"Please wait. Here's what I want to tell you. You'll like hearing this." She knew that to some degree she needed to interest Gabriele in order to have her compassion. She feigned a smile but from her manic energy it changed and became real. Anecdotes were ready to disgorge from her mouth. "When I was eating the nutritious salad I started to feel lonely. You know how lonely I can get with my head thumpin' at thinking what my grandfather did to me all drunk and pressing against me like he often did -- so I tried to call Gary-you know the guy in the orange trailer -- but there was no answer. I wanted to tell him I was sorry about everything that happened this morning -- Oh, you do not know what happened this morning. You've gotta hear what happened this morning! I wanted to say I was sorry but I wasn't sorry, you know, because what happened was so funny and it was just like a blessing because I prayed for it, you know. I prayed for this type of a thing and then it happened. You don't know what happened this morning-Oh, you've got to hear it. Do you want to hear everything?" She began an ongoing laughter as she narrated her anecdote, pausing in certain moments to release her manic chortles. "He came by this morning-you should have seen him-'Rita, my darling,' he said-and I said, 'Rita's not home. Lily is here so maybe you should come back when Rita returns.' 'When will she return?' 'Next year,' I told him. I told him next year. I guess I was playing with him…what do you say…flirting -- I don't know. Maybe it was a little naughty, but men like that sort of thing, don't you think so Gabriele? I said, 'She's starting up a cosmetic company in Africa.' He said, 'Oh, that's too long to wait. I like both of you. You're both Italian sweeties.' So then I invited him in. He kicked off his shoes, rubbing his feet together like he was trying to make fire, wiggling toes on the footstool. Those feet were so cute in his white socks so dirty on the soles of his feet. I guess that sounds strange, doesn't it -- thinking a man's dirty socks were beautiful, but they were. I think so. Maybe I'm crazy, but I was thinking so then-his dirty souls. Do you think so, Gabriele. Then he said something like, "Before long, I'm gonna actually believe there's a second girl. You've got that influence over me, you know. Africa?" he laughed like someone who doesn't believe something somebody says. I told him that I guessed that they needed cosmetics in Africa. He said that he was sure they did. "Which country," he asked. "Timbuktu," I said. "Is that so?," he said. He was playing with me. "Too bad I never get to see both of you at the same time. Nothing better for a man than boobsy twins." I fixed him breakfast and when we were eating some pancakes --- actually black round things because I burnt them but he ate them like they were still pancakes -- he was lookin' at my boobs. 'What big boobs you have,' he said. 'Each one jiggles independently like two girls talking and dancing at