Chapter 20 Regretti Spaghetti #2
As one does when a man doesn’t text back, Bianca decided it would be a good time to check out her latest one-star reviews.
Okay, fine, she’d been guilty of not responding to one of his texts before, but that was different.
In this case, she’d numbed her prefrontal cortex with wine and limoncello and fired off a selfie.
Selfies warranted responses. Demanded them, even.
Sending it was the dumbest thing she’d done since deciding to run with the name Peggy Meh.
She was curled up on the couch, computer on her lap, blanket over her legs, ready to inflict punishment upon herself. Because that’s what you do when you’ve lost your flipping mind. Several new reviews had appeared in the last two days. Oh, joy!
Padded. Could have been a list.
Can I give negative star ratings? WTF.
I guess anything can get published these days.
Might be good for young teenagers.
Written for the one percent.
I wouldn’t insult my fireplace by tossing it in.
Dear Lord!!!! Peggy Meh! Give me a Break.
How could people insult a person so? She’d put everything into the book.
Maybe she hadn’t executed it as well as she’d hoped.
Maybe Peggy Meh was the worst idea to ever be vomited onto the page, but Bianca had tried.
She’d pushed through her own self-doubt; she’d written and rewritten it so many times. All so she could be fried in public.
Sure, there were positive reviews. But they hardly mattered when drowning in this swamp of disgust.
How could any part of her consider writing another?
Answer: Despite all the public vitriol, she craved returning to the blank page, the writing sessions when her fingers started dancing, when the flow took over.
Okay, if she wrote another one, she didn’t have to put it out there.
Like Corrado’s friend had done, it could be just for her.
She could write it and then burn it, like the Buddha boards you paint on, only to watch the water-based artwork fade away.
The idea soothed her. If only she knew which direction to take.
If Donna Bologna was suggesting that Bianca had missed the mark, then what was the freaking mark? What would be worth writing about? What else did she have to say?
Bianca hesitantly opened a new Word document and stared at it for a while, like an alcoholic hiding in the closet with an open bottle of Smirnoff. She put her fingers on the keys, feeling the bumps of the F and J.
Movement at the door. She slammed shut her laptop. As her father entered, she felt like she’d been busted smoking weed, but then she noticed his distraught face. “What’s wrong? How’d the date go?”
He set down the toolbox, then turned and pointed to a red mark on the side of his face.
“She slapped you?”
“Slapped. I guess you could call it that. I’m glad I still have my teeth.”
It was not lost on Bianca that there was a lot of rejection going on around here.
She stood and pressed a hand to his face. “What’d you do?”
He shrugged. “I kissed her.”
“You kissed her? What did you do, go in with the tongue or something?” She couldn’t hide her enjoyment.
“What do I know? We were having a great time, then I kissed her and she slapped me and said, ‘How dare you,’ and walked away.”
“At least you tried, right?”
He sat down and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Geez. I don’t like seeing you like this. What can I do?”
A headshake. “I need a nap. Two glasses of wine at lunch.”
“How long was lunch?”
“Two hours.”
“Two hours! What is she even doing hanging out with you? She’s leading you on.”
“I think she was being friendly, paying me back for helping around the store.”
Bianca shifted to protective mode. No one messed with her father. “Whatever it is, screw her. She doesn’t deserve you.”
He stood slowly, patted her shoulder. “Nap time. It’ll be okay. Not the first time I’ve been rejected in my life.”
She touched his hand, feeling so much love for him.
It was so easy to put him into some sort of box, to label him.
The father figure, the parental unit. A support figure.
But that wasn’t all he was. Why did she keep treating him this way?
He might not show or talk about his emotions, but he had them.
“Get some rest, then we’ll do something fun tonight.”
He trudged down the hall. Her heart ached as he closed his door.
“You know what ASAP means?” Bianca asked, charging into George’s room later.
He turned the volume down on the news. “What’s that?”
“Aperol spritz and pasta.”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
They sat on the balcony. George still couldn’t get used to both of their underwear hanging on a line out there.
A silly thought passed by. Sandy had mentioned the bookstore had a courtyard out back that she never used.
Maybe she could put some dryers out there.
Expats could shop for books while they waited for their clothes to dry.
Sandy would have enjoyed that one. Not anymore, though.
What a shit show the whole thing was. Love, love, love.
What was it anyway? A doorway to pain, really.
As if he didn’t have enough problems to drown in.
There was this . . . this ache in his chest, a longing that could now never be satisfied.
He’d almost found a reason to keep going. He’d almost felt young again.
“I want to kill Sandy,” Bianca said, pulling him back to the present.
“No, don’t do that. You two have a lot in common, as far as having lived here when you were younger, coming back later in life. She’s a good person. Afraid of getting hurt, I think.”
“When’s the last time you kissed a girl?”
“Nineteen fifties,” George replied nonchalantly. There’d been a few dates, nothing that had lasted longer than a few months.
“Seriously. It wasn’t Mom, was it? You’ve had girlfriends since . . . No, I don’t want to know.”
He scratched his arm. “Let me put it this way. I haven’t felt like this since your mom. I guess I read the signals wrong.”
“Which is understandable, considering Sandy’s cuckoo. God, she can be mean.”
“But boy, when she lights up, it’s something to behold. You get her away from that bookstore, she comes alive. Did you know she’s been dancing the tango most her life? And she drives a Vespa. I think maybe not seeing her son enough is what breaks her up. And I can empathize with that.”
Bianca’s ears perked up when George casually mentioned that he’d read her book a few minutes later. “I know you told me not to, but I did,” he said.
Maybe she should have been mad, considering she’d asked him not to, but in this moment, it felt like the sweetest gesture in the world. “I . . . You didn’t have to.”
“I should have read it a long time ago, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I like Peggy Meh, and there’s so much wisdom inside. Sometimes you’re still my little girl, and to read all the advice you have, all the beautiful wisdom, it gives me shivers, even now.”
“Really?”
He showed her the goose pimples on his arms, they read like love in braille.
“My girl, all grown up. Doing amazing things. I hope you don’t stop writing.
Not because I want you to work and all that, but because you have a gift.
You might not think so, and there might be haters out there, but your book did something to me.
Made me see the world differently. Pumped me with some courage.
” Then he added, “I hope I’m not as bad as Peggy’s dad. ”
She shook her head. “You are not Peggy’s dad.” At least, she hadn’t planned it that way.
“You know what gave me the courage to go down and ask Sandy to lunch today? Peggy Meh.”
“Get out.”
“‘One Life to Live.’ That chapter. You know how to hit a guy hard. When Peggy finally considers leaving her husband, and you say the thing about how when it’s all said and done and you’re looking back on that one life you had to live, the one gifted miracle chance you had, what will be your regrets?
I didn’t want Sandy to be one of them. So I did it and it didn’t work out, but I’ll go home knowing I tried. I left my burn mark.”
Tears filled Bianca’s eyes.
“I was looking at flights. I think I’ll head back Monday.”
Her chest seized up. As much as she had wanted him to leave, she felt the opposite now. “What? Really? Because of her? Fuck Sandy. Don’t leave because of her damage.”
“It’s time. I need to go face my life, figure it out. And let you figure out yours.”
“Queen Bee!” a familiar voice called from down below.
Bianca stood and looked down to the street. Her breath left her when she saw Corrado holding a bouquet of flowers.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“My other job is flower delivery. Someone sent you these.” He gave a wink.
George joined her at the railing. “Who’s this?”
“Hello, sir. It’s Corrado, good to see you again.”
“Ciao.”
Bianca wanted to hurl herself off the balcony. Well, it was good to see Corrado and even better to see him holding flowers, but having her dad witness it was a bit much.
“May I come up?” Corrado called up to them.
“No, I’ll come down.”
He shook his head. “I’d like to say hello to your father.”
George waved him up before Bianca could stop him.
Sandy sat on her favorite chair with Nicolo on her lap.
A cup of chamomile tea steaming beside her, she dialed Jack’s number.
After his voicemail greeting, she said, “Your birthday’s coming up; been thinking about you a lot.
All the time. Nicolo says hi too. Don’t mind me, I’m running my business into the ground and still being awful to everyone.
I keep thinking about Lisbon, a chance to start over.
It’s been okay, but I’m getting antsy. Might be fun to learn Portuguese, have a new part of the world to explore.
I have no idea what I’d do for work. I don’t want to do anything.
I’m definitely over the book business. Someone should have told me that the best way to kill your love of reading is to open a bookstore.
Maybe similar to how the best way to hate your country is to let your son go to war . . .”