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talking about, because you’ve told me the same thing, even though you’d make a beautiful family and could have more little Nickys running around.”
    Parker smiles. “Did you know he moved back to Mackerly?”
    I pause. “Ethan?”
    “Yes, dummy.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Parker takes another bite of cookie. “He took a job with International Food’s headquarters in Providence so he could be closer to Nick. Around all the time, not just on weekends.”
    “Oh,” I say, mildly hurt that I don’t know this already. Right…he mentioned something Friday night about having something to tell me, but must’ve forgotten. “Wow. That’s big news.”
    “Mmm. Anyway. He’ll be back permanently as of this weekend.”
    “Well. That’s good.” I pause. “Good for Nicky, certainly.”
    “Mommy! I ate blue frosting!” Speaking of Nick, the little guy charges out of the kitchen, the lower half of his face stained with blue from the hideous fondant Rose uses to frost her cakes (I’d only use butter cream, but Rose is the cake decorator at Bunny’s, no matter how superior my frosting might be).
    “That’s great, buddy!” Parker says. “Give me a blue kiss, okay?” She leans over and puckers, and Nicky laughingly obeys.
    “Want one, Aunt Wucy?” he asks. Though he’s latelymastered his L sound, he still calls me “Wucy,” which I find utterly irresistible.
    “I sure do, honey,” I answer. He climbs onto my lap and obliges, and I breathe in his smell, salt and shampoo and sugar and hug him tight for second, relishing his perfect little form, before he wriggles down to play with his Matchbox cars.
    “I gotta get going. Books to write.” She sighs dramatically.
    Parker is the author of a successful children’s series—The Holy Rollers, child-angels who come down from heaven, don roller-skates and help mortal kids make good choices. Parker hates the Holy Rollers with a mighty passion and wrote the first one as a farce…stories so sticky-sweet that they made her teeth ache. However, her sarcasm was lost on an old Harvard chum who ran the children’s division of a huge publishing company, and The Holy Rollers are now published in fourteen languages.
    “What’s this one about?” I ask, grinning.
    She smiles. “ The Holy Rollers and the Big Mean Bully , in which the God Squad descends to beat the shit out of Jason, the seventh-grade thug who steals lunch money.”
    “Beat the shit out of Jason!” Nicky echoes, zipping his car along the window.
    “Oops. Don’t tell Daddy I said that, okay?” Parker asks her son, who agrees amiably.
    “Want me to keep an eye out?” Parker asks, scooping up Nicky’s little cars into her buttery leather pocketbook.
    “For what?” I ask.
    “For your new husband?”
    “Oh. Sure. I guess,” I say.
    “Now there’s a can-do attitude!” she says with a wink, then takes my nephew by the hand and breezes out, her blond hair fluttering in the wind.

CHAPTER FOUR
    E THAN WAS TWO YEARS BEHIND ME at Johnson & Wales. I didn’t know him until my junior year—while I’d grown up in Mackerly, the Mirabelli family had moved to town and opened Gianni’s my second year of college. They heralded from Federal Hill, the Italian section of Providence, and their restaurant was an instant success. I’d eaten there a time or two, but I hadn’t met any of the family until Ethan approached me one day as I was lounging on the grass at school, sketching out my final project for Advanced Cake Decorating.
    “Aren’t you one of those bakery babes from Mackerly?” he asked. I grinned and affirmed that indeed I was.
    “I’m Ethan Mirabelli,” he said. “My family owns Gianni’s. Do you know it?”
    “I sure do,” I said. “Best food this side of Providence.” I shaded my eyes and took a better look at young Ethan Mirabelli. Fairly cute. Lively brown eyes, mischievous smile, the kind that curled up at the corners in a most adorable way. “Do you work there?”
    “Not yet. My