Read Online One Hit Wonder by Denyse Cohen - Free Book Online Page A

your family.” John lifted his glass and took a sip of wine. As always, if he was nervous, she couldn’t tell. The waitress reappeared and they ordered: fettuccine alfredo for him and four cheese ravioli for her.
    “I’m the only child. My mother is Brazilian, and she met my dad when she came to the U.S. to work as a caregiver to an elderly gentleman whose daughter was too busy to do it herself.”
    “Have you been to Brazil?” The waitress sat their salads in front of them.
    “Yes, many times. My family used to spend summers there. Well, my father couldn’t stay more than two weeks because of his job. But after he returned to the U.S., my mother and I would spend the rest of vacation living like typical Brazilians at my grandparent’s farm in the middle of the country.”
    “A farm, really?”
    “Yes, that’s where my mom grew-up. My grandparents still live there.”
    “What did you do on a farm for a whole summer?”
    “Lots of things. I’ve helped my grandfather milk the cows, ride horses, swim in the river, cook with my grandmother on a wood-stove.”
    “That’s neat.”
    “It was. I have cousins my age, so we played around mango trees all day. When we were hungry, we could just pluck a mango off the tree and eat it.
    “Cool.”
    “Actually, they are in peak in November, when twenty-eight mango trees make the air around the farmhouse fragrant and sweet. I’d pull their skin with my teeth and bite their stringy yellow flesh until I hit the pit. I’d eat so many my gums hurt afterwards.” Audrey said longingly.
    “Do you speak Portuguese?” John ferried salad to his mouth with fervor. She guessed he was more relaxed — or nervous — than usual, because she’d never seen him eat like that.
    “I think I still do,” she pondered. “I haven’t been to Brazil in ten years.”
    “How come? It sounded like you loved it there.”
    Suddenly, she was uncomfortable. “My mother started to talk about moving down there for good. My father didn’t want to.” She looked at the table and took a sip of wine. “I grew up and got tired of, um, ah, having to reacquaint myself every summer to the place, the people…I guess — ”
    “Say something in Portuguese.” John’s voice was more cheery, and she felt a rush of gratitude for his intervention.
    “ Demorei uma eternidade para chegar aqui .” Audrey’s lips twitched upwards in a tiny smile.
    “What does it mean?”
    “It took me forever to get here.” She bit her lower lip.
    “I know what you mean.” John’s eyes were eager, conspiratorial.
    • • •
    On the walk back to the hotel he reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers and smiling shyly.
    “I want to show you something.” She led him up the same hill she hiked earlier with Matt.
    After five minutes, they veered off the trail into a clearing where a patch of grass seemed to thrive. They could see the Winnebago parked sideways in the empty motel parking lot and the town’s scant skyline.
    “This view is amazing,” John said.
    Yellow lights twinkled in the distance, probably little farm houses not pushed out by urbanization, with bare trees outlined by the moonlight.
    “I knew it was going to look great under the moon, a perfect picture of an American small town, like in a vintage postcard.” She sat on the grass and he sat beside her, admiring the view in silence for a while.
    He lay down and put his arm out; she rested her head on his chest and they watched the sky. His heart pounded inside his chest as fast as hers and in perfect harmony.
    “When I was a kid camping with my parents, sometimes in the back yard, I used to trace the stars. Not to find constellations, but to create whatever shape I wanted.” Even as an adult, she couldn’t recognize any constellations, except by the obvious Big Dipper.
    John murmured under his breath, “When I trace the stars I see you.” He was holding a strand of her hair. “That’s a good line.”
    “Yes, it is.” She hooked