Chapter 19 #2
“You already checked six.”
“Absolutely. Standards must be consistent. Really, it should be a baker’s dozen that I check—I have seven more to go.”
“Put it down or I’ll check whether your hand fits in the deck oven.”
Tonio considered this.
Then he took a bite.
Katerina snatched a wooden spoon from the counter. Tonio retreated through the courtyard toward Mezza Notte, laughing with his mouth full.
“If he comes back,” Katerina shouted after him, “break his legs!”
“No one touch my legs,” Tonio called. “I need them to run away from Kat.”
“Someone take his legs out!” Donatella called from the window.
She held a champagne glass despite the fact that it was not yet noon.
Her lipstick was perfect.
Of course it was.
The bakery had become a command post. Angela and Pietro arranged place cards at a long table near the windows. Angela checked every name twice. Pietro moved each card exactly where she pointed, which seemed to be the foundation of their successful relationship.
Gemma and Cora Caruso stood among buckets of greenery and white flowers. Gemma adjusted stems with careful fingers. Cora tied dark ribbons around the vases, cut them once, and somehow made the arrangement look expensive.
Serafina paced near the ovens with one phone at her ear and another vibrating in her hand.
“No,” she said. “Tell them the figure is final.”
Marco leaned against the counter, watching her.
He offered her coffee.
She ignored it.
He moved the cup into her free hand.
She took a drink without interrupting the call.
I respected the technique.
Donatella stood near the champagne and criticized the flowers.
“That one leans.”
“It’s a flower,” Cora said. “It’s what they do.”
“The ribbon is uneven.”
“You have hands.”
“I have standards.”
“You also have hands. Use them if you care about the flowers so much.”
Donatella lifted her glass. “Sorry, hands a little occupied right now. Important business.”
Sal came through behind me carrying the breakfast tray we had brought downstairs.
Katerina pointed her spoon at him.
“Restaurant.”
“I only came to—”
“Restaurant.”
“I own part of—”
“Not the bakery. Out.”
Sal looked at me.
I smiled sweetly.
“You heard her, Daddy.”
His eyes narrowed with a promise I intended to collect later. Kiryl appeared from the new room carrying a stack of cake stands.
“Men are banned,” he told Sal.
“You are a man? Is there something I’ve missed?”
“I work here. So I don’t count. My gender is immaterial.”
“You work here? Since when?”
“About eleven minutes ago.”
Katerina took the stands from him.
“He follows instructions,” she said.
Tonio leaned through the courtyard doorway. “I follow instructions. And I literally did used to work here.”
“No. I never paid you. You were a volunteer.”
“Katty, come on, you know I’m the brains behind the operation.”
Katerina threw the wooden spoon.
He disappeared.
The spoon struck the doorframe.
Pietro glanced toward it, then returned to the place cards.
“Good throw,” he said.
Katerina looked pleased.
Sal kissed my temple before joining the men in the restaurant. His hand lingered at my waist for one second.
Suspicious again. I caught his sleeve.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to obey the woman with access to knives.”
“What are you planning?”
“Several things.”
“Salvatore.”
“Tonight, Lena.”
Then he left.
I watched him cross the courtyard. Tonio caught him by the shoulder. Marco followed after Serafina finally ended her call. Pietro remained until Angela touched his wrist and told him she could manage the cards.
The women closed ranks behind them.
Not deliberately.
That was what affected me.
Nobody announced that I should stay. Nobody asked whether I wanted to help. Gemma placed a piping bag in my hand as if I had already agreed.
“The border needs finishing,” she said.
I looked at the reopening cake.
It occupied most of the center island. Three wide tiers covered in ivory frosting. Gold-painted sugar leaves climbed one side. The top carried tiny models of Mezza Notte and Filoxenia joined by a courtyard.
“You trust me with this?” I asked.
“No,” Donatella said.
Gemma smiled. “You’ll be fine.”
“I once poisoned a man.”
Everyone stopped.
I waited.
Angela looked up from the cards. “Recently?”
“No.”
“All right, then.”
They returned to work.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
The piping bag was warm from Gemma’s hands. She showed me how much pressure to use. My first line sagged.
Donatella made a pained sound.
“Try not to hate me today,” she said.
I looked at her.
“No promises.”
“Fair.”
Six months had not made us gentle with each other. She had threatened Kiryl while helping rescue me. I understood why. I also reserved the right to resent the quality of her performance forever.
She offered me her champagne.
I took one sip.
That was our version of peace.
We worked around the cake. Cora added small flowers. Gemma repaired my first border without making it obvious. Angela corrected a place card from across the room without standing. Serafina returned to her calls. Katerina directed trays into cooling racks while threatening Tonio through the wall.
The new employee came from the kitchen carrying a tray of small honey cakes. She hesitated when she saw me.
Katerina noticed.
“This is our Lena,” she said. “If she asks for anything, give it to her. Unless it belongs to Tonio. Then hide it.”
Our Lena.
Two small words. The piping bag tightened in my hand.
I had been Lev’s daughter.
Gianni’s intended.
The rescued Russian.
The corporate witness.
The woman under protection.
I knew what possession sounded like. I knew the cold weight of my father’s my. I knew how Gianni had used belonging as a locked door.
This was different.
I bent over the cake before anyone could see my eyes. My next line came out crooked.
Donatella sighed.
“Oh, shut up,” I told her.
“I said nothing.”
“You sighed in cursive.”
Cora laughed.
Katerina placed a plate beside me. A warm piece of pastry. Orange blossom and butter.
“Eat, our Lena.”
I looked at her.
She had already turned away to shout at somebody in the kitchen.
I ate.
Mezza Notte smelled of new wood, old wine, and the faint trace of smoke that no amount of money could fully remove.
Tonio had refused to eradicate it.
One section of blackened brick remained behind a tall pane of glass near the main dining room. Fire had darkened the mortar and split one brick down the middle. A small brass plate beneath it carried the date of the attack.
We can’t ever outgrow trauma—it becomes part of us.
The rest of Mezza Notte looked brighter than before. Warm gold lights reflected in dark windows. New tables filled the room. The bar shone. Fresh paint covered the places where smoke had climbed the walls, but old photographs had gone back into their original positions.
Every displaced employee had returned.
The guard who had been shot at the legal suite had been invited too. He walked with a black cane now and became furious whenever somebody moved a chair for him.
“I have one bad leg,” he said loudly. “Not a fatal allergy to furniture.”
Sal greeted him with a hand on his shoulder. The guard looked at me.
For one second, the corridor came back. Smoke. Gunfire. His body hitting the wet carpet.
Then he smiled.
He raised his glass to me and moved on before I could thank him.