“ARE YOU INSANE?” I yelled. I never yelled. I blinked my tears away as Gio started mumbling a prayer under his breath while Papi and Sal looked on with tense, wrinkled faces.
I’d just decided to take a break in the back room when I was attacked by the uncles. Of course, since they all walked with limps, I saw them coming.
I snapped the stemmed roses in my hands then dropped them onto the counter. It was a slow day.
“Take a break!” Gio had said.
“Have some cannoli!” Papi’d encouraged.
“And while you’re at it, sit down, we have news.” Sal spread his arms wide and announced. “We have found you a young man!”
The breath whooshed from my lungs and all the blood left my brain. Maybe I really did need to sit down.
The cannoli rolled around in my full stomach, threatening to pop back up and make a second appearance all over the roses I’d just spent hours arranging.
Roses that apparently were going to be decorating our house that evening for my engagement party!
Italians!
“Look,” I began, trying to sound stern. Why couldn’t I have been born with more of a backbone, like my twin brother Dante? People stared at him and whimpered. They stared at me and went aw, how cute! “I just barely turned nineteen! I have years before I need to get married, and I can easily pick out my own husband, thank you very much!”
“But you do not date.” Sal rubbed his bald head, his shoulders hunched over as if he was in pain, maybe his arthritis was acting up again? It wasn’t as if my uncles were spring chickens; they were in their seventies. “And we worry for you.”
I narrowed my eyes and then jumped out of my chair when a realization hit me. “Are you guys sick? Is someone dying? Just tell me now and get it over with so we can come up with a plan.” I mentally started crossing off all the things we’d need to do if they were, in fact, sick. I could take care of them, I mean, it was my job, they were like my parents. The three stooges, but still, all I had!
Confusion clouded Gio’s expression. With his round black hat propped proudly on his balding head, he looked like a train conductor. “Doctors. Who goes to doctors?”
“Normal people,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Bah!” Papi finally spoke up. “We are Italian.” He thrust his fist against his chest as if that proved his heritage, which, in a way, it did. “We are healthy, virile, men!”
“More wine?” Gio poured a few more generous glasses as they all slowly passed them around.
The shop was still dead.
Clearly they weren’t sick if they were drinking and offended at the notion of even seeing a doctor.
“You know what you guys need?” I sat back down. “You need a hobby. One that doesn’t involve my love life.”
“But you could learn to love Nico!” Gio spread his arms wide. “Yes?”
“No!” I argued. “I don’t even know Nico!”
“Of course you do!” Gio said as my uncles joined in laughter. “You used to play together as children.”
I gave them my best blank expression. “Then by all means, we shall be married at once! I mean, we played together so…”
My sarcasm was completely lost on them as they giddily nodded their heads in agreement.
Groaning, I covered my face with my hands. “I’m not marrying Nico.”
“He will be so disappointed.” Papi clicked his tongue. “His mother was elated to get him off her hands.”
“And into mine?” Do not yell at your uncles. Nice, nice, nice. I gripped the sides of the wooden chair so hard I was afraid it was going to crack. “Are you guys insane?”
“We would not know.” Gio laughed. “We do not go to doctors, remember?”
“Impossible,” I grumbled under my breath. “No.” I stood. “My answer is no.”
Sal hunched over even more. Oh, dear Lord. “My arm.”
“No!” I fought the urge to smile. “Stop it! Your arm is just fine. Sal! I mean it, stop pretending like you’re hurt. That’s cruel and unusual punishment.” He put on a good show of shaking his wine glass as he lifted it to his lips. “Uh huh, careful not to spill any of that wine, Sal.”
Gio made a cross over his chest as if the very idea was a sin against the church.
“Fix this.” I held up my hands. “I love you all, but… you need to ask me before you start finding me strange men and engaging me to them! And announcing parties and—”
“Don’t forget putting it in the newspaper,” Papi coughed out.
Groaning, I closed my eyes and managed to take a few soothing breaths. “Don’t suppose you’ll share that wine?”
“No.” They said in unison while Sal quickly swiped it from the table and hid it in his coat.
“Nice.” I nodded. “Real nice, Sal, you used your bad hand.”
He switched the wine back to his other hand muttering, “Damn it,” while Papi smacked him in the back of the head with his rolled up newspaper.
I untied my apron with a sigh. “I’m gonna go across the street and visit Dante. Consider this my break.”
Each of them blew me kisses.