Page 1 of Back for Seconds

Part One

mise en bouche

French for “put in mouth,” a mise en bouche is a small, handheld pre-appetizer served to diners as soon as they arrive. Meant to awaken the palate and excite guests for what’s to come, a mise en bouche is no larger than a few titillating bites.

An Uncrustable, unfortunately, does not qualify.

Chapter 1 June

One week until Christmas

“You think she’s gonna talk about us?” I whispered, leaning in close to my mother’s powder-and-rose-scented blowout and flicking my eyes in Magdalena Torrez’s direction.

“Oh, I’m positive. The minute one of us goes to the restroom.”

Right. Of course.

Around us, the air hung heavy with the scent of anise from the freshly pressed pizzelle, the lingering ambrosia of garlic sweat in olive oil, and about twelve different competing Versace perfumes.

Joanne Pagliucci’s seventh annual ceramics sale was going the same it did every year: The drinks were flowing, the bruschetta was being passed, and Magdalena was holding court, regaling a rapt audience of women in “Ugly Sweaters” (obviously, the kind only marketed as such—no one here had the courage to actually, materially be ugly) with hot, fresh gossip. Seated in a velvet wingback between Joanne’s signature silver Christmas tree and the display table of carefully painted snow globes, gravy boats, and candleholders, Magdalena looked as casual and self-assured as Tony Montana.

Meanwhile, we’d shoved ourselves into the farthest corner of the white leather Chesterfield, dodging her wandering gaze like bullets at a bank robbery.

My mother and I had given everyone in this Jersey Shore rancher the greatest Christmas gift of all—scandal. Juicy scandal. Juicy, multileveled, months-long scandal. Because for the first time in the history of ever, we were both divorceés.

Double single, no mingle.

First had come the “surprise” dissolution of my parents’ three-decade-long love story. Now that my dad had officially sold the pizza shop and moved out of town, we were constantly being cornered and gently massaged for information. No one wanted to be gauche, but what was going to happen to Genie’s Pizzeria? We couldn’t take away their beloved pizza. Just because we were suffering didn’t mean they had to too.

Six months after that, I’d found myself confronted with my own stack of papers. Even though I’d known they were coming, I’d still let myself fall apart like the earth had been ripped out from beneath my feet. Brian and I hadn’t been married for twenty-five years, and there hadn’t been children and a beagle and a KitchenAid mixer complicating everything. But we had enough history that when I realized what was happening, I’d began to beg.

To bargain––desperate to save the twenty-five years I’d never see. Marriage is supposed to be hard, I’d said over and over. This is the hard part!

As if I knew anything.

No, my mom and I were not mingling, not even close. We were doing whatever the opposite of mingling is. Hostile solitude, maybe.

“What’s there to even talk about at this point?” I grouched, pinching at the skin between my eyes. “It’s been over a year.”

“They’ll never let it go, Junebug.” She gave my knee a gentle pat. “You just have to make peace with that.”

Why? I was so sick and tired of radically accepting, coming to terms with, and rising above. I was one bad interaction away from buying the front page of The Evergreen Rag to boldly speak my truth.

“BREAKING News! Local Woman Actually Didn’t Want to Be Cheated on By Her Kind of Lame Husband! Also: She Would Have Made It Work!”

I was way too hungover to find any of our misfortune entertaining. A huge personal loss, since this party and all the ensuing pettiness really were some of the best parts of spending the holidays in Evergreen—second only to the night before Thanksgiving when everyone showed up at The Billiards to get sloshed and scope out who had gotten hot while living someplace where the median age wasn’t sixty-five.

This was a gathering of the commare—an unofficial symposium of Italian American women and those who had married in thusly, who had formed a neural network, a telephone tree, a whisper network that would have given even the Soviet spies pause. These women were more than friends, not quite sisters, and potentially enemies.

As a commare’s guest (daughter of a commare, an honorless position), my purpose was purely decorative. I was just lucky enough to be in their presence.

“Junebug, you’ve barely touched your cheese,” my mom tutted, nudging me with her refreshed plate of miniature crab cakes and spinach artichoke dip.

I stared down at the cube of pecorino sweating on my plate. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“What the hell did you drink last night?”

“We made a pitcher of marga—” A dangerous burp gurgled up my throat. My mother’s blue eyes widened. “Ritas,” I finished, only when I knew we were both safe.