fun.â
âBut I donât know how to dance anything but the kalamatianos .â
âOh, just come anywayâI donât want to look like Iâve shown up alone.â
Okay, I get it. Itâs not sisterly bonding sheâs afterâshe just needs me there as a fixture to keep from looking stupid. Whatever. Back to my novel.
Romantic Ending: Janeà walks by the park and two big Saint Bernards come running over. They jump all over her like they canât get over seeing her again. Then some guy yells, âChristopher, Robin, get down!â He comes over to apologize for his dogs, but suddenly stops. âJaneà ?â He whispers. âCan it be?â
âTanner? Is it really you?â
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out the lucky rabbitâs foot. âHere, you made me promise to give this back to you someday. Iâve been to kingdom come and back looking for you. Itâs been gnarly, but here I am.â
Like two magnets attracting from opposite ends of the earth, Tanner and Janeà fall headlong into an embrace. Tanner takes Janeà âs face in his hands and looks into her sparkling chartreuse eyes. âYou could have left a forwarding address, you know?â
She looks back into his hypnotic hazelnut eyes. âBut then you would have mailed it back. This way you had to come in person.â She looks down at the rabbitâs foot that brought them back together, and a tear falls from her eye. âYou got it all dirty â¦â
âYouâre such a girl,â Tanner replies. He draws her lips to his and gently devours them, while Christopher and Robin bark for joy under the moon over Milan.
The End
I can relate to how Herman Melville must have felt the day he finished writing Moby Dick . What a relief!
On the way to dinner we pass by Paradise again. I linger a bit as we walk by . I sure would like to buy that. Maybe if I bought it, it would help remind me to prayâfor my enemies, like Annalisa. Help pray her into heaven. Actually she might already believe, in which case Iâd have to pray that she likes me by the time we get to heaven or that we live at opposite ends. Maybe Daddy would loan me some money to buy itâI could tell him Iâd pray for him more often if I could borrow the money â¦
âGet along, little doggie, youâre holding up the whole herd.â
This probably isnât the time to ask him for the money.
After dinner Adriana tells Mama and Daddy that weâre going for a beach walk. We end up at the Sea Palace Beach Club, a dance club cabana with a live band. Adriana leads me to an outside table, where people are actually dancing barefoot in the sand. I must be the youngest person here.
After our sodas arrive, two guys come over and sit at our table, uninvited. They start speaking to us in Italian. Adriana responds in pig Latin. The guys look completely baffled. Even I can join in on this one. So I ask her in pig Latin why she doesnât want to talk to them.
âArried-may,â she says.
I look at their handsâep-yay . Yep, wedding rings. âUck-yay!â
They finally get the hint and go away.
Moments later a dreamy guyâwith no wedding ringâasks Adriana to dance, and she accepts. That leaves me sitting here alone. Before long, the parasailing salesman wanders by. â Buona sera, â he says.
âOh, hi ⦠er ⦠buona sera. â And no, I donât want to go parasailing in the dark.
â Vuole ballare ?â Would you like to dance? he asks.
âNo.â
â Neanchâ io ,â me neither. He says his name is Antonio, and that he doesnât like to dance. âMay I sit at your table?â
âGo ahead, just donât ask me to go parasailing again.â
He points to the guy with Adriana and says thatâs his uncle.
â Thatâs your uncle?â The guy who drove the boat for the lunatic in the sky?
He nods.
Great.
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