Roosevelt: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Novella by Cate C. Wells

Author:Cate C. Wells [Wells, Cate C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-16T18:30:00+00:00

I wish I could stay in bed and mope. It’s Sunday. I don’t have work. But it’s not in the Mazza genes to lie abed. Nonna would whack me with her broom if I wasn’t up by seven.

I change into a fresh pair of sweatpants and tug on a T-shirt. Denise is still snoring on her bed, but she’s made her way under the covers. I brew some coffee, and then I head for the Stonecut Meat and Market.

It’s an odd grocery story. It carries a lot of Amish and Mennonite foods. Pickled beets, jams, summer sausages, and Long Johns. There’s a butcher attached, so the meats are as fresh and local as it gets. You can get venison and rabbit. There’s also a lot of products for the folks who moved out from the city. Espresso, fig spread, gruyere, taleggio, all kinds of stinky cheese.

When I get there, I’m one of three cars in the parking lot. There’s a pick-up truck parked by the front doors. A local farmer is setting out jars of raw honey and jam on the tailgate. The market reserves spaces for locals selling produce and homemade goods. They must take a cut. It gives the place a farmer’s market feel, too.

I head on in. We’re good on honey, and I make my own preserves.

I don’t need much. Capers. Fresh basil. A red bell pepper.

Chicken cacciatore is easy. Denise isn’t much of a cook, though, and she’s nostalgic for Nonna’s cooking. Denise is twelve years older than me, and when I was really little, she moved up here with her ex-husband. She always came home for holidays and birthdays, though.

When she was younger, she worked at Mazza’s as a waitress. There was a great picture of her in Nonno’s office in high bangs and shoulder pads, sitting on a customer’s lap and feeding him a noodle.

By the time I get home, she’s in the shower. She has those Mazza genes, too. I go ahead and start trimming the chicken. It’s too early to cook dinner, but I’m at loose ends. I need to do something with my hands.

I’m afraid I’ll dig my phone out of my purse and call Theo back.

My whole body’s tense. Talking to him—it felt like I was back home. Not in a certain place, but a certain time.

Like when Nonno got it in his head to teach Theo to foxtrot. Theo had been headed to the clubs, and Nonno decided to bust his chops. Nonno told him dances today had no class. Theo called him old timer, and they argued, voices raised, playful and bombastic.

I was so embarrassed, but when Theo realized Nonno was gonna make me be his partner, he instantly changed his tune and took off his jacket.

Nonno put on a Bobby Darin record. He played “Always” while he barked, “Forward! Back! Turn!”

Theo smiled the entire time we danced, his baseball hat on backwards, his diamond earring glittering.

He was terrible. We were all laughing. Maria and Gino came out of the kitchen to watch, and then to show the youngblood how it’s done.

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