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We fed Tilley and gave them all fresh water as I explained the spice and sachet theory to Mama, and since we were going into training, we decided Max should keep his uniform on.
Mama snapped her fingers. “Yes! We can use spice sacks! You go back to the lobby and I come there with what we need. We can make sachets and get Max started, justa wait!” And off she went. I heaved an inner sigh of relief and we went out to sit in the lobby.
Mama took less than ten minutes, which probably meant she’d ordered my brothers around like a domineering drill sergeant. Hey, better them than me. At least they knew where to find the spices, which was better than me trying to fake it in front of Jack. One day I’d have to fess up and tell him I had no idea how to cook more than a root vegetable, but that day was not today.
“Okay, we all set. I hadda to do some math in my head, but I think I got it. We have five rooms, so that’s five spices and ten sachets. Then we have six tables per room so that’sa six more spices and twelve sachets. So. We gotta make twenty-two sachets, yes?”
Since we were using the same spice to corresponding table numbers, once Max learned the rooms, the tables would follow. “Yes, that sounds right. Jack?”
“Exactly, yes. What spices did you bring?”
Mama rubbed her hands together. She did love a good challenge. “Letsa see. We got sage, lavender, mint, cinnamon, rosemary, thyme, ginger, basil, rose, juniper, and dill. Plus twenty-two herb sacks and a permanent marker to number each one.”
“All that came out of our kitchen?” I asked, not quite sure why we’d have rose or lavender. Or most of the others, but I left that to the experts in the kitchen.
“Of course, dear. And many more if Max doesn’t like these. And this,” she pulled two beef bones out of her apron pocket. “For the doggies while we busy. I don’t know what the kitty want, Jack.”
He looked down at his feet. Tilley was all but snoring. “I think she’s okay for now, thank you, Mrs. Zinelli. She has a full belly, she’ll be sleepin’ for a while to be sure.”
“If you sure.” she said, and gave each of the dogs a large bone. Buttercup’s entire body wriggled in joy. Max eyed both bones with a glutinous stare. Probably wondering how he could finagle Buttercup’s bone into his mouth.
“Max,” I warned. He slid to the floor with his bone and a sulky pout. Once he starting chewing he seemed happy enough so I turned to the table where Mama had laid out all the materials we were going to need.
We put spices into cloth bags and made them all about an inch square. Jack got a staple gun and stapled the spice squares under each table toward the front. Then he stapled the rest in an accessible but discreet place at the entrance to each room. I numbered six of the bags that went with the tables and wrote the room names on the other five.
I found a basket to put the sachets into to keep behind the host stand. All I had to do was give Max the scent and hopefully he’d seat our guests at the corresponding smell. First we needed to see how he’d do with the rooms.
I grabbed Rome, which I think was basil, and said, “Come, Max! Look what I have!” I bent over, let him sniff, and before I could blink, he ate it. “No, Max!” I grabbed his mouth and pried his jaws apart until I got the sachet. I made a mental note to tell Alonzo that the sachets could be considered a choking hazard and to not let Max eat them.
“That went well,” Jack said with a grin, as I wiped the slobber off the sachet.
“I’d tell you to go suck it, but Max might take that as a challenge.” I tried again, and once Max sniffed the herb, I walked him to the one leading to Rome. Once he’d smelled both, I gave him a treat and ruffled his fur. “Good boy, Max!”
Jack and I repeated this and within two hours, Max had all the rooms down and the tables, too. Even though Bailey had told me Max was smart, I figured the speed at which he learned was in direct proportion to the amount of treats and head pats he got. “He’s done really well,” I told Jack. “I might keep him to just one room until I’m sure he’s nailed it. Then move to two, and so on.”
“I’m sure you’ll be reading Max the employee handbook next. Going to give him his own paycheck?”
“Of course. He can be paid in dog biscuits.”
Jack held up a finger. “What’s that noise?”
I listened. It kind of sounded like ... a dog. But not close by. Buttercup and Tilley were snoozing under a table so—
“Where’s Buttercup?” Jack asked.
“Last time I looked she was asleep under the table with her bone and Tilley.”
Jack looked. “This table? Nobody’s under there, but I do see two bones, a napkin, a coaster, and some sort of brass thing.”
We both listened again.
“It sounds like maybe she’s upstairs.”
“So where’s the kitten?”
“Max! Find Tilley, Max!” I said, and hoped Max knew what I meant. Otherwise we could spend all day looking. I made a mental note to never ever let Tilley out of my sight unless she was supervised or in a safe, closed-off space.
I got a head tilt from Max, then he bolted upstairs. We followed. And there, whining at a door in the hallways stood Buttercup with Tilley in her mouth.
Jack rescued the kitten and asked, “What’s in there?”
I opened the door and let him see for himself.
“Holy Martyrs, Sophia,” Jack whispered in awe. “This room is right grand. It’s bleedin’ massive.”
It took me a minute to translate that last bit since the room itself wasn’t huge. I was pretty sure Jack meant utterly brilliant, which made a lot more sense. I nodded. “It is. We had this room done up for my grandparent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. It took months.”
We, as in my entire family (minus the grandparents, of course), had had the never-used upper room of the restaurant (Try The Veal) decorated as a Sicilian grotto.
There were fountains and urns spilling crystalline blue water into pools, flowers and (at least ten zillion) plants and candles, and linen-covered tables all nestled into what appeared to be a limestone cavern.
“Why is that entire wall empty?” Jack asked.
I walked over and flipped a switch. I wasn’t sure what Luca called it, but some sort of 3D video projection thing came on and suddenly the wall was filled with azure light over a tranquil Mediterranean sea and its adjacent cliffs. A clear blue glow, interlaced with silver, made the whole room luminescent. “It’s an exact replica of the place my nonno proposed to my nonna.”
“I’m enchanted.” Jack said, and leaned over and kissed me. The blood left my brain and I wrapped both arms around Jack’s neck and had impure thoughts. He smelled woodsy and his chest was warm and firm and protective and just as I was heading off into a romantic sunset in my head, Jack pulled back.
“Uh-uh,” he said, and I knew we hadn’t squished Tilley this time, so I wondered if I’d bitten his lip, or maybe my breath wasn’t as minty fresh as I’d thought, or maybe I was the only one in a hazy stupor but judging by the front of Jack’s jeans, that couldn’t be the problem.
I looked down where Jack’s gaze was pointed and saw that Buttercup was just about to abscond with a frosted glass candelabra. He took it from her and said, “Have a care, Buttercup, you stealin’ thief of a flea-bitten barnacle.”
Buttercup threw herself onto the floor in a canine conniption. Max barked. Tilley meowed. And I, for the life of me, couldn’t stop smiling.
#LosingAKittenCausesCatitude
#IMayStartDrinkingLikeCaptainJackSparrow
#LoveMakesMeHungryAndNowIWantATaco