Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
GIOVANNI
CAFIERO FAMILY CHAT
Enzo: How’s Nonna?
Me: I’m doing great, Enzo. Thank you.
Nico: Hidden Italy was packed all day, and a woman came in yesterday and asked me to sign her tits.
Me: Is that a complaint?
Nico: More of an observation. They were nice tits, but it was obvious she thought I was you.
Enzo: Was she drunk? Giovanni’s nose is twice as big as yours.
Giovanni: Now, I know you’re still pissed at me. Only an angry man would lie like that.
Aria: Did you sign them?
Aria: It would have been rude to turn her down.
It’s day eleven or maybe twelve of my life on the farm, and so far no one other than the Murphys has noticed me. And none of the Apple Ridge Murphys know about my unintentional, temporary fame.
I’ve spent most of my time with Theo, who has stoically accepted my presence.
We work in the fields together, and his attitude toward me has thawed enough that he lets me use his home gym.
The rest of my time has been devoted to cooking at the farmhouse with Nonna Francesca and Nonna Rose.
Those are the best moments: listening to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin with the nonnas while we make too much food and they tell me stories plucked from their combined one hundred and sixty or so years of existence.
Theo and Bianca eat with us most nights, although sometimes Bianca comes home too late, and I set aside a plate for her. Isabella, their little sister, has joined us a couple of times too. She’s Aria’s age, and she runs a B&B here in town—the same B&B the Murphys’ mother used to run before moving.
It really is good for Nonna here. She’s softer than usual, but also sharper, like she’s forming present-day memories that might stick instead of drifting away like soap bubbles.
Back home, I could feel her slipping away. All of us kids could. But now, she’s coming back, like this farm is working a kind of reverse-aging magic.
Bianca has barely spent any time at the house. She leaves early in the morning and returns late in the afternoon or evening. Theo told me her usual shifts run from nine to three, which leaves several mysterious hours between the end of her shifts and her usual return to the farmhouse.
She had a couple of days off in the middle of my stay, but she spent all of the first day reading up in her room. It must have been some book, because when I asked if she wanted to pick apples and make a pie, she reminded me she never wanted to try my pie and turned the page.
I made a pie anyway, using the farm’s fresh apples. Frankly, I wanted to see if she’d break.
When I brought the pie out after dinner, everyone took a slice—except for her.
Her nonna frowned at her. “Bianca, you love apple pie.”
“I don’t have much of a sweet tooth tonight,” she said archly, her gaze fixed on me.
She had the imprint of a pillow on her face, probably from all that reading she’d been doing, and her bun was crooked. But maybe my self-imposed exile from civilization had reengineered my brain, because I couldn’t pull my eyes away from her.
I craved her approval.
“You’ll insult Giovanni if you don’t try his pie,” her nonna insisted.
“And you’re too thin,” my nonna added. “Much too thin. You should eat two slices. Three.”
Bianca knew better than to deny both of the nonnas, so she served herself a slice, scooped on some of the whipped cream I’d prepared, took a bite, and then shrugged. “It’s not half bad.”
Not half bad?
She clearly knew those words would get under my skin—as if she were insulting my masculinity as well as my pie.
The next day at lunch, Bianca’s nonna told her she should show me around town. This time, I was the one who shook my head. I couldn’t just stroll around town, as if my face weren’t all over certain tucked-away corners of the internet.
“You don’t want to see Apple Ridge?” Nonna Rose asked as if mortally offended.
Fuck.
But Nonna Francesca knew exactly why I couldn’t go on a lookabout, so she piped up, “He’s tired. All this work on the farm. My boys aren’t used to it. They’re soft from too much time in a store. Let him rest.”
“You’re too soft, Giovanni?” Bianca asked with a mischievous glimmer in her eye.
I flexed my arm. “See for yourself.”
She poked it as if it were a sea slug. “Like a deflated soufflé,” she lied, her mouth tipping up. “Your loss. I was going to invite you to my art club. You could have made a painting of your pie.”
She didn’t say mediocre before pie, but I heard it.
Even so, I wanted to go to her art club. I didn’t care if there were fifty members or two, or even if they were interesting or the most boring people on the planet. I was so socially starved, I would have gone to a lecture on finance law or the latest diet craze.
But I knew better than to rise to Bianca’s taunt, so I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll make one anyway.”
And when she went up to her room that night, long after Theo, the nonnas, and I had dinner, I heard her laughing softly to herself.
Because I’d slid a pencil sketch of a dancing pie under her door.
That was four busy, nearly silent days ago, and I can feel myself bursting at the seams.
I start the day like usual, with a hot shower. After I get dressed, I kiss the charm on my necklace and tuck it beneath my shirt. My grandfather gave it to me when I was a boy, and honoring him is part of my daily ritual.
When I leave the bathroom, I glance at Bianca’s doorway, but it’s sealed, like usual.
Her room has an attached bathroom. Miles’s does not, something he used to complain about when we were kids.
I used to bunk with him in his room on our visits, while Enzo and Nico would stay with Theo, who had the largest room.
Aria shared Isabella’s tiny room, and Bianca, as the eldest girl, had her own space.
I head downstairs, whistling, trying to amp myself up for another day of hauling apples, tagging trees based on the fruits’ level of readiness, and whatever else Theo needs help with today.
I thought it would be boring on the farm, and…
There’s no “and.” It is fucking boring. In fact, if I keep going on like this, it won’t be long before I paint smiley faces on the trees and start having full-on conversations with them.
I love being around people: talking, laughing, flirting, telling stories. It’s what makes me feel alive.
But I tell myself boring is exactly what I need right now, after the clusterfuck that was unleashed in Maine.
When I head down the stairs and into the kitchen, the only person sitting at the old, white-painted table is Bianca. She’s wearing a short-sleeved black dress with a pumpkin-colored button-up sweater.
“You’re here,” I say, beaming at her. It’s too much, probably, but I’m starved for company.
“I live here,” she says, lifting her mug for a sip of coffee. She always takes it black.
After a second, she relents and adds, “It’s one of my days off. Yesterday would have been, but I was covering for someone.”
I pour myself a cup of coffee, then add enough cream to turn it a light caramel brown.
“What’ll you have for breakfast?” I ask, trying not to sound desperate.
“I don’t usually eat breakfast. You must have noticed by now.”
I press a hand to my chest. “And your nonna lets you get away with that?”
She laughs. “Are you going to tattle on me?”
“Maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll let you off the hook if you consent to eating some eggs.”
Her nose scrunches. “I hate eggs.”
“Pancakes? Everyone likes pancakes.”
She studies me with a bemused smile. “Not everyone, it turns out.”
“Will you try a bite of mine? I’m a pretty good cook. It’s become a hobby of mine over the past year or so.” I have half a mind to tell her everything, if only to prove my point, but you don’t go around hiding your secret identity only to give it out for free over the breakfast table.
“I still don’t know the real reason you’re here,” she says as if she can read my thoughts. “So, no, I won’t eat your pancake payoff. Anyway, we don’t have time. We have to get going.”
“We?” I ask, baffled.
Aside from her jokey invitation to her art club the other day, I’ve gotten the distinct impression that Bianca is avoiding me.
I’ve tried to be okay with that. She was right that first night—she has no obligation to be my friend. But I’m lonely as hell.
“Our nonnas didn’t tell you?” Bianca asks, snapping me out of my self-pity.
I scratch the back of my head, sensing a trap. “Tell me what?”
I notice her gaze shift to my arm, so I keep it flexed for longer than necessary.
Bianca clears her throat and drops her gaze to her coffee.
“My brother found a wagon he wants to buy for hayrides. The old one literally fell apart with a cartful of tourists in it this past summer. He thinks it’ll go quickly, so he needs to check it out today.
Your nonna insisted on going. She says she can get him a deal no man could hope for. ”
“That tracks. And your nonna?”
“She would have felt left out if she didn’t go.
Plus, our grandmothers got into a spat about which of them could get the better deal.
If you ask me, Theo’s in for some embarrassment, but he really wants that wagon.
” Amusement crosses her face. “But if you want the real reason my grandmother is tagging along, I think she’s still hoping we’ll fall madly in love if we keep getting thrown together. ”
“Maybe she’s right,” I say with my most seductive smile. “But we’ll never know because you refuse to let me make you breakfast.”
She laughs, which is an encouraging improvement. “You don’t have to make me breakfast, Giovanni. You’ve been cooking steadily since you got here. Aren’t you ready for a break?”
“I like cooking for people. Especially beautiful women who dislike me.”
Rolling her eyes, she says, “You’ll have plenty of chances to practice flirting today. Don’t waste it on me. It’s going to be a big day at the pumpkin patch.”
“Are Charlie Brown and the whole crew coming?”