Chapter 10 Sophie
S OPHIE
Sophie wakes up smiling at the thought of the day ahead in the kitchen. Last night, the Bianchi siblings and their cousins were so grateful for her help that it was easy to convince them to let her do it again today. The best bit is that Rocco promised she’ll get to do some cooking today.
But with an uncanny knack of ruining good moments, her mother strikes with a text message only seconds after Sophie’s alarm goes off.
Hello again, darling!
Did you receive my email? Just wanted to wish you luck on your first day with Signora Bianchi.
Make good choices with all that tempting Italian food, won’t you?
What she wants to reply is:
Good choices? How good have your choices been, Penelope?
Fuck you.
What she does reply is:
Thanks, Mum. Sorry I’ve been quiet, it’s crazy busy here.
Chat when I get home x
Next, she opens Twitter to check the Australian news. The images of the fires raging through the Eastern States are dystopian. The government is laughing off claims that the disaster could in any way be related to climate change.
That reminds her of the climate art exhibition Rocco had mentioned, so she looks up Venice Rising and clicks on a recent article.
A showcase of international art will descend on Venice, Italy, on 25 December 2019 to bring attention to the rising water levels surrounding the city. Curator Franca Menori says of the inaugural event, ‘Our goal is for the world to finally take notice of the tragedy of our sinking city.’
Venice has just recorded its worst flooding in fifty years with water levels rising to almost two metres, causing millions of dollars’ damage to Saint Mark’s Basilica among other historical buildings, and forcing hundreds of local businesses to close.
The Mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, proclaimed, ‘Venice is on its knees. We need climate action now!’
The governor of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, echoed these sentiments, calling the floods ‘an apocalyptic disaster’.
If the rising water levels continue at the same rate, it’s predicted that Venice will be uninhabitable within fifty years and completely underwater as early as 2100.
A printable map of San Marco showing where to find the Venice Rising installations can be downloaded here.
Uninhabitable in fifty years! Is that true? Sophie googles it: it’s true. How do Venetians deal with this knowledge without completely freaking out? And will an art exhibition actually change anything?
She follows the link to the map showing where the art installations are and takes a screen shot.
So, Australia burns while Venice sinks.
Her stomach growls, pulling her thoughts to more immediate matters than the future of the planet – breakfast. She climbs out from under the fluffy doona and opens the shutters, throwing light into the room. The air is icy when she leans out the window. A fading fog sits over the water of the canal and a solitary moored rowboat rocks in the breeze. There isn’t a gondola or tourist to be seen. The cream stone building opposite is so close she feels as if she could lean over and touch it. She didn’t appreciate yesterday just how narrow this canal is. How on earth do the gondoliers manage to steer around corners that tight?
She takes out her camera and snaps photos of the misty water before she nervously calls Bec. After working together for seven years, she knows her boss well enough to predict Bec won’t be pleased with the situation of no Signora Bianchi in the restaurant. She does a little fist pump when Bec doesn’t answer. She can tell her over text instead. Once that’s done, she gets herself ready for the day and leaves the sanctity of her pretty pink room.
Her mother’s make good choices message pops into her head again and she stomps down each step of the carpeted staircase. It doesn’t matter how far away from home Sophie gets, Penelope somehow always finds a way to make her feel like crap.
When she reaches the hotel lobby, she takes a long, cleansing breath. Today she’s working in the famous Il Cuore, with a side-serve of a hot Italian male. If that’s not living the dream, she doesn’t know what is. So she’s determined to absolutely not let her mother ruin this for her.
Marina and Rocco told her to come to the kitchen at around nine, so she goes into the restaurant first, once again having her breath taken away by the gorgeous forest décor. Along the entire length of one pink-painted wall, a rustic wooden trestle table groans under the weight of fresh fruit, hard-boiled eggs, pancetta, whole loaves of bread, green olives, cherry tomatoes, a cheese board and at least three types of cakes and pastries, along with jugs of juice and a pot of coffee on the end.
‘God, I love my job,’ Sophie says under her breath as she makes a beeline for the coffee.
The small restaurant is packed with couples and families. Breakfast isn’t open to the public; these people are all hotel guests. She’s the only one dining alone.
She pulls out a chair at one of two vacant tables. An elderly American couple at the table next to her stand up to leave, clipping on their bum bags. They’re in the same matching tops they were wearing last night when she served them dinner.
The man, who’s a dead ringer for Santa with his big belly and bushy white beard, is also wearing a bright green sun visor, on an overcast winter’s day, with a slogan on it that gives off ‘Make America Great Again’ vibes. The woman has a tight grey perm and a kind-looking round face with rosy cheeks. Her blue eye make-up is straight out of the 1980s.
Mrs Claus gives Sophie a friendly smile, with hot-pink lipstick stains on her teeth. ‘You have a good day now, won’t you, sugar?’ she drawls in a thick southern accent. ‘God bless you.’
As soon as the couple leaves, Marina rushes past and begins to quickly clear the table they vacated.
‘Hi, Marina,’ Sophie says. ‘How’s your dad going? Any news?’
Marina gives her a distracted look. ‘Sorry? Yes?’
‘Um, I was just asking how your dad’s going.’
‘He is okay, grazie a Dio.’ The plates clatter as Marina hurriedly stacks them on top of each other.
Sophie puts her coffee cup down. ‘Is everything okay? Do you need help back there now instead of at nine?’
‘What? Oh, no, no, thank you, Sophie. All is well.’ It’s quite obvious that all is far from well by the manic way Marina manhandles the crockery. ‘Are you sure you want to spend your day in the kitchen with us? We will manage on our own, no problems. You should go and explore the city while it is not raining.’
As Marina’s talking, Rocco appears from the kitchen, tucking his tight-fitting shirt into his even tighter-fitting pants. When he catches Sophie’s eye, a huge smile lights up his whole face. He pushes his glasses higher on his nose and gives her a jazz-hands wave.
‘There’s nowhere I’d rather be than in the kitchen with you guys,’ Sophie replies to Marina.
‘You are very kind, thank you.’ Marina’s tone softens a little. ‘Make sure you eat first.’
Salvatore comes out and calls Rocco back into the kitchen.
Sophie helps herself to some eggs and bread. Once she’s back at the table, her phone pings with a message from Bec.
What?? Signora Bianchi’s husband had a heart attack?
Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?
And why aren’t you coming home?
WTF IS GOING ON OVER THERE?
Heya! Don’t freak out, it’s all good.
Having brekkie now, so yummy!
Just helping them out for a while.
The fires over there though. OMG! Insane!
Stay safe x
Don’t deflect!
I’m calling you.
A second later, Sophie’s phone rings.
‘Explain yourself!’ Bec shouts.
‘They’re understaffed, so I offered to help out, that’s all.’ Before Bec can reply, Sophie says, ‘I was thinking, even if Signora Bianchi doesn’t come back to work while I’m here, the feature could be from a different perspective: what it’s like to dive head-first into a busy Venetian restaurant. What do you think?’ She bites her lip.
Bec’s exhale is loud. ‘The whole point of sending you over there was to feature Signora Bianchi. Now it’s just you being a slave for these people. Have they even offered to pay you? Don’t let them use you.’
‘They didn’t ask me to work, I volunteered! And I don’t need them to pay me, I’m being paid by you. That is if it’s still okay for me to stay on?’
Rocco comes out from the kitchen again with a fresh pot of coffee that he takes to the buffet table. He smiles and double-hand waves at her again like he’s seeing her for the first time and he didn’t do exactly that three minutes ago. She could eat this man with a spoon.
‘Soph, you’ve never worked in a busy kitchen. You’ve only ever written about them,’ Bec says, pulling her back into the conversation. ‘You’ve no idea how hard this will be. Just come home for Christ’s sake, it’s Christmas!’
‘Christmas was yesterday. Let me do this, please. I really think I could write a great feature. Otherwise I’ll take annual leave and stay on here to help anyway.’
There’s a long pause, then, ‘Ugh, you’re impossible. Fine, stay.’
Yes! ‘You’re the best, thank you! You won’t regret it.’
‘Hmm, that remains to be seen.’
When the call ends, Sophie scoops up her dirty crockery and cutlery as well as those from a nearby table on her way into the kitchen. There she’s greeted by Rocco and his cousins like she’s their long-lost relative who’s just been freed after being held captive in someone’s basement for the past seventeen years.
‘Right, where do I start?’ Sophie rubs her hands together.
‘How neat is your handwriting?’ Marina produces a piece of white chalk from her apron pocket. ‘We all have terrible handwriting, but the daily menu needs to be written on the board. Papà usually writes it.’
‘Easy done. My writing’s so neat I could moonlight as a calligrapher.’
‘You are saving the day already!’ Rocco beams at her.
Marina leads her to a tiny office behind reception where she lays an A-frame blackboard sign flat. She hands Sophie a small piece of paper. On it is scribbled:
Signora Bianchi é via oggi, menù di Rocco Bianchi.
After travelling extensively over Italy for work, Sophie can read basic Italian. The note says, Signora Bianchi is away today, menu by Rocco Bianchi.
Underneath it, the menu reads:
Primo – Zuppa di fagioli
Secondo – Parmigiana di melanzane
Dolce – Tiramisù
Vino – Prosecco di villa Fresca
Sophie knows just about every Italian dish in existence and none of this menu features the traditional Venetian food Signora Bianchi is famous for.
As if reading her thoughts, Marina says, ‘Today we cook what we found in the pantry. We did not have time for the market. So we have no fish, no meat. It’s lucky we at least had leftover beans and eggplants to make the soup and parmigiana. Let’s hope we don’t receive bad reviews.’
‘This all sounds delicious,’ Sophie reassures her.
Sophie learned early on that the best Italian restaurants cater for the locals, so their menus are never in English. And the smaller the menu, the better the food.
Signora Bianchi has taken the limited menu idea a step further. The restaurant offers a single entrée, main and dessert at a set price that changes daily depending on the cost of the produce. The meal comes with a glass of Italian wine chosen to match the food. Il Cuore takes no reservations and opens strictly from six pm to eight pm on a first in, best dressed system.
Marina excuses herself and Sophie gets to work writing the menu, feeling the warm glow of being needed. It gives her a buzz to be writing on the same board that she’s seen in countless Instagram photos. Would Sophie’s mother think she’s made a good choice in staying on at the hotel instead of coming home? She can guarantee the answer would be no. But Penelope Black is an addict who’s ruined lives. She has no right to talk about good choices.