Read Online The Supreme Macaroni Company by Adriana Trigiani - Free Book Online

we don’t check on her every day or forget to invite her to a birthday party or a holiday dinner. She gets livid. And yet when you get her to the party, she hates it. She complains, she sends back food, she insults the in-laws. Please don’t let me turn eighty and not know what I need.”
    “Some people prefer to be alone. You have to respect that.” Gianluca turned on the radio. I pushed the seat back, stretched out my legs, and watched the night sky ripple past through the window.
    Gianluca was right. I was like Aunt Feen in the solitude department. I love Saturdays in an empty house with no work to do. Hadn’t had one of those in years, and with the new business, I doubted I’d have one anytime soon. I had a wedding to plan and a business to run, hardly the profile of a woman who prefers to be alone.
    When I was single, I imagined shaking things up and doing something new at Christmas time, maybe going someplace warm by myself, but there was always an excuse not to break with tradition. My nieces and nephews would only be little for a short window of time. I didn’t want to miss them opening their gifts or singing in their school pageants. My grandmother and parents were getting older. How many more Christmases would they have? Would it kill me to give up my holidays for them? It didn’t, so I stayed. But I had to wonder when my life would begin.
    I held up my hand and let the beams from the headlights behind us illuminate the facets of the diamond. “The tectonic plates of my family structure shifted tonight.”
    “How so?”
    “I’m legitimate.”
    “You weren’t before?”
    “Not really. You made me legit. I’m going to be a wife.”
    Gianluca smiled. “That’s all it took?”
    “A little velvet box. See, in my family, they believe married people have real lives. Single people are in a holding pattern until they become night nurses for the older generation.”
    “We may have to do that anyway. My father. Your grandmother.”
    “I won’t mind because I won’t be alone on the shift. This ring changed everything. I will no longer be the single daughter with time on her hands. I’m not going to get that call from Mom on a Saturday morning asking me to come home and help her clean out the garage.
    “Dad won’t send a replacement part for his car to Perry Street because it saves him on the shipping. From now on, he’ll pick it up himself. I won’t be the aunt who is happy to be the extra pair of hands at Great Adventure on opening weekend. I won’t take Rocco on the Tilt-A-Whirl because his father throws up on carnival rides.
    “I won’t be the sister-in-law who gives up a Sunday afternoon to pour cement when Pamela gets a yen for a new patio in Jersey. I won’t be asked to drop everything and take Aunt Feen to her doctor appointments. You will be my excuse. I have a fiancé now. You’re the love of my life, but you’re also my get-out-of-jail-free card.”
    C hristmas Eve is the one night in Greenwich Village when you can find parking on the street. Gianluca pulled into an empty spot on Perry Street close to our front door. He got out and opened the door, lifting the tower of Tupperware out of the car.
    The scent of the fresh Christmas tree upstairs greeted us in the foyer below. I looked up the landing and could see the soft blur of the twinkling white lights on the tree.
    “I’ll see you in the morning,” Gianluca said.
    “No, come up. You can stay here.”
    He smiled. “You have a roommate.”
    “So I’ll come to the hotel.”
    “No, my father and stepmother will be here in the morning. We have lots of time. The rest of our lives.” Gianluca pulled me close.
    “Years and years and years.”
    Gianluca kissed me good night. He turned to go through the door, and I threw my arms around him from behind. I closed my eyes and held him. He laughed and turned around to face me.
    “Merry Christmas Eve,” I told him.
    Gianluca kissed me again, and this kiss would be the one I would always