The Tie's The Limit (Fashionista and the Geek, Book 2) [Ebook]

The thing about family, the thing about Giada Abelli’s family especially, was they were always there.

Sometimes they were there for her.

Like when she applied for a scholarship at an all-girls boarding school because her best friend Gina wanted to be the first Italian-American president and you just have to go to the finest boarding school so you can get into Harvard so you can get into Harvard Law or you’re just not going to make it, duh.

That best friendship had ended abruptly after Gia had gotten accepted and Gina hadn’t.

It might have been saved if Gia hadn’t actually gone. But she’d begged and she’d pleaded with her parents to let her go and when they both said, “No! That’s final!” she’d enlisted the help of her brothers.

And when they’d only laughed and said that Ma and Dad were NEVER going to let their baby girl, their only girl, their only child still living at home, leave before they actually had to, she’d gone to the aunts.

The uncles.

Her new sister-in-law.

Her cousins.

She’d even gone to her nonnino’s grave and cried her eyes out because he wasn’t there anymore to make everyone do what they should.

Her nonna had found her there. Had placed that week’s flowers carefully by her husband’s headstone and then gathered up her granddaughter.

“What’s all this crying?”

“Ma and Dad won’t let me go to school!”

Nonnie laughed, having already heard about this school that their baby wanted to go to.

“Nonnino would have made them let me go!”

“Nonnino would have said no. Too many boys. You are too young to move away, maybe when you are thirty-five.”

“It’s all girls. There aren’t any boys there at all.”

“Only girls? Is it a nunnery?”

“No. It’s where you learn how to be a president and stuff. Gina said so.”

“President of what?”

Gia had pushed herself up and said regally, “The president of the United States. Of America.”

Nonnie said, “Hmm. You want to be president or you want to be with your friend Gina?”

“Gina’s not my friend anymore. She didn’t get in. I did. I got a scholarship.”

“And that’s a reason to not be her friend anymore?”

“She said they only took me because I won that drawing contest last year at school. And because they felt sorry for me because of my hair.”

Her thick brown fuzzy hair, and Nonnie sucked in a breath, puckering her mouth and getting ready to spit. She stopped abruptly when she remembered who she would be spitting on.

Nonnie said instead, “A bird loves her nest,” and Gia had never been sure if that meant she was supposed to love her hair, or if she already did and wasn’t supposed to.

Or if it just meant it was hers. So there.

Nonnie had looked at her husband’s grave and sighed.

“Life is too short, mia creatura. It is finished before you even realize it’s started. If you want to go to this school, away from your family who loves you and cares for you and protects you, then you will go.”

And suddenly, the exciting adventure of being the first Abelli, the only Abelli, at that school seemed a little frightening.

She had never been the first Abelli, ever. In anything.

She couldn’t imagine being the only Abelli.

Gia thought about what it would really mean to move away from the family that loved her and cared for her and protected her.

What it would mean to be all alone.

She leaned back into her grandmother’s soft, warm embrace, wondering if her heart was going to explode out of her chest because she was excited or because she was scared.

She whispered, “Can I really go, Nonnie?”

“Yes.”

And if Nonnie said so, it was true, so Gia nodded her head slowly.

“I really want to.”

Nonnie squeezed her and said softly to her husband, “Gianni, our Giada is going to be the first Italian-American president. Of the United States.”

“Of America,” said Gia.

And sometimes Gia’s family expected her to be there for them.

With them.

In Florida.

When she had a hard-won, independent life in New York. That wasn’t especially prosperous, but it was hers.

Besides, who moved from New York to Florida?

Nobody, that’s who. Except her whole family, apparently.

Her mother said, “Lots of people move from New York to Florida.”

“Name me one good reason why.”

Nonnie said, “Winter.”

Her mother said, “Beaches.”

Her father said, “Money. Name me one good reason why we shouldn’t move.”

“Hurricanes. Cockroaches as big as rats. New York is the greatest city on earth. Oh yeah, and your daughter still lives here.”

Nonnie said, “We get hurricanes here too. We have rats as big as cats. And Roma is the greatest city on earth.”

Her mother said, “And our daughter is moving with us.”

“Oh no, she’s not. I’ll help you move. I’ll visit you. But I’m not moving to Florida.”

Nonnie closed her eyes and said weakly, “I don’t know how many years I have left, mia creatura.”

Her father beseeched the heavens silently because they all knew Nonnie was going to live forever.

He dropped his hands quickly when she opened her eyes.

He said, “We’re the last ones here, Gia. Your uncles all moved years ago and made a success of it. Your brothers left, and don’t think that doesn’t hurt your mother to be so far away from her grandchildren. I was waiting to retire, get my pension. And I was waiting for my daughter to get her life in order.”

Gia scoffed. “It’s in order.”

Kinda.

Nonnie said, “Oh, you’re president of the United States already? I missed that.”

“You all knew that was never going to happen. Now, dress the president? Maybe. And that could still happen.”

“It could still happen. In Florida.”

And if Nonnie said so, it was true.

Gia jutted out her chin.

“You should have never let her go to that school,” Nonnie said, looking at that chin, and Gia’s mother squeezed her fingers together tightly, glaring at Nonnie.

Her father sighed, pointing his finger at Gia. “I’m not going to stand here all day, arguing with you. The family has moved to Florida. We’re taking your grandmother to Florida. And you will come with us. That’s final.”

“No,” Gia said and her father shook his finger at her.

Her mother said, “Enough.”

She held her hand out to Gia’s father, telling him to sit.

And then she stood.

“Silvana Giada Abelli,” she said and Gia knew she was in trouble.

She was Gia, unless she was in trouble and then she was Giada.

She’d never been in so much trouble before that she was Silvana Giada.

Her mother said, “You will be moving to Florida. And you will live with us—”

“Live with you!”

“—and do you know why?”

Gia was still reeling from the knowledge that they wanted her to live with them that she just stood there.

Her mother said, “You said you would come back home.”

Gia’s stomach sunk as she realized what the final tool in her mother’s arsenal was.

Guilt.

Gia could feel it coiling around her, poking at her defenses, looking for weakness.

She wouldn’t let it in. Wouldn’t let it win.

Her mother said, “You promised me. And you said my daughter wasn’t leaving for good. Only three years and then she would be back. But she never came back.”

“Yes, but—”

“She went to college and lived with her friends.”

“You can’t be—”

“And then, when she graduated, I thought now she will come back home. And she went to live all by herself, all by herself,” she said, emphasizing each word with a head jerk, her hair flying wildly. “In a one-room pezzo di merda instead of coming home to her mother!”

Gia kept her mouth shut, her eyes widening at the uncharacteristic cursing.

“Now she will move back home.” Her mother smoothed her hair back into place. “You are coming with us to Florida. I will have my three years. The years you promised me, the years you denied me. Capisci?”

Gia stared at her mother. At the anger in her shoulders and the hurt in her eyes.

She looked at her father, who suddenly looked decades older.

At her grandmother, who despite all appearances to the contrary, wasn’t really going to live forever.

She thought about being the only Abelli left in New York.

And she opened her mouth and said, “Capisco.”

Mac Sullivan enjoyed his job.

He worked in cool air conditioning when the outside was sweltering. He thought, spoke, and dreamed in numbers when other mere mortals were forced to work with words.

And people.

And he was only occasionally forced to come out of his numbers and into the land of the living when his boss asked something like, “Are you happy working here, Mac?”

He turned off his computer monitor and swiveled his ergonomic chair to find her sitting across from him.

He didn’t wonder how long she had been there only because it didn’t occur to him to wonder.

He said, “Yes, of course.”

“And do you find your work challenging?”

“No. I would call it intriguing.”

She smiled. “Would you enjoy a job that was challenging?”

He considered for a moment before answering.

“I don’t know.”

“Bob is retiring next year.” She kicked her leg out. “If he doesn’t have a heart attack first.”

Mac stared at her and said, “Bob is CFO.”

She kicked her leg out again and stared back, and Mac decided to stop thinking about the numbers on his blacked-out screen and pay attention.

“I’d like to start grooming you for the position, and I mean that literally. I can’t have my C-level executives be this unkempt. You’re wearing two different blacks. And the same tie you wore yesterday.”

He looked down at the offending article. “You pay attention to what tie I wear?”

“It’s the same tie you’ve worn everyday since you began working here.”

He shook his head. “It only looks the same. Once I find something that works, I like to keep doing it.”

She contemplated this, then said, “How many of these ties do you own?”

“Five.”

“This doesn’t work, Mac.”

“I don’t want to think about clothes, Cara.”

“The woman who does my nails,” she said, flashing her pink-tipped fingers at him, “knows a fashion consultant from New York. She’ll think about clothes for you, shop for them, and make charts that tell you what shirt and tie to wear with what pants and jacket. You won’t have to think about clothes at all.”

Mac liked charts.

Mac might like CFO.

He said, “I’ll get back to you with the cost-benefit analysis.”

Cara smiled and stood. “I expect no less from you than cold, cool logic. Let me know if you want the job and the consultant’s number.”

He nodded, understanding the two went together like earnings reports and late nights.

Couldn’t have one without the other.

He turned back to his computer, turned on the screen, and opened a new spreadsheet.

Mac Sullivan, CFO.

He liked the sound of it, and ultimately that was what decided it in the end because the cost-benefit analysis was remarkably even and no help in his decision.

He turned it in to his boss a few hours later and she looked it over carefully before handing it back to him.

“And what’s your decision?”

“Yes,” he said when he’d meant to say that he still hadn’t decided.

“Excellent. Here’s the consultant’s number.” She handed him a card, looking at his tie. “Do it soon, Mac. Today.”

So he called and set up an appointment to see the consultant.

Or, rather, for the consultant to come see him.

Which suited Mac just fine because then he could go back into the cold, logical world of numbers and stop wondering if he’d just made a rather large mistake.

Gia told herself that the move to Florida was only temporary.

She’d do her time, her three years, and then be free to move back to New York.

Be free to move anywhere, really.

Anywhere at all.

It took no time at all to find a house in Tampa and get unpacked. Not with all the help from her brothers and their wives and their children, her aunts and uncles and cousins, and she’d forgotten what it felt like to be engulfed by dozens and dozens of family.

The Abellis had trickled away from New York and she hadn’t realized how long it had been since she’d been engulfed.

Gia sat down at her mother’s same old dining table in their new dining room, eating food made by who-knew-which-aunt-or-sister-in-law.

She said, “The house is big.”

Her mother sat down next to her with her own plate.

“I told your aunt that we didn’t need something this big and she said to trust her. In a few months we won’t remember how we lived in less. You like your room?”

She’d picked the one farthest from her parent’s room, on the other side of the house, but they were all still together.

Ma, Dad, Nonnie, and her. All together.

Gia said again, “It’s big. Almost as big as my whole apartment back in New York.”

Her mother said, “Don’t even get me started on that apartment.”

Gia laughed and took a big bite of pasta.

“How is this even going to work, Ma? I’m twenty-seven.”

“So?”

“So don’t expect me home for dinner every night and don’t wait up for me and don’t clean my room. I’ve been on my own for a long time.”

Loretta pushed Gia’s hair behind her ears and looked at her sadly. “I know.”

“I’m just saying I’m not your baby anymore and this isn’t going to work if you treat me like one. I’m an adult. Do you expect Nonnie home for dinner, does she expect you? All the time?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, bad example.”

Her mother went back to her dinner. “Where else are you going to eat if not here?”

“Wherever I want.”

“Your grandmother makes dinner on Sundays, she’ll expect you here.”

Sunday evening, eating her nonna’s food?

Not a hardship.

“Okay.”

“And now that there are three adults living here, we only have to make dinner two nights during the week. If you don’t want us to make any for you, that’s fine. But you’ll need to share in the responsibility.”

Gia put her fork down. “What do you mean there are three adults? Does Dad make dinner?”

Her mother nodded. “I told your father that if he was retiring, then I was retiring, too.”

“Dad makes dinner?”

“Don’t get excited, it was usually pizza from Rizzo’s. He’ll enjoy finding someplace new here that is inferior yet edible. And your grandmother and I end up helping each other, but it helps to know who’s in charge. Cuts down on stepped toes.”

There was a little uncomfortableness in Gia’s stomach and she said slowly, “And now I have to make dinner for everybody?”

“It’ll be good practice for when you have your own family.”

“Uh… How do you feel about ramen noodles and canned green beans?”

Her mother sighed, then forced a smile onto her face.

“Whatever you want. You’re in charge. But I will just comment that the school that was supposed to teach you how to be a president left out some important life lessons.”

Gia shrugged. “Presidents don’t cook dinner.”

“Hmm.”

Gia picked up her fork, pretty sure that her mother would be upset that she couldn’t cook even if Gia had ended up president instead of the nothing she’d turned out to be.

She said, “You help Nonnie, though, right?”

This smile wasn’t forced and her mother looked genuinely happy to say, “We would both love to help you make dinner.”

Gia looked at her mother and said, “You know, I think I’d love that too.”

They smiled at each other and for the first time Gia thought that moving back home wasn’t going to be a throat-slashing nightmare.

Her mother said, “Now, what do you mean you’re going to be out late?”

Gia took another bite. “I think you know what I mean.”

Her mother looked at her fork, then sighed.

“Don’t give your father a heart attack.”

Gia didn’t even have to think about it.

“Yeah. I could see that going both ways.”

Gia and Nonnie were dropped off at Teresa’s salon early the next morning by an accommodating cousin and they both stood in front of it for a long time, adjusting the mental picture they’d created while in New York.

Nonnie said, “I thought it would be different.”

“More neighborhood salon, less Fifth Avenue?”

Nonnie nodded. “That brother of yours. He married well, didn’t he?”

“I’ve always wondered why she said yes.”

“Amore makes for strange bedfellows.”

“That is not how that saying goes. But it should be because it’s obviously true.”

They pushed open the sparkling clear glass door, a flowery scent inviting them in, and Nonnie took a deep breath. “I’m going to like this place. What do you think about a new ‘do?”

“Yes. Me too. I look like I stuck my finger in a socket.”

“And nails? I want those long sharp ones that look like talons. Red, so it looks like blood.”

Gia hugged another cousin at reception before being waved on to the back, and said to her eighty-year-old grandmother, “Why?”

“I’ve heard about Florida retirees. They’ll be thinking I’m fresh meat.” She whipped her hands in front of her face. “And then they’ll be changing their mind.”

Teresa waved, heading to them from across the room. “Pick a chair.”

Gia sat down on pink suede, smoothing the fabric with her hand. “Where did you find these?!”

Teresa said in a faux posh accent, “Custom, darling,” and then bent to hug Gia.

Nonnie was led off to get her red talons and Teresa sat down across from Gia, taking her hands and inspecting them.

“Good nails. You take care of them.”

“Don’t tell Ma. She’s already upset at what I did and didn’t learn at school.”

“She’s proud of you, you know? A private boarding school, the Fashion Institute of Technology, your own business.”

“Meh. It’s residual pride left over from school because my own business is nothing to be proud about.”

“We’ll turn that around, starting today. You’ve got an appointment this afternoon.”

Dread. That’s what that feeling was in the pit of Gia’s stomach.

And because she was feeling like such a successful adult, she said, “And which cousin is going to drive me there?”

Teresa laughed, placing Gia’s fingers into two warm bowls of water. “You can borrow my Escalade until you get your own car.”

Her first time driving in Florida and it was going to be in a behemoth?

Gia closed her eyes, letting Teresa take care of her hands and her business, and said, “What’s my appointment like?”

“Haven’t met him. But his boss comes in every week. She was telling me how this one executive of hers wears the same tie every day. Every. Day. And after we stopped groaning about it, I told her I knew someone who could help and gave her your card.”

Gia opened her eyes to say incredulously, “You gave her my card? I don’t have cards.”

“I had some made for you to put out front. Anyway, he finally called last week and made an appointment. And I told all the girls that you pay for referrals. We’ll work out how much later. Flat fee? Percentage?” Teresa waved that away. “Later. Later.”

Gia said, “He set up the appointment last week? You know one of the reasons I haven’t been worried about giving up my apartment and moving a thousand miles was because you said I had a client already.”

Teresa looked unconcerned. “And look, you do. See how much unnecessary worry I saved you?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now pick a color.”

Gia looked through the colored bottles and picked out a dark silver.

Teresa put it back, taking one hand and smoothing cream onto the cuticles. “No, pick out a neutral color. You’re getting French tips. You’re not some teenager dressing your best friend. You’re a professional charging a professional fee.”

“Can’t I be a professional with some personal style?”

“Yes. When you have more than a handful of satisfied clients who will recommend you to everyone they know, I will let you paint your nails silver.”

“What about glitter? Can I have glitter?”

Teresa closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’ll allow an iridescent shimmer.”

“Oh! Okay, I’ll like that.”

Teresa opened her eyes. “And your hair?”

“Do what you want. It’s a lost cause anyway.”

“It’s the humidity. You’ll get used to it. And you’re going to need new clothes to go with new hair.”

“I’ve got clothes. And yes, before you ask, professional…ish clothes.”

Teresa pushed back cuticles, saying, “It’s like the blind leading the blind.”

“I’m an artiste. I can have style. I don’t have to dress like a business executive to be able to dress a business executive.”

“Oh.” Teresa dropped Gia’s hand. “I see the problem now.”

“What?”

“Didn’t that fancy school of yours teach you about presentation?”

Gia thought about it.

“My friends learned it so it must have been part of the curriculum.”

Teresa tried to smile.

“That’s great. Pick a color.”

Gia picked bubble-gum pink.

Teresa put it back.

“When your client tells you he only needs one tie, what are you going to do?”

“Laugh?”

“I’m thinking less and less of this school you went to.”

“I’m just kidding. I will patiently explain to him why that is dumb.”

“Good.” Teresa picked up bubble-gum pink and shook it at Gia. “This is dumb. You know why?”

“Are you going to patiently explain it to me?”

“Everyone wants you to succeed here, Gia. If Gia’s not happy in Florida, no one will be happy in Florida. If Gia doesn’t stay in Florida, no one stays in Florida. We want Ma and Dad and Nonnie here.” Teresa put back bubble-gum pink. “You too.”

Format: EPUB
Length: 49,000 words, ~178 pages
Publication date: May 14, 2018