I listen to Marco, the chef/owner of his tiny family-run trattoria, give me instructions in very slow Italian as I make another dish, whipping ricotta ready to go into the sweet, fried cannoli dough, and I no longer feel like a responsible adult, an architect. I feel younger again, like I’m fresh out of college and am traveling under my own steam, which is something I never actually did before.
Marco’s being kind because he knows I’m excited to learn his craft. He also speaks incredibly good English and overheard me talking to Dr. Khader one day on the phone, so I sense he’s put two and two together and knows something was once very amiss in my life. But we’re persevering in slow Italian and then, when I give him a look that indicates I have no idea what he’s just said, he switches to English. He’s patient.
We met when he came outside his restaurant kitchen to smoke a cigarette. I was sitting on his terrace in the town square, treating myself to one of his dishes from the specials board, and enthused about how great it was. It was one of the most beautiful trofie pasta dishes I’d ever had, with chestnuts and Fontina cheese, finished with a hazelnut gratin. I joked that I’d wait tables and clean dishes if he’d teach me how to make it, and he took me seriously. When it was clear that my Italian wasn’t quite up to waiter-level, Marco politely put me in the kitchen full-time, washing pans, chopping vegetables, prepping fruit, and learning. I’m going to stick it out for a few more months until summer, when my full-time culinary course starts and I have to leave Marco.
When we finish last service and I’ve stacked the chairs outside, Marco stands on the terrace overlooking the main square and hands me a beer, taking a sip of his own. Usually he hands me a coffee, but today he’s chosen a Peroni for both of us. I haven’t drunk anything in more than a year, not since New Year’s Eve, when I was readying myself to go to London; to go to Hannah. I wonder what she’s doing now. I try to shake her from my head. After that last night of partying, life went downhill. Since chemo I’ve found it difficult to drink alcohol. I wonder if I should drink this. I’m healthy now. In remission. I look at the Peroni as if it holds the answer.
“You have earned it,” Marco says.
“Not talking to me in Italian tonight?” I ask.
“It has been a long day. I do not have the energy,” he jokes.
We clink bottles and I take a sip from mine. It turns out I’ve missed beer. Marco pulls out two of the chairs I’ve just stacked and sits on one, pushing the other in my direction. His shirt’s open at the neck and he looks cool, at ease with himself. Two young women look at him as they wander past and he calls something brazenly in their direction that I can’t translate quicklyenough. They laugh, despite themselves, one shaking her head. He raises his bottle in their direction.
Despite all of this, his first and only passion is his food. I tell him this and he shakes his head. “There is always time for women.”
“I don’tseeyou with any,” I point out.
“I am discreet,” he says with a smile. “Mamma would not approve of the kind of women I take home.” He nods his head inside toward the bar, where his mother is cleaning the last of the glasses and readying herself to leave. “This is why I do not live at home anymore.”
In his pocket his phone beeps. He pulls it out, types something quickly, and replaces it. It makes me smile. Marco has a good life.
“You’ve got a girlfriend now?” I inquire.
He leans forward conspiratorially. “I have three.”
“What?” I splutter. “How? And also, might I add, how do you have the energy?”
He shrugs. “I just do.”
“Do they know about each other?”
“No. Of course not. I am not stupid.”
I now can’t work out if Marco has a good life or a terrible one. Three women at once. That sounds like work. Hard work. Busy. Maybe also a bit lonely.
“And you?” he asks. “A string of women in the US? Their faces sad because you came to Italy? Hearts broken?”
“No.” I shake my head slowly, offer no more. I think of Charlotte. Her heart anything but broken. If she was sad, she didn’t show it. I think she was merely angry that I’d broken it off with her again. And then I think of Hannah. Hannah, who I let go.
“Davey has no time for women? Davey is a…” He clicks his fingers, thinking. “Not a nun—the other word…”
“A monk,” I offer. “No, I’m not a monk.”
“Hmm,” Marco says, looking at me. If he’s waiting for details, he’s not going to get them.
Sensing this, he stands, downs half his beer in one fluid movement. “I have a date,” he says with a wink. “I will see you tomorrow, my friend.” He stacks his chair, fist-bumps me, grabs his things from inside.
I watch as he and his mother leave, lock up, exchange goodbyes. I lean back in the chair for a while watching the night’s activities in the square, the streetlights, the people milling around. I sip my beer slowly, taking my time to enjoy the solitude.
I’m half a beer in and maybe because, to a man who’s been sober for more than a year, half a beer feels like four beers…I’m feeling warm and a tinge of drunkenness filters into my bloodstream. I’m about to do something stupid. I open my phone, pull up Hannah’s information, look over her old messages. I go right back to the start, follow our trail together, smile at the ones exchanged when I misdialed her, the ones arranging our first call, the ones arranging our next and then our next. I pull up the pictures I have of her. Every part of me tightens when I see her. And then I think of her on that platform, staring at me as if I was a ghost.
What is she doing now, right now? The sky is clear here tonight. Is it clear where she is now? Can she see the same stars I can? Is she looking up? Is she watching Netflix? Is she out with her friends? Is she with that guy? I want so much to know who he is. Is it the same guy she messaged me about before? The one she told me she was happy with? Or is she with someone new? I’m not sure which of these two options would hurt me more. Ah, fuck it. There is nothing I can do about any of this. I’m here. She’s there. We’re on the same continent finally. The distance between us has finally gotten smaller.
But right now she has never felt further away.
Chapter 38
