Not Exactly a Love Story by Audrey Couloumbis

Author:Audrey Couloumbis [Couloumbis, Audrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780375898655
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2012-12-11T07:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-THREE

I looked in the fridge to see what my options were. Another egg sandwich or PB&J. And of course there were the deli packages, paper-wrapped.

But I found a few small zucchini in the same crisper. Mom only bought vegetables that were out of season. Her urge to enjoy them lasted until she was faced with the problem of how to cook them.

The zucchini made me want to sit down to Dad’s cooking. I went through the contents of the kitchen shelves and found a box of linguini. Uh-huh, I said to myself as I chose a small can of chopped tomatoes, another of mushrooms. Back to the fridge. A rather soft onion. Cream, for Mr. B’s coffee, but I wouldn’t use it all. Good enough.

I’d make a variation on a pasta-and-sour-cream dish Dad used to make the night before he had a busy day of auditions. Whoever got in first put it into the oven to reheat. But I could make the sauce while the pot boiled and have a hot meal in half an hour.

Once I’d collected the main ingredients, I turned on the radio, unbuttoned a couple of shirt buttons, and flipped up my collar. Vincenzo was cooking tonight.

I was giving the spaghetti a toss when someone knocked at the kitchen door. Snatching at a sauced stick of zucchini, I popped it into my mouth as I answered the door. Patsy was standing outside, shivering in a soft dark sweater with a wide neck that left one shoulder to fend for itself in the cold.

“Hi. I thought since we’re neighbors …,” she said, and shivered. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” God. Maybe she’d guessed. Guessed but wasn’t sure.

Her eyes slid past me to the spaghetti dish. And then, as if she might bolt, she added, “Didn’t your parents go out?”

“They did,” I said, licking my fingers free of the sauce. She’d been watching? I stepped back so she could come in. Might as well learn the worst.

“I have a kind of favor to ask and I hope you won’t be offended.” All at once she sounded less sure of herself than the Patsy I knew, and she looked decidedly uncomfortable. “See, I need some Italian first names. Men’s names, and your stepdad is Italian.”

This visit wasn’t about me. At least it wasn’t about making an accusation. I hoped it was okay to be talking to her like this—my T-shirt was being put to the test.

“Italian first names?” she repeated, like maybe I hadn’t been paying attention.

I decided not to catch on too quick. “What are they?”

She said, “I don’t know.”

I turned obtuse up to maximum. “I gathered you don’t know, but if you don’t give him the list, how can he translate?”

“I don’t need a translation. I want him to give me a list. Just go through the alphabet and give me a few names for each letter. Do you think he would do that?”

I said, “I guess so,” but what I wanted to say, the way she said it to me, she must be counting on a lot of calls.

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