Chapter 22 #2
The corner of her mouth lifts. I want to kiss it, and since the receptionist at the front desk is watching us through the glass front door, I lean in and do it.
“For our little show,” I whisper. “Now, what is it I should know?”
“You’re very popular in here.”
“Is Luanne the president of my fan club?”
“Well, she’s a founding member. I’d say Helen is the president. And there are a few other members.”
She opens the front door, and I reach above her head to hold it for her. When she gives me a pointed look, I stare back in feigned innocence. “You really think the folks here won’t expect me to be a gentleman?”
She must realize I have a point, because she walks through the door.
As I follow her into the heavily air-conditioned interior, which smells strongly of antiseptic and lemon, but thankfully not pee, Bianca adds, “They have a viewing group going of all of your videos. I think they’ve been watching them for three or four hours a day.”
“Try five, Bianca,” says the woman behind the desk, who’s watching us with lively blue eyes. “They didn’t call you in, did they? You should be enjoying your day off. You worked five shifts in a row this week.”
I give Bianca a sidelong glance and then wrap my arm around her waist. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her, but she wanted to introduce me to everyone at her place of employment, and of course, I couldn’t say no. We also brought over some s’mores for everyone to try.”
I release Bianca and approach the heavy wooden reception desk, holding out my hand. “I’m Bianca’s boyfriend, Giovanni.”
“Why, as I live and breathe.” Ignoring my hand, she gets up from her perch, circles the desk, and throws her arms around me in a tight squeeze that smells of floral perfume.
Her silver curls tickle my face. “Of course I know who you are, honey. You’d better be careful if you’re going into the rec room.
They might mob you, and God knows someone will break a hip. ”
“Sounds like a good time,” I joke as she pulls away.
She pats my cheeks with both hands. “Goodness, aren’t you handsome.” She taps the name tag resting on one of her large breasts. “I’m Judy. Will you sign our guest book, dear? You need to anyway, and we’ll treasure it always.”
I sign the book waiting on her desk, and she screws up her forehead, reading my signature, and peers up at me. “Can you sign it as the Shirtless Chef?”
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that while I’m wearing a shirt,” I quip, feeling a squeeze of discomfort.
I’m not him, but he’s me.
It’s a stupid thought, but it’s the one that’s clung to me since this began.
I’m not him.
“You can add a little note, if you think you’re going to forget,” Bianca tells her. “But his name is Giovanni, and that’s what he’s going to sign.”
I smile at her. “Did you just become my manager?”
“Someone had to step up,” she says.
Even though she probably didn’t mean it as a dig, it feels like one. I know I should be doing something other than signing pumpkins and napkins and taking selfies. I’m having my fifteen minutes of fame, and I’m already closing in on minute fourteen. I’m wasting it, all because I’m jealous of…
Well, I suppose I’m jealous of myself.
It sounds completely outrageous. It’s the sort of thing only a complete pazzo would think. But it’s true, nonetheless.
It’s him they want, not me.
I’d laugh at myself if Bianca weren’t hurrying me along the hallway, past a few closed doors and one that’s open but which should be closed. There’s an elderly man on the other side of it, pulling off his pants in front of a television set, one leg at a time.
“Stuart, quit showing off,” Bianca calls out.
He chuckles and waves before pulling a waiting pair of shorts off the back of the ratty old recliner parked across from his television set.
“He always ‘forgets’”—Bianca uses air quotes—“to shut his door. We all know he’s really trying to show off the goods to the ladies. The dating scene is pretty hot around here.”
I glance at her to see if she’s joking, but she looks dead serious. “The people in this place date?”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Giovanni. Life isn’t going to end for you when you pop your first gray hair.”
“Speak for yourself, cara mia.”
We pass a couple more open doors as we near the end of the hallway, which buckets into a larger, semicircular room with a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall beside a picture window that offers a view of a scrubby lawn.
Dozens of people are gathered around the TV—on chairs, couches, and in a couple of cases, wheelchairs. I recognize Luanne, who waves at me.
It takes me half a second to register that my abs are on that television. It’s the video I made about making my nonna’s famous eggplant parmigiana, the dish Bianca likes so much.
It takes me another half second to register that they’re all wearing the same shirt—a white T-shirt with drawn-on abs and my starburst birthmark.
Luanne whispers to the woman seated in the armchair next to her, who’s put on so much fairy hair her entire head of short white hair seems to shimmer. A second later, the video feed is paused on a still of my chest.
Fairy hair lady rises to her feet. She’s all of five-two, but there’s such a commanding air about her that she draws everyone’s attention.
“You’re not hallucinating,” the woman says. “The man on the screen really is in this room. You’re in the presence of greatness.”
My face instantly gets hot. It’s one thing to know everyone’s checking you out online—another to find yourself in the middle of it.
“The Shirtless Chef himself is among us,” she finishes with a flourish of her hand, gesturing to me.
“I don’t recognize him,” one elderly woman says, patting her hair as she peers at me through her oversized pink glasses. “He looks so different in person.”
I shrug and lift the hem of my shirt enough to reveal the starburst birthmark.
“Glory be, it is him.” The woman presses her hands to her chest. “How do you get those abs so defined, son?”
“He does push-ups while I ride on his back,” Bianca says, making me snort.
“We’re your fan club,” the woman with the fairy hair tells me, walking up to us. “I’m Helen, and these are the other Shirties. That’s what we call ourselves.”