Page 44 of Must Love Hockey
“Yes,” I’d responded immediately. “The night I had that allergic reaction, he drove me to the ER and hung around for three hours just because he didn’t want to leave a woman alone in the middle of the night.”
Her eyes had warmed, as if I’d just shown her a screenshot from the Panda cam we both haunt. “Then we had better make a good impression,” she’d said.
Three dozen dumplings later, here I stand, ringing the doorbell.
When the door swings open a moment later, I can no longer remember why I didn’t want to date James. Because there he is in all his burly, brown-eyed glory. He’s opening the door and taking the bulky shopping bag from my hands and ushering me into a living room with shiny wood floors, curvy upholstered furniture with wooden feet, and accordion-folded window curtains.
“Come in, come in!” a round-faced woman with dancing eyes calls from the arched doorway to a distant, steamy kitchen. “I’m Luna, and you must be Emily!” Her wide-open smile suggests that she’s either permanently happy or almost as tickled to meet me as the hockey players had been that night at the pizza place.
“It’s lovely to meet you,” I say. “My mother and I made some dumplings.”
“Ooh! Wonderful. I love dumplings. Should we reheat them?” She barely takes a breath, gabbing as James hangs up my coat and carries the dumplings into the kitchen. “Are we steaming them or frying them?” She shuffles huge pots around a six-burner stove like a five-star chef.
“Steaming is fastest,” I say.
“But fried dumplings aredivine.” She’s already pulling a giant cast iron pan out of a cupboard and heaving it onto a burner.
Then? She heats up some oil and begins frying three dozen dumplings while talking my ear off. I hear all about her hairdresser’s favorite recipe, about James’s difficulties with the snowblower, and also about a taxicab accident on the next corner.
When she finally darts off to take a ham out of the oven, one of James’s cousins—Tessa—turns the last few dumplings and takes over where Luna left off in the commentary.
“Okay, Tessie,” James says, finally breaking in. “Maybe I could monopolize Emily for a second?” He puts a soda into my hand. “I wish I could say that dinner will be quieter, but that would be a lie.”
I don’t mind at all, though. The Carozza family is endlessly entertaining. James steers me away from Tessa, introducing me to three more cousins. Then his mother and father arrive, too, followed by an elderly man.
“Mom, Pops, this is Emily, the girl I told you about.”
I shake their hands one at a time. Mr. Carozza looks like a rangier, older James. He gives me a friendly smile. Whatever differences he and his son have, they’re not on display today.
“And this is Uncle Alberto, who is at least a hundred years old,” James says.
“That is a lie,” Uncle Alberto insists. “I onlyfeellike it.” He pats my arm. “Now let’s eat a whole lot of lasagna, no?”
James leads me into a large formal dining room and pulls out my chair like a gentleman. He hadn’t been kidding about this meal. No wonder he tries not to skip it—the table is laden with more hot dishes than I can count.
There is a brief moment of quiet while Uncle Alberto says a prayer, but the second he’s done, Luna pipes up. “The meatless lasagna is the one in the blue pan!” she announces. “And I made my deviled eggs. Wait—can you eat eggs?”
“I absolutely can,” I say. “Thank you for thinking of me.”
Two minutes later, my plate is so full of food I can no longer remember what color the china pattern was. “I’m going to gain ten pounds today,” I announce to James. “And I’m not even sorry.”
He winks at me and gives my lower back a quick, affectionate rub. I love how comfortable he is in all this chaos. Before I met James, I hadn’t known that calmness was sexy. But it is. He has a sturdy, peaceful way about him that I appreciate.
“So,” Alberto says. “I got two questions for you, Emily.”
“Oh boy,” James says under his breath.
“In the first place, what is in these dumplings? They’redivine.”
“Thank you. They’re chicken, cabbage, and scallions. The sauce is soy-based, with a touch of vinegar and some chili oil.”
“You hear that, Luna? What a combination. We could put that in a ravioli.”
“Who is the ‘we’ in this scenario?” Luna asks. “Do you mean me? Nobody likes a passive-aggressive man.”
He doesn’t even bother answering that query. “My other question—what are your intentions regarding my grandson?”
“He’s not your grandson, he’s your great nephew,” Tessa argues.
