Fools Rush In

  “Sure she is.” Jenna shook her head. “You’re in denial, Bella. That dog needs a therapist. And why you would bring her in here—”

  “Shh.”

  “Do you want the health department to shut us down?”

  “I’ll only be a minute,” I whispered. “I just need your help with something.”

  “If your Uncle Laz gets wind of this, he’ll fire me.” Her eyes grew large, and I couldn’t help but laugh. My uncle would never fire Jenna. Next to my brother Nick—who now managed the place—Jenna worked harder than any of his employees.

  I watched my best friend’s expression change immediately as she took in my new blouse. “Oooh, pretty. That color of green looks great against your olive skin.”

  She dove into a dissertation about her pale self, and I listened without comment, as always. Could I help it if the girl had been born with red hair and freckles and skin as white as the gulf sand? To be honest, I found her enviable. What I wouldn’t give to have her petite frame. And those perfectly shaped legs! Where could I go to find a pair of those? Frankly, I thought Jenna was about the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, especially if you factored personality into the mix.

  Still oohing and aahing, she brushed the flour off her hands, then reached out to touch the sleeve of my blouse. “See now, you can get away with wearing this style. You’re tall enough to pull it off. But me . . .” Off she went again, on a description of her too-short stature and her inability to wear decent clothes as a result. I’d never really considered myself tall—five foot seven wasn’t Goliath, after all—but Jenna apparently did.

  Precious let out another growl, and I shifted gears, ready to get to work. “Thanks, but I’m not here for fashion advice. I’ve got a problem. A real problem.”

  “Oh, that deejay thing?” She turned back to her work. As she ladled sauce onto a large circle of dough, she added, “You need someone with country-western experience?”

  “Yes.” I shifted the purse to my other shoulder, hoping Precious would remain still and quiet. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “What happened to Armando?” she asked as she spread a thick layer of chunky white mozzarella. “He’s a great deejay, and I’m sure he could handle any type of music.”

  I sighed as she mentioned my middle brother’s name. “He’s in love.”

  “So what?”

  “So . . .” I reached over the counter to grab a pepperoni and popped it in my mouth. In between bites, I explained, “He’s moved off to Houston, never to return again.”

  “Oh, come on. You know how he is. He’ll be back in just a few weeks. His relationships never last that long. He only dated me for nine days, remember?”

  “You were both in junior high at the time,” I reminded her. “Besides, I don’t have a few weeks. Sharlene and Cody are getting married in less than two weeks, and they’ve got their hearts set on a country-western theme, complete with line dancing and the Texas Two-Step.”

  “Sharlene and Cody? Do I know them?”

  “Nope. They’re both from Houston. And that’s the goal here, to draw in customers from the mainland. But if I can’t pull off even one wedding on my own—and let’s face it, I’ve never done a themed wedding before—we’re going to have to close the facility.” My heart twisted inside me as I spoke the words. I didn’t want to disappoint my parents. For that matter, I didn’t want to disappoint me. I needed to make this thing work—and I would, with God’s help.

  As we chatted about my problem, an incoming pizza customer—a twentysomething construction-worker type—made his way to the counter with a cell phone pressed to his ear. His skin glistened, and his damp shirt carried that “I forgot to put on my deodorant this morning” aroma. I stepped aside to give him the floor. He carried on an animated conversation with the person on the other end of the line, one that didn’t appear to be ending anytime soon. I could see Jenna waiting for an opportunity to take his order, but finding a spot might be difficult.

  Finally his speech slowed a bit, and my best friend, ever the savvy one, jumped right in with a polite, “Can I help you?”

  He put the person on the phone on hold a moment and glanced her way with a wrinkled brow. “Um, sure. I’ll have the, um, the . . . that Mambo thing. With the frappuccinos.”

  “The Mambo Italiano—our spicy sausage pizza—with two large cappuccinos?” she corrected him.

  “Yeah. Whatever.” While pulling cash from his billfold, he dove back into it with the person on the other end of the phone. I wasn’t deliberately listening in, but my antennae went straight up into the air as I heard him mention something about a deejay.

  After he hung up, I couldn’t wait to ask. “Did you say deejay?”

  The guy turned to me with a quizzical look on his face. “Yeah.”

  I reached into my bag, nearly forgetting the dog until I bumped up against her and she let out an aggravated yip. I came up with an ink pen. Reaching for a scrap of paper, I added, “And he works here—on the island?”

  “Well, yes, but . . .” The guy rubbed his whiskery chin and gave me a funny look.

  “Would you mind giving me his number?”

  “I guess not.” With a shrug, the confused stranger glanced at his cell phone. He squinted to read the number, then said it aloud. I scribbled it down with relief washing over me.

  “And would you say his work is good?” I shoved the pen back into my purse.

  “Oh, he’s the best on the island.” He slipped his phone into the back pocket of his jeans and narrowed his eyes, perhaps trying to figure me out. “He comes highly recommended. I’ve seen him in action several times over, and his clients have never been disappointed.”

  “And how is he with country-western music?” I posed the most important question of all. Whoever I hired would have to know his stuff in this area. Heaven knew I didn’t.

  “Country-western music?” My new hero shrugged. “It’s his favorite. How come?”

  “Oh, just curious.” I reached out and shook his hand, adding, “Mister, I think you might’ve just saved my life.”

  “Really?” As he reached up to swipe a hand through his thick blond curls, his cheeks reddened. “Go figure. I just came in here to order a pizza.”

  “No, you came in for far more than that,” I explained in a whisper. “I believe this was a divine appointment.”

  “Divine appointment,” he repeated as if trying to make sense of the words. He reached to pick up the two cappuccinos Jenna had prepared for him. I heard him muttering the words again as he made his way to a nearby table.

  I gave Jenna a “Go God!” wink, then turned toward the door. I’d nearly made it when Uncle Lazarro’s voice rang out from the kitchen.

  “Don’t you let me catch you bringing that dog in here again, Bella.”

  “Yes sir!” I gave him a playful salute, then, with a spring in my step, headed out to face the rest of my day.

  2

  Just in Time

  The people in my family have always leaned heavily on the old saying, “Finché c’è vita c’è speranza—as long as there is life, there is hope.” I heard it countless times while growing up. Whenever things looked bleak—say, a relative in the old country was stricken with a fatal disease or one of my brothers left the top off the milk jug—Aunt Rosa would clutch her wrinkled hands to her sagging chest and cry out: “Finché c’è vita c’è speranza” in a voice laced with pain. Her Italian accent, still rich after all these years in the States, came naturally. The agony in her voice . . . a little more rehearsed. I’m pretty sure I caught her practicing in front of the bathroom mirror once, though she flat-out denied it.

  Inspite of Aunt Rosa’s antics, the familiar saying brought comfort on a chaotic day like today when I needed to believe, needed to hope.

  I made the journey home from Parma John’s in a more positive state of mind. A worship song played on the radio, further lifting my spirits. If I could have raised my hands in praise, I would have. I wanted to thank the Lord
for answering my prayer so quickly and efficiently. Glancing up, I noticed the sky above seemed bluer now that my troubles were behind me. The clouds whiter. The grass greener. Yes, I would surely pull off this wedding—with help from on high.

  “Finché c’è vita c’è speranza.” As long as there was life, there was hope. And as long as there was hope, there was a chance my new deejay would sweep in and save the day before this Boot-Scootin’ bridal extravaganza got under way. Heaven knew I couldn’t do it without him. And it was heaven I leaned on now—more than ever. A gentle reminder in the lyrics to the worship song was all I needed to convince me I could trust God to see me through this, and any other difficult experience.

  Cruising down Broadway with the afternoon sun blazing high in the sky, I fumbled around with my right hand in my oversized Balenciaga handbag—a Christmas gift from my ex-boyfriend, Tony DeLuca—all the while keeping my left hand on the steering wheel. Not an easy trick with an ill-mannered pooch wrapped around my neck.

  It took a few seconds of scrambling, but I finally came up with the phone. Now, to locate the deejay’s number. I nudged my fingers into the pocket of my jeans and eased out the scrap of paper. Seconds later, safely pulled up to a red stoplight, I made the call.

  Four rings later, the guy’s voice-mail recording kicked in. “Hey, you’ve reached Dwayne Neeley. Sorry I can’t get to the phone. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

  Dwayne. Only he’d pronounced it Duh-wayne. Interesting how the name matched his over-the-top Texas accent . . . which, to my way of thinking, proved to be a little too heavy on the twang. Maybe I could get him to tone it down a bit before the big day. Then again, he did have that nice bass sound to his voice. Crowds always loved that. I know I did. In fact, I loved it so much that I missed the changing of the light. The guy behind me gave a gentle reminder with a toot of his horn that green, at least on Galveston Island, still meant “go.”

  Startling to attention, I forged ahead down the busy street, leaving a message as I went. “Hi there.” Speaking in my most businesslike voice, I continued, “I’m looking for a deejay. My name is Bella Rossi, from Bella’s wedding facility on Broadway.” I caught the mistake and corrected it. “Er, Club Wed on Broadway in the historic district. If you’re interested in a great paying job weekend after next, please give me a call at 409-555-0402.”

  I hit END and tossed the phone into my purse, then leaned back against the seat. Well, tried to lean back, anyway. My rotten-tempered pooch let out a yip, and I found myself offering a rushed apology to the world’s most self-absorbed canine. Precious indeed.

  Oh well. No time to worry about that right now. No, right now I had a job to do. Having never before planned a wedding with a country-western theme, I had my work cut out for me. Though I’d spent most of my growing-up years in Texas, I’d never been into the whole cowboy-meets-cowgirl scene, and I’d certainly never line danced. Strange, I know. But in our family, it was the mambo all the way. Or one of Aunt Rosa’s famous country folk dances.

  Still, I would pull off this themed wedding or die trying.

  Hmm. Nix the latter.

  I pulled the SUV into the driveway, startled to find my aunt chasing a neighbor boy with a broom in her hand. This wasn’t the first time I’d caught her in such an aggravated state. Last time, however, it was Uncle Laz on the other end of the bristles.

  I stepped out of the car to watch all of this go down just as Rosa hollered, “Gli dai un dito e si prendono il braccio” to my mother. I knew the meaning, of course: “Give them a finger and they’ll take an arm.” Fully translated: “Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” Still, I couldn’t imagine what the neighbor kid had done to deserve this.

  The boy turned back and shouted, “Watch out, people! That old lady is crazy!”

  I wasn’t sure I could dispute him, though Rosa was usually tearing into Laz, not neighbor kids. With Laz, she was on equal footing.

  Rosa, my mother’s oldest sister from Napoli, and Lazarro, my father’s pizza-loving older brother, had an understanding. They would go on hating each other until the day they died.

  There were mixed stories regarding the origin of their feuding. Something about Frank Sinatra having a better voice than Dean Martin was all I’d been told. Oh, and Rosemary Clooney. Somehow she factored into the mix. At any rate, the bickering—both in rapid-fire Italian and rough-hewn English—had gone on for nearly sixteen years, and frankly, I’d had enough.

  But today Aunt Rosa seemed content to chase the neighbors, not Laz. Though she did it with the usual amount of gusto. Her salt-and-pepper hair—more salt than pepper these days—was a fright. And her plumper parts—mostly around the midsection—seemed to lag behind a bit as she ran. Then again, the support hose and heavy black orthopedic shoes probably gave her an added advantage. I could almost see her gaining on the kid.

  Precious scrambled out of my arms and down onto the ground, where she shot off after the boy, probably thinking him to be a burglar. Her frantic yaps filled the air, adding to the chaos. I called out to her, but she paid no attention. Nothing new there.

  My mama—still regal and slender at fifty-seven—stood on the porch, shouting out to my aunt in Italian, “Rosa, lasciare il ragazzo solo. Leave the boy alone.” Either Rosa didn’t have her hearing aid turned up, or she simply didn’t care to listen. The stubborn sixtysomething continued on around the side of the house, broom slicing through the air as she hollered out to the kid in Italian. Poor little guy. Probably never knew what hit him.

  I looked up at my mother with a grin. “Rough afternoon?”

  She swept a perfectly manicured hand through her dark hair, then turned to me with an exaggerated sigh. “You have no idea.”

  “But I’ve only been gone an hour.” I climbed the stairs up to the veranda to join her. “What could have possibly happened in that length of time?” The cool afternoon breeze off the gulf provided a momentary relief from the mid-June heat. It caught a piece of my long, curly hair and whipped it into my face. I pushed it away and continued in her direction.

  “I’m not sure you want to know.”

  She proceeded to fill me in, whether I wanted to know or not. Apparently the kid had turned our veranda and front steps into a skate park, maneuvering his board back and forth, up and down, until Aunt Rosa, who’d been baking bread inside the house, finally snapped.

  A shiver ran down my spine as I contemplated what that must’ve looked like.

  “She confiscated the skateboard,” Mama explained. “Said she’s not giving it back until she gets a written apology—in English and Italian.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Yeah. But the kid wouldn’t go down without a fight. Said his daddy’s a lawyer.”

  “Uh-oh. The new family across the street?” I glanced across Broadway at the beautiful historic home recently restored. We’d watched them move in just the day before. Tens of thousands of dollars in antiques and other fine furnishings had given us plenty to talk about over dinner last night.

  “Yes, the Burtons. So much for making a first impression.”

  “Man. I really hoped to get off on the right foot with them.”

  From what I’d heard through the grapevine, Bart Burton planned to run his office out of his home. Knowing that made me feel better about the fact that we ran a business along Broadway. Not that the neighbors were complaining, necessarily. The area boasted dozens of beautiful historic homes, many used for residential purposes, others used for business. There was a nice mix of both. But having another businessman close by might draw in clients. I hoped. Unless he was a divorce attorney. Hmm. I’d have to check into that.

  Mama tried to pick up where she’d left off, but the sound of Andrea Bocelli’s rich tenor voice interrupted her. My cell phone. I prayed it was the call I’d been waiting on.

  “Sorry, Mama.” I reached to open the slender pink phone. “My deejay awaits.”

  “Deejay?”

  After a nod in her direction, I
mouthed the words, “I’ll fill you in later,” then answered with a tentative “Hello?”

  “Bella Rossi?” The same twangy voice greeted me, though slightly deeper than I’d remembered. I felt myself captivated by this Texan at once. Surely he was tall and brawny with a five o’clock shadow. I could envision him now in his boot-cut jeans and starched button-up shirt. To complete the picture—cowboy hat and boots, naturally.

  “Yes?” I finally managed as my imagination got itself under control.

  “I’m returning your call. Something about a job at your wedding facility.”

  “Yes, thank you for calling back so quickly.”

  “No problem. I would’ve called sooner, but I had the music turned up and didn’t hear the phone.”

  “Understandable.” Even now I could hear an unfamiliar melody in the background. More twang-twang. Perfect.

  “I’m working a job on the west end of the island for the next few weeks,” he explained. “But I can probably swing a second gig, as long as it’s not time consuming.”

  “Just one day’s work. The last Saturday in June.” After a second thought, I threw in, “Though, if you do a great job—and I’m sure you will—we could probably talk about more opportunities in the future.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Trying not to gush, I added, “I’m looking for a pro, and you come highly recommended.” I didn’t want to carry the flattery too far, not knowing his capabilities, but a little enticement never hurt.

  “Well, thank you for the opportunity. I’ve only been on the island a few months. Folks down here are mighty friendly.”

  Yep. The voice was definitely growing on me. I could almost picture him now, standing off to the edge of the crowd, microphone pressed to his lips as he urged folks to take one more spin around the floor.

  “Where are you from, Duh-wayne?” I couldn’t resist.

  “Splendora.”

  Okay, so he had me there. “Never heard of it.”

  “Small town about an hour north of Houston. Off Highway 59. Tucked away in the trees.”