A Daughter's Homecoming. Ginny Aiken

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СКАЧАТЬ he didn’t know her crazy family, either, the whole extended lot of them. Even if he did know her parents from eating at Tony’s, which really didn’t count.

      Why it mattered to her so much coming from him, she didn’t know. She just knew it did. Besides, she couldn’t stand the thought of any more taunts about Mafia dons or corny Dean Martin songs about pizzas and moons and people’s eyes. It had happened too often and with too many people. In fact, she’d had more than a bellyful of them to color her life in Lyndon Point a negative shade of embarrassment. Really, it shouldn’t matter, since she wasn’t likely to see him again other than to check on the dog, but the scenario had played itself out too often in her childhood and teen years.

      She didn’t want it to happen with Zach Davenport.

      Oh, good grief. What was she thinking? She had to get back to Cleveland before she let all the ancient history affect her life again. She had to get away from Lyndon Point before her hard-gained individual identity and self-esteem retreated to high school levels. To do that, she had to get Tony’s back on sure footing.

      At the restaurant, Gabi put the dog and the shelter’s attractive new director out of her mind and marshaled her troops. With the help of her parents’ teen employees, she scrubbed, dumped, disinfected and still managed to keep the dining room open for hungry customers.

      Hours flew by. Her back began to ache and Cleveland loomed even more appealing than before. She missed her routine back in Ohio, her uncomplicated life, her cute home, and especially her best friend and perennial roommate since college, Allison Stoddard.

      A half hour later, on her way to the back door at Tony’s yet one more time, the need to touch base with that faraway life got to her, and Gabi paused to place a call. Allie answered with a squeal, and the two women chattered as they always did, about everything and nothing, with the exuberance of close friends. She didn’t, however, stop what she’d been on the way to do, but instead sandwiched her cell phone between her right ear and shoulder as she continued lugging the trash toward the door. This latest bag of iffy ingredients headed to the Dumpster felt even heavier than the others.

      “You’d never believe it,” she told Allie. “I’m up to my eyeballs in spoiled cheese and pizza sauce, and such close contact with a Dumpster makes it awful to breathe deep.”

      As she stepped out into the dingy alley, she wrinkled her nose in appreciation for Lyndon Point’s fresh sea air as she prepared her approach to the trash container. “It reeks up to higher than the peak of Mount Rainier. You can’t imagine how much stuff can hide in the back of a commercial cooler.”

      “Did anyone come down with food poisoning?” Allie asked. “It sounds like you have the—ahem!—perfect recipe there.”

      “Whoa, don’t even go there, woman!” Gabi gave her load another tug. “We dodged a bullet on that account.” She explained what had happened. “Fortunately,” she added, “the kids my parents employ served the stuff in the front of the fridge, so no one got sick. When I opened the cooler and started to move things around, though, I caught a funky whiff, and that sent me digging. That’s when I found the expired ingredients. But food poisoning? That spells death for a restaurant.”

      Gabi dropped the weighty sack to grab her phone. “Hang on a sec. I need both hands to get this trash bag into the Dumpster.” Moments later, she wiped her hands on the seat of her shorts and picked up her cell again. “I’m back.”

      Allie went on. “Why don’t you just close down the place, if it’s in such bad shape?”

      “Because Mama and Papa—”

      “I just love how you say their names, with that Italian accent. It’s so...I don’t know. Old Country...Tuscan...cultured European.”

      “Oh, stop.”

      That was all she needed. For even Allie to see her as Old Country. That was her family, not her.

      Still, Gabi couldn’t deny she’d always thought of her parents by the old-fashioned names. She doubted she could change, since it happened spontaneously, even now. The best thing for her to do was change the subject.

      “Anyway,” she said, her voice firm, her tone deliberate, “my parents can’t pay insurance premiums or co-pays if money doesn’t come in. The bills from Dad’s stroke could clear the national debt.”

      With her usual lack of tact, Allie plowed on. “Then put your years of experience to good use and find yourself a chef and a manager, so you can hustle back here to Cleveland. Damon’s not happy about your absence.”

      Damon Schuler, Gabi’s boss, wasn’t endowed with patience. “I have four weeks of saved vacation plus another three of personal time. He can handle the office. For goodness’ sake, he’s the one who started the business.”

      Allie snickered. “When I stopped there for the files you asked me to get, he had his tie flipped over a shoulder, glasses at the tip of his nose, and his hair looked like a bird’s nest.”

      Gabi managed the Cleveland office of Damon’s Executive Placements firm, and before leaving, she’d been converting the hard-copy files of the office’s most high-powered executive clients to digital format. She’d asked Allie to ship those files to Lyndon Point, and planned to catch up in the evenings after she’d finished at Tony’s.

      “Oh, please,” she said, using more oomph than she felt. “Did he forget he used to run things before the business grew so big he had to open satellite offices in other states? Of course, he can do it. If not, he can get his wife to help. Irene managed the office before they married.”

      “Great minds think alike! When he complained about you abandoning him to all your work, I suggested a temp, but he countered with something about Irene claiming she’s forgotten everything in the twenty years since she left.” She hesitated. “Then he mentioned a Wilma and Florida, and ushered me out of his office. He did sound upset. And who’s Wilma?”

      Guilt fought Gabi’s common sense. “Wilma took over after Irene. She retired to Florida when I started. Besides, whose side are you on—Damon’s or mine?”

      “I’m on mine. I want my roomie back.”

      “Believe me, I’m not crazy about being back in my hometown, but I can’t leave. Papa’s stroke was serious, and Mama won’t leave him for a second. He’s not debilitated enough for a nursing home, but he has to learn to use the wheelchair, and can’t care for himself yet. Therapy should get him there, but it’s been only a month since...”

      “I know.” Allie’s voice softened. “I’m just being a brat—sorry. I do understand and would do the same if it was Dad.”

      Allie’s mother had died of complications from diabetes their junior year in college. Father and daughter had grown closer than ever in the ensuing years.

      Gabi stood and grasped the doorknob. “I should have come home as soon as Mama called that first night, but I foolishly let her talk me into postponing my return. If only I’d been here sooner, I could have kept Tony’s from becoming such a mess.”

      “And if wishes were fishes—what is that cliché? I know there is one.”

      “Beats me. I’m just a business major—you’re the teacher.” She sighed. “Anyway, gotta go. This place needs me more right now than you need me back there. Or Damon.”

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