Chapter 11
By Monday I’m tired. The restaurant is always busy, but weekends feel more lively and we always close later in the evening. Now is also the most popular hunting time for tourists, so Nico and I have been sleeping outside for a few nights in a row.
He and I feed the cows every morning after waking up.
He isn’t comfortable enough yet to let them roam around his land again—not because the hunters wouldn’t see them during the day but because he’s become convinced that Tommaso and his allies have been messing with the fence, and he doesn’t trust them not to stage an “accident” to get back at Gia.
If the cows stay fenced in, Tommaso would have no excuse.
But that means I’m arriving to the restaurant at eleven after a poor night’s sleep with just enough time to grab my tea and shower (and okay, yes, still shoot the shit with Emilia and Nico over that cup of tea. Because what, am I not allowed to live?).
I tried explaining the scenario to my dad, who told me not to get behind on my “pasta studies.” It made me realize it would be impossible to explain this place to anyone who isn’t here. How do I get into the fact that my “pasta studies” include loyalty to an elderly woman whose cows are in trouble?
I decide these evenings with Nico don’t need to be mentioned again.
And in another twist on “things that are wasting my time,” I also spent a large portion of the week arguing with Gia over her boar ragù.
Yes, it’s a classic dish to the region—ragù di cinghiale—and she serves it over a polenta that is somehow crispy on the outside and pillowy soft on the inside.
But my argument that we have to hit the hunters where it hurts found no purchase with Gia.
And honestly, I’ve got to respect someone so old school that she could have a blood feud with some dudes but still not let that touch her culinary integrity. She’s hardcore.
So this is all to say, maybe I’m not in the best mood when I get in the car with Nico to go get new fencing to patch up the spots that are broken.
I’ve tried to convince him that since they’re dramatically too small for a cow to get through, it doesn’t matter.
But Nico likes to live on principles, which I can’t fault him for.
And apparently our principles include not letting Gia’s fence “sit in ruin” (his words, not mine).
So since he once again made it about Gia’s honor, I insisted on going with him on my day off.
But now that it is my day off, I’m a little cranky.
“I would’ve thought enough of Emilia’s pastries would solve anything for you,” he jokes as we pull out of Manciano, heading toward Saturnia, another nearby town.
“Apparently they’re not as all-powerful as we thought,” I pout.
“There’s a good pastry shop in Saturnia; we could double down.”
My mouth drops open in shock. “We’re not going to cheat on Emilia!”
“You think I’ve never eaten breakfast anywhere in this entire region other than Belpagna?” he asks. I’m silent because I want to answer Yes, but I know rationally that’s absurd. “Do you think I also only ever have dinner at Pasta Fresca?”
I scrunch my nose and try to think of something pithy to say in retort, but I’m too tired. I’m saved by the bell of the GPS voice blaring out from my phone saying, In five hundred meters, turn left.
But Nico doesn’t make a move to turn. “Are you so distracted by cheating on all your most loyal and beloved women that you’re going to make a wrong turn?” I ask.
“That’s not the right way,” he says offhandedly.
“If you keep going straight, it adds four minutes to the drive!”
“Who cares?”
“Why wouldn’t you go the faster way?”
“Because I’ve done this drive a hundred times,” he points out.
“But maybe you’ve just been doing it wrong for twenty years, and you never knew because you didn’t turn on your GPS.”
He sighs, and I’m shocked when he flicks on his left blinker and makes the turn.
I’m, again, without a comeback. I’m so used to fighting with men after drawing nonsensical lines in the sand and having them be just as unwilling to back down as I always am.
It’s a habit you have to form as a female chef.
You can’t show weakness or compromise because you’ll always get run over.
It’s a callus that forms over itself every time you try to be conciliatory, only to have it backfire on you.
But Nico simply made the turn.
“Okay, where to now?” he asks.
My mind is still practically going through a hard reboot, but I manage to say, “You’re on this for a couple kilometers, and then you turn right, and that takes you straight into the center of town.”
“Really?” His tone always surprises me. It’s never dubious. He’s always curious. He practically exists to be curious and have his mind changed. Although, from a work perspective, I guess you can’t aim to upend production protocols if you aren’t open to trying new things.
“That’s what it says,” I respond, looking over the map one more time.
We turn right, down a smaller road. “I guess this must be a shortcut I never knew about,” he says gamely, driving along even as the road turns to dirt and starts narrowing.
We’re only about a minute in when I start to suspect I’ve made a mistake.
We’re on a road, sure, but it’s looking less and less like one the farther we go.
A dirt path stretches in front of us, caged by trees that lean in, making the road look like it has a tented canopy.
All the vegetation makes it hard to see where the road might let out.
And as we keep going, the dirt becomes heavily scattered with rocks, with some of them large enough that the car goes over them like they’re speed humps.
Nico keeps going, but he’s slowing down. There are increasingly more rocks, and the trees are tightening in. When I see branches start to scrape the windows, I have to speak up.
“I think . . .” I start, fighting all my instincts. “I think I was wrong. You need to stop the car.”
He slowly stops and then looks over at me. “Did we take the wrong turn?”
I hand him my phone and show him Google Maps pulled up on it.
“We did take the turn it says we should take. And it’s still showing that we go straight. But . . . I think it’s an error in the map. I don’t think we can actually go this way.”
“Do you want to try and go a little farther to see?”
I appreciate how, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that this is absolutely a disaster, he’s still letting me make the call.
I put my head in my hands. “I’m kind of worried about the rocks puncturing your tires at some point,” I admit. My voice is muffled, and I’m so embarrassed. He knew how to go, and I stupidly thought I knew better—or, to be fair to me, that our overlords at Google knew better. But still.
“I’m so sorry, Nico. I shouldn’t have insisted.”
I start to feel my heart speed up, and not in a fun way.
I’m not used to being the fuckup. I’m the person who executes.
I’m the person you can count on. I’m the person who will work ten times harder to get us where we need to go.
And, unhelpfully, this total screwup suddenly brings forward everything else I’ve screwed up lately—I wasn’t good enough for John; I couldn’t protect my restaurant; I don’t have anyone other than Anita who chooses to be my friend outside of work.
And now I’m trapped in a forest where spiraling seems like the only rational option.
But Nico gently takes hold of my wrist with one hand and lifts my chin up with the other, snapping me out of it. “No one could have guessed the map was wrong, okay? It’s not a big deal.”
Normally when Nico touches me in any way, all I feel is that undeniable spark between us. But this time it’s so tender I want to cry. No one has ever treated me with care the way he does. I pull my hand away and bite my nails so I won’t keep going down the path of turning into a basket case.
But that doesn’t go unnoticed either.
“Please stop hurting yourself, okay?” he asks quietly. I put my hands down, and I can see him exhale. I exhale out slowly with him, and then he keeps talking. “Okay . . . we just have to back up, I guess? We got in, so we can get out. We’ll take it slow, and eventually we’ll get back on the road.”
I nod and take a deep breath. He’s right. It’s a challenge, and we can handle it. I’m someone who knows what it’s like to be totally in the weeds on the line. I know what it’s like to have everyone counting on you to slowly but surely get yourself out of whatever hole you’re in. So this I can do.
I shake out my shoulders and get back into game mode.
“I definitely didn’t save us four minutes, huh?” I joke, knowing the best way to get back on track is to fake it until I make it. If I can fake feeling lighter, then eventually it’ll be real.
“No,” he says with a smile, “but you did get us an adventure.”
He puts the car in reverse, and immediately I can see that this is going to be near impossible.
The car has a backup camera, but because branches are hitting us from every side, the car interprets them as though we’re hitting something at each door.
And as a result, instead of showing the image on the screen that would help us line up the tires, it’s blaring angry sounds and showing an image of the car with bright red on either side to politely remind us that we’re too close to the edges.
All I can contribute is whether he seems too close on my side, but with such little wiggle room, it’s impossible to know with any accuracy. I try to open the window so I can look out, but all that gets me is some branches with truly unnecessarily sharp thorns on my arms.
This cannot be the best way to do this.
“Okay,” I finally say, “I know I got us into this mess, so please tell me to fuck off if you want to, but can I make a suggestion?”
He stops backing up, parks the car, and turns to face me. Without the car constantly beeping at us, the silence of being stuck in a mass of trees is suddenly deafening.