Romano's Revenge

“Sì. It is a name. Luciana Bari.”

The vowels and consonants rolled off his grandmother’s tongue. Joe’s jaw tightened.

“And just who in hell is Luciana Bari?”

“Do not curse, Joseph.”

“And don’t you try and change the subject. We just spent an hour talking about teenyboppers, overage widows and your sneaky attempts to marry me off. If you for one minute think you can get away with this—”

Oh, damn. His grandmother’s eyes filled with tears. Joe grabbed her hand.

“Nonna. Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to call you sneaky. But after all we discussed, for you to imagine I’d be pleased by—”

“Luciana Bari isn’t a woman,” Nonna said. “She is a cook.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. Joe took out his handkerchief and gave it to her. “A cook?”

“Yes. A talented one.” Nonna dabbed at her eyes. “She made the gelato and even you admit it was delicious.”

Joe sat back. Trapped! Warning bells began to sound in his head; lights flickered and flashed before his eyes.

“Well,” he said slowly, “yeah. It was. I mean, it is. But what does this Luciana Bari have to do with me?”

“She is your gift, Joseph. “ Nonna’s lip trembled. “My gift to you. And I am saddened that you would think I was trying to, as you say, ‘con’ you.”

Dammit, she was. Joe knew she was—but her lip was still trembling and her eyes were still glittering. And, to be honest, the lingering taste of the gelato was still in his mouth.

“My gift,” he said carefully. “So, what does that mean, exactly? Is this Luciana Bari going to cook me a birthday meal?”

Nonna laughed gaily. “One meal,” she said, waving her hand. “What good would that be? I would still worry that you were not eating right. No, Joey. Signorina Bari is going to work for you.”

“Work for me?” Joe got to his feet. “Now, wait just a minute—”

“She will cost you very little.”

“She will cost me?” His eyes narrowed. His grandmother had reduced him to playing the role of a not terribly smart parrot. “Let me get this straight. You give me a cook as a gift, and I get to pay?”

“Of course.” Nonna stood up. “You wouldn’t want me to spend my money on your cook’s salary, would you?”

Joe’s eyes got even narrower. There was something wrong with her logic. With this entire thing, for that matter…

“What if I say no?”

“Well,” Nonna said, and sighed, “in that case, I suppose I’ll have to phone Signorina Bari and tell her she has no job. It will be difficult, because she needs one so badly.” She turned away and began clearing the table. “She has debts, you see.”

“Debts,” Joe repeated. It was parrot-time again. “She has debts?”

“Yes. The poor woman has not been here long. Just a little while and—”

“She’s from the Old Country?”

Nonna squirted dishwashing detergent into the sink and turned on the hot water.

“The poor soul only came here five, six months ago. She knows nothing of our ways. As for money, well, you know how expensive it is in this city, Joseph, especially for someone new. And she is not young, which makes it even more difficult to start over.”

Joe sank down in the chair, turned his eyes to the ceiling and huffed out a breath. A little old immigrant lady, probably with no more than a dozen words of English, alone and adrift in the complex seas of San Francisco…

“Not to worry, Joseph.” Nonna cast a sad smile over her shoulder. “I’ll tell her I made a mistake, offering her a job with you. I’m sure she can convince her landlord to permit her to stay on in her apartment another month. Not even he would be so cruel as to put her out on the street.”

“Her landlord,” Joe muttered, and shook his head.

“Yes. He wants her out by Monday, so she was thrilled when I said she could have that extra room in your house.”

Joe blinked. “Now wait just a minute—”

“Hand me that pot, would you? The one on the back burner.”

Slowly, like a man holding an impossibly heavy weight on his shoulders, Joe got to his feet, handed his grandmother the pot and reached for a dish towel.

“Ah, Joseph, just look at you.” Nonna put her hand on his. “I’ve taken the smile from your handsome face.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Well, I hate to think of some little old lady out on the street.”

“That’s because you have a kind heart.” Nonna sighed. “But, truly, this is not your problem. I was wrong to tell the signorina you would employ her, I know that now. Not to worry, bambino. We have so many wonderful things here in America. Soup kitchens. Welfare offices—”

“I suppose I could let her work for me for a little while,” Joe said slowly.

He’d expected his grandmother to say it wasn’t necessary, to argue just a little. Instead she swung towards him, beaming.

“You are a good boy, Joseph! I knew you would do this for her.”

“I’m doing it for you. And I won’t do it for long.”

“No. Certainly not.” Nonna’s smile broadened. “Two months, three—”

“Two weeks,” Joe corrected. “Three, max. By then, I’ll expect the signora to have found herself a real job and a real place to live.”

“Signorina.” Nonna made a face. “Not that it matters,” she said, plunging her hands into the soapy water. “The poor woman.”

“What?” Joe frowned. “Is there something else I should know about her?”

“Honesty compels me to point out that the signorina is not at all attractive.”

Joe thought back to the widow and that eyebrow.

“No?”

“No. The signorina is very pale. And very thin. She is shapeless, like a boy.” Nonna made curving motions over her own ample bosom. “She has no—no—”