Chapter 23
The garbage disposal is making a strange grating noise. It is disturbing Ophelia.
I receive the text from Solomon as I’m cuddled up in bed very late that night, writing up the recipe for the biscotti.
She is hiding under the couch and cannot be coaxed out even with wild salmon.
I send him a frowny-face emoji and the number of the apartment repair line, then dash off a quick, hopeful email to Michelle with the two recipes I have so far – the merenda recipe and the biscotti recipe I just finished.
I attach the gorgeous photos Alex took of both dishes, along with short personal anecdotes about sharing the merenda with my dad and how I loved to bake biscotti with Nonna every summer.
Is this what Epicure Press is looking for? I ask, then cross myself and kiss my thumb for luck, and hit send.
It’s getting late, but I’m wired. Instead of going to sleep, I type out another recipe from today, a simple yet delicious pasta dish called agnolotti (which translates to “priest hats” for their crimped, square shape) that Nonna and I made for dinner.
As we were baking the biscotti, I remembered making this dish with Nonna when I was younger, the pasta stuffed with a savory meat filling and served with shaved local white truffles on top.
It’s one of Nonna’s favorites, and she was happy to show me how she prepares it.
Tonight we ate it on the patio under the olive trees strung with café lights. It was magical.
Next, I text Lisa, who has (unsurprisingly) not checked in with me since I let her know we’d arrived safely. Maybe she’s in communication with Alex, but I kind of doubt it.
Buongiorno! We’re enjoying delicious Italy.
I include a photo I snapped at the market of Alex and me eating focaccia, the lake a deep blue behind us, our smiles wide and happy.
My last task is to post the week’s The Bygone Kitchen cooking segment, the peach pandowdy episode, and I spend a few minutes responding to all the likes and comments on last week’s segment.
Ethel has posted a comment about the green tomato pie, telling us it was the perfect cure for morning sickness when she was a young wife.
Then she ends her comment with a line of fourteen tomato emojis interspersed with hearts and baby bottles.
I take my time responding to everyone. I really do love this community.
There’s a Vietnam vet in a wheelchair, Marv, who makes the featured recipe every week, then posts a photo and his honest opinion on the dish.
He hates most of them, but I think he’s lonely and likes to feel a part of something.
And of course Ethel, and so many others.
I have come to care about these people. It feels like a real little community we’ve built over these past five years.
It’s hard to think about what comes next.
There are only two prerecorded segments left, and soon I’m going to have to figure out what to do about the show.
I’m not ready to think about that or make any decisions yet, though, so I put it off another week. Instead I call Aurora.
“Tell me everything!” Aurora demands when she picks up the video call. “I need all the details.”
I sigh and snuggle down in the big heavy double bed, ready to oblige her. It’s the bedroom Aurora and I shared when we would visit during the summers, and now I feel nostalgic talking with my sister while sitting here alone.
It’s late afternoon in Virginia, and she’s in the garden with the children.
They’re scattered down the rows of vegetables behind her, wearing straw sun hats and picking various types of lettuces.
Aurora is wearing a straw sun hat with a floral ribbon, her golden hair in a thick braid over her shoulder.
It’s giving off big Anne of Green Gables vibes.
I grab a few biscotti from the plate on my nightstand and fill her in on the juicy details of our trip so far, including my excruciatingly humiliating reunion with Nicolo, the horrid sleep shirt, and introducing Alex to the market.
“Wait a minute, let me get this straight,” Aurora says when I’m finished. “Your first love has moved back next door, is always around helping Zio Lorenzo, and is a superhot international attorney?” She looks delighted. “I absolutely love this for you!”
She bends over a row to help two of the boys with their lettuce-harvesting technique, showing them how to cut the lettuce correctly.
“Remember, Atticus and Dante, cut no more than one third of the butter lettuce leaves,” she instructs, then straightens and says to me, “I need a picture of Nicolo instantly.”
“I’m not going to snap a sneaky photo of him,” I protest indignantly. “That’s creepy.” But already I’m trying to figure out how to get a photo of him. Maybe I could google him? Surely, there’s some photo of him on the Internet if he was working as some hotshot attorney?
“Meadow, start on the snap peas, honey,” Aurora instructs.
“The rest of you keep cutting the lettuce. Remember, take the lower outside leaves first.” She floats to the other end of the huge garden where she can oversee the children but have a bit of privacy.
“Now, tell me everything. I want all of the juicy details.” She leans forward and confesses, “Will has been gone for three days at a farrier’s convention and I am desperate for adult conversation.
I almost turned on the television last night after the kids went to bed.
” She looks guilty since they’ve all committed to a no-screen-time summer.
“I came this close to caving and watching The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City .”
“Well here’s something that’s worthy of reality TV,” I tell her, then share the family legend of Margaret and Angelica and the cookbook, about how it is blank for me but shows Nonna half a recipe for Orange Blossom Cake.
I tell her about the three women cooking pasta super early this morning, and Nonna’s explanation about the cookbook’s abilities.
When I’m done, Aurora’s eyes are round and blue as Delft saucers.
“No, this is way better than reality TV,” she breathes.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I tell her, sure she’s going to say I’m imagining things. But she surprises me.
“Maybe it sounds crazy, but it also makes so much sense,” Aurora muses.
“When we used to stay there in the summer, sometimes I’d come downstairs for a drink of water and there’d just be a random person in the kitchen cooking with Nonna late at night or early in the morning.
And once I went with her to Mass and a woman came up as we were leaving.
She was crying and she told Nonna the recipe had worked, that her husband had come back to her and that the other woman had moved to Naples.
Nonna hugged her and they were both beaming.
When I asked Nonna about it later, she just brushed my question away. ”
“Do you really think all this could be true?” I ask, voicing my own inner skepticism. I can’t quite admit that I’m pretty sure it actually is true.
Aurora tips her head thoughtfully, considering. “Whether it’s true or not, I think people believe it’s true. Did you ever notice how people treat Nonna in the community? She’s revered. Everyone knows who she is.”
“You’re right.” I’m surprised. I hadn’t thought of it before, but Nonna does seem to know everyone and to be held in pretty high esteem.
People greet her on the street, defer to her in line at the post office; vendors offer her the best of everything at the outdoor markets…
I honestly just thought it was because Nonna is Nonna, but now I wonder.
Maybe it’s the cookbook’s reputation. Maybe everyone knows this open secret about our family but us.
“I’d think the whole magic cookbook thing was completely crazy except I saw it with my own eyes,” I admit. “I think it might actually be true. But if so, why isn’t it working for me? The book is totally blank.” It’s so frustrating. The book helps everyone but me? It feels so unfair.
Aurora taps her finger against her lips and frowns. “What if the blank page is the help you need?” she asks. “What if that is your answer?”
I don’t like this line of thought. I want the book to deliver fifty great recipes in time for September. I don’t want to do this all on my own. “That’s what Nonna said too,” I admit reluctantly. “But I don’t know how I’m going to make the deadline without the cookbook’s help.”
“How many recipes do you have so far?” Aurora asks.
“Three,” I admit, feeling a little deflated.
“But before I came to Italy, I had zero. I’ve been…
having trouble remembering recipes that have ties to our family.
It’s been happening for a while, since Dad died, actually.
It’s like I’ve blocked out the memories of those recipes.
I try to remember and it’s just a big blank.
It’s weird. I can’t remember any of them. Well, until now.”
“Oh Jules!” Aurora looks stricken. “Oh honey, I had no idea. I’m so sorry. That must be so scary for you.” She pauses, thinking. “I’ll text you all the dishes I remember you making with Nonna and see if that helps jog your memory.”
“Thanks.” I’m glad I finally told her. Maybe her recollections will help.
Suddenly, I remember what else I was calling to tell her about.
“Hey, I think you might be right about something going on with Nonna and the farm.” I lower my voice and relay my conversation with Nicolo, ignoring how Aurora grins and wiggles her eyebrows suggestively every time I say Nicolo’s name. By the end she looks concerned, though.
“Do you think it’s as bad as Nicolo says?” she asks.
“I hope not.” I shiver a little, from the cool night air slipping through my window and from thinking about the future of this place if Nicolo is right. I don’t want him to be right.
From the garden beds I hear one of the children calling for Aurora. I think it’s her oldest, Louisa. “Mom, Doris is out of her pen again.”
Aurora glances over her shoulder with a frown. “Doris!” she shouts, then turns to me. “She’s in the radishes. Jules, I’ve got to go.”
“No problem,” I tell her hurriedly. “I’ll let you know more when I figure out what’s going on.”
“Send me that picture of Nicolo,” she demands as she blows me a quick air-kiss. “Don’t forget.” I hear her calling for Atticus to run into the house for a box of Twinkies as she hangs up.
As soon as we disconnect the call, I google Nicolo.
Sure enough, I quickly find a very professional-looking headshot from a fancy law firm based in Sydney.
Nicolo’s hair is shorter, no curls, and he’s in a navy suit and red power tie, but the dimples and those deep brown, sooty-lashed eyes are the same.
I send Aurora a screenshot. A moment later she responds with five heart-eye emojis.
For the record I think you should make sweet, sweet love to him under the olive trees and have lots of deliciously plump Italian babies, she texts back.
I blush and don’t reply. It would not be the first time Nicolo Fiore and I engaged in amorous activities under the olive trees. I send her an eye-roll emoji.
For a moment, I gaze at the photo of Nicolo and think about everything that has happened in the short time I’ve been here.
The mysteriously blank magical cookbook, Nicolo’s unexpected reappearance next door, my burgeoning relationship with Alex, those forty-seven recipes I still need, not to mention Nonna and the questions and secrets surrounding the farm.
I agreed to this trip thinking it could be a tidy way to solve my pressing problems, but now it’s becoming clear that I’m going to need every ounce of fortitude, courage, and cunning I possess to navigate all of these challenges before we head home at the end of August. One thing is for certain.
This summer is shaping up to be a lot more complicated than I could ever have imagined.