Jimmy wants me to meet him here today because his family is thinking of buying the place and moving their bakery into this building. It’s just a few blocks from where the old bakery is now.
The real reason, I guess, is he wants
us to be alone, because this building has been vacant about a year. But I’m not
going to stay here long. This place always gives me the creeps! I don’t think Jimmy’s family should buy it. I
think it’s haunted.
I’ve seen ghosts walking by the
window at least three times when we’ve been by here. Jimmy always laughs at me
but it’s true.
I’m kind of engaged to Jimmy. I can’t
wear a ring or anything because mama would go crazy. Both mama and Papa want me
to marry an Italian man, and I know the one they’re thinking of, too. But he's barely said a word to me.
The gypsies say I’ll marry a sweet man with a sweet tooth; wouldn’t that be Jimmy? He buys me roses for Valentine’s Day and my birthday, but Mama won’t look at him. Of course, she doesn’t know I’ve been to the gypsy fortuneteller either.
I don’t tell Mama and Papa a lot of
things I do. I’ve been working with them at Rocco’s since I was seven in one
way or another, dishing out ices or bringing plates to customers. Why can’t I
choose my own guy?
I can, when I’m eighteen. Jimmy wants
us to get married the day after my birthday, but that makes me laugh. I don’t
know when I want to get married, but I want it to be in church. I want my
family to come and I’m not going to elope in some burned-out old jalopy.
Mama says Jimmy doesn’t have money
for marriage, but one day he’s going to own that bakery. Papa asks if I want
to be a storekeeper’s wife, like I haven’t spent my whole life in a restaurant
already. But he says I should be dreaming bigger.
If I marry the
guy Mama likes, she says I’ll be rich and I won’t have to work, just raise the
kids and stay home. But what would I do all day? I like kids, but what about my life? I don't even know what I want to do.
This place wouldn’t make a good
bakery. I think it would be better as a restaurant, a really fancy restaurant with
a resident ghost. They could make up stories about it and let people up on the
sixth floor with special admission. Maybe have a haunted dinner party once
a month and you’d pay extra money to be there.
I’m going to tell Jimmy about that. I
can’t believe his family is going to buy this place, anyway. They’d have so
much work to do. His dad and Jimmy are really handy, but it would take years to
fix up this building.
Something I keep forgetting to tell
Jimmy. I like roses, but I really love orchids. I think he should mix it up
once a while, maybe roses on Valentine’s and orchids on my birthday. Would he
still get me flowers after I marry him?
I wish he would show up already. I could swear there’s—look. They just pulled
back from the window. I'm not crazy, right? You see it?
Drawing: Jackson Muenster
Italian ices: Ben Cappellacci
Ghost in window: Adam Norwood
Italian ices: Ben Cappellacci
Ghost in window: Adam Norwood
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