“I wasn’t even legal drinking age then.”
“You were plenty old enough.”
Roman laughs as he pulls the cork out of the wine and places it on the counter. He takes two wineglasses from the shelf and fills them. He brings me a glass. He toasts and we sip. Then he kisses me, the lush wine on his lips making mine tingle. “Like it?”
I nod.
“Get ready. I have a wine for each course.”
“Each course?”
“Uh-huh,” he laughs. “We’re having two.”
I pull out the stool under the counter and climb onto it. I watch him as he unpacks the tote, which is like one of those boxes in the circus where you think the last pup in a skirt has danced out, but another jumps out of the box and gets in line. There is box after box, tray after tray, container after container, until most of the counter is filled with unmarked delicacies.
Roman opens the cabinets, pulling out a large skillet, and a smaller one. He puts the flames on low underneath the empty pans. Quickly, he throws butter in one and drizzles olive oil in the other.
He reaches into the tote and hands me a small white box. “This is for you.”
I shake it. “Let me guess, a truffle?”
“I’m boring you with my truffle dishes. No, it’s not fungi.”
“Okay.” I open it. A branch of coral the color of a blood orange lies on a pad of white cotton. I pull it out of the box and place it in my hand. The solid fingers of the waxy jewel make a lovely shape that curls as it rests in my hand. “Coral.”
“From Capri.”
“Have you been there?”
“Many times,” he says. “Have you?”
“Never.”
“Well, I’m taking you for your birthday. I worked it out with Gram. When you fly to Italy next month, you’ll get your work done, and then we’re going to Capri for a week at the end of your stay. We’re going to stay at the Quisisana. An old friend is the chef of the restaurant there. We’ll eat and swim and relax. How about it?”
“You’re serious?”
“Very.” Roman leans across the counter and kisses me.
“I’d love to go to Capri with you.”
“I’m taking care of everything. Just the two of us, and that ocean and that sky and that place. This will be the first time I’m in love when I’ve gone there.”
“Are you in love?”
“Didn’t you know?”
“I was hoping.”
“I am.” Roman puts his arms around me. “Are you?”
“Definitely.”
“There’s an old trick that I learned from the locals on Capri when I was there. Everybody wants to go into the Blue Grotto, and it gets overrun with tourists. So they came up with a sign that says Non Entrata La Grotto. When the sign is out, the tour guide tells the people on the boat that the surf is too rough to enter, but in fact, the locals put the sign there to keep the tourists out while they’re inside swimming.”
“That’s a cheat. What if it’s the only time the poor tourists can visit Capri and they miss out on the Blue Grotto?”
“The tour guides circle past the grotto and return later, when the sign is gone, and they row inside.”
“What’s the grotto like?”
“I’ve tried in every place I’ve ever lived to paint a room that color blue. And I’ve never found it. And the water is warm. Some old king used it as a secret passageway through the island to the other side. A lot of decadent stuff went on in there.” Roman pulls me close. “And there will be more of that this spring.”
The kitchen fills with the scent of hot butter. Roman quickly turns and lifts the pan off the stove, throwing in garlic and herbs, swishing them around in the butter, creating a smooth mixture. “Okay, I’m gonna let this set. First up: caviar. From the Black Sea.”
He snaps open a container and places a wafer-thin pizzelle, which looks like a flat, circular waffle, on a plate. “You know the pizzelle cookies from when we were kids? This is my version. Instead of sugar, I make these with lemon zest and fresh pepper.” He opens the tin of caviar and scoops a spoonful onto the pizzelle. Roman adds a dab of crème fraîche on top of the Black Sea beads and gives it to me.
I take a bite. The combination of the tart lemon in the pizzelle, the rich caviar, and the rush of sweet cream melts in my mouth.
“Not bad, right?”
“It’s heavenly.”
I watch as Roman throws medallions of beef into the large skillet with the olive oil. He chops sweet onions and mushrooms onto the meat, dousing it in splashes of the red wine from the bottle we are drinking. Slowly, he adds cream to the pan, and the sauce turns from golden brown to a pale burgundy.
“I spent a few months on Capri in the kitchen of the Quisisana. Best thing I ever did. They have an open oven outside, behind the kitchen. In the morning, we’d build the fire with old driftwood from the beach and then we’d keep it going all day, slow-roasting tomatoes for sauce, root vegetables for side dishes, you name it. I learned the value of taking time when cooking. I roasted tomatoes down to their essence, the skins turning into silky ribbons, while the pulp turns rich and hearty in the heat. You don’t even have to make a sauce out of them, just throw them on pasta, they’re that sweet.”
In the small pan, where the herbs are glazed in butter, Roman empties a container of rice, loaded with olives, capers, tomatoes, and herbs. As steam rises off the rice, and the steak sizzles, he sets the counter for dinner.
Roman has the most beautiful hands (people who work with their hands usually do), long fingers that move with grace, artfully and deliberately. It’s mesmerizing to watch him slice and chop, the blade rhythmic as it glints against the wood.
“The nights on Capri were the best. After work, we’d go down to the beach and the ocean would be so calm and warm. I’d lie in that saltwater and look up at the moon, and just let the surf wash over me. I felt healed. Then we’d build a big fire and roast langoustines, and have some homemade wine with it. That’s my idea of bliss.” He looks up at me. “I can’t wait to take you there.”
Roman is very neat when he works, straightening the kitchen as he goes, maybe his tidiness coming from the necessity of working in small spaces. Nothing is wasted in Roman’s cooking, he respects every stalk, leaf, and bud of an herb that he uses, examining it before mincing it or rubbing it into a recipe. In his hands, common foods become elements of delight, crackling softly in butter, steaming in cream, and drizzled with olive oil.
Roman opens a container filled with finely chopped vegetables—bright green cucumbers, red tomatoes, yellow peppers—and broken bits of fresh parmesan cheese. He sprinkles the vegetables with balsamic vinegar from a tiny bottle with a gold stopper. “This is very special. It’s twenty-two years old. Last bottle! It’s from a farm outside Genoa. My cousin makes it himself.”
Roman fills two bowls with the chopped salad. I remember telling him how much I love raw vegetables finely chopped; he remembers and he delivers. He opens a second bottle of wine, this one earthy and hearty, a Dixon burgundy 2006. He turns to the stove and flips the steaks, which make a cloud of steam. A misty cloud rises from the pan of rice. He lifts it off the burner and spoons the hot rice mixture onto the dishes. He throws the moppeen over his shoulder and lifts the other pan. He places the lean steak artfully on top, my dish of rice first and then his. Then he drizzles the sauce from the pan on top of the steak and rice.
“Should we sit at the table?” I ask him.
“No, this is better.” He pulls out a stool and sits down across from me. “I feel like I’m at a board of directors meeting when I sit over there.”
I pick up the knife to cut the steak, but I don’t need it. I break off a piece with the fork. The savory sauce has cooked through the meat in an explosion of flavors that are magnified by the sweet grapes that turn hearty and earthy to taste. I chew the delectable bite. “Marry me,” I say to him.
“And here I thought you were breaking up with me.”
&nbs
p; I put my fork down and look at him. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“Come on, Valentine. I’m the worst. I really blew it the past two weeks. Teodora is gone, and I planned to come over every night and spend a lot of time with you.”
“It’s okay,” I stammer. It’s as if that seagull delivered to Roman a message from my epiphany on the roof this morning. He really can read my mind.
“No it isn’t. I wanted to be with you, but then things went wild at the restaurant and I blew it. That’s all there is to it. But I’m sorry about it. I wanted to make this time special for you.”
“I hate that we spend a lot of time apologizing to each other for working hard. It’s the way it is. We’re both trying to build something.” I love how I was ready to kill him this morning and now, I’m making excuses for him. This surely falls under the category Be Adorable, doesn’t it?
“I don’t know how else to do it. I don’t know how to run a restaurant and not be there twenty-four hours a day. I don’t think it’s possible. Now, down the line, when it’s established and I’ve paid back my investors, and I find the right chef to replace me in the kitchen, then this becomes a different discussion.”
It’s funny that Roman uses the word discussion, when we haven’t had one. I attempt to be understanding when I say, “I guess I don’t know where I fit in your life right now. And I don’t want to ask you to put me first, because that’s not fair either.”
Roman folds his arms on the counter and leans forward. “What do you need to hear from me?”
“Where do you see this going?” There it is. I put it out there. The second it’s out of my mouth, I wish I could take it back. But it’s too late. The last thing I wanted to do was turn our last night together into one of those talks.
“I’m serious about you,” he says. “I don’t have a high opinion of myself when it comes to being a husband, because I tried and failed at it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try again.”
“How do you feel about my career?”
“I’m in awe of you. You’re an artist.”
“And you are, too.” I sip my wine. “You are also the Emergency Glass Box guy.”
“What’s that?”
“At the first sign that we’re going down in flames, you break the glass and pull the lever and save the day. Like coming over here tonight. Cooking for me. Taking me to Capri without leaving the dinner table. Kissing me with great wine on your lips. Telling me you’re in love with me. That was the crème fraîche on the caviar.”
“I want this.”
“Roman, you have fallen in love with me.”
“I wouldn’t waste caviar from the Black Sea on a fling.”
“What does the fling get?”
“Potato chips.”
I laugh. “So that’s how I tell?” I smooth the napkin on my lap. “The caviar test?”
“There are other ways.” Roman comes around the counter to my side. To be honest, I don’t want to stop eating this dinner, but sometimes a woman has to choose between food and sex, and it’s the idiot who chooses food. I can reheat the steak later, but letting Roman know that I’m in love with him, too, is a moment that won’t come around again. Well, it might. But it would be different. So, I push the plate away as he lifts me off the stool and into the moment. Desire definitely has a shelf life. Delay love or the expressing of it, and it dies. Take it for granted, and it goes away, like the morning snow on the roof during the ides of March.
Roman carries me up the stairs, marking each step with a kiss. My feet drag along the hallway wall like handles on an old suitcase as he carries me to my room. As we make love, every doubt I have, every question that enters my mind about us, who we are, where we’re going, and what we will become, disappears like the quarter moon behind the low clouds of spring.
I have fallen more deeply in love with this man on the very day I was planning to say good-bye to him. I may need my solitude, but I also want to be with him. I may not always see this clearly when he is away from me, but it’s what I’m most sure of when we’re together.
“I love you, Valentine,” he says.
“You know, I get that a lot.”
“You do?” he asks as he kisses my neck.
“‘I love you, Valentine’ is actually a popular phrase used in greeting cards.”
“If you were sending me one, what would it say?” he asks.
“I love you, too, Roman.”
And there it is, words that I dread to say and do mean, because with them comes the responsibility of owning it, moving forward together and deciding for real who we are to each other. Now we’re not just lovers discovering what we like and sharing what we know. In this mutual declaration, we’re accountable to each other. We’re in love, and now, our relationship has to build slowly and beautifully in order to hold all the joy and misery that lies ahead.
He places the tip end of his nose on the tip end of mine. I almost feel he’s looking so deeply into my eyes, he’s seeing the rest of my life play out in slides clicking through on a carousel. I wonder what he’s looking for, what he sees. Then he says, “Our children would be blessed, you know.”
“They would never go without good food or pretty shoes.”
“They’d have brown eyes.”
“And they’d be tall,” I say.
“And they’d be funny. A house of laughs we’d have.” He kisses me.
“That’s my dream,” I tell him.
We get tangled up in the down comforter and the pillows that fly around the bed like doors opening and closing, and as we settle in to make love, we begin to make plans. I no longer wonder where this is going. Now, I know.
10
Arezzo
I PULL OVER ON THE SIDE of the road on the hilltop above Arezzo and park the rental car. After the hullabaloo at the Rome airport, with customs, the bags, and figuring out the directions on the Italian map, I am happy to actually set foot on Tuscan ground.
We have arrived, and now, our work begins. We must buy supplies to meet our orders, and find distinctive and fresh elements to make the shoes from my sketch for the Bergdorf windows. It’s not going to be easy to win over Rhedd Lewis, but I have a greater goal in mind: to distinguish the Angelini Shoe Company as the face of the future in the custom-shoe business. That may sound lofty, but we have to succeed in new ways if we’re going to save the old company and reinvent our business.
Gram and I spent most of the flight working on the fine details of the sketch for the competition. There’s a problem with the heel I designed. Gram says that I need to refine it, while I feel it needs to be bold and architectural. Her idea of modern and mine are about a half century apart. But that’s okay—Gram is encouraging me to use my imagination, and while she likes what I’ve drawn, she also knows her experience counts when it comes to actually building the dream shoe.
Gram gets out of the car and joins me. The cool April breeze washes over us as the sun, the color of an egg yolk, begins to sink behind the hills of Tuscany. It drenches the sky in gold as it goes, throwing its last bit of light on Arezzo. The houses of the village are built so closely together, the effect is of one enormous stone castle surrounded by fields of emerald green silk. The winding cobbled streets of the town look like thin pink ribbons and I wonder for a moment how we will get the car through them.
All around us, the hills of Tuscany are parceled into contour farms. Sloping dales of dry earth are planted with rows of spindly olive trees next to square beds of bright sunflowers. It creates the effect of a patchwork quilt, bursts of color separated by straight seams. Soft spring colors, chalk blue and cornmeal yellow, spike the fresh green leaves while stalks of wild lavender grow on the side of the road, filling the air with the powdery scent of the new buds.
“This is it.” Gram smiles, exhaling a breath that she seems to have held since we landed in Rome. “My favorite place on earth.”
Arezzo looks different to me now. I came to Italy during my college years, but I stu
ck to the touristy stuff. We took a day trip through Arezzo, during which I snapped some pictures for my family and promptly got back on the bus. Maybe I was just too young to appreciate it. I couldn’t have cared less about architectural or family history back then, as I had more important matters on my mind, like the hotness of the Notre Dame rugby team, who’d joined our tour group down in Rome.
The Angelini side of my family is originally from Arezzo. However, we didn’t have this magnificent view from the mountaintop because we lived in the valley below. We were farmers, descendants of the old Mezzadri system. The padrone, or boss, lived on the highest peak, where, from his palazzo, he would oversee the harvest of the olive trees and the yield of the grapes. The farmers exchanged their labor for food and lodging on the padrone’s land, and even the children helped pick the crops. From the looks of this valley, I would have been very happy to be a serf, walking through these deep green fields under a bright blue Tuscan sky.
“Let’s go,” Gram says and climbs back into the rental car. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” I slip behind the wheel. I’m driving a stick shift for the first time in twelve years. The last stick I drove was Bret Fitzpatrick’s, on his 1978 Camaro. “I’m going to have biceps of steel when this trip is over.”
I drive carefully into town as there are no sidewalks, folks just cross the streets willy-nilly, anywhere they please. Arezzo is a haven for poets. The baroque architecture with its ornate details is the perfect backdrop for artists to gather. Tonight, young writers type on their laptops on the steps of the public square and on tables under the portico of an old Roman bath that now houses offices and small shops. There is a feeling of community here, one I wouldn’t mind being a part of.
The incline up to the hotel is steep, so I gun it. As I reach the curve of the road behind the square, Gram asks me to stop.
She points to a small peach-colored stucco storefront with dark-wood-beam accents. “That’s the original Angelini Shoe Company.” The old workshop is now a pasticceria that sells coffee and sweets.