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It was Bella.
“Look at this,” Bella said, focusing her squinty eyes on me. “It’s the slut. You let the slut shop here?”
“Hello, Bella,” Mary Ann said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’m under house arrest,” Bella said, “but I snuck out. I need macaroni salad. My daughter-in-law knows nothing.”
“Tell Eddie and he’ll scoop some fresh for you.”
“You good girl,” Bella said. “I not give you the eye.”
“Holy hell,” Mary Ann said when Bella went to the back of the deli. “She scares the bejeezus out of me. She’s freaking creepy.”
I helped Mary Ann bag, and I rushed out of the store before Bella returned with her macaroni. I sat in the Discovery and I looked around. There were no other cars parked at the curb. Bella came out of the deli and opened an umbrella. She was going to walk home in the rain. Damn.
I rolled the window down and yelled at her. “Bella! Do you want a ride?”
She walked over to me and looked in. “You try to get on the good side of me?”
“Do you have a good side?” I asked her.
“Hah!” she said. “I let you give me a ride.”
It was a short trip and neither of us spoke. I stopped in front of her house, and she got out. “You a slut but you know to do the right thing,” she said.
Grandma and my mom were at the kitchen table when I brought the groceries in. They were having coffee and crumb cake because that’s what you do in the Burg when it’s a rainy morning. I put the groceries away and joined them at the table.
“Bella was at Giovichinni’s when I was there,” I said. “She told Mary Ann that she was under house arrest, but she needed macaroni salad.”
“Sometimes I almost like her,” Grandma said.
I took a piece of crumb cake and smeared some butter on it. “The butcher at Giovichinni’s hit on me.”
“Eddie?” my mom said. “What did you tell him? Are you going out with him?”
“No,” I said. “I’m going out with Morelli.”
“You could do worse than Eddie,” my mom said. “I like Morelli, but he comes to dinner, and I don’t see a ring on your finger.”
“Do you want me to marry Eddie?”
“I want you to marrysomebody,” my mom said.
“How about Ranger?” I said.
My mom froze with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth and she made the sign of the cross. Grandma choked on a piece of crumb cake.
“Did he ask you to marry him?” my mom finally said.
“No,” I said. “It was a hypothetical question.”
“Oh, well, goodness,” my mom said. “Okay then.”
“What’s wrong with Ranger?” I asked her.
“I don’t know exactly,” my mom said. “He’s very mysterious. He feels dangerous.”
“He’s hot,” Grandma said. “I’d marry him in a heartbeat.”
