166. Pleasure to Assist: Chapter 2
The second chapter of my novel in development.
Read chapter 1 here.
Chapter 2
“Alright, Francesca, tell me about yourself.”
Ah, yes, the sparkling forced exposition a job interview brings. I tell him that I grew up in a small New Jersey suburb. A suburb famoouse for three things:
Frank Sinatra decamped there to perhaps punish himself for all of his stepping out on Nancy. (Catholicism’s fun.) I can’t think of one single other reason anyone would abandon the mozzarella from Fiore’s and Benny Tudino’s human-baby-sized pizza slices of his birthplace, Hoboken, for the comparative food desert of my hometown. Benny’s actually has a photo of one of their slices next to someone’s newborn hanging up by to the cash register to prove this. You’re just not getting that in Hasbrouck Heights.
We are the birthplace of Jason Biggs, America’s Favorite Piefucker. He doesn’t visit.
Our fire department burned down. Elvis Duran and the rest of the Z100 Morning Zoo covered it for three days straight and got a real kick out of it. So did I. (No one got hurt, relax.)
I tell him that first of all, Francesca is reserved for my grandmother and the eventual coroner’s certificate. Frank is fine. With a name as long as mine and with my great-grandfather’s storied battle at Ellis Island to spare