Chapter 15 Then #2
“To be fair to them, I think I was a handful. I talked a lot, asked a lot of questions, never slept in, never stayed put in my seat. I always asking for some new something—a toy, a game, an adventure, pushing for more than what was right in front of me. I didn’t make it easy for them to…”
Love me, I think. “Enjoy my childhood,” I tell him.
Alex gently knocks his knee with mine under the table. I glance his way but find it hard to meet his eyes, self-conscious.
I have no idea why I just told him all that.
I never told Ethan all of that. It was too embarrassing, too humiliating, to admit that my parents never made me feel unloved, but they never made me feel particularly loved either, and for a long time I’ve yo-yoed between whether that was my fault or theirs, but whosever fault it was, I knew it wasn’t something you broadcast to the guy you hoped was falling in love with you.
No matter who was at fault, it didn’t paint me in a flattering light.
“You sound like Mia,” Alex says.
There’s such affection in his voice for his little girl, whom I know from her StoryTime visits to be a ball of curious, precocious, talkative, always-moving exuberance—a little girl who reminds me a lot of the little girl I used to be. A lump settles in my throat.
“Well,” I tell him, “then may I recommend, if you get to the point where you’ve been poked and pleaded with so much you feel like you’re about to lose your mind, that you shove a stack of good books in her hands.”
Alex tips his head. “Is that what your parents did? Gave you books?”
“My mom did,” I tell him. “I think she was at her wit’s end.
She took me to the library, told me that it was where I could find everything I was looking for, that reading a book was like getting to live another life.
That sold me. I fell in love with reading.
I mean, I became obsessed. I tore through the entire kids’ section, then every middle-grade title at our local branch. ”
Alex smiles.
“I didn’t love every book I read, but I loved even that experience.
Knowing if one wasn’t my favorite, I’d find one that was.
And I did. I found so many favorites. And once I did, I started wanting to reread them, missing my favorite characters like they were friends who’d moved away, so eager to revisit their worlds, feel that magic again, and I’d have these meltdowns when I realized I’d returned a favorite book and couldn’t reread it.
I got so sad that I couldn’t highlight my favorite passages, doodle hearts and thoughts throughout the best chapters.
Dad figured out the solution to that part.
He took me to the nearby secondhand bookstore, because we were always on a budget.
I found so many of the ones I loved. And we bought so many books, we had to ask for boxes to carry them out. I’d never been so happy in my life.”
His smile deepens. “And now you’re a bookseller.”
“Now I’m a bookseller,” I tell him.
“Is that the dream for you?”
I’m taken aback by his question. I can’t remember the last time someone asked me what my dream was, for myself, my future.
“Yes,” I tell him. “And no.”
He tips his head. “Go on.”
“I used to dream about opening up my own bookstore when we lived in St. Louis. Well, it started in St. Louis. I got a job at a local indie bookstore there when my publishing job in New York didn’t happen.
Back when we were in college, Ethan told me he planned to build his consulting career for a few years in St. Louis, then take it to New York, which lined up perfectly with my professional hopes.
While I waited for him, I got a job at the bookstore in St. Louis, and then he kept delaying the move to New York, until… ”
“He said, ‘Just kidding, let’s go to Pittsburgh instead’?” Alex offers.
I nod.
Alex’s jaw tightens. “And he had no qualms about crushing your career aspirations?”
“I wasn’t too disappointed by the time he told me about Pittsburgh.
I’d fallen in love with bookselling, and I’d started dreaming about how I could open up my own place one day.
Then we moved to Pittsburgh, and I got a job at The Bookshop to build my network here, and instead of dreaming up my own store, I realized I wanted the one I was working in. ”
His eyebrows lift. “As in, you want to own it?”
“One day,” I tell him. “If it works out. Fern, the owner, she’s built something incredible in that store for the past thirty years, but…
it’s also frozen in time in some pretty major ways.
I have ideas, plans, tools for expanding it physically, online, through social media, with in-person and online events.
The Bookshop is great as it is, but it could be incredible.
There’s so much that’s possible that I’d love to do to make the store a knockout. ”
Alex smiles. “Sounds like that’s the dream.”
“Operative word being dream,” I tell him. “For now. What about you?”
“My dream?” he asks.
“And your background, your family. Same as I told you.”
Alex drains his water like he wishes it was something much stronger. “Well, I come from a dysfunctional Italian restaurant family. Lots of yelling. And good food. And big fights. And great music. Too much churchgoing. Not enough therapy.”
“Ooh.” I lean in. “I read a book about a family like that.”
He leans in, too. “Sounds like the last kind of book I’d want to read.”
“Tell me more.”
While we finish our breakfast, he does. I hear all about Alex growing up in Luna’s kitchen, napping on benches during prep hours when he was too young to be in school.
Learning to cook from his parents, aunts, and uncles.
Earning his place in the kitchen first in the grunt work of peeling, chopping, washing dishes.
Then, finally throwing himself into cooking, driven to be the best, to make a place for himself among what sounds to be a very intense, very large extended family and three formidable sisters.
“For a long time, I hated it,” he says, sitting back in his chair. Our plates are empty. My belly is deliciously full.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because it was so consuming, chaotic, volatile. I felt… trapped in a world I didn’t ask to be brought up in.
” He peers down at his plate, arms folded across his chest, as he says, “But then I realized, I didn’t have to feel trapped.
Or even stay stuck. I could be so fucking good, I’d blow right out of there.
And for a while I did. I made a name for myself, worked at some of the world’s best restaurants.
Then I came back here when my dad had a heart attack scare, met Jen through a friend of a friend.
Stayed for Jen. Opened my restaurant, became obsessed with my restaurant. You know the rest. Broadly, at least.”
“I do.” I lean in, elbows on the table. “So after all that, what’s the dream for you?”
He peers down at the table, runs his finger along a mark in the wood.
“I’m not sure, honestly. In another life, in which I wasn’t tethered to Pittsburgh, I’d leave, open up a new place in another city, not because Pittsburgh’s a bad place; it’s a great city in lots of ways—affordable-ish housing, already strong and growing stronger food scene, tons of green space, a culture of hard work and humble beginnings.
It’s just that staying here, when so many people here know me, Jen, my family, it’s like the narrative’s already written for me, which makes it tougher to envision how I can evolve, change, be inspired. It feels…”
“Limiting?” I offer.
He nods. “Yeah.”
“I get that,” I say quietly. “Do you… resent Mia for that? Tethering you to Pittsburgh?”
Alex smiles softly. “Nah. Staying here makes some parts of my life feel harder, but… she’s worth it. She’s worth everything.”
My heart clutches. My throat feels suddenly thick. “So… with the life you have, the one you’re living right now, what’s the dream?”
“Right now.” He tips his head, narrows his eyes.
“I’d say the dream is be a good dad and crank out this final cookbook I’m contracted to write, then figure out if I can ever work at the restaurant again without losing myself to it.
” After a beat, he says, “I don’t know if I’m capable of dreaming without going too big, too hard. ”
He slants a glance my way. “Don’t celebrity tease me right now, but you really didn’t know any of that? You didn’t google me?”
“I did, yes.”
He seems to brace himself. “And?”
“And I remembered the internet can be a dumpster fire of misinformation. I typed in your name, then immediately closed out of the browser before I could read a thing.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because I didn’t want to learn the internet version of Alex Bruscato. I wanted to learn this one, the real one, in front of me. You.” I lean in, wiggling my eyebrows. “Besides, it’s not every day you become IRL besties with a chef prodigy.”
He hollers, “I said no teasing!”
“You said no celebrity teasing. And did I say that word? Besides just now,” I clarify.
He narrows his eyes at me, but he’s fighting a smile.
I pick up his dish, then stack it on mine. “Come on, Chef. I’ll clean up, and you can tell me more about your rise to fame.”
I’m wrapping up the dishes while Alex wipes down his range when he asks me, “So how did you eventually figure out my… background?”
I smile over at him. “Your first cookbook, it was an apartment-warming gift from Lauren. The best friend who’s moving,” I remind him.
“Ouch.” He slaps a hand over his heart. “That hurts.”
“What?”
Alex throws the towel he was using over his shoulder and leans in. “I’m your best friend, remember? Your oldest, dearest friend?”
“Ah, of course. And my first love!”
“Damn right.” He snaps the towel at my butt, making me yelp.
Our eyes meet, wide with mutual shock.
“Shit,” he says, “I’m so sorry. Why did I do that? I don’t know. God, it’s so weird. Sometimes I forget we barely know each other—”
I cackle. “Your face!”
He whips the towel at my butt again. “You’re a menace!”