Page 86 of Captive Rival: Armani
A wave of guilt hits me. It’s a weekday afternoon, but I haven’t been putting in many work hours since Armani and I got back from our fake honeymoon. Things have just been too hectic. I’ve been monitoring my work emails, and responding to the urgent ones, but that’s the extent of it. None of the Bellantis have brought up my lack of productivity so far, but I guess the dip in wine sales must be noticeable by now. Shit. I figured someone was going to start asking questions sooner or later.
I’m not, but I can be, I text back.Do you need me to follow up with a distributor or something?
Gripping my phone tightly, I watch the screen, wincing a little when the dots pop up that show me she’s typing her response.
Not a work thing—just wondered if you wanted to come over and help out with the christening scrapbook?
I let out a sigh of relief, but almost immediately start to fret again. Is this craft session invite truly an olive branch from Frankie, or is it some kind of test? Am I going to think we’re having a good time scrapbooking, only to realize later that it was a cover for an interrogation?
But the more I mull it over, the more I realize that it doesn’t matter if Frankie has ulterior motives. Her invitation means the world to me, and I’d love to contribute to a scrapbook for baby Lili. Mostly, though, I don’t want to miss the chance to start repairing my friendship with Frankie.
I’d be honored!I type back, adding a pink heart emoji.Just tell me when and where.
She responds in seconds, telling me to come over to her house whenever I’m ready. Excited, I jump up and switch out my sweatpants for jeans, brush the taste of stale coffee out of my mouth, give Mr. Sprinkles a chin scratch for good luck, and then lace up my sneakers. Since Frankie and Dante’s house is high up on a hill on the neighboring property, I call Donovan to see if he’s available to take the short drive and drop me off.
Ten minutes later, I’m standing on the front porch at Frankie’s, debating whether or not to ring the doorbell. If the baby’s sleeping, it will wake her up. Maybe knocking is better. Before I reach a decision, the door flies open.
“There you are,” a smiling Mrs. Abbott says. “Frankie said you’d be over any minute. Come on in, Candi. She’s in the dining room.”
I smile back, grateful for the warm welcome. Frankie’s mom has always been kind to me.
When I get to the dining room doorway, I hesitantly peek in. Lili is sleeping soundly in a bassinet. Beside her, Frankie sits at the head of the table, hunched over a scatter of photographs. I see sheets of colored and printed paper, a plastic box of stickers and fabric scraps and notions and embellishments. Glue gun, decorative scissors that cut different designs, double-sided tape. The invitation to the christening is set in the center of the mess.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” I whisper.
Frankie looks up and lets out a quiet laugh. “I wasn’t, actually. I’m just miserable at this. I don’t even know where to start. It seemed like it would be a lot easier to do when I saw it on a blog.”
“Famous last words,” I quip.
“Have a seat.”
I take a side chair and assess the supplies. They are plentiful.
“So yeah, I’m not very crafty,” she sighs. “I didn’t get the artsy gene from Mom. Charlie did.”
“Why don’t you show me the blog article?” I suggest. “It’ll give me a sense of what you want.”
She picks her phone up off the table and taps the screen a few times, then hands it to me.
“This is my Pinterest board of all the different baby books I loved,” she says. “I didn’t have one specific style in mind. I just want it to be…meaningful.”
We look at the reference images together. The scrapbook spreads are perfect, of course, but they don’t look that difficult to recreate.
“I’m seeing a lot of layering,” I tell her. “And lots of different materials on each page.”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m going for.”
Nodding, I poke around in the pile of printed paper until I find an ivory page with a border of pale yellow rosebuds. I set it on top of a sturdy piece of scrapbook paper and then set the christening invitation at the center, then move it a bit higher. Frankie nods approvingly and starts poking through the supplies. She positions scraps of lace around the invitation, digs out a sheet of Easter stickers with Catholic themes—a cross, a dove with golden light radiating from its wings, a rosary—and sets aside the ones she wants to use. Meanwhile, I’ve found a piece of cardstock ephemera with a church on it that looks similar to the one where Lili was christened, stained glass and all, with white doves flying above it.
When I hold it up for Frankie, she lets out a little gasp. “It’s perfect.”
Soon enough, we’re pleased with the layout we’ve created and I start looking for the right paper to use on the second page. Once all the pages are ready, we’ll glue down everything all at once. Better to give ourselves some leeway in case we change our minds or want to make adjustments along the way.
Frankie selects a few photos and lines them up beside the first page with the invitation on it. They’re all from the day of Liliana’s christening. She holds up one of her, the baby, and Dante.
“She looks so much like him,” she says. “Not just the hair, but the set of her chin and the way she purses her lips. Don’t you think?”
“Yes. She must have inherited the…Resting Bellanti Face, I believe you called it?”
