29
“Will you stop fidgeting already? God, Frankie, you’re worse than the kids, do you know that?”
For the fourth time that evening, I stopped pulling at the hem of my dress while I waited impatiently for the car to arrive at Chie. No, not a car. A freaking limousine.
One week after his big reveal to my family, Xavier had done more than just invite us to the opening of Chie. At seven o’clock on Friday, an enormous limo pulled up outside of Nonna’s house, where he’d instructed me to get ready instead of Brooklyn. It was large enough to carry all six of us, plus Sofia, Lea’s brood, Nonna, even Nina wedged next to Matthew.
We hadn’t even reached the restaurant, but I was already out of my league.
We were all in our finest for the event—I had planned to wear Nonna’s black dress again, but Kate shook her head and pulled out something I hadn’t seen in a long time—the slinky red number I’d worn the night I found out I was pregnant.
“No way,” I said. “I can’t pull that off anymore.”
“Frankie, you teach aerobics classes four nights a week and you do crunches like it’s your religion. Your ass and abs could win awards, so just put it on and see what it does.”
What it did was surprise. Once I had the dress on, every one of my sisters piled into Joni’s room to ooh and ahh at the thin red silk. Even Sofia darted in with the gold and white party dress that Xavier had bought her, informed me that we both looked like princesses, and then ran back out in search of her stuffed unicorn, which suddenly needed a party dress of its own.
Now we were here—the Zola family, zooming down the West Side Highway like a bunch of movie stars, not a middle-class family from Belmont. Kate had styled all of us using her considerable skills and the clothes at her disposal.
“Oh my God, could you be showing any more leg?” Marie chided Joni, who was wearing a particularly short gold number that, yes, showed off her dancer’s legs.
“Should I have dressed like a nun instead?” Joni retorted, looking at Marie’s long black dress that, while form-fitting, was fairly conservative.
“Can you two cut it out?” I hissed. “This is a really big deal tonight, both for Xavi and Sofia. And all of us, really. It would be nice if you could act older than twelve for once.”
“Holy crap,” Joni said, ignoring me completely as she looked over my shoulder.
The limo came to a stop. I turned to see what had her so rapt. And was practically blinded.
Cameras were everywhere, and their flashes lit up the night. The sidewalk was lined with photographers, reporters, and what looked like the kinds of screaming fans I’d seen on E!. I could just make out some music playing over the hum of the crowd and a searchlight soaring upward toward the heights of the city. Beyond that I spotted the entrance to the restaurant itself—enormous black doors, over which a sign written in delicate, looping script read Chie.
“What is going on?” Lea asked as she stared at the crowds. “You’d think this was a movie premiere, not just a little restaurant launch.”
Beside her, Mike looked like he wanted to hurl. The boys were too interested in a video game to notice much of anything.
“Restaurant openings are a big deal,” Kate said knowingly. “Especially in New York. And especially when it’s someone like the Parker Group. I’m guessing there are a bunch of celebrities coming too.”
“I’m sure,” Nina said. “All the ones I’ve attended usually have at least three or four.”
Lea rolled her eyes but had the good sense not to say anything rude when she caught Matthew’s eye.
“We might meet someone famous?” Joni squealed. “Oh my God, I knew I liked your man, Frankie.”
“He’s not my man,” I said stubbornly, even while I was feeling out of breath.
“Mama?”
I looked down at Sofia, who was clutching her stuffed unicorn against her chest and staring at the cameras. “What’s up, bean?”
“Do we have to go in there?”
I looked at the cameras, then back at Sofia. “We do. Daddy’s in there waiting for us. Why, does it look scary?”
Slowly, she nodded. “Daddy’s in there?” she repeated.
I nodded back. “That’s right. Waiting to see you. He named this place for you, you know.”
At that, she grinned. She and Xavier had shared more than one FaceTime discussion this week talking about it. “Chie. It’s Japanese for Sofia.”