CHAPTER ELEVEN
MELANIE
“Come in,” I called at the knock on the door.
A cloud of carrot-colored hair preceded the anxious face of Patsy del Ray.
“Um, Melanie,” she said, “sorry to disturb you.”
“You’re not disturbing me, Patsy. How can I help you?”
Patsy tossed an uneasy glance at the empty space behind her, then eased inside the office. “I’m off the clock now to go pick up my kids, but I just wanted to double-check what time I should be back here tonight.”
“Five o’clock will be fine,” I said, repeating the same thing I’d already told the staff twice today. Patsy was a forty-year-old single mother who used to ride the rodeo circuit. Dominic had second-guessed me on hiring her because she had no serving experience, but so far my instincts had proven correct. Throughout training, Patsy had proved to be our most capable and conscientious worker, setting a good tone for the younger employees. Besides, if you can stay on a horse, you’re probably not going to drop plates.
Patsy bit her lip and then continued. “I know we already discussed this, but Mr. Esposito just told me to come confirm with you before I took off.”
“Well, you can tell Mr. Esposito you’re all clear until five.”
Patsy nodded, looking relieved. Dominic made her visibly nervous. Actually he made all the new staff a little jumpy. The closer we inched toward opening day, the more he brooded about every little detail. I couldn’t really blame him for agonizing over his own restaurant, but I wished he’d make an effort to be friendlier, at least to the newbies. They all kind of tiptoed around him as if he was a wild animal outside of his cage.
“I’ll be back soon,” Patsy promised. “My mom is going to be bringing the girls by tonight, and they’re so excited.”
I smiled. “We’re all excited.”
After Patsy left, I paused and chewed thoughtfully on my pen. Only two days remained until the grand opening. Tonight was the soft opening for friends and family. It was both a courtesy event and a marketing tactic. We were expecting a sizable crowd of friends, relatives, and a few members of the local press. All food and drinks were on the house as the point of the event wasn’t to turn a profit but to welcome Esposito’s to the neighborhood and get word out about the food.
Since the crack of dawn this morning, both Dominic and Gio had been putting the finishing touches on the dining room and testing out the kitchen equipment. In between taking care of a few administrative tasks, I’d been giving pep talks to the staff. Aimee, Carl, and Tim would be here from Espo 1, so we’d have some seasoned employees, but our new people were nervous. I was a little nervous with them. In a few short hours, I’d be right out there on the floor in an Esposito’s T-shirt, taking orders and serving food.
One thing I’d learned was the virtue of dressing comfortably when it came to rushing around with pizza trays balanced on each palm. The corporate look that I’d clung to so stubbornly had been abandoned, and now I arrived at work every day in a clean Esposito’s T-shirt and either a pair of jeans or a comfortable, flowing skirt, and minimal makeup. I didn’t miss dressing up. I loved the feel of tennis shoes instead of punishing heels. Plus I enjoyed the activity and the people and the sense that I was part of a bigger picture, a family. I hadn’t felt that way in a long time.
The weekly payroll still needed to be processed, so I tried to focus on that. I printed out the reports and began checking off each line item, using a brand-new pen that wrote in six different colors. I collected pens. Not intentionally, I just tended to accumulate them. I was forever forgetting how many I had and recklessly acquiring more. If someone had to inventory my life’s possessions, they would find thirty-eight pairs of shoes, endless wads of cat hair, and enough blue ballpoint pens to fill a bathtub.
Meanwhile out there in the restaurant, Dominic was yelling at someone about failing to clean the dough bins properly. I hoped it wasn’t Adam, a sensitive artist who’d already cried twice in training. Sometimes Dominic didn’t realize how much of a bear he could be, especially when he was running on adrenaline and caffeine.
I was in the middle of double-checking the payroll reports when the office door was thrown open with such force the knob hit the wall and left a dent.
A wild-eyed and clearly aggravated Dominic Esposito haunted the doorway. “There you are,” he growled as if I’d been playing hide-and-seek instead of sitting where I was supposed to be sitting and doing the job I was supposed to be doing.
“Yes, here I am,” I said a little warily. I’d become accustomed to his gruff moods. For the most part I’d learned to work well with Dominic. When the occasional clash arose, I tried to bite my tongue and remember that he was the boss. But whether the atmosphere was cooperative or stormy, there was always an underlying current of erotic tension that kept me on edge. I saw the way he watched me. And I saw the way he would jerk his head in the other direction and pretend otherwise. I wondered if he realized how much I watched him too.
Dominic jerked his head. “I don’t have time to run through the food handling procedures with the kitchen staff again. I need you to take care of it.”
“Sure,” I said, even though I’d already done that at least ten times. By this point I was confident the kitchen staff had memorized the rules even better than I had. “Let me just finish payroll, and I’ll get right on it.”
“Fine.” Dominic started to walk away.
I stood up. “Wait.”
He turned around, scowling. “What?”
“Remember what I told you earlier?”
“Melanie, there are eight thousand things that need to happen in the next three hours. Can you be more specific?”
I closed my fist around my pen and tried to ignore his rudeness. “That reporter from the Sun Republic is going to be here later, and she’s doing a piece on the restaurant.”
“Okay.” He shrugged tiredly. “That’s fine.”
I paused, wondering if I ought to press him further when he was obviously in an agitated frame of mind. “Have you given any more thought to what we talked about?”
“Remind me what that was,” he said. He stretched his arms, hooking his fingertips to the top of the doorframe and causing his shirt to stretch over his chest muscles in a way I couldn’t stop staring at.
“The happy hour menu,” I said. “Downtown is loaded with young professionals looking for the next trendy spot to land after a long work week. That spot could be Esposito’s.”
Dominic dropped his arms and was shaking his head before I finished talking. “That’s not really the kind of vibe we’re going for. This is a family restaurant, not a sports bar.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand why you’d close the door on an opportunity. Did you look at the area demographic charts I sent you?”
Dominic squeezed the back of his neck and made a face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. I really hoped he would dash home to shower and clean up before the publicity shots happened. Right now his appearance was closer to a prison inmate’s than a successful restaurateur’s. The fact that he managed to pull it off, looking like a sex god, was beside the point.
“Not yet,” he admitted. Then he stopped glowering and gave me a frank stare. “Melanie, I know I’ve been running around here like a lunatic, and I haven’t taken a moment to thank you for the great job you’ve done. I do notice, though. I do appreciate it. Believe me, every day when I walk in to work, I’m extremely glad you’re here.”
I dropped my pen. My jaw might have fallen. In fact I was so stunned I couldn’t summon any words to respond with. It didn’t matter, though. Dominic was already gone.
Payroll still needed to be processed, or else there’d be twenty-seven livid Esposito’s employees with no money in the bank on Friday. Yet I was finding it tough to concentrate. After working closely with him, I’d come to realize that praise didn’t come easily or naturally to Dominic Esposito. Generally if he wasn’t scowling or shouting, it meant you weren’t screwing up too badly. Words of encouragement had so far seemed to be as rare as a supermoon.
“I’m extremely glad you’re here.”
That last line was probably just an offhand comment, yet it kept running through my mind, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I also couldn’t do anything about the way my heart started hammering like a heavy-metal drumbeat every time Dominic Esposito looked in my direction. That side effect was purely involuntary.
I felt myself blushing as I remembered the day Dominic had abruptly run his fingers through my hair and caressed my neck. Right then I wanted him so much I thought I would pass out. But then Gio walked in, and we practically recoiled from one another. We hadn’t touched since, not even accidentally. Whatever this thing was between us, we didn’t dare acknowledge it out loud. Even though the practical side of me understood that screwing around with my hot boss was not an excellent decision, I fantasized at least ten times a day about what kind of lover Dominic would be. It was becoming a tough habit to break.
Shaking myself out of my reverie, I returned to work. Once all the administrative priorities were out of the way, there was nothing keeping me inside the office. When I stepped back into the restaurant, it was like stepping into the calm before the storm. The tables were all impeccably set, and the servers were milling around, nervously polishing and straightening. I greeted several of them warmly and then made my way to the kitchen.
“How’s it going?” I asked. Gio was back there with Tim, Adam, and Gilberto, a good-natured fellow who’d worked for years in the kitchen of a famous gourmet taco shop before it closed six months ago.
“Hey, Melanie,” Gio said cheerfully as he peered into a dough bin. Unlike his brother, he seemed calm and collected. Dominic was nowhere in sight.
Tim was hovering by the ovens. “Gio, you still want to do one more test run before we get crowded?”
Gio mulled that over. “Yeah, let’s do that. Who wants some pizza?” he shouted into the dining room.
“But Dominic said to avoid messing up the kitchen,” Adam said as worry wrinkles deepened between his brows.
Gio only laughed. “It’s a pizzeria, folks. The kitchen is supposed to be messy. Besides, I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”
I watched as they all jumped into action. Gio checked out the fire burning at the rear of one of the mammoth brick ovens. There was something comforting and rather old-fashioned about the sight of the fire within the wide brick structure. Tim and Gilberto began rolling out the round, equal blobs of dough that would be shaped into individual pizzas. Adam uncovered the bins of sauce, cheese, and toppings while Gio waited, whistling softly with pizza peel in hand.
“Did Dominic leave?” I asked him.
“Yup,” he nodded. “He was here until three a.m. and is working on two hours of sleep. I sent him home to go make himself presentable. Nobody wants to order pizza from a belligerent woolly mammoth.”
“Can’t disagree with you there,” I said, smiling at his description. “I’ll bet he argued with you, though.”
Gio grinned. “Course he did. But I know how to win every now and then.”
When the pizzas were ready, Gio called the staff into the kitchen for a snack and a short meeting. He made everyone laugh with some stories of near disasters during the opening of Espo 1 four years ago, including an incident where Gio himself dropped a vat of marinara sauce on the floor an hour before opening.
“Swear to god, you guys, it looked like a crime scene,” he recalled, “or maybe the set of a horror movie. But you know what? We all pulled together, got everything cleaned up, and by the time the doors opened, no one was the wiser. So the moral of the story is, whatever happens tonight, don’t panic. Come see me. Come see Dominic. Or, if we’re not available, go to Melanie. We’ll handle it together.”
The staff enjoyed their pizza and relaxed for a few minutes. Gio was good at things like this, putting nervous minds at ease. Dominic would have probably said something terse and semithreatening like, “Don’t fuck up, or there’ll be hell to pay.”
A few last-minute glitches cropped up. There was a problem with the sink in the ladies’ room, so I had to call a plumber to make an emergency call. Gio made the decision to seal off the back patio since that space wasn’t entirely ready for prime time. Tim managed to smack his head on a kitchen shelf, and at my insistence, sat at a corner table with an ice pack pressed to his forehead, which was already purpling.
In time a clean-shaven and calmer-looking Dominic returned. On his arm was a tiny, elderly woman whose faded, blue eyes danced as they took in every detail of the restaurant. I’d never met her, but I was sure she was Donna Esposito, the legendary family matriarch I’d heard so much about.
“Donna,” Gio shouted, and ran over with open arms.
I watched discreetly as the old woman beamed at her two grandsons. I liked seeing Dominic with his family. It exposed a whole other side of him, a softer side that was separate from the stern, driven boss.
Dominic’s head snapped up, almost as if he’d heard me thinking about him. He caught my eye, and I had to suppress a shiver of desire. He didn’t look away. I would have paid a fairly large sum of money to know what was going through his head as he stared at me.
It was Gio who waved me over, though. “Melanie. Come over here.”
Dominic continued to watch silently as I approached. He gently draped a protective arm across his grandmother’s frail shoulders and finally nodded in my direction when I was two feet away.
“Donna,” Dominic said in a polite voice, “this is Melanie Cruz, our assistant manager, bookkeeper, and all around indispensable asset. Melanie, this is my grandmother, Donna Esposito.”
Donna’s eyes focused on me and instantly lit up. “Oh, so this is her,” she said excitedly.
Gio was confused. “Who?”
“The girl,” Donna said as if everyone ought to know exactly what she meant. She extended a small, paper-thin hand. “You’re so pretty. Dominic didn’t tell me that, but he didn’t have to. I could tell from the way he talked about you that you were pretty.”
Dominic made a noise that could have been a cough or a laugh. I couldn’t tell which. I was curious as to why he would discuss me with his grandmother.
As I shook her hand, I noted that her grip was stronger than one would think. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Esposito.”
“You have to call me Donna,” she said. “The boys even call me Donna because when they came to live with us so many years ago, little Giovanni couldn’t say Grandma.”
“I still can’t,” Gio deadpanned, and his grandmother laughed at him before turning her attention back to me.
“So you will call me Donna, too,” she insisted. “Because you’re family, Melanie.”
Dominic cleared his throat loudly. “Think it’s time for the tour,” he said, shepherding his grandmother away.
Gio shot me an apologetic look. “She gets confused sometimes,” he explained.
I nodded. “Sure, I understand.”
Tara arrived a minute later, minus the baby, who was with Tara’s mom, who’d volunteered to watch the baby so Tara could enjoy an evening out. She gave me a hug.
“Hey, baby,” said Gio as he approached with a brilliant smile.
“Hello, hot stuff,” she answered playfully.
When Tara leaned toward her husband to accept a long, tender kiss, I took a step back, admiring the simple perfection of a couple in love. I even felt a small prick of envy, although I hated myself a little for it.
Gio called the staff on the floor for a final, two-minute pep talk. I felt a few butterflies as I watched a crowd start to gather at the door. This was the first time in a long while I’d really felt like I truly played an important role in something special. It was almost like being included in a real family.
Almost.
We hadn’t been sure how many people to expect, but after an hour it became clear that we’d have our hands full. I quickly lost track of time as I divided my efforts between taking orders and serving food. At least there were no register transactions to worry about since tonight, everything was on the house.
There was a steady line of Esposito’s friends and family on a quest for free food. All the running around I was doing made me grateful for the tennis shoes on my feet as opposed to toe-crushing heels. Enthusiasm for the food was universal, and many patrons paused on their way out the door with a promise that they would return for the official opening. I was in the middle of refilling some napkin holders when the reporter from the Sun Republic arrived. Gio pulled me aside and asked me to keep her busy until he managed to free up a few minutes.
The reporter introduced herself as Becky Baller, and apparently she wasn’t kidding about her name. As soon as a booth opened up, I seated her and whispered to Aimee that she needed to expedite Becky Baller’s order of avocado and pineapple pizza.
“How long have you worked for the Esposito family?” the reporter asked as she daintily unfolded a white napkin in her lap.
“Only about a month,” I answered. “It’s been a very exciting time, though.”
Becky took a shrewd look around the busy restaurant and then turned her attention back to me. Her eyes were odd, amber colored. In fact they seemed vaguely reptilian, and I had the uncomfortable feeling she was combing my every move to uncover secrets I did not know I’d been keeping. Maybe journalism schools taught mind-probe tactics. Or maybe I was just paranoid.
She suddenly smiled, blinding white teeth flashing between puce-painted lips. She leaned forward conspiratorially. “It’s kind of a riches to rags back to riches story, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure what she meant. Dominic had never mentioned rags as part of his life story.
“I suppose,” I said carefully and glanced around to see if Gio was anywhere in sight. He wasn’t.
Becky Baller took a sip of water. She arched a beautifully manicured eyebrow as she started talking. “Let’s see if I’ve got the story straight. The brothers moved out to Phoenix after the closure of the original Esposito’s under rather dishonorable circumstances. It split the family apart and bankrupted them.”
She paused for a beat to see if I would confirm or deny her version of events. I said nothing.
“It was an interesting beginning,” she continued, “and certainly renders the opening of this downtown crown jewel as more than a simple family business tale. After all, the first Esposito’s was famous, once a destination favored by presidents, movie stars, and even royalty. To watch it all vanish in such disgraceful fashion must have been a bitter pill, I’m sure.”
Becky Baller was getting at something. I just wasn’t sure what it was. If she was pumping me for information, she was wasting her time because everything I knew about the Esposito family’s New York history could fit into the tabletop shaker of dried red pepper flakes. There’d been a family fight. But the brothers were just teenagers at the time. They couldn’t have been involved in anything sordid.
While I was busy trying to categorize my own thoughts, Becky pounced with a revelation.
“As you probably know, Frank Esposito is deceased, but Steven Esposito lives on Long Island. I’m waiting for him to get back to me with a comment.”
This information meant nothing to me. Where was this all leading? This chick was supposed to be writing a short publicity piece in the Food and Entertainment section, not dissecting the family’s personal soap opera.
I decided it was better not to examine the reporter’s intentions. So I changed the subject.
“Your pizza should be here any moment,” I said, impulsively adopting an artificially chirpy voice in an effort to redirect the conversation. “You know, Ms. Baller, every one of Esposito’s pizzas are wood-fired in an authentic stone and brick oven imported from a tiny town on a Sicilian hilltop. All our fresh toppings are organic, obtained from local Arizona farms, and the olive oil we use is milled right here in the valley. I’m sure you’ll agree that there is nothing quite like the experience of biting into an Esposito’s pizza.” I grinned brilliantly at the end of my commercial spiel and was met with a flat stare.
I could have gone on for a while about the finer qualities of our locally grown basil or the authentic sauce that was a family recipe carried from Italy in the head of some Esposito great-great-grandfather. Luckily Gio himself floated over, deposited a pizza in front of Becky Baller, and gave me a nod that freed me to apply my talents elsewhere.
Tara beckoned me over to the table where she sat with Donna Esposito. I took a chair at Tara’s insistence. Donna kept touching my hand and looking up into my eyes. I didn’t know why, but I thought I saw an expression of hope there. But then, as Gio had explained, Donna was very old and often confused. She had no reason took at me like I was a rare gift she’d been waiting for.
“Oh no,” Tara exclaimed suddenly. She rose from her chair while staring worriedly at her phone.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Tara was furiously tapping the screen of her phone, visibly upset now. “My mom texted. She thought Leah looked a little flushed, so she took her temperature. Gio!” She waved her arms at her husband, and he took one look at her face and practically vaulted across the crowded room to get to her side.
“Leah’s sick,” Tara explained in rush. “My mother said she’s running a fever of a hundred and two. She already gave her a dose of Motrin. I said I’d be there in twenty minutes to take Leah straight to Urgent Care . . . Wait, where’s my purse? Damn, it was just here.”
I found the black Kate Spade bag underneath the table and handed it over.
“Calm down, babe,” Gio said, although as he read through the texts on Tara’s phone, I could see his wife’s worry mirrored in his face.
Tara was now fishing through her purse for her keys. She found them and took two steps toward the door before freezing.
“Wait,” she said, “I was supposed to bring Donna home.”
“I’ll take care of her,” I said. I patted my friend’s arm in comfort. “Just go to your baby. Donna will be fine with me.”
Tara gave me a grateful smile and kissed her husband quickly on the lips. “I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”
“Wait a minute,” Gio called, “I’m coming with you.”
Tara gestured to the busy restaurant. “But what about all this?”
“All this will be fine without me.”
“Gio—”
“I’m coming, Tara,” he said sternly. “I won’t be any good to anyone here if my baby girl is in bad shape.”
“What’s wrong?” Dominic asked. I hadn’t even seen him emerge from the kitchen, but there he was, regarding his brother with obvious concern.
“Dom, I’ve got to go,” Gio said. “Leah’s sick and—”
“Go,” Dominic said. He clamped a hand down on his brother’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. “Go,” he said again. “Don’t think twice about it.”
Gio nodded, put his arm around his wife, and led her straight to the door. Dominic watched them until they disappeared.
“Tara’s mother texted,” I explained to Dominic since Gio hadn’t had a chance to give him the full story. “The baby suddenly spiked a high fever.”
Dominic didn’t say anything. He just kept staring toward the door where Tara and Gio had disappeared.
I reached out to gently touch his arm. He showed no sign that he even noticed. “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I said, even though I knew nothing about babies and fevers. But I saw the anxiety in his face and felt like I needed to say something, anything.
“Did Tara leave?” asked Donna in confusion. She was twisting up an embroidered handkerchief in her thin hands and blinking rapidly.
“Yes, Donna,” I said, sliding into the seat beside the old woman. “Tara and Gio had a small emergency, but don’t worry. I’ll get you whatever you need.”
“And I’ll take you home when you’re ready,” Dominic said. Then he fastened his intense stare on me. “Thank you, Melanie.”
I felt the heat of a blush crawl across my skin.
Donna gazed at me wistfully. “Marie should see you,” she said. “She would be so proud.”
Marie.
The blood rushed to my head, and I nearly fell out of my chair.
My mother’s name had been Marie. But there would be no way for Donna Esposito to know that. She’d just met me. She had to be talking about a different Marie.
Donna didn’t realize her words were at all unusual. She unfolded her handkerchief on her lap. The letters LE were artfully embroidered in dark-blue in the upper corner, and it actually looked like a man’s handkerchief. Her fingers traced the edges as she hummed tunelessly.
“They don’t really leave us,” she said with sudden confidence. Then she turned my way and beamed. “Melanie, may I have another glass of wine?”
“I’ll get it,” Dominic spoke up, and began walking away. When he reached the threshold of the kitchen, he turned around and looked right at me.
There was so much going on, what with all the restaurant chaos and the sudden family emergency that had unfolded moments earlier. Tonight I’d seen Dominic’s face run a gamut of emotions, and I had to admit the reason why I recognized them all—I’d gotten into the habit of watching him so damn closely. But as he held my gaze before disappearing into the kitchen, I glimpsed a raw expression that caught me off guard—tenderness and gratitude and hungry passion all rolled into one. The kind of look that could alter the future and redirect the flight plan of the stars. Had I been standing, my knees would have buckled under the weight of its promises.