Page 5 of The Holiday Hate-Off
“It could become a yearly tradition,” Eileen says brightly. “But why stop there? Why limit our attempts to find Lucy a man?”
“Why indeed?” Charlie says with a snort. “Why ever stop anywhere?”
Eileen turns to me. “I’ll have an event every night in December if it helps us find you a fine young man. We’re going to get this sorted before a jollyoldman makes his way down the chimneys of every house in Hideaway Harbor.”
“That sounds way more disturbing than I think you intended it to,” Charlie says with a grin.
“Oh, it was intended.” She smiles at us both. “I love you girls. My purpose is to see all of you beautiful young people happily settled.”
Charlie seems to agree with Eileen’s declaration, offering her a reassuring pat on the hand. Then she turns to me with a hopeful expression. “I have to get going for now, but I’m in complete agreement with Eileen. I want you to fall madly in love, get engaged, and then we’re going to have a joint wedding. It’s written in the stars.”
“Only if we exclusively play Britney Spears at the reception.”
“Yes, Lars will be totally on board with that.” Charlie blowsus kisses, then carries her hot chocolate mug to the sink and rinses it before leaving, letting in a waft of freezing air.
Eileen gives me a tender look over the rim of her mug. “It’s going to be okay, Lucy.”
“I know,” I say thickly, but we both know I don’t mean it.
She takes my hand and squeezes. “I hope you don’t think I overstepped, but I made an Advent calendar for you.” She wrings her hands together. “Each day offers a different suggestion for how you can enjoy the season. I thought you might miss having?—”
Before she can get all the words out, I’m already hugging her, feeling the press of tears behind my eyes. Oh, dear, sweet Eileen. Here she goes again, giving people what they didn’t know they needed. “Thank you.Thank you.”
CHAPTER 2
ENZO
DECEMBER 1
I’d promised myself I’d never have anything to do with Hidden Italy. It was my grandfather’s business and then my dad’s (in name), but anyone who knows my family knows the truth—Nonna Francesca has always run the show. She still does, at eighty-three, long after Dad retired to Charleston, but as she always says, eighty-three is different for a Sicilian woman.It’s only made me tougher, caro, like a piece of dry salume.
“I don’t want to be here,” I complain over the phone to my sister, Aria, as I straighten my tie in Aria’s mirror. I’m using the landline because Hideaway Harbor is so remote, so inconvenient, that most cell phone conversations tend to be cut short by bad service.
I’m staying in Aria’s old apartment because when she left town she still had five months on her lease. Her landlord was a real dick about it, so I offered to take over the lease and stay here during my visits to Hideaway Harbor. At the time, I didn’texpect to end up living here, but no one with even half an ego ever expects their world to implode.
But here I am in Hideaway Harbor, where it’s five and has been dark for almost an hour, and Aria’s halfway across the world, up past midnight, because that’s what twenty-five-year-olds do when they’re living the good life.
I’ve been here a week, and it already feels like too long.
“I know you don’t want to be there,” Aria says softly.
My sister is the only one in the family I’d ever admit that to. My brothers, Nico and Giovanni, would never leave this town. It’s in their blood. They constantly bitch about Dad’s choice to spend most of his retirement in a fishing boat off the coast of South Carolina, not that Dad had bothered much with the deli or any family matters even when he was here.
All of the Cafiero kids worked at Hidden Italy as teenagers, either the catering business or the store, and my brothers still do. Nico makes the food and Giovanni manages the stocking and the kids and seasonal employees who man the register. Nonna oversees the entire operation and keeps the books. Which is what’s caused this colossal fucking problem.
When I told my brothers they shouldn’t have been allowing an eighty-three-year-old woman to be in charge of the math, they’d acted shocked.
She’s always done the books,Nico had said.
Yes, but she used to be able to see.
She’s got glasses.
And doesn’t wear them, whether out of vanity or pure stubbornness I couldn’t say. It doesn’t help that she’s still using a real paper book to do the accounting. One that looks as old as she is, although I know better than to say so.
The result? Hidden Italy is in the hole, and someone has to pull it out.
Hello, I’m Enzo Cafiero, and I’m “someone.”
