Chapter 28
“I think it needs maybe two more minutes. I don’t know, let’s ask for a second opinion.” Giada dipped the metal spider spatula into the boiling water and pulled out a fat ring of pasta. “Vivi, come taste the paccheri.”
“I don’t want to mess it up,” said Lora.
“No, you absolutely can’t mess it up,” agreed Giada. “When pasta is scotta, you can’t go back. It’s cooked wrong and that’s the end of it.”
“I know, it’s so nerve-racking. I feel like I’ll never get it right,” Lora said, her face pained.
Having been more or less oblivious to Italian customs and culture when she first came here, she was now adamant about absorbing as much authenticity as she possibly could.
She’d never again drink cappuccino after eleven in the morning, had been to Rome twice and could complain about the smell of the garbage as fluently as a local, and, after a trip up to the city at Christmas, believed that there was no building on earth as beautiful as the Duomo in Milan.
Knowing that certain people would throw out a whole pan of pasta if it was even one minute overcooked, she was determined to do this properly if it killed her.
“You will. It takes practice,” Giada said, passing the spatula to Vivi. “What do you think?”
Vivi examined the pasta, pushed on it with her finger.
“It needs two minutes. But only two minutes! Don’t let it go longer.”
“But we’ve been talking for another thirty seconds, so is it ninety seconds or one hundred twenty?”
“Non scottare la pasta!” yelled Carola from the terrace. They had brought the table outside so that they could enjoy the warm spring sunshine, and Carola was outside dressing the gigantic salad she’d brought.
“Lo so, lo so. I know, my god, the pressure.” Lora brought her hands up to her face.
“OK, try it now,” Giada said, dipping back into the boiling water. Vivi pushed on it and nodded. “Yes? OK, go, go!”
Lora grabbed two potholders and poured out the contents into a metal colander that sat in the sink.
“Save some of the pasta water!” Vivi tipped the pot back up with her fingers.
“Oops, yes. Got it.” Lora used the spider to pull out the paccheri and drop them directly into a large sauté pan with just-cooked datterini tomatoes, a couple of cloves of garlic, clams, squid, mussels, and shrimp.
She let it all simmer together for a few seconds, then added a few spoonfuls of pasta water, watching a creamy liquid form around everything.
“I’m going to get the parsley from Carola,” said Giada, scooting out the back door.
“OK, heat off!” said Vivi. “And pull out the garlic.”
“Done.” Lora spooned out the three giant white cloves from the sauté pan and set them on a plate in the middle of the chaos on the counter. She might have learned to cook and even appreciate tomatoes, but she still hadn’t mastered “cleaning as you go.”
“Amore, this is the biggest bowl we have. Will it work?” Andrea rounded the corner into the kitchen with a large ceramic bowl, a bundle of asparagus painted in the center.
He’d been digging around in a box of kitchen things that never quite got unpacked since he moved into the town house with Lora.
“Perfect. Thank you.” She kissed him as he cleaned off the bowl in the sink.
“Permesso!” Ottavio and Emanuela appeared at the front door holding a bottle of wine. “Scusa il ritardo, eh. I’m so sorry we are late. It’s my fault. I was on the phone with my editor. It’s still only afternoon in New York.”
“Non c’e problema!” Lora said, pouring the contents of the pan into the large bowl. Giada brought back the chopped parsley in a dish, and Lora sprinkled it over the top of the pasta. “We’re ready!”
Lora led the way out to the terrace and set the bowl on the table next to Carola’s salad, a basket of focaccia and some of Vivi’s homemade bread, a cruet of olive oil, and an open bottle of wine.
Ottavio and Emanuela double-kissed hello with the rest of the guests as they all chatted about where to sit.
Andrea picked up the bottle and began filling glasses.
“Where’s Nico?” asked Lora, standing over the table with serving utensils poised.
“Running late from a lesson. Or on the phone with Vilmari.” Andrea laughed.
“Either is possible.” She smiled. “OK, everybody, hand me your dishes.”
“First, though, cin, everyone.” Andrea raised his glass and handed one to Lora. Each guest raised their glasses in turn and repeated the toast.
“Carola, this salad looks amazing!” Vivi leaned over the bowl to get a better view of the fresh spring vegetables.
“é la stagione dei piselli. Spring peas,” Carola said. “Anche fave.”
“Fava beans?” asked Lora.
“Sì,” said Carola, smiling. “Sembri molto a tuo agio.”
“I look very comfortable,” Lora repeated in English with a smile. She turned to Carola. “Perche sono felice.”
“Still?” asked Andrea, turning to Lora, who was passing back dishes full of paccheri allo scoglio.
“Well, let’s see if I’m still happy when I try this,” she said, laughing, waving a spoon.
“Do you have good news, Ema?” Giada asked Emanuela. “How was your first week with the new book?”
“Well, here in Italy, I am doing great! Number six on the classifica generale, which is a list of bestsellers across different genres. I can never seem to beat those romance authors, but I’ll take it.
I have another month for the English-language market, so we shall see, “she said.
“You know, I wish I could do my own translations.”
“Not even Isabel Allende does her own translations,” said Ottavio. “It’s good to be zen, let it go to the universe.”
“Maybe when I sell as many books as Isabel Allende, I can afford to be zen.”
“Does everyone have a plate? Buon appetito!” Lora finally sat.
“Io no.” Nico stepped out onto the terrace, still in his tennis clothes. “Scusate, I didn’t have time to change.”
“There’s no room for you if you smell like a goat.” Andrea laughed, pouring wine into the glass set out for him.
“I didn’t sweat. Much.” Nico laid his tennis bag against a giant terra-cotta pot holding the olive tree that Lora always joked was Andrea’s first gift to her.
“Sit, sit, and pass me your plate,” said Giada. “Was it a good week?”
“Good, yes, but next week will be better.” He grinned.
Nico was meeting Vilmari in Monte Carlo and then spending a few days in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
Vilmari had called Lora wearing a silk scarf tied around her head and dark sunglasses to announce that she was going to take Monaco by storm as the Puerto Rican Grace Kelly.
“Ah, yes! So I’ve heard! I still wish we were able to come with you,” said Lora, forking into the pasta. She took a bite and almost laughed out loud. She could not believe how good it was and how much it did not make sense that she was the one who’d made it.
“Too many campaign events?” Giada laughed.
Andrea had finally announced his plans to run for reelection when they got back from New York, but even now, in the first week of April, it looked like he would be running uncontested.
And while he didn’t have to do much in the way of convincing people to vote for him, he’d decided to hold a few town-hall-style meetings to give people a chance to be heard.
So far, the meetings had turned into a mix of Real Housewives and Bake Off as citizens took the opportunity to talk about each other while sampling their desserts and occasionally airing a grievance about the fact that the permits to gather porcini mushrooms had gone up by one euro that fall.
“Yes, the public is really pressing me on the tough issues.”
“Yes, like which band will play at the Christmas concert?” asked Vivi.
“Hey, that could be tricky. The Tramonti sisters are pushing for reggae this year.” He took a bite of paccheri. “Mamma mia. Brava. This is spectacular.”
“Sì, bravissima.” Carola nodded.
“You’re getting really good!” Vivi smiled. “In fact, I may ask you if you want a job now that we’re hiring.” She turned to grin at Giada, who beamed and kissed her.
“Is there something you want to tell us?” asked Ottavio.
“We got the loan! We are going to open a trattoria right here in town!”
“Don’t tell me Romina defrosted her cockles long enough to approve a loan?” Ottavio drew his hand to his forehead in feigned shock.
“She did!” said Giada. “But we also put up the house as collateral.”
“Well, nothing says ‘I believe in you’ like equity!” Ottavio laughed.
“Romina can be surprisingly open-minded,” said Lora, glancing sideways at Andrea.
“Sometimes, yes,” Andrea agreed, taking a sip of wine.
He placed his left hand back on the table, his little finger resting against hers.
He didn’t say anything out loud. She knew he wouldn’t.
The plan was still germinating between them like a tiny seedling, not strong enough to stand up on its own out in the open—for now.
After the pasta, there was Vivi’s berry crostata.
And after that there was coffee, small glasses of amaro—and, eventually, hugs and kisses good night.
Andrea carried a stack of plates into the house while Lora packed the dishwasher, and though it was the most normal thing in the world, it would never not feel extraordinary to her.
She paused to watch him rinse plates in the sink, a warm feeling extending to her cheeks.
“I love you,” she said.
“Is it because I’m cleaning? It’s that acts-of-service thing, right?”
“Yes,” she said, wrapping her arms around him from behind as he worked. “But no. It’s because I do. I’m so happy. And I’m a little bit excited too. Do you think we’re crazy?”
“Individually or as a unit?”
“Both?”
“Yes and yes,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “Hand me that big pot.”
One of the most difficult things Lora ever had to do in her life was figure out her relationship with someone who wasn’t able to figure it out with her.
It had taken her a long time to accept that by getting to know Ivo, she wasn’t being disrespectful to her mother.
In fact, it made her respect her mom even more.
When Ivo died, Pamela had likely been faced with a choice: tell Lora about what happened to the father she wouldn’t have known anyway, or keep it to herself and spare her daughter the pain.
No matter which option she chose, she was always going to be the one suffering.
Maybe sparing Lora from sadness was her only comfort.
Either way, Lora didn’t judge her. Pamela did the best she could with her life cut too short.
In the seven months since she’d been back, she’d spent some time with Carola, letting Andrea translate the parts of her memories that Lora couldn’t understand.
The stories told her that Ivo was quiet, strong, serious with the horses, but there was a soft side too.
He didn’t have to offer lessons for the kids or trail rides for the tourists, but he believed that the connection between people and animals was special and wanted everyone to experience it.
“He had a gift. But he didn’t keep it for himself. I think he enjoyed seeing people glimpse a little bit of what he knew—even if it was for a one-hour lesson,” Carola had said.
She also said it was clear that he loved the adrenaline and confirmed that the belt buckles were real wins from shows he would sometimes compete in if he was in America shooting films. In the end, Carola said, he seemed to be less and less happy about leaving the farm.
She would see him take extra laps through the stalls to pet the horses like he was saying goodbye to family before driving off to the airport.
To her own shock, Lora was the one who came up with the idea to keep Ivo’s farm.
Though the first potential buyer decided to move forward with a different property, a second offer was submitted in January.
Andrea had asked her if she wanted to come out with him to see the farm and meet both the realtor and the potential buyer.
He promised he would not tell them who she was.
But something happened when they drove through the broken gate and she read the sign that said SILVER SEA RANCH.
And though she couldn’t fully identify it yet, the feeling was not unlike the one she felt at the closing for the sale of her mother’s little bungalow.
Handing the keys to the new owners had felt like giving a piece of her life away.
Maybe trying to keep the farm was getting a piece of it back.
Romina liked the plan from the beginning, or at least that was Lora’s interpretation.
It wasn’t that she smiled or nodded or gave any indication that blood ran warm in her veins, but she did pull out a calculator (a calculator!) and immediately started talking numbers.
First Lora would make a legal claim that the property was hers since she was the sole offspring and only logical heir.
Once she was the owner, she would take the money that was sitting in the account with her name on it and invest it back into the farm, starting with the stalls and the paddock.
If everything went well, they’d be back to full capacity in a couple of years, bringing back revenue, tourism, and increasing the overall appeal of the town.
“Sapete qualcosa sui cavalli?” Romina asked, though she didn’t wait for either of them to answer that the only thing they knew about horses was that they had four legs.
She shook her head and scribbled a name and a phone number on a piece of paper.
“My nephew,” she said, tapping the paper with a burgundy nail.
She explained that he had been running stables in Rapallo for ten years and knew everything there was to know about building a legitimate centro ippico from the ground up. “You will call.”
But it was too soon to think about all of that as they shuffled upstairs, changed into pajamas, and eventually met in the bathroom to brush their teeth—Lora at the left sink, Andrea at the right.
Right now, it felt good to know that she’d get into bed with this beautiful man and wake up in this beautiful home in this beautiful life that they’d created together.
And while it was true that in five and a half years, Andrea would be unemployed, and Lora still wasn’t sure about whether she wanted to do more research, he had been right that night in the glow of Lincoln Center.
Neither one of them ever had to think about any of it on their own ever again.
“Come closer,” she said as they got into bed. Andrea slid toward her, pulling her onto his chest.
“Close enough?” Andrea pulled his arms tighter as she snuggled her face into the curve of his neck.
“Perfect.”