Songs of Summer (The Coleman #16)

Chapter 1

Five Years Later: Rome, Italy

It was one of those sensational evenings in Rome: warm and balmy and alive, filled with the sounds of zipping Vespas and echoing car horns and Italians eager to cry out with life and love.

Rachelle stood on the balcony of her Trastevere apartment, buttoning her chef whites to her chin and gazing out at the impossibly old city she’d called home for nearly seven years.

Her pulse was heavy in her neck, and her adrenaline rose with every breath.

Tonight was the biggest night of her entire life. Was she ready for it?

If only she could call her mother or her sister to tell them. If only she could hug them close.

Riccardo popped his head outside and pressed a kiss on her cheek.

“Are you ready to roll, my darling?” he asked in English, which was a language they were using less and less as time went on and Rachelle got better at Italian.

But he knew she needed the emotional support of her own language just now.

She turned into him, kissed him on the lips, and said, “It’s showtime.”

“I love when you talk like an old American director.” Riccardo laughed. “Who am I dating? Martin Scorsese?” He kissed her again and tugged her out the door.

It was Riccardo’s idea to take a cab to the restaurant. Rachelle didn’t want to get her chef whites dirty or muss up her hair. And the idea of crashing with Riccardo’s Vespa before the restaurant really got its start terrified her. She didn’t want to be reckless.

In the back of the cab, Riccardo and Rachelle held hands tightly and didn’t speak at all, not until the driver dropped them off and they were launched into the restaurant.

Lined with brick walls and decorated with candles and simple, chic artwork, the restaurant had been launched straight from Rachelle’s dreams. There were twelve wooden tables, each already set with the perfect dining wear that Rachelle herself had selected.

Already, the seven perfect servers Rachelle had hired for this soft opening were arriving to study the menu and order each other around.

Rachelle’s restaurant—simply named Coleman—was the chicest and newest in a buzzing foodie area. And because Rachelle was rather young herself, most of the young and hip servers wanted to work for her. They suspected that she would offer fair wages and empathy, and they were right.

Back in the kitchen, which was the space Rachelle had occupied nearly all morning and afternoon before she’d returned home to change, Rachelle saw that everything she’d been cooking that day had come out perfectly.

The sauces were sensational and tasty; the homemade bread was divine; the sage butter was frothy and delicious; and the four desserts—homemade ice cream with peach confit, a lemon meringue pie, plus two more Italian-based dishes—awaited the final course in the walk-in fridges and freezers.

Riccardo, her top sous chef, stepped into his role perfectly, while the other lower-tier chefs operated like a buzzing ant colony.

Tonight’s soft opening was meant for restaurant reviewers, food writers, social media celebrities, as well as a few more “traditional” celebrities, like Rome’s many artists, writers, and film stars.

The plan was to offer a four-course menu to those who’d been invited, then halt all food production and transition the dinner portion of the evening into an all-out party.

Rachelle had studied many restaurants over the years.

She’d studied what made them famous and successful, and she knew she had to generate buzz right from the get-go.

But more than that, she knew that her food had to be good.

Their head server, Marie, entered the kitchen to say that the first guests had arrived.

“All right, people.” Rachelle clapped. “We’re on the clock!”

Rachelle was buzzy with expectation, with the sense that she couldn’t mess anything up.

Not now. Not now that so many eyes were on her.

As she worked through the first few orders, she felt herself fall into a sort of trance.

She thought about her many, many years of training to be a chef, of working under other chefs, of learning from the great Diana March.

She thought about her years in Boston and Nantucket, followed by her many, many years in Rome.

Now that she was thirty years old, Rachelle felt neither old nor young.

She felt ready for the next chapter of her life.

She felt ready to step into the big leagues of restaurants and make her mark.

When the last dessert courses were sent out to their tables, the sous chefs and line chefs in the kitchen let out wild “wahoos!” Several of them hugged Rachelle and offered their congratulations.

Suddenly, she felt Riccardo’s arms around her, and he lifted her into the air.

But the fact that they were done for the night, that their soft launch was over, hadn’t sunk in yet.

Tears filled her eyes. She checked the clock to see that it was nearly eleven at night.

Her stomach cratered in on itself. She realized she was starving!

But first, she knew she needed to make a speech, not only to her kitchen staff but to the people who’d come to the soft opening, the people who would tell others to come to Coleman.

Speeding into her office, she changed into a sleek black dress, fixed her makeup, and smiled at herself in the mirror.

“You did it,” she whispered to herself. “You did it on your own.”

Back in the kitchen, the staff were popping bottles of champagne and celebrating.

Pasta was splayed on various plates, and the extra sauce was piled high.

There was Parmesan everywhere, which felt right.

It looked like snow, floating through the air and piling up on the counters and the floor.

The chaos in the kitchen felt right, too.

Rachelle knew that every night for the foreseeable future would feel just this frantic, this messy. Let the Parmesan pile up, she thought.

“Thank you, thank you, each of you!” Rachelle said, taking a glass of champagne and raising it to her staff members. “What a wild ride that was! How are we feeling?”

One of her line chefs, a woman named Marianna, puffed out her cheeks and laughed. “That was crazy.”

The others nodded in agreement but also laughed.

“We’ll get used to it!” Martino, the dishwasher, said. “We have to.”

Riccardo, who’d been Rachelle’s right-hand man through the entire evening, returned wearing a suit. He grabbed a glass of champagne and raised it to Rachelle. “To our fearless leader!” he said. “To many more nights just like this!”

Rachelle couldn’t believe any of it was happening.

Before she knew it, Riccardo led her into the restaurant itself, where the fancy people she’d fed that night got to their feet and applauded her.

Their eyes were alight with joy. They whistled and raised their glasses and called for a speech.

Rachelle felt so exhausted, yet so high with adrenaline.

She thought she might collapse from hunger, too. But she gave them what they needed.

“I’ve dreamed of a night like this since I was a little girl on Nantucket Island,” she said, feeling nostalgic.

“When I first got up the nerve to leave my longtime boss, Diana March, behind, I asked my boyfriend Riccardo if I was crazy to open up my own place. He asked me, if not now, when? Which I thought was a pretty good way to think of things. If we fail, if I fail, then I’ll do something else.

That’s how it’s always been!” Rachelle laughed, and the tables of diners laughed with her.

She went on to thank every member of her kitchen staff, her eyes welling with tears. Goodness, she was starving.

Soon, Riccardo led her to a two-person table in the corner, where she was brought a heaping platter of pasta and a glass of red wine. “I feel like I’m going to collapse onto the pasta,” she joked to Riccardo, squeezing his hand.

Riccardo’s face was illuminated in candlelight.

At this moment, Rachelle was sure she’d never seen anyone more handsome, more right.

His eyebrows were thick and bushy, and his jawline was cut sharply, like an old Italian movie star.

The fact that he’d come with her on her journey, the fact that he’d agreed to work beneath her as her sous chef, felt remarkable.

“I love you,” she whispered to him, before reaching for her fork.

But just then, Riccardo dropped to one knee in front of her.

Quickly, the crowd realized what was going on and clacked their forks against their glasses and plates, alerting everyone to quiet down so they could hear.

Rachelle’s heart pounded. She understood, then, that Riccardo had had this planned from the very beginning. He’d known he would do it tonight.

“My darling Rachelle,” Riccardo began, gripping both of her hands in his. “You are the brightest light I’ve ever known. You are the most talented chef—although that is something I can never say around my mother.”

The crowd chuckled knowingly. Rachelle smiled.

“Ever since I met you, I’ve been on a wild ride of joy and good flavor and hilarity and beauty,” Riccardo said.

“I never imagined that an American girl would take my breath away as you have. I never imagined that my life would change so completely.” He reached into his pocket to remove a velvet box, which he opened to reveal a perfect diamond engagement ring.

Rachelle couldn’t breathe. The smell of the pasta was overpowering, and the garlic made her eyes sting. Tears ran down her cheeks. Was this really happening?

“Rachelle, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” Riccardo asked.

As Rachelle extended her fingers, preparing her heart to say yes, time seemed to slow.

She felt every eye in the restaurant watching her.

She felt the line cooks in the kitchen, craning over the top of each other to see this special moment.

She felt the cars on the cobblestone roads outside, clattering, speeding.

The yes was coming up her throat; she could imagine herself saying it.

She could practically feel it on her tongue.

And then, something in the kitchen exploded.

The sound was enormous and all-powerful.

All the glass in the windows burst and scattered.

The staff members shot out from the kitchen, screaming and running for the exit.

Rachelle was on her feet, her hand wrapped around Riccardo’s for dear life, as they headed for the street.

Everything was chaotic and charged. As the sirens grew closer, Rachelle hurried to find each of her staff members, take them in her arms, and make sure they were okay.

A few of them had scratches from flying equipment, but all were fine.

The diners, who’d expressed that tonight was one of the most incredible culinary nights of their lives, hung their mouths open in horror.

They held each other, watching as the firefighters stormed into the burning restaurant to put the fire out. Water surged from a long hose.

Rachelle couldn’t believe it. In the span of a few minutes, her restaurant had gone up in flames.

Now, it sat in black char, the glass blown out of the windows, the smell of onion and garlic and baked bread replaced with the smell of burning.

Rachelle nearly fell to her knees in shock.

Riccardo remained beside her, holding her against him, his eyes lost.