Chapter 15
I try notto be too upset about missing out on Thanksgiving. It’s a stupid, genocidal, oppressive holiday anyway, and it was fine to not have my kids come home for it, and I didn’t want to spend all day cooking a big meal where I would inevitably screw up at least two dishes, but because Parker is a whiz in the kitchen, it would eventually all pull through, and we would sit down to our Thanksgiving day dinner and eat ourselves silly.
I am living in Rome. This was way better, obviously, even if I have a full week of classes.
But still.
My kids are even spending it apart, although Hattie is going to be with Bruce and his parents. I wonder if they’d all be together if I had flown home. Bruce and I had discussed holidays in the divorce as if they were custody, and I suppose, since the kids are grown, that’s the closest thing to it. Having the kids so far apart now meant that having them all together was harder, so Bruce and I would strive not to force them to split their time between us for the holidays.
Shonda and I decided to host our own Thanksgiving but keep it light. I wasn’t sure I could find a sixteen-pound turkey in Rome anyway (or fit one in my oven), so we agreed on roasting a chicken. Shonda offered to make macaroni and cheese and sweet potato pie. Cranberry sauce was the last thing on my list, and two stores didn’t have it, but I had found an expat forum that suggested a place on Cola di Rienzo a few blocks from the school. I return home triumphant on Saturday afternoon, and a few minutes later, there is a knock on my door.
I open it, and Santo and Bell are standing outside. Outside of the classroom, I hadn’t seen Santo since Zola had come for a visit last week and I’d met Bell.
“Professor Offredi. Hi.”
“Ms. Chance,” he greets me. “You remember Abelie?”
“Yes, hi.” We smile at each other.
Bell folds her arms. “I was wondering if you had plans for Thanksgiving? There is an exchange program at my university, and the American students are hosting an event. They are calling it a potluck?”
“Oh. That’s such a nice offer. Um, I have plans with Shonda. You remember her, Professor Offredi? She was in your Business Analytics class with me. But I can ask her if she’d rather do something bigger.” I swivel my gaze back to Abelie. “Um, would you be going too? Of course, I mean, would both of you be going?”
“I have never been to a Thanksgiving before; have you, Santo?” My neighbor shakes his head. “Yes, we will come. They are roasting quite a few turkeys, and there will be many pies and some stuffing.”
I smile. Having someone else do it sounds much better than making stuffing from scratch. “That’s all the good stuff. Can I let you know?”
Abelie and I exchange WhatsApp numbers, and I thank them for the invitation. That night, I check with Shonda, and we both agreed that Thanksgiving is typically a the-more-the-merrier situation. Thursday, after class, I scurry home to grab my cranberry sauce and green bean casserole—turkeys were being provided, so I saved the chicken for a later date. I meet Shonda outside my apartment, and a few moments later, Santo pulls up in his car. It’s a red sedan, and I notice a cute little shamrock logo right by the door. Is it an Irish car? I don’t know anything about cars, but I’ve never heard of a car made in Ireland.
Santo gets out. Nerves flutter in my stomach. God, he’s good-looking. He’s still dressed as he was for class today: a fitted jacket and dress slacks.
Shonda jumps in the backseat, so I take the front seat and buckle the seatbelt. “Thank you for driving us,” I tell Santo. Abelie’s school is on the other side of the city, so she’ll meet us there.
“Yeah, and sweet ride,” Shonda chimes in from the back. “I’ve never been in an Alfa Romeo.”
That doesn’t sound Irish. I bite my tongue, not wanting to sound stupid. It is a nice car, and I smooth the black leather under my thigh with my finger. It’s soft.
“You are welcome.” He shifts the car into gear and on to the street. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a manual car, and Santo’s hand is right there on the gear shaft, just a few inches from my thigh as he zips through traffic. “Your food smells good. What are you bringing?”
I look down at the cold green bean casserole in my lap. I doubt he can smell it at all—I can’t. We were told there will be microwaves to reheat food, which is not ideal, but it’s better than a cold meal. I catch Shonda’s eye in the back seat, and she snickers.
“It’s a green bean casserole.” I explain the ingredients and Santo repeats them back to me slowly, as if learning a foreign language.
“French…fried…onions?”
“Yes.”
Santo looks skeptical but then Shonda leans forward and points toward something ahead of us. She diverts attention from the food and asks Santo about construction traffic in the city. After a few harrowing near-misses and what I can only assume is colorful cursing in Italian by Santo, we arrive at the architecture studio where the Thanksgiving potluck is being held.
I put my green bean casserole on the pre-microwave table, leaving it to the students, who have several microwaves plugged in around the room. They scurry back and forth, heating dishes up. There’s a table with drinks—a suspect-looking punch and cases of Dreher, a cheap Italian beer—but a moment later, a stranger grabs my elbow and steers me toward the “adult” drink table, where I pour myself a glass of red.
I find Shonda and Santo again. He’s laughing at something she’s said, and this might be the most relaxed I’ve seen Santo since school started. Abelie joins us in a few minutes, kissing my cheek in greeting, and introduces us to some of her friends in the program.
Celebrating Thanksgiving was supposed to be a taste of “normal” life back home. But here, standing with a bunch of students the age of my kids, I find my heart clenching in homesickness. As proud as I am for my acceptance to the MBA program and for coming all the way here out of my comfort zone, I miss my kids. A lot.
There’s a cluster of people over in one corner. I can’t see what they are doing, but occasionally someone shouts out some numbers.
“One seventy-two-point-three!”
“Two thirty-six-point-eight.”
“Abelie,” I ask, leaning toward her. “What are they doing?”
“I am not sure; let me ask.” She calls across the room in Italian, and a male student with a clipboard looks up. He answers, and they go back and forth for a moment before Abelie turns back to me, agape. “They are weighing themselves on a scale and having some kind of contest? Who can eat the most?”
My jaw drops. That is my worst nightmare.
Abelie chuckles at my face. “Is this not something all Americans do for Thanksgiving?”
“No. Oh my god, no.”
Shonda face-palms. “College kids are so weird.”
We all murmur our agreement and watch in fascination.
Someone clears their throat and then a sharp whistle rings out. There’s a man standing over by the buffet set up—white, older than me, and wearing jeans and a polo shirt—who is ineffectively clicking his plastic wine glass with a disposable knife. Instead of the ting-ting-ting that carries, it’s a muffled bink-bink-bink, and he continues it for comedic effect once the room is quiet, and a few students chuckle.
His message is brief—dinner is served. There are about thirty people here, but they’ve got both sides of the buffet going and there is a ton of food. Soon we’re perched at a collection of four drafting tables which have had stools pulled up all around to accommodate everyone. Abelie’s friends and one of the American professors have joined us, completing our table of eight.
The food is fine, unevenly warmed and heavy, but also very nostalgic. Shonda’s macaroni and cheese is probably the favorite and goes quickly.
There’s another loud whistle, and the same professor from earlier is standing at one of the tables. “There is an American tradition we’d like to encourage, which is to go around the room and share what we are all thankful for. You don’t have to speak, but you are welcome to if you’d like. I’d like to start by saying I’m thankful for the professors and students at our host university who helped us, not only today, but over all the years the exchange program has been running.”
He lifts his glass, and we all toast and drink. One by one, we go around the room. Most of the students stand up and speak, and sometimes it’s irreverent and followed by laughter—“I’m thankful for two a.m. Kebabs.” Sometimes, it’s heartwarming and makes the mom in me tear up—“I’m thankful for the technology to FaceTime with my family.” And sometimes it’s inside jokes that make us three outsiders exchange amused glances.
We get to our table. One of Abelie’s friends starts. “I’m grateful for the legal drinking age in Italy,” he says with a grin. Everyone groans.
Abelie is next. “I am thankful for my new friends who invited me today.”
Then Santo. He stands and rests a hand on Abelie’s shoulder. “I am grateful for the best ex-stepdaughter I’ll ever have.” He looks at Abelie. “You are my family, and always will be.”
She smiles, her eyes wet as she leans her cheek on his hand. He kisses the top of her head before sitting down.
My turn. I stand with my glass. “Well, my kids aren’t here, so I don’t have to suck up to them.” There’s a chuckle around the room. “I’m thankful for the opportunity to get an education like the one I’m getting now. It’s not often that people have to start their lives over in their forties, but having new friends,” I lift my glass to Shonda, “and, uh…” I turn to Santo. How to describe Santo? “New neighbors,” I finally settle on, “is really helpful.”
When I sit, Santo and Shonda clink glasses with me. Neighbor feels so inadequate, but there isn’t really a better way to describe him. Santo’s gaze catches mine and holds. My heart thumps faster and I can’t look away.
Laughter interrupts us, though, and I blink. Santo turns away, sipping his wine. We listen to the rest of the thankfulness, and the lead professor says, “Okay, now that everyone’s been thankful, there’s pie.”
The volume increases while many of the room gets up to help themselves to the dozens of pies on the far table. We stay seated, though.
“You know,” Abelie says, turning to Santo with one hand on her hip. “Fifty-seven is not that old. You still have time to marry and divorce and gain more ex-stepdaughters Maybe they’d be older ones, so that you don’t have to go through terrible teenage years again.” Her tone is light and teasing and Santo laughs.
“Well, I would have to get married first, and I think those days are done for.”
I bite the corner of my lip to hide my frown. That’s sad. Santo is successful and attractive and the night he took me home, he was certainly charming.
Abelie pouts. “Are you saying I will never have the opportunity to introduce someone as my ex-stepfather’s new stepchild?” She catches me following the conversation and winks. I look away, cheeks hot.
Am I going to have stepchildren someday? I love the relationship Santo has with Abelie; loving but still paternalistic. Over the past month, I’ve thought about sex with new men—well, let’s be honest, mostly sex with Santo—but would I ever want to get married again?