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“Who are these people?” I whispered when my sight landed on about thirty strangers, all holding balloons and signs. Had I forgotten my birthday again?
“Oh hell, that’s my ma. Ma! Grandma!” Philip shouted, shooting to his feet just as I eased the boat closer to the dock. He made a leap into a crowd of people that enveloped him completely, all talking at once in a cacophony of New York accents.
Barnaby stood off to the side, his face the blank mask that he always wore while on duty. He was holding a bouquet of balloons and a bakery box in one hand and a squirming barking Chihuahua in a hand-knitted teal sweater in the other. A wide pink sash reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY COUSIN PHIL in bright green and pink letters had been draped over one of his shoulders.
Oh. Oh my. The Greco family had arrived a few days early. I suspected my once tidy life—that boring existence BP or Before Philip—was now about to be completely shattered. Not that Philip had not done that already, it was just going to be multiplied by several dozen talkative houseguests.
And one jittery Chihuahua.
Chapter Thirteen
Phil
“And this is my cousin Oscar,” I said, patting Oscar on the shoulder as Henri and Barney looked on while we mingled in the library. Bridgette and Madame were frantically working to make food and open up the guest rooms in the chalet. My mother stood at my side, staring at Henri as if he were a prince or something, while my grandma Rosie was nosing through the shelves of books looking for spicy novels. Everyone else was spilling out of the library onto the grounds, the sticky humidity of a late August day floating in through the now open French doors.
“A pleasure to meet you,” Henri said, smiling like a diplomat, as he took Oscar’s clammy hand to shake it.
I leaned in to whisper to my lover. “We told him your grapes are for jelly due to his whole wine slash being smote by God thing.”
“Noted,” Henri said. He’d been saying that a lot today. I suspected our talk in the boat and my revelation that I liked him a ton had rattled him more than he wanted to let on. Then there was the Greco invasion that we’d sailed home to find. No wonder he was looking out the door as if he wanted to bolt like a cat stuck in a dog pound. But credit to his cool, he made small talk to rival that of a politician, smiled that devastating smile of his, and fussed over Ma and Grandma as if they were French royalty.
Ma was smitten. Just like her boy.
“Hey, you want to go check on the grapes?” I asked and gave Oscar and his dog Dingo—who was about as far from being a dingo as I was from being a prima ballerina—a kind smile. “It’s getting close to grape jelly picking time,” I lied. “Ma, why don’t you take Oscar and Dingo outside in case Dingo has to make a number two?”
She winked and steered Oscar away. I slid my hand into Henri’s and led him outside. There was rain in the air as I could smell it. Thank all the disciples we were not out on the water. Just thinking of being out there during a storm made my bowels quake.
We strolled along, nodding at my aunts Sophia, Maggie, and Mona sitting in the gazebo sipping some of Henri’s wine. Cousin Marco was lounging under a tree, talking to Cousin Lou. Aunt Louisa was napping under a rose arch with her shoes off and her stockings rolled down to her ankles. Typical Greco family meet-up minus the food. That would be coming soon, I was sure.
“Sorry about them coming early,” I said to Henri as we ducked around a tall oak, the leaves curled up in anticipation of the coming rain. Ma always said you could tell if it was going to rain if the leaves curled. “And in such numbers. I thought it would be just my ma and Grandma Rosie, maybe a couple of aunts. But then Ma said you lived in a mansion and they all wanted to come see your winery and…well, yeah, they all converged on us unawares.”
“It’s fine,” he said, but I suspected he was just being polite.
“Next time I have a birthday, we’ll go home to celebrate. Give the house staff a break.”
He started to speak but closed his mouth. Dingo ran past, barking at a grasshopper, with Oscar in hot pursuit.
“That’s a year off,” Henri commented as Dingo dove into a small bush after his prey. The gardeners were going to be upset. I’d make sure to help out to fix the grounds after this invasion from Flushing was over.
“Yeah, I know, and I’ll be thirty-five. I figure we can drive up, and I’ll be the driver so your eyes don’t get watery. We can stay in the basement bedroom. Ma fixed it up real nice for a nice guest room. All done in white and blue. As long as you don’t mind the dolls everywhere.”
“Dolls, yes. Will you excuse me? I just need to check in with things at the wine testing barn?” He gave me a wobbly smile. I nodded and let him go. Barney trotted past with an umbrella.
I watched Henri making a dash for it.
“Are you being too you again?” Ma asked as she arrived at my side, her sunhat held to her head with a hand freshly manicured. I could tell by how shiny and red her long nails were.
“Who else am I supposed to be?”
“You know how you are, Philip. When you find someone who you like, you get intense.”
I gave her a look. “No, I do not. Name one time that I got intense over a person.” Instantly, she started rattling off names. “Don’t count Dee-Dee Delvecchio on that list. We were six years old.”
“You told her you were going to marry her,” Ma said, slipping her arm through mine to move me from where my feet had grown into the lush grass. “You’re a loving soul. When you connect with a person, you go in at one hundred miles per hour.”
“Ain’t you supposed to give it all to the person you like?” Was I doing this whole romance thing wrong?
“Yeah, you are, sunshine, but not all at once. I like Henri. He’s rich and handsome. And his clothes! So fancy. Right off that boat of his, he looked like four million bucks!” It almost tumbled out of me that he had looked a lot more put together before I had peeled him out of his clothes like a banana. “But he’s refined, Phil, and about as nervous as Dingo, it seems. Maybe you need to give him room to breathe. Then he won’t be so pressured. Not all people are as loving as we are. Mona! What the hell are you doing to that rhododendron? You can’t pour wine on the roots or it will get the leaves drunk.”
