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“Ah, yes! I get it! You feel guilty, right? So sorry for the stressed out crazy girl who can’t keep straight why people are trying to kill her? You feel bad, for taking advantage of a vulnerable, deeply disturbed person in her hour of need? You feel like bottom-feeding slime for abusing my trust? Well, fuck you, Bruno Ranieri. Fuck you.”
He shoved her grimly towards the door. “Shut up and walk.”
CHAPTER12
Unfair, Miles reflected glumly as he tailed Zia Rosa through the baby supplies store. The crapola errands always fell to him. Got scut work? Something mind-numbing, time consuming? Call good old Miles.
He stared at the rectangular block of Zia Rosa’s back, draped in a leopard print tent of a blouse, gold chain link necklaces jingling cheerfully over it all, a tiger-striped plastic purse. Cruising down the aisle with her broad, stumpy gait like she owned the place.
He’d asked her four times if she’d gotten everything on her list, and if not, could he please, please just run and fetch it for her, but she had to run her eye over every last damn product in the aisles to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. He felt like a yipping Chihuahua, dragged behind her on a leash. She gave about that much attention to anything he said. Zia Rosa had very selective comprehension.
Had to be today that she had to get the bouncy seat for little Eamon, and the foam wedgies for the crib of tiny Helena, Davy and Margot’s newest addition. Today, when Cindy’s band’s recording session had been canceled due to tech problems in the studio. Which would have led to her being home all afternoon. With him. Naked, going at it like a couple of crazed bunnies. But not today, because of a mysterious phone call from Aaro. It seemed Kev’s prickly, problematic adopted brother Bruno had gotten himself into some sort of bizarre trouble. And whiz-bang, the McCloud clan went to red alert. That meant everybody was grounded until the situation was clarified. But explain that to Zia Rosa. Even the McClouds, with their combined testosterone, could not intimidate that woman out of doing whatever the fuck she wanted. The McClouds had met their match. It would’ve been funny, if they hadn’t been using Miles to solve their problem.
Nothing had been the same since Zia Rosa had showed up, a package deal along with Kev McCloud’s triumphant return. She’d proceeded to camp out all over the McCloud crowd’s lives, or at least, those that were reproducing, which was most of them, at this point. She’d earned Liv’s and Margot’s and Erin’s undying devotion for her help with the babies. The kids adored her. Tam was terrified of her. That said it all.
And there was the food. God-kissed, orgasmic Italian food in industrial quantities. Everybody got themselves invited to dinner when Zia Rosa was cooking, and then went around surreptitiously pinching their gut afterwards, resolving to put in a few more hours in the gym to burn off the baked ziti or the the cream custard pignoli tart, or whatever.
Miles had been bitching about the latest Zia Rosa lecture, something along the lines of “have those babies while you’re young or you’ll be sorry,” while Davy changed the oil in his truck. He’d wondered out loud to Davy why they didn’t just tell her to get gone, so everyone could breathe easy again. Davy stood up, frowning up into the sky, wiping oil off his hands, and explained things with his usual brevity.
“You have a mom,” he said. “You can afford to be fussy. When you have kids, they’ll have a grandma. We don’t. Here’s a turbocharged super-grandma, ready made and available for use. So what the hell. We’ll take her. In a heartbeat. We’d be stupid not to.”
That had reduced him to an abashed silence. It was true. Not many grandparents in the McCloud milieu, besides Erin’s mom. Liv’s scary mother definitely did not count, and Raine’s mom gave everyone hives, particularly Raine’s husband Seth, so just as well she spent most of her time in London. No benevolent, diaper-changing, ziti baking grandma energy from that direction. So since then, he’d held his tongue, kept his Zia Rosa bitching between himself and himself.
He was jerked out of his reverie when he almost ran into Zia Rosa’s back. She’d braked to coo over twin toddlers in a tandem stroller, and was gurgling Italian endearments.“Dio mio,”she murmured.“Uguali. Ugualissimi. Incredibile.”
She looked up at Miles, eyes spilling over, clearly expecting some sort of a comment, but he didn’t speak Italian, except for food names. They were all learning food names now. “What?” he asked. “Huh?”
She sniffed, her jowls quivering. “Thebimbi,” she said. “Pazzesco.The girl is just like my niece Magdalena when she was little,angeletto mio,may she rest insanta pace. And the little boy, he’s Bruno. Exactly like my Bruno.Mi fa brividi.” She crossed herself, and then dug into her purse, fishing a couple battered photos out of her wallet.
The mom of the toddlers was a good sport about it. She was young and pretty, and she got all gooey and did the requisiteoh, my god you’re right that’s like, incredible, they really do look just alike, that’s so totally wildwhen she looked at Aunt Rosa’s photos. Her eyes got misty, her voice got froggy, and then, oh horrors, she said the words Miles had been dreading. “Would you like to hold them?”
Oh, fuck him. He tried not to clap his brow and curse the day.
Of course, Zia Rosa’s reply was along the lines ofis a bean green, does the pope shit in the woods,yada yada. She cooed and tickled and pinched, and told the mom her convoluted story of why she’d concluded that Eamon needed the bouncy chair and Helena needed the foam wedgies, which sparked off the mom’s story of how she needed mesh crib covers to keep the twins in their cribs at night. That sparked tales of Bruno’s adventuresome babyhood, which was a well with no bottom.
The young mom’s husband exchanged can-you-believe-this-shit glances with Miles as the minutes ticked by, and then wandered off, clearly bored out of his mind, leaving Miles to his solitary fate. Thanks, dude. He appreciated the solidarity. Zia Rosa and the mom ranged over a broad array of baby-themed topics and had settled enthusiastically into the benefits of pure lanolin for cracked nipples, ooh, tasty, when the little girl started to squawk. Which necessitated pulling out yogurt, goldfish, binkie, in their efforts to comfort her. Meanwhile, the other twin, released from his bonds, wandered off to wreak mayhem in the baby food aisle. After some ominous crashing, Zia Rosa fluttered her hand at him. “Miles, go watch over thatbimbo,” she commanded.
So off he went, chasing the little monster through the formula aisle. Trying to explain that the lactose free baby formula was not meant to be used for a soccer ball. The kid laughed in his face. A store employee came along just as the box burst open and released its cloud of white dust. The woman started shrilly lecturing Miles, like he was the dad, and where the fuck had the kid’s real dad disappeared to? Hello? Anyone? In the meantime, Zia Rosa and the mom discovered that the little girl’s problem was a poopy diaper. Evidently a two woman job.
Jesus, he was glad Cindy was in no rush to procreate. He loved the little McCloud hellions, every last one of them, but he also loved getting into his truck and driving away, stereo blasting. Free at last.
Finally the mom came to rescue her son. She turned to Zia Rosa to start the ‘great to chat with you’ part of the conversation, and thanks for the tip about the amazing flushable Swippie Wippie soggy-wipes for poopy butts, or whatever they were gabbing on about. At last, they broke free, and headed for the checkout line.Yes.Heavenly choruses swelled. Light broke through the cloud choked sky.
Miles shoved the loaded cart doggedly through the parking lot. Zia Rosa was fiercely supervising the loading of her baby booty into the back when a shout rang out. “Hey! Excuse me!”
It was the dad of the twins, loping towards them, holding up a phone.“We found this in Hayden’s stroller,” the guy explained. “Must have rolled out when you were helping Kate change Hayden’s pants.”
Zia Rosa took her phone, smiling mistily as the man sprinted away. “Lovely family,” she said wistfully.
Miles opened her door, bracing for what he knew was next.
She was ready for him as soon as he got into the driver’s seat. “So when are you and Cindy having a littlebambino?”
“Never.” Miles punctuated that statement by slamming his door.
“Never say never,giovanotto,” she intoned. “What’s written is written. You will havebambini.Soon. Very soon.”
Oh, man, she was hexing him. He made the sign with his hand against the evil eye, the one that she’d taught him herself, learned from her old grandma back in Brancaleone, in the old country.
