Chapter 5

Nicholas was having a bit of a rough time. He had followed the advice given him by the other men as best he could, but he had no way of gauging his progress. Without a wife, the specter of his upcoming meeting with the Holy Father affected him in much the same way as looking down the barrel of a loaded cannon would have.

He and Michela seemed to get along well, and he liked her a lot, but he couldn't tell whether she might be interested in a longer-term commitment, like marriage. With no prospect of solving the problem on his own, he did the only thing he could think of - he went to see Joe.

For her part, Michela was also frustrated. As an old-school Italian girl, she'd done everything she could think of to appropriately encourage Nicholas to move the relationship forward, but he hadn't responded. He hadn't even tried to kiss her, for goodness sakes! At her wits' end, she decided to talk to her niece about it.

The house was unusually quiet when Joe arrived. Usually, three rambunctious children had at least twelve different, noisy entertainment devices going, all at once, but there was no sign of either the children or his wives. Tossing his attaché into his favorite chair, he went in search of his family.

He found Maria in the kitchen, apparently preparing an evening meal for twenty-five people - at least the amount of food seemed to indicate that. Her back was toward him, so he quietly walked up behind her and put his arms around her waist.

"And which of my lovers are you?" she teased.

"I'm the tall, dark handsome one," he teased back, kissing her neck several times.

"Well, you can't stay long," she said, giggling. "My husband is due home any moment now!"

"I'm sure he won't mind me," he replied, moving his hands up to her breasts and teasing her nipples. "By the way, where is everyone else?"

She let go a sigh and leaned back into him. "Oh, Luisa took the kids on a jaunt down to the seaside. They'll be back in time for supper. Did you have a good day?" she asked.

"Not bad," he said. "Just the usual. Read progress reports. Listened to harebrained schemes. Kicked some ass, every so often. Plead for reason. You know the drill. I meet with people and we talk."

"Yeah? Who'd you talk to?"

"Well, there was Marco and Frank, of course. I'm working their asses off on this expansion plan. Then there are the guys at the manufacturing facilities. They wanted to complain about capacity. Oh, and the trainers at the pilot school are complaining about not having enough available students to meet our strategic goals."

"Anybody else? Maybe I should say, anybody more interesting?"

"Well, the only odd one today was Father Nicholas. He seems to be in over his head with Michela..."

"That's a coincidence ... Michela came to see me today," she said, noncommittally.

Joe pulled her around to face him, and looked into her eyes. It would be easy to get lost in them, but he recognized a certain urgency in her manner. "Do we have a problem here?"

She nodded. "Yes, I think we do."

"Aunt Michela, has it ever occurred to you that the man might not know how to kiss a woman?" Maria asked in exasperation.

"What kind of man wouldn't know how to kiss?" Michela demanded.

"A priest, maybe? He's been isolated from women, from very early boyhood, maybe as young as ten years. He's never dated, never made out, never done more than shake a woman's hand until he met you. Why would he have ever learned how to kiss?"

"I didn't think of that," Michela admitted. "So what should I do?"

"Well, after hearing from Luisa, how she finally got Joe to propose, I think she might be better qualified to answer that than I am. Go talk to her."

"You know, Father Nicholas, there's an old rule that applies here."

"What's that, Joe?"

"You can't win if you don't play the game."

"What if you don't know how to play the game?"

"You get a good teacher - or you just go for broke."

"I thought you were my teacher."

"No. You need a girl to teach you what you should be doing. A guy, and most specifically me, wouldn't let you do what you need to be doing!"

"So what is this 'go for broke' option?"

"It's just a decision you make. You decide to do something, even if it's wrong."

That actually sounded less risky to the priest. Both men fell silent, alone with their thoughts.

Nicholas nervously adjusted his tie. He'd finally screwed his courage up to the point that he could go through with his plan. He knocked on the door and waited.

Michela answered the door, smiling, as radiant as she'd always been. "Hi, Nick. Come on in. I have a few more little things to do before we can go," she said before disappearing into the rear of the house.

He waited on the sofa, and after a short time, she returned with a purse hanging on her shoulder. He hadn't specified what kind of date it would be, so she assumed they'd be visiting one or another set of friends.

He stood to meet her and took both her hands in his, asking earnestly, "Michela, before we go, can we talk a little?"

"Well sure, Nick. What's on your mind?" she responded, showing some worry.

"Please let's sit down for a minute," he asked, pulling her to the sofa. When they were both seated, he began speaking again.

"I know that I haven't been the most impressive date, over the past weeks. My problem is ignorance. I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing. Even if I did, I probably wouldn't know how to do it.

"I know nothing about women, or how to please them. I don't have the kind of charm that it would take to convince a woman that she should overlook my faults while I try to become the focus of her life.

"I'm expected to find a woman to love and marry, and with whom I will have babies. I know where the babies come from, and how they get there, but only in an academic sense. I've never even seen a film demonstrating that process. I don't know what that's supposed to feel like, or how my wife can be expected to react to what I do.

"I know you haven't been happy with my performance, but I guess what I'm saying is, I don't expect to get any better. Will you marry me anyway? And then maybe you can teach me what I need to know..."

Michela raised her hand, indicating he should stop, and said "Maybe."

"Maybe?" he queried.

"Yes, maybe." she confirmed. "There is one thing I have to teach you before I can decide. You have to know how to kiss. Now the first thing you do..."

Fred re-read the vows he had prepared. Even though they were intended for a pair, they had to be open-ended enough to accommodate expansion of the relationship at a later time. The Pope had insisted on that. Satisfied, he signaled that the ceremony should begin.

Joe stood as best man, at times providing physical as well as moral support for the nervous groom.

Nicholas fidgeted as the bridal march began. It seemed to last forever, before the vision that was his bride-to-be made her appearance. Her son, Frank, escorted her down the aisle, and would give her away.

For the second time that year, Michael filled the role of ring bearer. He was actually getting a little bored with the job. He wished that cousin Frank had already married and had kids. It would have been his son's responsibility then.

Since there were fewer actual participants, the ceremony was somewhat shorter than that which had been held for Joe, Maria, and Luisa. In what seemed an instant, the pair went from being single to being married. When they were given permission for their first public kiss, Nicholas took his new wife in his arms, and demonstrated all he had learned about kissing, for everyone to see.

Somewhat dazed, Michela pulled back, and said, "You're getting pretty good at this!" before returning to his embrace and showing him how much more he needed to learn.

Six months after the meeting of the full cosca, on Catania, Marco was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things were going too well. Nobody's plans ever worked without a hitch, but so far, the program that he and Frank had developed seemed to be proceeding apace.

Marco had commandeered all of the uncommitted resources of CareerPath Placements, Inc., a headhunter firm in which Catania Enterprises had held a majority equity position. In order to make this possible, Joe had agreed to transfer some alternate assets to the other stockholders, in exchange for their equity interest in the company, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary.

After the acquisition, CareerPath was forbidden to accept new contracts, or renew expiring ones. The reason given was that, although they were equipped and staffed to evaluate and recruit large numbers of people, the parent company was undertaking a project so vast, that they expected to consume all of their recruiting capability, for some time to come.

The biggest bump in the road came when their management asked for the job specification for the people they were to recruit. Rather than being told to look for specific professional skills, they were told to find adult pairs, of Italian or Sicilian extraction, who were raising or had raised large, stable families.

Preference was to be given to skilled craftsmen and blue-collar laborers, especially in the building trades, but the most important criteria were to be the intangibles: Catholic faith, loyalty to family and friends, and most of all, the desire and ability to provide a nurturing environment for raising children.