Czytaj książkę: «Slightly Engaged»

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR Mike, Mike & Me

“The inventive premise of Markham’s winning novel involves a love triangle in both the past and the present among pretty Beau, the Mike she married, and the Mike she left behind…. Markham’s latest is an appealing, wholly original yarn.”

—Booklist

“…hilarious…readers will be instantly catapulted back in time, into their own versions of Very Big Hair and spandex bike shorts.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR Slightly Settled

“Readers who followed Tracey’s struggles in Slightly Single, and those meeting her for the first time, will sympathize with this singleton’s post-breakup attempts to move on in this fun, lighthearted romp with a lovable heroine.”

—Booklist

“Like many women, Tracey needs to figure out when to listen to her friends and when to listen to herself.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR Slightly Single

“…an undeniably fun journey for the reader.”

—Booklist

“Bridget Jonesy…Tracey Spadolini smokes, drinks and eats too much, and frets about her romantic life.”

—Publishers Weekly

WENDY MARKHAM

is a pseudonym for New York Times bestselling, award-winning novelist Wendy Corsi Staub, who has written more than sixty fiction and nonfiction books for adults and teenagers in various genres—among them contemporary and historical romance, suspense, mystery, television and movie tie-in and biography. She has coauthored a hardcover mystery series with former New York City mayor Ed Koch and has ghostwritten books for various well-known personalities. A small-town girl at heart, she was born and raised in western New York on the shores of Lake Erie and in the heart of the notorious snow belt. By third grade, her heart was set on becoming a published author; a few years later, a school trip to Manhattan convinced her that she had to live there someday. At twenty-one, she moved alone to New York City and worked as an office temp, freelance copywriter, advertising account coordinator and book editor before selling her first novel, which went on to win a Romance Writers of America RITA^® Award. She has since received numerous positive reviews and achieved bestseller status, most notably for the psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. Her Red Dress Ink title Slightly Single was one of Waldenbooks’ Best Books of 2002. Very happily married with two children, Wendy writes full-time and lives in a cozy old house in suburban New York, proving that childhood dreams really can come true.

Slightly Engaged
Wendy Markham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In loving memory of my beautiful mom,

Francella Corsi

April 17, 1942–May 11, 2005

You alone read and loved everything I ever wrote….

And you said you liked the “funny ones” best of all. Here’s one

more, written with laughter through tears, especially for you.

Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole wide world.

—Kate Douglas Wiggin

Contents

Part I: Labor Day Weekend

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Part II: Sweetest Day, Beggar’s night

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part III: Thanksgiving

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Part IV: Christmas

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Part V: Anguilla

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Part VI: Valentine’s Day

Chapter 18

Part VII: October

Epilogue

Part I

Chapter 1

I love weddings!

Doesn’t everyone?

Um, apparently not.

“Cripes, Tracey, I can’t believe this is how we’re spending the last Saturday of the summer.”

That’s my live-in boyfriend, Jack, grumbling as he gazes bleakly through the windshield of our rented subcompact car at the holiday-traffic-clogged Jersey Turnpike. The midday sun is glaring overhead and heat radiates in waves off the asphalt, along with toxic black exhaust fumes.

Thank God for air-conditioning. I adjust the full-blast passenger’s-side vent to blow in the vicinity of my navel, lest it muss my fancy upswept do.

It took me almost an hour and a half a can of Aussie Freeze Spray to get my straight, bra-clasp-length brown hair looking this supermodelish. It’ll probably wilt the second I get out of the car, but at least Jack got to appreciate it. He was momentarily complimentary about my hair and my slinky red cocktail dress before he went back to grousing about the wedding.

It shouldn’t bug me that he didn’t mention anything about how I was wearing a similar red dress the night we met.

It shouldn’t, but it does.

I can’t help it. For the first year or so that we were together, he made a point of noticing details like that. I guess he’s gotten less romantic the last few months. Or maybe I’ve gotten overly sensitive. I shouldn’t go around weighing every comment he makes—or noticing the ones he doesn’t make anymore.

I shouldn’t, but lately, I do.

It’s not that I think we’ve fallen out of love. If anything, we’ve become closer, our lives interwoven. His friends are my friends; his mother and his favorite sister, Rachel, sometimes call just to talk to me. My friends are his friends; my mother and sister—well, forget about them. The point is, we’re still a solid couple. We laugh all the time; we know each other’s most intimate secrets; the sex is frequent and good, if I do say so myself.

So what’s the problem?

I want more, dammit. I deserve more. I’m finally over the pesky feelings of unworthiness and insecurity that festered in the wake of my arrogant ex-boyfriend, Will, who callously blew me off two summers ago.

It’s not as though I’ve come right out and asked Jack what his intentions are—maybe because I’m afraid of the answer. But lately, I’ve found myself wondering pretty frequently—all right, constantly—whether Jack is ever going to take the initiative to make our relationship permanent.

Since he hasn’t, I tend to secretly look for evidence that he’s got the opposite plan in mind. Or, at the very least, that he’s losing interest.

All right, maybe the ghost of unworthy, insecure Tracey has come back to haunt me. But I really should stop nitpicking—even if it’s just mental nitpicking. Really. Before I turn into one of those Bitter Shrews.

Which Bitter Shrews, you might ask?

Oh, you know. The Bitter Shrews who nobody wants to marry. The ones who eventually become joyless middle-aged spinsters with mouths that have those vertical wrinkles in the corners from wearing perpetually grim expressions.

Oblivious to the horrific visions careening beneath my divine updo, Jack props his outstretched wrists on the top curve of the steering wheel in frustration as he brakes to yet another stop.

“We should have RSVP’d no, Tracey. This is ridiculous.”

“How could we do that? Mike’s one of your best friends. Plus he’s my boss.”

“Soon-to-be ex-boss.”

Right. Mike was fired a few weeks ago. Sort of. The command came down from the formidable Adrian Smedly, director of our account group, to Mike’s supervisor, Carol the Wimpy Management Rep. But she didn’t have the balls—or in her case, the heart—to come right out and ax a soon-to-be groom. Instead, she called him into her office and more or less told him to start looking for a new job as soon as possible.

The thing about Mike is that he’s incessantly upbeat in a dopey, wide-eyed kind of way, like a big old happy pup. He trots nonchalantly through life wearing an open, friendly expression, heedless that his shirts are frequently rumpled and his hair is always mussed. If Mike had a tail, it would be perpetually wagging.

So when Carol told him in so many words that he doesn’t have a future at Blair Barnett Advertising, Mike seemed pretty unfazed. In fact, from what I can tell, he hasn’t started cleaning out his office or even put together his résumé. I should know. He’s all but illiterate.

For the past almost three years I’ve been working at Blair Barnett, my primary purpose in life is to proofread Mike’s stuff, both work related and personal. I’ve doctored his memos, his presentations, even the supposedly impromptu toast he gave at his engagement party. If he were doing a résumé, I’d definitely know about it. I’d probably be writing it.

Never mind that what I should be writing by now—what I fully expected to be writing by now—is ad copy.

Last year I was promoted from my original entry-level account management position, but not into the coveted Creative Department, as promised. No, I was given the title account coordinator on the McMurray-White packaged goods account, which basically means I make a few thousand dollars more per year to remain in my claustrophobic cubicle and officially do administrative stuff while unofficially assisting my incompetent boss with his own duties. Oh, and I get all the freebie product I want, which means I am pretty much stocked for life on Blossom deodorant and Abate laxatives.

I’m supposedly still first in line for the next junior copywriting position that opens up in the Creative Department.

The trouble is, thanks to the lousy economy, Blair Barnett has been routinely laying off employees, including junior copywriters and account coordinators, for the past eighteen months. Jack, who is a media supervisor at the agency, keeps reminding me that we’re both lucky we still have jobs.

But I’m twenty-five years old. I don’t want a job; I want a career. And with Mike gone—which, presumably, he soon will be—who’s going to push for me to get another promotion? Certainly not wimpy Carol.

“Aside from whether or not Mike’s my boss, you still lived with him for years,” I point out to Jack, shoving aside troubling thoughts of office politics. “You can’t just not go to his wedding.”

“Why not? I should be protesting his wedding.”

“Protesting?” Amused, I imagine Jack picketing the church in a sandwich board. “On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that I loathe the bride.”

“Yeah, well, who doesn’t?”

Back when Jack was Mike’s roommate and Dianne was Mike’s omnipresent girlfriend, Jack referred to Dianne as a one-woman axis of evil.

I have to say, he wasn’t necessarily exaggerating.

It’s hard to remember that I actually kind of liked her back when she was just a voice on the other end of the phone whenever I answered Mike’s line at the office. My opinion changed rapidly when I found myself sharing girlfriend privileges with her in Mike and Jack’s tiny Brooklyn apartment.

Miscellaneous things I hate about Dianne:

1) She’s a catty, mean-spirited snob.

2) She talks to Mike in this cutesy-poo baby voice whenever she isn’t bitching at him.

3) She once called Jack an asshole behind his back and probably to his face for all I know.

Oh, and 4) She’s getting married.

Hell, yes, I’m jealous.

Don’t you think it’s unfair that she’s getting married, and I’m not?

Yeah, so do I.

Ironically, if it weren’t for me, Dianne wouldn’t be walking down the aisle today. Or, most likely, ever. I mean, who would want a one-woman axis of evil for a wife?

I guess Mike would.

Except that I don’t think he really does. He’s basically getting married by default.

When Jack and I moved in together a year and a half ago, Mike was left without a roommate. He halfheartedly tried to find a new one for a while, then told Dianne maybe they should live together. She said no way. Not without an engagement ring on her finger and a wedding date on her calendar.

Mike swore to me and Jack that there was no way he was getting married. Not to Dianne, not yet, maybe not ever. He supposedly looked for an affordable studio apartment for a couple of weeks to no avail.

The next thing we knew, he had gone over to the dark side and was shopping for diamond rings.

Rather, he was arranging a five-year payment plan with sky-high interest for the rock Dianne had already picked out.

Wuss.

“Are we almost at the exit?” Jack asks, lifting his foot off the brake and creeping the tiny car forward a whopping two or three feet before stopping again with a colorful curse. It isn’t the first time he’s said that—or worse—since we left Manhattan this morning.

The day started off on the wrong foot at the rental-car place down First Avenue from our apartment on the Upper East Side.

Our Apartment.

Funny how even after seventeen months of living with somebody, you still get a little thrill over the mundane daily reminders of domestic coupledom. At least, I still do.

Anyway, we had reserved a midsize sedan, but for some reason the counter agent couldn’t quite express—either because she didn’t speak English or because she simply didn’t have a logical explanation why—we got stuck with a car that’s roughly the size of a toilet bowl, give or take.

At least it doesn’t smell like a toilet bowl, like the rental car Jack and I had when we went to my friend Kate’s wedding in sweltering Alabama last summer.

Then again, the lemon-shaped air-freshener thingy hanging from the rearview mirror in this car isn’t much better. It kind of reminds me of that bathroom spray that doesn’t really eliminate odors, merely infuses them with a fruity aroma. My parents’ bathroom frequently reeks of country-apple-scented poop.

Jack and I keep good old-fashioned Lysol in our bathroom.

Our Bathroom.

In Our Apartment.

See? Little thrill.

After said thrill subsides, I consult the contents of the engraved ivory-linen envelope in my lap: an invitation with a tag line that reads Grow old along with me…the best is yet to be…a reception card and a little annotated road map of this particular corner of hell.

Er, Jersey.

“I think we’re about five miles away from the exit,” I tell Jack.

“That means at least another hour. Maybe we’ll miss the ceremony,” he adds hopefully.

But we don’t. We eventually find ourselves driving along a strip mall–dotted highway with fifteen minutes to spare. Unless we’re lost. Which, come to think of it, we just might be. I think I might have missed a turn a mile or so back, when I was trying to dislodge my numb feet from the cramped space between my purse and the glove compartment.

Jack’s getting crankier by the second, I have to pee, and we’re both scanning the sides of the road as if any second now we might see a picturesque white steeple poking up amidst the concrete-block-and-plate-glass suburban landscape.

“What’s the name of the church again, Tracey?” he asks, apparently thinking we might have somehow overlooked a place of worship nestled in the shadow of Chuck E. Cheese.

Without checking the invitation again, I quip, to break the tension, “Our Lady of Everlasting Misery.”

Jack laughs. “Really? I thought it was Our Lady of Eternal Damnation.”

I giggle. “Or Our Lady of Imminent Sorrow.” Then, the nice Catholic girl in me adds, “We probably shouldn’t be making jokes like that.”

“Sure we should. If Mike’s asinine enough to get married, we can make jokes about it.”

Okay, here I go again.

But the thing is…

Jack didn’t say, If Mike’s asinine enough to get married to Dianne.

He said, If Mike’s asinine enough to get married.

Period.

Which makes me wonder if he thinks only the Asinine exchange vows.

It’s not as if he’s ever said anything to the contrary.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, looking over at me.

“I have to pee.”

“Are you sure?”

I squirm and struggle to cross my legs beneath the skirt of the slinky red cocktail dress he earlier admired but callously didn’t remember to relate to the slinky red cocktail dress I was wearing the magical night we met at the office Christmas party, lo, twenty months ago.

“Am I sure I have to pee?” I echo, irritated. “Of course I’m sure.”

“I mean, is that all that’s wrong?”

No. I have to pee and there’s no room in this car for leg-crossing and I’m doomed to bitter spinsterdom, thanks to him.

My mother and sister were right. I should never have moved in with Jack so quickly.

Mental note: Next time you are cordially invited to live with someone, request ring and wedding date prior to signing of lease.

Dianne might be a bitch, but she’s a brilliantly strategic bitch. Here I am wedged into a citrus-scented Kia, sans ring or any hope of one, while she’s lounging in a stretch limo in a tiara with a glass of champagne in one hand and a prayer book in the other, serenely contemplating happily-ever-after with the man she loves.

Yes. Or, more likely, she has her ever-present cell phone wedged under her illusion-layered headpiece as she curses out some hapless florist who dared to put one too many sprigs of baby’s breath into the bridal bouquet.

Regardless, what matters—at least to me, and, undoubtedly, to her—is that she’s the one who’s getting married today.

“Hey, is that it?” Jack asks suddenly, pointing out the window at, you guessed it, a steeple looming above not Chuck E. Cheese, but T.J. Maxx.

That’s it, all right. Our Lady of Everlasting Misery is decked out with floral wreaths on the open doors, long black limousines parked out front and elegantly dressed Manhattanites milling alongside the white satin runner stretching down the front steps.

Ah, weddings. Gotta love them.

Grow old along with me…the best is yet to be…

How romantic is it to stand up in front of everyone you ever knew and vow to be with one person all the days of your life?

I experience a glorious flutter of anticipation until I remember that I’m not the bride here. That I may never be the bride anywhere. Not if I stick with Jack.

Given that the alternative to sticking with Jack is breaking up with Jack, and that I happen to be head over heels in love with Jack, my flutter of excitement swiftly transforms into something that calls for Maalox.

“This is going to suck,” Jack mutters as we pull into the crowded, sun-steamed parking lot beside the church.

I’m not sure whether he’s referring to the challenge of finding an empty space or the big event itself, but in either case, I couldn’t agree with him more.

Chapter 2

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the new Mr. and Mrs. Michael Middleford!”

We all—me, Jack, my three co-workers and their spouses—stand and clap as the band launches into a rousing rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.” Our table is in the far reaches of the room, a zone that’s obviously been designated for Work Friends and Aging Distant Relatives. There’s a row of walkers and canes and even a wheelchair lined up beside the adjacent table, where nobody is standing or clapping, presumably because the occupants can neither see nor hear.

Mike and Dianne swoop into the reception hall with their clasped hands held high, resplendent in black tux and white gown. Mike looks dashing, and Dianne…

“She looks like a cockroach,” Yvonne observes over the rim of her martini glass.

“A cockroach? Yvonne, that’s a terrible thing to say about a bride.” Brenda’s Joisey accent seems stronger than ever here among the natives.

“Not if it’s true,” Latisha proclaims.

“Oh, it’s true.” Yvonne gives her Pepto-Bismol-tinted bouffant a little pat. “She might be all decked out in a tiara and veil but she still has a pinched little face and her eyes are beadier than the bodice of her dress. Cockroach.”

“I couldn’t agree more, Why-vonne.”

Naturally, that quip came from Jack, who is on his third scotch and consumed nary a liquor-absorbing mini-quiche or bacon-wrapped scallop during the cocktail hour. He claimed he lost his appetite when he was forced to kiss the bride in the receiving line.

Yvonne nods, for once choosing not to chastise him for calling her Why-vonne, which he insists is his way of being affectionate. Never mind that Yvonne hates nicknames and generally shows affection for no one. Not even her husband, Thor.

Which doesn’t mean she doesn’t love us all to death. Affection just isn’t her style. She’s a tough old New York broad who can generally be found steering clear of small children, kittens with yarn balls and potential group-hug situations.

“Gawd, I hope you people weren’t trashing me at my wedding,” Brenda says with a shake of her big curly black hair. “Did you think I looked like a cockroach, too?”

“Of course we didn’t, Bren,” I say reassuringly, avoiding Yvonne’s and Latisha’s eyes in case they, too, remember that we’d all cattily wondered how Brenda, in her billowing sequin-studded gown and towering rhinestone and tulle headpiece perched atop a mountain of teased hair, was going to fit through the doorway of the honeymoon suite.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you didn’t.” Brenda knowingly shakes her head at me, no doubt reminiscing about how we’d snidely speculated whether Yvonne got a senior citizen discount on the caterer for her green card marriage to her much younger Nordic pen pal, Thor. Oh, and how just last May we placed bets on whether Latisha’s enormous lactating boobs would actually pop out of her low-cut bridal bodice when she bent over to cut the cake.

“Babe, what could anyone possibly say about you?” Paulie asks, patting Brenda’s shoulder. “Yo-aw go-aw-jus.”

It takes me a second to decipher Paulie’s accent, and when I do, I have to smile. He and Brenda are so cute together. She’s far from gorgeous these days, with perpetual dark circles under her eyes and thirty extra pounds of postpregnancy weight. But Paulie is still madly in love with her after two years of marriage and a colicky newborn.

“When I get married, I don’t know if I’ll dare to invite any of you,” I find myself saying. “There are plenty of things you can say about me.”

“Tracey, we would never!” Brenda protests, then asks, nudging Jack’s arm, “So when are you guys getting married, anyway?”

Terrific. I don’t dare look at him.

“I was thinking a year from next February thirtieth would be good,” Jack says without missing a beat.

“Very funny,” I mutter as the men chortle and the women bathe me in sympathetic glances.

I reach for my gin and tonic and find that it’s empty. I’m about to flag down the passing waiter when I realize somebody’s got to drive the lemon-fresh minicar home. Judging by the way Jack’s imbibing, I’m assuming he’s assuming it won’t be him.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s raise a glass as our best man, Mike’s brother, Tom Middleford, toasts the bride and groom.”

“He better keep it short and sweet,” Latisha murmurs as we all obediently lift our champagne flutes. “I’m ready for prime rib and garlic mashed potatoes.”

I’m ready for prime rib and garlic mashed potatoes, too. What a shame that I was compelled to order the poached salmon and steamed baby vegetables.

Yes, I live in constant fear of gaining back all the weight I lost two summers ago. So far, that hasn’t happened, thank God. But it might. The second I let down my guard, I’ll find myself straining to zip the old fat jeans I keep in the top of my closet as a reminder.

With a sigh, I sip my ice water—which you wouldn’t expect would taste like tap water in a fancy place like this, but it does—and turn my attention to the toast.

Unfortunately, Mike’s brother Tom is as eloquent a speaker as Mike is a writer. Meaning, his big speech is all but incoherent. Not because he’s drunk—at least, he doesn’t look drunk. What he looks is distressed. Distressed that his beloved big brother has just been joined for all eternity to a cockroach in a tiara.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into his expression and his rambling, emotional speech. Maybe I shouldn’t assume that just because I’ve never met anyone who actually likes Dianne, such a person doesn’t exist. Maybe the best man is overcome by joy, and not sorrow.

Nah.

By the time Tom winds down his toast with a dismal, “Cheers,” I’m feeling mighty depressed about the evening ahead.

“Anybody want to come to the smoking room with me?” Yvonne asks, snapping open her black clutch and pulling out a pack of Marlboros and a fancy lighter.

All of us women immediately take her up on it, including Latisha, who doesn’t even smoke.

The men—Yvonne’s husband, Thor, Brenda’s husband, Paulie, Latisha’s husband, Derek, and my non-husband, Jack—are content to stay put at the round flower-and-candle-bedecked table.

The four of us traipse through the ballroom and out into the hallway, where a tiny closed-in space has been graciously set aside for those of us who are willpower-challenged, cancer-defiant, and thus still addicted to nicotine. A noxious haze rolls out when we open the door, but we pile into the crowded room and light up.

Rather, three of us light up. Latisha fans the air with a hand that sports the recently bestowed wedding band she claimed not to want or need. As she fans, she asks, “Tracey, is it my imagination, or is Jack not into getting married?”

“Oh, it’s your imagination,” I tell her breezily. “He’s actually got a diamond ring in his jacket pocket and he’s just waiting for the right moment to pop the question.”

Everyone laughs.

I try to laugh but end up making the kind of sound one might make if an MTA bus rolled over one’s pinkie toe.

“Are you okay?” Brenda asks as Latisha pats my arm and Yvonne’s eyes take on the deadly gleam reserved for bosses who ask her to start payment reqs at five to five on Friday afternoons and eligible bachelors who refuse to marry their live-in girlfriends.

“Yes,” I say, inhaling my filtered menthol. “I’m okay.”

When met with dubious silence, I add, “Sort of.”

“Are you sure?” Brenda asks.

“Of course she’s not okay,” Yvonne barks. “Her boyfriend refuses to marry her. She feels like shit. Who wouldn’t?”

Maybe somebody who hasn’t been told that she should feel like shit, I can’t help thinking. I mean, if my friends weren’t here to validate my irritation with Jack, I might be able to convince myself that it’s just a typical guy thing; that I should just bear with him a while longer.

After all, Jack isn’t downright commitmentphobic like my ex-boyfriend, Will, whom I dated for years without his even entertaining the notion of cohabitation.

No, Jack asked me to move in with him practically the second we met.

Then again…

Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?

Yeah, me too. But only lately. For the first year of our relationship, I was blissfully happy and oblivious to the idea of ulterior motives.

But that was back when I assumed that Engagement, Marriage and Baby Carriage would be the logical progression of our relationship. That’s how it seems to work for everyone else I know, though Latisha swapped the order of Marriage and Baby Carriage, and I seriously doubt there’s a Baby Carriage in Yvonne’s immediate future.

Meanwhile, now that Jack and I are stalled at phase one, Living Together, I can’t help wondering why he wanted to do that in the first place.

Was he merely desperate to get away from Mike’s eternal chipperness? Dianne’s eternal wenchiness? Brooklyn?

Obviously, he could never have afforded a Manhattan apartment with a roommate, because half the rent on a two-bedroom Manhattan apartment is way beyond a media supervisor’s salary.

Half the rent on a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment is just barely within Jack’s budget, and mine. So if we weren’t living together, he’d still be in a borough and I’d still be in my dingy downtown studio.

Or maybe I’d have given up on New York City by now and moved back to my hometown way upstate. That’s what everyone back home always expected me to do sooner or later. The residents of Brookside know that one doesn’t leave home without someday regretting it…or, at the very least, paying a terrible price.

I still remember the neighbor’s son who notoriously turned his back on his home, his family, his legacy.

In other words, he moved to Cleveland. When he was run over by a snowplow in a freak accident, my parents said he’d gotten what was coming to him.

Yes, I’m serious.

I’m the first person in my family to move more than a few blocks away from my parents. They’ll never forgive me for moving four hundred miles away, and I’m sure they’re assuming I’ll eventually get what’s coming to me. That would explain why my mother’s always offering up novenas in my name.

Forgiveness doesn’t come easily in the Spadolini family. My parents still haven’t forgiven me for daring to say that I don’t like the abundant fennel seeds in Uncle Cosmo’s homemade sausage, for missing Cousin Joanie’s first communion, for forgetting to call my grandmother on her birthday.

I sent her flowers.

But I didn’t call.

In my family, you call.

You can send somebody three dozen roses, imported Perugina Baci and front-row tickets to see Connie Francis, but if you don’t call, you’re out.

So yeah, I’m out.

Especially now that I’m living in sin.

In my family, living in sin is one step away from killing somebody.

Actually, it’s probably worse than killing somebody, considering my parents’ pride in our Sicilian roots, and how they’ve alluded to the fact that our ancestors weren’t exactly antigun lobbyists and didn’t take any crap from anybody.

My father likes to share a colorful anecdote about his father’s compare Fat Naso, and what may or may not have happened to Scully, the neighbor who called Fat Naso’s mother something so heinous it can’t be repeated at Sunday dinner.

Never mind that Fat Naso’s mother callously dubbed her own son Fat Naso because of his weight problem and prominent beak. Back then in Sicily, it was okay to insult somebody as long as you gave birth to them. Conversely, it was never okay to stand by while somebody else insulted the person who gave birth to you.