Chapter 35
Stella reached into her bag for the shop key. A ringtone burst from her phone. She snatched it up. Carol. She couldn’t put off talking to her friend forever. She pressed the green symbol.
‘Hi, Stella, it’s me!’
‘Carol! I’m glad you’ve rung, I’ve been meaning to catch you…’
‘The heck you have! You’ve been avoiding me, Stella Ferrando. And now I know why.’
‘Oh.’ Stella tucked the phone under her chin and unlocked the shop door.
‘I bumped into your Lauren at the shopping centre. Says you’re holding the fort at your uncle’s shop and that Joe’s gone for good.
And there’s me with my new outfit hanging in the wardrobe.
I’ve even got a hat, one with a big brim, fuchsia and black it is, cost an arm and a leg.
I did worry about black being unlucky but it’s only a bow and a trim.
I guess it doesn’t matter now…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Oh,’ Stella said again, placing her bag on the counter. She’d expected a rollicking the moment she’d seen who the caller was but the feeling she’d let her friend down was so much worse.
‘Gone off with some rich blonde, so she said. I hope you’re going to keep that stonking great ring.’
‘No, that wouldn’t be right.’
‘Compensation, that’s what I call it. In the olden days they say you could sue for breach of promise. Though that wouldn’t make up for being left on the shelf.’
Stella had a sudden vision of her and Carol perched in the window of Domenico’s shop, her friend in fuchsia from head to toe, a ‘one not-so-careful owner’ sign around her neck.
‘Don’t cry.’ Carol’s voice softened. ‘I’m sorry I brought it up.’
‘I wasn’t sobbing, I was laughing.’
‘Well, full marks to you for putting on a brave face. But I’m worried about you, Stella. If I could get the time off, I’d fly out.’
Infuriating, forthright and bossy, but Carol always had her back. Should Stella dare mention Gino? It would cheer her friend up.
‘The thing is, Carol, you don’t have to worry. I’m seeing someone else.’
‘Already! Stella, I’m impressed! A handsome Italian?’
‘You could say so.’
‘Tell me more!’
‘He had dinner with me and my uncle last night. But look, I can’t really talk now. I’m at the shop, I’ve got to sort out the till and open up.’
‘I’m certainly not going to hold you up. But just one thing. Do you think there’s any chance I might need that hat? I’ve only got until the end of the week to take it back.’
Stella knew Carol was only joking but she couldn’t resist saying: ‘You might wear it sooner rather than later!’
She held the phone away from her ear. Carol’s excited shriek was loud enough to be heard at the old rustico.
‘Bye, Carol.’ Stella rang off before her friend could say any more.
She turned over the Open sign and began tidying around the counter, glad there was no one waiting outside.
Carol’s comments had set her off daydreaming.
Maybe after all this time, her girlhood dreams could come true.
Domenico certainly suspected a formal relationship was on the cards.
He’d quizzed Gino about his plans last night and Gino had talked about his dreams of moving back to the village and reviving his grandparents’ old olive grove.
And all the time he was talking he’d looked across at Stella as if seeking her approval.
She was as sure as anything that they had a future together.
They hadn’t yet discussed it but Stella had no intention of living off the little Gino would make from the farm.
She had to pay her own way. It seemed obvious that Domenico couldn’t carry on running the shop by himself but there would need to be changes if she were to join him.
They would need to diversify, not into cheap jewellery but into products that enhanced their current offering.
She’d want to keep most of the shop as it was.
The sale of saltcellars, gardening gloves and measuring jugs was their bread and butter, not to mention a valuable service to the residents.
But Amy’s talk of pots and decorative ceramics had sent her imagination soaring.
Stella would make a start today, measuring all the shelf space upstairs and down.
She’d need to get all her ducks in a row to get Domenico on board.
She’d arrange to give Joe his ring back and get Lauren on board with her plans.
And then she’d be free to pick up the pieces of the life she’d left behind the day she fled to England.
‘Buongiorno, Stella.’ Signora Togliatti let the door close behind her.
‘Buongiorno, Signora.’ Stella put down the pen she’d just picked up. ‘What can I help you with today?’
‘An iron, I think.’
Stella came out from behind the counter and set up the mini steps, knowing she’d be getting down every box for the elderly lady’s inspection.
And knowing also that the signora would leave without opening her purse.
For the first few days, Stella had been puzzled as to why nothing ever seemed suitable for such a regular customer.
But she soon cottoned on that the dear old soul was merely coming in for a chat and that the careful examination of options and price tags was a way of preserving the signora’s pride whilst she assuaged her loneliness.
‘This is our top-of-the-range option.’ Stella opened up a cardboard box, removing a steam iron fashioned from garish lime-green plastic.
‘We didn’t have steam in the old days, just an iron with a hotplate.’
‘I expect you heated it on the stove instead of plugging it in,’ Stella said.
‘That’s right, dear. Got ever so hot, used to burn my Aldo’s shirts.’ The old woman chuckled. ‘Never grumbled though, like some men, bless his soul.’
‘It’s all different these days,’ Stella said, reboxing the iron.
‘Oh, you’re too young to talk like that. It doesn’t seem like yesterday since I saw you skipping off to school. Time flies and we’re all getting older but my Giacomo will help Domenico keep up to date.’
Stella paused, one foot on the steps. ‘Sorry? I don’t quite understand.’
‘My grandson, Giacomo. He’s away at the moment, gadding about like young people do but he’ll be starting here in September.
Domenico’s promised him part time at first but after that fall of his, perhaps he will want to give him more hours.
There could be a full-time job for the boy in the end and with Domenico as his boss, he’ll have no better man to learn from. ’
The steps seemed to sway. Stella gripped the edge of the shelf. ‘Domenico’s not said anything to me.’
‘He probably doesn’t want to admit to you that he’s beginning to slow down. Now, my Aldo, he was in denial like that…’
Stella nodded and smiled politely, forcing herself to make appropriate comments as Signora Togliatti chitchatted away about the old days.
At last, the old woman departed. Stella closed her eyes for a few seconds, grounding herself.
She put away her notebook and the measuring tape.
The general store would never turn over enough to keep three of them.
She wasn’t going to build a business; she was just playing shops. There was no future for her here.
* * *
Stella locked up and pulled down the shop shutters.
Signora Togliatti hadn’t gone far. She was standing on the other side of the road in a patch of shade, leaning on her stick, her free hand gesturing as she spoke.
A young woman stood nodding along, her little boy grizzling and pulling at her skirt.
Judging by the woman’s body language, he wasn’t the only one desperate to get away.
Signora Togliatti made one last gesture, turned and trudged off towards home.
She probably wouldn’t speak to another soul all day.
Stella snapped out of her self-pity. Domenico was looking forward to seeing her and tonight she would be in Gino’s arms. She was lucky. Whatever the future held.
Stella strolled back to her uncle’s house and opened the front door. The scent of garlic frying wafted from the kitchen. Domenico was leaning over the stove.
‘What are you doing?’ She’d been all prepared to serve up a lunch of cheese and cold meats.
‘Just making some tomato sauce. And don’t fuss, I’m quite capable. You need a proper meal if you’re working all day and no offence, Stella, but these picnics we’ve been having…’ He waved a hand towards the fridge.
‘I’m not complaining.’ After the signora’s bombshell, comfort food was just what she needed.
‘I’ll throw in the pasta now you’re back.’ He tipped the end of a packet of spaghetti into a huge pot. A froth of bubbles rose and subsided.
‘Are you sure you should…?’
Domenico silenced her with a look. ‘I’ll be back in my shop in a few days.’
‘I hear you’re getting some help soon.’ She kept her voice light.
Domenico grunted. ‘Signora Togliatti been talking to you? Her grandson’s a good lad. He’s not the brightest but he’ll work hard and he’s tall too. Giacomo can reach those high shelves, all right. Save me going up any ladders.’ He chortled.
‘I’ll get the bowls out and set the table,’ Stella said. She opened the cutlery drawer, retrieving forks and a couple of knives in case they finished with fruit.
Domenico drained the pasta pot, a great cloud of steam obliterating his features. ‘What’s bothering you? Something to do with Gino, your fidanzato?’ It was the first time he’d used the word for a serious boyfriend or fiancé.
‘He’s not…’ Stella began. Despite her conversation with Carol, she wasn’t going to tempt fate.
‘Ah, that he is. For better or worse.’ Domenico tossed the pasta in the sauce, his face turned to the wall. Painstakingly he divided the mixture into the two bowls and set them on the table.
Stella wound a tangle of spaghetti strands around her fork. ‘Mmm… this smells good. But what did you mean by “for better or worse”? I thought you’d decided you liked Gino. You seemed to get on so well when he came over for dinner last night.’
‘Eat. We can talk afterwards.’
Reluctantly she obeyed. Every mouthful was as delicious as the first but her stomach churned as though she were back sitting outside the headmaster’s study, not knowing what was to come but knowing it wouldn’t be good.
She laid down her fork. Domenico carried the plates to the sink, waving away her offer to help.
He unscrewed the top of his ancient Bialetti, scooped some coffee grounds from a red tin into the metal basket and tapped them down.
He set the pot on the hob. Still with his back to her, he said: ‘Your papà didn’t want you dating Fernanda’s son. ’
‘Because of something that happened before I was born?’ She couldn’t keep the frustration from her voice.
‘I’m not trying to belittle the horror of it, honestly, I’m not.
It was a dreadful, inexcusable atrocity and if Fernanda’s sister was somehow responsible, that’s shocking.
But you and Papà and Fernanda were all children.
For you it should be history, but Papà made it so personal. ’
Domenico thumped the coffee pot down on the table. The unused knives jumped. Her gentle uncle’s eyes blazed.
‘It was personal!’
‘What do you mean?’ Her voice faltered.
Silently he poured the coffee into his tiny maroon and white cups, the liquid sloshing into the saucers. He handed her one; the cup sat in a brown puddle.
‘Stella, there’s something your mamma and papà never told you. Something you should know.’