Chapter Seven
SEVEN
DARIO
Giving a tour of the Amorina Chocolate Factory feels natural, even after the time away.
Dario’s heart beats in time with the careful words he shares with his potential suitors.
Every time he reengages with the history of this place, his passion for the family business ratchets up, as does his pride for the work he wants to do for the rest of his life.
Easier said than done when a wedding stands between him and his destiny.
They are a little over an hour in, and he has already lost two participants, which feels like a bad sign.
Selina is surely off in the café already, editing the perfect picture to post. Ansel, who Dario thinks is handsome in a way he does not want to admit to himself, stayed behind with Chiara since he never made his custom chocolate bar.
Dario tries not to take Ansel’s overt flirtation with Chiara to heart.
Again, this all comes with no expectation, and he is a modern queer man who understands that interest in another doesn’t mean lack of interest in him.
“Our next stop is all about Amorina’s appearance through the ages,” he explains to the remaining trio.
They enter a room plastered in old advertisements and blown-up, colorful images of Amorina boxes from years past. “Our famous packaging has undergone subtle changes over the years but the central image of the fuchsia heart with the chocolate drizzle has remained a constant.”
Some families have a coat of arms; the Cotognas have this—a chocolate-covered heart that represents over a century’s worth of love and legacy.
Earlier in the day, before he took his private car to the factory, Dario opened Cosimo Sr.’s day two letter, which was entirely on theme.
Caro Tesorino,
In any new venture, the first step is always the hardest.
The story of my grandparents’ love affair cemented itself long ago. The love notes in the wrappers have found purchase in the minds of candy lovers all over the world. Did you know that the story is not true?
Take a moment to catch your breath.
They had passed notes back and forth on empty wrappers out of a want to not waste paper, which I know you’ll appreciate given your fervid passion for sustainability, but they weren’t love notes.
They did not do it because they were so passionate about each other that they simply had to get the words down before they died on their tongues.
It was covert, the messages were urgent, and the wrappers were there.
The truth lies mostly in that my nonna made the first move. After years of dancing around the topic and many business partners not wanting to associate with an unmarried woman in the workforce, my nonna made a batch of her chocolate the old-school way and incorporated quince fruit into the bar.
Inside the wrapper she wrote: I’d like to marry my recipe with your last name.
They were not pawing at one another. They were not madly in love. They were companions and business partners who liked each other’s company and sought to expand their opportunities through matrimony.
This, however, does not make for particularly good marketing copy.
They took bits and pieces and crafted an angle around it.
Through that angle and that marriage, love grew, deeply and truly.
Love is not always the aperitivo. Sometimes it’s the digestivo.
You’ve opened your home to new people. Are you ready to open your heart as well?
Con affetto,
Nonno
The letter pops back into mind as he shows his guests to the next interactive exhibit: Make Your Mark-eting.
After watching several television commercials for Amorina chocolate dating back through the 1960s, a staff member invites everyone to grab a prop, step in front of the green screen and try their hand at playing the Amorina spokesperson.
Beau goes first. He improvises a melody using the words that scroll by on the teleprompter.
Beau’s handsome face and voice are enchanting, but Dario can’t tell yet if it’s a spell he could live happily under forever or a siren song luring him toward the cliffs.
Out of all his suitors, Beau seems more interested competing for attention than Dario’s heart.
But it’s still early days, and Dario definitely wouldn’t mind a lifetime of private concerts from Beau Garner.
Charlie trips over every line of the script, shrinking into himself as he reads with a robotic cadence.
While Charlie may not be a great public speaker, Dario is enraptured by Charlie’s tattoos.
They become more alive under the blazing lights.
Every time he moves, each cartoon figure dotted along his arms does a special dance.
Michelle has the employee switch the teleprompter to French. Excitement bubbles off her as she steps on the red-taped X in front of the massive camera attached to a tripod. On the monitor, B-roll footage of the factory processing chocolates rolls behind her.
The rather timid woman melts away as she speaks, her hands moving in time with the turns of the text. Going off script, she flips her red hair with aplomb as she concludes, “Je m’appelle Michelle Trottier et je suis aussi douce qu’Amorina.” She blows the camera a kiss, gives a wink.
Charlie leans in and whispers to Dario, “Do you know what she said?”
Overwhelmed by the encompassing scents of coconut and mango wafting off Charlie, Dario struggles to answer. “Uh, she said, ‘My name is Michelle Trottier, and I’m as sweet as Amorina.’”
Charlie snorts, shaking his head. A note of vanilla mingles in with the coconut and mango. “So you speak French?”
“Un peu. A little,” he says. There is a smudge of white on the bridge of Charlie’s pear-shaped, pierced nose.
He must be wearing an aromatic sunscreen.
Dario wants to slather himself in that scent when he gets home.
It knocks his nervous system into overdrive in a new way.
He never pictured himself being attracted to someone so edgy and alternative, but Charlie’s nearness makes him feel like a brand-new engine roaring to life.
“Perfect Italian, perfect English, and a little bit of French. How are you so good at languages?” Charlie asks, keeping his voice low so it doesn’t get picked up on the recording.
Michelle is dissatisfied with her first take, so she requests another go before the group moves on. She starts facing the backdrop before flipping around with a flashy smile when the camera operator’s countdown ends. Dario suppresses a laugh at the theatricality.
“I went to a Montessori school. It was split instruction, so half in Italian and half in English,” he explains, eyes tracking Beau as he wanders off, clearly bored by Michelle’s holdup.
“Wow. I went to public school where we took maybe a couple semesters of Spanish and called it a day. I tried downloading one of those language game apps a year ago out of boredom and realized I didn’t even remember all the days of the week,” he says and sighs audibly.
“I’ve heard some choice things about the American school system. My mom is American, so we mostly spoke English at home,” he says.
Michelle takes it from the top again, trying yet another tagline at the end. She must be practicing for her inevitable Luxurious Ladies of Provence audition. Though he can’t imagine they’d cast a twenty-two-year-old fashion student. But with him as her husband…
Is that why she entered this contest? Is he the clout she needs to lead the televised life she so admires?
“What about the French? How did you learn that?” Charlie asks, whisking him out of that uncomfortable line of thought.
“French and other languages I picked up while working for my grandfather. You can’t run an international chocolate company without knowing the languages of your business associates,” says Dario.
A pang of grief strikes him in his still-fragile heart.
There was much more he wished to learn from his nonno.
“Don’t they have interpreters for things like that?” Charlie asks.
Dario bobbles his head, recalling conferences past. “My grandfather was big on making business as personal as possible. He felt meetings were more genuine when you spoke to a potential partner in their native language,” he says, fumbling slightly over the phrase “potential partner.”
That’s what this whole setup is about. Charlie is easy to talk to and undeniably attractive, but does that make for a proper life partner? His pop of blue hair and his doodled-upon body parts don’t paint him as the portrait of a traditional Cotogna man.
While Dario would never judge a person solely based on their appearance, he is aware that the world does so easily and vocally, especially on the internet. The way Dario presents is a direct reflection of the Amorina brand and the same would go for his spouse.
Charlie doesn’t fit the premade mold of an Amorina man, and he shouldn’t be set on a public pedestal to be scrutinized for expressing himself in such unique ways.
That kind of confidence deserves admiration.
It’s already earned Dario’s. But there is a potential for proximal hurt that sends Dario back and away from contemplating the possibilities with Charlie too hard.
Five strangers. All still in the running. It’s far too soon to pick frontrunners when his heart remains frazzled.
“Shall we move on?” Dario asks, clapping his hands together. The sound is dulled by the leather gloves.
Michelle twirls one strand of auburn hair. “Is it okay if I stay here for a little longer? I haven’t gotten it quite right yet.” The camera worker seems annoyed by the repetitiveness, and a line of other guests unaffiliated with the contest has formed, but Dario wants his suitors to be happy.
“Of course. Take as much time as you need,” Dario says.