“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the bakery with me?”
“I’ll stay here and start the coffee.”
I dressed quickly, feeling sore after all the walking yesterday. The soreness was good, as if my muscles were saying, “Hey, thanks for remembering what we’re here for. We can do a whole lot more than you give us a chance to.” With a few stretches, I was ready to go.
As I placed the trash bags on the sidewalk, a neighborhood cat prowled through the pile of bags. I shooed it away. But as I tromped over the bridge, I wondered if a cat could have traumatized the little bird.
I liked being up early and being more familiar with our neighborhood. When I entered the bakery, the golden-eyed woman greeted me with a warm, “Buon giorno!” I wished I understood Italian and could converse with her.
“Buon giorno,” I replied and then tried an awkward, “Grazie per le caffe … yesterday. Thanks again for the coffee you gave us yesterday.”
She said something and pointed to the back room. I thought she might be offering more coffee, so I quickly said, “No. No caffe. Grazie. Solo …”
I pointed at the breakfast pastries in the case and smiled, hoping she would get the idea I only wanted to buy some rolls.
She pointed to a tray of fresh-looking rolls that were different from the ones she had offered us from the top shelf the day before. Today’s special looked like rectangular croissants with a dab of chocolate peeking out the sides. The hand-printed sign next to them displaying the cost had the word baci.
“Solo baci today. No coffee.” I pointed to the rolls.
“Solo uno baci?” She held up her thumb.
“No. Uh …” I tried to remember the word for nine. I didn’t want to get caught in the opposite tangle of the five kilos of nectarines and return with only one roll to share between all of us.
“I need nine.” I held up my fingers, remembering to include my thumbs. Someone entered the store behind me, but I didn’t turn to look. I didn’t want to lose my concentration.
“Nove? Nove baci?” she asked.
“Si. Nove baci. Per favore.”
She quickly blew nine kisses at me with the palm of her hand.
I didn’t move.
She was smiling broadly, as if pleased with herself and some sort of joke that I obviously didn’t get.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my best nervous grin taking over my face. “I don’t understand. Non capisco.” I thought that was how to say I didn’t understand, but now I was wondering if I should avoid using any Italian unless I was confident I knew what I was saying.
The customer behind me spoke up. “The bread you order. It has the same word for ‘kiss.’ Baci. She is making for you nine kisses. Do you see?”
“Oh.” I turned and found myself face-to-face with a gondolier. His straw hat was under his arm, but the striped shirt he wore gave away his occupation.
“She knows you want the breads. She is only making for you a joke. We call these breads ‘kisses.’ You see?”
“Yes, I see.” I turned and offered her a smile of understanding. Looking back at the gondolier I said, “May I ask you a favor? Could you please tell her thank you for the coffee yesterday?”
He stepped closer and rattled off my message as the woman rolled four baci at a time in the butcher paper. She responded kindly without looking up at him.
“Lucia says you’re welcome for the coffee.”
“Lucia,” I repeated, nodding at her. She smiled back.
The gondolier added, “You must be hungry this morning. That is many baci—many ‘kisses’ for one woman.”
Not sure if he was trying to flirt with me or make fun of me, I defended my kisses by saying, “They’re not all for me. I’m serving seven men.”
Well, that was the wrong thing to say! Especially to a gondolier who made his living from cruisin’ and schmoozin’ with the tourists. He made a motion of shaking out his hand, as if I were too hot to handle. Then he translated my comment to Lucia.
Like a loyal friend, Lucia took her cue from my reaction to the gondolier’s “hot mama” innuendos and didn’t act amused. She looked at me as I paid for the bread and asked something in Italian, pointing at me.
Again I was at a loss.
“Your name. Nome. She wants to know your name,” the gondolier translated.
“Jenna.”
“Yanna,” she repeated.
It was close enough. Apparently J is not a commonly used letter in Italian words. I nodded, took the change from her, and received the bundles of fresh “kisses.” “Ciao, Lucia. Grazie.”
She responded with something that sounded like “dough-money.”
I was obligated to turn once again to our suave word-smith.
“Domani. Tomorrow. Tomorrow you will be here? She wants to know.”
“Si,” I said, smiling at Lucia. “Domani. I will be back domani with some more dough money.” Now I was the one making a goofy little joke she wouldn’t understand.
“Never mind.” Lowering my head, I eased past our interpreter with a polite nod. He wasn’t ready to let me slip out.
“So, Yanna, when you and your seven men need a gondolier, you come to me. I will show you Venezia.” He explained where I could find the district for his gondolier stand, but I didn’t recognize the location.
“Grazie,” I said.
“Prego.”
I gave Lucia a final grin over my shoulder and was on my way.
Trotting quickly with the warm rolls in my arms, a slow smile danced across my lips. Sue would be sorry she missed this day’s visit to the bakery.
I carefully inserted the key into the ancient lock of our street-level door. As I turned the key, the door opened. I love it when doors open the first time.
Stepping over the threshold with my arms full of kisses, I paused. As crazy as I knew it was, I held the door open a little longer, waiting so that goodness and mercy had plenty of time to catch up and follow me into the damp darkness.
Making my grand entrance into the kitchen with our daily bread, I told Sue my morning panetteria story, complete with lots of hand motions in true Italian form. She and I split one of the warm baci while I talked.
Sue asked, “What did you say after he told you to come looking for him?”
“He wasn’t saying for just me to come. He said to bring everyone for a gondola ride.”
“Right. So what did you say to him?”
“I said grazie.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said prego. Then I left.”
Sue looked stumped. “Prego? Like spaghetti sauce. That’s what he said to you?”
I curtailed my chuckle. “Prego is Italian for ‘you’re welcome.’”
“Oh.” Sue unwrapped the rest of the breakfast rolls. “I was hoping he had said you could count on a big discount. You and all seven men.”
We chuckled quietly. In the dining room we could hear the men shuffling in and assembling for breakfast.
“The coffee is on the table for them,” Sue said, quickly placing the last roll on the platter. “I’ll take these out.”
“Did I miss devotions?”
Sue nodded.
“Did Malachi read more psalms like yesterday?”
She nodded again, this time smiling.
“Bummer,” I muttered. “I’m sorry I missed it.”
Sue slid into the dining room with the platter heaped with fresh kisses from the bakery. I’m sure these men never had dined on such sweet manna gathered on such a gorgeous morning.
Since I was alone, I playfully imitated Lucia’s cute joke and blew “baci” toward the dining room with the palm of my hand. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven for the men gathered together to break bread. And one extra big baci for Sue.
I had just flung my palm toward the dining room when I realized I wasn’t alone.
Twelve
One of the men, Sergei, was standing in the kitchen behind me. I was sure he had seen my last blown
kiss. I’d delivered the playful smacker to the closed door with as much gusto as if I were a contestant on the old Dating Game TV show.
Apparently Sergei had entered by the kitchen’s back door that led down the hall to the bedrooms and the princess suite. Before I could say anything to him, Sue entered through the dining room door.
“I have this for the bird,” Sergei said to Sue. He held out some cotton balls that looked like the sort that are stuffed into the tops of vitamin bottles.
“Perfect. Thank you.”
I rolled into the topic at hand without considering for a moment the option of explaining to Sergei or anyone else why I was blowing kisses.
“How is the bird?” I asked quickly.
“The same, I think.” Sue walked over to the box balanced on the wide window ledge. She set to work, tucking the cotton around the edges of the new nest. “I can’t see that she’s injured anywhere. But she keeps shivering.”
“Did you put some water in there for her?” I peeked inside the box and saw the answer to my question. “Is that the top of a toothpaste tube? Very clever.”
“I’m glad you think so because it came from your toothpaste.”
“Mine?”
“My toothpaste has a flip top. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not too much. What did you do with the toothpaste tube?”
“I put it in a seal-top bag. I had an extra one.”
I brushed off the confiscation of my toothpaste lid and only halfway paid attention to Sue’s answer. I was more interested in watching Sergei slip out of the kitchen and join the others in the dining room without giving me a second look.
“This will be the true test to see if our bird is female.” Sue sprinkled crumbs from her chocolate-filled baci into the bird’s box. “If she goes for the chocolate, we’ll know her gender.”
The bird gave a little shiver and ignored the crumbs altogether.
“Maybe she’s in shock,” I suggested.
“I wonder what happened to her,” Sue said.
I told Sue about the cat I had seen earlier when taking out the trash.
“Don’t you worry your feathers about a thing,” Sue crooned to the small creature. “You’re safe here with us. We’ll take care of you, little Pesca Netareena.”
“What are you calling the bird?”
“Pesca Netareena. I asked Sergei, and he said it wasn’t the name of any Soviet figure skater he had ever heard of.”
I remembered then the jokes we had made the day before about Sue’s pronunciation of the Italian word for nectarines. “Sue, you crack me up.”
She seemed pleased with herself.
We fell back into our roles as scullery maids and started the preparations for the rest of the day’s meals. Again our rhythm came to us easily. We cleaned up after the continental breakfast and hurried out to the grocery store. This time we had sufficient bags with us to carry all the necessary ingredients to make spaghetti with meat sauce for lunch and a big pot of minestrone soup for the late evening meal. We were getting our routine down.
We joked on the way back from the grocery store about whether we should stop by the fruit stand corner. Sue said she was sure that, if the same vendors were at the stand, they would break into song at the sight of us. We decided not to find out.
Little Netareena seemed to have sipped some of the water while we were gone. Either that or it was evaporating as the warmth of the day rose. Aware that today was much warmer than the last two days, we went to work cooking what we could while it was still morning.
I prepared the meat sauce while Sue readied the rest of the meal. We served right at noon and had everything cleared and cleaned by two o’clock. Sue wore her energized look and said she was ready to change into her swishy skirt and hit the cobblestones.
I told her I was ready for a nap.
“Are you too tired to go out? We don’t have to go anywhere today,” she said, looking wistful.
“Yes, we do. We’re in Venice. Of course we have to go somewhere this afternoon. I want to see whatever we can. I just don’t know where you get your afternoon energy.”
“I don’t know where you get your top o’ the morning energy, so we’re even.”
It didn’t take long for us to change into our “sightseeing” skirts and slip out of the apartment with all the makings for the minestrone soup waiting for our return. Sue had placed Netareena’s box nest on the kitchen’s floor in a shady corner. That way the little bird could stay cool during the afternoon siesta, and if she did try to hop out of her nest, it wouldn’t be such a long drop.
“Do you have a plan for us, or are we going to just explore at random?” I asked.
“A little of both, I think. I was looking at the tour book while you were at the bakery, and I wondered if you would mind visiting some of the churches and art museums.”
I wasn’t much of a museum buff or an art lover. I preferred admiring the solitary trees of Venice or gazing at the varying shades of blue in the water. That was the sort of art I appreciated. Perhaps I’d been to too many European art museums when I was young. Now I was complacent about them.
However, all this was new to Sue, and I didn’t mind looking at paintings with her. Or visiting some of the Venetian churches. Sue seemed to have a deeper appreciation for the arts. She understood what made certain strains of music beautiful or what made marble so valuable. I was sure I could learn much from her.
“I thought we would start with the Accademia. The tour book said it’s one of the main museums. It’s farther away than the Rialto Bridge, but I think I’ve figured out a shortcut on the map.”
For a moment I considered backing out because I wasn’t excited about walking for miles on the hard, uneven walkways. But if we didn’t go now, when would we? And if I didn’t go, Sue probably wouldn’t. This was our chance; we needed to take it.
We exited our building and stepped into the bright sunlight. Sue stopped to make sure she had her sunglasses.
On the walkway in front of our apartment, a woman passed us pushing a tiny baby in a stroller. I made eye contact with her and smiled at her little bundle of wonder. The mother gave me a shy half nod.
With resolve I said to my willing-and-able tour guide, “Okay, you lead the way. I’m ready for whatever.”
I didn’t know it then, but my words would turn out to be an unexpectedly important step of faith for me. Just as I was being asked to follow Sue on our afternoon adventure, so too would I be asked to follow the Lord into the unknown adventure of the next season of my life. But at the time I barely had a hint of what was to come.
With Sue, I could easily see each step coming. She referred to the map often as we wound through the maze of alleyways. Once we were in motion, I was caught up in the sights, sounds, and scents all around us. My sore feet and tired legs were ignored.
Sue was pretty proud of herself when we arrived at the front of the Accademia via her shortcut. She liked maps and puzzles; this was her kind of adventure. Once we were inside the huge art museum, she seemed to see a map to follow or a puzzle to solve in every painting. We had lots of discussions about different pieces, but none of the paintings drew me into its mystery the way each one lured Sue.
Many of the compositions were obvious. Portraits of once famous Venetians, Madonnas of all sizes, and depictions of the crucifixion were the recurring themes. All the art was beautiful. I enjoyed looking at it but had no trouble turning and walking away. Sue, however, stood close to the pictures and came out of the Accademia with the marvels of the Renaissance reflected on her face. She looked positively enlightened.
The bonus of the afternoon was a church we came upon after we walked over the tall, wooden Accademia Bridge. I never did look up in the tour book which small church it was. We would have marched right past it, as we had so many of the other churches in Venice, but this one had opened its doors, revealing cool, uncluttered pews waiting inside. Weary, warm afternoon visitors were welcome to enter and listen to a string ensemble
playing a soothing concert of baroque music. Apparently the musicians were practicing for that night’s concert.
Sue entered first, drawn like a moth to its mother flame. She and the musical notes flitted close to each other. I entered like the kind of moth that goes right to the electric bug light and gets zapped. As soon as my weary bones settled into the pew, I closed my eyes and slept contentedly in the lulling presence of the same music that caused Sue to sit up straight and lean forward.
“Refreshed?” Sue asked me when the practice ended and I opened my eyes.
“Yes. Definitely. You?”
She nodded. “That was amazing. Absolutely amazing. Did you hear the second violin on that last stanza?”
In all honesty, I hadn’t even realized there was more than one violin. But I was in the church while the music was being played, and I did have my ears unplugged, so I somewhat truthfully answered, “Yes, I heard it.” Then, to redeem my generalization, I added, “But I’m sure I can’t begin to appreciate any of this music the way you can.”
“I just appreciate your coming with me.”
“Sure.”
Sue checked her watch. “We better get back to start the soup. Oh, what an incredible afternoon!”
I was glad Sue liked the art and the music. That side of her had never been pampered like this at home.
We had gone the equivalent of about three blocks when Sue said, “Hey, look!” She picked up her pace and made a beeline to a gelato stand. A listing of flavors hung from the top of the window.
I knew what was coming next. “Okay, which one do you want me to try to pronounce?” I asked.
“You’re off the hook,” she said, scanning the list. “They have tiramisu here. I don’t remember seeing that flavor before. I’m going to try tiramisu, and I even know how to pronounce it.”
“I love tiramisu. I’m going to try that one, too.”
We both gave the tiramisu a perfect 10. The first and only perfect score issued during our week of careful examination.
As Sue and I approached the Ca’Zen, with our bellies sated from the tiramisu gelato, we saw Sam and Bruce. They were coming from the opposite direction.