Page 99 of I'm Looking for a Man in Finance
“She better be here next week.” My mother raised her own wooden spoon at me threateningly. Most people saw that kitchen utensil for what it was. But in an Italian family, it had more than one purpose, and my mother had picked up that gesture over the years she’d been married to my dad. I raised my hands in mock surrender to avoid being on the receiving end of one of those purposes.
My phone sounded with the web alert I had for Hallie’s articles. What better time to read this than with my family? They were going to benefit from this article. Even if most of the viewers flocking to it were there to read the next installment of Mr. Old Fashioned, like my mother and grandmother, they would read about the family restaurant that was the site for Hallie’s fourth date.
I tapped into the alert just as Brandon called my name. “Are you coming? Nonno is about to beat Dad, so we can deal you in.”
“Hey! Do you have no faith in me?” Uncle Tony glared over at his son. “You don’t know what’s in either of our hands.”
“I know that Nonno has either a Royal Flush or a Full House. And I think you have maybe a three of a kind.” Brandon gave a pointed look at his father. “So let’s wrap this up.”
“I just want to read this really quick. It may be the next round that you can deal me in.”
“Is it Hallie’s article?” My mother asked from the kitchen.
“The Mr. Old Fashioned article?” My grandmother exclaimed. “It’s posted? I’ve got to message the group chat.”
“What group chat, Nonna?” I asked.
My aunt poked her head out of the kitchen. “She’s got some group chat with all the ladies from her book club. They open their meetings every week to talk about the newest article before they shift to their latest book.”
The article had loaded onto my phone, and I had to do a double-take to make sure I was reading the headline correctly.
What Should You Do When They Run Out of Money? RUN!
By: Hallie Woods
When Mr. Old Fashioned brought me to his family’s restaurant, I thought he’d made a mistake. I’d expected an upscale bistro, perhaps his parents had purchased it in the early noughties, and it hadbecome a staple of the Upper East Side. So, when we crossed the river, I thought maybe he’d gotten the address wrong. Very, very wrong. Or maybe the restaurant he told me he was taking me to was a cool, avant-garde place in a basement in Dumbo, I could handle that at least … But an old pizzeria with red tablecloths to boot? Surely this wasn’t it?
Well, it turns out that Mr. Old Fashioned wasn’t exactly what he seemed. Because from the outside, he looked like the full package—wealthy, successful, and, almost most important of all, someone that had good taste. But apparently, the fourth date was now the new “meet-the-family” milestone, because how else could you explain him bringing me to a dingy pizzeria in Brooklyn and calling it a date?
He obviously wasn’t as well off as he had made himself out to be during our earlier dates. His pocketbook had to have run dry, so he settled on a dive, trying to pass it off as sentimental by introducing me to his family far earlier than one should.
During most family dinners, the house could barely contain the noise. With my grandmother’s record player incessantly playing Sinatra and my uncle’s boisterous reactions, I was shocked that they’d received no complaints from neighbors. I suppose my grandmother had paid them off for years with her famous handmade ravioli.
But I couldn’t hear any of that as the deafening roar of blood pulsated in my ears, echoing like a thunderous drumbeat that grew in intensity. The world around me seemed to come to a standstill, frozen in time, as I anxiously reread the title and the first two paragraphs repeatedly.
This can’t be right.
There had to be a mistake.
Sound finally came back to me. First, it was a ringing sound, high-pitched and whining. Then it was the muffled sound of voices. The voices were garbled, as if someone had plunged my head under water and was shouting at me from above.
The room was spinning as my eyes slowly peeled away from my phone screen to look around the room. The first person I noticed was my mother. Her mouth was moving, but I still couldn’t hear what she was saying. She crossed over to me from the kitchen in record time. Her hands cupped my face, her eyes wide with worry.
“What’s wrong, James?” The world snapped back into place as I stared into my mother’s eyes. My hands were shaking enough that the phone clattered out of my hand and onto the floor. “James, what’s wrong?” The sound fell away, but this time I knew it was because the room had gone silent.
My mother bent down to retrieve my phone and after she took one look at my screen, she pulled me up from the chair I’d fallen into and ushered me out of the room. I was moving through the world completely frozen. The second I tried to even question what I had just read, the words never formed. I couldn’t bring myself to consider that Hallie had written that.
“Speak, James.” My mother’s voice was insistent. Her gaze was intense as she forced me to look at her. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You read it,” I rasped. “I think you have a pretty good idea of what is going on.”
She was still holding my phone, and she took anotherglance at it when Hallie’s name flashed across the screen. My mother held it out to me, a question in her eyes.
“No.” I shook my head. “Decline it.”
“What if she’s calling you about the article? Maybe you should hear her out.” Of course, my mother’s suggestion was logical. But nothing about this situation felt logical.
Why would Hallie write that article? She knew what this meant for my family. Hell, I thought she knew what this meant forme.
