And of course Aunt Gianna is not to be confused with my cousin Gina, who brought you here, and neither of them should be mistaken for Jennifer Saltieri Thompson, who for some unimaginable reason is sometimes referred to as Jeni, with a long e. Oh, and Marcy, who is Little Tony’s wife, is expecting a baby girl in a few months, and she and Little Tony say that they intend to name their new daughter, guess what? Toni.
“Of course,” she went on, “we have a Timmy and a Jimmy who are brothers. And Jaimie, naturally, doesn’t like to be mixed up with Jimmy. There’s Sophia, the grandmother of Sophie, and a Ronnie and a Donny, and Victorine, Vicki and Victor.”
“Don’t forget Fredo and Fred, Emma and Emily, Suzanne and Susan, and Mia, whose middle name is Suzanne,” chimed in an older woman, who introduced herself as Audra.
“Maren and Maureen,” contributed Carla. “Margo, Marco and Mark.”
“Thank goodness for Teresa and Angelo Bono. They named their kids Zizi and Dodie. They’ll never get mixed up with anyone else.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” said Gina. “Zizi and Dodie are only nicknames.”
Audra frowned. “What are their real names?”
“No one remembers, thank goodness,” Carla said with a laugh.
Josh grinned, and all in all, by the time dinner was over, he thought he had never met more interesting people gathered in one place in his entire life.
Night fell, and the party, with a final tired wheeze of accordions, was declared to be over by Fredo. Barbara, Nick’s wife and Gina’s sister, came over to their table and presented Josh with a Super Stomper Certificate in honor of his stomping grapes and attending his first crush. People lingered, gathering up their children, their strollers, diaper bags and wraps as they bade one another fond goodbyes. And before her parents came to carry her home to bed, Mia curled up on Josh’s lap and almost fell asleep.
“I have to leave,” Gina said to Rocco after the Sorises had departed. “I’ll need to be up early to work in the herb garden in the morning.” Others were wending their way through the big oaks to their cars, and the cleanup detail was stashing containers of food in a van marked Dede’s Catering Service.
“I should help fold the chairs,” Josh said, but when he offered, Rocco told him that it wasn’t necessary.
“We’ve got things under control, don’t we, Frankie?”
“Sure, Pop,” Frankie said with a jaunty grin. “Hey, Josh, how did you like crush?”
Amazingly, he didn’t even have to think twice; Josh immediately gave it two thumbs-up, much to Frankie’s delight.
“Now, Josh,” Rocco said in parting. “You get any extra time, drop by the house. I’ve got a bocce court in my backyard, and I’ll give you some pointers.”
As painful as the bocce experience had been, Josh thought he never wanted to see another bocce ball or court as long as he lived. But he did want to see Rocco again, so he managed a halfhearted grin. “Will do,” he said before hurrying after Gina, who was halfway to the parking lot by this time.
ONCE THEY WERE AWAY FROM everyone else, Gina was self-conscious around Josh, though she certainly felt more favorably disposed toward him since he’d made such an effort to fit in. She hadn’t expected Rocco to take to him so well, nor had she counted on her mother’s trying to make him feel welcome.
Josh didn’t say much as they put up the Galaxie’s convertible top and got in the car. He tossed his shoes in the back seat; the night had never grown as cool as expected and he was still in his bare feet. As they headed down the long Vineyard Oaks driveway toward the road, moonlight dappled the car’s long hood with shadows and cast a silvery glow ahead. Gina sneaked a glance at his aristocratic profile and suppressed a grin when she saw that he was smiling. She wasn’t quite sure why she was glad that he’d enjoyed himself tonight; whatever vengeful feelings she’d nurtured since the Mr. Moneybags show seemed to have been crushed out of her as completely as the juice from the grapes.
“Your niece is a charmer,” Josh said, apropos of nothing.
“Which one? Stacey or Mia?”
“Mia. I didn’t get too well acquainted with Stacey.”
Gina smiled. “They’re both my sister Barbara’s kids. Stacey recently became a teenager, and she likes to congregate with her cousins at family events. Mia is my godchild as well as my niece. She’s great.”
“Agreed. And Rocco is a character.”
“As well as the worst practical joker in all creation.”
“He’s the one who sent your application in for the Mr. Moneybags show, right?”
Gina nodded and braked for a curve in the road, then accelerated. “That was only one of the pranks he’s played on me. It almost rivals the occasion when he got a realistic audiotape of a train wreck and called my aunt Linda from the station at about the time that the wine train with all its sight-seers was due to arrive. He told Aunt Linda where he was, then played the tape into the phone, and she started yelling for my uncle Tony to come because she was convinced the train had jumped its track and run over Rocco in the phone booth. She was glad to hear his voice reassuring her that he was unharmed.”
“Doesn’t anyone ever get suspicious that he’s playing jokes?” Josh asked between chuckles.
“No, since Rocco’s so unfailingly clever about it. None of us will ever forget the time he borrowed the spare key to Aunt Audra and Uncle Charles’s house and took about five of our male cousins over there. When Aunt Audra and Uncle Charles came home that night, they heard what sounded like a bunch of guys laughing and showering in their tiny bathroom. They didn’t know whether to call the police or what, but they finally recognized some of the voices and started pounding on the bathroom door. They discovered that Rocco and the guys had turned on the shower but were sitting around the bathroom fully clothed, making an unholy racket so that my aunt and uncle would think some strangers had broken in and were partying in their shower. And then there was the time—”
Josh was still smiling. “Okay, okay, I get the picture. It’s all pretty funny, by the way.”
“Not if you’re the butt of it,” Gina said emphatically.
By the time she reached the highway, Josh’s laughter had abated and he appeared pensive. They were passing the water tower at the edge of the town limits before he spoke.
“You’re lucky,” he said into the silence. “To have such a large family to care about you.”
That he would feel this way surprised her, and she certainly wouldn’t have expected him to mention it. “I know,” she said. She tried to recall what she knew about Josh’s family from the résumé that had been handed out to all contestants on the show. A mother who listed “philanthropist” as her occupation; a father who was a director of a couple of big corporations. One younger brother and a sister whose ages she couldn’t recall.
He shifted in his seat, leaning slightly toward her so that his face was more clearly lit in the light from the instrument panel. He looked somber. “My family is great, don’t get me wrong, but we’re so spread out that we seldom see one another. My father travels a lot, and my mother spends most of her time raising
