First Class Stamp (11 page)

After a nice long nap and a long hot shower, Ben dressed in
a charcoal grey suit and a light pink dress shirt, left open at the neck. He
stood in front of the mirror in his luxuriously marble tiled en suite bathroom
and added a touch of gel to his thick dark hair. He fiddled with the collar of
his shirt and then left the bathroom and walked into the bedroom to add his
watch to his left wrist and shoved his wallet in his back pocket. Dropping his
apartment key into his front pocket, he closed the front door behind him and
strolled to the elevator.

Meanwhile, across the street, Sophia stared into her closet,
piles of clothes already littered her bed – all of which had been examined and
found wanting for one reason or another. Her make-up was perfect and her long
black hair in big soft curls, framing her face. She stood in a matching black
bra and pantie set staring at the possible choices in front of her.

It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s just dinner!
But the
thought wasn’t comforting at all. She hadn’t had a reason to dress up since her
parents celebrated their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary just a few weeks
before the dreaded diagnosis of her mother’s cancer. The four of them, her
parents and her and Alex, had celebrated at a restaurant uptown, one of the
rare occasions that Aldo had agreed to close the store early.

Flicking through her limited number of choices, she pulled out
a pale pink knee-length cotton dress with flutter sleeves, a V-neck and an
empire waist. Slipping it up her legs and over her shoulders, she slid the
zipper up at the back and stood back to look in the mirror. She had great arms.
Lifting boxes in the store and helping to lift her mom when she had no strength
at all had done wonders for her biceps. Her neck wasn’t long like all the
fashion models but at least she’d avoided the Manning curse of barely a neck at
all! Her breasts were average and still maintained shape and position and there
was a slight indent where her waist should be. Hips that had birthed a nine
pound baby and long legs that were a gift from her mother’s genes completed the
evaluation.

As she turned to the side, however, her ass was getting
bigger, another gift from her mother, and there was that twelve year old
pooch…her not-so-flat tummy, a gift from Alex. She smiled as she remembered the
doctor handing her the tiny boy just seconds after his birth. She couldn’t
remember a happier day. And if she had to choose between a couple of pounds of
pooch and her son, he’d win every time – no contest.

Running out of time, Sophia accepted the image that stood
before her as the best it was going to get and grabbed a pair of black pumps
and slipped them onto her feet. Adding some dangling silver earrings and a
handful of slim silver bangles and shoving them over her hand and onto her
wrist completed the outfit. She sprayed her favorite Dolce and Gabbana scent on
her wrists, ankles and cleavage and grabbed her black clutch from the closet.
Dropping in her essentials like wallet, keys, phone, lipstick and handkerchief,
she walked out of her apartment and down a flight of stairs to say goodbye to
Alex.

He wasn’t with Gloria. She was sitting at the dining room
table reading the newspaper.

“You are beautiful, Sophia! Just beautiful!”

“Thanks, mom. Where’s Alex?”

“Downstairs with your father. Have a lovely evening.”

“I’ll try,” Sophia smiled as she left to find her son.

He was sitting on a stool behind the counter next to his
grandfather and they were in a heated discussion over the following years’
World Cup. She stood in the doorway grinning as they debated.

“The home team does have some advantage, but that doesn’t
mean they’ll win! Where is your pride for your country? Viva Italia!” Aldo
cheered.

“And when was the last time Italy won a World Cup, grandpa?
Let’s be realistic here. They don’t have a chance!” Alex argued.

“Dove è il vostro patriottismo nella tua patria?” Aldo
scowled.

Alex looked confused.

“Egli è American, dad,” Sophia smiled.

“I didn’t know you spoke Italian?” Ben said as he rounded
the corner and headed for the counter, finding Sophia over the top of the
aisles.

“There are lots of things that you would find fascinating
about my baby girl,” Aldo winked.

Sophia pushed away from the doorframe and made her way to
the three men, now grouped at the counter.

“Oh my,” Aldo grinned. “You look molto bella!”

“Wow!” agreed Alex. “You look great, mom.”

She smiled at the two most important men in her life and
then her eyes caught Ben’s. His mouth was slightly open and it slowly curved
into a smile.

“You look as lovely as ever, Sophia. Are you ready?” he
asked.

“I am.”

“We won’t wait up,” Aldo grinned as Ben escorted his
daughter from the store.

Ben and Sophia ended up walking about two blocks before he
hailed a cab. “Sorry,” he grimaced as she slid into the backseat.

“For what?” she asked as he slid in next to her.

“Your shoes…it must be difficult to walk for long periods of
time in them.”

Sophia chuckled. “We women are tougher than you think. We
are brainwashed to put up with the any pain because the benefits far outweigh
any discomfort.”

“The benefits being?” Ben asked.

“You know,” Sophia blushed. “Longer looking legs, better
looking calf muscles, being taller. Thanks, by the way.”

Now it was Ben’s turn to say, “For what?”

“For being tall enough that I can still wear heels,” she
grinned.

“Oh, well,” Ben chuckled. “Anything for you.”

She blushed again.

They rode in silence and the taxi let them off in front of
an upscale looking restaurant called The Bourbon. The hostess smiled and
greeted Ben by name and seated them immediately, even though there were several
parties ahead of them.

“You must be a bigger big-wig than I thought,” Sophia
smiled.

“Nah!” Ben grinned. “My sister-in-law is the Executive Chef
here so I come here often. The food is fantastic!”

“Oh. Do you have many siblings?”

“I am one of seven boys.”

“You could be Italian,” she grinned.

“Irish actually…many generations back.”

The waiter arrived and Ben ordered a bottle of Moscata and a
plate of stuffed mushrooms.

“They’re the best you’ll have ever tasted!”

“I believe you,” she chuckled. “So…six brothers?”

“Yep,” Ben nodded and began to list them in birth order.
“Matt is the oldest and he owns the company that I work for. He’s married to
Janie, you’d love her by the way. When you meet her you’ll understand.”

Sophia raised her eyebrows.
When I meet her? Am I going
to meet her?
But Ben didn’t notice and just kept talking.

“They have two kids, Ella is five and Christopher is three.
Well, they have four kids cuz Janie has two sons from her first marriage, Tyler
and Adam. Adam is a doctor and Tyler works with me. And then there’s Mark and
he’s married to Katy and she has a son Derek and he also works with me. And Mark
is Matt’s business partner but they don’t work in the office much anymore.”

The waiter arrived at their table with the wine and Ben
sniffed and tasted and nodded. The dark red liquid swirled into the glasses and
the waiter disappeared again.

“Andrew is married to Rory and they have a daughter Isabelle
and then David is married to Lindsey. She’s the chef here and they are
expecting a baby. Then there’s me. Then comes Paul who’s married to Nic and
they have a little boy named Gregory. He is the funniest little thing. And then
the baby is Tim and he recently married Beth. She’s English.”

“Phew!” Sophia said. “I will never remember all of that! I’m
an only child and I can’t even to begin to imagine…”

“Well I grew up with it so it’s just normal for me,” Ben shrugged.
“But you’re Italian. You must have huge family gatherings,” he grinned.

“True,” she chuckled. “They are loud and fun and then we go
home and it was just the three of us…now the four of us, with Alex.”

The waiter delivered the sizzling mushrooms oozing with
melted cheese and Ben offered Sophia the first pick. “Take that one,” he
suggested, pointing to a particularly gooey one.

Sophia grinned and did as she was told, cutting it in half
on her plate with her fork and blowing gently on it for a second before placing
it inside her mouth.

“Well?” Ben asked, anxiously awaiting her opinion.

She nodded. “You’re right. It’s really good.”

Satisfied, Ben reached over and scooped a couple of the
little morsels onto his plate. “So, you’ve heard enough about me. Tell me about
you
!”

“Not much to tell,” she shrugged. “And you probably know it
all anyway.”

“I hardly know anything about you. Start at the beginning.”

“I’m the only child of Aldo and Gloria Manning. They are
both Italian which makes me Italian. Um, they bought the market right before I
was born and so that’s where I grew up and makes it pretty pathetic that it’s
where I still am.”

“Not pathetic,” Ben smiled. “A devoted daughter maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“You obviously married very young.”

Sophia closed her eyes. “You don’t wanna hear about that.”

“Try me,” Ben replied.

“I met Willis in college. We were both freshmen and we fell
in love. Pfft! Who am I kidding? We didn’t fall in love. I don’t know what it
was but it certainly wasn’t love. My parents are in love and our marriage was
nothing like theirs.”

“It was bad?” Ben asked.

“Oh yeah! From about the third month I knew I’d made a
mistake, but I wasn’t just going to give up. I figured if we both put some
effort into it, we could make it work. But…”

“He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain.”

“Nope. I put him through school. I gave up my dream for him
and he never appreciated any of it.”

“Your dream?” Ben was curious.

“It was silly, but to a nineteen year old I thought it was
my future.”

“What?”

Sophia hesitated, looked down at her hands and then blurted,
“Modeling!”

“Why is that silly?”

“Because!” Sophia scoffed. “I had the height but nothing
else and when I finally got called for a shoot, I was pregnant and couldn’t do
it. The only job I ever had was for a chain of salons. I spent the whole day
having my feet photographed with different colors of polish and got paid five
hundred bucks. My one and only claim to fame.”

“So you must have beautiful feet,” Ben grinned.

“One person must have thought so.”

“Right this minute someone could be having their toes
painted because of
your
picture!”

Sophia laughed at his comment. “It’s exciting to think
about, isn’t it?”

“Did you have another dream after the modeling thing didn’t
work out?”

“To be the best mom I could be.”

“You’re obviously a great mom and we already established a
devoted daughter, but what about you? You aren’t
just
a mom and
daughter. What about
you
?”

She looked bewildered at the question. And timed perfectly
the waiter arrived to take their order.

The rest of the meal was spent chatting about nothing of
consequence, just light dinner conversation. They did discover a couple of
things in common however. Neither of them planned on leaving the city…they
could never move away from their families. Both of them were conservative in
their beliefs, being devout in their religion the main reason. And, most importantly,
their favorite flavor of ice cream was Neapolitan. “I like how you get one
spoonful with all three flavors,” Sophia had said, taking the words right out
of Ben’s mouth.

Catching a taxi home, Ben realized two things. First, she
had to be one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met, and two, she was one
of the funniest women he’d ever met. Once she became comfortable with him, and
that was easy to spot because her shoulders visibly relaxed, he discovered her
dry sense of humor and she had him all but choking on his wine a couple of
times.

They slid from the cab at their corner and Ben walked her to
the rear door on the side of the building, the entrance that led to a staircase
and up to the apartments, his hand on the small of her back.

“I had…”

“Thank you…”

They each spoke at the same time and then both chuckled.

“You go first,” Ben smiled.

“Thank you for dinner. I had a good time.”

“Me too,” smiled Ben. “Do you think that perhaps we could do
it again…say next week?”

“Ben,” she sighed. “I don’t want Alex to…”

“I know,” he whispered. “I can imagine this must be hard for
you.”

“You are the first man that I have…have gone on a date with
since…”

“You’re not serious?” Ben was shocked.

“I am,” she nodded. “With the divorce and then mom it
just…there hasn’t been time and…”

“Don’t say no. Think about it okay?”

Sophia looked at him and nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he smiled and leant in and kissed her. It was a soft
kiss, just lips against lips for a brief moment, and as Ben pulled back and
gazed into her eyes he saw that she felt it too. “Good night Sophia. Go inside.
Now.”

She unlocked the lock and stepped inside leaving Ben to
stare at the metal door as it closed.

“I am happy and content,” he told himself repeatedly as he
walked away.

*****

“How was dinner?” Gloria asked her daughter the next
morning.

“It was nice.”

“Nice?”

“Yeah. Nice.”

“Where did he take you?”

“A restaurant called The Bourbon. His sister-in-law is the Executive
Chef. It was pretty good,” she grinned.

“He’s a nice man.”

“Yes he is,” agreed Sophia.

“Has he asked you out again?”

“Mom! Even if he did it’s not a good time for me.”