Free Destined by Gail Cleare

over me, like basking in sunlight. His energy was intense.
    “Hey, how are you, Emily, right?”   He kept on shaking my hand.
    “Hi, yes, how are you? Rocco. It’s
great to meet you,” I said, my head bobbling.
    “You too!”
    “So,” I said, finally regaining my
hand.
    “So. Your first time, right?” he
asked.
    “Yes, yes. Hmm. What?”
    “First time I saw you in here.”
    “Ohhh, yes! My first time. You
certainly are busy, aren’t you? That’s wonderful.”
    “Yeah, it’s busy tonight. Like every
night!”
    He looked around proudly. Two cooks, a
dishwasher and a couple of waitresses were hustling around with precision.
Every square inch of space was being utilized. We were packed in like sardines.
The brick oven was interesting and I had high hopes for the pizza itself, which
looked good. A waitress with a loaded tray of food headed out from behind the
counter toward the table area, and I had a chance at a closer visual
inspection. Thin crust, which I love. I wondered if his tomato sauce was as
good as what they made every day next door. Rocco stepped aside to let the
waitress go through the opening in the counter, then motioned for one of the
cooks to step in and continuing taking orders. There were only two parties
behind me at that point. The activity had started to ebb.
    Rocco stood next to me leaning on the
counter and we chatted, while he kept one eye on the action in the kitchen.
    “Do you make your own sauce?”
    “Sure we do, of course. Every day,
just like my Pop.”
    “I love your parents, they’re
wonderful. And your mother is great.”
    “Yeah? Well she sure does like you,”
he said, glancing at me, then surveying the crowd again. “It’s real nice of you
to take time with her. She loves to talk!”
    “So do I. It’s been a great way to
find out about the neighborhood.”
    He raised one eyebrow at me.
    “Yeah? She tells you what’s going on,
eh?”
    “Sure,” I nodded. “She has really made
me feel welcome here.”
    “Mom likes to know everything about
everybody, if she can find out.”
    “Yes, she seems very interested in
people.”
    “She has a spy network on the street,
you know. All the people who come in and tell her the news, blah-blah-blah,” he
said, opening and closing his hand like a mouth talking.
    “She’s easy to talk to,” I said
defensively. “She’s very supportive!”
    Rocco shot me another of his
raised-eyebrow, skeptical looks.
    “Easy for her to pry personal
information out of people, you mean,” he commented dryly. “You sit down for a
nice bowl of pasta and the next thing you know, she is giving advice about your
sex life!”
    Since that was roughly what had happened
with me, I didn’t have much of a comeback. So I asked him a few more questions
about the restaurant. He had bought the building ten years ago and spent
several years fixing it up, while he kept on working at the grocery next door.
    “It was a real trash pile,” he said. “We
had to rip out all the walls downstairs here, the floors, the ceiling,
everything. They were full of rat shit. Pretty disgusting.”
    I must have appeared dismayed, because
he laughed and patted my shoulder reassuringly.
    “Don’t worry, honey, we got it all
out!” He burst out in his big hearty laugh.
    “Oh, good.” I rolled my eyes and
grinned.
    I wondered if the “we” he referred to
included his ex-wife. According to Josie, the young couple had bought the
pizzeria building as newlyweds, planning to raise a family there. She still
regretted the loss of their unborn children, never to be bounced on her knee.
    My pizza came out of the oven and was
boxed, appearing on the counter in front us when Rocco motioned to one of the
cooks. The buzz of business was building up again, as a group of diners left
the restaurant and a party of six entered and found seats.
    “ I’ll
let you get back to work now,” I said, taking the warm pizza box into my hands.
“I’m so glad to finally meet you,
Rocco.”
    He