Italian for Beginners Read Online Free PDF Page B

a little color rise to my cheeks, and I hastily closed the window I’d been looking at on the computer.
    “No,” I lied. “I was just looking something up.”
    “Mmm,” Kris said. I knew she didn’t believe me. “You know,” she added with half a smile, “you
are
allowed to goof off sometimes.”
    “Not on company time,” I responded quietly.
    Kris rolled her eyes and shook her mass of black curls. “Oh, please!” she said. “When else would you goof off? You’re always
     here!”
    I smiled and shook my head. She always teased me for my perfect attendance record and my tendency to arrive early at the office
     and to be one of the last to leave at the end of the day. She had actually stood up and booed me, only half joking, at last
     year’s holiday party, when I was given the award for best attendance for the third year in a row. “That’s just weird,” she
     had murmured.
    But it wasn’t weird. Not to me. I hardly ever got sick, so why waste a sick day when I didn’t have to? I didn’t really have
     anyone to go on vacation with, so what was I going to do, take time off and sail around the world by myself? My friends from
     college were all married; my sister only took trips with her boyfriends; and my dad lived in Brooklyn, close enough that I
     didn’t have to take time off if I wanted to go see him. Plus, if I took a vacation, my work would just pile up and stress
     me out when I got back. Who needed that hassle?
    The only impulsive thing I’d ever done was a summer abroad in Rome between my junior and senior years of college. And that
     was only because Dad had convinced me that I had to get out and see the world, and that he and Becky would be fine without
     me for two and a half months.
    It had been a big mistake. I’d worried excessively about the two of them for the first twelve days. And then I’d met Francesco,
     a Vespa-riding, dark-haired, green-eyed Italian guy seven years older than me. It was the only time in my life I’d ever really
     been impulsive and irresponsible. It was the only time I’d really been in love, even though now I wondered whether I really
     had been. Could you fall in love that quickly? Maybe it was just the excitement of being somewhere new, someplace where I
     didn’t have to take care of anyone but me for a few blissful months. But it was also the only time my heart had been broken,
     although I was the one to leave at the end of the summer. I still couldn’t believe I’d lost control so much. After that, I
     had vowed not to be so careless again.
    But as the years ticked by, I was beginning to wonder, just a little bit, if maybe that was a mistake.
    I snuck a look at Kris’s desk. She had turned her back to me and was once again typing furiously.
    I turned back to my own computer. Looking once more at Kris, I reopened the page I’d been browsing a moment ago. I had, in
     fact, been goofing off. But the thing was, I couldn’t shake the cute restaurant owner from my mind. And worse, he still hadn’t
     called. Granted, I’d met him only a day and a half ago. But hadn’t he asked me out for tonight?
    So there I was, on a Monday morning when I should have been hard at work crunching numbers, browsing the Web site of Adriano’s
     and, when I discovered there was no bio of its owner (only a listing of his full name, which was Michael Evangelisti), Googling
     him, hoping for some tidbit of information.
    The only thing I could find was a brief article in the
New York Post
about the opening of Adriano’s two years ago. I clicked on the link and leaned in hungrily, waiting to digest whatever tidbits
     of information the Internet might throw my way. I snuck another glance at Kris, who was absorbed in her work, and reasoned
     that if she glanced over, I’d look equally absorbed in mine.
    The
Post
article, which was brief, materialized on my screen, and I read it quickly, taking note of all the scant facts and gazing
     a little too long at the thumbnail-size