Dating da Vinci Read Online Free PDF Page B

in style. Thinking about his abs, though I'd never seen them, turned me into butter.
    “Are you listening to me, Ramona Elise?” Her gaze followed mine, but da Vinci was nowhere in the frame. “Whatever are you looking at?”
    “Of course I'm listening. Dad's golfing with a doctor from Mercy this weekend. Just what I need. Someone that puts people to sleep for a living. Is he handsome?”
    “Quite handsome, though I only have eyes for your father,” she said. My mother pointed out handsome men everywhere we went,yet she always followed it with that statement as if it made her less guilty for noticing. “And what's wrong with an anesthesiologist? He keeps people alive while they're unconscious. It wouldn't hurt to find a new friend. That's all. A friend. Judith and I have discussed it.”
    “So now you and my mother-in-law are discussing my having male friends? Did the Lord send you a sign?”
    Barbara batted her eyelashes. Unlike me, my mother claimed to get signs from the Lord on a near-daily basis. “It just came up. There's a singles mixer we thought you might be interested in. Just for making friends, that's all. Doesn't have to be romantic.”
    “I have friends,” I told her, glancing back up at the garage studio window. In truth, I had Anh and my international friends of my cul-de-sac, mostly former students, and a couple of friends at work. Parenting and Joel had taken up all of my time for the last ten years. More friends would've seemed a luxury I couldn't afford. “Besides, Judith has told me repeatedly how uncomfortable it would make her if I began dating.”
    “Of course it would. She's not ready for that, but then neither are you, so what does it matter? But a friend wouldn't hurt, darling. Even Judith thinks so.”
    “Yeah. You said that already.”
    Barbara sipped her coffee, her bright eyes taking in the outdoors. My mother had a peppy personality (inherited by my sis, not me), but then she wasn't yet a Griever. Even my grandparents were both still living. Judith on the other hand, was a Griever. Her world had been wrapped up into Joel, her only child, and she had transferred that attention to her grandsons, which was both a blessing and a curse. “Why don't we do something fun today, Ramona? What do you say? We could meet your sister for lunch and buy you a new outfit. You haven't let me shop for you in ages.”
    I recalled the moose sweater she'd given me for Christmas last year and shuddered. I'd cried not because I hated it, but because Icouldn't laugh about it later with Joel. I peered at the window again and then down at my slob wear. Well, a new outfit couldn't hurt. Fun had been taken from its dusty box in the basement, brushed off and ready to open.
    “Something nice for a singles mixer, maybe?” I said, half-kidding. “Why do I think this won't end well? But what the hell,” I said and her right arm shot into the air as if Bob Barker had told her to “come on down, you're the next contestant on The Price Is Right .”
    The one thing my mother loved nearly as much as her church and volunteering was marathon shopping. I had to admit she was devilishly good at it. “Really?” she'd said as if I were pulling her leg. “I'll call Rachel and Judith and we'll make a day of it. You go get washed up and changed then.”
    While my mother went back into the house to call Rachel, I watched the Panchal taxi cab pull into my side driveway and honk for da Vinci to take him to the center for his job placement interview. A moment later, he emerged wearing corduroy jeans and a T-shirt, his hair still wet from a shower. I imagined how cramped he would've been in the tiny shower stall, and thinking of him naked, stooped under the low shower head, made me feel weak.
    Leonardo descended the rickety steps and looked at me, the sun shining on his flawless face, and waved to me. “ Buon giorno. ”
    “Good morning,” I said back, and meant it.
    Like the little devil on my left shoulder, my mother