Page 11 of The Summer We Made Promises (The Destin Diaries #3)

We went to Cavallaris this morning—me, Tessa, Dad, and Uncle Artie. It’s the little Italian deli-shop that always smells like garlic and olives and fresh bread, all rolled into one big hug.

Even though Frank and Betty Cavallari are the owners, they’re also our friends because they go out every week with our ’rents. Ever since we’ve been coming to Destin, the six of them take off to “dinner” and come back pretty, uh, happy. It’s kind of cute and weird.

Anyhoo, Dad disappeared instantly into the back room with Frank to talk about who knows what.

So Uncle Artie handled the shopping because Mom and Aunt Jo Ellen are making something that sounds disgusting…

bologna-ayze? With spaghetti? No idea, but Betty has convinced them that they can be the next Julia Child, so whatever.

Betty was tossing ingredients to Uncle Artie like they were footballs—onions, “San Marzano” tomatoes (apparently better than regular tomatoes), pancetta.

Tessa and I got out of the way pretty fast. Betty let us try a couple different olives.

I like green—Tessa had black. Ugh. One of them was so salty I thought my mouth would fall off.

We got Cokes and sat at one of the tiny tables near the window and Betty gave us a couple of Italian wedding cookies wrapped in wax paper. Powdered sugar everywhere. Pretty sure I have some in my hair. Still worth it.

The radio was just far enough off the station that Michael Bolton sounded worse than usual. There was a really adorable little kid playing with the pay phone pretending to call Batman on it. Honestly, so precious.

We saw a couple of kids we know from the beach walk by, including Dustin Mathers who Tessa said was cute but made her mad. I know why—he never notices her and just treats her like every other girl. Anyway, that got us talking about Peter…who does the same thing to me.

It’s nothing—going nowhere, never will, he’s so much older than I am. He’s seventeen! So I just admire from afar. But when he does talk to me, he doesn’t make me too nervous anymore. He’s nice (like, waaaay nicer than Eli) and very easy on the eyes, ha ha.

Anyway, Dad finally came out from the back with Frank, and Artie asked them why they looked like…something about a cat eating a canary. Gross. Anyway, it was fun but we went back to the beach which was way better than shopping in town.

Oh, Mom’s calling. Time for bologna and spaghetti or whatever.

Love,

Viv

P.S. MUST ADD! It’s called “Bolognese” and it was the absolute most delicious food I ever ate in my whole life with all this meat and red sauce and these long flat noodles that were a thousand times better than spaghetti, called tagliatelle.

Aunt Jo Ellen gave me the recipe since I loved it so much.

(She said someday I’ll cook!) It’s on the back of this page so I never lose it!

P.S#2. Mom is so different here! Why is that?

When she cooks at home, it’s a little scary.

She has so many rules and things have to be done a certain way and it just isn’t fun.

But with Aunt Jo Ellen, all she does is laugh when they cook and do “back up support” which apparently means pouring wine.

I wish she were more like she is here when we are at home. It’s like having a different mom.