| you’re only twenty years old. His father’s attitude had been that there were a million women out there, and Sebastian just needed to get back on his horse and start riding again. His father was wrong about that. The world may have been filled with women, but there had been only one for him. When it came to Jean, the expression soul mate wasn’t a cliché. But there was one thing his father had been right about. His father pointed out, in his typical macho, callous fashion, that the reason Sebastian had lost Jean was that he hadn’t been willing to fight for her. He’d let Lyle Canton steal her, as if she’d been a car and Sebastian had carelessly left the keys in the ignition. His father had said that real men don’t let other men steal things from them. It was from that point forward that Sebastian had decided he would never lose again, or if he did, it wouldn’t be because he backed away from a fight. People thought his business tactics had to do with making money but they really didn’t. He had all the money he would ever need. What drove him was that he’d vowed that he would never be beaten again because of being weak or disengaged or unwilling to do whatever it took to keep what was his. He couldn’t believe it the night Jean walked up to him at the Smithsonian event. He hadn’t seen her in over twenty years—he’d |
was cooking—fried chicken, beef stew, pot roast—so he wouldn’t have to cook again for two or three days. And he was making his spaghetti dinner the easy way. His mother was an incredible cook, and although she was Irish, she specialized in Italian cuisine, mainly because she’d married an Italian, DeMarco’s late father. When his mom made spaghetti and meatballs, she bought handmade pasta from a place in Queens and made her sauce and meatballs from scratch. The sauce started out with a couple of cans of crushed tomatoes and a little tomato paste, then she started tossing things into the pot: eggplant, fresh herbs, a little onion, a little sugar, and so on. The meatballs were made by combining two pounds of hamburger with eggs, Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, and spices she refused to divulge even to her own sister. She then formed the meatballs into perfect spheres, identical in size, seared them in a frying pan to seal in the juices, and then let them simmer in the sauce for three hours. DeMarco’s way was much simpler. He bought a box of spaghetti, two jars of Newman’s Own marinara sauce, and a package of twenty-four frozen, already-cooked meatballs; dumped the meatballs into the sauce—and thirty minutes later he was ready to open a bottle of red wine and sit down to dinner. He had to admit that his mom’s pasta tasted better than his, but his was edible. As he waited for the spaghetti water |
