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all-girls Catholic school I attended, but as confidantes go, I was tighter with Cap’s “fifty and fabulous” head chef than with most people my own age, which only goes to show how much time I actually spent in our family’s restaurant. God, I needed a life, but sadly, it seemed nowhere on the horizon. As for prospects in the boyfriend department, well, notwithstanding the dreaded advances of Perry Beresdorfer, my options were sadly limited. Aside from the occasional cute boy who came in with his friends or family (and what was I going to do—leave my number on the check?) the only guys I knew worked at Cap’s, meaning they were related to me or may as well have been.
    “Waiting tables, no—but you’ll need to work the room,” Dad responded to my question. “Make sure you chat up everyone, especially the adults. And for God’s sake, plaster a smile on your face. No Cranky Pants pout like the one you’re giving now.”
    Even though I was annoyed that my parents were inviting scores of random business acquaintances and their kids—people I’d barely met or even knew existed before the guest list had been drawn up—it would at least fill the restaurant and keep me from looking like a total charity case, socially speaking.
    “This is a day we want you to enjoy, Gigi,” Mom said. I could tell she was being completely sincere. “Wow, it’s like just yesterday you were my baby, and now, you’re practically a woman.”
    I waited for my cousins to crack some joke about my bra size and was relieved when they failed to do so, each too distracted by the slabs of Aunt Val’s cheesecake on their plates.
    “You’re going to have a wonderful night,” Dad promised, “and just remember, this is all for you.” He wasn’t just talking about my birthday, and I knew it. Time and again, he had reinforced this assumption that I’d someday follow in his footsteps as proprietor of Cap’s. It was a baton I didn’t want handed off to me, but saying so would break his heart. Watching the way this business had left him exhausted, bitter, and financially broken, only a masochist would volunteer to be his successor. Yet, I couldn’t be the one who ushered the family’s legacy into extinction after four generations. There was a time I hoped that one of my three cousins might carry the torch, but my dad considered them complete knuckleheads (not entirely without reason). I, on the other hand, was the “anointed one” who made my parents certain, with each straight-A report card I received, that I was born to carry on Cap’s tradition. As if sensing my thoughts, my dog, Sampson, settled his warm muzzle on my knee in sympathy. I stroked his velvety-soft ear under the table and gave my dad a small, but sincere, smile of appreciation. He meant well. Although hopes and dreams not centered around the yeasty aroma of baked pizza dough certainly flourished in my brain, they would never take root in reality. No number of birthday wishes could change that.

CHAPTER 4

Is Thy News Good or Bad? Answer to That
    B Y THE TIME I GOT BACK TO THE FRONT STOOP of the humble apartment building where both my family and Benny’s lived, my feet were throbbing more than my shiner. I’d spent all day and half the night looking for Stella, but it was hopeless. When I’d arrived, breathless, at the arcade, the cacophony of bells, whistles, kids’ screams, and barkers’ baritone yawps made me feel disoriented. Maybe I was still reeling from Benny’s knuckle sandwich. Once my brain adjusted, it was pretty obvious: there was no trace of her.
    At the shooting gallery, a grizzled man with a face like a wild boar gave me the once over. He looked relatively in charge, so I asked him if he’d seen a girl fitting Stella’s description.
    “Yeah, I seen her,” he said, reaching with a hook for a stuffed purple cat, a prize for someone who’d just hit the bulls-eye. “She was standing around here looking like some lost sheep that stumbled into a pack