Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Elena
The blinds are down, the overhead light is on, and my kitchen looks like a crime scene where the only victim is common sense.
Flour dusts everything—the counter, my shirt, the floor. The pasta maker I ordered—ID pick-up, signed in triplicate, thank you very much—clamps to the counter like its life depends on it. The hand crank wobbles. I’ve tightened the screw three times. It still wobbles.
On the counter is my mother’s recipe card in her big, looping hand.
“Pasta all’uovo,” it says at the top, and then a list that could be a riddle.
“Farina, uova, sale, un poco d’acqua se serve.
” No quantities. Under that, her notes: “Impasta finché è liscia come il lobo dell’orecchio.
” Knead until it’s as smooth as an earlobe. An earlobe? Really, Mamma?
It’s been a week of house food. Sugo four times. Eggs every morning. Chicken until the word makes my jaw lock. I ate cereal for the third time last night and stared at the bowl like it had personally offended me.
Today I decided to be brave, or stupid, or both.
I want to be fifteen again at our old kitchen table with this same card between us.
Except I never sat at the table when Mamma wanted me to. Instead, I went out with friends, or a boy, or anyone. Just as long as I wasn’t there.
I can’t call her and ask what “a pinch” means to her hand.
It’s a weight on my heart and a lump in my throat while I’m pushing flour into a volcano on my counter: I will never be able to call and ask again, not about this, not about anything.
The grief is so clean and sudden, I have to grip the counter and breathe through it.
“Okay,” I tell nobody. “Okay.”
I can do this.
No, I can’t.
I crack the eggs into the crater of flour on the cutting board.
Yolks slide out like coins. My mother always cracked with one hand.
I do not have that skill, so I do it like a normal person and fish out a shard of the shell.
I sprinkle a little salt over the eggs and take a fork to them, beating until they’re streaky, then pull flour in from the walls.
It’s messy. The volcano collapses. Of course it does.
The yolks try to slide beneath the cutting board.
I laugh once, a short, angry sound, and herd the yolks back into the flour with the side of my hand.
I keep mixing, keep scraping, and when the fork stops being useful, I use my fingers.
It’s sticky and then it’s not, dough forming into something that might be a ball if I squint hard enough.
I add a whisper of water because the card says “if needed,” and it feels needed.
Then it’s too sticky again.
Kneading is supposed to be meditative. It is, if you know what you’re doing, I guess. I don’t. I press and fold and turn and press again.
The dough fights, then softens, then fights again. After eight minutes, my forearms burn and I am covered in flour like a clumsy child. I keep going because Mamma’s “liscia come il lobo dell’orecchio” has become a challenge, a dare from a woman who isn’t here anymore. I press, fold, turn.
When I think it’s smooth enough—or I give up, which is the same thing right now—I press the dough into a disc and wrap it. It’s definitely not as smooth as an earlobe, but it’ll have to do for now.
The card says to rest it. Fine. I put it under a bowl and set a timer. Ten minutes. Fifteen. I don’t know. I go with twenty because it sounds familiar, like something my mother would do while making me set the table.
While the dough rests, I stare down the other recipe card on the counter.
“Cacio e pepe.” Three ingredients. Cheese, pepper, pasta water.
I picked it because it looked like the easiest thing in the world.
It is not. My first try an hour ago turned into a bowl of peppered scrambled eggs.
I watched the cheese seize and break, watched the glossy sauce I remember my mamma making turn into clumps that refused to melt.
Watched my patience separate along with it. I cleaned the pan and pretended I hadn’t nearly thrown it at the wall.
I should make sugo. I know sugo. But I’m stubborn. Also: if I have to eat sugo and boxed pasta a fifth time this week, I might actually cry.
The timer goes off. I uncover the dough, and it feels different—a little more elastic.
There are still some lumps in them, but it’s better than my first try.
I flour the counter again, because apparently there is no such thing as too much flour when you’re me, and cut the dough into four.
One quarter stays; the rest goes back under the bowl so it doesn’t dry out.
I press the piece into a small rectangle and feed it into the widest setting of the pasta maker.
It tears. Not catastrophically, but enough to make my shoulders climb toward my ears. I run it through again, folding the ends over, and over again. On the third pass, I get something that looks like a sheet. It has frayed edges, a weird, thick spot in the middle, and a rip the size of New Jersey.
I flour it and keep going. Narrower setting. Crank. The hand crank pops out of the side of the machine, skitters across the counter, and I say a word my mother would not approve of. I jam it back in and keep turning.
The sheet comes out thinner. It also comes out like a map of the trenches.
Lumps. Bubbles. I realize I didn’t knead long enough, and this is how I learn that the earlobe test is real.
I want to throw the dough away and start over, but starting over would mean admitting defeat, and I’ve burned through that quota this week.
Plus, I’m getting really hungry and have no backup plan.
I think about the day we made fresh pasta in Home Ec in middle school. I bragged to Mamma about it afterward, and she smiled and said, “Allora, you can help me next time,” and I said I had plans with Jenna and didn’t.
I think about the afternoon she made cacio e pepe when I was sick and refused the first bowl until she put it in a mug and spooned it into my mouth like when I was a toddler.
It tasted like salt and warmth, and the pepper made my nose run.
I would give anything for her to tell me what the water should feel like when the cheese goes in, the exact moment to stir.
With tears in my eyes, I fold the dough back into the towel and try the sauce. If I can manage that, I’ll throw some boxed pasta in and just eat it. At least I’ll have something.
I toast pepper in a dry pan, and it smells amazing, like the inside of an old wood drawer and heat. I grind more because it says so on the recipe card. I should just look online. I should just eat cereal again.
I grit my teeth and keep going. No, I’m making Mamma’s recipe, or I’m starving.
The pan warms. I tip the pepper out and wipe the pan with a paper towel.
I look at the next step and realize it says to pour some pasta water in. I don’t have any damn pasta water because I don’t have any damn pasta.
I blow out a breath, turn off the stove, and step back, trying not to sink to the floor in tears.
Come on, Elena. You face down criminals every single day. Are you going to let some pepper and cheese bring you to tears?
I sniff, wipe my cheeks with my forearms, before I realize too late that I'm covered in flour, and then step forward again.
I grab a pot, fill it with water, and set it on the stove. The burner clicks as I light it. After a few minutes, the water boils, and I pour salt in, followed by boxed rigatoni.
I’m not admitting defeat yet, but I think it’s best to focus on one new thing at a time. I put the pepper and oil back on the heat and, once the pasta has been boiling for a few minutes, I deem the water “pasta enough,” and ladle some out.
My phone rings.
I grab it without thinking to prevent myself from throwing my hands in the air. “Pennino.”
“Counselor.”
I go still, ladle still hovering over the hot pan.
“How did you get this number?”
“Come now, Elena,” Luca says, clearly amused.
Of course. He’s Luca Conti.
“You shouldn’t be calling me,” I say. My body is frozen in fight or flight mode. Should I signal the marshals?
Is he outside my apartment? Why is he calling me?
I drop the ladle into the pasta and step toward the blinds, sliding my finger under one and lifting it just barely. It’s dark out, and I can’t see anything.
“Then hang up,” Luca says calmly.
But I don’t.
Oil pops on the stove.
“Shit.” I step back and turn it off, removing the pan from the heated burner.
“Problem, Counselor?” Luca says in that infuriatingly amused voice. “You sound… flustered.”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” I say.
“Hmm,” he simply says.
I have no idea why—maybe the day, the whole damn week, has worn my filter down to nothing—but I find myself saying: “I’m trying to make dinner, and it’s a mess. It’s your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Yes, your fault. And that damn latte,” I say, then pull my phone away from my ear and put it on speaker.
Why am I still talking to him? I should hang up. I should call the marshals.
I should be more scared. Why aren’t I?
“I was simply trying to be courteous,” he responds, and I hear a squeak on his end.
Where is he right now? Is he at home? Is he in his office? The kitchen? Is he eating his own dinner?
Why do I have so many questions?
I huff out a laugh. “Courteous? You knew exactly what you were doing,” I grit out, turning off the pasta water. “You knew damn well what would happen when you handed me that cup.”
“Hmm,” he says, but I can hear the smile in his voice. Then: “What are you making?”
I grab a bowl to ladle some of the pasta water into, so I can drain the rest.
“Cacio e pepe,” I murmur. “It’s split twice, and I’m running out of cheese. I have to drain the pasta.”
“Don’t tell me,” he says, sounding pained. “Per carità, tell me you’re not using boxed pasta.”
“Of course I am,” I snap. “The fresh dough is having a temper tantrum, and I’m hungry.”
A beat. Then, resigned: “Fine. Do not drain it in the sink. Lift it out of the water. Keep the water.”
“I already pulled some,” I say, ladling a little more into a bowl. “And I’m turning the burner off.”
“Good. Now step away from the heat,” he says. “What cheese do you have?”
“Parmesan and pecorino,” I say. “I know pecorino is the right cheese, but Mamma always mixed them because pecorino here is stronger than back home.”
“That is right,” he says. “Is it grated?”
“Yes,” I say, pulling the bowl of cheese closer. “This is absurdly complicated for a dish with only three ingredients.”
“Cooking is mostly respect and patience,” he says. “Respect the cheese. Be patient with the water.”
“You’re very poetic for a felon,” I mutter.
“Now,” he says, “we start by toasting the pepper.”
“I did that already,” I say, pulling the pan closer. “I toasted it in some oil.”
“We can work with that.”
I hear a sound on the other end again, a rustling of some sort. Is he in bed? The thought makes my heart pound harder. I have to give my hands a little shake to make them cooperate.
“Put a little bit of water into the pan with the pepper,” he instructs.
“Then the cheese?” I ask while pouring a ladle of water in.
“No. Patience, Counselor.” He sounds amused again. “You’re not very good at being patient, are you?”
“Not my best skill,” I say, setting the ladle down.
“Let the pepper water simmer for ten seconds,” he says. “Just a breath. Then kill the heat.”
I watch small bubbles rise around the flakes. I turn the burner off. “Done.”
“Cheese paste in a separate bowl,” he goes on. “Start with pecorino. If your mother mixed, do two spoons pecorino, one spoon parmesan. Add a spoon of that warm pepper water. Stir with a fork until smooth. Small additions. Smooth first, then loosen.”
I pull the cheese bowl close and work a spoonful with a splash of water. It resists, then gives. I add a little more cheese and water, stirring until it looks like thick paint. “Okay.”
“If it clumps, you’re adding water too fast or it’s too hot.”
“Umm, it didn’t clump, no.”
“Good,” he says, pleased. “Now, continue until you’ve incorporated all the cheese, carefully adding water to it.”
I follow his instructions, jaw tight, waiting for it to seize up on me.
But it doesn’t. Somehow, miraculously, I managed to make the damn thing.
“Now put the pasta into the sauce,” he says. “Very low heat. The lowest it can go. Toss.”
I look at the pan skeptically. “I’m going to try tossing another day. I’m too hungry to risk it.”
He laughs, and it makes my heart clench.
What is wrong with me? Am I having a conversation with Luca Conti?
No, I’m cooking with Luca Conti. Somehow, that’s worse.
But I grab the spoon and start stirring it all together.
And what do you know? The noodles shine instead of clump. Did I really just make cacio e pepe?
My shoulders drop an inch. “It’s holding.”
“Good,” he says. “Finish with a dust of cheese and cracked pepper if you want more bite. Some truffle, if you have it. Then taste.”
“Sorry, fresh out of truffle,” I say dryly.
I grab a fork and try it. A little salty, peppery. No pebbles, no grease. “It’s… good,” I say, in a bit of awe.
“That’s because you stopped forcing it,” he says. “You persuade sauce. You don’t beat it.”
“Noted.” I take another forkful and eat it, a small moan escaping before I realize it.
I clear my throat as my senses come back to me.
What the fuck am I doing?
Silence follows.
“You knew what would happen when you handed me that cup,” I say because it’s been on the tip of my tongue all week.
He sighs. “I suspected it.”
“You wanted to see how fast they’d close in?”
“Hmm.” He doesn’t answer right away, and I wonder what’s going on in that head of his. “I suspected, but that’s not why I did it.”
“So, why did you?”
“Because it was your favorite.”
My hand tightens on the fork. “Don’t do it again.”
“Understood.”
Silence. The noises of the city outside my window seem so far away. Inside my kitchen, it’s private, intimate.
Then: “Next time. Pasta.”
I huff. “There won’t be a next time.”
“Of course not,” he says simply.
I should hang up. I don’t.
“Enjoy your meal,” he says quietly. “Buona notte, Panini.”
The line clicks dead.
I stand in my kitchen with flour on my shirt and actual dinner in front of me, wondering how I let a man like that talk me through a sauce. Then I decide not to borrow trouble from tomorrow.
Before eating, I add one more line to the back of my mother’s card—“No heat near cheese.”
I grab a bowl and pause for a moment.
He hadn’t called me Pennino. He had said “panini.” Like on the cup.
“Did he just call me a sandwich?” I wonder out loud.