Read Online The Secret of Joy by Melissa Senate - Free Book Online Page A

were pretty close.”
    “Ah. I’m very sorry. I lost my dad some years back. I found myself crying all over the place. Once I burst into tears while placing meatballs and onions on a pizza. That was my father’s signature order.”
    “I’m sorry,” Rebecca said.
    Arlene patted her hand. “Time makes it easier. So doesfresh, hot pizza. Lunch is on the house. What would you like, hon?”
    Rebecca loved being called “hon.” Jane, the Whitman, Goldberg & Whitman receptionist, called everyone “hon,” even Marcie, who wasn’t hon-like at all. The only time Marcie Feldman had ever made a personal statement to Rebecca, it was to complain under her breath to Rebecca that she was “no one’s ‘hon.’” No doubt there, Marcie.
    “I appreciate that,” Rebecca said. “I’ll have a slice with green peppers and spinach. And a Diet Coke. With lime, if you have.”
    “A slice?” Arlene repeated. “We only serve whole pizzas. We have an individual size, which is about four slices, medium, which is six slices, and large, which is eight. Extra large is twelve.”
    “The individual pie, then. With peppers and spinach.”
    Arlene smiled. “You must be from New York. I’ve heard that New Yorkers call pizzas pies . I’ve always liked that.”
    Rebecca nodded and was about to say something when a singing baritone interrupted her.
    “‘When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.’” A teenage boy poked his head out from the back room. The smile on his comical young face was so bright, so contagious that Rebecca laughed.
    “Hi there,” she said. The teenager tipped his baseball hat at Rebecca, then pulled his blond head back.
    “That’s my son, Matteo, the cello player,” she said. “He’s a senior in high school. But every day he comes home for lunch for Mama’s pizza. He was accepted to Juilliard, isn’t that something? He starts next September.”
    “Juilliard! That’s very impressive.” The kid could sing, too.
    Classical music, and the beautiful sounds of a cello, soon followed, and Arlene began twirling around, her hands held up as if dancing with an imaginary partner. The bell jangled on the door. Rebecca turned around. A good-looking guy in his early thirties walked over to Arlene and said, “May I have this dance?”
    Arlene beamed and gave the man her hand. They did something of a waltz until the teenager stopped singing and shouted, “Bye, Mom!”
    “Bye, hon,” she called out.
    “I’ll take the usual,” the man said. He turned to Rebecca and smiled a polite smile, then picked up a local newspaper and thumbed through it.
    “This young lady is from New York City,” Arlene told him, gesturing her chin at Rebecca.
    “Rebecca Strand,” she said, surprised that his good looks even registered, given how crazy everything was right now. He was fine featured but rugged at the same time, with great hair, dark sandy blond and wavy. And brown eyes, like Rebecca’s. He wore jeans and a navy T-shirt and had a tool belt slung low around his waist. Construction worker? Handyman?
    “Theo Granger,” he said with a smile.
    He was eye candy, but no match for the painting above her table, which Rebecca couldn’t take her eyes off of. It was of a sweet little house, pale yellow with white shutters and a blue door. It also reminded Rebecca of a candy shop. There were flowers everywhere and wind chimes, and a white picket fence. It was so charming. She could see herself living in that little yellow house, learning to be herself.
    She had no idea where that thought came from.
    “I like it, too,” Theo said.
    She shot him a smile.
    “Your pizza’s ready, dear,” Arlene said, bringing it over on a tray. “Enjoy.”
    She could feel Theo watching her. But when she glanced at him, he was flipping through the newspaper. Then Arlene handed him his pizza in a box, he said a throwaway “Nice to meet you,” and was gone. Rebecca stared after him through the windows.
    “Hot, huh?”