other words, not a man. Not then.

Jimmy…he was a man. Strong, solid, tall, three years older than I was, he was so commanding and capable. He’d never worked anywhere but in a kitchen, and he knew what he was doing. Quick, sure movements, the ability to make a decision in a heartbeat, confident and secure and talented, he was dazzling.

I started coming home from school more and more, because Jimmy’s job didn’t give him much wiggle room on the weekends. Gianni worked in the kitchen alongside his son, yelling at the sous chef and prep chefs, and whenever he saw me, he’d give me a kiss on the cheek and call me Jimmy’s Girl. Marie, who served as hostess of the patrons and terror of the waitstaff, would seat me at the family table, urging me to eat more so I wouldn’t be “so thin.” She’d grill me about if I wanted children (yes), how many did I think I wanted (three or four) and did I ever want to move away from the area (absolutely not). Then she’d smile and, I imagined, do the math as to how much longer she’d have to wait for a grandchild.

And then Jimmy would come out of the kitchen, schmooze a little with the diners, always hearty and
friendly. His eyes would seek me out, and he’d look at me a beat too long, letting me know I was the one he wanted to be with. He’d walk past, back to the kitchen, stopping for a kiss, squeezing me on the shoulder with his strong hands, leaving me in a wake of garlic and lust.

Being with him was being with a local celebrity—someone who was better looking than first remembered, who smelled better, who, when he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off my feet, made me dizzy with love. Everyone knew Jimmy, despite the fact that he’d just moved to town a year or so before, and he remembered everyone’s names, sent over complimentary appetizers, asked after children. Everyone adored him.

He was a wonderful boyfriend, bringing me flowers, hiding notes in my dorm room on the rare occasions he made it to Providence, calling a couple of times a day. He constantly told me I was beautiful, and with him, I felt it like never before. He’d gaze at me as we lay in the grass in Ellington Park as the tidal river flowed past, the smell of brine and flowers mingling as the sun beat down on us, and he’d forget what he was saying, breaking off midsentence to reach out and touch my face with his fingertips or kiss my hand, or even better, lay his head in my lap and say, “This is all I’ll ever need. This and a little food.”

It was Jimmy who gave Bunny’s a boost when he suggested that Gianni’s buy their bread from us. He recommended us to other restaurants, too, and that side of the business mushroomed. My mother and aunts thought he just about walked on water because of it. “That Jimmy,” they’d say, shaking their heads, their dormant love of men peeking through the snows of their widowhood. “He’s something, that Jimmy. He’s a keeper, Lucy.”

They didn’t have to tell me.

Jimmy waited till I was done with college to propose. He asked me to have a late dinner with him at Gianni’s one night, after everyone else had left. It was something we did once in a while, the restaurant only lit by a few candles. I still remember the taste of everything he made that night…the sweetness of the tomatoes, the yeasty tug of the bread, the smooth vodka sauce on the perfectly cooked pasta, the tender, buttery chicken.

When it came time for dessert, Jimmy went into the kitchen and returned with two dishes of Marie’s famous tiramisu, a cool, rich combination of chocolate cream, sponge cake and coffee liqueur topped with the creamy mascarpone. He set my dish down in front of me. I glanced down, saw the engagement ring perched on top of the cream. Without missing a beat, I picked it up, licked it off and put it on my finger as Jimmy laughed, low and dirty. Then I looked into Jimmy’s confident, smiling, utterly handsome face and knew I’d spend the rest of my life crazy in love with this guy.

Obviously things didn’t turn out quite that way.

When we’d been married for eight months, Jimmy drove down to New York for a chef supply show. He’d gotten up at 5:00 a.m. to get there early, spent the whole day learning about new oven technologies, hearing how remodeling a restaurant kitchen could save time and money, looking at hundreds of new or redesigned tools for the chef. Then he and a bunch of other chefs headed out for dinner.

It was past midnight when he called me from outside New Haven, nearly two hours from Mackerly.

“You didn’t have too much to drink, did you?” I asked, cuddled up in our bed. I’d been waiting up for him, and in truth was disappointed that he was still so far away.

“No, baby. One glass of wine at about five, that’s it. You know me.”

I smiled, mollified. “Well, you’re not too tired, are you?”

“I’m a little beat,” he admitted, “but not too bad. I miss you. I just want to get home and see your beautiful face and smell your hair and get laid.”

I laughed. “Now that’s funny,” I said, “because I just want to see
your
beautiful face and get laid, too.”

I didn’t say,
Jimmy, at least pull over and take a nap.
I didn’t say,
Baby, we have our whole lives together. Get a motel room and go to sleep
. Instead, I said, “I love you, honey. Can’t wait to see you.” And he said the same thing, and that was the last thing he ever did say.

About a hundred minutes after we hung up, Jimmy fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into an oak tree six miles from home and died instantly, and the rest of my life was rewritten.

“H
OW’S THE CAKE
?” I ask Ash, my seventeen-year-old Goth neighbor from down the hall.

“It’s fantastic. You sure you don’t want any?”

“I’m sure. I taught this one in class, remember? You can make it yourself.” Ash, who doesn’t have a lot of friends her own age, helps out at my six-week pastry class from time to time.

“Why bake for myself when I, like, have my own bakery right down the hall?” She takes another huge bite. “Anyway, stop stalling, Lucy. Get this done.”

Feeling the need for a little company, I’d bribed Ash with bittersweet chocolate cake and the latest James Bond DVD. Tonight, I’m registering on a dating Web site, and while it seems like the perfect way for me to find someone, my stomach jumps nonetheless. I drain my wineglass, then
drop a kiss on Fat Mikey’s head. He blinks fondly at me, then, fickle as only a cat can be, pricks my knee with his claws and jumps down.

“Lucy, I’m, like, aging rapidly here,” Ash reminds me. “I do have school tomorrow, and my stupid mother wants me home at like, eleven.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I mutter. I need to do this. Aside from hitting a sperm bank, this is the way to get what I want. Find a husband. I glance at my young friend, who could also do with a boyfriend. As always, her hair is Magic-Marker black, her eyes ringed with eyeliner, her eyebrows painfully overplucked. Because she’s been eating, some of her black lipstick has been dislodged, revealing a Cupid’s bow mouth in the prettiest imaginable shade of pink.

“What are you staring at?” she asks. “Get your butt in gear. The movie’s two hours long.”