words dripped with significance. Joe stared at her.
“You mean…?” No. He couldn’t say the word, not to his nonna. “You mean,” he finished inanely, “she really doesn’t like men?”
“Exactly.” Nonna put her hands on her hips. “You see? It’s perfect. She will never be a bother to you, nor you to her. And I can go to my grave in peace, knowing you are eating properly.”
Joseph’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going anywhere, you old reprobate. Not for a very long time.”
“I am not whatever it is you call me,” Nonna said sweetly. “I am simply a doting grandmother, giving her favorite grandson a gift.”
“Some gift,” Joe said, but he smiled, tossed the towel aside and put his arms around her waist. “You’re precisely what I called you, which is why I’d never play poker with you, or sit across from you at a boardroom table.”
“Flatterer.” Nonna batted her lashes and smiled up at him. “You’re much too clever for an old lady like me.”
“Yeah,” Joe said, and grinned, “I’ll bet.”
“Now,” Nonna said briskly, “how about more espresso?”
Joe shook his head. “I wish I could, sweetheart, but I’m going to have to run.”
“So soon?”
“I have an appointment. One of the guys I play racquetball with is…” Getting married, he’d almost said, but the last thing he wanted to do was bring up that subject again. “He’s having a party at his place on Nob Hill. I promised I’d be there.”
“Ah.” Nonna smiled, framed Joe’s face in her hands, drew it down to her and kissed him on each cheek. “How nice. Would you like to take along some food? I can put a little of everything into some Tupperware…”
“No,” Joe said quickly, “uh, really, it would just upset the, uh, the caterer.”
“Oh. Of course. I didn’t think of that.” Nonna stuffed her hands into her apron pockets. “Well, you have a good time, Joey.”
“I’ll try.” Joe reached for his suit jacket. He put his arm around his grandmother and they walked together to the door. “I love you, Nonna.”
“And I love you.” Nonna lifted her face for his kiss. “Remember now. Your new cook will be at your door tomorrow morning, bright and early.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah.” For a minute there he’d almost forgotten that he’d agreed to this crazy plan. Well, it wouldn’t kill him to let the woman cook a few meals for him before he found her another job. The city had to be full of people who’d want the services of a talented Italian cook, even if she was old, ugly, and a lesbian. “I’m looking forward to meeting her. What was her name again?”
“Luciana. Luciana Bari.”
“Right. Luciana Bari, formerly of Florence, Italy.” He grinned as he stepped onto the porch. “She sounds perfect.”
“She is perfect,” Nonna Romano said, and meant it.
In a house on Nob Hill, Lucinda Barry, of the Boston Barrys, the we-came-over-on-the-Mayflower Barrys, the oh-boy, we-are-broke Barrys…
Lucinda Barry, who had moved from the east coast to the west and sworn off men forever after her fiancé had dumped her for a brainless twit with money…
Lucinda Barry, whose landlord had just tossed her out for nonpayment of rent, who’d taken a quick course in desperation cooking from Chef Florenze at the San Francisco School of Culinary Arts, who was to start her very first job ever tomorrow as a cook for a sensitive, charming, undoubtedly gay gentleman she hoped would be too kind to notice that pretty much all she could do right was boil water and, amazingly enough, whip up terrific gelato…
That Lucinda Barry stood in the marble-and-gold powder room of the house on Nob Hill, eyed herself in the mirror and wondered why Fate should have done this to her.
“I can’t do it,” Lucinda whispered to her blond, green-eyed reflection.
Of course you can, her reflection said briskly. You don’t have a choice.
The girl hired to jump out of the cake had come down with food poisoning.
“Not from our food,” Chef Florenze had said coldly as the ambulance took the writhing young woman away. Then he’d frowned, scanned the little crowd of would-be culinary school graduates gathered around him for the night of cooking that would be their final exam, and pointed a stubby finger at Lucinda. “You,” he’d roared, and when Lucinda stepped back in horror, saying no, no, she was a cook, not a stripper—when she did, the chef smiled unpleasantly and said she wasn’t a cook, either, not until he handed over her graduation certificate…
“Ms. Barry!”
Lucinda jumped at the knock on the door.
“Ms. Barry,” the chef demanded, “what on earth is taking you so long?”
Lucinda straightened her shoulders and looked at herself in the mirror.
How tough could it be to trade her white chef’s hat, jacket and trousers for a gilded tiara, a pair of demitasse cups and a thong, and then jump out of a cardboard cake?
“Not as tough as being broke, jobless and homeless,” Lucinda muttered grimly, and set about the business of transforming herself from a cook into a cookie.
CHAPTER TWO
OKAY. Okay, so the transformation wasn’t going to be easy, but then, she hadn’t expected it to be.
Cinderella had done it with the help of a fairy godmother.
Lucinda looked at the cake costume and shuddered. All she had to rely upon were spangles, sequins and Lycra.
Solemnly, she took off her chef’s hat and laid it aside. She unbuttoned her spotless white jacket, took it off, rebuttoned it, folded it carefully and put it next to the hat. Her trousers went next. Zipped, folded neatly on the crease, she added them to the sad little collection.
Then she took a deep breath, stepped into the bikini bottom and yanked it up over her hips.
It didn’t fit. The thong didn’t fit! Hope rushed through her veins. She couldn’t be expected to jump out of a cake in her chef’s outfit. If the costume didn’t fit…
Oh, hell.
Lucinda moaned softly as she looked at herself in the mirror.
Of course the thong didn’t fit. How could it, when she’d tried pulling it on over her white cotton underpants?
She almost laughed. What a sight she was! Wire-rimmed glasses. No makeup. Hair pulled severely back from her face. A utilitarian, white cotton bra, the white cotton panties…And, over the panties, the thong.
She
