The day after the play’s last run was a Sunday, and Ella was in her mother’s kitchen, where she often found herself on Sunday afternoons when she wasn’t at rehearsal or performing in a matinee. Mama Mancini owned a 1930s bungalow on a residential street in Charleston’s new tech corridor north of Calhoun Street. It was a neglected area of town that had been declining steadily for decades but was currently being revitalized. Older houses there could be picked up at decent prices but required lots of work.
The whole Mancini family had fixed up Mama’s house together—painting, tiling, refinishing the hardwood floors. Uncle Leo and Uncle Sal had done all the rewiring. Cousin Vittorio had updated the plumbing. The older nephews and nieces painted the bedrooms and the living room. The aunts worked outside, sprucing up the front walk with some monkey grass and planting azaleas beneath the living room bay window. Out back, they made Mama a little herb garden and added a bird bath, a comfy garden bench, and a hammock for her to lie in and read the fabulous romance novels she loved so much. And the sisters, amateur painters ever since Jill had gotten them hooked on YouTube videos about mural painting, had dutifully followed Mama’s orders to paint decorative scenes wherever she demanded them.
In her mother’s kitchen, a nearly naked Jupiter, artfully robed and surrounded by clusters of purple grapes, stared down at Ella from the ceiling while she prepared antipasti, which she could do blindfolded. Olives to the left, mozzarella to the right, peppers in the middle. A drizzle of oil, some good cracked pepper, and there you had it—the nectar of the gods.
Miss Thing called while Ella was scooping olives out of a Harris Teeter supermarket container. “I got your text,” she trilled. “Hank Rogers had flowers delivered to your dressing room last night.”
Ella braced herself. “That’s right.” She’d been about to give them away before she’d left the theater, but instead she’d brought them home to her mother and made something up about them coming from the Footlight Players’ board of directors.
Something in her had not been able to give those flowers away, although she’d tossed the card.
“Sugar, I knew something was up,” said Miss Thing. “Yesterday afternoon, I looked outside and I saw a cardinal looking at me on the branch outside my bedroom window.”
Whenever Miss Thing saw a cardinal on the branch outside her bedroom window, that was her late husband come down from Heaven to let her know something big was going on. At least that was what she said, and Ella believed her.
Except that a cardinal landed on that branch at least once a week, so Miss Thing was in a constant state of high drama. But if that meant she felt closer to the man who’d brought her such joy, then Ella was perfectly happy to go along with her friend’s excitement.
“Well, he wants a favor, but it’s not an emergency, so I’m going to take my time thinking about if and when I’ll respond,” said Ella.
But she didn’t need any trouble. And those eyes of his were trouble. So was his mouth. And his voice. Every time she heard it on the big screen or on television, it still sent shivers down to her toes—the good kind. But she didn’t tell Miss Thing any of that.
“Don’t you think for a minute he doesn’t still have designs on you!” Miss Thing said. “He never would have asked you a favor if he was completely over you. Aren’t you dying to know what he wants?”
“Miss Thing.” Ella strove to be gentle. “No. We were together ten years ago. I can’t imagine I could help him in any way. The man’s a celebrity. He’s got assistants and agents and whatnot. Let them do him favors.”
She tried to forget that this morning she’d woken up from a feverish dream in which he was making love to her on their old brass bed with plump feather ticking.
“But he left you when he was young and foolish and didn’t know his own mind,” said Miss Thing. “He’s matured. As have you.”
“We both made a very sensible vow to put our careers first,” said Ella. “He wasn’t being foolish. Look how it paid off.”
“Yes, but when you had your shot, you didn’t take it. Because of him!”
Ella sighed. “I was the foolish one then, wasn’t I? Let’s not talk about it anymore.” It reminded her too much of her conversations with Papa.
She’d failed Papa. She couldn’t stand thinking about it.
“All right.” Miss Thing sighed. “Although I have to admit something. I’m glad you’re here with us in Charleston.”
“I’m glad too,” said Ella. And she was.
But secretly, every time she thought about the choices she made in New York, she got furious. At herself. Which was why she didn’t think about New York. She’d been happily free of any regrets for years now, except for one day a year—Papa’s birthday.
And now, last night. Receiving those flowers had thrown her off her game.
“I’m a terrible person being glad you didn’t hit the big-time like Hank,” said Miss Thing. “But living in Manhattan or L.A. in a fancy penthouse, riding around in limos, wearing amazing designer clothes all the time, and making movies in exotic locations—that ain’t nothin’ compared to living in the Lowcountry.”
Sometimes Miss Thing lapsed back into her super Southern voice, especially when she was bragging on the place she’d been born and never left.
“You got that right,” said Ella, who was ripping open a bag of pita chips. They scattered across the counter, and she started scooping them up. What the heck, she thought, and ate a few right out of her cupped palm.
“What’s that noise?” asked Miss Thing. “Static?”
“No,” said Ella, “it’s me chomping on pita chips.”
“Oh, honey. You only do that when you’re stressed.”
“I know. Mama just told me today we’re having eight cousins over seventy years old coming over from Sicily for the next couple of weeks. She’s farming them out and wants to know if I can put up two at my apartment for the first week. They’ll go to one of my sisters the following week.”
“Well, can you?”
“Sure. But they barely speak English. And they’re very loud. The neighbors won’t be pleased.”
“A week with you and then a week with your sister? That’s a long time.”
“Not in Mancini time. They only come over every five years or so. They try to get the most from their airline ticket.”
“Poor you. Want to leave them the apartment and come stay with me?”
“I’d love to.”
“But you’d have to share your room with my new guinea pigs. I have no other place to put their cage. They love to squeal. Do you like guinea pig squeals? They’re adorable.”
“I guess. Do they squeal at night?”
“Sure. Any time of day or night.”
“Uh…”
“And do you care that I’m having painters come? They’re painting the whole house. But they’re hot, honey. College boys. Which is disgraceful of me to mention. I don’t think of them like that, but you might. They told me they’ve just graduated, actually, and don’t want cubicle jobs.”
“Miss Thing. I’m too old for college boys who’ve just graduated.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I am too old for them!”
“I understand.” But she could tell Miss Thing still thought she wasn’t. “They’re only seven or eight years younger, though—”
“Enough of that. And I don’t want to sound like a diva, but if I hear a guinea pig squeal at night, I might have a heart attack in my sleep. But thanks anyway for the offer to stay.”
“No problem, sugar,” said Miss Thing. “Back to that celebrity scene you’re missing out on. Who needs caviar and endless pairs of designer shoes? Look at where you are. How many places can you put out a crab trap in the morning and have a feast that evening? Or ten months of the year, be able to jump off a dock for a good float down the creek? And then get gussied up and go to a white-tie ball? They’re a dime a dozen around here, all year ’round. I have fourteen ball gowns. And I use ’em. Thank God for Goodwill during prom dress season. They’ve saved me many a dollar.”
“I know.” Ella started chopping olives. And then realized she wasn’t supposed to chop the olives. She wasn’t making pizza. So she ate the ones she’d chopped and spread the other ones on the antipasti plate. She rolled them around a little too much. Three fell off the side and landed on the floor.
“How many ball gowns do you have?” Miss Thing asked.
“Ten.” It was true. Charlestonians loved black-and white-tie events. You needed long evening gowns here all year ’round. Most of Ella’s came from TJ Maxx or a good Macy’s online sale. She bent down and went looking for the missing olives.
“Did you hear about the new movie they’re making here? You should audition.” Miss Thing slurped something up a straw. Probably an iced coffee from Roastbusters.
“Yes, I heard. But I’m not interested.” Ella had a Screen Actors Guild card, so every time a movie came to Charleston, she was alerted via email. And they were coming way more often than they used to. Just about once a year now.
“Why don’t you want to audition?” Miss Thing asked.
“Being a film extra is more trouble than it’s worth,” Ella said right away. Maybe she sounded like a diva, but it was. She had no desire to sit around eight hours a day and occasionally stand up and play a bystander in a scene and then get paid a pittance, all because you wanted to appear on-screen for a second or two or, more likely, have your scene cut.
“But what if you got a speaking role?” Miss Thing was always persistent. Like Papa had been.
“The only speaking roles they haven’t filled yet are for a fifty-year-old male nurse and two teen girls.” Ella drizzled oil over the olives, peppers, and mozzarella. She drizzled two big X’s over them. Done and done. Kind of like her professional acting career and her love life, and so what? She didn’t care.
Most of the time.
Miss Thing clucked. “That’s a shame.”
“I don’t mind. Movie work takes up your whole day.” Now it was time for the pepper. Ella cranked the heck out of it. Probably too much. She was about to sneeze, but she caught it just in time. “I can’t afford to indulge silly whims. I’m a matchmaker, and I have to pay my bills.”
“And you’re a damn good one. But Samantha Drake’s in this movie. Why, she’s more famous than Meryl Streep! Almost.”
“No one is more famous than Meryl Streep,” said Ella with a chuckle. “But Samantha’s just as talented. In fact, I’m pretty much in awe of her.”
“Me too. She’s forty and looks thirty,” Miss Thing said.
“It’s not that. She’s an amazing actor,” said Ella. “She’s racked up almost as many Oscars as Meryl.”
“Then why wouldn’t you want to work with her?”
Ella laughed. “I wouldn’t get to be anywhere near her on set if I was an extra.”
“Wouldn’t you catch a glimpse of her now and then?”
“Probably. But she’d look right through me. It’s too…”
“Too what?”
“Painful.” Ella gulped. She thought she was over leaving her New York dreams behind! But seeing Hank had brought it all back to her. All her daydreaming about becoming a famous actor on Broadway, and maybe making a leap to TV or the movies. All Papa’s excitement about her doing that too.… It used to fuel her when she had setbacks, like bad auditions.
“Aw, sweetie,” said Miss Things. “You’re a big fish in a small pond. And Charleston’s not such a small pond, really. It’s an international city. A very culturally rich place, right? You should be proud.”
“Yes, it is, and I am proud.” Ella stood back up. She’d accidentally kicked the olives she’d dropped under the fridge. She was in trouble now. She needed a broom handle. “But I have no desire to make any movies, with or without Samantha Drake in them. Or Frampton Cooke.”
The male lead. Ella respected his work professionally but had never been a huge fan, personally.
“He’s kinda cute, in a Shakespearean way, with those piercing eyes,” said Miss Thing. “He’s so intelligent. And English. Is he single?”
“No, he just married his publicist,” said Ella. “And his piercing eyes would get kind of annoying after a while, don’t you think?”
“No,” said Miss Thing. “Frampton Cooke could stare at me all day, and I’d be happy. But speaking of another hot male celebrity, have you told Greer and Macy about getting flowers from Hank?”
“No,” Ella said. She didn’t like to bother them on Sundays. It was a good day for couples to get cozy—although sometimes Deacon and Ford played golf or did volunteer construction work with The Sustainability Project, Deacon’s nonprofit, and the women all got together for brunch or shopping. But that was an exception to the rule. “I’ll see them tomorrow. I’ll tell them then. I’ll be sure to mention this wasn’t a romantic bouquet. It’s a bribe, to do him some kind of favor.”
“Still. It was flowers.”
“So?”
“Ellaaaa! Ella-bella? Ella Vittoria Maria Mancini!” It was her mother’s voice.
“Gotta go,” Ella said to Miss Thing. “See you tomorrow.”
“Bright and early-ish,” Miss Thing reminded her. They never came into the office before 9:00.
“Come help your nonnas understand this show!” Mrs. Mancini called to her eldest daughter from the living room. It was heavy on purple accents, from candlesticks to pillows to curtains, a far cry from the drawing rooms of Charleston’s more sedate, historic homes on the opposite side of the city.
Ella popped an olive in her mouth. Yum. Really yum. Better-than-sex yum? She squinted up at Jupiter. No, she thought, and wiped her hands on her mother’s vintage apron, which she’d wrapped around her waist to protect her Armani suit. The nonnas liked her to dress up on Sunday when she came to visit since they didn’t get to see her fashion choices as much during the week. The Armani was a gift from Jill, who owned a company called Erospace Designs.
At Erospace, Jill worked hard to make everyone’s living space their erotic loving space on her own dime, and she was doing really well. Her very first client had been Greer, who claimed to this day that Ford showed up in her life at the exact same time Jill committed to working on making Greer’s bedroom sexier to attract her soul mate. Jill’s boudoir-design style had been labeled “deliciously, provocatively tacky” by Home and Garden magazine, and the PR had had nothing to do with her new husband’s high profile. A Home and Garden magazine editor happened to have a second home in Charleston and stumbled upon Jill’s business advertisement in that local hipster’s delight, The City Paper.
Maybe Ella needed Jill’s services too. Her own bedroom was boring. She had the same old blue paisley bedspread and walnut four-poster double bed Mama had given her after college, along with a mismatched bureau and nightstand. Her reading lamp sometimes turned on and off by itself because the wiring was bad, and she still had posters on the wall she’d had at her college dorm.
Her guest room, with its two prim twin beds with yellow spreads and daisy pillows, was no better. That was where the Sicilian cousins would have to stay. But she’d need to give them her TV, which was a shame. She loved watching TV in bed, especially the Real Housewives franchise. Now she’d have to read, which she also loved, but she’d been avoiding it lately because of her stupid flickering bedside lamp, which she really needed to fix. She’d been so busy at work and helping Mama with the nonnas.
Sometimes she just forgot to take care of herself at home.
Whaddya mean? All the time, you forget! When are you going to paint your hallway sage green, like you wanted to? And when are you going to wallpaper the tiny kitchen? And don’t you deserve a new rug in your entryway? You got the money, Ella-bella!
Who was that voice in her head? It was a little bit Mama, a little bit the nonnas, and a little bit dear Papa … and Ella’s guilty conscience too. She had plenty of that. All the Mancinis knew they were only two steps from Hell, no matter how nice they were. It ran in the family.
With a little sigh, Ella strolled into the living room too slowly for her mother’s liking. It was her silent protest at being talked to like a twelve-year-old, even though she was the perfectly mature age of twenty-nine and co-owner of a thriving matchmaking agency.
“Hurry,” Mama said, her eyes glued to the TV.
The nonnas were sitting next to their Birkin bags that Cosmo had just bought them to try to win them over, which Jill told him would be difficult because he hadn’t been born in Sicily. He’d given Nonna Boo a saffron ostrich Birkin. Nonna Sofia’s was candy pink crocodile. The bags were stuffed with umpteen balls of yarn and knitting needles, and they were knitting away, watching their favorite reality TV show, which they’d taped from the night before (Ella had watched it that morning at her own apartment, avidly eating two Krispy Kreme doughnuts and drinking tea while she did so). It was the show about the Hollywood women who walked around with Birkins just like the nonnas’.
“Why are they so unhappy?” asked Nonna Boo. She’d been called Boo since she was five years old and made the international news when she met the Pope at a church in Sicily and yelled “Boo!” at him when she presented him a bouquet of flowers. She’d been going through a ghost phase. “That one has the same bag I do. And a doting husband. Who cares that he’s ugly? He loves her!”
“Are you ever going to walk around with your Birkin, Nonna Boo?” asked Ella.
“Why should I?” Nonna Boo kept her eyes on the TV set. “It makes a perfectly nice yarn holder.”
“Esattamente,” said Nonna Sofia, who was quieter and more dignified than Nonna Boo.
Exactly.
Ella smiled to herself. The nonnas so rarely agreed, even though everyone except them knew they were almost like twins. Their little arguments were what kept them alive, Mama said.
On the screen, the women were promenading on Rodeo Drive in their spiky-heeled Louboutins. Ella said, “It’s just a show about the rich, powerful wives in Hollywood. Most of them don’t work, but some of them do. The ones who stay at home kind of have careers in charity work, raising money and awareness and such.”
“They totter around in those ridiculous heels,” said Nonna Sofia, who wore sensible—and very ugly—orthopedic shoes.
“So silly,” said Nonna Boo, who also wore orthopedic shoes.
“But nonnas, look at my shoes.” Ella stuck her foot out. She wore three-and-a-half-inch heels. “They give me height.” She was five foot two. “I feel more powerful. And I think they’re sexy.”
Nonna Sofia gazed at them a moment. “I wore a pair like that in December of nineteen seventy,” she murmured, then smiled in that far-off way Ella knew meant she was caught up in the past. “You don’t want to know the rest of the story.”
“I’ll bet I know it,” said Nonna Boo, and laughed. She winked at Ella. “Your nonnas used to wear gorgeous heels, and the men flocked to us like flies. We are now only jealous old women who wish we still could flaunt our sexy legs in supple Italian leather.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Nonna Sofia primly. “I don’t miss those shoes.”
“Hmmph,” said Nonna Boo.
“Nonna Sofia, will you tell me the story someday? About December of nineteen seventy?” Ella asked her. “And those shoes?”
Nonna Sofia considered it. “Very well. Before I die, I will tell someone.”
Mama put her hand on Nonna Sofia’s shoulder. “You can tell me too. I’m your daughter, after all.”
Nonna Sofia’s brows came together. “A mother doesn’t reveal everything to her daughters. Unless she wants them to call her a fool behind her back.”
“I would never call you a fool,” Mama said, “ever.”
But Nonna Sofia didn’t answer. She kept knitting and watching the television screen.
Ella and her mother exchanged glances. Nonna Sofia was very hard on herself. Sometimes Ella saw that same trait in her mother. And sometimes she wondered if she was following in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps that way. She worried that she’d been a fool with Hank—and that she’d pay for it the rest of her days. And it was because she hadn’t listened to Papa. He’d told her not to let anyone or anything get in the way of her acting dreams.
But even worse than not listening to Papa—she’d disappointed herself. She’d given up on her dreams …
Because of a man.
Her history with Hank played into her decision to team up with Macy and Greer. When they’d started Two Love Lane, they’d each had had their own reasons for wanting to get involved in the love business. Macy had never been in love, so she wanted to experience it vicariously. Greer had broken someone’s heart very badly, and she felt that she owed it to the world to bring people together. And Ella was the one who’d had her heart broken badly—by Hank. She’d become a partner because she decided she’d turn a negative into a positive. She’d help other people have their own happily ever afters.
“I’ll bring out the antipasti,” she said to the nonnas, “and we’ll settle in. You go, Mama. Go to the quilting store.”
“Only if you’re sure,” Mama said, her eyes bright with excitement. She loved machine quilting. It was a new hobby for her.
“Of course I am,” said Ella.
Poor Mama. She so needed this break. Ella knew it made her mother very happy when she came over. Dealing with the nonnas was Mama Mancini’s full-time job. Ella loved to provide her with a little relief, and she also loved being around her nonnas. So it was a win-win situation.
She kissed Mama’s cheek at the door and watched her toddle off to the silver Dodge Challenger sitting at the curb and strap herself in. The engine roared to life (thanks to Mama’s insistence on pressing too hard on the gas pedal whenever she started the car) then settled down to a quiet purr. Mama took off, waving from the window. Ella waved back, then shut and locked the door behind her, as she always did. She’d been brought up in the Bronx and wasn’t naive. Crime could happen anywhere, even in sunny Charleston, where people you didn’t know said hello to you and smiled when you passed them on the street. And she had the nonnas to protect, anyway.
She bent down and petted the two gray tabby cats, Max and Henrietta, who’d sidled up to her feet at the door. The nonnas had each bought an adult cat from the no-kill pet shelter in Charleston when they’d arrived separately from Sicily. Nonna Boo had been here the longest, five years, so Max had lived in the bungalow that long too.
“You’re a sweetheart,” Ella told each kitty in turn. Max preened at the soft voice and wrapped himself around Ella’s leg. Henrietta sat back on her haunches and stared at Ella. Female cats were so much harder to read! But maybe Henrietta needed more time, just like Nonna Sofia did. Nonna Sofia had only been in the States eighteen months and still wasn’t sure of herself. She refused to go to McDonald’s or Starbucks. Minor league games at The Joe, Charleston’s baseball stadium, scared her, with foul balls flying backward sometimes into the stands. The only part of the United States Nonna Sofia wasn’t totally intimidated by was American television shows. She’d watched many of the older ones in Sicily, and now she had even more to choose from. She was obsessed with Netflix.
But before Ella could walk ten steps back to the kitchen, another knock came. Mama must have forgotten something. Ella quickly turned around and unlocked the door, then flung it open. “Sorry I locked it,” she began.
But it wasn’t Mama. A stranger stood there—a woman about Ella’s age with a dark ponytail, torn jeans—really torn—and a sexy V-neck T-shirt with a word on it that was entirely inappropriate, at least according to Mama’s and the nonnas’ standards. She squinted at Ella through gorgeous almond-shaped green eyes surrounded by thick lashes. Her mouth was wide and pouty with a beautiful bow on her top lip. She was a woman you’d look at twice if you saw her walk by.
“Hello,” she said, almost primly, although she looked totally fierce in her street clothes. “I’m Pammy Lockhart, and you’re Ella, right?”
“Y-Yes,” Ella said. “Have we met?”
“No, but you’re the closest thing to family I have in this town,” the woman said without preamble. “I’m Hank Rogers’ cousin. Can we talk?”