A Little Light Magic Read Online Free Page A

five to go.”
    Nonna snorted. “Stop with the diet already. You don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive. A woman needs a little padding on her bones. You want my advice? Get rid of them hormone pills. They’re making you pazza .” She shook her head, but her tight gray curls didn’t shake with it. “And all that exercise! Santa Madonna. No woman should lift weights.”
    “I think Mimi looks great,” Leigh offered.
    She was right, Nick realized. Rita did look great, but the weight she’d lost was only part of it. She’d also gotten contact lenses, dyed her hair, and acquired a bright, clingy wardrobe. He eyed her fingernails, done in red, with fake tips. Or maybe they were real. Who the hell knew? The effect of all the changes was unnerving. Aside from a few laugh lines, Nick’s mother looked much the same as she had fifteen years ago.
    Nick didn’t like it. It made him feel like he’d gone back in time himself, to the year he’d turned twenty. The year Cindy had left him, the year his father had dropped dead. It was a year he didn’t like to think about.
    “And what was wrong with how your grandmother looked before?” Nonna demanded of Leigh. “She was fine. She don’t need to starve. She’s gonna get sick.”
    “I’m okay,” Rita said through clenched teeth.
    Nick knew better than to enter the estrogen-fueled debate. He kept his head down and ate. He was half-finished with his meal when Rita set her napkin down next to her barely touched plate. She rose, her chair scraping the tile.
    “I’ve got to go,” she said.
    “Go?” Nick asked. “Go where?”
    “Church.”
    He eyed her. “On a Thursday night?”
    “I’m on the committee for the Fourth of July crab bake.”
    Leigh nearly choked on her Diet Coke. “What? No way. You swore you were blowing that off this year. You said—”
    “Never mind what I said. Fiona Hennessey begged for my help.”
    “You’ve hated Fiona Hennessey since middle school,” Nick pointed out.
    “Yes, well, that’s the very reason I couldn’t say no when she begged.”
    Nonna was clearly displeased. “If Rita’s going out, who’s gonna drive me home? I can’t sit around here all night. I need to watch that new Survivor show.”
    “Leigh can take you home,” Rita told her.
    “No, I’ll do it,” Nick said, dropping his napkin on the table. “I’m headed back to the office anyway.”
    Nonna waved a disapproving hand. “Office, office. Always that office. It’s like you’re married to that job. You work too much, Nicky. When you gonna get a new wife? I want to see a great-grandson before I die.”
    “Talk to Alex,” Nick muttered. “Or Zach.” Hell, even his youngest brother, Johnny, was more likely to fulfill that wish than Nick was. The very last thing Nick needed was another kid. Leigh had been more than enough to handle since day one. Another like her, and he’d have a stroke.
    “Okay, then,” Rita said. “Don’t anybody wait up for me.” She disappeared into the living room. A moment later, Nick heard the front door slam.
    Leigh stood. “Nonna, you go ahead with Dad. I’ll do the dishes.”
    Nick raised his brows at his daughter’s sudden attack of domesticity. So she wanted him gone, did she? He wasn’t about to let her off the hook so easily.
    “ Grazie, carina, ” Nonna said. “Nicky, don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
    She disappeared in the direction of the bathroom, towing her handbag behind her. She’d carried the bag, a plain black patent-leather trapezoid with a big gold clasp and stiff, semicircular handles, ever since Nick could remember. The thing held the world.
    Nick pushed his plate toward the center of the table, his eyes on his daughter. “So,” he asked her. “What is it I’m not going to agree to?”
    Leigh headed to the sink with a stack of plates. “If you’re not going to agree to it, why bother talking about it?”
    “Because I’m your father, that’s why. What’s up?”
    She turned, still