“She’s the one who’d been admitted with a tumor when your brother was there, and the damn thing just vanished overnight.” Sal munched on a breadstick, dunking it into the cacciatore sauce before each bite.
Nick took a bite of a breadstick in concert with his father. “Man,
these are good.”
Sal nodded without looking up.
“I don’t really know that much about her,” said Nick, “but she must know something about me. Or heard something, because when I asked her out, she said no.”
Sal looked up this time. “No?” “Well, it was more like hell no.”
“Does she know about your mom? Your brother?”
“I didn’t really have a chance to say anything. But Jerry knows her.”
“So how is the Comb-over Kid?” asked Sal. “And why isn’t he here for dinner?” Jerry, like Nick, was in his late thirties, but balding with a comb-over you could see from outer space.
“Well, they served dinner at the event …”
“You ate already?” he yelled from across the table. Nick knew that if he were any closer to his dad, a slap to the back of the head would have been included with the question.
“No, no, I just picked to be polite. I couldn’t wait to get home to your famous cacciatore. Besides, hey, we’re Italian. We can’t eat dinner twice?”
Sal smiled. Nick could always tell how proud his father was of his spunk, his self-confidence, and the sense of humor he got from his mom.
“I bet Jerry would love to have some of these leftovers tomorrow, though.”
“Only if you promise to make sure Bongero doesn’t eat any of it.”
“Nah, he’s out of town, so the office is quiet this week. The only excitement is that our new secretary just started. This should be interesting.”
“Well, try not to scare this one off, will ya?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Dad, Tracy left to be a yoga instructor. I never saw that coming. I just thought she liked to stretch a lot.”
“Yoga. What the hell is yoga? Sounds foreign.”