Chapter 24 #2
Instead, she swatted away her conscience with words.
“I just work here a few days a week. It’s not my shop, but it’s nice to be out by the port where people come and go.
You meet some interesting tourists once in a while.
Once, a whole family of Orthodox all the way from the United States.
So many children, in and out of the shelves.
It made my head spin! The shop cat—Turnip—was skittish all day.
” As if in response, the white tom raised his head and licked a paw in the window, where he sat trying to soak up what little sun peeked through the low gray clouds.
“I always wonder what brings people to want to visit such an out-of-the-way place as this.”
“I like it here. Life runs at a slower pace; there’s nowhere near the traffic.
Some days I can walk three miles along the shore and never come across another soul.
Not to mention the beauty everywhere.” Dante’s eyes unmistakably fixed on Mira’s, and a current ran through her.
She couldn’t help the blush that rose to color her face.
A deep rumble of thunder shook the windowpanes, and the loud patter of raindrops echoed off the tiled roof above them.
“Looks like you’re stuck here for a bit.” Mira shrugged. “How about I get the Moka pot going for some espresso and you can tell me about being a teacher?”
Dante took off his jacket and accepted the stool she scooted out for him.
The rain had set in, and there was no chance anyone else would stop by for the rest of the afternoon.
Mira’s ladder stood abandoned in the back of the store.
They whiled away the day like they were old friends, laughing and talking about their favorite parts of the island, books, music, food, family.
Dante told her his father was a university professor and his mother taught languages in the local school in their Sicilian town.
He was, in fact, from a long line of teachers, so wanting to teach came naturally, he supposed.
“Maybe it’s kind of old-fashioned to have a profession in your family line, like being shoemakers or—” He searched for another example and breathed deeply as the aroma of fresh bread from next door filled the room.
“Bakers. But I think it’s a treasure. People don’t pass things down like that anymore. ”
That was when Mira’s heart cracked open the faintest bit, letting in a sliver of hope along with the tingle of something else she’d never tasted before, something more delicious than Signor Donetti’s pastries and sourdough.
The rest of that spring, in the late afternoons when Mira was scheduled at the bookshop, Dante stopped by most days after school had let out if he didn’t have students to tutor.
He brought amaretti from the bakery or a sack of fresh-baked cookies stashed in his satchel, and they’d share the treats with espresso.
Signora Petrolus busied herself in the back, poring over ledgers that were already perfect or peering in Mira’s direction over the tops of her glasses “to see if customers are coming.” Carmina joined the pair sometimes, when she had time off from the bakery, and the three of them played cards or checkers when Mira finished her tasks.
Toward the end of April, Carmina sat at the front counter, munching crackers spread with artichoke paste, while Mira finished putting away a new order of gialli, the so-called yellow books of suspense and crime. Carmina licked her fingers and came out with it.
“Has he kissed you yet?” she asked.
“We sit in the front of the shop, between your mamma and a plate-glass window. When would he have done that?”
“Plenty of shelves to duck behind,” Carmina observed, waving her sticky fingers.
Mira tucked her hair behind an ear. “No, he hasn’t.”
“What’s he waiting for? In another week or so, we’ll be lucky if we see you at all.” When Mira stayed quiet, her friend’s eyes widened and her mouth opened in midchew. “You haven’t told him yet?”
“I don’t know how to explain it.” She’d been agonizing over this very thing. Mira rushed on. “What am I going to say: well, you see, Dante, I can’t see you anymore because I have to dive for these clams every day and practically live as a hermit while I turn their threads into gold.”
“When you say it like that,” Carmina admitted.
Mira chewed her fingernail. “I don’t want him to think I’m odd. It is odd. Do you know anyone else who does what I—what we—do?”
“Well, no, Mira. What you do is unique, obviously. But it’s beautiful and special.”
“I hope Dante sees it that way.”
“Well, I hope he kisses you and whatever spell you’re under with him is never broken.”
“You live a constant fairy tale in that head of yours, Carmina,” Mira said with a laugh.
Carmina counted on her fingers. “We have the handsome prince and the pretty maid who’s secretly a witch.”
“Carmina!”
“I’m joking.” She paused a moment to consider what she’d said. “You’re the one who said you spin thread into gold, not me.”
The bell jangled loudly as the shop door swung open. “Mira.” Zaneta’s voice was a reprimand. “You need to give notice to Signora Petrolus,” she said. “You’ll be working at home for the summer.”
“I think I can do both, Mamma,” started Mira.
“We’ll be much too busy for that. Besides, you’ll have more to learn now that you’ve turned eighteen. Be home by dinner.” The bell protested once more as the door banged shut behind her, and Mira sighed.
“How am I going to see Dante now?” she whined.
“Every fairy tale has a dragon,” Carmina said, frowning at the shop’s closed door. “We’ll figure something out.”