The Next Best Thing. Kristan Higgins

back in the game. True?”

      I wince. My aunts may not fully approve of my efforts to remarry, but that hasn’t kept them from advertising my wares to every male who comes in the bakery. Iris’s method of not handing over change until I have been viewed has caught on. This morning, Rose presented me to Al Sykes and asked him if he wanted to date me. Given that he was my social studies teacher in sixth grade and roughly forty years my senior, I was grateful when he declined.

      “So?” Charley prods.

      “It’s true,” I admit. “Why? You know any men?”

      He grins, hitches up his pants and looks at my chest. “I’m a man, Luce. You wanna go out with me? I could show you a good time, you know what I’m saying?”

      Ethan cuts him a glance but says nothing.

      A Del’s Lemonade truck pulls into the parking lot, and I find myself wishing I was sipping a frozen drink—or driving the truck—or lying underneath its wheels—rather than talking about my love life on the infield. I’ve known Charley my whole life. The idea of kissing him…getting naked with him…I suppress a shudder.

      “Then again, a date with you is basically signing my own death warrant, right, Luce?” Charley says, apparently irked at my hesitation. “I mean, who’d want to do a Black Widow?”

      My mouth falls open in surprise, but before I can do anything, Charley is lying on the field, clutching his face.

      “Fuck, Ethan! You hit me!”

      “Get up,” Ethan growls.

      “Ethan,” I say, putting my hand on his arm. He shakes it off.

      “Get up.” He stands over Charley, waiting.

      I grab Ethan’s arm a little harder this time. “Ethan, he’s not gonna fight you. You know that. Leave him alone.” Charley, whose eye is rapidly swelling, shoots me a watery and grateful glance. Ethan did some boxing for a while, one of his many hobbies that involve physical harm to his person. Charley, though he’s the middle school gym teacher and seems as physically fit as the next guy, would be an idiot to fight Ethan Mirabelli. And though it could be said that Charley is indeed an idiot, he’s not that dumb.

      “Lucy, I’m sorry for what I said,” Charley announces loudly enough for all to hear. “I’m a fuck—up, and that was a shitty thing to say. Okay?”

      “Thank you for the beautiful apology, Charley,” I say just as loudly, turning to Ethan. His jaw is tight, his eyes hot. “Good enough, Ethan?”

      “Good enough,” he mutters, then goes to his dugout.

      Paulie Smith is our closer and makes short work of International’s final three batters. I wonder if he has a date…but no, there’s his wife. My teammates and I touch knuckles and pack up our gear, exchanging insults and compliments in our dugout.

      “You coming to Lenny’s, Lucy?” Carly Espinosa, our catcher, asks, slinging her bag over her shoulder, then wincing as it hits her in the leg.

      “Um, no, I have something I need to do,” I say.

      “See you around, then,” she answers, sauntering after the rest of the team as they head toward the park.

      I walk over to the other dugout, where Ethan stuffs his gear into his bag with considerable force. His temper, though rarely unsheathed, takes a while to fade.

      “You okay?” I ask.

      “Sure,” he says, not meeting my eyes.

      I sit on the bench next to him. “Charley’s a dope, that’s all,” I say.

      “Yup.” He shoves his glove into the bag, then sits for a second, staring at the concrete floor of the dugout. “So what kind of guy are you looking for, anyway, Lucy?” he asks.

      I take a quick breath. “I don’t know. Someone decent. Someone who’d be good to me.” Someone who won’t die young. “You want to grab dinner, Ethan? I’m heading over to see your folks.”

      “Have you told them about your plan yet?” he asks knowingly. I haven’t, and a little moral support would be appreciated.

      “Um, no, not yet. I figured I would tonight.” Please come.

      Ethan tightens the drawstring on his bag and gives me a sidelong glance. “Sorry. I’m having dinner with Parker and Nicky.” He reaches out, ruffles my hair and is gone, leaving me to sit in the dugout alone. He stops and says something to Ash, who is lingering, hoping for just this interaction.

      “Have fun,” I call belatedly. Dinner with the nuclear family. How nice.

      I wonder for a minute if, now that he’s in Mackerly all the time now, Parker and he will get together. If their fondness for each other will blossom into something deeper. If they’ll end up married after all this time. I kind of hope so. They’re both great people, and they already have Nicky, who’s about as wonderful a child as a child can be. Ethan says something to Ash, earning a smile, then continues toward home.

      My sentiments about Ethan and Parker are echoed by my mother—in—law an hour later as we sit in the owners’ booth at Gianni’s.

      “That Ethan,” Marie begins, her traditional opening when talking about her younger son. “He’s working in Providence at that horrible company, he’s here, he makes a decent living. He should marry that Parker. Be a father to Nicky.”

      “He is a father to Nicky,” I say mildly, looking at the mural of Venice above our table. “A wonderful father.”

      “A full—time father,” Gianni corrects. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he adds as Kelly serves our dinner. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, where’s the parsley? Ivan, for the love of God!” Gianni lurches up from the table to go yell at his latest chef, which has happened roughly every six minutes since I’ve been here, and probably happens more often when I’m not.

      My father—in—law had bypass surgery last year, and he just can’t take the stress of running the kitchen himself. That being said, he goes through chefs like tissues. No one, of course, was as good as Jimmy. No one knew the family recipes, the traditions. No one could ever fill Jimmy’s shoes, either as a son or a chef. And so Gianni suffers, his knees increasingly stiff, his temper increasingly short.

      “Eat, sweetheart. You’re too thin.” Marie, who is wider than she is tall, spears a tortellini from her own plate and holds it out for me. I eat it obediently, smiling. Marie always loved two things about me—I adored her son, and I ate well. I’m not thin, let me assure you, but to an Italian family who owns a restaurant, I look like I just staggered back from forty days in the desert.

      Gianni returns from the kitchen, his face flushed, blood pressure up, no doubt, and sits heavily. “Eat, sweetheart,” he urges me, shoving my plate closer.

      “It’s wonderful,” I say, and it is…eggplant rolatini, one of my favorites. The sauce is a little too acidic, granted, not like when Ethan made it last month at his place. For a vice president of a company whose sole purpose is to get people to avoid eating, Ethan is a fantastic cook. I wonder if he has to hide this fact from his bosses.

      “It’s not as good as Jimmy’s,” Marie declares, putting her fork down with an abrupt clatter.

      “Of course not,” I murmur, patting her hand and swallowing. Now or never. “Listen, speaking of Jimmy…” My in—laws regard me somberly from across the table, waiting. “Well,” I begin, “um…you know that my sister had a baby, of course.”

      “Did she get our eggplant?” Gianni asks.

      “Oh, yes, she did. And it was wonderful. She was so grateful.”

      “She called, dummy, remember? You talked to her yesterday.” Marie elbows her husband in the side.

      “Anyway,” I attempt.

      “She’s